Chapter 241 - Episode 31. Big Brother (6)
Chapter 241: Episode 31. Big Brother (6)
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He had even forgotten how long it had been since he stopped researching 「Setting」. More than that, his task had become surviving every second and every minute that felt as though it would drive him mad.
Once he stopped practicing Stab and researching Setting, the self that his repeated habits had firmly suppressed came pouring out like a waterfall.
What am I even doing here?
Why do I have to do this?
Jaehwan poured World Force wildly into the darkness. He poured and poured until not a trace of World Force remained in his body. The World Force that flew into the void never returned.
At last, Jaehwan felt his humanity collapsing.
Why do I have to destroy the System?
Is there really any need to?
Everyone hates it.
They're afraid of it.
No, I'm already part of the System.
Jaehwan wailed as he looked at the cracks covering his Unique World.
His sobbing continued for a long time.
* * *
[Isn't this getting dangerous?]
[It is.]
[Well, even that guy has his limits. 1.8 million years? Does that make any sense? How can a person endure 1.8 million years without losing their mind?]
[Hey, what are we going to do? If that guy goes mad, we're screwed.]
Silence spread for a moment. Countless shadows flickered within it.
The largest shadow spoke.
[Let's wait a little longer.]
* * *
1.85 million years.
Jaehwan had only one thought.
I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die
Then, with a horrifying sound, his language came to a halt.
* * *
1.9 million years.
...
* * *
1.95 million years.
Was it an auditory hallucination?
Voices began to reach him from somewhere.
[Rest now.]
[From here on, we'll help you.]
Then Jaehwan lost consciousness.
* * *
His memories after that were not clear.
No, memories were never clear to begin with, so perhaps mentioning it at all was simply a waste of space.
* * *
7.6 million years.
The clock kept recording time. Jaehwan often lost consciousness. It was as though all of this were one long dream. Memories of 《Chaos》 and the 《Abyss》 drifted through his mind like distant afterimages, then vanished. Everything felt like a brief daydream created by an empty universe. He occasionally regained consciousness and heard voices that seemed to be speaking to him.
[Hey, it's fine. Keep sleeping.]
...
Listening to that voice, Jaehwan kept falling asleep.
11 million years...
25.41 million years...
36.51 million years...
Time continued to pass.
Even while asleep, Jaehwan could feel and hear many things.
In his hazy consciousness, stories occasionally seeped in. They were precious pieces of information that could not be heard anywhere in the 《Abyss》. He did not know who had researched them or who had spoken of them.
46.07 million years...
Within a long dream, Jaehwan drifted through a vast sea of thought.
What is existence?
What is consciousness?
What is death?
What is a world?
What is the universe?
Emptiness.
Questions that countless philosophies had rushed to ask floated through his mind. At times, the simplest answer that could encompass a complex world colored his thoughts.
Maybe everything really was a dream.
The time Jaehwan had spent living in the darkness now exceeded the combined time he had spent on Earth, in the Tower, in 《Chaos》, and in the 《Abyss》 by more than three thousand times.
Because of that, Jaehwan could no longer tell where his reality was.
What was reality, anyway?
As he became aware of the threadlike self flickering within the endless darkness, Jaehwan finally realized how small and meaningless he was.
Everything he had considered valuable was fleeting.
Perhaps Beastrein had been right.
Justice.
Value.
Meaning.
All at once, everything felt trivial.
His desperate struggles. Every battle that had brought him here.
Enormous questions constantly assaulted his consciousness, and he often collapsed before them. The humans he had believed in were not even a speck in this vast stretch of time. The humanity he had tried to protect was no more than a fleeting delusion left behind by a speck brushing past the darkness.
Insignificant.
Whenever Jaehwan broke apart beneath such realizations, voices would assemble him again and pull him back to his feet.
[Don't think, idiot.]
[Didn't we say we'd think for you?]
[We'll handle the thinking that needs to be done.]
[You just shut up and think about how you're going to land one on that bastard.]
Jaehwan did not know who they were. Even so, he knew they were keeping him alive.
Who are they? Why would they show me such kindness?
All Jaehwan could do was close his eyes again before he lost his mind.
* * *
150.86 million years passed.
Within a deep dream, Jaehwan realized that he stood inside the enormous ring of Ouroboros.
A great circle that repeated everything. A circle of recurrence. An immense contradiction that devoured itself, then produced itself anew.
Jaehwan began to understand the universe little by little.
For example, he realized what Clothes were.
Clothes were power born through the System.
The desire to be seen by someone. A means of adorning oneself. Power created through the gaze of others. Another self formed at the moment one collided with the world of the System.
Countless realizations violently swept through Jaehwan's soul.
At that moment, he felt as though he could understand the 《System》, the meaning of existence, and the meaning of this space all at once.
A universe was about to be born within him.
Then, at that moment.
[That's far enough.]
A voice spoke.
Huh?
[Only think that far.]
Why?
[Because if you go beyond that point, you won't be able to come back.]
I won't be able to come back?
[It means you won't be human anymore.]
Was I still human?
[Yes, you're still human.]
For some reason, Jaehwan felt like crying.
The voice continued.
[If you go beyond that point, you won't be able to remain a 'being.']
But...
[This is completely different from becoming a god and transcending 'being.' The moment you cross that boundary, you'll lose your personhood and completely leave the category of perception.]
Jaehwan felt as though he vaguely understood those words.
Even so, he wanted more. Since he had come this far, he wanted to see what lay beyond. He wanted to know the sublime truths of the universe beyond it, and the secrets of the vast world.
He wanted to understand the beginning and end of everything.
[You'll deny the time you've lived through. Do you want that?]
At the voice's words, Jaehwan's thoughts stopped as well.
I would deny myself.
[You'll lose your goal. You'll forget why you came this far. You'll lose the meaning of the time you've endured. You'll leave for a world without meaning.]
A universe beckoned to him from far away.
If he went just a little farther, he could know. If he went just a little farther, he could end all of this.
For some reason, he could not take another step. Every one of his senses told him he could not go there.
They told him he must not know it.
[Don't worry. Leave it to us.]
The voice was strangely reassuring.
Jaehwan did not walk any farther. He watched the universe recede into the distance.
[Remain human.]
* * *
He did not know how much time passed after that.
Within his dim consciousness, Jaehwan heard countless stars exploding. Sometimes, he heard noises like the horns of trains.
A hundred million years? A billion years? Perhaps more than ten billion years had passed.
Jaehwan could now tell exactly what state he was in.
He was still trapped in that damned darkness, but his consciousness was not awake. At the same time, it was awake.
How could such a contradiction be possible?
Someone had descended into his soul and was living through his time in his place.
But who?
Why?
Amid the merciless violence of time, he sometimes heard the screams of dying souls. Jaehwan knew whose screams they were.
Tears ran down his face.
He wanted to tell them not to do this.
Why were they doing it? For what reason?
Sometimes, he heard sounds that seemed to signal the birth of a new universe.
A total of sixteen universes bloomed and faded.
That much time had passed.
Then, at some point, silence arrived.
A silence where no one spoke and no one answered.
Even while dreaming, he had heard voices at steady intervals. Their voices allowed him to sleep without fear.
But silence?
Jaehwan was terrified.
Is anyone there?
Could there really be no one left?
Did they all die?
The screams he had heard through that endless time echoed in Jaehwan's ears.
Was that it? Had they all died?
In this universe now...
That was when he heard the voice.
[Did you sleep well? You can wake up now.]
At the same time, a brilliant light touched his eyelids. A terrible dizziness swept over him as his self merged with his soul. His consciousness began to awaken.
Jaehwan slowly opened his eyes and gave a slight shudder. It was because he had not moved his body in far too long. Every part of his soul form creaked. An unfamiliar groan escaped his lips. It was the first time in a long while that he had heard his own voice.
Haa... haa...
Only after breathing deeply and steadying himself did Jaehwan finally manage to sit up.
How long did he sit there?
Jaehwan began rubbing his eyes. Clichéd as it was, he even pinched his cheek. He gave a hollow laugh and tried to force out tears. Only after enduring for some time did Jaehwan barely accept that this was reality.
A blinding baptism of light poured down on him.
It was an exit shaped like a massive Ouroboros. The entrance to a new world and the exit from this place stood there.
As he faced that light, Jaehwan realized where the exit led.
That place is not the 《Abyss》.
Memories that had faded after so much time began to awaken one by one. The stories he had treasured, polished, and preserved for so long were stretching awake.
I lived to go there.
Jaehwan rose to his feet. Then he carefully began to walk forward, one step after another. His gait was awkward, and Dokbul hanging at his waist rattled pitifully.
Still, Jaehwan did not stop walking.
[Yes, that's how you should walk.]
The voice spoke.
Jaehwan looked around. There was no trace of the voice anywhere.
He remembered that this voice had always spoken from within him. Using his own voice, Jaehwan asked,
“Who are you?”
The voice did not answer again.
Jaehwan stepped into the light.
At last, his darkness came to an end.
* * *
Bathed in brilliant rays of light that struck his entire soul, Jaehwan stood still with both arms spread wide. Each particle of light quietly seeped into his soul.
Like a newly sprouted seed.
Or a newborn child who had just entered the world.
Jaehwan remained in the blessing of that light for a long while.
The weight of time was disappearing.
The ennui that had rotted his soul like stagnant water vanished.
It felt like entering a bathhouse after rolling through mud.
Jaehwan found it funny that he could still use such a comparison. More precisely, it felt strange that he could still use language at all. He should have discarded this inefficient means of communication long ago. In fact, he had tried to discard it several times.
Yet he had not abandoned language. He had even made it all the way here with it.
Language was one of the few primitive tools that still made him human.
Using that primitive tool, Jaehwan softly made a sound.
“Ah.”
As he gradually became accustomed to his unfamiliar voice and regained some composure, Jaehwan began looking around.
A pure white passage covered in brilliant light. It was a space that seemed to transcend time itself. He did not know why, but it felt strangely familiar.
After walking a little farther, he noticed large tanks arranged along the edges of the passage. They stood at regular intervals, each containing souls that retained their forms as though preserved in formalin. Every soul slept curled up like a fetus.
Jaehwan found small nameplates attached to the corners of the tanks.
.
.
God of Wandering, Kairos.
Lord of Strictness, Schindler.
God of Travel, Becht.
.
.
They were all names he had never seen before. Perhaps they were beings even older than the Three Ancient Gods.
Each soul wore an expression he could not understand. They looked like sages who had realized every truth in the world, yet also like wanderers who had lost everything in life.
Then, at some point, Jaehwan came across a familiar name for the first time.
Gainak, Lord of Sloth.
Jaehwan looked at the name again and again.
Gainak, Lord of Sloth.
There was no doubt.
Jaehwan knew this bastard.
Gainak was the Driver of the 〈Metaverse〉, the Tower Jaehwan had destroyed, the very one who had said,
「I thought you'd understand me.」
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion