Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 289

289. The Ninth (1)

When I opened my eyes, I saw a familiar sky.

It was the usual Difficulty: Hell’s red sky.

The surroundings were all red, thanks to the traces of Gaul’s sword-spears decomposing into rust.

It felt like I was on a hill made of red sand.

Hyeon-woo briefly worried about tetanus, but he figured anyone he told would just think he was joking.

‘Gaul… is nowhere to be seen.’

Hyeon-woo’s memory cut off at the moment the surroundings turned completely red.

He felt like someone had whispered something in his ear, but he couldn’t remember who it was.

He only remembered Gaul disappearing into the red sandstorm.

Behind him was Yerddan, transformed into a wolf. He seemed to be crouching and lying down, protecting Hyeon-woo.

Even though his fur was coarse, it was still fluffy, which was hard to find in Difficulty: Hell, so he was satisfied.

Kirson, Kazat, Hahyeon, and the others weren’t visible, but he could understand.

They would be busy enough just trying to manage this situation. What use was a master who was unconscious and out of it?

Just then, Hyeon-woo felt someone’s silent gaze and turned his head. Someone was crouching next to the sand dune, looking at him.

“Who are you?”

Hyeon-woo raised himself up and looked at the person.

He tried to focus on the other person, but he couldn’t see them properly. They were constantly distorted like a mirage, and their appearance itself kept changing haphazardly.

It felt less like something with substance and more like crouching darkness.

“You’ve come to your senses.”

It was a strange voice.

It was a woman’s voice, but it also sounded like a wounded beast growling, or the sound of a disappearing wind.

In front of Hyeon-woo, the Restrainer Yayul, which had been cut off by Gaul, and Tom, who had disappeared somewhere in the storm of blades, were neatly placed.

“I asked who you are.”

Hyeon-woo brought the Restrainer Yayul back to his left shoulder and asked.

The Restrainer Yayul naturally encroached on his severed flesh and reattached itself, as if it had always been there.

Seeing it encroaching even deeper than before, it seemed that Gaul’s influence had definitely disappeared.

Then, an alarm rang.

[The Star of Monsters, Augustro, is watching you.]

‘The Star of Monsters, huh…’

Hyeon-woo recalled the times he had received help from the Star of Monsters.

The first time was after completing the Trial of the Starving Star, Yogulem.

Judging from the circumstances, the person in front of him seemed to be its agent.

“Why did you help me?”

Augustro’s agent didn’t say anything.

Hyeon-woo felt the Restrainer Yayul completely settle in and stretched his body.

His familiars must have given him potions while he was unconscious, as his wounds had healed, but it would take a while to get back into shape.

Hyeon-woo missed the days when his whole body would be completely healed after he died.

As he picked up Tom and approached, Augustro’s agent immediately opened her mouth.

“Don’t come closer.”

“Why?”

“You might die in your current condition.”

Hyeon-woo thought it was a threat, but then he noticed the stones around Augustro’s agent crumbling into small pieces, turning black, melting, and then solidifying again.

An unseen, immeasurable force was raging around her.

Hyeon-woo took a seat at a safe distance.

“Did you save me?”

“Don’t give it too much meaning.”

She moved her lips and said.

“I’m just doing my job. There’s not much left for me to do in this era.”

“What’s your job?”

“The fence of humanity.”

At the unexpected grand answer, Hyeon-woo chuckled.

Augustro’s agent raised her head and stared at Hyeon-woo.

Hyeon-woo also stared back at her, but he couldn’t make out her face, which was shrouded in darkness.

Her voice sounded familiar yet unfamiliar.

“That’s what I was taught. I can’t do anything else.”

Augustro’s agent muttered quietly.

“I was also a hunting dog of humanity, a watchdog, a fence, and a blade. But I failed in all of them.”

A watchdog with nothing to protect, a fence with nothing to confine.

Augustro’s agent described herself that way.

Certainly, if her mission was to protect humanity, then this situation was more than just a complete failure.

The annihilation of humanity was certain. But it was an impossible mission from the start.

Ultimately, everyone would be subjugated by one star, so how could she possibly stop that?

“The sheepdog protects the sheep from the wolves, even knowing that the shepherd will slaughter them.”

She added an explanation calmly in a tired voice.

“Don’t ask me complicated things. It’s hard enough for me to maintain my consciousness by just thinking about one purpose.”

As she said, it seemed difficult for her to maintain a fixed form.

She was only continuously taking on the appearance of a woman among numerous forms.

The repeated destruction around her seemed to be because she couldn’t properly control the power that was constantly leaking out.

She was a fence that was old and broken in places but still sturdy, and a sheepdog that was old and injured but still had sharp teeth.

“Ah, okay. No complicated talk.”

Hyeon-woo said with his arms crossed.

“Then I guess I can skip the thank you. I’ll just understand that you kicked Gaul out of the way while you were passing by, and I just happened to avoid the crisis. I don’t need to feel grateful or indebted, right?”

“No need.”

“Good, that’s clean. Then… it’s a bit much to keep calling you an agent, what should I call you?”

Augustro’s agent was silent again. After a long silence, she finally opened her mouth.

“Agents are ultimately called by the name of the star they serve. I too was called by the name of Augustro…”

“Ah, geez. I said don’t talk complicated stuff. It’s confusing to call you that, so tell me your real name. Your real name. You must have had a name when you were human, right?”

Augustro’s agent’s eyes flickered for a moment. She was quiet for a while, then opened her mouth as if pronouncing it for the first time.

“Adam Fault.”

***

At her answer, Hyeon-woo opened his mouth. After being dumbfounded for a moment, Hyeon-woo laughed in disbelief and asked if it was true.

“Adam Fault? Is it *that* Adam Fault? Hmm. I thought there might be something.”

“Do you know me? I know you too. Kang Hyeon-woo.”

At Adam Fault’s answer, Hyeon-woo grinned.

“Yeah. But it seems like the ‘each other’ we know are completely different people, right?”

The Kang Hyeon-woo that Adam Fault knows is the Kang Hyeon-woo of this world.

The Adam Fault that Kang Hyeon-woo knows is the Adam Fault of Hyeon-woo’s world.

“Good, Adam. The fact that you’re still here talking means you have business with me.”

“Yes.”

Hyeon-woo gestured for him to speak. Adam crouched down and quietly raised his hand, pointing to the Return Stone hanging around Hyeon-woo’s neck.

“That is a token of promise. Now that you’ve become a star, you know what that means.”

“Yeah.”

The last collateral left by humanity. A desperate struggle to survive. The last chance of humanity monopolized by Hyeon-woo.

“The last order I received was to protect humanity, but the last remaining humanity asked me for another favor: to be the guarantor of the promise.”

“The guarantor of the promise?”

“To watch over whether the promise is kept properly, and I have been wandering around this area for a long time, watching. Whether there are unnecessary intrusions, whether there is intentional damage to the promise.”

“…Wait, I remember dying quite a bit. You didn’t say anything even when the Apostles invaded.”

“You come back to life, don’t you?”

Adam said, silently looking at Hyeon-woo.

“Death and resurrection were intended in the promise. The one who can endure that pain becomes the successor. When the Apostles invaded, I judged that it was at a manageable level. I gave you that much time, so there’s no way you couldn’t overcome it.”

“You thought I could handle that?”

“You *should* be able to handle that much.”

He wondered if the average level of humanity was the same as him. If Adam Fault was a sheepdog, he might only raise sheep that fell off a cliff and climbed back up.

“What if I had succumbed to the temptation of the stars?”

Adam stared intently at the Return Stone and said.

“Then I would have gotten rid of you and found another successor to the promise, because the promise was not completely fulfilled.”

Hyeon-woo tried to laugh, but the corners of his mouth didn’t go up.

In Monstrill’s story, Adam Fault had already gotten rid of several agents.

Of course, Hyeon-woo could do it easily in Difficulty: Easy or Normal, but Adam Fault had been dealing with the stars steadily since before.

The loss of form, the runaway power, and the endless battles were all wounds from that.

Then Adam muttered powerlessly.

“To be honest, my condition is not normal. If I intervened wrongly in a runaway state, I had to keep in mind the possibility of killing you, so I wanted to end it with just a threat if possible.”

Then Adam added a few more excuses.

“More than anything, if I intervened, there was a possibility that it would escalate into a fight with other stars. And if I became weaker than I am now in that fight, there was a possibility that the promise itself would be damaged.”

“That’s what you call weakened?”

Hyeon-woo asked in disbelief, but Adam ignored him and continued.

“So, as the guarantor of the promise, I ask you.”

Adam’s bright yellow eyes shone like stars. They were the eyes of a hungry beast, and the eyes of a cold-blooded judge.

“Are you ready to take responsibility for humanity?”

“No.”

***

Hyeon-woo answered with a bright smile. It was an immediate answer without a second of hesitation.

Adam was silent for a moment, then belatedly realized that Hyeon-woo had answered.

Even *she* was embarrassed by the quick answer.

“Responsibility? You’re trying to subtly put an absurd burden on me. Who does that?”

“…You have a responsibility as the one who inherited humanity’s last legacy…”

“Did I ask for it? Did I say I would take it? Or can you take it back? In the first place, the promise was terminated when I became a star, you said clearly.”

Adam Fault seemed to have forgotten what to say.

Although he couldn’t see his expression because of the darkness, the darkness that was rising as his appearance changed rapidly was also shaking unstably.

Hyeon-woo felt the destructive power encroaching on the area he had judged to be safe and stepped back slightly.

He might end up like a crushed can if he wasn’t careful.

Adam said to Hyeon-woo as if scolding him.

“Under inheritance law, the heir has the obligation to be responsible for the donor’s assets as well as debts.”

“…Are you serious? You’re bringing up inheritance law here?”

“I’m just giving an example. You can’t just look at the sweetness and throw away the bitterness.”

“No matter what you say, I have no intention of taking responsibility. I’m a violent, narrow-minded, and inherently despicable attention seeker, so much so that all sorts of trashy stars are eyeing me. If someone like me willingly says that I will take responsibility for humanity, wouldn’t it be a bit unfair to humanity, regardless of whether it can be trusted or not?”

“No, even if you don’t want to take responsibility, you don’t have to put yourself down that much…”

Adam closed his mouth. It seemed like he thought Hyeon-woo’s words made sense when he heard them. After a long silence, she let out a long sigh and said.

“Whatever… I’m tired. I just wanted to know what kind of person the successor of the promise was.”

Adam’s voice seemed genuinely tired.

Whether the successor of humanity was trash, or the promise was thrown into the trash can, it was enough for him to know that he had nothing more to do.

“I have seen many people so far, but you were the only one who survived in this Difficulty: Hell without giving in until the end. Maybe only trash like you can survive in this trash can.”

Even from outside the darkness where he couldn’t see Adam’s expression, he could feel the depression of how depressed Adam was muttering.

Hyeon-woo was wondering if he should give a positive answer even as a little service, but he thought that he should lower his expectations from the beginning so that there would be no expectations on him.

It would be troublesome if he was told to repay the debt he had been saved from.

Still, out of his little conscience, he decided to tell him the minimum he could do.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of letting humanity perish. I like the world as it is now.”

Adam Fault seemed to have cheered up a bit at those words.

Of course, Adam didn’t seem to be able to specifically imagine what kind of world it was that a person who had publicly declared himself to be ‘human trash’ ‘liked’.

He didn’t seem to have the energy to imagine it.

Rather, Hyeon-woo was suddenly bothered by what Adam Fault had said.

“Wait, you said you’ve seen many people? In Difficulty: Hell?”

“Did you think you were the only one who was going to be the successor of the promise?”

“Huh? But looking at the title or traces I received, it seemed like I was the only one.”

Adam Fault raised his hand and flicked his finger upwards.

At that moment, the Return Stone hanging around Hyeon-woo’s neck floated upwards. Adam Fault turned the Return Stone around as if examining it and opened his mouth.

“So far, there have been a total of nine candidates who have visited Difficulty: Hell. Of those, seven returned to their world and committed suicide, and one became mentally ill. You are the ninth.”

Kang Hyeon-woo was surprised to hear that there were eight other candidates besides himself. But what surprised him even more was what Adam Fault said next.

She tilted her head and continued.

“But that’s strange. Originally, the ninth should have been Lee Ji-tae or Jeok Nabi. But why did you come?”