Disaster-Level Player Is Too Good at Broadcasting-Chapter 62: « You Are The Reason... [4] »

[Bonus Chapter for 30 Golden Tickets ~ refer to the Author’s Reward system.]

"..."

"He’s a murderer who calls himself a climber.

He’s an arrogant child playing with the lives of millions.

Look at him...He’s falling right where he belongs....Into the dark."

The guilt was a physical weight, pulling him deeper into the lightless abyss. The blue silhouettes began to blur as he picked up speed, their accusations merging into a singular, deafening roar of resentment.

​"He’s just a coward who ran away into the clouds."

​"He stepped on our corpses and called it progress."

​"He killed us with his indifference."

​"I watched him kill a man on the 45th floor," a whisper hissed right into his ear. "Not because the man was an enemy, but because he was slow. He was slowing down the ’optimized route.’ He called it a tactical sacrifice."

​"He’s not a hero. He’s a butcher who lost his heart somewhere between the 1st and the 100th floor."

​"Look at him. He’s still trying to grasp for the surface. Even now, he thinks he deserves to live while we’re just memories."

​

​"I hope it’s cold at the top, Kang Min. I hope the air is too thin to breathe."

​Min’s vision flickered.

His heart was a frantic, dying bird in his chest.

He passed a silhouette that stood perfectly still, arms crossed, watching him fall with a gaze that felt like a blade.

​"He didn’t even remember my name..."

"I was his scout for three floors. I mapped out the death traps so he wouldn’t have to bleed. And when I fell into the pit, he didn’t even stop his stride. He just used my map to keep going."

​"Is that what it takes to be the best?"

A woman’s voice cried out, her blue form dissolving into tears.

"To be a monster? To be a machine? Was it worth it? Are you happy now that you’re the only one left?"

​"He let us starve..."

​"He abandoned us. He abandoned his world. He abandoned himself."

​The whispers became a chaotic, overlapping mess of hate and sorrow.

​"Murderer."

​"Thief."

​"Traitor."

​"Arrogant bastard."

​"Why were you so selfish?"

​"Why did you hate us so much?"

​"You could have saved the world, Kang Min. You had the power. You had the talent. But you chose the Tower over the people. You chose the stairs over the souls."

​"I was your friend."

A silhouette said, its voice cracking.

"I would have followed you into hell. But you didn’t want a friend. You wanted a ladder."

​Kang Min was reaching the absolute bottom.

He was slowing down, his body coming to rest in a graveyard of blue light.

The voices were fading into a low, droning hum, leaving him in a silence that was far worse than the screaming.

​And then, a final silhouette appeared.

​It wasn’t flickering like the others.

It was steady, a deep, solid blue that held a strange, ancient weight.

The form was that of an old man, slightly hunched, leaning on a gnarled staff.

He wasn’t gossiping, and he wasn’t screaming.

He was simply standing there, waiting for Min to finish his descent.

​Hakon.

​The wanderer.

The only person who had ever truly walked beside Kang Min without asking for anything in return.

​Hakon didn’t fold his arms.

He didn’t whisper to the others.

He looked directly at Kang Min, his featureless blue face carrying an expression of profound, crushing sadness.

It was the look of a teacher watching a student burn down the library.

Hakon tilted his head, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt heavier than the entire ocean.

​

"Look at you...

...you’re the strongest person in this place, and yet you’re drowning in a puddle of your own regrets.

You have the world at your feet, and no one to share the view with."

​The old man sighed, a sound that carried the weight of every person Kang Min had ever abandoned.

​"You still never answered me...."

​Hakon’s eyes seemed to pierce through Min’s mask, through his skin, and into the dark, hollow core of his being.

​"Why do you climb the tower, Kang Min?"

----

Kang Min felt his consciousness slipping away, the edges of his mind fraying as he surrendered to the dark.

Then, he heard a faint, almost a phantom sound.

The sharp, sweet trill of a lark.

Then another. And another.

Kang Min’s eyes fluttered open.

He was sitting in a field of lush, emerald-green grass that stretched toward the horizon, swaying in a gentle, warm breeze.

The sun above was a soft, golden orb that bathed the world in a peace he hadn’t felt in lifetimes.

Suddenly, the world went dark again.

Two soft, small hands clapped over his eyes from behind.

He felt the weight of a tiny body leaning against his back, and the sound of muffled, melodic giggling tickled his ears.

Kang Min’s hands were steady and gentle as he reached up, grasping the small, soft fingers covering his sight.

He slowly pulled them down, turning his head to see who had ambushed him.

A little girl stood there.

She had hair as black as a raven’s wing, tied in messy pigtails, and eyes that glowed like polished rubies.

She let out a peal of uncontrollable laughter, her small shoulders shaking.

Suddenly his POV was changed and was watching from a third person’s perspective.

’Th-that’s me...

and...’

His sound mind went blank while looking vat the child his eyes wide...wondering how.

「"Hyung! How? How did you know it was me?"」

The child asked, her voice like wind chimes.

「"I was so quiet! I was even holding my breath!"」

A side of Kang Min that had been buried under layers of iron and trauma flickered to life.

A genuine, soft smile that reached his eyes and softened the hard lines of his jaw spread across his face.

「"You’re as quiet as a stampeding elephant,"」

Kang Min said, his voice warm and playful.

「"And I’d know that laugh anywhere. You think you can hide from me?"」

That Kang Min reached out and ruffled her hair, a gesture of pure affection.

The girl beamed, her red eyes sparkling with mischief.

She sat down in the grass beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

「"Hyung,"」

She said, her voice turning thoughtful as she looked out at the endless greenery.

「"I’ve been thinking about something."」

「"Oh-? And what’s that?"」

「"I don’t think you’re a ’Hyung’ to me anymore,"」

She said, her expression surprisingly serious for a child.

Kang Min raised an eyebrow, his smile never fading.

「"Is that so? Then what am I?"」

The girl stood up, her small hands on her hips as she looked down at him.

She gave him a wide toothed grin, the kind of smile that could melt the coldest heart in the Tower.

「"I think... you’re more like an Appa to me."」

Min’s breath hitched.

He looked at her red eyes, her joyous face, the way she seemed to radiate life.

He didn’t have the words.

He didn’t have the cold, logical rebuttals he usually used to shield himself.

He simply opened his arms, and the girl lunged forward, hugging him with all the strength her small body possessed.

The warmth vanished.

---

A golden light, so bright it felt like a physical strike, erupted in the center of the green field.

The grass turned to ash, the sky shattered like glass, and the girl vanished into white mist.

Kang Min felt a violent, upward tug, as if a hook had snagged his soul.

He was pulled out of the black sea, dragged through the void, and slammed back onto the hard, obsidian floor of the Mirror Hall.

He collapsed onto his knees, his body convulsing.

He ripped the matte black mask from his face and threw up, a mixture of bile and black sea-water splashing onto the mirror-floor.

He gasped for air, his lungs burning, his grey eyes watering from the sudden change in atmosphere.

He looked up, and his heart nearly stopped again.

A blinding, pulsating yellow light filled the center of the hall.

It was the Star-Seed.

It was behaving like a white, brilliant black hole.

The mirrors that made up the floor and walls were shattering into a million shards and were being sucked into the center of the golden glow.

The very fabric of the 9th floor was being unraveled, devoured from the inside out.

Min realized, his eyes widening. If he didn’t stop it, it would consume the entire floor’s structure and then burst outward.

He tried commanding the star-seed back into the inventory but...

『[SYSTEM]: IMPOSSIBLE. THE STAR-SEED’S WILL TO MANIFEST IS GREATER THAN THE SYSTEM’S STORAGE CAPACITY.』

『[SYSTEM]: ACCESS DENIED.』

Min gritted his teeth, his mind racing.

He needed a place that could contain a literal star...a place outside the current reality.

「Exclusive Skill: Floor 600 All Master is in use!」

The space in front of him tore open.

A jagged, swirling portal to a nameless manifested like a gaping wound in the air.

He pushed the orb toward the gate.

The Star-Seed resisted, its golden rays lashing out like whips.

As the Star-Seed was sucked into the gate, its light caught the Mirror-Min.

The reflection was paralyzed, its form glitching.

It was swept up in the gravitational wake, its broken mask and grey eye disappearing into the swirling void along with the seed.

-THOOM.

The portal snapped shut.

Silence rushed back into the hall, heavy and suffocating.

The 9th floor was a ruin now.

Kang Min fell to his knees again, heaving, his sweat dripping onto the floor.

『[SYSTEM]: YOUR BROADCAST WAS INTERRUPTED .』

『[SYSTEM]: RE-ESTABLISHING CONNECTION...』

『[SYSTEM]: 3... 2... 1... LIVE.』

Min realized his face was bare.

He scrambled for his mask, snapping the straps into place just as the red "LIVE" light on his interface flickered back on.

The chat window exploded.

-HE’S ALIVE?!

-What the hell just happened? The screen went black for five minutes!

-I saw the mirror grab him! He was getting tossed like a ragdoll and then...POOF no signal.

-Did he exploit the floor?

-Is the floor cleared? The mirrors are all gone! -What did he do to the boss?!

-I’m calling a violation. No way he survived that without a cheat.

Kang Min didn’t have time to answer or even have time to breathe.

The air in front of him rippled.

Two massive beings materialized out of thin air, their presence so heavy that the very ground beneath Min’s knees cracked.

They stood over seven feet tall, clad in armor of such blinding white it seemed to be made of compressed starlight.

They had no faces...only golden visors that emitted a low, hummed vibration.

From their backs, wings of pure, translucent energy pulsed slowly.

Each carried a gargantuan white hammer, the heads of the weapons the size of anvils 2x their head size.

They held the hammers with the hilts planted on the ground, their hands gripped at the center, the heads towering above their own.

The chat went from chaotic to paralyzed.

-Are... are those who I think they are?

-Oh my god. The Enforcers

-Yep. Nemesis also known as The Erinyes... the Tower’s executioners.

One of the beings spoke.

Its voice was a decree that resonated in the marrow of Min’s bones.

「"Player 「Singularity」. You have committed a transgression of the highest order."」

The second being shifted its hammer, the white metal glowing with a lethal, holy light.

「"You have exploited the 9th floor by summoning a higher power. This is a direct act of disrespect toward the Stars."」

The enforcer raised its hammer high above its head, the air around the weapon screaming.

「"Prepare for your punishment."」