Chapter 263 - Side Story. “Revision” (1)
Chapter 263: Side Story. “Revision” (1)
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“Destruction does not exist. It has never happened, not even once.”
- God Slayer, Jaehwan.
* * *
That day, Jaehwan received an email.
- Proposal for a revised edition serialization of ‘The World After the Fall.’
That was the subject line.
At first, he thought it had been sent by mistake. Then he wondered whether a new management company was recruiting unpopular works that had already finished serialization. Otherwise, there was no reason he would receive an offer like this.
Or maybe it was a scammer.
That was entirely possible too. Management companies usually put their names forward in cases like this, but the email contained nothing of the sort. It was simply a one-sided notice saying that detailed contact would follow soon.
Maybe it was not so strange. The industry was full of people who scammed new writers, not to mention unfair contracts. When he published his first novel, he had received countless notes containing bizarre contract terms.
Still, that had been a long time ago.
Jaehwan checked the date on his smartphone clock and gave a bitter smile.
It really was a scammer.
No matter how he thought about it, that was the only conclusion.
His story had already been completed six years ago.
* * *
It had been six years since Jaehwan finished his serialization.
Perhaps because of the combination of its rough prose and bizarre worldview, Jaehwan’s novel had drawn a little attention from a niche group of readers during its run. Naturally, it had not been positive attention.
Most people called it a strange novel pretending to be genre fiction, clumsily coated in philosophy.
Jaehwan was not especially knowledgeable about philosophy, but he had not felt too bad about it. Thanks to that unusual reception, he had paid off his overdue student loans and earned just enough to get by.
That was all.
Jaehwan’s novel never gained any more popularity. It was buried beneath the countless streams of content pouring out like a waterfall, then forgotten.
Maybe that was only natural. This 「First Nightmare」 contained more Unique Worlds than even the 《Abyss》, and the crude world he had shown was only one of those common worlds.
Maybe Andersen had been right.
Just because he disliked that fact did not mean he could go around destroying every other Unique World, as he had in the 《Abyss》.
“I really enjoyed your story, Jaehwan.”
Teacher, whom he had not seen in a long time, looked healthier than before. After quitting the counseling center and buying a hanok in the countryside on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province, Teacher had recently been absorbed in dantian breathing exercises, claiming to study harmony with parallel universes.
Jaehwan asked Teacher, who was sitting with his eyes closed and steadying his breath.
“Have you stopped counseling altogether now?”
“You are probably the only person who still wants counseling from me, Jaehwan.”
Jaehwan looked at the books on Teacher’s low table. Among them was Professor Sakamoto’s 『Parallel Universes Beside Us』.
“There must be a reason you came all this way. What is troubling you today?”
“I did not come because anything is troubling me...”
Teacher slowly opened his eyes and studied Jaehwan.
“Are those Jaehwan’s words, or are they the words of the System making Jaehwan say that?”
Jaehwan snickered.
Even after everything that had happened, Teacher still had not changed in certain ways.
After taking a slow, deep breath, Jaehwan began to speak.
He told Teacher about the mysterious email that had arrived a few days earlier. About someone wanting to release a revised edition of his novel.
Teacher listened calmly, then lifted the teacup on the table and took a sip of green tea.
“It seems someone has finally recognized that world. I am glad.”
Jaehwan almost asked if Teacher was teasing him again, but he stopped himself.
He knew now. Teacher, sitting before him, was someone who had truly believed in the world Jaehwan had lived in. Someone who had proven its existence through belief.
For that alone, Jaehwan owed Teacher for his faith. If Teacher had not believed in him, Jaehwan could not have challenged that long journey once more.
“What would you like to do, Jaehwan?”
“I do not particularly want to do anything.”
What would change if a revised edition of that book came out now? It had already been six years.
“It seems you have lost a great deal of confidence.”
“I have learned a little about reality.”
Jaehwan could not have been the only person who had tried to change the world. Human history, though short, had seen many revolutionaries. They must have each possessed an Unique World of their own. They would not have called it an Unique World, but they must have gathered people’s belief to bring that world into being. They must have created their own Settings and Parts to entice people.
Yet none of them had ultimately brought about the world they wanted.
“You once told me that my story would make money, Teacher.”
Jaehwan began speaking as though searching through a distant memory.
“You were right. It was not as much as you said, but people really did pay money to read my story. Yet that was exactly as far as it went. No matter what story I wrote, the System only converted its value into money.”
Within the 「First Nightmare」, every revolution became nothing more than a dream.
Just as dreams could not change anything, his story had changed nothing in this world.
No, perhaps it had changed something, if only a little.
Paying off his remaining student loans and earning a few months’ living expenses. Receiving reviews that called it an odd novel.
That was the value of the ten billion years Jaehwan had sold.
That value was far from insignificant. After all, the money his story earned had allowed him to survive in this nightmare.
But whenever he asked himself whether that was truly what he wanted, Jaehwan found himself sinking into a feeling where he no longer knew what to say.
Teacher looked at Jaehwan with sad eyes before speaking.
“Even so, if dreaming is the only thing we can do, should we not at least dream a wonderful dream together?”
Jaehwan looked at Teacher.
He knew what Teacher wanted to say.
Teacher wanted to say that this was the First Nightmare, a world where dreams became reality. Just as those who believed in money gave value to numbers and lived in a world of capital, an illusion believed in by many could gain power.
But Jaehwan shook his head.
“I do not think my dream is that appealing.”
Teacher watched Jaehwan for a moment, then slowly rose and walked to the window. When he pulled aside the heavy curtains and opened it, the scent unique to country roads entered the room with the fading sunset.
Looking at that sunset, Teacher said, “Even if everyone does not believe in that world, I still think your story has value, Jaehwan.”
The view beyond the window spread out like a Monet painting. Teacher’s village could be seen through the gathering dusk.
It was the Commune Teacher had created.
People cultivated crops in fields scattered between rice paddies. There was no internet connection and no smartphones. In a place where no one watched them, people lived together, forming a small world.
Beyond the fields stood small shops and houses here and there.
Not only Koreans lived here. People of many nationalities, with different hair colors and eyes, plowed fields together or prepared the fruit they had picked.
Without realizing it, Jaehwan stood and approached the window.
A rhythmic hammering sound came from somewhere. It was coming from a blacksmith’s shop repairing farming tools.
When he slowly closed his eyes, a scene flickered through Jaehwan’s mind.
Perhaps he knew a scene very much like this one.
“Atopos. That is the name of this village.”
Jaehwan still remembered the village’s name.
The fiftieth floor of the 《Tower of Nightmares》. A village built by the advance force climbing the Tower.
It had been Yoonhwan and Seoyul’s home. He remembered repairing equipment at Jay’s workshop and buying the potions Hiren made. He remembered singing and dancing with the villagers during the festival at the end of every month.
A place that no longer existed anywhere in the world.
When he opened his eyes again, an old man who resembled Jay was waving from beyond the window. Maybe he was not waving at all. Perhaps the old man was simply holding a hammer and repairing farming tools.
Even so, Jaehwan waved back.
That alone made it feel as though something had connected.
Teacher said, “At the very least, Jaehwan has changed this much of the world.”
“It is a village you created, not me.”
“It only became possible after I read Jaehwan’s novel.”
This village was a small pocket of ruin Teacher had created, and a small act of resistance against the System that bound them.
“Teacher.”
“Yes.”
“You know what happened to Atopos, do you not?”
Teacher must have known as well.
This kind of place could not last forever.
Just as the Tower Walkers who betrayed the present had done, someone would leak information about this village. The eyes watching the 「First Nightmare」 would discover it, and the village would become a news story. Capital would flow in. Franchises would arrive, and it would become a tourist attraction. People exhausted by nightmares would come here to rest, feeling a nostalgia as though they had returned to the past.
Eventually, the village would become part of the System.
“Perhaps. But that does not mean the dream you and I had will disappear, Jaehwan.”
Jaehwan and Teacher silently watched the view outside. Before they knew it, the sunset had faded and night was rolling in. Looking up at that night, Teacher murmured, “Come to think of it, there is a dream I have been having often lately.”
It was such an abrupt change of subject that Jaehwan turned to look at Teacher.
Dreams. Sakamoto had said he still dreamed as well.
“It is not a dream of the world Jaehwan told me about.”
“Then...”
“It is a dream of a place I have never seen. In some ways, it resembles your world, Jaehwan. In other ways, it is completely different. For example, there are...”
Teacher paused, choosing his words before speaking again.
“There are a great many stars.”
“There are many stars here too.”
“That is true, but... the stars there are, how should I put it? A little frightening.”
When they looked up at the sky together, a galaxy of countless stars stretched across the country night. Jaehwan imagined the innumerable parallel universes beyond it.
Universes with frightening stars.
“Do you think there is someone in that universe who read my novel?”
Teacher’s eyes widened for a moment, then he smiled.
“There must be a universe where Jaehwan’s novel was widely read.”
He did not know whether that universe was better than this one.
Still, Jaehwan hoped that the unknown reader living in that universe was happy. At least thanks to that reader, the Jaehwan living in that universe would not have to worry about dinner tonight.
Far beyond the night sky, a distant shooting star fell, its tail swaying behind it.
It looked like a shooting star striking through a sentence Jaehwan wanted to revise.
* * *
- As always, go where your heart leads you, Jaehwan.
Teacher’s advice was correct, but sadly, Jaehwan had become someone too exhausted to follow it.
He no longer even knew what his heart wanted.
When he first wrote his novel, Jaehwan had not been like this. His heart had been full of unknowable anger and impulses. There had been things he wanted to change, things he wanted to prove.
The 《Tree of Illusion》 truly existed.
On the day he finished his novel, Jaehwan dreamed of the sky collapsing.
Beyond the cracks in the sky was a world waiting for him. A world with Sirwen, Runald, Cheongheo, and Karlton. A world where he could repeat Stabs, shatter the sky, and challenge the System. The one story he had missed so dearly.
An email woke him from that sweet dream.
- The World After the Fall_January Settlement Statement
Jaehwan read the settlement details attached to the email and watched every word he had written be converted into a fixed amount of money.
He lived on that money and treated Yoonhwan and Seoyul to drinks.
Jaehwan spent his time reading comments from readers who had believed in his world with him. A day passed, then a month, then a year.
Sometimes, he read Professor Sakamoto’s books or attended his lectures.
- Every somatic cell in the human body only lives for about a month. In about a year, every cell in our bodies dies and is replaced. In that sense, who we were a year ago is different from who we are now.
The number of comments from readers gradually dwindled. At some point, there were no comments at all. His life had lasted ten billion years, yet it took less than six years for his life within the 「First Nightmare」 to be forgotten.
Only when everyone had forgotten it was his world finally complete.
Jaehwan accepted that fact.
He thought he had accepted it.
“Jaehwan.”
But if he had accepted it, why had he come here?
“Listen to me carefully.”
Yoonhwan’s eyes shone as he lightly pushed up his glasses and made his declaration.
Feeling as though things had somehow become complicated, Jaehwan looked around. Seoyul was smiling faintly beyond a partition a few steps away.
Several years ago, the two had opened a small web novel management company.
In other words, this was Yoonhwan and Seoyul’s office.
“You are listening, right?”
“Yeah.”
Yoonhwan had been passionately talking ever since he read the email Jaehwan received. He said it was an opportunity. He said revised editions were incredibly rare.
Jaehwan spoke as though trying to calm him down.
“There’s no guarantee the email is real. I don’t even understand why anyone would want to release a revised edition of such an old work. There’s no management company name, either. It’s probably a company that just started and doesn’t know what it’s doing, or a scammer.”
“That’s what you think. The person who wrote this email is famous in this industry.”
“Who’s this person?”
Without a word, Yoonhwan pointed to the nickname in the email address.
Jaehwan studied the nickname closely.
It read:
tls123.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion