Chapter 201 - Episode 27. Mad God (3)
Chapter 201: Episode 27. Mad God (3)
──────
A month had already passed since Jaehwan entered Mad God’s Forest.
He had spent most of that time immersed in one of the Great Forest’s boiling hot springs.
Steam rose from the open-air bath. Beyond the heat haze, Jaehwan could see the shadow of the ‘Mad God.’
But that was all.
An entire month had passed, yet Jaehwan had found no way to approach the ‘Mad God.’
“You are always here these days.”
Runald visited from time to time.
Strictly speaking, though, Runald had not come to see Jaehwan. He had fled here to escape the Longevity Clan’s older sisters, if that was even the right word for them.
“Whenever they see me, they try to scrub my back. At this rate, they will peel off all my skin and leave only my bones.”
Every time the Longevity Clan saw Runald, they clamored to scrub the grime from his back. As a result, his back was never unscathed. Looking at Runald’s back, now so polished that it was beginning to turn golden, Jaehwan spoke.
“It will be good for you in the end.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“There is a mysterious power hidden in their scrubbing.”
“That is about as believable as a Setting that makes you stronger the more Clothes you take off.”
Runald let out a deep sigh.
“Karavan-nim has been saying similar things lately. He keeps going on about the ‘philosophy of scrubbing’ and such. I think he likes it here now.”
Jaehwan suddenly realized he had not seen Karavan in quite some time. When they had first arrived at Mad God’s Forest, Karavan had come by every day to lament his situation.
“I need to restore my link with Ignis-nim soon. Then I will kill every one of those bastards!”
Or:
“I remember every bastard whose back I scrubbed. I will hang every last one of them in hellfire. Do not underestimate the Crimson Flame Tribulation.”
The last time Karavan had visited was the week before last. It had already been two weeks since Jaehwan had last seen him. Jaehwan had begun to wonder whether Karavan had finally grown tired of it or resigned himself to his fate, so hearing that Karavan was spreading some strange philosophy made him curious.
“What has Karavan been doing lately?”
“The same thing as always. He scrubs people’s backs. It seems he has gotten quite into it lately.”
“He enjoys it?”
“Grime is Zen.”
Runald deliberately imitated Karavan’s voice as he spoke.
While Jaehwan spent his time in the open-air bath, Karavan seemed to have become a true master of back scrubbing.
“He says that if you keep scrubbing away grime, you will discover the secret of the soul. That in the end, you will understand the relationship between grime and yourself, grime and the world, yourself and the world, then reach the truth... Anyway, I think he has completely lost his mind.”
Unexpectedly, Jaehwan looked serious as he listened.
“Is that so? Whether it is grime or Clothes... perhaps what you call it is not important.”
“What?”
“It sounds like he is more or less on the right path.”
“Are you serious?”
Runald unconsciously took several steps back. His eyes were full of disbelief.
“He is probably realizing something about Clothes Shedding.”
“Clothes Shedding?”
“The Longevity Clan calls it Molting. Clothes Shedding is a name I came up with.”
Clothes Shedding.
It was the ritual of removing, then removing again, the Clothes that formed the shell of a soul form.
Every warrior of the Longevity Clan performed it every day. It was also the secret behind their strength.
“What exactly is it?”
“What I do every day.”
Runald looked at Jaehwan soaking in the open-air bath and asked suspiciously, “Bathing?”
“Something like that.”
Jaehwan shrugged and looked around the open-air bath. Heat so intense it seemed capable of melting the skin from anyone who approached scorched the area.
Over the past month, Jaehwan had survived thirty-seven brushes with death in this bath.
The temperature alone was enough to drive someone mad if they simply entered and sat still.
Every day, Jaehwan practiced walking through that heat and parting the steam. His goal was, needless to say, to meet the ‘Mad God,’ the leader of the Longevity Clan who sat within the steam.
Yet Jaehwan still did not know what the Mad God looked like, or even whether the Mad God truly existed. He had never once broken through the steam and reached the end of the open-air bath.
All he could do was walk endlessly deeper into it.
After walking like that all day, his World Force would eventually be depleted, and his soul would be left on the verge of death.
That state of near-death, a pseudo-death, brought Jaehwan all kinds of hallucinations. Like a life repeatedly flashing before his eyes, he met countless versions of himself from his memories within those pseudo-death hallucinations.
Sometimes, he saw Jaehwan studying for college entrance exams. At other times, he saw Jaehwan cleaning firearms in the military. He also saw Jaehwan from the days he had spent in the 《Tower of Nightmares》 or Chaos.
Every Jaehwan faced a different world. They wore different Clothes, made different expressions, and lived different lives.
「Again?!」
「Knock it off already!」
Sometimes, voices like those sounded in his head.
After reliving old memories amid that brutal heat, Jaehwan felt the outer layer of his body peel away as his World Force grew stronger.
It felt refreshing, as though impurities had been purged from him, while a new fullness rose from the depths of his soul.
This was the peak of Clothes Shedding.
The rest of the process was always the same. La-Hamad would appear from somewhere and pull Jaehwan’s limp body from the bath.
Then La-Hamad would mutter, “Ouroboros,” in a meaningful voice.
Only after all that could Jaehwan say that day’s Clothes Shedding was complete.
Runald asked, “Jaehwan-nim. What exactly are ‘Clothes’? Lately, both you and Karavan-nim, and all the Longevity Clan members too, seem to think they are important... No matter how much I hear about them, I do not understand what they are. You are not talking about the clothes we actually wear, right?”
Jaehwan hesitated for a moment, unsure how to answer.
If he wanted to, he could talk at length about what Clothes were.
For instance, Jaehwan could have said:
“Clothes are the self. They are camouflage used to hide oneself from merciless gazes.”
Or:
“Clothes are the System. They are a device that conceals and deceives the body within predetermined values.”
If the Longevity Clan heard either interpretation, they would likely encourage him by saying, “Anyway, Ouroboros.”
Yet Jaehwan did not like either explanation. He could not tell which one, if either, was correct.
‘Are Clothes the self? Or are they the System?’
There was something about the concept of Clothes that could not be defined so clearly.
After thinking and thinking, Jaehwan had once been unable to resist asking La-Hamad what Clothes were.
La-Hamad had answered:
“Ouroboros.”
Jaehwan had become irritated.
“What does that even mean? You people always say that.”
“Ouroboros is Ouroboros.”
“Speaking cryptically does not make it a profound truth.”
“This is not a matter of what is easy or difficult.”
La-Hamad slowly shook their head, then looked at Jaehwan as though watching a lamb that had left the fence.
“You escaped the System, yet you still live inside it.”
Those words had left a scar deep within Jaehwan’s soul.
Instinctively, he realized something.
La-Hamad’s advice would become a guidepost he absolutely had to remember when he faced 《Big Brother》.
“Jaehwan-nim?”
Runald was looking at him with a puzzled expression.
Jaehwan belatedly cleared his throat and asked, “What were we talking about?”
“What Clothes are.”
For him to get lost in other thoughts while speaking, the heat of the open-air bath must have clouded his mind.
Still, there were thoughts he could only have in that hazy state. Thoughts about Clothes, or Clothes Shedding. Thoughts he could not have with a clear mind.
Jaehwan looked into Runald’s eyes.
They were eyes seeking a clear answer.
Once, Jaehwan had looked at the world with eyes like those. That was why he thought he knew what to say.
“Ouroboros.”
“What?”
“Clothes are Ouroboros.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Come to think of it, the warriors kept pointing at my crotch and saying, ‘Ouroboros, Ouroboros.’”
His crotch?
Perhaps sensing Jaehwan’s gaze, Runald hurriedly covered his crotch with both hands and asked again.
“Anyway, what the hell is Ouroboros?”
“I do not really know either.”
“You are joking right now, right?”
“I do not know everything.”
“But you are doing this Clothes Shedding thing. Does it make sense that you keep shedding Clothes without knowing what Clothes are?”
It was a valid point.
Still, Jaehwan did not panic.
“Runald.”
“Yes.”
“What is life?”
“What?”
Runald was momentarily speechless.
That was only natural.
It was normal not to know how to answer when someone suddenly asked what life was.
Of course, Runald could try to answer somehow. Life was this, or life was that. He could even make a petty joke and say life was an Egg.
But Runald could not easily open his mouth.
Would he have been able to explain it if he knew more words? If he had lived longer, could he have declared what life was?
Runald did not know.
Perhaps the more words he knew, and the longer he lived, the more difficult life would become.
The metaphysical question swelled in his mind like a huge speech bubble.
Then what is life?
In the end, Runald shook his head.
“I do not know.”
Jaehwan nodded.
“That is what it is.”
“What?”
“Neither you nor I know what life is, but we live somehow anyway.”
Runald’s mouth fell open foolishly. Seeming to think the explanation was somehow profound, Runald looked at Jaehwan with admiration after a moment.
“Jaehwan-nim suddenly seems amazing.”
“?”
“I see! Ouroboros means that our lives are...!”
As the nonsense showed signs of becoming long-winded, Jaehwan raised a hand from the bath to stop Runald.
“Runald. Sorry, let us talk later. That is enough for today.”
“What? Why?”
“I think I am about to die.”
“What?”
Looking at the horrified Runald, Jaehwan spoke with an expression that was somehow Ouroboros-like.
“Pull my body out in about ten minutes. I am counting on you.”
The last thing he saw was Runald’s pale face, then Jaehwan lost consciousness.
That was how Jaehwan entered his thirty-eighth state of near-death.
A month later, Jaehwan finally reached the end of the open-air bath.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion