Chapter 430: The Savior Ω IV |
The Savior Ω IV
The 4th station.
"Ah."
It was a gallery.
"G-Guild Leader... Ehehe."
Once, in the plaza of the Tower of Babel, a makeshift museum of humanity's last art had been cobbled together from whatever materials were available, scraps gathered here and there.
But there was a difference.
Unlike the exhibition that had taken place in the distant past of reality, the exhibition spread before my eyes now was far more vast in its collection.
"Have you been waiting long?"
Sim Ah-ryeon, her entire body smeared with paint, grinned widely.
"By my reckoning, it's only been about sixteen days. Everyone else has already gone to the lower floors... I was bored, so I've just been painting!"
"I see."
"Hehe."
Ah-ryeon approached and wrapped her arms tightly around my waist.
Her paint-covered face rubbed against my coat.
A child who had been born into a colorless world seemed intent on transferring the only equation of color she allowed herself onto me.
"Since there's no one else around, this is really nice."
"..."
"Dok-seo told me. That I'm actually the same in essence as the Udumbara. Mm. While it's an objective fact that I'm as beautiful as a flower, being essentially the same as a plant is pretty weird to hear..."
I smiled.
Whenever Ah-ryeon clung to me like this, trying to infect me with her colors, I would usually brush her hair, but unfortunately, I didn't have my anti-Sim-Ah-ryeon tactical equipment on hand right now.
So I wiped the paint from Ah-ryeon's face with my coat. She flailed her arms, going ah, hwah, fluttering like a startled bird.
"But after coming here and remembering all sorts of things from the past... I understood a little."
"What did you understand?"
"To a flower, the world is just a few drops of water and a few points of sunlight. I think that's about all I want from the world too. In terms of humility, I'm similar to a plant..."
"That's a lie."
"Eh?"
"You don't just want water and light, you crave incredibly sweet nectar and the most pleasant sunlight. You little thing. The most greedy flower in the world, that's what you are."
"Ah, ah, aah."
Ah-ryeon was helpless against my cheek-squishing offensive.
"Mmm..."
A silly sound escaped from her mouth, something like hwihii.
"This is nice after all..."
It was the sound of her burrowing deeper into me, pushing a syringe all the way into my lungs.
"What is?"
"Why the old me, why 'they' would go so far as to kneel before Guild Leader, act like a saintess, and commit something tantamount to suicide. I understand now."
"..."
"I wanted to know."
Squirm.
The tens of thousands of works hanging in the exhibition hall, all the paintings that the artist Sim Ah-ryeon had created across past and present lives, began to drip colors like poorly applied paint, falling drop by drop.
"When I die. Even knowing I'm dying, struggling until the very end, I wanted to know what emotions Guild Leader would feel then."
"..."
"I wanted to know, I wanted to feel it. What color that emotion would be, I was so curious. Honestly, it was hard to resist."
"I'm always amazed by how consistently you treat me like an all-you-can-eat buffet, Ah-ryeon."
"I can't help it! Guild Leader is my water droplet and my sunlight."
"..."
Squirm, glurk. Squirm.
Viscous colors gathered around us, flowing through the gallery corridor.
"Most people probably won't understand. To a flower, water droplets and sunlight are prey. They're something to hunt... But they're also everything in the world. They're god."
Does a flower love sunlight?
"People will probably condemn a believer who devours the flesh of their god as blasphemous... But actually, isn't everyone like that? Everyone devours the juices of the world. Every single day."
Can one understand a flower's love?
"And yet... they live without even knowing what they like, or how they like it. Hwe. Strange people..."
"Your thorns are too poisonous."
"Ehehe..."
Ah-ryeon bit my nape with her teeth. It was neither an act of predation nor a gesture of intimacy.
A sunflower was tilting its head toward its sun.
"I won't die anymore."
Ripples spread from my shadow.
"Because now I know."
All the paint that had dripped from the gallery gathered into my shadow, forming black.
Not the black that was darkness because nothing existed, but the black that was darkness because everything overlapped.
Ah-ryeon's voice sent ripples toward my heart.
"For watering me every single day, without skipping even one day... For dropping sunlight into my shade every day, mm..."
Ah-ryeon looked up at me.
A smile, the smallest and most radiant ripple a person can spread into this void.
Without laughter in that place, the sky blue wouldn't have been so boundless.
"I was happy! G-Guild Leader."
Time limit.
21 seconds.
'I was happy because of you too.'
Leaving my heart with someone who didn't need an answer, once again.
Dive.
And on to the next stage.
"..."
It was the Underwater Shrine.
What should have been a dilapidated house located in Dongbinggo-dong, Yongsan, Seoul, but the place before my eyes was a mixture of that house and the undersea cafe of the Inunaki Tunnel.
"Welcome, Mr. Undertaker."
The Saintess sat neatly as always, no different from any other cycle, dressed in comfortable clothes suitable for activity.
"The floor I'm in charge of is the fifth layer of the mind realm. Since you've arrived here safely, you should be quite free from the time constraints outside now."
She immediately brought up the operation upon meeting.
I almost laughed.
Like the other companions, the Saintess must have had memories of past cycles flowing back, but this was so very like her.
"The children are each guarding a layer. Is this Dok-seo's thoughtful arrangement?"
"Yes. But it's also to prepare sentinels in advance in case anomalies appear blocking the passage midway."
Kyarururu.
No sooner had the Saintess finished speaking than a little girl ran through the eerily spacious Underwater Shrine.
Woof! Woof!
A large dog that had no form, only a shadow remaining, chased after and ran ahead of the little girl in play.
It was the primal spirit of the Inunaki Tunnel.
"...As you can see."
The Saintess cleared her throat.
"The closer we get to the divine realm of the dream within a dream, the more distorted the shape of the place becomes. Time is warping too."
"That's only natural. Go Yuri has relived the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Unlike ordinary people, time for her is endlessly layered."
"...Just like it is for Mr. Undertaker."
"That’s right."
"..."
"..."
The Saintess rowed through silence.
Each person was a ferryman of a boat facing a tumultuous sea. The tongue was the first oar cutting through those waves.
When the wordless wind couldn't push everything forward, everyone had no choice but to row their oar through their own waterway.
"Um, the Silver Bells..."
But the route chosen by this skilled boatwoman was in a direction even I found difficult to predict.
"Shouldn't I return them?"
"Pardon?"
Slowly.
The Saintess averted her gaze.
"They're proof of the promise originally made with Ms. Go Yuri, right?"
"..."
"I don't think it's right for me to have such a precious treasure."
And as the Saintess pulled down her sleeve, wouldn't you know it, there were the Silver Bells, jingling and sparkling.
'Good heavens.'
In other words, even though the Saintess had recalled the memories of the 267th cycle where she sacrificed herself to seal the outer god Nut...
Her first reaction wasn't an expression of gratitude or apology, but rather the question, 'These Silver Bells seem to have a rightful owner, don't they?'
It was truly extraordinary.
Even if the universe were endlessly vast, it would be hard to find a capital T this large.
"Please take them, Mr. Undertaker."
"..."
Leading with emotional appeals here would be the mark of an amateur.
As someone who had graduated with an A+ even through the advanced course of Saintessology 101, I needed to properly drive the opponent into logical confusion.
"I understand."
I nodded.
"But have you consulted with the Saintess of the 267th cycle before making this decision?"
"...Pardon?"
"No matter how memories reverse-flowed from the dream within a dream, they're ultimately nothing more than incomplete afterimages. Those Silver Bells are something I gifted to the Saintess of the 267th cycle, and the right to decide how to handle them belongs entirely to the Saintess of the 267th cycle."
"..."
"Can we truly say that the current Saintess perfectly represents the Saintess of the 267th cycle? Hmm. I'm only concerned whether Saintess can freely dispose of a gift that doesn't even belong to you."
The Saintess made a blank expression.
"But I think it's disrespectful to Ms. Go Yuri."
"Go Yuri employed all sorts of means to awaken you as a powerful awakener."
The Saintess hesitated.
Beyond the Underwater Shrine, outside the undersea tunnel that surrounded it, the shadows of sleeping people were falling like fish shadows.
"When she became your younger sister and died before your eyes, she deliberately staged her death in an isolated warehouse, ensuring you couldn't contact anyone, making a show of it."
"..."
"When she became your childhood friend, your only close friend, the sole passage to the outside world, she carefully removed each of your fingers clinging to the cliff edge of the world. Meticulously."
I paused for a moment.
After letting the fish shadows cross our faces a few times.
"Is there really a need to be courteous?"
"..."
"If you feel you owe each other nothing, then in the end, you can only ask yourself what you want to do."
I smiled.
"What would you like to do?"
The Saintess closed her lips.
It was as if the fish shadows were opening and closing their mouths in her stead.
"...I received this without knowing."
"I gave it to you without knowing either."
"I think it was wrong."
"Even though it was a mistake made without knowing, it's difficult for you to forgive, is it? Yourself, Saintess."
"Yes."
"Your younger sister, childhood friend, best friend, they all committed wrongs while knowing."
"..."
"Will you be unable to forgive them?"
A brief silence.
"...No."
The Saintess shook her head.
"I... can forgive them."
"Why is that?"
"Because in the end, it was done for people. Not just in words but in actions. Not just with one life but by dedicating all their lives. Because they walked the path they thought was best."
"I see."
I nodded.
"Then please forgive yourself a little for the mistakes you made in the past without knowing."
"..."
"If Go Yuri can be forgiven, there's no reason you can't be forgiven."
I placed the Silver Bells the Saintess had removed back on her wrist.
"Ah."
"I hope that Ms. Saintess will be just a bit more generous toward your own ignorance, just as much as you are toward others."
"...Toward myself."
"Yes. There will be people who won't forgive. There will surely be moments when even you find it hard to forgive yourself. But even then, I will forgive you before anyone else."
"..."
"Just as you did for me."
Jingle.
I looked at her while covering the Silver Bells hanging on her wrist with my right hand.
"Will you accept it?"
"..."
Hesitation.
And then, firmly.
"Yes."
The Saintess smiled like a blooming flower.
"Remembering various cycles... I realized something."
"What is it?"
"That what I lack is courage."
The soundless clamor of the sea. Around the path laid on the uncrossable seabed, waves endlessly crashed.
If you only knew the way across, the waves were no longer drifting currents but merely waterways that stayed in place.
"Just waiting for something is meaningless. You have to approach first. Mr. Undertaker gave me that courage."
"Ah, then I'm gla—"
The current quietly resonated.
The fish shadows no longer passed long between the Saintess and me. The gap between us had become too narrow for that.
Just now, she had pulled on my wrist and kissed me.
"..."
I was so surprised my eyes widened.
Those widened pupils were clearly reflected in the pupils right before me.
Without withdrawing her lips, the Saintess...
[Just as Mr. Undertaker advised.]
...spoke only through the passage she had pierced with her own wound.
I felt the shadows of the waterways descending into the Underwater Shrine wrap around my consciousness.
[Yes, I did what I wanted to do.]
Time limit.
20 seconds.
[From now on, I'll be waiting for Mr. Go Yuir's answer.]
Dive.
[This time, I won't wait too long like before.]
[See you soon.]
And.
On to the next stage.
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