Chapter 757: Different (3)
“Yes, there are 14 hours and 17 minutes left. I’ll put up a countdown message window starting two hours beforehand, Honey.”
[Okay. There’s still no other way, right?]
Han Yujin’s voice came through as text in the message window. No one was there to see it, but Rookie nodded anyway as he answered.
“The transcendents are already converging, and for at least two or three days, moving between worlds through the system is going to be unstable. For now… just hold out as long as you can.”
[I can probably manage that much. It’s just… I’m nervous.]
Rookie knew exactly who Han Yujin was worried about. Chain, the pseudo-source. He’d heard Crescent Moon intended to turn him into a new source using Young Chaos. From Rookie’s point of view, it didn’t sound like the worst outcome.
“Um… aren’t people around you saying you should give up on Chain?”
A short silence passed before the next message appeared.
[Pretty much.]
“But you don’t want to.”
[At the very least, I don’t want to be the one who gives up first.]
Because Seong Hyunjae had told him he would wait.
Rookie stared quietly at Han Yujin’s words. Chain had already gone far beyond anything that could be called human. And still, Han Yujin’s attitude hadn’t changed. Even if Chain broke completely and became the source Crescent Moon wanted, Han Yujin would never give up on him.
‘Honey said he likes me too.’
There had once been a tower—ancient beyond memory, and still sealed shut. Everyone had wanted him to remain inside it. Even though he possessed the power to destroy it at any time, that was exactly why he had stayed trapped there until the very end. That was the value of his existence. The reason for it.
Even after becoming a transcendent, nothing changed. He never strayed. He did exactly as he was told.
And then, for the first time, he saw an affection that didn’t change no matter what. Even if he shattered the tower and walked out. Even if everything collapsed because of it. Even then… would Honey still pat his head?
“…Once the system finishes syncing, the people in your world won’t be able to perceive the reality of the dream world anymore. The transcendents and their servants won’t be able to affect them either.”
[So if someone’s dreaming, they’ll only experience it as a dream? That’s a relief. I was worried. Dreams can mess with people mentally.]
“There are exceptions if someone is deeply tied to the dream’s owner or has a powerful illusion-type skill.”
[Really? Then I’m worried about Gyeol. I hope he behaves…]
“And that woman, Mari, may be able to pull other people in too. If someone enters the dream that way, dying in here could affect their real body. They could go into shock or fall into a coma, so be careful. …And your group is real in this world, so it’s even more dangerous for you.”
[Which is why I’m trying to send the kids out first. Yuhyun, would you let go already? Yerim, put that rope down.]
“I’m most worried about you.”
[I’ll be fine. Once the system applies, I’ve got Grace too. Oh—and the King of Harmless’s drawer. Can I use that? Would hiding in there help?]
“You can use it, but subspaces are weaker in the dream world. People can teleport more easily when their imagination’s running wild, right? The boundaries between spaces are thinner here. They’d break in without much trouble.”
[…That’s a shame. Though I guess the Puppeteer got in there once too. I’ll just use it as backup storage for equipment.]
A few more pieces of information were exchanged, then the message window vanished.
Rookie fidgeted, clasping his hands under his sleeves. Up until now, he had only ever done what others told him to. He hadn’t thought that was a bad life. It was easy, too. But now the road laid out for him was gone.
Now he had to think for himself, come up with a plan, make a choice.
And take responsibility for it.
That was what it meant to step outside the tower.
[System Application ? 75.91%]
And beneath that—
[98.66%]
There was another window. That number had been creeping up for a long time now, so slowly it had nearly stopped. Rookie’s eyes trembled as he stared at it.
‘…Honey would want it. I know he would.’
There was one more option in Rookie’s hands, and Han Yujin would accept it.
But he hesitated.
He’d spent time with the others too, but Honey was still the one he liked best.
“That brat’s stubborn as hell too.”
Young Chaos’s voice rang out. Rookie shut the system window and turned. Chaos stepped through a door that had opened in midair, clicking his tongue.
“Is the blacksmith okay?”
“I put him to sleep for now. Still too early.”
“Right. It’s still too soon.”
Rookie nodded, his face troubled.
After learning what was happening to Han Yujin, Yu Myungwoo had tried to open a path between the dream world and reality himself. Since he belonged to that world and was also a system administrator, it wasn’t impossible.
If this had been years later.
“The blacksmith can’t handle the mana load from the system yet. And I can’t help him, since I’m not from that world.”
“He’s better off than the first one, but he’s the same type in the end. His body can’t keep up with his ability. So where’s Tree?”
“Oh, Senior Tree is—”
[I’m ready.]
Space split open, and a wooden doll riding a giant leaf appeared. In that small form, Tree was frowning hard.
[I don’t know how this turned into such a mess.]
“Thanks for helping, Senior Tree!”
[I wouldn’t have, if that unpleasant bastard wasn’t involved.]
“That unpleasant bastard?”
[The Gardener.]
Senior Tree looked around as he spoke. They were standing in a grassland that stretched without end.
[Feels like it ought to be bigger.]
“Senior Gardener? You two don’t get along?”
[Senior? Please. He’s the Gardener. Of course we don’t.]
Tree tapped lightly at the ground with his roots and went on.
[Animals always think plants are simple. Look at what gardeners do. They rip plants out and replant them wherever they want, cut off branches, force them to reproduce. Kidnapping, body modification, forced breeding, genetic tampering—gardeners are just abusers of plant life.]
“W-well… when you put it that way.”
[That’s not even getting into the personal reasons he creeps me out. Any transcendent from a species even remotely like mine feels the same. Nobody likes the Gardener.]
Rookie tilted his head.
“I heard he was neutral. That he never leaves his own garden.”
[Which makes it worse. The fact that he hauled his lazy self into this mess all of a sudden. And this world—]
Tree’s roots slowly sank into the earth.
[—is under the Mermaid Queen’s protection. I thought I’d just be helping with a barrier, but Droplet and I go way back. And if it means protecting the last trace left behind by someone I may never see again, I can lend a little more than that. Move.]
Rookie shot up into the air. Young Chaos leaped back too.
The roots boring into the earth spread outward without end.
The wooden doll swelled, and in an instant rose into a vast, towering trunk. Branches spread. Green leaves burst forth until they covered the whole sky. The tree once revered as the axis of all life in another world long ago—the World Tree—revealed its true form.
Rumble.
From one end of the space Rookie had created to the other, roots and branches reached across it all. The density of mana rose until it filled every corner like floodwater. Countless forms of life breathed within that immense tree. A forest spread through its roots, swamps formed in the cracks at its base, grasslands stretched across broad limbs, lakes filled its hollow knots, and deserts lay where fierce light poured through breaks in the leaves.
A single tree held whole ecosystems inside itself.
Once, there had been ten cities and more than a hundred towns settled within it.
It was that kind of tree.
[All right, Rookie.]
“Yes.”
Rookie opened a system window. A vast space unfolded before them—dark, star-scattered, something like outer space. The waiting room of the transcendents tied into the system, all of them biding their time until the system fully applied to the dream world.
At the center of that system space floated a blue sphere.
The world wrapped in the Mermaid Queen’s embrace.
“The second one taught me a useful trick.”
Standing at the tip of a branch, Young Chaos took hold of his sword. Rookie adjusted the system. The dark space sharpened, and countless lines lit up, all of them stretching toward the blue sphere.
“Those lines are the paths!”
Paths made through the system. When the time came, the invasion would begin through those routes. Young Chaos let out a long breath.
The curse embedded in his body stirred.
His young body rapidly grew. He could not strike the other transcendents first. Severing the paths they’d painstakingly built would amount to the same thing.
And yet—
“I don’t know anything about those cobweb-looking things.”
His red eyes closed. His sharpened senses still felt them, but he let the awareness slide away. The lines were only objects. Nothing but cobwebs brushing against an outstretched arm. He would not recognize them. He would not react to them.
He extended the sword in front of him.
“It’s been a while since I chopped down a tree.”
Like when he’d first picked up a blade as a child.
The World Tree spread its branches.
Endless limbs tangled over the countless paths. Then they surged upward in a massive arc and laid themselves down before the oldest sword.
A deep thrum rolled out.
The tree looked as though it were falling in slow motion.
In reality, it was impossibly fast—heavy, solid, unstoppable.
Chaos’s hand flicked.
The blade carved a smooth half-circle.
The line it drew split. The split widened. The widening gap swallowed everything.
Slice.
The branch was severed so cleanly it looked eaten away in silence.
Everything around it went with it.
The glittering web of lines vanished as if a giant eraser had been dragged across them, leaving only darkness behind. Beyond it, the stars—the transcendents—sent out their outrage all at once.
“You’re the idiot if you stand in front of a blade. If you’ve got a problem with it, come at me!”
Young Chaos shouted back even louder.
And if they really did attack, then all he had to do was beat them down until they lost the strength to invade that world.
Several transcendents began building paths again. The ones lucky enough to escape disaster hurried to protect their own. Chaos readjusted his grip on the sword.
“Let’s give them a proper sword dance today.”
The branches spread wider in answer.
They wouldn’t be able to stop every transcendent.
But they could absolutely cut down their numbers.
Running along the extending branches, Chaos turned his gaze toward the blue sphere.
‘Hold out somehow. Survive.’
No matter how hopeless it looked, as long as you were still alive, a way forward could appear.
A tremor passed through the air.
There was excitement in it. Anticipation.
Crescent Moon slowly opened her eyes.
Such vivid emotion was rare among transcendents as old as these. But the existence of a pseudo-source was something wholly new to them—something astonishing.
Into the cracks between worlds, into the shaking space of the transcendents bound to the system, a single feather drifted in. White, riding the wind, gliding along moonlight.
Crescent Moon’s gaze turned to it.
The feather wavered in the air, settled lightly atop her silver hair where the moonlight pooled, then suddenly rose again.
“Hello.”
It transformed into a human shape.
A woman, white from head to toe. Feathers cascaded in place of hair, spilling down past her feet. Her black eyes met Crescent Moon’s.
“White Bird.”
“It’s only a feather I left behind long ago. Funny that it made its way here.”
White Bird smiled.
“Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you. But I’m happy.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Not entirely. But there was something I wanted to tell you.”
The voice of the prophetic species went on.
“Crescent Moon. Even if you fail, you’ll still achieve what you wanted. But I suppose that means nothing to you.”
“To me.”
“To the you that exists now.”
A trace of pity entered those black eyes.
“I wandered countless paths and wagered everything I had, all so I could be with the one I love. In that endless branching maze of roads, I found a single path. A path that could give more people a chance at the outcome they wanted.”
“I still don’t know what it is you want.”
Crescent Moon spoke quietly.
For a long time, White Bird had kept silent. She had seen countless things, but she did not speak. And then one day, she began to sing for the sake of what she wanted.
Because the road she desired—its ending—had finally taken shape.
“In the end, everyone wants the same thing. To be happy.”
There were many reasons she could have given.
But if she had to choose just one—
“I liked you. Just like everyone else did. So I came to say goodbye, even if it’s late.”
“It seems things are unfolding the way you hoped.”
“So far… probably.”
Crescent Moon looked at White Bird in silence. Her body was already beginning to fade. Feathers drifted loose, one by one.
“At the center of that path stands Han Yujin, then?”
“I needed that child, yes. But not only him. His brother was the beginning. Then the people around them. Everyone in that world. Soon, you’ll understand. Every last one of them was necessary.”
The end of a path that had begun as an impossibly small chance, then advanced one step at a time.
Crescent Moon once more thought of the human who refused to let go of her child.
“He couldn’t have been special from the beginning.”
“He wasn’t. He’s ordinary. Just a normal person without anything remarkable about him. Except for one thing.”
“One thing?”
“Just one. That was all. We planted a seed, but whether it sprouted, how it grew—that part was never ours to choose.”
White Bird vanished.
Only a single feather remained, fluttering upward.
Her fading voice lingered behind.
“I hope you find happiness.”
Stripped of all power, the feather became an ordinary one, drifting away on the wind.
Crescent Moon watched it for a moment, then closed her eyes.
[02:00]
The timer appeared.
I wiped the crumbs from Byeol’s mouth where she sat in my lap.
“When you wake up, you can’t eat this much in real life, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.”
“And Seol’s going to keep an eye on you.”
Seol nodded. Compared to Gyeol and Byeol, he reacted less to things, but when it came to Byeol, he always answered. And the more I watched him, the more I realized he listened to Gyeol’s judgment pretty well too.
At least when Byeol was involved.
Apparently he trusted Gyeol’s expertise.
“Gyeol, you have to stay with your brother and sister no matter what. We still don’t know what kind of ability Byeol might have, so that makes you even more important.”
I hated putting that kind of responsibility on a child, but if I wanted to keep Gyeol out of the dream world, this was probably the best way. And with Gyeol’s personality, believing he had an important job would help him wait more calmly too. My kid really was so sweet, but he kept trying to grow up too fast.
“Don’t worry, Dad. Gyeol will protect both of them.”
“Thanks, Gyeol.”
I set Byeol down and looked at the timer as it kept ticking lower.
I still had no new plan.
For now, all I could do was hold the line, fight, and hope to raise my achievement score.
