SSS-Class Revival Hunter-Chapter 366: The First Floor (3)

The fact that my trustworthy comrades had my back reassured me, so I started climbing the Tower again... is what I would have done if only there wasn’t work left to do on the first floor.

“Where do you think you’re going? There are hundreds of interviews I’ve been delaying because you were gone. The media pressure was becoming overwhelming, so it’s good that you’re here now. Let’s get this over with now.”

Judging by Anastasha’s eyes, I could tell there was quite a lot of stuff left to do.

“One more thing, Gong-Ja. The first wedding between a Hunter and a Terra is about to take place.”

“What?”

“Yes, I reacted the same way when I first heard the news. It seems to have happened too quickly, but it’s a joyous occasion, right? The wedding is soon. You’re the Terras’ oldest friend and god, so go congratulate them. No, wait! Stop! The interviews come first! Hey, Gong-Ja, why are you always an idiot when it comes to your duke and your children?!”

I immediately went to congratulate the Terras, who had a unique wedding custom. The couple gathered flames from their hearths and put them in lanterns. During the ceremony, they blended the flames into one.

The guests also had to bring empty lanterns to the ceremony. Once the couple’s flames united and became one, the guests congratulated them and received the fire to light their lamps. After that, the guests carried the lit lanterns home and placed them in their own hearths.

This was how all the guests became witnesses to the couple’s union. If they didn’t have hearths, they at least lit a bonfire. It was a wonderful wedding ceremony, suiting a species that worshiped fire, but of course... there was a problem.

“W-what should I do? My house doesn’t have a hearth, Mr. Death King!”

The Hunter, about to be betrothed, looked sad. Yes, the Babylon citizens were enjoying the peak of modern—no, futuristic civilization, so they didn’t have hearths.

“Ugor, I don’t obsess over such customs. Love is all we need, isn’t it?”

“Ah, my love! But I also like your customs! If we put our heads together, we’ll be able to find a good solution.”

“My love! Your heart is more delicate and beautiful than the dew on the flowers at dawn.”

I assumed that two people should love each other that much to become the first interspecies couple. Yeah, that had to be it...

“Haha, yes, everything must look beautiful right now for you two.” I forced a smile, although I could feel a sweet acid reflux within my stomach.

“Ah! I shouldn’t have shown so much PDA before the Great Kekerukker. Ugor! Well, you’d understand!”

“It’s fine. It’s something I should have expected when visiting a couple’s home.”

“Exactly.”

Terra children surely treated their god like crap. Uburka also did that, but...

“Let’s do it like this. Since this is the first interspecies wedding in history, the world’s attention will inevitably be on you two. It looks like the Five Guilds are also determined to promote this as harmony between two species, but that would make you feel too burdened.”

“Ugor? Is that so?” the Terra asked, looking confused.

The Hunter nodded. The differences between their cultures were highlighted in this moment[1]. I knew it would be like this, so I was glad I came.

“I’ll keep the reporters from entering the wedding hall. We cannot let random people interrupt the holy union of fire,” I told the Terra and reassured the Hunter at the same time. “While we’re at it, I’ll place divine fire in the middle of Babylon Plaza.”

“Ugor, holy fire?”

“I’ll use my aura to light fire. We’ll build something like an Olympic cauldron to keep my fire burning.” I turned to look at Hunter. “You can take the flame from there and carry it to the wedding. In the eyes of the Terras, you’re bringing a god’s fire, so it would be more than enough. Still, whether or not you respect the Terras’ wedding customs is up to how you two work it out.”

“Ah, um... T-thank you for being so considerate?”

The Hunter bowed one too many times.

I offered a bitter smile. Sorting out the details of an interspecies union had to be dealt with at least once, so I was helping them as much as I could. However, the Rank 1 Hunter was helping with the wedding, acting as a shield from the press and installing something in the middle of Babylon’s most expensive land. It would feel veeeery burdensome for the Hunter who was getting married to the Terra.

It reminds me of when I married Raviel...

Back then, all kinds of nobles from across the empire came to my wedding. My social rank was lower than Raviel’s, so I had to become the imperial steward’s foster son. Even now, it was easier to act as the Duke Consort of Ivansia than the Rank 1 Hunter of the Lion Realm when I worked in the empire. I wasn’t the only one. Even the Black Witch and the Inquisitor had noble titles of their own, even though they were only nominal. That was the difference between worlds.

“This is all I can do for you.”

Raviel had even used her power to arrange the adoption by the imperial steward. Seeing that as her considerate gesture or a burden was my choice.

I supported the couple before me. Since they defied even the differences between species, I was sure that they would find their way in the future as well.

“I’ll try to stop the press and hold a ceremony that most Terras can accept. Still, there will be some difficulties that you two would have to face on your own.”

“Ah, um... What will you do about the press?”

“It’s simple,” I replied with a small smile. “I’ll give them bigger news than the first interspecies wedding, and they’ll forget all about it.”

***

The media was on fire the day before the wedding.

“Shocking encounter with a new species!”

“Evidence of a city of sentient entities in the underground of the fifth floor!”

“A hidden city lies under the ordinary fifth-floor hunting ground?”

“An encounter no one expected! What kind of beings are these sentient creatures of the underground city?”

“Is this urban legend true?”

“It’s said that one can’t see under their nose, but it’s too hard to miss this one.”

“Upon hearing the news, the Black Dragon Master stated that although it’s shocking, she would like to welcome the new species.”

The fire was similar to an inferno. As proof, Anastasha stormed into my lodging and started choking me.

“Die! Please die, you evil wacko!”

“Gyaaaaaah?!”

“I’m going to lose my mind! Do you want to see me die from overwork?! The pile of documents I have to handle is already the size of Mount Everest, so did you really have to add another mountain to it?!”

Anastasha squeezed my neck and shook me up, down, left, and right. She wasn’t playing around. Her hands were enveloped in dark aura. Her aura mastery wasn’t as good as mine, but most Hunters couldn’t defeat her in aura.

“I... am going to die.... I can’t... breathe...”

“Yeah, die. Just die. You don’t stay dead, do you? Go back to yesterday and stop this chaos!”

“Someone... help me...”

Only when I was near death did Anastasha release me. She sighed so hard that it felt like she could sweep away the world. “Fine, I’ll hear your excuse now. Wait. How did you even know a new civilization lay under the fifth floor?”

“Phew, I met a Constellation named Mutia on the sixty-second floor,” I said after catching my breath.

“Mutia?”

“Yes, her title is Ruin-Harvesting Cow. She has the power to make people regress. You could say this Constellation can roughly tell what life a person can live and how many paths they have in life.”

The Black Witch frowned. “What? That’s cheating.”

“Yes, it is. Anyway, that overpowered Constellation used a lot of tricks while fighting me.”

One of them was showing me the timeline built on the assumption that the Fire Emperor didn’t get his Returner’s Clockwork. In that timeline, he didn’t kill me, and I carved my own path. While wandering through the second to the ninth floors, I had finally found the city hidden under the fifth floor by chance and luck.

“Thanks to Mutia, who showed me my potential, I learned about the underground civilization on the fifth floor. Now that I know about it, I should use it.”

“I understand, but you could have waited a little to reveal it. At this rate, my people won’t be able to handle the extra tasks and faint from overwork.”

“Actually, that was part of the plan.”

“Huh?” Anastasha asked in disbelief. “What the heck are you talking about?”

I was serious. “We and the other Five Guild leaders trust each other completely, but it’s different for the guild members, right? After years of fighting, do you think they’ll be able to sincerely smile at each other and cooperate?”

“... That’s...”

“Yes, they won’t fight right now because of us, but they have a lot of pent-up resentment.”

The top Hunters had chosen to cooperate after working together on many floors, but it was different for ordinary guild members. They didn’t get to take part in the floor expeditions beyond the twelfth floor, so they had never experienced overcoming trials together.

“You’re right, Anastasha. We’re all busy and overloaded with work, but we even ran into the underground civilization on the fifth floor. No guild can handle their work on their own now.”

Therefore, I had deliberately created the opportunity for the guild members to experience that.

“The guilds should work together unless they want to die from overwork. Only when every guild cooperates fully can this insane amount of work be done.”

She sighed. “My god...”

“Past conflicts? Old grudges? That’s all understandable, but think of running into a nine-month backlog of tasks piled up in front of you and you can’t even see the top of the pile. All the guild members would want to do is sleep or go, so they’ll cooperate no matter what.”

Anastasha looked fed up.“You’re really a devil...”

I shrugged. “For the next few months, all the Five Guilds will act like one.”

“Fine, but how are my people supposed to relieve stress?”

“There is a good punching bag right in front of you. Just say that I was the one who discovered the underground civilization and told the media about it. Everyone will blame me, and we can be done with it.”

“So you’re going to put yourself under fire...”

“Yes, it’s part of a leader’s duty. Also, it’s my job to distribute the loot to others since I’m clearing the floors on my own.”

The members of the Five Guilds both liked and disliked me. They disliked me because of the workload that came with me, but they liked me as they benefited a lot from the floors I cleared.

If someone has to take the blame, it’s better to be me.

If they didn’t want to work, they could leave the Five Guilds. Many Hunters outside the guilds were begging to join the guilds, even if it meant that they would practically be enslaved. After all, Hunters who could travel to and from worlds beyond the eleventh floor were practically only members of the Five Guilds.

We limited people’s authorizations to reduce the cultural shock they would feel in the other worlds. This rule blocked Hunters from small guilds from the opportunity to go to other worlds, though some Hunters, like the Chemist, still succeeded through their own skills.

“If the saying that ‘the more people badmouth you, the longer you live[2]’ is true, then you’ll live for a very long time...”

“It looks like I’ll live forever.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain later.”

I looked at the laptop screen filled with articles celebrating the discovery of the fifth-floor underground civilization. Amid this flood of news, a short article appeared. It had only two or three lines.

“The first marriage between a Babylonian and a Terra! It was a small yet lovely wedding. The citizens sent their blessings...”

I smiled before closing the laptop.

1. The human Hunter cares about the media’s reaction to the wedding, meanwhile the Terra doesn’t because Terras generally don’t care about what others say. ☜

2. It’s a Korean saying. The origin is unknown. ☜