**Chapter 403. Trivial.**
—
“Do you know me?”
The man asked back with an indifferent expression.
In stark contrast to that calm reaction, Hudson still wore a face full of disbelief.
And understandably so—it made no sense.
Anyone who knew the man’s identity would unanimously deny it.
That he had appeared in person, of his own accord.
That despite his appearance, no one had died.
“Are you not… *Sal-gwi(Ghost)*…?”
Hudson spoke in a trembling voice.
Sal-gwi (殺鬼).
Many people did not know that name.
But those who did would have no hesitation in calling him a *legend*.
The undisputed strongest assassin in Pangaenia.
Among Named NPCs, his status was so overwhelming that he was classified as a “Super-Named.”
Moreover, Sal-gwi did not assassinate just anyone.
He hunted the strong.
Especially those who had climbed to the very top of the bounty lists.
Thus, the heavily wanted feared Sal-gwi’s appearance above all else.
The idol of all assassins—and terror incarnate to those marked as targets.
“Sal-gwi…?!”
Isaac’s eyes shook violently.
Though it was a name known only to those in the know, Isaac himself was one of the “big-name fugitives.”
There was no way he wouldn’t know the legendary assassin.
But… could this man, who looked no different from an ordinary farmer, truly be Sal-gwi?
From the beginning, everything about Sal-gwi’s identity had been shrouded in mystery.
He had never once officially revealed his face.
Wherever he appeared, only death remained.
“Hm. My face shouldn’t have been exposed before.”
The man cast a curious glance.
As if he had no intention of hiding himself.
At that, Hudson felt a brief shudder.
*Sal-gwi wasn’t a Named NPC…?*
Calling out Phantom by name and coming here alone meant that Sal-gwi, too, was Phantom’s avatar.
But Sal-gwi had existed since the very early days of Pangaenia.
The timelines didn’t add up.
The periods of activity were far too different.
“Ah. Did you recognize this *sickle*?”
At last, Sal-gwi spoke, idly spinning the small farming sickle around his finger.
It wasn’t wrong.
The sickle the man held was no ordinary tool.
It was Sal-gwi’s signature weapon—the blade that had butchered hundreds of powerful foes.
“I killed the man who taught me and took it from him.”
“Then… are you Sal-gwi’s successor?”
“I’m not a successor anymore. I surpassed him and killed him. So now, *I* am Sal-gwi.”
…Insane.
Hudson stared at the man with even deeper disbelief.
To claim succession of the name Sal-gwi.
To say he had surpassed even the legendary assassin—calling himself the god of assassination.
“Then that’s why…”
“You were able to slip through the labyrinth unnoticed…?”
The Executors murmured quietly.
The name Sal-gwi was famous even in the Empire.
He had assassinated several key imperial figures—there was no way they wouldn’t know.
But because he left behind no trace whatsoever, even they had never been able to track him down.
Scouring the entire continent, they couldn’t even determine who he was.
If this man had surpassed even Sal-gwi…
…Still, it didn’t make sense.
Even the Dark Elves had wandered that labyrinth.
To break through it in one go, without anyone noticing—even for an exceptional assassin, that should have been impossible.
Assassins excelled at sneaking close and killing, not at navigating complex paths.
And yet… the moment they saw the man, the *Phantom’s avatars*—especially the Executors—knew.
—He is undoubtedly one of the three strongest among Phantom’s avatars.
Of the three men mentioned by the one holding the fishing rod, Sal-gwi was clearly one of them.
And just as his advice had said—
“If Phantom isn’t better than me, I’ll kill Phantom.”
Sal-gwi was an arrogant man.
Unlike the previous Sal-gwi, he had no qualms about revealing his face.
That alone spoke volumes of his confidence in his own skill.
“If Phantom is to awaken, we must protect this place.”
“Hmm… I think I roughly understand what you mean.”
Sal-gwi’s gaze landed on the *First Flame*.
On the Phantom avatars encircling it.
Then he snorted lightly.
“So all I need to do is take the head of whatever’s charging in?”
“……”
“Wait here.”
Tap. Tap.
Casually swinging his sickle, Sal-gwi left the center of the labyrinth once more.
*
*
The legendary assassin had cried out in ecstasy the moment he saw him.
—At last…! I’ve finally found one with the talent of a *Killing Star*!
He had discovered a man with overwhelming talent as an assassin.
After wandering for so long, he had finally found a successor.
And as great as that joy was—no, far greater—the man’s talent surpassed all expectations.
First of all, the man could see all *probabilities*.
This was due to the hidden trait *Golden Grace*.
Normally, it was a trait associated with gambling.
But the man’s Golden Grace was fundamentally different from ordinary hidden traits.
Or perhaps it was better to say that the way his mind processed it was different.
—You’re a monster. You’ll become a god of assassination the likes of which has never existed!
The man mastered everything Sal-gwi taught him in just half a year.
His talent was so overwhelming that even Sal-gwi felt fear.
Even he—hailed as a genius worthy of legend—could only click his tongue at the man’s learning speed.
It took the man only one year to surpass Sal-gwi.
One year.
In that brief time, he absorbed and refined decades of Sal-gwi’s essence.
And it didn’t stop there.
The man’s growth showed no sign of slowing.
He constantly sought learning, endlessly breaking through his own limits.
As if there were no walls at all.
Transcendence?
To him, it was nothing more than climbing a single step.
Perhaps that was why.
Perhaps it was fear of that unfathomable growth.
Or perhaps jealousy.
One day, Sal-gwi gathered all his strength and attempted to kill the man.
—Trivial.
But the man killed Sal-gwi with absurd ease.
He trampled the legend underfoot.
Afterward, the man searched for the manipulator who had controlled him.
And only recently did he realize the truth.
Phantom.
That Phantom was the one who had saved him.
That everything had been the result of his own choices.
—…Phantom must be someone better than me.
The scene of “survival” the man recalled was sheer chaos.
Even Phantom had nearly failed several times.
It was likely the most extreme among all the survival challenges Phantom had attempted.
He had been saved by breaking through odds of less than 1%.
Therefore—
Phantom had to be someone superior to himself.
*That bastard… he’s strong.*
Sal-gwi settled into the darkness.
Even the paths of the labyrinth appeared to him as probabilities.
By analyzing the odds of what he desired and moving accordingly, he had easily reached the labyrinth’s core.
Likewise—
“0.3%.”
He gazed at the monster reigning alone among the Black Beasts.
…He could see the probability of killing the Black King as well.
0.3%.
The result of aggregating countless possibilities.
Wasn’t it similar to the odds Phantom had overcome to save him?
At this level…
*It’s doable.*
From within the darkness, Sal-gwi moved.
*
*
I was building a house.
At first, I’d only planned to put up walls, but before I knew it, I was building a mansion as grand as a palace.
But… it was far from enough.
I was especially short on bricks.
Even after hauling every brick from the fallen walls around me, the structure was only about 80% complete.
Where could I get more?
The places I could take them from were limited.
*Two walls remain…*
I hesitated for a moment.
Should I break one of them?
But the two remaining walls were too tall.
Heaven, and the Martial God Wilhelm.
Those walls were sturdy, unyielding.
Could I really break them myself and use them to build my house?
They weren’t walls you could break just because you wanted to.
I slowly moved closer to the wall of *Martial God Wilhelm*.
Then I shook my head.
*I can’t break the fence.*
This wall would serve as the fence of my house.
Naturally, it couldn’t be broken—and mustn’t be broken.
I turned my gaze elsewhere.
Then… what about *Heaven*?
Tap. Tap.
I knocked on it with my fist, but it didn’t budge.
A wall no one had ever broken.
A wall that had never shattered, not once.
For countless ages, across immeasurable eons.
But this was the only wall left I could use as material.
Should I give up on finishing it?
I sat down in front of Heaven’s wall.
Just when I thought there truly was no way—
“Huh?”
A square screen appeared before my eyes.
Displayed within it was a memory from the past.
For a moment, I wondered if it was a death flashback—but no.
The memory unfolding before me was a scene from a character I had once *kept alive*.
“Ah… I remember. That one was really hard.”
As the number of characters I saved increased, the difficulty rose as well.
Among them, the four hardest to save were especially memorable.
One was Wilhelm, of course.
The fact that he made it out of that forest alive was a miracle.
And the screen before me now was a memory of one of the other three.
A faint fragment resurfacing.
*That was fun back then.*
I truly enjoyed Pangaenia.
The time when I believed—was convinced—that I was the best.
When I happily pondered how to push the highest difficulty even further.
Sometimes I faced survival quests so absurd I wondered, *Is it only this hard for me?*
But even those hardships and trials became enjoyment back then.
*When did I stop enjoying it?*
The turning point was clear.
When Wilhelm reached Game Over, and I possessed Randolph—when Pangaenia stopped being a game.
Once it was no longer a game, I changed.
I had to.
How could I treat something with real lives and an entire world at stake with the same lightheartedness as a game?
*Shall I try once more?*
But right now, I was dead.
And the memory fragment before me reminded me of the joy that had been fading away.
Before I knew it, I was sitting in front of a computer.
On the character creation screen was a familiar name.
Nickname: *Jack the Ripper*—one of the hardest survival quest characters.
I had saved him against impossible odds, but it hadn’t been perfect.
If I could do it again, I could save him more flawlessly.
And that chance was being given to me now.
Swoosh.
I rolled up my sleeves.
Putting on the round glasses I used whenever I entered extreme focus, I ran my tongue over my lips.
“Alright, alright… let’s do this.”
I began to concentrate.
The mouse and keyboard moved without rest.
Eyes darting, judgments made frame by frame.
I returned to that state—predicting everything, struggling to find the optimal move.
How much time passed like that?
“Bravo!”
I shouted.
Clapping my hands, I broke into a broad grin.
Pure fun. A thrilling rush.
Because I had completed the survival at an even more perfect level.
That was the moment—
The background changed, and I found myself standing once more before Heaven’s wall.
And then—
Kuuuurrrrr!
…Cracks spread across Heaven’s wall, and it began to tremble, little by little.
