Chapter 432: The Savior Ω VI |
The Savior Ω VI
"Huu..."
The sight of my face dripping with cold sweat must have been quite the spectacle.
Do-hwa smirked, like someone who'd just returned from a pyramid tour with friends only to comment, "Hmm, is that all?" with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"The choice is yours in the end. This is merely the methodology that person Dok-seo proposed. You're under no obligation to follow it..."
"Then I refuse with every fiber of my being!"
"Well, do as you please. Though I'd personally like to see what kind of circus act you'll put on..."
Do-hwa set down her tools.
I swallowed hard. For her, it was simply a gesture signaling the end of her work, but from my perspective, where that doll looked like something akin to 'Artificial Human Undertaker Model 2,' I couldn't help but feel as though I'd just narrowly escaped being dunked into concrete, experiencing the thrill of a dramatic last-second escape.
"..."
With the sound of hammering gone, the depths of this Dream Within a Dream fell silent as a tomb.
4 a.m. Like stepping out to a convenience store and finding yourself at a concrete intersection devoid of pedestrians or vehicles, when the night sky holds its breath for just a moment.
Standing idly at a crosswalk alternating between green and red, the white silence between us hung in the air just as it did then.
"What are you thinking about so deeply?"
"Why don't you take a guess..."
"Well then."
I fumbled through the blank manuscript of white silence for ink-dark letters.
"I'd wager you're savoring a certain kind of joy."
"Joy? Hoh. Me, you say...?"
"Yes. The Director Do-hwa has always distinguished herself from her counterparts in other cycles. Always."
"..."
A sideways glance, Do-hwa looked this way.
Whether she did or not, I was organizing the manuscript of silence.
"But now, at this final of finals, all those past memories, all those future predestinations have been given to you. You've finally crossed the rapids of time that could never be crossed."
"..."
"Now you can denigrate all the versions of yourself from every other cycle to your heart's content. Only the self standing in this moment has achieved the ultimate victory, shall we say. So, yes. You are, in your own way, savoring joy."
"Heh."
A nasal sound slipped from Do-hwa's lips.
"Unpleasant bastard..."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Yes. That's right. Despite how I look, I'm in quite a good mood right now..."
I could tell the moment I saw her.
Even the great Do-hwa, no matter how much this was Dok-seo's request, couldn't possibly have participated in something as frivolous as the Undertaker Project without any reason whatsoever.
Just the fact that she teased me without any particular mockery, which for Do-hwa was genuinely normal communication, showed that Supreme Leader Do-hwa's satisfaction level had clearly hit at least 70%.
"I offer my condolences to my past selves. For tens of thousands of years, all I have are memories of work, work, work. Buried in paperwork..."
"Haha."
"Right now I'm in this strange place, so the memories are vivid at least. Once everything ends, they'll all become hazy..."
"Did Dok-seo say that?"
"Yes. That we should share our reflections [before the strategy], not [after the strategy]. Once Dream Within a Dream is conquered, even the memories piled up here like dregs will fade..."
Certainly.
This very magic that allowed everyone to recall previous cycles was itself a byproduct of Dream Within a Dream. In extreme terms, it was no different from the Void.
If the main body, the Void, were to be conquered, the byproduct would naturally disappear as well.
Woof!
A large dog came running from the entrance of the Tower of Babel.
Do-hwa knelt with practiced ease and stroked the large Maltese this way and that.
Huff, huff, huff.
Its tail wagged vigorously.
More pets followed the Maltese, wriggling closer.
Among them, one puppy trembled with its front and hind legs severely misaligned in height. There was also a cat with three tails sprouting from its rear, cracking like whips.
"Good, good..."
Hundreds of pets.
All children of a broken world with limbs somehow askew or damaged.
The pets I'd gifted in previous cycles, that Do-hwa had raised, and that the two of us had held funerals for together.
Once those children received even a single pat from Do-hwa, they immediately dissolved into ash.
"..."
Before long, only pure white ash fluttered through the plaza of the Tower of Babel.
Do-hwa brushed the ash from her doctor's coat and stood up.
"Awakener Undertaker."
"Yes. Speak, Director."
"Every time I killed you, you never once resisted but accepted death willingly. I'd like to ask why."
"Because I am the very one who dragged your life into this place."
The same answer as always.
Though the strata forming that answer had changed.
"Go Yuri arranged nearly everything for the sake of my fate. Nearly everything. However, even Yuri couldn't have foreseen that your existence would become this critical to my plan."
"..."
"Yes. You're also a case where you awakened due to a gap in your heart caused by Go Yuri. However, your ability isn't particularly impressive. [Protective Gear Creation]. In no scenario would you become the protagonist, or even a main character, with that ability."
In other words…
"You didn't join this story because of Go Yuri. Only I, the false regressor, caused you to bear all that suffering."
"..."
"Therefore, I bear responsibility. Unlike others, you at least have the right to kill me as much as you desire."
The corners of Do-hwa's mouth lifted.
"Even now?"
"..."
"If I say I don't like this ending, that the path you and Dok-seo created doesn't suit my temperament and I refuse it, what then?"
Do-hwa stepped closer.
"Still...?"
Her dry fingers grasped my neck.
Squeeze. Through the black leather gloves, a frail grip transmitted its pressure.
"Will you still die for me?"
I smiled.
"I'd accept it. But you won't be able to kill me anyway."
"Oh?"
The eye behind the monocle gleamed with interest.
"And why is that? Don't tell me you think my favorability toward you has maxed out enough to prevent murder? If so, I must tell you that would be a grave miscalculation..."
"It's not that."
As I answered, I thought.
Why did Dok-seo place Do-hwa at the final station?
Do-hwa herself responded with 'because of her Void affinity,' but Dok-seo had been the one persistently pushing ridiculous bait about an old-married couple or whatever nonsense.
As always, Dok-seo had given her a choice.
"Even if you kill me now, we'll meet again anyway. Here. Again. In the next cycle."
"..."
"And killing me then wouldn't be a 'new choice' from your perspective. You'd simply be retracing the choice your past self, your previous self made. And you..."
"I what?"
"Hate becoming a copy of yourself more than anything."
"..."
"How many times will you keep killing me? A thousand? Ten thousand? But eventually, an end will come, and the you at that end will make the choice to let me live. The person who remains in this world will be the one who made that final choice. Not you standing before me now."
"..."
"Only by sparing me here do you remain as the uniquely victorious one who survived to the end, a human freed from the shackles of regression. Noh Do-hwa. Therefore, you absolutely cannot kill me."
"..."
Slowly.
The leather glove formed of five distinct contours pulled away.
"To think you'd actually pull it off."
The sound that slipped through the withdrawn lips was closer to admiration, yet closer still to a curse.
"To publicly declare you'd save the world and then actually make it happen. Truly, astonishing."
"It wouldn't have been possible through my strength alone. It was possible because Yuri came before me, and Dok-seo followed after."
"...Those who've gambled and lost must accept the appropriate consequences."
Do-hwa removed her monocle.
"I won't bring this up ever again, so listen carefully..."
Thud. The folded monocle fell to the ground and rolled among the ashes.
A small rustling sound. It was the scream the monocle made as Do-hwa's shoe crushed it underfoot.
Do-hwa pulled off her gloves and tossed them aside.
"This is your victory. Undertaker."
"..."
"And this is my defeat."
Then she grasped my hand.
The back of my hand grew cool. It was because my lifted hand was brought close to Do-hwa's pale forehead.
"You were right and I was wrong. You were prudent and I was rash. My contempt was too premature to harvest the final autumn."
Squeeze.
With her head bowed, Do-hwa's face wasn't visible.
But she was expressing her emotions not through her face but through the pressure held in my hand.
"I pay my respects to everything you've accomplished. Even if my memories fade, the fact that a human like you exists will never be erased from my heart."
Emotion transmitted through bare hands scarred from countless hammer strikes and tool work.
"Claim your victory, Undertaker."
Humiliation.
"Seize your victory."
Disgrace.
"Having walked this far, you are more than deserving of victory."
Yet despite that, accepting defeat as defeat and treating victory as victory, offering mockery as the defeated.
With the same weight as that humiliation, merely changing direction, offering glory to the victor.
"May fortune be with you."
If this place were somewhere else, at the terminus of some remote route where victor and vanquished were reversed.
As if she believed without doubt that she would have carried out these same words.
"I apologize for killing you so many times."
If only human voices could be colored.
"In return, one wish."
Right now, Do-hwa's breath would surely be dripping with blood so cold it stung.
"Any wish at all. Even if it means tearing my soul apart, I'll grant you one wish."
A brief silence.
"Alright. I have a wish."
"...What is it?"
"After this is over, run for president."
"You fucking bastard. Do you really want to die?"
The rebuke carried genuine feeling.
I scratched my head.
"Hmm. With tens of thousands of years' experience governing a peninsula-scale organization, isn't letting such talent go to waste itself a national loss?"
"Really? Is that seriously your wish?"
"I'm joking. Even retirement denial has its limits. Ms. Do-hwa, it's time for you to step down from public duties."
I bent down and picked up the gloves.
After firmly fitting the gloves back onto Do-hwa's hands, I smiled faintly.
"Let's not live too far apart."
"..."
"Even if we don't need to be too close, we don't need to be too far either. When walking streets bathed in evening glow. When taking a slight detour on the way home... Where you don't need to dress up specially but can meet just by calling..."
Where rain falls when it rains there too.
Where waves crash when they crash there too.
Where if the sun shines beautifully, its shadow falls upon you as well.
"I'd like you to be in such a place."
For someone, if the sunset is beautiful, it's because the roads beneath that crimson lead to neighbors' homes.
My western sunset needed your house facing the same direction.
"Will you do that, Ms. Do-hwa?"
"..."
Noh Do-hwa sealed her lips.
It was a long silence.
So that words flowing from her lungs wouldn't rise immediately through her throat but would circle her heart several times, steeping properly.
"Yes."
She nodded.
"I shall do so, Undertaker."
Immediately after.
"Mister!"
Screech.
A door materialized from empty air and Dok-seo burst through, shoving it open. Her face was flushed from running.
"Huff, everyone! Without exception! I brought them all!"
Beyond the door, I glimpsed flashes of Old Man Scho and the connections I'd passed on every floor up to now.
"I tried to hurry in my own way but, you know, the flow of time is so different that I'm not sure if the timing worked out— Huh."
Dok-seo, who'd been gasping for breath, froze.
Her gaze landed precisely on the scene where I was just fitting gloves back onto Do-hwa's hands.
"Haaaack."
Dok-seo covered her mouth with both hands.
"O-old married couple...?!"
"..."
"S-sorry! Mister! I was so tactless! Wow. I really should just die. Stupid Dok-seo! Idiot Dok-seo! Three minutes, no. Thirty minutes. No no, I'll come back in three hours!"
"..."
"Gasp. But wait, wouldn't that fill up the entire time limit right before the deadline? No, well. Whatever. The world's been destroyed countless times anyway, one more time won't hurt. Have a good time!"
Bang.
The door slammed shut.
"Ah!"
It opened again.
"J-just, don't mind me! Of course, I'll eventually see whatever happened here in the laptop manuscript! But really don't mind me! I know how to respect privacy, you know! You trust me, right? Then I'm off."
Bang.
The door shut again.
"..."
"..."
If the door hadn't opened from this side, it would have taken over three hours to clear up the misunderstanding, and the conquest operation would have been postponed to the next cycle.
What tremendous luck.
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