Chapter 162

The space broke into pieces and collapsed.

As if, since those watching had left, there was no longer any need to maintain its form.

It cast off the mask it had been forcing itself to wear and began scattering into its original shape.

I fell.

As I plunged beneath the broken space, I watched.

The train growing distant, leaving behind the crumbling space.

Right, this is not a bad choice.

Repeating that to myself, I closed my eyes.

---

……I think I need to correct what I said earlier.

This is very bad.

Incredibly bad, perhaps worse than anything I imagined.

I was still falling.

“Urgh……!”

Falling endlessly was similar to being beaten continuously by a typhoon.

Because of the friction of the air, it was difficult to breathe comfortably.

My hair and the hem of my clothes kept whipping around busily.

On top of that, the fragments of space scattered around me passed by quickly, leaving only afterimages behind.

How long has it been since I got off the train?

In terms of how it feels, it seems to have been about 30 minutes.

Yet I was still only falling.

Surely this state will not continue forever.

……Damn it, I got goosebumps just imagining it.

How long do I have to stay like this?

“Stop already……!”

Stop—!

It was the moment I shouted, unable to endure any longer.

My body, which had been falling without end, abruptly stopped in midair.

The scenery around me that had been passing by like tunnel lights was fixed in place along with me.

“……?”

Why did it really stop?

“……Fall?”

Whoosh—!

As if it had understood my words, my body dropped again.

“Stop! Stop!”

Stop—!

At my shout, the fall stopped again.

Was this something I could control?

If that was the case, they should have told me sooner.

I had been falling for 30 minutes, feeling like I was about to have a heart attack…….

I slowly caught my breath and looked around.

“Hah.”

Even though I had finally stopped falling, I could not help but sigh again.

As if the height I had fallen so far was meaningless, I was still on the platform of Yongsan Station.

But that space was not one.

All time was spread out around me like a catalog.

Night, day.

Sunlight, snow, rain and wind.

A crowded hour, an hour with no one there.

People boarding trains, people missing trains.

The modern day, an old train station, an accident, a Severed Station Attendant, a sea of fire, an even older train station.

And a field older than that.

All those moments existed before my eyes.

The pasts under the strata, which normally lay beneath the surface called the present and could not be seen.

What exactly is this space…….

Suddenly, I remembered what Author Na Bit had said.

-If there were a higher-dimensional being than humans who could spread time out and see it like space, how would this street look? Flames would be rising beside people peacefully drinking tea, a child’s bicycle would pass by beside someone burned black to death, and shopping mall music, the sound of shells exploding, and siren sounds would all mix together, so it would be extremely chaotic and colorful, right?

Was this perhaps the sight the author had been talking about?

She had seen the same things as I did with her eyes, but inside her head, she had been drawing this reverse side.

If Author Na Bit had transferred that thing inside her head into writing.

And if I had proofread that writing, would I instead have felt glad when I first saw this sight?

Ah.

Blankly admiring it, I belatedly realized something.

Come to think of it, there was an ending I had decided on.

The ending of this strange story that had suddenly intruded upon my life.

That had been to look over Author Na Bit’s new work, but it seemed that had gone down the drain.

My feelings became somewhat complicated.

But well, this was something that happened often.

Rather, it was rare for things to go according to plan.

On top of that, I did not think the current ending was the worst.

Whether it was complete or incomplete was a little ambiguous, but at least it was not a dog’s death.

In any case, someone had gotten out alive.

Moreover, I had bought 12 with 1, so it was not a losing trade either.

Would this not be about the level of an ending that said, “I leave the rest to you”?

So there was no need to regret it.

Though it was a bit unfortunate.

I composed myself and looked around again.

More importantly, how long do I have to stay here?

Could this possibly be death?

As I blankly watched the time spread out around me.

CRRRUNCH—!

With the sound of something breaking, the space above my head brightened white.

CRUNCH— CRACK—!

A sound like the world being torn apart.

I lifted my head toward that sound and light, and stopped breathing as I was.

A pure white surge filled my field of vision.

Several wings made of light, with no end I could measure, were descending above me.

It felt as if the sky was approaching me.

Overwhelmed by that sight, I froze as I was.

Then a small, soft hand touched my cheek.

Only then did I discover her.

The woman who had descended while leading these wings.

Within the pure white light, the woman gently cupped my cheek.

“Let’s go now.”

At the woman’s whisper, my heart sank with a thud.

At that moment, I realized it like an instinct.

That I stood before death.

And that I would soon die.

My desire to survive belatedly stirred up fear.

But I could not resist.

The being before my eyes was too vast, so like someone already dead, I could only wait for this gentle touch to cut off my breath.

Press—

But…….

Press—

For some reason, the woman only pressed my cheek with her hand.

“……?”

Press— press—

As the hand pressed my cheek again and again as if teasing a child, I felt the awe and fear gradually fade.

When I stared blankly, the woman looked at me too.

Then she murmured as if she found it strange instead.

“How strange. Why is this happening?”

“……Um, has something gone wrong?”

“What did you do?”

“What?”

“You are fixed to this space right now.”

“Fixed?”

“To put it in terms easy for you to understand, you have become an earthbound spirit?”

“……!”

“Ah, that does not mean you have become a ghost. You are not even dead yet.”

“……?”

“But you are bound to this space. Something is still binding you.”

The woman said this while turning my cheek this way and that.

Her attitude was light, as if examining a broken watch.

“……Then what happens to me now?”

“I will take you with me.”

“You are failing to take me right now, though?”

“You are bound by causality, so the time will come when it comes undone. Though I do not know whether that will be in a few years or a few hundred.”

“A few hundred years?”

“It is fine. I am good at waiting.”

No, I’m not fine!

You want me to spend a few hundred years in a place like this?

When I was horrified, the woman took her hand off me and said,

“If you are bored waiting, you may sleep. I will wake you when what binds you comes loose.”

“……What exactly is binding me?”

“The bonds between you and the world. Among them, there is something that has not yet come undone. I cannot see exactly what it is yet, but it should loosen soon. From now on, your world will consider you one of the dead.”

“…….”

It was something I had already steeled myself for, but hearing it in words made it feel newly real.

“Once all of that comes undone, will I die?”

“Yes.”

“What is death like?”

“I cannot tell you. But I will guide you.”

Bird That Guides Souls.

Perhaps that referred to this woman.

As if deciding that she could not take me with her immediately, the woman settled herself in midair beside me.

What is this?

Do I really have to wait a few hundred years like this?

……Then could she not just let me live outside for about 50 more years before coming back?

I could not keep up with this situation or its scale.

Then I touched the cheek where the woman’s hand had touched earlier.

The woman’s hand had been gentle and warm.

There did not seem to be any malice in the way she treated me.

Well, that made sense. This woman was the one who had saved me until now.

If so, could I not see her feelings toward me as being close to goodwill?

I tried to examine the woman, then noticed the white wings behind her flashing.

They were already grandiose, and since they even sparkled, I could not look at them comfortably.

“Can’t you get rid of the wings behind you?”

“Wings?”

At my request, the woman looked behind her own back.

Then she grinned and said,

“These are not wings. They are my domain. The place where you woke up earlier.”

“……?”

Come to think of it, the white surge behind the woman had no exact shape.

It was only stretched out in white, so I had arbitrarily guessed that they were wings.

But that was the space where I had been earlier?

“This is my younger sibling’s domain. I cannot walk around freely here. So I brought my domain with me.”

So that is the worldview…….

“But I do not think it was flashing like that earlier.”

If it was the space I had been in, there had been one coffin and everything had been white.

It had not shone so brilliantly like that.

At my question, the woman answered in a monotonous voice.

“That is because they are making noise right now.”

“Making noise?”

“Mostly complaints. It seems they did not like the situation I just made.”

Complaints?

Come to think of it, this woman had sometimes spoken in plural.

Saying “we,” she had shown several times that she was not singular.

Thinking, surely not, I asked the woman,

“What did they not like?”

“The opinions are all different. Why did you save the losers, bring Seo Do-un back too, the choice you forced just now was the worst, and so on…….”

“Are there perhaps complaints hoping for my survival too?”

“Yes.”

The woman nodded lightly.

“Originally, whether to kill you or save you was half and half. But because of what happened just now, the mood shifted somewhat. The opinion that you were admirable and that they would like you to live is dominant.”

“Then please just save me.”

I bit at it without looking ahead or behind.

No, originally, even death-row prisoners are spared if the execution fails.

You just tried to kill me and failed, so just let me off.

If my death is not fixed and can be overturned as much as you like according to your whims.

Moreover, you do not particularly hate me or want to kill me, do you?

I placed my hopes on the woman’s subtle goodwill.

Indeed, the woman continued smiling as she looked at me.

And even now, with a smile on her lips, the woman said to me,

“No.”

“…….”

“I do not want to watch you anymore.”

“……Why?”

“Because I like you.”

It was an answer I could not understand.

“I will kill you and give you rest.”

It was a way of thinking I could not understand.

……But thinking about it differently, it was not impossible to understand.

Yes, now that she said it, I understood.

This was the older sister of the monster called 「Big Cat」.