Chapter 55 - Episode 8. The Last Romance (11)
Chapter 55: Episode 8. The Last Romance (11)
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“Fine.”
“Does that mean you will accept the Question of Justice?”
The Goddess Hall Master’s eyes gleamed. She looked as though she had caught him. Jaehwan nodded.
“What do I have to do?”
“It’s simple. You only need to answer my questions.”
The Goddess Hall Master continued with a smile.
“Everyone, would you please close your eyes for a moment?”
Jaehwan and all the spectators closed their eyes.
In the darkness, he felt the scenery around them change. A cold chill swept through the air.
The Question of Justice had begun.
When Jaehwan opened his eyes, he found himself standing atop a vast ocean. More precisely, the entire arena had become a sea.
Another illusion?
The spectators gasped in amazement.
The Goddess Hall Master’s voice rang out.
“The setting for this Question of Justice is the Great Sea Zone, where I live. As you know, the waters outside Dryad are all treacherous seas like this. Ships are often wrecked here, as you can see.”
Towering waves and dense reefs surrounded them. At the center of the stage was an already-wrecked ship. Its human passengers had fallen into the sea and were desperately flailing.
“Sa-save me!”
Sadly, most of the passengers soon ran out of breath and suffered soul extinction in the freezing waters of the Great Sea Zone. The scene was far too vivid to dismiss as an illusion, and the spectators shuddered.
A rescue boat appeared shortly afterward. It could carry ten people and picked up survivors one by one. After some time, it had managed to take aboard most of them.
But there was a problem.
“What do we do? There’s one more person we have to take aboard.”
The rescue boat only held ten.
And one person was still left behind.
The sailors shouted.
“But if we take them aboard, the boat will sink!”
“We have to leave them behind. The people who can live have to live!”
When Jaehwan suddenly came to his senses, he realized he had become the captain of the rescue boat. One of the sailors clung to him.
“Captain! You need to decide now!”
Jaehwan’s lips parted, then closed.
So this was the Question of Justice.
He could see the Goddess Hall Master smiling faintly.
Choices slowly appeared before him.
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1. “The people who can live have to live! We abandon one person!”
2. “We cannot abandon anyone! Even if the boat sinks, we take them aboard!”
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Strictly speaking, Questions of Justice had no answers. Every choice required giving something up.
If Jaehwan chose the first option, someone would condemn his coldness. If he chose the second, someone would condemn his judgment.
No matter which choice he made, his qualifications as expedition commander would come under attack.
It had been a cleverly prepared trap from the start.
“Fortress Lord of Gorgon, what will you do?”
Jaehwan silently studied the choices before opening his mouth.
“I’ll choose number three.”
“...What? There is no such option.”
Jaehwan shook his head and repeated himself.
“Number three. No one dies, and the boat doesn’t sink.”
The Goddess Hall Master’s expression changed.
Unlike most Questions of Justice, which had no correct answer, this one did have a clear answer.
A hidden third option truly existed.
It was an option that would only appear once someone found the solution on their own.
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3. “No one can be abandoned. Rescue them, then take turns entering the water one at a time! We endure until another rescue team arrives!”
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It was the only choice that preserved the humanity needed to save everyone without sacrificing the judgment needed to do so.
The Goddess Hall Master had planned to reveal this answer after Jaehwan chose option one or two, undermining his competence. That alone would have naturally turned public opinion in her favor.
But her plan was falling apart.
He found option three?
The Goddess Hall Master concealed her trembling and asked.
“Let’s hear it, then. What exactly is this third option you chose?”
Jaehwan said, “Those people are dying because the sea exists, right?”
“...I suppose so?”
“Then split the sea.”
The Goddess Hall Master looked as though she had been struck in the head.
...What was this human talking about?
He should have given a serious answer, yet he was spouting such nonsense. Had he panicked and lost his judgment?
Then Jaehwan’s Dokbul moved.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
An overwhelming wind pressure gathered at Jaehwan’s fingertips, and a flash-like Stab burst forth.
An incredible sight followed.
The sea created by the Question of Justice illusion split apart amid a massive storm.
“The sea is splitting!”
“My god, how could such a miracle...?”
“W-we’re saved! Thank you, Captain!”
The passengers of the rescue boat wept as they embraced Jaehwan.
[An error has occurred in the System!]
[The Question of Justice is ending.]
The illusory world of the Question of Justice collapsed, and the arena returned to normal.
The spectators stared blankly at what had happened.
The Goddess Hall Master, her hair blown into disarray by Jaehwan’s Stab, shouted.
“What do you think you’re doing, Fortress Lord?”
The enraged Goddess Hall Master and the members of Goddess Hall drew their weapons.
Yet Jaehwan’s expression was strange.
“Enough playing around.”
Goddess Hall Master Ja Geukryeong flinched. She sensed an ominous force in Jaehwan’s words.
A broadcast erupted from Gorgon Inner Keep.
[This is an announcement from Gorgon Inner Keep! This is an announcement from Gorgon Inner Keep!]
[Effective immediately, all events being held in the Outer Fortress are canceled, and the fortress gates will be sealed!]
[‘Gorgon One’ has been declared throughout Gorgon!]
[All residents, please evacuate quickly to the northern streets.]
Gorgon One was the highest emergency alert issued by Gorgon Fortress. It was declared when the Fortress’s very survival was in danger.
Murmurs spread through the audience.
Voices mixed with anxiety, impatience, and curiosity.
“What’s happening?”
“They say Deadmans have appeared.”
“Deadmans?”
The stands were being swallowed by chaos and madness.
At the center of the pandemonium, Yulhen’s Push pierced Jaehwan’s ear.
[Fortress Lord, please come to the southern gate immediately.]
Without a word, Jaehwan flew toward the southern gate.
The Ten Hall Masters and other powerful figures, having realized something was wrong, also moved after him.
A short while later, the powerful figures representing 《Chaos》 stood atop the southern fortress wall.
They all saw the same sight.
They all felt the same thing.
And they forgot how to speak.
The southern Forest Zone had turned black.
Whenever the writhing Deadmans moved, everything with a soul was destroyed. Horned Beasts howling throughout the Forest Zone were swallowed by the army of Deadmans and vanished without a trace.
It was like a black tidal wave rolling over the forest.
The Fortress’s outer wall shrieked as the tide crashed against it.
Amid that unnatural scene, Goddess Hall Master Ja Geukryeong realized anew that she was inside a fortress.
Ah...
These towering walls had not been built to fight Horned Beasts.
The cause behind their construction stood at the center of that black tide.
“Mugeuk, are you there?”
“I am.”
Shin Mugeuk answered Cheongheo.
“It reminds me of nine hundred years ago. Doesn’t it?”
“When we went to the Palace of the Dead?”
“Yes.”
Shin Mugeuk recalled the expedition from nine hundred years ago.
Those who had joined the Abyss Expedition had already seen a sight like this once, nine hundred years earlier.
“...Why is Magritte Who Walks Backward here?”
The cause behind the construction of those towering walls.
Magritte Who Walks Backward, one of the Three Great Deadmans.
A name of calamity that filled all of 《Chaos》 with fear.
Cheongheo recalled the Sole King Catastrophe descending upon the Inner Fortress not long ago.
Deadmans had a habit of calling other Deadmans.
Small Deadmans gathered where medium Deadmans appeared. Medium Deadmans gathered where large Deadmans appeared.
And Catastrophe, called the King of the Deadmans, had appeared in Gorgon Inner Keep.
“We may die here today.”
Thunder God Hall Master Yoon Yong spoke in a trembling voice.
“Heh heh, how did you plan to join the Abyss Expedition if you can’t even handle that?”
“Hall Master of Fire King Hall, your legs are trembling too.”
“Shut up.”
Cheongheo snorted as he listened to them.
Neither the Thunder God Hall Master nor the Hall Master of Fire King Hall had even been born nine hundred years ago. Yet now, they were the leading figures of 《Chaos》.
Some traded silly jokes to overcome their fear. Others stared solemnly ahead.
Cheongheo looked at each of their faces, overcome with emotion.
To think he would see this sight once more before dying.
Limitless, South Sea, Scholar Forest, Goddess, Fire King, and Thunder God.
Six of the Ten Halls of Chaos had gathered here.
Before them stood an army of small and medium Deadmans that easily numbered in the tens of thousands.
That was not all.
There were more than ten large Deadmans, each comparable to a seventh-stage Adapter. Behind them stood Magritte Who Walks Backward, a Colossal Deadman.
Unable to withstand Magritte’s presence, several powerful figures let go of the wall and flew north. Among them was Han Myeonggwan, praised as the Gentleman Sword.
They knew.
This battle could not be won.
Gorgon Fortress was about to fall.
Some would die, and some would barely survive.
The moment they faced Magritte, Chaos’s powerful figures chose their own Questions of Justice. Cheongheo could not stop them.
How could he condemn those who chose their own lives?
Magritte Who Walks Backward was approaching.
Black streams of rain surged from the ground and flew toward the sky. Gravity twisted, sending the people ahead floating into the air as their vision inverted.
The authority of the Colossal Deadman Magritte, Surrealism, had manifested.
The Adapters who had been moving their lips and the Ten Hall Masters who had steeled themselves all curled up at once.
They looked like frightened fetuses.
No one could raise a weapon toward the army of Deadmans now before them.
It was a terror so overwhelming that they could not even lift their heads.
Several powerful figures turned to dust beneath the black beam Magritte fired from its mouth.
Han Myeonggwan, the fleeing Gentleman Sword, was among them.
Powerless.
They were utterly powerless.
A world where every choice was useless.
What Question of Justice could anyone ask in such a world?
What answer could they find, what hope could they seek, in a world without choices to begin with?
Then, through the corners of the crouching people’s eyes, a single sword entered their view.
It was black and long, a terribly lonely and solitary sword.
The sword passed indifferently by the people collapsed on the ground and approached the army of Deadmans without hesitation.
The Goddess Hall Master barely managed to raise her head amid that crushing fear, and she happened to see it.
No...
In a world where her five senses had twisted, she forced out her voice.
But no sound came.
She had to stop him, but she could not.
A black tidal wave towering high into the sky rushed at the man.
The Goddess Hall Master shut her eyes tight without realizing it.
When she opened them again, Goddess Hall Master Ja Geukryeong saw a sight she would never forget for the rest of her life.
The black tidal wave was splitting white.
A single streak of light cut through the tidal wave, carving out a path.
Surrealism was collapsing.
Her twisted senses returned, and gravity found its proper place.
That terrifying Deadman, Magritte Who Walks Backward, was screaming horribly.
“Then split the sea.”
Jaehwan’s answer lingered in the mind of the Goddess Hall Master, who sat dazed on the ground.
She was not the only one.
Everyone there felt the same way.
The South Sea Hall Master, the Scholar Forest Hall Master, the Thunder God Hall Master, and the Hall Master of Fire King Hall.
They all realized the same thing at that moment.
That was the impossible answer to this impossible world.
Someone trembled. Someone groaned.
Then someone spoke in a voice that somehow sounded nostalgic.
“It makes no sense.”
Shin Mugeuk, Hall Master of Limitless Hall, said it as he endured Magritte’s Spiritual Pressure with his sword planted in the ground.
Someone answered.
“It doesn’t.”
“It is absurdly reckless.”
“Reckless, yes.”
Cheongheo smiled.
“Because it is reckless, it is an answer of boundless purity.”
An answer everyone knew, yet could not choose.
An answer that had been dismissed as wrong because people had been buried beneath the monster called reality.
Cheongheo looked at the man’s back as he alone carved a path through the pitch-black sea and said,
“I will protect that recklessness.”
Cheongheo drew his sword and walked toward the divided black tidal wave.
“...I see.”
Mugeuk knew.
That path was an impossible path.
If he was lured in by the immediate miracle, he would never be able to return.
Even so, Mugeuk answered.
“Then I will join you.”
The sword of the Limitless Hall Master let out a fierce roar. The mighty spiritual power of the blue heavens flowed into his sword, and the tidal wave of Deadmans was torn apart by azure sword force.
But the endlessly advancing Deadmans were filling the path through the divided sea again.
Then there were those who held the narrowing path.
“...This is hardly befitting the dignity of the Ten Hall Masters.”
“I am ashamed.”
They were Cayman, South Sea Hall Master, and Jegal Myeong, Hall Master of Scholar Forest Hall.
Jaehwan opened the path at the front. Cheongheo held the path Jaehwan opened, then Mugeuk held the path Cheongheo protected.
The other Hall Masters stood against the Deadmans and widened the path Mugeuk had preserved.
Every one of them looked as if possessed.
An impossible path.
As they swung their swords to preserve it, they were slowly becoming part of a story.
A story Chaos had waited millions of years for.
A story they wanted to see through to the end, even if everything once again led to despair.
Having barely joined that story, the Thunder God Hall Master opened his mouth in a voice that sounded close to tears.
“Hall Master of Fire King Hall?”
“What? I’m busy, so don’t talk to me!”
“I’m embarrassed to say this, but I really feel like I need to tell someone.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t I look cool right now?”
More than a dozen small Deadmans fell to the blade of the Hall Master of Fire King Hall.
The formation of Deadmans rushing in afterward turned to dust under the Thunder God Hall Master’s Thunder God Energy.
Even so, countless Deadmans remained.
They cut, cut, and cut again.
Fatigue was slowly building in the Hall Master of Fire King Hall as he guarded the rear of the path.
The path was gradually narrowing.
Doubt crept in.
Could they protect it?
Still, they advanced.
Even if this path ended here, they would protect it.
That was when they heard voices.
Were they hallucinations?
The Hall Master of Fire King Hall suddenly turned around, and his eyes shook.
A moment later, when he faced forward again, no trace of doubt remained in his eyes.
Relieved, he resumed cutting down the Deadmans before him.
He was certain.
This path would be protected.
Because all of Gorgon was rushing out to protect their path.
* * *
One week later.
The news that Magritte, one of the Three Great Deadmans, had been destroyed swept across all of 《Chaos》.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion