Chapter 196 - Episode 26. Great Forest (2)
Chapter 196: Episode 26. Great Forest (2)
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Jaehwan regained consciousness five hours later.
「It’s your fault.」
The words he heard the moment he came to.
「It’s because you’re weak.」
They were probably the voices of people from Jaehwan’s memories, people Jaehwan had created.
Or perhaps they were Jaehwan’s own voice.
「It’s because you tried to destroy the world.」
They were not words he was hearing for the first time.
Jaehwan had often suffered nightmares before. In those nightmares, he always heard similar words.
It was the price of not forgetting his swollen memories.
Tragedies burrowed into his soul and took root. Then they grew into massive trees.
Corpses hung like fruit from their countless branches, speaking to Jaehwan.
「You are the one who should be destroyed.」
That was why Jaehwan rarely slept. Even when he did, he slept only briefly, not long enough to dream. Whenever he felt like losing himself, he emptied his mind through Stab.
He believed this was also his burden to bear.
Still, even Jaehwan had moments that were hard to endure.
When he lost Seoyul in the Tower. When he lost Yoonhwan.
「You killed Andersen.」
「Your narrow-mindedness and outdated values killed her.」
He knew.
Jaehwan tried to nod calmly as usual.
This time, it was not easy.
Rather than cast away those feelings, Jaehwan set them aside for now. Feelings that could not be resolved right away had to be put off until an opportunity came, like storing unsuitable materials while building a tall tower.
Huuuu.
When he exhaled and opened his eyes, Jaehwan was in the middle of a mountainside. A bitter taste filled his mouth. It had been a long time since he had felt so short of breath.
His soul must have been damaged that badly.
Karavan’s voice reached him.
“You’re awake.”
After steadying his breathing and moving his lips a few times, Jaehwan managed to speak.
“Where are we?”
“The Great Forest.”
Karavan looked exhausted, likely from carrying Jaehwan for so long.
Jaehwan asked again.
“What happened?”
“Are you asking because you really don’t know, or because you want to torment yourself out of guilt?”
“Did everyone die?”
“Not everyone, but some definitely did. There’s a problem with the 《Little Brother》 System right now, so I can’t check the list…”
Jaehwan did not answer for a while.
“I owe you. You can put me down now.”
“Can you walk?”
Jaehwan nodded and stepped onto the ground.
The mountainside was no easy terrain. It rose and fell, and its uneven slopes looked difficult even at a glance.
Yet, as always, he had to climb.
Something bumped lightly against his back. It was Runald.
“Jaehwan-nim. Are you all right?”
Jaehwan looked at Runald’s face as the boy asked whether he was all right.
Karavan, who had been watching the two, read the mood and quietly slipped away to the back.
Runald spoke again.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
“It’s nothing. Are you all right?”
The god and Follower looked at each other.
They were only meeting each other’s eyes, yet the emotions they had precariously concealed spilled out between them.
Runald was the first to look away.
“Uh, um…”
Something trickled down from the corners of Runald’s eyes. Flustered, Runald wiped at them and gave an awkward smile.
“Maybe it’s because I’m tired?”
Jaehwan looked down at the doll Runald held in his arms.
It was the Moya Moya Crow Doll Andersen had used. It looked as though it would start moving if someone wound its key right now.
Yet no matter how much Jaehwan activated 「Doubt」, he could not sense even the slightest trace of Andersen.
He could not detect any World Force connected to her.
It was as though someone had completely erased the existence called Andersen from the 《Abyss》.
Jaehwan felt dizzy.
He slowly shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he finally steadied himself and opened his eyes, Runald had approached with a worried expression.
“Jaehwan-nim?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t say that. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jaehwan-nim.”
By then, Runald had stopped crying. Perhaps conscious of Jaehwan’s gaze, he vigorously rubbed his eyes and spoke.
“So please relax your expression too, Jaehwan-nim. It doesn’t suit you.”
What kind of expression suited him?
What expression was he supposed to make at a time like this?
Despite living for thousands of years through Stab, despite passing through countless instances of 「Doubt」 and 「Understanding」, Jaehwan did not know the answer.
Perhaps he never would.
Runald added with a small smile.
“An expression like a stubborn five-year-old suits you, Jaehwan-nim. Like a kid who insists on doing whatever he wants to the very end, even when every adult tells him not to.”
It felt strange to hear something like that from a child. Jaehwan wondered if Runald was subtly criticizing him, but the boy continued.
“Now that I think about it, Andersen-nim was similar.”
There was a heavy note in Runald’s voice.
Perhaps this was what Runald had wanted to say.
“She was a god who stubbornly insisted on things everyone else said were impossible. You know that too, Jaehwan-nim. You shared a world with Andersen-nim.”
That was right.
Jaehwan knew Andersen.
He had come to know her.
He had seen the history she had lived through and the days she had fought. He had seen how she viewed the world, how she understood humans, and how she loved her Followers.
Jaehwan had learned Andersen from Andersen.
From a god who had once been a Cultivator, a god he had hated more than anyone, he had learned something other than cultivation.
“When everyone told her to abandon the Naked World, Andersen-nim protected that world to the end. She said that as long as even one Follower believed in that world, a god must not betray that faith.”
Listening to Runald’s quietly spreading voice, Jaehwan remembered the first time he met Andersen.
Andersen, who had pointed out this and that about his desolate Worldview. Andersen, who had talked about planting flowers and trees. Andersen, who had not denied Jaehwan’s world to the end.
Now, Jaehwan understood every word Andersen had said.
Because she herself had managed such a lonely world, she had hoped Jaehwan would not walk the same path.
Runald kept talking about Andersen.
No matter how calm someone pretended to be, there was nothing they could do about emotions festering within. There were moments that could not be endured without speaking. Some stretches of time could only be endured by talking through them.
Watching Runald, listening to his words, Jaehwan thought,
Could I become a better god to this child than Andersen was?
He was not confident.
He was not suited to lead anyone. It had been that way when he led the death squad in the Tower, and when he served as Fortress Lord in 《Chaos》.
He was someone who did everything alone, and people had followed him one-sidedly. Along the way, he had drawn the opposition of many, made enemies, and been betrayed.
Back then, it had still been fine.
Even without anyone’s help, he was confident he could somehow handle things alone.
He always challenged what everyone said was impossible, and always overcame it. Those who criticized him either came to revere him, fear him, or eventually drift away.
He had climbed the Tower again and again, finally making it this far.
No, to be precise, he had collapsed here.
He had suffered an ugly defeat.
“So, at that time, Andersen-nim…”
As he listened to Runald’s story, Jaehwan felt as though his chest were being squeezed shut.
He knew how to relieve this frustration.
He could return to 〈Caspion〉 right now and fight Maiad again. Even if he lost again, his heart would feel lighter if he died there.
But doing that would betray Andersen’s faith.
“Anyway! What I want to say is that expression doesn’t suit you, Jaehwan-nim!”
“...”
“Please hurry and go back to your usual stubborn expression!”
Seeing Runald shout so boldly, Jaehwan gave a bitter smile.
It was strange.
He was the god, and Runald was his Follower. Jaehwan should have been the one offering comfort, the one answering prayers.
Yet he was the one being comforted.
Andersen’s final words came to mind.
“You can definitely become a good god.”
Andersen was probably wrong.
Jaehwan quietly watched Runald before speaking.
“Runald.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not Andersen.”
Runald’s eyes widened slightly. His wavering gaze slowly fell. The crown of the boy’s head was a complete mess.
“I know.”
“If you come with me, things will become difficult for you. I don’t mean you won’t be happy. I mean you’ll become unhappy.”
It was no different from a sentence.
Runald’s eyes trembled like those of a puppy that sensed it was about to be abandoned.
Jaehwan continued.
“Someone will despise you. Someone may hate you. Even if you do nothing, someone may try to kill you simply because you are my Follower.”
“...”
“Will you still follow me?”
Runald slowly lifted his head. His eyes were red around the edges. As if he did not want to show tears again, Runald covered his eyes and only moved his lips.
“I’ll follow you.”
Jaehwan placed a hand on Runald’s head for a moment, then turned and began walking away.
Runald blankly raised a hand to his head, as if measuring the warmth that remained there. Then he hurried after Jaehwan.
“Let’s go together!”
Hearing that voice, Jaehwan thought,
Andersen had been wrong after all. He could not become a good god.
Because there was no such thing as a good god in this world.
The only good god he had known was already dead.
Jaehwan gripped the broken Solitary Existence and headed deeper into the forest. Runald followed behind with quick little steps.
The god and Follower, the only two people in the world who shared the same world, matched their steps and headed toward the Great Forest.
It was surely a beautiful sight.
Yet to someone watching them from afar, it was also somehow bizarre.
Karavan, watching them from the rear of the Allies, muttered inwardly.
What the hell are they talking about while striking poses naked like that?
Naturally, it was not something he could know.
* * *
“Anyway, I look forward to working with you for a while. You know my name, right? I’m Karavan. People call me the ‘Scorching Karavan.’ Ahem.”
“You introduced yourself yesterday. Why are you introducing yourself again?”
“In case you forgot. People don’t remember my name even if I tell them two or three times. Even though I’m Ignis-nim’s Vicegerent…”
It was not strange.
Despite his fame, Karavan was not a man with a particularly memorable appearance.
His features were ordinary enough to find anywhere.
The one unusual thing about him was his spiky red hair, but even that felt like an attempt to make himself memorable somehow.
“Why did you come with us, Karavan-nim?”
“Like I said on the airship, I have business here too. I need to restore my link with Ignis-nim.”
Jaehwan remembered that he had been hit by Deus’s 「Plausibility Destruction」.
When Andersen’s link had been severed, Karavan must have lost his link with Ignis as well.
A thought suddenly came to Jaehwan.
What if the link could be reconnected?
Then perhaps, if he could find any trace of Andersen that remained somewhere in the 《Abyss》...
“Is there a way to restore a link here?”
“Probably.”
Karavan did not sound certain, but he seemed to have something in mind.
“The ‘Mad God’ lives in this forest.”
“The Mad God? Who is that?”
Andersen had told him to go to the Great Forest and find the Mad God.
Yet Jaehwan had no proper information about either the Great Forest or the Mad God.
It would likely be written in Mulack’s 『Record of the Abyss』, but the book had not responded yet.
Karavan answered.
“I don’t know exactly either. Still, there’s an old story about the Great Forest.”
The Great Forest.
A forest that could only be entered through the border between the Fourth Site and the Eighth Site, and one of the eight forbidden regions of the 《Abyss》.
According to Karavan, the place had several unusual nicknames.
The Grave of Lost Ones.
Fallen Antiquity.
The Forgotten Ninth Site.
Some connoisseurs claimed this was the most dangerous of the eight forbidden regions. Others argued that the Great Forest should not be called a forbidden region at all, but the ‘Abyss of the Abyss.’
Still, those nicknames were not why the Great Forest was famous.
“The strongest Parts in the Abyss, the Forgotten Three Divine Artifacts.”
Karavan took a light breath, then continued as though reciting an old poem.
“The Great Forest holds Parts left behind by the Three Ancient Gods.”
“Are there things like Deus Ex Machina here too?”
“That’s right.”
The legendary Three Divine Artifacts.
They were legendary Parts said to grant dominion over the 《Abyss》 to anyone who obtained even one of the three.
Jaehwan had seen two of the Three Divine Artifacts so far.
Catastrophe’s Void Sword.
And Deus’s Deus Ex Machina.
If something like that had been hidden in the Great Forest, it would not have been strange for every god in the 《Abyss》 to head here.
Karavan nodded.
“There’s a record that over half the novice gods born during the God Boom era, one hundred thousand years ago, set out on an expedition to the Great Forest.”
The officially recorded number alone was fifty thousand.
Including Vicegerents and Followers, dozens of times that number had headed for the Great Forest.
It was the full story behind the event commonly called the God’s Renaissance.
Karavan brushed aside black leaves blocking his view and spoke.
“A lot of them died then. It’s funny for me to say that when I wasn’t there myself, but…”
“Did they find the Three Divine Artifacts then?”
“I don’t know the details. I only know that some people returned alive.”
“How many survived?”
“Five, including my predecessor.”
“Your predecessor?”
“More precisely, I should call them my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor. Anyway, someone was Ignis-nim’s Vicegerent before me. They were one of the few who returned alive.”
Jaehwan wondered what that meant.
Karavan grinned.
“Looks like it’s your first time hearing this. Well, it’s a story that gods these days don’t know well.”
Jaehwan considered Karavan’s words.
One of the Seven Divine Thrones, Ignis, and Ignis’s Vicegerent had come on an expedition to the Great Forest.
What did that imply?
Karavan spoke again.
“You already know who the gods that returned alive were. More accurately, everyone knows.”
“I know?”
“The gods who returned alive with Ignis-nim are the most famous gods in the 《Abyss》 today.”
As he said that, Karavan looked up at the sky.
Jaehwan looked up as well.
No stars were visible beyond the dense forest.
At that moment, Jaehwan realized something.
Karavan nodded and spoke.
“That’s right. The 《Abyss》’s Seven Divine Thrones were created then.”
Footnotes:
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