- Secret of the Hidden Floor -
It didn't take long for Charlotte to find Altaira.
By strengthening herself with Shinsu and used [Acceleration], she could jump around and look for her brother faster than before. It turned out, Altaira wasn't really hiding himself. He was just sitting on a restaurant with the bird who was still wrapped around the vines that she had. While waiting to be called back, he was eating as much as he could and he didn't seem to be happy when Charlotte called him and told him to go back to the others.
When the two of them went back, Bam and Khun who had heard everything from Data Hansung Yu about the secrets in the Hidden Floor.
The Data Hansung Yu had been traveling in this Hidden Floor for some time and he discovered some new secrets, one of them was the existence of the hidden quest.
At the time, he wondered why solving the missions was considered as doing good deeds and opposing the people here was considered as bad deeds. Therefore, he tried doing "bad deeds" as many as he can until his monitor of good and evil was filled with black part. When he made sure that his monitor was completely filled with black part, he discovered something surprising; the hidden quest!
By clearing a hidden quest, they could still go to another stage. Hearing that it won't get killed, the mother bird sighed in relieve.
Data Hansung Yu also mentioned that the grand quest and the quests that Big Breeders gave to them could be say as fake and that the minstrels who had always guided them around this city was actually deceiving them, calling the truth as evil. By clearing the hidden quests, he realized that the Big Breeder had a main body which was on a different data world. And in order to prevent regulars like them for knowing that, these fake grand quest and any other quests were made to confuse them.
Data Hansung Yu told them a joyous news that there was one of the 10 Great Families head was also in this Hidden Floor and that they should meet them. But when Altaira heard about that, he frowned as if he didn't take it as a good news.
Bam's monitor of good and evil was obviously bad. He broke through the fruit good and evil and even fought with Big Breeder. When Charlotte had returned, he started the mission immediately.
And the mission this time was to beat some giant rats!
"Brother, let me do it!"
Charlotte enthusiastically said.
"Charlotte, wait-!"
Without hesitation, she grew more green vines from the ground. She caught around five rats, while the others were running away and dodged her vines.
After that, another 5 green vines grew, stabbing the mice and killed them off rather easily.
Bam, "........"
Bam was amazed of course. Right now, he could feel the gap between their power. It should have been a nice thing, he thought as being stronger was one of Charlotte's desires. But somehow, watching her getting stronger and protecting him instead felt wrong. It was also his desire to protect her.
"The Hidden Floor has lots of missions, I think they are perfect for her to train her new power" said Altaira with a rather proud smile. Of course, he could tell what Bam was thinking and smiled mischievously. He put his hand on his shoulder and asked, "What? Feeling like you've lost your older brother position?"
This time, his face had turned dark.
Fortunately Altaira was quite fast as he dodged Bam's Shinsu attack. He jumped at the air to dodge it and jumped far from him to increase their distance just in case Bam was attacking again.
"What? Do you feel annoyed that I mention what is bothering you the most right now?" He asked without showing any regret or guilt at all. He didn't feel guilt or regret, let alone fear.
"I'm sorry. I thought that you are one of the rats we should kill" said Bam coldly.
"Ah- don't worry about that. I know you are blind from the beginning, can't differentiate allies and enemies" Altaira continued to tease him.
If Khun doesn't stop Bam, he would have ignored this mission and go to chase Altaira and beat him up. Altaira who seemed to earn the victory this time was laughing as he ran away to somewhere else, out from Bam's reach and sight.
"Don't mind him. We have to finish the missions first, even though Charlotte had done most of it for us."
Bam clenched his fists and gritted his teeth before he turned around and walked away to deal with the rest of the rats. He promised to himself that he'll get Altaira back.
Without leaving a single one, they've finished all the rats. Altaira approached Charlotte who had done most of the work and was currently resting and offered her a drink that he just brought from one of the stores in the town.
"Thank you" she said.
"Don't worry about it. Just help me to stop Bam from killing me later on."
Charlotte snorted, "You dug your own grave."
While she was resting, her eyes were locked at Khun. Right now, he was planning to explaining to Boro and the others about the hidden area of the hidden floor, the Big Breeders were fake, the quests that they were doing were also fake. The quest that they were doing right now, the grand quest, was the real quest.
Boro asked to give it short and Khun literally gave him the short explanation that made him even more confused. When he asked for longer explanation, Khun gave him one but it made him puzzled with how complicated the explanation was. Hockney was helping Khun by writing some words on his canvas for Boro and Sachi to read.
He wrote:
If you don't understand, just memorize.
1. You've been to Hidden Floor.
2. We came to meet data of Zahard.
3. Big Breeder is actually an enemy and his quests are fake.
4. What we beat just now is the real one!
"Yeah. So, you do understand" said Khun with a cool smile after explaining.
"Understand?! Would all of that make senses when you are suddenly hearing it? Are you memorizing it?" Boro asked, pissed. "Let's go, Sachi! I'm going to lose my mind if I keep traveling them!"
"Whatever, just forget it."
Bam awkwardly laughed. He then showed to the others about the scroll that will lead them to the next stage.
In the same time, Hansung Yu and Endorsi who left to the quarantine area were back. Earlier, they left to bring those who were in the quarantine area. Now that they returned, they should have came with the other data. Surprisingly, the two of them were the only one who returned.
Turned out, all the data in the quarantine area had been massacred, killed.
Hansung Yu didn't explain things to them and said that he was leaving to look for Batis so that they will leave together to next stage.
Charlotte who wrapped her arms around Bam said, "I think he will be happy enough to get to spend time with his wife first."
"If he isn't willing to leave, I won't force him. I'm not that cruel" said Hansung Yu as he walked away.
Others, 'Correction, you are indeed that cruel.'
Charlotte and the others could notice that Hansung Yu was in a bad mood.
When Hansung Yu found Batis, he told him what happened in the quarantine area where they found a sworn enemy who murdered all their friends. The sworn enemy took form of a white haired man who was also a group of snakes. In another word, he wasn't a human but a group of snakes that could take a form of human. The sworn enemy was Endorsi's sworn enemy, Snake Charmer.
Despite of being Endorsi's sworn enemy, it didn't show slightest hostility towards her. Any individuals that was hostile against the princess will be eliminated which made Hansung Yu surprised to see the group of snakes killing each other for self- control. This was why Endorsi told Hansung Yu to stop attacking her sworn enemy as it was not normal at all.
Even though it wasn't really his fault that the others were murdered, Hansung Yu still apologized to Batis.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't keep my promise to save everyone...maybe...I thought of helping all of you as a game" he said. "I actually had a more important goal than that and saving you all ended up being a small goal along the way. But on the inside, maybe I thought I could give up on that, maybe I thought that it is some kind of test difficult to pass."
He earnestly bowed down with his eyes closed, "I'm sorry, Batis."
"I know that the reason you tried to help them to escape from the quarantine area isn't because of friendship or pity for them. You simply want to escape more perfectly. You wanted to leave the quarantine area created by Big Breeder in an optimal state. If you bring them with you, you would feel even greater sense of achievement.
I know people like you very well. Born with abilities superior to the others, you sometimes act as though you are helping someone weaker than you. I guess you could call it...a kind of game masquerading as kindness.
To you, helping them was just merely a game."
The words above were the words that the Snake Charmer, or at least it was his nickname or something, said towards him. Those words were the words that made him doubt himself.
"It's okay" Batis replied. "You haven't done anything wrong."
Hansung Yu lifted his head, "Batis?"
"We're just human data anyway. They'll all come back to live when the next warriors alive" Batis said. "At some point our life and death...everything started seeming like a joke. Ever since Big Breeder took control of everything, when those guys come back to life again, I'm going to take back this town from Big Breeder...so that they don't have to live like that anymore. That alone is more than enough."
What he desired was peace.
The peace for himself, his wife, his friends and everyone and everything on his surroundings.
Won't it be great to live a normal life? But in this tower, living a normal life sounded like an impossible request. In his left, people were scheming against each other. In his right, people were killing each other. Right before him, one watched how he was betrayed and behind him, he remembered how much has he changed and his regrets.
He looked at the woman who was sleeping on the bed. The woman, Rose or Dee, was his wife, the one who he loved dearly.
She had been through a lot just now. Even though she wasn't wielding sword to attack Big Breeder or carrying a shield to protect the others, still, she had just seen the dark side of the "God" who she praised and sang for all these years.
Batis silently thought that if it wasn't for Charlotte, maybe right now his wife would have been dead, lying on the white bed covered with white sheet without any way to see her again. He was really afraid that it might happen to his beloved Rose one day. He was worried that Rose might not be able to open her eyes anymore. For him, seeing his beloved one dead was truly a torment.
Big Breeder knew him well. He ripped his mouth, preventing him from singing like before. He imprisoned him and gave him false hope, letting him suffer painful death without anyway to reincarnate. They couldn't beg for life and couldn't seek for death, again and again resurrected with an obvious ending which was death. They had suffered death so many times that they felt death was no longer terrifying.
He took his wife and tried to use her as his shield. If he fired his bullets and hit Rose, Rose would have disappeared. That rotten man never saw him as a human or at least a data with human feelings and emotions, but a toy for him to mock, ridicule and humiliate. He was a toy for him to torment, nothing more than that.
She saved the love of his life and returned his voice. He thought that nice and sincere people were hard to meet, especially in this tower. If one truly finds a sincere and genuine person, it would have been a blessing for him.
At the same time as Batis was looking at Rose before deciding to leave with Hansung Yu, at the outside, a petal of pink lotus was flying on the air being blown by the wind and landed gently at Altaira's palm. Altaira looked at the petal of pink lotus before he looked at his dearest sister.
'How many changes could one bring to this world? Each path crosses with another, her kindness had changed the fate of a once was a pair of miserable couple' he thought. 'Charlotte, Charlotte, no wonder you have lotus as your new power. The sacred flower that symbolizes rebirth and perseverance, blooms at the morning and sleeps at night...the flower that is said to be able to last for a long time.'
But even though her lotus was a sacred flower, no matter how kind she was, her kindness was nothing more than water droplets in the sea. When she made up her mind to follow Bam regardless of anything, her fate was sealed already. She was destined to fight in the war between FUG and Zahard.
What was terrifying about war wasn't just that she might die any time. But just by going through one war, her personality could have changed. She could have been different. He never wanted his sister to change. Perhaps it was a selfish desire, but he was happy to see her behave like this. She was free... like a bird, unrestrained and perseverance, loyal and courageous. He didn't want a single part of her changes.
'This was predestined. The moment when they were caught by FUG... the war is bound to happen.'
When they were selected as slayer candidates, the thorn on her brother's shoulder was a power for him and also a shackle. He shouldered the burden of the slayer candidate who struggled all these way to find himself, to survive and to return to where he belonged to. If he wanted to run away, FUG would have tracked him down. And at that time, not even Charlotte could escape from the consequence.
'In front there is an empire to face. Behind us, there is a dark and religious organization to face. How much do I miss our former lives without killing and hating?'
He missed them a lot.
'But if I didn't die at the time...maybe for this lifetime...I couldn't meet them.'
He closed his right palm that was holding the lotus petal. He couldn't bring himself to clench his fists and held the lotus palm tightly. He closed it for a moment before he opened his palm, letting the wind to blow away the lotus petal.
"I wish you eternal freedom, away from having tiresome burdens like me."
The sound of a female voice resounded in his mind.
"I'm willing to shoulder all the responsibilities and face the dangers if it means I could give you the freedom I could never have."
"Soar high, Altaira."
His expression was rather complicated as he sighed.
'I'm sorry. But it seems like the freedom you gave to me in exchange with your life... won't last forever.'
When Hansung Yu and Batis returned, they were heading to another stage. Charlotte didn't know why but her brother has been acting more different than usual. He was usually lively and noisy, but somehow for these few hours he was quiet, calm and solemn. He was thinking about something and certainly, it must be something serious.
But it wasn't like asking him straightforwardly will let her get the honest answer. He'll just lie and cover it up with something else. There was no way for Charlotte to guess her brother's mind unlike him who seemed to understand her very well like he was reading a book.
They opened the scroll and scanned it, leading them to another stage. There was a blinding light that forced them to close their eyes and they were brought to somewhere place.
That place was an empty space. They were still in the Hidden Floor, but no longer in the Town of Wandering Minstrel. In front of Bam, there were two cards and a small golden mirror speaking.
"People from the outside! Congratulations on passing the stage!" said the mirror. "You have obtained the right to proceed to next stage! Please choose which of the following stages you wish to go!"
There were two identical cards. On his left, there was the card with "Sweet Castle" written on it. On his right, there was the card with "Cold Land" written on it. Both of them were the second stage.
Bam was confused about which stage he should choose. He didn't have any information about these two stages, unlike Hansung Yu.
"Hold on! I'll do it! We don't want to end up in the wrong one" he said as he moved towards the two cards. "I know the shortest stage route to get to Khun Edahn."
"WHAT?!"
Khun asked in shock.
How could he not be familiar with Khun Edahn? He was his irresponsible and womanizer birth father, the last person he expected to meet right there in the Hidden Floor.
"W...w- w- w- wait a minute!" he said, startled that he can't even speak without stuttering. "Y...you mean...the data of you are going to meet is...?!"
"Ah...yes" said Hansung Yu who sweated dropped over Khun's reaction. "The head of Khun Family, the data of Khun Edahn."
Khun was really shocked. And just like him, Altaira who was sighing and thinking that this day had finally come didn't like it at all. He hated this father and son reunion.
"...what's wrong? Is it because you are from Khun Family? Don't worry. That's the data when he was a regular" said Hansung Yu. "He won't recognize you."
"Well...I supposed so...but..."
'Damn it. I really don't want to meet that guy.'
"But before choosing...should we split into teams first?"