- Submerged Fish Hunt -
Altaira was going to smash that pickle if Khun didn't stop him.
The spear bearers were the one who will be watching the thieves and waited for Khun's signal before throwing their spears. In this kind of situation, the timing and patience will determine the winner.
But that rotten pickle just had to throw the spear first and alerted the enemies, causing them to take the risk and exposed themselves to their enemies.
If it wasn't for the others helping them to arrange the 'special meeting' between the dogs and the thieves, then Altaira would have left that pickle and left with Rak.
He sighed in relieve, "That is quite close."
"What are you waiting for?" Khun asked him. "Quickly throw the spear."
"Yes, yes" he said.
•••
Celeste hid somewhere else before Yuga, the sheep who was supposed to teach the Wave Controller Class, noticed her right after he defeated both Endorsi and Anaak.
Turned out, Yuga wasn't an ordinary ranker but the Lo Po Bia Ren who worked for Zahard. He was there to retrieve Black March and Green April and also, to get rid of the eliminate child, Anaak Zahard as well to get rid of their family's competitor, Endorsi Zahard.
The lizard wasn't the real princess. Anaak's mother who shared the same name with her ran away and married someone else before they had her. Anaak's mother violated the rules for not loving someone and resulted to her death.
The reason why Anaak looked at Endorsi with resentment and always glared was because Endorsi was one of the princesses. Whenever she saw the triple red eyes hairpin on her hair, she remembered about Zahard who murdered her mother. And the murderer happened to be Lo Po Bia Ren.
Celeste frowned when Lo Po Bia Ren walked and then stepped on Anaak's throat. Even if he was the king, then he shouldn't have stepped on her friend's throat like that and called her friend as an insect. She began to pull out her sword.
When Lo Po Bia Ren sensed something wrong and looked toward a direction, he was greeted with a group of white butterflies flying toward him. He was too focused with the princesses that he lowered his guard. He jumped backward to avoid those white butterflies that lighted the whole cave.
He saw a flashing light and dodged Celeste's sword before Celeste's sword hit him.
"What do we have here?" Lo Po Bia Ren asked and landed on the ground. "An Arie?"
"I am not" she denied.
"With your hair, eyes and sword, you are indeed an Arie" Ren insisted. "What, are you going to disobey Zahard's words as well?"
Arie Family was one of the 10 Great Families and the head of their family was Arie Hon. They always had white hair and practiced swordsmanship that was unique and can't be countered. Their descendants were quite few.
Celeste had white hair. She also had a sword. It wasn't really a surprise that most of regulars mistook Celeste as a descendant of Arie Family.
"Even if you are under the king's order doesn't mean that you could trample my friends" Celeste said and pointed her sword to Ren.
"What an arrogance" he said. "Do you know that if you go against Zahard, you will be a disgrace to your family?"
"I never cared about those things" Celeste said before she swung her sword faster than before toward Ren.
Lo Po Bia Ren dodged her sword easily and hit her when there was an opening. Using that chance, he hit her hard enough to push her backward and hit the wall hard.
"If the head if Arie Family knows about your behaviour, he would be disappointed" Lo Po Bia Ren said.
When he looked at both Endorsi and Anaak, he realized that the two of them had disappeared along with the 2 of 13 Months. Turned out, when he was playing with Celeste, the two of them took the opportunity to fight him back.
The half Zahard Princess, Zahard Princess and the descendant of Arie Family were working together. The longer Ren fought with them, the more that he felt annoyed and the three of them started to be a nuisance. Therefore, when he found another opening again, he defeated the three of them without hesitation.
When he laughed, he felt that someone was throwing stones toward him. The sheep looked around and shouted as he wanted the culprit to show up so that he could also deal with him.
"Who's there? Show yourself!" He said. No matter how he looked like, he was still someone who worked for Zahard. He can't be treated like this! "Who dares to do this?"
"Who dares to do this?" A female voice repeated and finally shown herself along with Shibisu. "Do you know that the two ugly girls you are beating on, they are my sisters!"
The lady who was said that was someone with long black hair and a pair of red eyes. Seeing how Ren was also surprised to see her, then Celeste guessed that the person wasn't ordinary. Not only that the person wasn't ordinary, Celeste had the feeling that she might be stronger than him.
The lady who had just come was the current owner of the Black March, the high ranker who was known for her bad temper and violence and she could also ignore Zahard's orders if she didn't want to. The name of the lady was Ha Yuri Zahard.
Ha Yuri Zahard came to look for her Black March. Seeing how she was going against Ren, Celeste sighed in relieve before she closed her eyes and sighed in relieve. She decided to rest for awhile before continuing the test.
•••
Charlotte had expected to be greeted by a bull in the middle of the test but she didn't expect that it would be this big!
Noah left her to look for Celeste since he felt that there was something with Celeste and he wanted to check on her. Rachel can't walk or do anything but sit down and watched them.
Honestly, Charlotte wanted to throw Rachel and feed the bull with her. Who knows the bull will get stomaches and left them? Killing two birds with one stone right?
"If we could use bang on that thing, maybe we would be able to defeat it" Charlotte said.
"Are you sure?"
"What else could we do?" Charlotte asked. "It's either we fight it and obtain the slim chance of surviving or that we will be buried here without doing anything!"
"Alright then" Bam responded and began to form a bang together with her.
Rachel watched them and pressed her lips together.
[First Floor]
Charlotte had ascended to the next floor. Rachel looked hopeless as both of the twins had ascended to the next floor, leaving her who wanted to climb the next floor very bad.
"And what are you going to do now, miss?" The rabbit man with spear asked her.
"It's not fair.....why the two of them are allowed to go to the next floor? Why they are so lucky? I am the one who wanted to see the stars.....not them......"
Bam was just an innocent and naive child who knew nothing! Meanwhile Charlotte..... Charlotte....she was just a strange girl!
She has been dreaming climbing the next floor, climbing the floor to see the stars! But when she was given the chance, she can't do anything but lament her luck.
Headon could see the desperation inside her to climb to the next floor. He had given her the chance, but she didn't want to accept it. She was too scared to take that test yet she wanted to climb the tower. When she can't climb the tower, she didn't want the others to climb the tower and blamed everything on the others. In order to ascend to the top, she could also abandon the friends who were looking for her.
It was disgusting, but it was something common on the tower.
To be afraid of death wasn't something new. It was because people live that they were afraid of death. But Headon felt that this girl was....how should he put this? She wanted to get everything in an easy way. She wanted to get something and in order to do that, she could abandon her friends and also, she didn't want to pay the price for it.
But still, even if she was that kind of person, Headon found her still useful.
He extended his hand and asked her, "Then do you want to be the heroine of this story?"
With both of her own eyes, Rachel witnessed how Charlotte and Bam got rid of the bull. Right when it opened its mouth, the two of them shot their bangs.
After using up all her energy, she fell on her knees. Charlotte didn't expect that it would be this tiring. In the Manhwa, Bam made it all look easy.
And just like in the Manhwa, he extended his hand toward Rachel.
"Wherever you want to go, I will take you" Bam said to Rachel. He has been waiting to say these words. "Rachel, let's go together."
Rachel looked touched. She wanted to reach for his hand but then, she suddenly stood up and pushed down Bam!
Bam was shocked as he fell from the shinsu bubble!
"Sorry, Bam" Rachel said. "You shouldn't have been here."
"BAM!"
Charlotte knew that this was the part of Bam's destiny. She knew that this would happen sooner or later. After all, Bam wasn't actually his relative anyway. He was just the part of the story.
But Charlotte wanted to be his sister. Her mind could understand and face the reality that his life was filled with hardships but her heart can't. She wanted to catch Bam but she fan even hold his hand.
He had fallen down there.
"Why did you have to do that?" Charlotte asked Rachel.
"I have no choices....." Rachel answered.
"You have choices" she said. "But you just don't want to take it. Where is your conscience, Rachel?"
Rachel lowered her head and clenched her fists, ".......Isn't this also what you want?"
Charlotte was bewildered when she heard that.
"Why am I the only one who gets blamed? Don't you also wish for him to disappear? Why are you blaming me?"
Charlotte wondered whether this girl has gone mad or not. But she knew that Rachel was incurable. Even now, she was speaking nonsense and shifting the blame to her.
"Rachel, do you really think by getting rid the two of us..... you would be the protagonist of this story?" Charlotte asked with the bitter smile.
She pulled her collar and pushed her to the edge of the shinsu bubble and forced her to look straight to her eyes, "Let me ask you, after you push him, you're going to get rid of me right?"
Rachel looked away and didn't answer. She didn't dare to answer.
"Your mind is not the only one that is broken, but it seems like your heart is also incurable" Charlotte said. "Alright then. I will grant you this wish. I will jump from this shinsu bubble on my own."
Rachel looked at her with widened eyes. But Charlotte meant every word that she said. One would rather jump off from the cliff rather than having someone like Rachel to push him.
"But you have to remember, don't show your face before me and my brother again" she said and then removed the strand of yellow hair from her face.
Her movement was gentle but Rachel felt that her touch was very cold and that her eyes, the golden eyes of hers looked at her with anger and resentment. She no longer had to try to hid them. Rachel had gave her the perfect excuse to make her hate her.
"It's because if you do, then I might not be able to stop myself from hurting you a bit by a bit. The next time we meet,we will be enemies. Farewell, Rachel."
She said like that and then jumped to follow Bam on her own.
Rachel, she didn't understand it. She tried to catch Charlotte but somehow the girl has fallen down from the shinsu bubble, following Bam. She fell on her knees as she was left alone.
My name is Charlotte Everest
I have never regarded myself as any special person.
And unlike me, he is someone dazzling but destined to walk in the cold road.
Since the Heavens give me the chance to meet him, then I will take that chance and follow him until the end.
•••
Celeste was running as fast as she can to greet Charlotte. Rak didn't want to lose to her and although he had became smaller again, he still run as fast as he can.
The others laughed, saying that the two of them were childish. But it was reasonable as they also wanted to meet those three regulars who had became the fishes as soon as possible.
But when they saw Rachel without the twins, they froze on their spots.
"Bam..... Charlotte......the two of them fought with the bull and then.....and then.....they fell..."
They all knew that if the two of them fell from the bubble, then the chance for them to survive was very low.
So the next morning when they heard from Lero- Ro, they weren't surprised. They had assumed that the twins were death but they refused to hear it.
And hearing from someone again about it, they felt that they have been struck by hundreds of arrows.
Their hope dimmed because of his few words. Their corpses couldn't be found, their dream to climb the tower together had shattered into pieces. It has been shattered and can't be collected anymore.
"What place under Heaven most hurts the heart? Laolao Ting, for seeing visitors off. The spring wind knows how bitter it is to part, the willow twig will never again be green1."
1- Laolao Ting Pavilion is a Chinese Poem written by Li Bai.
"I don't know that someone who lives in the dark could recite poems this fluently" Khun said while drinking with the others.
"Who teach you that, Charlotte?" Bam wondered who was the nice teacher to teach Charlotte all of this.
"It's....." Charlotte looked at Altaira who was talking with Celeste without knowing that the ghost Noah was hitting on him again and again in frustration. "Brother Altaira who taught me."
After she said those words, there were plenty of reactions. Altaira spat out his drink. Bam frowned as he took back all his words and Khun raised one of his eyebrows and looked at her in disbelief.
"Really? I never know that you are good in something like that" Celeste praised Altaira who looked away and laughed emptily.
"Then do you mean reciting one more poem?" She asked Charlotte.
Charlotte thought about it while looking at the ceiling before she looked again at them with a smile. She opened her mouth to speak,
"How can a man escape life's sorrow and regret? What limit is there to my solitary grief? I returned to my homeland in dream. As I awakened, I shed two tears. Who will now climb up the high tower, I remember those clear autumn scenes. Those past events have lost their meanings, they disappear as in a dream."
This poem is called How can a man escape from life's sorrow and regret written by Li Yu.
Khun who looked at the night sky remembered that poem in all sudden. He felt that the poem was kind of similar with the present. He lowered again his head.
The 25th Bam and Charlotte had died in the test floor.
[Season 1- End]