Chapter 806: Nourishment, Crumbling Away
– Song Taewon crushed the butterfly in his fist. Black powder sifted out between his fingers.
He did not listen.
He was in the middle of a fight. He had neither the room to lend an ear to whispers, nor any reason to. After the briefest moment of stiffness, Song Taewon moved again. He ran along the path of light Seong Hyunjae had drawn.
[Even though that is what you were made for.]
Do not think.
It was a common tactic in battle. Song Taewon filled his ears with the thunder crashing around him. He fixed his eyes on the spreading gold. Even so, butterfly wings fluttered at the edge of his vision.
[Have you forgotten?]
With a papery rush, a swarm of butterflies surged up as if to coil around Song Taewon. Lightning flashed, but from the shattered fragments of wings, new butterflies were born.
[No. You swallowed it.]
A note of amusement slipped into the voice.
[Your own memories.]
The split, torn-open giant tree let out a monstrous howl, almost like a groan. Thick sap overflowed in place of blood. A black butterfly settled on it. In an instant, one became dozens, then hundreds, and they rose into the air once more. Even scraps of butterfly wings returned to their original form when they touched the sap, multiplying in number.
[Even now, you should do the work you were given.]
Song Taewon’s entire field of vision turned pitch-black.
He closed his eyes instead.
He sharpened his senses and searched through the endless beating of wings for the presence of light. Bursting gold. A roar that shook the air.
But over all of it—
“Hyung.”
A child’s voice fell over him.
Dirt and pebbles clattered down a steep cliffside.
The world went silent.
The smell of snapped branches and trampled grass mingled with ragged breathing. Song Taewon was lying on the ground. His arms and legs hung limp, and breathing did not come easily. The back of his head was hot. Little by little, the sharp green stink of crushed grass became mixed with the smell of blood. His vacant eyes blinked slowly, as if insisting he was still alive.
Beside him, his younger brother pushed himself up.
He staggered as though he had twisted his ankle. He bit hard on his lip, trying not to cry.
“Hyung.”
Song Taeil reached toward his collapsed older brother. He struggled to support him somehow. As his brother’s hand dragged him upright, Song Taewon thought through the fog of his consciousness that he had to tell Taeil to go alone and call an adult.
But his voice would not come out.
Song Taewon’s head lolled as he ended up half-draped over his younger brother. Song Taeil took one difficult step.
“A… lone…”
The word barely slipped out, hardly more than a faint breath.
But Song Taeil did not listen. His mind was full of one thought and one thought only: he had to take his brother with him. Even as he nearly fell while forcing his way through the rough, pathless brush, he never let go of Song Taewon.
Somewhere, insects chirred softly. A mountain bird took flight with a flutter.
Song Taewon’s breathing gradually grew weaker. It was thin enough to snap at any moment.
He was dying.
Blood running down the back of his neck had soaked all the way into his back. Everything before his eyes was blurred and pale, refusing to come into focus.
He was going to die.
Song Taewon felt it.
He was about to die.
Getting out in time was impossible. Even if his brother had left him there and somehow brought an adult back, it would have been too late.
And in the moment he felt death stride right up to him, the seed stirred.
“…Huh?”
Song Taeil felt dizzy.
His knees buckled beneath him. He barely managed to clutch his older brother close enough to keep him from rolling away, but the world spun harder and harder before his eyes.
“Ugh… what’s wrong with me.”
Song Taewon’s blankly open eyes were exceptionally black. A faint, pale shadow seeped into the younger brother holding him.
Song Taeil stood again and walked.
But he had not taken more than a few steps before he sank to the ground. He had only walked for a moment, yet he was panting as if he had run with everything he had.
“…A cold? No. Can’t…”
Song Taewon’s arm jerked.
Had he sensed something? He tried to push his brother away, but he did not have the strength. Song Taeil laughed loudly on purpose, as if to say he was fine.
“Just a little farther.”
He said he only needed to catch his breath, then laid Song Taewon down and sat leaning against a tree. He did not let go of the hand holding his brother.
Over that hand, a shadow fell.
“I keep getting sleepy.”
I shouldn’t, he seemed to think, but Song Taeil’s eyes kept drifting shut. He rubbed them with the back of his hand and tried to stand, only to slump back down again.
“Just a little more… I’ll rest a bit, then…”
Even as he yawned wide, he still held on tightly.
“Don’t worry. I told you I’d protect you.”
One breath faded.
Another breath grew clearer.
Song Taewon opened pitch-black eyes. Holding down the shadow that was trying to spread, he clung desperately to his motionless younger brother.
[That moment.]
The butterfly that had drawn out Song Taewon’s memories, memories hidden beneath the shadow of Plunder, spoke with regret.
The Gardener.
[That was when it should have activated.]
Sending a powerful force into another world was difficult. That was why the seed that would grow into an eclipse was small and weak. And the very first nourishment for that feeble seed was its own blood kin. When the seed grew too frail to endure any longer, it was meant to feed on nearby family and awaken.
Once activated, the shadow would spread.
[It would absorb every life in that country.]
Before the dungeons arrived, it would gain the power of an eclipse and devour the pseudo-Origins that had yet to awaken.
But Song Taewon held himself back.
The shadow could not spread. It swallowed only the memories its master could not bear.
“Aigoo! Aigoo!”
A wail of grief rose, hands beating against the ground.
Of the brothers who had fallen from the mountain behind the village, the younger one had died. The older brother had suffered only a few scrapes, but the younger brother had struck something wrong and was found dead. Song Taewon remembered only missing his footing and falling.
“Maybe his dead brother’s looking after him. He’s starting to look more and more like him too.”
Song Taewon, who had survived, was no longer frail. He shot up in height as well, and like his younger brother, he became large for his age. His mother, thinking of her second son, said it was still a relief, but his father seemed to sense something strange and looked uneasy.
Bang—!
It was a car accident.
When Song Taewon was in middle school, the car he was riding in with his mother crashed. The only one who survived was Song Taewon.
[The second.]
The Gardener sighed.
This time as well, the shadow absorbed the nourishment prepared for it and saved its master. And so, this time as well, it did not fully activate. Within the black, wavering shadow, fourteen-year-old Song Taewon gasped for breath.
“No…”
He knew absolutely nothing about the phenomenon happening to him, and yet, by instinct, he suppressed it.
The younger brother in his hidden memories rose to the surface.
No.
He had to push it away. He had to hold it down.
The shadow was buried once more, along with his memories.
“You rotten bastard! What kind of thing is that for a father to say? The boy’s just a child!”
Song Taewon’s grandfather roared.
Song Taewon’s father shouted that Taewon had killed both his brother and his mother. The villagers clicked their tongues and said grief had broken the man. Song Taewon was placed in his grandfather’s care.
Time passed, and around the time Song Taewon entered university, his grandfather died. People said he had gone as if falling asleep, that though it was early by today’s standards, it was still a peaceful death. Song Taewon’s father said nothing.
Still, by the time his son finished school and became a police officer as if drawn there by something unseen, they had begun to see each other from time to time. They never spoke of the past, and though things remained awkward, they managed to live as an ordinary father and son.
But then—
– Grrrrr!
[The third.]
It was a dungeon break.
Creatures no one had ever seen before began pouring out of gates.
Crash!
A boar-like monster smashed through a display window and opened its snout wide, a mouth packed with countless tiny teeth. Song Taewon’s father froze stiff. Song Taewon immediately grabbed a chair and lifted it.
Crack!
The chair came down squarely on the head of the lunging monster. Fragments of wood flew everywhere, and the monster shook its head hard.
“Run!”
Song Taewon shouted.
The monster charged at him. He threw himself aside in a hurry. Sliding across the floor, he grabbed another chair.
In that instant, he felt his heart pound violently.
Awakening.
Other Awakened had already appeared. Seong Hyunjae, said to be the first Awakened in Korea, had announced only a few days earlier that he would be forming a guild.
Bang!
“Ghk!”
He braced the chair upright against the monster that slammed into him. The chair broke, and Song Taewon was sent flying. He rolled across the floor and barely avoided the hooves that came stomping down at him.
‘I can’t.’
People awakened under monster attacks. Once they Awakened, they gained new abilities and the strength to fend off monsters.
But Song Taewon ignored the prickling sensation wrapping around his entire body. He was seized by an obsessive certainty that he must not do this thing called Awakening.
– Grrk!
The monster snorted loudly.
Another monster stepped in over the broken glass. The added killing intent sent a chill racing down his spine.
“T-Taewon!”
His father threw him a pipe he had brought from the storage room. Song Taewon caught it and swung it hard at the monster charging toward him.
Crunch.
The pipe bent.
It was only a low-grade monster, but there was no way to pierce its hide with a blunt rod instead of a blade. If anything, the blow only made it angrier. It thrust its sharp teeth toward him.
“Ugh!”
Riiip.
He barely dodged, but the tip of a fang caught his shirt and tore it open in a long line.
But right beside him—
– Grrrr.
The newly appeared monster came barreling in.
Danger.
Mana gathered around Song Taewon’s fingertips. Though he had not yet Awakened, a shadow took vague shape. Wrapped in that black, wavering power, he swung his fist with all his strength.
– Kegh!
The monster, struck hard in the snout, went tumbling. He did not miss the opening. He drove the pipe down.
Crunch!
The bladeless pipe pierced through the monster. Blood sprayed up, and Song Taewon exhaled heavily.
The shadow vanished.
He had not Awakened.
This time, safely—
“You monster!”
A blade dug into Song Taewon’s back.
It was a spear his father had hurriedly made to help his son, a kitchen knife lashed to a stick. The crude weapon, driven by tremendous force, tore through his insides.
His father had Awakened.
The grade was low, but the sudden increase in strength was more than enough to deal Song Taewon a fatal wound.
“My children! My wife! You—!”
Had he instinctively sensed that he himself had been designated as nourishment for that shadow?
Song Taewon’s father swung the spear wildly, as if driven insane. The shadow that had been pressed down and sunk away began to overflow once more.
That day, Song Taewon Awakened.
His father’s death was recorded as being caused by monsters.
[But even until the very end, it never activated.]
Before the regression, Song Taewon had been doomed to fail. He had barely managed to sprout, but without growing any farther, he was drying up. To devour the small moon as an activated eclipse, he needed sufficient nourishment.
[Because you absorbed nothing beyond the basic nourishment required to maintain your existence.]
“…Nourishment.”
Song Taewon murmured softly.
Even with all those memories restored, the shock was not as great as he had expected. Rather, he understood.
So that was what it had been.
A being artificially created for a single purpose.
A beast that, without a muzzle and a leash, would devour every sheep in the pen.
Suddenly, Han Yujin came to mind.
This time, he was wrong.
Song Taewon had to be locked away.
Song Taewon stood alone in the empty space. Only the butterflies beat their wings.
“I have no intention of hurting anyone.”
He spoke to the Creator who claimed to have made him.
“I regret that I cannot assist Hunter Seong Hyunjae.”
He had promised to take care of the end if Seong Hyunjae ultimately failed. But to activate the eclipse, he would require the nourishment of countless lives.
“Hunter Hwang Rim said you wanted to take me in. Do that. Even if I am only an unstable shadow incapable of swallowing anything, if that is what you want.”
It was right for him to leave.
No, if anything, he was far too late.
In the end, the place he belonged was never inside a sheep pen.
[New nourishment has been prepared.]
The swarm of butterflies scattered all at once.
Song Taewon’s vision flared bright, and thunder crashed with a roar. Before him, the sap-flooded trunk had split open.
[The magic stones of Transcendents. Weakened and incomplete, yes, but they are the essence of World Trees that fed on the nourishment of an entire world for a very long time.]
Two of them.
Enough to activate Song Taewon, the eclipse.
The reason the Gardener had deliberately helped the Transcendent of the World Tree species descend was to activate the eclipse.
A tool for collecting pseudo-Origins that he could control.
At some point, every branch had become crowded not with leaves, but with butterflies. From inside the split World Tree trunk, vines reached out. Song Taewon tried to avoid them, but his body would not move. He was paralyzed, just as he had been when Hwang Rim had brought him that soil long ago.
The vines wrapped around him.
[This time, there is no need to suppress it.]
The butterfly whispered tenderly.
[What I want is the pseudo-Origin. You will activate with the magic stones of the Transcendents, devour the small moon, and then I will retrieve you and leave.]
If that happened, naturally, the Puppeteer would have no choice but to come find the Gardener as well, bringing Sigma with him.
All the dangerous things would disappear.
[The world you stayed in will be safe.]
The World Tree writhed, and the inside of the trunk split even deeper. Song Taewon stared into that place, dark as a black cave.
He would not be able to withstand the fourth time.
He thought of the little lamb he had left behind.
Craaaaash!
At that moment, lightning struck.
His vision filled with gold.
“This is enough to drive a man mad.”
Seong Hyunjae clicked his tongue. A golden blade sliced through the vines in a shower of severed pieces.
But Song Taewon’s body remained paralyzed. As he started to fall, Seong Hyunjae’s hand caught him. The vines reached out again.
“Or should I say, magnificent.”
Plunder had pressed down and swallowed Song Taewon’s memories.
And now, their Plunders were connected to one another.
Naturally, Seong Hyunjae had seen the memories of Song Taewon that had surfaced.
“It was not intentional, but I will apologize anyway.”
Shaaaak—
– Vines were cut down one after another.
But as long as Song Taewon, the one in charge of defense, could not move, they would not last long. The branches and roots of the tree that Seong Hyunjae had cut away also slowly began to regenerate.
It was a difficult situation.
If he let go of Song Taewon now, Song Taewon would activate as the eclipse. On the other hand, if he protected Song Taewon, World Tree Chewang would recover, and Han Yujin’s group would be in danger.
Seong Hyunjae’s deliberation did not last long.
“Han Yujin-gun asked me to take good care of you, Director Song.”
“Wait, then—!”
“It is all right.”
The golden blade that had been cutting through the vines vanished. Drawing out a new skill to protect Song Taewon and himself, Seong Hyunjae listened to Han Yujin’s memories.
[I never give up. Never.]
[I told you to be good to Director Song! Not like that!]
“That is what he says.”
“Pardon?”
The vines multiplied even further, covering the sky. A barrier wrapped around Seong Hyunjae and Song Taewon.
“Let us struggle from the inside.”
Thudududung!
The pouring vines engulfed the two men along with the barrier. A moment later, they dragged them straight into the tree trunk and vanished.
Craaaack!
The severed branch fell to the ground. In an instant, it turned to ash and burned away.
The more the fire burned the tree, the higher Yuhyun’s stats climbed. Stepping on invisible willow leaves, he moved almost as if he were flying, cutting and burning through the enormous tree.
“Yuhyun’s got this in the bag.”
Yerim had drawn the Mermaid Queen’s sea with her and was blocking the World Tree’s skills. The massive, solid tree itself could have been a terrifying weapon, but in the face of Yuhyun’s fire, strengthened and strengthened again, all it could do was endure.
Kagagagak—!
The melted sword wrapped itself in flame and cut clean through the incoming branches and vines in a single stroke. Above them, Yuhyun guided the black flames as if dancing. On the face faintly reflected in the blade he held, a faint smile appeared.
“Yuhyun, you look like you’re having fun.”
“Because you’re here, hyung.”
Yuhyun’s voice came to me through the Teacher skill.
“I’m swinging my sword while feeling your presence like this. How could I not be excited?”
Even if he was different, he was still the same Yuhyun.
A smile came to my face, and at the same time, my chest ached. This would be the first and last time.
And yet, the fact that I still could not stay right by his side was bitter.
“Yuhyun—”
“Mister!”
Yerim, floating high in the air as she controlled the water, shouted urgently.
“That tree over there is coming this way!”
What?
Seong Hyunjae, Director Song—!
–TL Notes–
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