Chapter 443: Chapter 443
Seong Jihan frowned.
In fact, after exposing it to the Dragon Lord, he had felt about 1g of guilt towards Gilgamesh until now, but…
'I guess I did the right thing by telling him directly.'
That feeling also disappeared after seeing Gilgamesh's message telling him to call him father.
Why does this guy keep telling him to call him father?
[Why are you obsessed with being called father?]
[I can no longer see my descendants.]
[You knew that before. According to Pythia, you have no seed.]
[…That's just her unilateral claim. I had hope. Yes. Until my youth was taken away by Martial God!]
Since Martial God gave Gilgamesh immortality, he must have been able to take it back too.
[But what does that have to do with being a father?]
[Since I can no longer see my direct descendants, shouldn't I pass on the throne to the most outstanding among humanity?]
[The throne… Will you give me any useful abilities?]
If he gave something useful, typing out 'father' shouldn't be too bad.
[I'll allow you to use my name. From now on, you will become Gilgamesh II.]
[Get lost.]
[You can also jointly own this Golden Tower. Then your ability to handle eternity will be enhanced.]
[Oho, is that so?]
Joint ownership of the Tower of Babel.
'Suspicious.'
Gilgamesh wasn't someone who would share the ownership of the Tower of Babel just because he was called father.
On top of that, wasn't this guy subdued by Martial God in the first place?
'I could reject it outright… But it's better to pretend to agree and gather more information.'
Seong Jihan made up his mind and sent a message.
[Joint ownership sounds good, but… Isn't the Tower of Babel not yours anyway? Wasn't it taken over by Martial God?]
[Kuk… That's the case in Tuseong. But if the Golden Tower is summoned to Earth, there is a way to turn the situation around. If you cooperate, the probability of success will increase further.]
[Aha, and that cooperation is calling you father?]
[That's right. If you acknowledge me as your father and join my family, it will be easier to retake the Tower of Babel. Then joint ownership will proceed as the next step.]
Given Gilgamesh's personality, it was obvious that he would pretend not to know about joint ownership once he regained control of the Tower of Babel.
Seong Jihan came to that conclusion but continued to answer for now.
[It's not just about calling you father. But what's the point of calling you father through this message now?]
[That's true. When this tower is summoned to Earth, you must come and acknowledge me as your father.]
[Then there's no need to do it now.]
[Still, practice in advance.]
[Enough of that, when is the tower being summoned?]
[I'm not sure exactly, but there's not much time left. As soon as Martial God's confinement is over, the summoning procedure will proceed.]
Last time, he said it was a month of confinement, and quite some time had already passed.
It seemed right to consider the summoning of the Tower of Babel to Earth as only a matter of time now.
[But there's one thing that's puzzling.]
[What is it?]
[You said you were caught by Martial God and your youth was taken away. But how are you sending messages? They would be monitoring you, right?]
[…I find it strange too. Martial God definitely ordered Pythia to monitor me more, but she's not here now.]
To that question, Gilgamesh answered as if he didn't know well either.
They took away his youth for being exposed, but they're not monitoring him again?
'They're not that careless… Is Pythia sticking by his side and censoring?'
Seong Jihan thought so and sent a message.
[I'll consider calling you father later when I come to Earth, so tell me about the form of Martial God you saw before. Why is his head the same as the Dragon Lord's? What was the situation when you made a contract with him before?]
If he's sending messages under Martial God's surveillance, he won't answer the question asking to reveal his identity.
And just as Seong Jihan predicted,
The messages that had been coming in sharp replies didn't come for a while.
[Hmm… Pythia has come. I'll organize and let you know about Martial God later.]
Suddenly, the message was cut off, saying Pythia had come.
"I knew they were monitoring."
Seong Jihan smiled, looking at the cut-off message.
Then, it could be seen that the messages Gilgamesh had been sending so far contained the intentions of Martial God's side.
There must be another reason why they keep encouraging him to call him father.
'But if they're trying to lure me, I thought they would at least roughly tell me Martial God's identity… They're deliberately hiding it.'
Is there something that needs to be hidden other than the fact that his head resembles the Dragon Lord's?
Seong Jihan had such doubts for a moment.
'For now, let's organize the stats that have grown through this tournament.'
To calculate the stats that had grown significantly thanks to the Dragon Lord, he opened the status window.
* * *
At the Golden Tower located in Tuseong,
The haggard Gilgamesh glared at Pythia.
To be precise, he glared at his cell phone that she was holding.
"Pythia… Doing this makes it look suspicious to anyone… The identity of the snake has already been revealed, so you should just tell him!"
"No. My lord said not to pass on any more information about this."
"Tsk… That guy. He's not stupid, so he must have noticed. He won't believe my words anymore."
At those words, Pythia stared at the messages on the phone.
Honestly, even to her, abruptly ending the conversation as soon as he asked about Martial God's identity was extremely suspicious.
However,
"…It's fine. Our goal is to make him come to the Golden Tower anyway."
The Tower of Babel that will be summoned to Earth as soon as Martial God's confinement ends.
Pythia's purpose was to lure Seong Jihan there.
"If we say that the Tower of Babel will bring disaster to humanity, Seong Jihan will come even if he knows it's a trap. Try to assimilate him with the tower then."
"…Will you really return my youth then?"
"That's what my lord said, right?"
At those words, Gilgamesh recalled what had happened a little while ago.
After Seong Jihan achieved an overwhelming victory against the Dragon Lord,
[No matter how much of an avatar it is, I didn't expect the Dragon Lord to be defeated so easily…]
Martial God, who reappeared in the Golden Tower,
[Gilgamesh. Contact Seong Jihan again and lure him to come to the tower. Then I will return your youth.]
He had given orders to lure Seong Jihan to the Tower of Babel.
"However, the verbal promise of a snake cannot be trusted."
"You don't trust My lord's words?"
"That's right. Look at my state. Can you trust his words?"
Gilgamesh, who had been tricked into a fraudulent contract by Martial God and had lost his youth and fallen into misery.
He was living proof that Martial God did not keep his promises.
"So you won't do it?"
"…I have to."
However, even if Gilgamesh had no trust in Martial God, he had no choice anyway.
"Yeah. Good thing you know your place."
Pythia said that and put Gilgamesh's cell phone into her inventory.
'I don't want to put this dirty thing in my inventory, but…'
However, to faithfully follow the master's orders, personal feelings had to be set aside at times like this.
As Pythia was about to turn her back and leave,
"Pythia."
"What?"
"What's your real purpose? Is it… to take revenge on me after all?"
Gilgamesh asked in a very hoarse voice.
"I'm not targeting the likes of you. It's just fun to watch you fall apart."
"…Then, is your real purpose to extinguish the Red's fire, as you said back then?"
"That's right. I have to interfere with the ultimate goal of the Blood clan."
The reason she had been reduced to Gilgamesh's baby-making machine in the lab was
Because the Blood clan had done that to revive the Red Administrator.
Extinguishing the Red's fire inherent in humanity was the true path to properly take revenge on the Blood clan.
Furthermore, it would be the path to truly save humanity, Pythia's descendants.
"…Do you believe in Martial God even after seeing my state?"
"I believe. Because he saved me."
While she gave an immediate answer to Gilgamesh's words on the surface,
'…I have to believe.'
Deep down, even she had no confidence.
However,
'Excluding My lord, there's no one else to do this anyway…'
Who else could remove the traces of the Red left in humanity other than Martial God becoming the Administrator?
Pythia had no alternatives anyway.
'I need to follow him more faithfully. Only then can I hope for salvation…'
After organizing her thoughts like that,
Smack!
"I didn't hit you because I pitied you a bit after you became an old man, but you're running your mouth in front of my lord."
"Ack, ack…!"
She struck Gilgamesh's head, who had made her fall into agony.
"Ah. There's a palm print on your head since you have no hair. So this is the size of my palm?"
"You…"
"It's really miserable to lose your youth. Right?"
Pythia raised the corners of her mouth, looking at her palm print drawn in bright red on the top of Gilgamesh's head.
"So don't think strange thoughts and just listen well to my lord. Then you'll escape baldness."
"Kuk…"
Gilgamesh glared at Pythia, but there was nothing he could do for now.
'Just you wait. Once we go to Earth…!'
He had no choice but to put up with it now, but once the Tower of Babel was established on Earth,
He would be able to turn the situation around.
Gilgamesh gritted his teeth and waited for that moment.
* * *
'Dragon Lord, you really gave generously.'
Seong Jihan smiled, looking at the level displayed on the status window.
Level 635.
His level, which was 595 before the start of the tournament,
Had risen by a total of 40 due to the Dragon Lord's skin shedding.
'This much is almost two months… No, it's a value that may or may not be worth challenging for a level up even beyond that.'
In addition, the Red and Martial Soul stats had risen significantly as well.
Truly befitting a Great Constellation, the Dragon Lord's generosity was on a different class.
Seong Jihan looked at the significantly increased stats and noticed the residual points that had greatly increased this time.
'The residual points earned this time should be invested in Martial Soul for now.'
Among the stats he could raise now, Martial Soul was the least likely to backfire.
Seong Jihan invested all the residual points he had obtained so far into Martial Soul.
'It stopped exactly at 600.'
After using up all the remaining points, Seong Jihan checked the status window.
Affiliation: Challenger League – 6
Level: 635
Martial Soul: 600
Void: 595
Red: 497
Eternity (Incomplete): 40
With one more crack appearing on his face, the Void value that had grown quite a bit compared to before.
And thanks to the Dragon Lord, the Martial Soul and Red that had grown significantly.
Especially Red, despite having used 50 previously when upgrading the Phoenix Spear, was now close to reaching 500.
'Around 500, the Red's hand might wake up, but there's still no reaction.'
In the past, it used to say a few things even in a sealed state.
Now that Red had grown much more than then, strangely, the hand was quiet.
'Is it trying to wake up all at once by gathering strength?'
It's kind of eerie now that the noisy guy is quiet.
Seong Jihan was thinking of writing an ultimate skill to consume more Red, but he looked at the multi-line system messages.
Most of them were messages about breaking achievements.
[To be promoted to Challenger League – 5, your level must be 640 or higher.]
Among them, he focused on the promotion condition for the Challenger League after seeing it.
'I thought Challenger 5 was 650 or higher, but it's 640.'
Then, if he raised his level by just 5 more, he could invite Great Constellations, right?
He would be able to invite Great Constellations to the next tournament.
'I should let this be known through the channel.'
Seong Jihan turned on BattleTube and went straight to the point.
"Everyone. Thanks to the Dragon Lord, I've reached level 635."
-635?? Crazy;
-Is that growth rate even possible…
-No, didn't it rise too little? Level 9 constellations died so much with their skins.
-They didn't really die, just their avatars disappeared, so it would have only risen that much.
-Still, it rose too little, the system is stingy.
Alien viewers arguing whether the system was stingy or not with the level 40 growth.
Seong Jihan's channel, which had already become the most prominent player on BattleTube, was being entered by countless aliens.
"Anyway, it seems Great Constellations will also be able to participate in the next tournament. I found out that level 640 is Challenger 5."
-Challenger 5… Does that mean Great Constellations can participate?
-The Dragon Lord opened the way for his own participation;
-This was all planned too…
Around the time when there was talk of whether this was the Dragon Lord's real plan,
Seong Jihan continued with a smile.
"Yes. So please participate a lot in the tournament this time as well."
Then, question marks overwhelmingly popped up in the chat window.
-??
-Excuse me. I think you're misunderstanding something…
-Who the hell would participate??
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