Chapter 238 - Episode 31. Big Brother (3)
Chapter 238: Episode 31. Big Brother (3)
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Jaehwan walked through the deep darkness.
He walked, and walked, and walked some more.
At times, he ran or swung Dokbul at empty space. At some point, he realized it was meaningless. Even pouring out World Force, walking, or running had become meaningless.
Nothing he did could let him escape this space.
Perhaps Jaehwan had realized that far too late.
An endless space of darkness.
Was this what the primordial universe had looked like?
When he first stepped into this space, Jaehwan had thought his goal was right before him.
There was only a little left. Once he met 《Big Brother》 and dealt with it, everything would end.
Perhaps it had not been Maiad who fell into the trap of “a little.”
Perhaps it had been Jaehwan.
No matter how far he walked, the darkness did not end.
Perfect darkness, where he could not distinguish front from back or left from right.
Within the pitch-black void, all that echoed were Jaehwan’s own footsteps and, now and then, his voice.
“Big Brother!”
He had called out like that before. He had searched for other souls too, just in case. Yet no one answered.
He was completely cut off from the outside.
Jaehwan knew that he was the only thing that existed in this vast space.
* * *
A month passed.
The only reason he could measure time at all was because he maintained his Unique World and used it to precisely track his own units of time.
Jaehwan drew in a breath, and dazzling World Force burst from his entire body.
Jaehwan Style, First Form.
「Constellation Rending」
Jaehwan’s Setting surged from Dokbul’s blade.
It was power that had torn apart even the space of the 《Abyss》. Jaehwan’s secret technique, strengthened further after reaching the fifth stage of Awakening, slashed straight through the empty darkness.
Yet the darkness only rippled faintly. Nothing changed.
‘As expected, it doesn’t work.’
He had even tried attacking with the power of 「Ouroboros」, but the darkness before him did not suffer the slightest damage. It was darkness with an almost microscopic density.
He had tried using every bit of 「Doubt」 and 「Understanding」 to analyze the components of this space, but even Jaehwan, who had proven his Unique World, could not determine what kind of “world” this darkness was.
It was as if his perception was still incapable of recognizing this vast darkness as a world.
A month passed that way.
At last, Jaehwan reached a conclusion.
There was no way out of this space.
The only possible method was to return the way he had come, but he had long forgotten the path he had taken.
Perhaps he could leave if he waited for the 《Abyss》 to “blink” once more...
‘But I can’t go back like that.’
How could he return to the 《Abyss》 after coming all this way?
It had never been a real option.
Then the only answer was to move forward. The problem was which direction counted as forward.
This was a place where he could not even guess where the “end” lay.
Jaehwan believed that this place had likely been created by 《Big Brother》. After all, 《Big Brother》 was probably the only being capable of creating somewhere so unusual.
Jaehwan walked wherever his feet took him. As always, it was the only path he could choose.
Another month passed that way.
“Is anyone there?”
It was embarrassing enough that he had spoken aloud. The fact that no one answered was even more painful.
Painful?
Jaehwan suddenly wondered if he had grown too soft.
He was used to solitude. In the 《Tower of Nightmares》, he had practiced Stabs alone for decades. No conversations, no communication, nothing but complete focus on Stab itself.
‘If I practiced Stabs like I did back then...’
He had considered it before.
He had already passed the stage where repeating simple Stabs would make him stronger, but one never knew. He had now reached the fifth stage of Awakening. The Stabs he practiced now would surely be different from the ones he had practiced back then.
Developing a Stab capable of tearing this space apart through endless practice was one possible answer.
Jaehwan decided to put himself at ease.
The fact that even he, who had completed 「Proof」, could not escape this darkness was solid evidence that 《Big Brother》 stood beyond it.
Jaehwan began practicing Stabs.
Once, twice, three times...
Unlike before, when he had used aura to repeat thousands of Stabs, each strike was precise and measured, filled with his soul.
Stabs that no longer cared about the number.
Stabs continued for their own sake.
Jaehwan focused every sense on the instant of each strike as he stabbed into empty space again and again.
* * *
Three years passed.
Scratching his now-shaggy hair, Jaehwan tossed Dokbul onto the ground.
There had been almost no progress in his Stabs. He had achieved some minor results, such as using World Force more efficiently or drawing out the power of 「Fall」 in a more refined form, but they were too insignificant to call achievements.
He had practiced Stabs for three whole years, and this was all he had gained.
‘Has it really been three years?’
His sense of time was slowly fading. Perhaps it was because he had remained in darkness for so long, or perhaps there was another reason.
‘The time multiplier is different.’
Jaehwan remembered the strange sensation from when he first entered this place. It had felt similar to the first time he entered the 《Tower of Nightmares》, where time was compressed to an extreme degree.
It felt as though he had fallen into a sea of time condensed at impossibly high density. The density was even greater than when the Tower of Nightmares’ time multiplier was set to its maximum.
Thousands of times, perhaps tens of thousands.
At this rate, the three years and two months he had spent here would barely amount to an instant by the 《Abyss》’s standards.
‘How did Maiad challenge this place 127 times?’
The fact that Maiad had survived despite failing 127 times meant they had found a way to return to the 《Abyss》.
‘Does an exit back to the 《Abyss》 appear if I wait long enough?’
Yet no matter how long he waited, no exit appeared.
At least, not over the past three years.
With a calm mind, Jaehwan reviewed the information Maiad had given him about 《Big Brother》.
‘Maiad said they had never seen 《Big Brother》.’
That meant Maiad had failed to advance beyond this darkness as well. They had given up right here.
Jaehwan steadied himself before boredom could take hold.
‘How did I train for two thousand years in 《Carpe Diem》?’
Thinking about it now, it was strange.
Back when he was in 《Chaos》, Jaehwan had practiced Stabs for what amounted to two thousand years. He had never truly felt as though he had spent “two thousand years,” but the time multiplier had been set so high that, according to the calculation, he had undoubtedly spent that much time.
Now that he was actually trapped in a space like this, he began to wonder whether that time multiplier had truly been real.
No matter how high it was, there was no way anyone could practice Stabs with a sound mind for two thousand years.
Jaehwan shook his head. This was no time for such idle thoughts. It was better to perform even one more Stab.
This was the only way out of this space.
* * *
Ten years passed.
Jaehwan was no longer unfamiliar with the darkness.
His senses, sharpened through relentless training, had evolved to the point where he could see the world within the darkness as clearly as in broad daylight.
Still, he could not see the end of this space.
He felt like Achilles in Zeno’s paradox.
This space was, in other words, the universe itself. As his 「Doubt」 and 「Understanding」 grew, so did the universe’s expanse.
It was the first time he had faced a wall like this.
No matter what he did, it felt as though he would never reach the end of this world. That helpless uncertainty made Jaehwan lonely.
Loneliness.
For the first time in a while, Jaehwan thought deeply about that emotion.
When he trained in 《Carpe Diem》, he could at least see Cayman and Cheongheo. Teaching them as they trained had fulfilled some of his human needs as well.
But not here.
Perhaps he truly had grown weaker. As he saved so many souls and fought, then defeated countless enemies, perhaps the fragile human within him had quietly grown this much.
Swish.
Dokbul’s blade cut through empty space.
Listening to that sound, Jaehwan felt anew that he was alone.
Whenever he let himself drift in the symphony of those sounds, memories floated endlessly through his mind.
He thought of those he had met while traveling through the 《Abyss》. He remembered the names of people from whom he had drifted apart without even getting to say a proper goodbye.
Memories of Andersen and Runald.
「You’ll definitely become a good god.」
「Do you think I can become like you someday, Jaehwan?」
Martis and Minerva, with whom he had climbed 〈Metaverse〉.
「I’m still practicing the Stab you taught me.」
「You got a little irritated when I called you a ‘beginner,’ didn’t you?」
The Leader and Ethan, whom he had met as enemies but fought beside.
「I’m letting you go first for now, but someday I’ll challenge the end of the Abyss too. Go on ahead and wait for me.」
「Perhaps our five hundred years had meaning because of you.」
Cheongheo and Karlton.
「Brat. Cut every now and then too. You need a balanced diet.」
「Fortress Lord, you can return whenever things become difficult.」
Sirwen, the dream demon.
「I’ll wait.」
Yulhen, Gorgon’s Chief Internal Administrator, and the people of 《Chaos》. The Hall Masters, including Cayman.
Memories of Mino came to him as well.
「You don’t look like a ‘human.’」
Whenever the memories exhausted him, he sometimes spent time slowly savoring the 「Record of the Abyss」 Mulack had left behind.
Even in Mulack’s memories, he could find no record of this “space.” The 「Record of the Abyss」 held Mulack’s memories only up until just before the challenge to 《Big Brother》. As the title suggested, they were records confined to the “Abyss.”
Still, one thing seemed certain.
Mulack had met 《Big Brother》.
Mulack had clearly broken through this space.
Jaehwan did not know what happened afterward, but there was no doubt that this path was the surest way to meet 《Big Brother》.
Sometimes, memories of his life on Earth surfaced too. There was not much worth remembering, but it was not as though he had no memories at all.
For example, memories of his parents.
Jaehwan had not been especially close to either of them. His father had always valued work over family, and worked so hard that he met another woman at work and started a new family with her.
He had not had many chances to speak with his mother either. In Jaehwan’s memories, she was always busy, either out at work or asleep from exhaustion.
Jaehwan had not been raised by his parents.
He had been raised by the sea of the internet and anonymous people. By hundreds of books, then hundreds of films and hundreds of comics, countless pieces of content, and himself.
「The Little Prince said, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”」
There was also a scene that came to him whenever he closed his eyes.
A distant, aching voice. A voice that seemed to rise from the foundation of his memories, or from the primordial sea.
A story from before Jaehwan’s “world” had been completed, before his parents divorced, when everything had been peaceful.
「Then what happens to the world the Little Prince leaves behind?」
「The world the Little Prince leaves behind...」
Jaehwan sometimes thought that might have been his mother’s voice.
What was she doing now? Was she still alive?
Thinking of his mother’s voice, now faded and faint, Jaehwan quietly fell asleep.
* * *
Fifty years passed.
It was absurd. Fifty years.
Could fifty years really pass by so easily? On Earth, it would have been nearly a lifetime.
Yet it had undoubtedly been fifty years.
It did not feel real, but Jaehwan’s Unique World told him so.
You have spent fifty years.
His Stabs still showed no improvement, nor had any other Settings changed much.
Still, there had been a subtle change in Jaehwan’s routine.
In a space without day or night, he divided time into arbitrary twenty-four-hour periods. For eighteen hours each day, he repeated Stabs. For five hours, he sat and meditated.
Then he slept for one hour.
He did not need sleep, but he slept anyway. Even a brief nap that clouded his awareness helped him endure the long years.
One day, Jaehwan suddenly opened his eyes while sitting cross-legged in meditation.
The urge to say something rose within him. At the same time, he did not want to speak to something like this.
But he also felt that if he did not speak to even something like this, he might lose his mind.
“Hey.”
At Jaehwan’s quiet voice, he heard something squirm.
The sound did not come from beyond the darkness.
It came from very close by, right beside Jaehwan.
“Open your mouth before I break you.”
At those words, something trembled with a low hum. It seemed afraid, or perhaps it was struggling with something.
After a moment, as if it had made up its mind, it opened its mouth in Jaehwan’s grip with a crack.
[Have you been well?]
It was the first time Dokbul had spoken.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion