Chapter 709 – Loss (2)

Axenheights.
His face was covered in wounds.
One of his eyes couldn’t even open.
But the pupil of the intact eye was sharper than anything.
Unbending even in death—
A man who seemed to embody Akshan’s very spirit.
That was Axenheights.

‘So I can’t just gloss over this.’

—Hunt Grandfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo. (In Progress)

Akshan.
The last survivor.
There was something he had to pass on to me.

Axenheights was asking.
Whether I was truly prepared to hunt Grandfell.
Whether I was ready to break the wheel that spun like a rat’s treadmill.

When I stayed silent, Axenheights relaxed his expression.

“Well then, shall we talk slowly?”

Was this also your consideration, Grandfell?

The demon world where Axenheights and I stood wasn’t busy.
No—if anything, it was peaceful.
Peaceful enough that one might believe it was somewhere on the Arcana Continent.

Even Axenheights, who entered the demon world before me, seemed surprised.

“Oh? So even in this demon world, sunlight still shines.”

Perhaps because he had been a leader, Axenheights wasn’t as taciturn as the other Akshan seniors.
It seemed he had something to say about that too.

“The burdens one carries sometimes make a person overly serious. You understand it too. Why we didn’t exchange useless chatter with one another.”

Why Akshan hunters act awkwardly and distantly with each other?
Simple.
A demon hunter would one day have to drive a dagger into a comrade.

Akshan wandered eternally, hunting demons.
Meaning—

A demon hunter’s life continued until the day they themselves fell into demonic corruption.
So that they wouldn’t get emotional when hunting a corrupted comrade—

Akshan didn’t even exchange proper greetings.

Of course—

“Now it no longer matters. We’re already dead, after all. Still, it would be nice if you didn’t resent them too much. We lived our whole lives this way—you can’t expect us to suddenly start conversations out of shyness, can you?”

Is he talking about the Akshan seniors in hell?

‘Well…’

When doing the physical training class quests or activating class skills, they never spoke to me.
I’d assumed they were just as quiet in death as in life.

‘So it was because they were shy? All of them?’

I let out a small laugh without meaning to.
Then caught myself.
Even so—this isn’t exactly a laughing situation, Hoyeol.

When I lifted my head, Axenheights was staring at me.

“It’s a relief that I’m not too late, after all.”

…?

Too late for what?
His cryptic way of speaking was still the same, sociability aside.
Axenheights continued on his own.

“There is only one thing I must pass on to you.”

He said so and slipped a hand into his cloak.
He grabbed something.
But didn’t take it out.

“Because of this, I could remember—if only a little—the world that reverses.”

I see.

Just as the past Hoyeol left arrangements for the next cycle, Akshan must have done the same.
It wasn’t difficult to guess the purpose of that arrangement.

‘Akshan’s purpose is always only one.’

Axenheights spoke.

“If you wield it, you will surely be able to hunt him.”

I swallowed a bitter laugh inwardly.

‘Now this finally feels like a real class.’

I had been so jealous.

Nam Taemin’s [Barbarian], Jesse’s [Archmage]—no need to even explain. Everyone gained benefits from their class in one way or another, yet I never really had anything.

‘All I could boast of were the stats earned through training.’

And once I learned they were ultimately nothing more than numbers, the thrill faded entirely.
But of course—Akshan.
You understand my heart, but why does your timing always have to be like this?

Wordlessly—

I looked at Axenheights’ chest.
Inside the cloak where his hand reached…

There would be something capable of hunting Grandfell.

‘I can’t even guess what it might be.’

Where did my memories from the previous cycles go?
No matter how much I tried to retrieve and review them, it was impossible.
This was my first time ever facing Axenheights directly.

Why?
Had I not said—

‘In most cycles, the Akshan leader did not exist.’

The reason I knew his name at all
was because, in one cycle,
I had read the record of him as the former leader.

Axenheights answered that question.

“If you ask how I escaped the loop, don’t. The bottom of hell… is so horrific that you’re better off not knowing.”

Through the demon hunters’ exorcism rites, the thing inside his cloak, and crouching in the depths of hell…
As he said, Axenheights seemed to remember at least part of the previous cycles.

‘It isn’t impossible.’

Even Bael remembered everything.
It was just surprising—
A demon hunter’s persistence, that is.

So yes—he wouldn’t gloss over this lightly.
I looked at the flickering quest objective.

‘He means I must answer now.’

What would the everyday Hoyeol have done?

‘No… what would you, Grandfell, have done?’

Without doubt, you’d dodge with some clever sophistry.
Turning the tables in your favor with unshakable pride even in the worst circumstances—
That’s your specialty, Grandfell.

‘Well, whatever.’

But Hoyeol is different.

This was the first time any Akshan arrangement had appeared in all the memories I’d retrieved.
Which means Axenheights had stopped his hand in the cloak because—

‘This is their final chance to achieve their goal.’

Exactly.

If I answered Axenheights now, I would be obligated to hunt Grandfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo.
And if I accepted this arrangement but failed to accomplish the objective…

In the next cycle, I would never again cross paths with Axenheights.

Axenheights shrugged.

“I imagine you are conflicted. But understand—this confession came after much deliberation on our end as well. Akshan has already shown you everything.”

He added calmly:

“The timeline we share now will be the first and the last.”

Success or failure—
The result didn’t matter.
Either way, this was the last time.

Axenheights was saying—

‘All right. Think in a Hoyeol-like way.’

Hoyeol is a small citizen.
Even when given a once-in-a-lifetime chance, he’d rather wait until he was “more prepared,” then delay, and delay again…
He’s not someone overflowing with confidence, like a certain someone.

He certainly was like that.
So why—

“Of course.”

I looked Axenheights straight in the eye and answered:

“I will hunt him without fail.”

“!”

His single pupil trembled.

Did he not expect me to answer so firmly?
Understandable—I was shocked myself.
I had to mull over the words even after saying them.

‘Did I… mature somewhere along the way?’

If this were before, I’d think I’d finally grown out of that old phase,
finally graduated from my chuunibyou.
I might’ve sighed in relief.

But here I was, still glaring at Axenheights.
Honestly, this situation didn’t sit well with me.
That he forced me to confront my own feelings with that question.

He must have felt my true intention.

“It seems you are truly sincere.”

Axenheights’ lips curled upward.
His hand began to squirm inside his cloak.
Leader or former leader, Akshan was still Akshan.

That rhetorical style—
They simply cannot hide their origins.

“I shall give you everything.”

I flinched slightly.

‘If he’s saying it like that…’

It must really be something incredible.
I forced myself to imagine.
Maybe an artifact similar to the Akshan relics?

Thinking about it only deepened the mystery.

‘Even the relics alone, honestly—’

They possessed immense power to control or hunt demons.
Just look at the legacy left by Gabriel, the sole named NPC of Akshan:

[Chains of the Atoning Lucifer]

It inflicted a status effect of “Suppression,” comparable to Fear.
I had always told myself not to expect too much because disappointment follows expectations…

‘Still—if I give something, I should receive something.’

Since I’d given an answer meaningful to me,
I intended to receive a great reward as well.

Just as I focused on Axenheights’ movements—

Skk.

He straightened his posture, and the cloak fell aside, revealing his chest where his hand had been.

And I came to understand—
Why Akshan is Akshan.

“Yes. Everything of Akshan.”

Axenheights’ hand held nothing.
He simply placed it over his chest.
Over his heart.

“I, Axenheights, leader of Akshan, acknowledge you.”

Because it was so far from what I had expected—
the tension dissolved, my strength drained,
and I suddenly felt like some enlightened sage.

But ignoring my reaction entirely, Axenheights finished speaking.

Truly, there are moments when I want to do something about that mouth of his—
our dear Akshan seniors…!

.
.
.

Axenheights’ hand moved with a smooth, practiced motion.
The dagger he had drawn from beneath his cloak—
he slipped it back in without Hoyeol noticing.

Axenheights thought:

‘Thank you for sparing me from shedding blood, comrade.’

Lee Hoyeol.

A being who had been possessed for an eternity by the demon named Grandfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo.
According to Akshan’s strict doctrine, he was no different from a demon himself.

That was why Axenheights wanted to confirm it.

‘Is this cycle truly for the purpose of hunting Grandfell?’

He could not be sure.

As he’d said before—
Axenheights, and the Akshan demon hunters, could only remember a tiny portion of past cycles.
But by combining their memories at the bottom of hell—

Axenheights had been able to understand.

‘You are already a being far worse than a demon.’

Karma.

Even now, facing Hoyeol, the karmic weight roiled violently.
A karmic burden so immense that even someone who believed he had witnessed the very depths of ugliness in the lowest hell felt like a frog in a well by comparison.

Therefore—

『Sacred Spear: Eternal Rest』

To call it a spear was generous; it was closer to a stake.
Axenheights prepared Akshan’s one and only treasured armament.

If the man before him showed even the slightest lack of resolve to hunt Grandfell—

‘…I will change the plan.’

He intended to drive the Sacred Spear straight into the man’s heart.
Having retained fragments of past cycles, he understood well enough:

It did not need to be Grandfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo.

The eternal loop could be stopped if either of the two vanished.

“Of course. I will hunt him without fail.”

But the man declared it.

‘He’s sincere.’

Having hunted demons endlessly in hell—
Axenheights had gained eyes capable of seeing through deception and pretense.
Yet even under that gaze, Hoyeol did not waver.

Thus, Axenheights hid the Sacred Spear once more and placed his hand over his heart.

‘Perhaps… it may truly end this time, Grandfell.’

Srrk—

The tension finally drained from his once-wide eyes.
And only then did he notice it—
the consideration of the lord of this demon world, Grandfell,
who had allowed such a beautiful scenery, as if even this situation had been accounted for.

“From this moment,”

Axenheights said, gazing at the slowly setting sun,

“You are the true leader of Akshan.”

Now that Akshan had acknowledged Hoyeol as their true leader—
this moment was, without fail,
the time that was never forgotten under any circumstance:

Tea time with Grandfell.

And it would take Hoyeol a good while longer to realize that fact.