Chapter 37 - Episode 6. God of Despair (6)
Chapter 37: Episode 6. God of Despair (6)
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Cheongheo stopped walking and dropped heavily onto a chair at an open-air tavern. Jaehwan hesitated for a moment, then sat beside him. Cheongheo ordered liquor and snacks as he pleased, then said,
“Keheh, you must be sad your shop was ruined.”
Jaehwan wondered who he was talking to, but then a knife clattered onto a cutting board.
“Mind your own business, old man.”
To Jaehwan’s surprise, the owner of the open-air tavern was Claire, the woman who had been with Mino. Come to think of it, this was the Northern Market Street where the incident had happened earlier that day.
Cheongheo chuckled.
“Are you going to run an outdoor stall for a while?”
“What choice do I have? Some bastard wrecked my shop.”
“You opened up even after what happened today. You’re really mad for money.”
“Just drink your liquor, old man.”
Claire glanced at Jaehwan, then began preparing the food. Before long, she brought over a large bowl of seasoned One-Horned Beast skewers and a bottle of One-Horn Liquor.
“Keu, this is nice.”
Cheongheo took a long swig straight from the bottle, let out a deep belch, and said,
“Where was I?”
“You said Chaos used to be a peaceful place.”
“Ah, right.”
Cheongheo gave a bitter smile.
“It was very peaceful back then.”
Peace.
It was a strange word. If everything had truly been peaceful, if everyone had enjoyed comfort throughout eternity, then why had 《Chaos》 fallen into this state?
“If I had to name the root of it all, it would be right here.”
Cheongheo swirled the liquor in his cup. Then he drank from the bottle again and again before picking at the snacks.
Eat, drink, then eat and drink again.
“...What do you mean?”
Jaehwan could only guess that it had something to do with liquor, judging by how much Cheongheo kept drinking.
All around them, drunks shouted as they picked fights in their intoxication. Liquor...
Jaehwan spoke.
“Did everyone get drunk and start fighting?”
Cheongheo sprayed liquor from his mouth and burst out laughing.
“Khahahah! It would have been better if that were all!”
Claire muttered something about a filthy old man in annoyance.
“You’re still young, so you don’t know anything.”
Cheongheo wiped his mouth with his sleeve and continued.
“Well, how much could a brat who spent his whole life stabbing ten billion times know about life?”
“Life?”
“Don’t you find it strange? No one here needs to eat food.”
The people of Chaos did not need to eat.
They could not starve to death here.
And yet, when mealtime came, they ate as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Even the liquor is like this. Liquor here can never get you drunk. It only imitates the appearance of it.”
Jaehwan poured himself a mouthful of the liquor called One-Horn Liquor. The scent of alcohol spread through his mouth for an instant, but he did not feel drunk at all. These drinks were no different from non-alcoholic beverages that only copied the flavor and scent of liquor.
A question suddenly came to him.
“Then what are they?”
Where Jaehwan’s gaze landed, those same drunkards were flushed and grabbing each other by the collars.
“What do you think they are?”
“They look like drunks...”
“Drunks? After drinking liquor that cannot intoxicate them?”
Something inside Jaehwan’s chest turned cold.
He watched the drunkards more closely. Their faces were red, they were worked up, and their breath came out in hot snorts. But...
Something important was missing from that scene.
Their eyes were far too clear for intoxicated people.
Only then did Jaehwan realize it. They were simply pretending to be drunk.
Why?
As he watched Cheongheo silently pour down liquor that could not intoxicate him, and the people repeatedly engage in fights without drunkenness, Jaehwan gradually felt as though he understood the answer.
A life of eternity.
A peaceful world without death or war.
Who had been the first to long for the urgency of a life that held death within it?
Jaehwan said,
“They’re imitating life...”
A finite life with death.
It was strange.
Once they had escaped death, they began to long for a life that included it.
Could such a thing really happen?
Even so, Jaehwan felt he understood how they felt.
Perhaps they wanted to live a “real life” once more.
A life with a body and a beating heart. A life where they would die if they did not eat, and get drunk when they drank. They must have wanted to lose themselves in that kind of life again.
Cheongheo chuckled.
“Yes, that’s right. Real life. That was the root of it all. One day, people who longed for something ‘real’ began appearing even in Chaos.”
Cheongheo ordered another bottle of One-Horn Liquor and continued.
“Strictly speaking, people who longed for that ‘real thing’ existed thousands, even tens of thousands of years ago. There just were not many of them.”
“...Then their numbers suddenly grew?”
“They accumulated. Over an endless span of time.”
Until then, beings who had spent ages in Chaos chose one of two paths. One day, they would leave the Fortress alone and quietly undergo Eternal Extinction, or they would set off on a journey with no return toward the heart of Chaos, where the entrance to the 《Abyss》 lay.
Then one day, people began making a different choice.
People who had grown sick of eternal life. People who longed for something real. They gathered and made a plan.
“That was how the ‘Abyss Expedition’ was formed. An expedition of people who dreamed of the impossible, gathered to reclaim real life.”
Looking into Cheongheo’s deepened eyes, Jaehwan suddenly realized it.
The old man before him had once been part of that expedition.
“Why did you head for the Abyss?”
“To find the 「Fruit」.”
“Fruit?”
“The 「Fruit of Resurrection」. People usually just call it the 「Fruit」.”
Only then did Jaehwan understand what the word 「Fruit」, which he had often heard through Doubt, referred to.
Just as Mino had said, there was only one way for the dead to return to life in this world.
Eat the Fruit of Resurrection, which was said to hang from a Branch of the 《Tree of Illusion》 at the end of the 《Abyss》.
The Abyss Expedition was a journey to find that Fruit.
“I was young back then too. I was only a hundred and fifty years old. I had just undergone Awakening, so it was an age when I feared nothing.”
“So you joined the Abyss Expedition?”
“That’s right.”
Jaehwan pictured Cheongheo at one hundred and fifty years old. Of course, he could not picture it clearly. Cheongheo must have been an old man even then. Once he thought about it that way, Cheongheo’s talk of being young felt strange.
This old man had already been old in his “youth.”
Then something occurred to Jaehwan.
“Was that when you traveled with Mulack?”
Cheongheo gave him an impressed look and nodded.
“The Dream Demon Mulack was in the Abyss Expedition I joined. More precisely, Mulack was its leader.”
* * *
Cheongheo still remembered those days as vividly as though they had happened yesterday. The day he first applied to join the Abyss Expedition and met Mulack.
“An Awakened One. How interesting.”
That was the first thing Mulack had said upon meeting Cheongheo.
“On top of that, you have undergone incomplete Awakening without discarding your emotions... You walk a truly unusual path of Awakening. It must be difficult.”
Cheongheo had not felt good about those words.
They were true.
Everyone who walked the path of Awakening eventually had to cast aside their identity as a human. It was the price of seeing the true world.
But Cheongheo had still not abandoned his humanity. Because of that, he fell behind the Companions who had awakened alongside him and became weaker than them.
Then he died.
And came to Chaos.
“Cut the useless talk.”
“My apologies. It seems I brought up an uncomfortable subject.”
Uncomfortable?
Was it only the subject that made him uncomfortable? In truth, Cheongheo had been unable to hide his displeasure from the moment he saw Mulack.
Cheongheo, too, had once been a 「Product」. He had spent decades in the Great Realm, but his hatred for all things related to the Tower of Nightmares remained unchanged.
As proof, throughout his travels in the Great Realm, Cheongheo had beaten every demon he encountered to a pulp.
But he had never killed a Dream Demon.
“What is a Dream Demon doing in the 《Abyss》? You lot used to stay locked in your rooms making Towers.”
As far as Cheongheo knew, the Dream Demon before him was not dead. Mulack had entered 《Chaos》 as a living being through the 「Narrow Gate」, a Treasure of the Dream Demons.
“It seems cultivation has left you resentful.”
Mulack paused to think, then said,
“I have nothing to say about that. Even if I apologized on behalf of every Dream Demon, it would be meaningless.”
“Cut it out.”
“I believe it is a sin I must carry for the rest of my life.”
A Dream Demon who regretted making Towers. Naturally, Cheongheo thought it was mockery. He had never heard of such a Dream Demon.
“You may not believe me, but the reason I entered this 《Tree of Illusion》, and the reason I am heading for the 《Abyss》, is because of those very ‘Towers.’”
“What?”
Cheongheo had never forgotten what Mulack said next.
“To end all cultivation. That is why I joined this ‘expedition.’”
After listening that far, Jaehwan asked,
“To end all cultivation?”
“Yes, that was what Mulack said. Mulack was truly unusual...”
“Did the expedition succeed?”
“You could say it did, at least. I fell behind midway and only made it to the entrance of the 《Abyss》... But Mulack seemed to have reached the top of the 《Tree of Illusion》.”
“How do you know?”
“Because 「Fruit」 began falling from the Branches.”
Cheongheo still vividly remembered the sight of countless Fruits falling from the sky.
A shower of golden meteors that would return hope to them.
“You could say we were lucky. Thanks to that, every member of the expedition was able to return to 《Chaos》 carrying armfuls of Fruit.”
“I see.”
But something felt strange.
If they had obtained the 「Fruit」 through the expedition’s success, why was this old man still in 《Chaos》?
Then someone else joined the conversation.
Claire.
“Watch your mouth even if you’re dead, old man. The expedition succeeded?”
“I was wondering why you were being so quiet.”
“That expedition failed. Didn’t even you admit that?”
“...What would someone who was not even alive back then know?”
Claire frowned and carried snacks to another table. Cheongheo clicked his tongue and took another drink.
Jaehwan asked,
“What do you mean the expedition failed?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like. The expedition failed.”
“Didn’t you just say it succeeded?”
“...We succeeded in obtaining the 「Fruit」.”
The implication was clear.
Something had happened to them on the way back with the Fruit.
“There were people waiting for us at the entrance back to 《Chaos》.”
People who had remained in Chaos for countless years but lacked the courage to enter the 《Abyss》. And yet, they were stronger than anyone in the expedition.
Cheongheo said,
“They were the past Lords and House Heads of the Great Realm.”
For the first time, something close to anger crossed Cheongheo’s calm eyes. Even though it had happened centuries ago, he still remembered that moment clearly.
“At the time, the expedition included the Fortress Lords of the Four Fortresses and the Hall Masters of the Ten Halls. But even when all of them fought together, we could not defeat those people. Honestly, we were no match for them.”
A terrifying gap in power.
Spiritual Pressure on a different level.
An unfathomable gap of time that could never be crossed, no matter how long they pursued it.
Cheongheo’s hand holding the cup trembled slightly.
“So the 「Fruit」 was taken from you.”
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