Chapter 44. Antihero
On the mundane white walls on the hallways inside of the concrete walls of the hotel, black lines rushed across it forming tens of thousands of squares on the wall. These squares became filled with various colors, transforming the white hotel walls into walls made of playing blocks.
Bang!
A large impact came from behind the wall, which caused it to crumble to pieces. Playing blocks, big and small, tumbled down onto the field of grass and weeds below.
"Let's play~ I want to play~"
What came out from behind the wall was a middle-aged adult in baby clothes. Behind him was an entire cohort of toy models.
He was the second irregular, the Modeller.
HIs power allowed him to change anything he touched into toys or snacks that he could control at will, [Dangerous Play = Enfant Terrible]
"You can't hide~ after all, this entire floor is already my playground."
The Modeller was searching around the area as he hopped around the maze-like floor of the hotel. His unusual appearance and speech could be linked directly to his power. A person's power and personality were inseparable things. If someone's personality gets stronger, the power would get stronger as well. Due to this fact, the Modeller decided to fiddle with his own brain. In order to make his brain recede into a childlike state.
"Boo~ Negunegu really just want to play. Can't we all just come out and have fun together?"
Necro shuddered as he listened to the man saying this.
Necro and Morto were hiding behind a corner not too far away from the Modeller. Thanks to Morto's disguise magic, they were hidden from plain sight. But it wasn't like they could move silently. After all, disguising the sounds of their footsteps wasn't something possible. Morto tugged at Necro's clothing nervously.
It might've been ok if the only person around was the Modeller, but both Caveman and Orderless were here as well. It wasn't like she wasn't confident in Necro's abilities, but she wanted to get away from any fighting if possible.
"Boo. Not planning on coming out? Negunegu has no choice then."
The toys around the Modeller began to spread outwards once he gave the order. They may be toys, but they were at the same time objects influenced by his power. The problem was, there was no telling how much power it would have. Necro and Morto carefully creeped around the toys, towards the staircase. The hotel floor had been covered in plants due to the influence of the Caveman. Necro, in an attempt to walk carefully, ended up stepping on something.
Creak.
When he looked down, he found that there was a playing block underneath his foot.
'Uh oh…!'
As a result of the noise he created, the escape route was immediately sealed up. Even the other escape paths turned into walls. When Necro turned around, he found his enemies waiting for him there. Right in front of him was the Modeller, surrounded by thousands of toys.
"Negunegu caught it! Caught you! You're it now!"
To his left was the Caveman, Uras.
"Pahahaha! Where do you think you're going?"
Uras flexed his muscles as he let out a giant laughter. Now, there was no way to escape. No matter what he did, Orderless would shuffle the hotel for him.
"Boo. Escape, huge success?"
Chaos looked at the two people in front of her with an amused smile on her face. Displayed on their faces were the looks of absolute confidence. To them, this was a battle already won. Necro laughed hysterically when he saw this.
"Ha, dear me… I've been looked down upon, huh."
Corpse Collector, Undertaker, Wizard of Death, Researcher of Death, King of Death, Black Death, The One Who Spreads The Ashes of Death, King of The Afterlife, The Strongest Black Wizard. The hero of the great war, who used to lead an army of death, angled his chin a little downwards.
"What, you think you'll win just because you have the numbers?"
The difference between a brave class and an actual brave was the difference between a normal missile and a nuclear one. Just because Necro's name didn't spread to the masses didn't mean he was weak. Necro smirked, and put his hands in his pockets. There was no need for him to dirty his hands to dispose of these three pieces of trash.
Morto closed her mouth as she saw all this.
*
There was a vault at the bottommost floor. It would normally be heavily guarded, but there was no one here at this time. The Thief must've known that any guards would've been useless. I passed through the vault gates by dematerializing.
So he was here after all.
In the empty vault was a single metal chair, with a black man sitting on it. This man, who wore a leather suit on along with over twenty wristwatches, was the Thief. So far, this was just how I expected it to be. The only safe space in this place, even when the building went down, would be the vault. The Thief spoke to me in a jovial tone.
"You're finally here. I've been waiting for five years already."
Five years…? The hero's adventures began five years ago. The demon king was only killed four months ago.
"Ah, I know what you're about to say. 'You would've been better off running.' or, 'You wouldn't be able to stop the destruction of the building with a time stop, right?' Let's stop with the nonsensical taunts and talk about something else."
I was reforming my theory as he spoke. The fact that he foresaw his death five years meant…
"The one who sold out the saint was you, wasn't it." "Ah, I saw this with my eyes of clairvoyance, but you really do have quite the head on your shoulders, don't you? You're correct."
The scenery around me suddenly changed. I struck the wall and realized that the Thief had attacked me by stopping time.
"Ugh…!"
There was a spear stuck in my heart. The Hirganrel's joint pieces were completely broken. And due to the Gramshen's feather stuck to my body, I couldn't even move. My innards were completely mashed at this point.
It doesn't matter for me, since I was dead, but the saint must be…
I looked up. The Thief was just sitting in his chair, as if nothing had happened. If he saw the future from five years ago, he must've known that the saint would 'betray' him in the future. He would also have known about what she would do. He could have stopped it.
He could have prevented her from getting kidnapped by her own allies.
I thought of the story Necro told me the day Romeo Smith died. It was a year ago, when the great war occurred. The demon king, Mirage Belt, had formed a plan to cause neighboring countries of the world to fight each other. Day after day, people killed each other. In all this chaos, the members of the hero's party all split apart. Some stayed to help allies, and others went off to kill enemy commanders. But the saint, who didn't have any offensive capabilities, was left in the front lines alone. To heal the wounded. The problem began there.
The saint couldn't take seeing people die in front of her, and healed enemy soldiers as well. This enraged some of the allied soldiers.
"Ah~ what a kind girl she is. Just what would allow someone to think that way? Is she just dumb?"
The Thief threw a feather like a dart as he said this. The feather pierced the tip of my finger.
"Why did she heal her enemies? Why did she attempt to kill me? Why did she have to go through all that? What kind of a face do you think I had on me through the whole damn trip? A kind person like her who helps enemies and tries to kill me–"
The Thief stopped talking for a second, and grinned.
"I think humans are cruel animals. It would've been better if they stayed put after being healed. But her having healed her enemies ticked them off. They restrained her, and realized they could do whatever they wanted to her. Plus, the war had messed up some of their brains."
Violent soldiers and the desire for sex. It was easy to see what happened during that time.
The saint was unable to eat without the devourer ring because all her organs had disappeared. She, who simply wanted to save people, was shown hell by the people she tried to save in the first place.
The reason for her daily intake of drugs in her tea, and her nightly fits of pain was, this man.
Antihero.
The Thief deployed three thousand people to their deaths despite knowing that they would all die. He is a hero, but at the same time, hides a great evil behind him. —All as I thought. I looked at the Thief, and smiled.
"Can I ask you something?" "What is it? If it's a question on how you'll die, I can answer you as many times as you want." "No. I'm just wondering how much time you have till you die."
The smile on the Thief's face disappeared. Right, that's what I wanted to see.
"It's a simple story. In modern society, people buy cars to save on time. Buying cars and driving cars cost money. Earning money costs time. Playing with time requires you to sacrifice something of equal value. It was just a speculation before, but it seems that I was correct."
The Thief stood up from his seat and walked towards me.
"So what? As you thought, the price for using my power is my life. So what if I only have a month of my life left? You'll die here. Even if you make the building collapse, and spread chlorine gas here, the vault is, as you can see, completely safe. I've even set up a purifier here just in case. And right now, I'm…"
The Thief took out the spear from my heart and pierced it into my abdomen. He then stabbed my legs and my shoulders.
"How is it? It might not hurt for you, but Morto must be in quite a lot of pain right now. I just need to stay here and wait till both you and Morto dies. Simple, isn't it? I would've died due to the chlorine gas in the building before, but the future has changed for me. Haha! Checkmate! This is checkmate!"
Chlorine gas can be produced by combining bleach with detergent. This gas was similar to the one the German troops had used during the Second World War. Even a tiny amount of it would poison someone, and 0.1~1% of it in the air would be enough to kill a man. The Thief wouldn't die if the hotel collapsed, but the chlorine gas would've eventually have gotten to him. The hotel would've turned into a death well. This was probably how the Thief died due to the eyes of clairvoyance, so it was quite understandable why the Thief was so confident right now.
But. To think he'd have come down here just to escape the chlorine gas…
His thought process of being able to survive as long as he dodged his cause of death was quite comical to me. I couldn't resist myself, and ended up smiling as a result.