Chapter 309

"Master, please calm yourself. If you grow any more agitated, your body will suffer—"

A vicious crack rang out, and the man's head snapped sideways.

The hulking figure—Landschi—bowed his head to the man who'd struck him, his expression contrite.

"…My apologies. I overstepped."

"Good, at least you know it. Now shut your mouth."

Milited, who had driven its fist into Landschi's face, growled and slumped back into its chair.

Tubes and pipes of unidentifiable purpose clung to its body in tangled clumps.

"How does any of this happen? Minerva makes her way in here and tears the place apart, and not one of you notices until it's too late. Who was responsible for that city that burned?"

"Skellic of the Red Mane. Four years ago he led his tribe in swearing fealty to you—the chieftain of an orc clan."

"Make him pay for it."

"Yes."

Landschi bowed his head with a short reply.

The orc had already burned to death along with the city, but mentioning that would only fuel the master's anger, so there was no point. If not him, then his tribesmen could pay the price instead. It wasn't important enough to bring up in the first place.

"…More importantly, those two? Still haven't found them?"

At Milited's question, Landschi answered again, quietly.

"No. Belluna and Gracius are working every angle as we speak. If you'll just give us a little more time—"

Milited raised a hand to cut him off, clearly tired of hearing it.

"Find them. Whatever it takes. If you bungle this, Landschi, I'll start with you and work my way through every last one of you."

"I won't forget it."

Only then did Milited flap its hand at him, dismissing him.

Landschi backed out and shut the door behind him, and once Milited was finally alone, it let out a long sigh.

"Ugh…."

The body that Minerva had shattered and ground to pieces was still screaming in pain.

On top of that, having taken a full dose of her venom—the most vicious and potent of any among the Seven Calamities—it would be confined to months of recovery at minimum.

But none of that really mattered.

What had Milited on edge right now was something else entirely: the pendant's owner, Yu Ji-hyeok, and Han Su-yeong had both vanished without a trace.

At first it had wondered if Minerva or Venus had killed them, but seeing Venus rage for days on end, churning up violent storms and letting loose those shrieking, scream-like roars, and Minerva tearing across the sky breathing venom in furious bursts—it could only conclude that the two were still alive.

"…."

Milited exhaled slowly and began trying to piece together what had actually happened that day.

After a long while, it arrived at the same conclusion it kept arriving at: nothing came back. And that was exactly what made the unease impossible to shake.

There was no way it shouldn't remember anything.

The pieces of its body that had clearly gone missing, the chunks of power that felt like they'd been ripped away—those were the proof.

If it had burned through that much power, there was no way it wouldn't know.

"And on top of that…."

Once the suspicion took hold, the inconsistencies piled up fast.

A gap in its memory that looked like it had been excised cleanly.

And above all, the recovery was far too slow.

At first Milited had assumed it was Minerva's venom doing the work, but—

"No. That woman's poison doesn't have this kind of effect. If it did, she'd have used it long ago. She'd have used it on Venus and Juno first. So then why…?"

Milited began muttering in a low, even voice.

It was a habit of its—something that surfaced when it was sorting through its thoughts or chewing on a problem.

"Missing power, a gap in memory… don't tell me…."

The pendant.

Milited prided itself on knowing more about the guidestone than anyone alive.

It also knew, perfectly well, that any being who came into contact with someone using the guidestone to travel back through time would lose every memory of that contact the moment the user returned to their original time.

The source of the missing power. The well it had been drawn from.

The thought struck—had Yu Ji-hyeok used Milited itself as the price to return to his own time?—but it cooled itself almost as quickly.

"No. No, that can't be it. If that were the case, I wouldn't have remembered him in the first place."

It couldn't even begin to guess what had actually happened.

A frustrated, prickling feeling crawled through its chest, and Milited reached for the wine bottle beside it. That was when—

"Master!"

Landschi's voice, urgent.

The knock had barely sounded before the door was wrenched open.

Irritation flared in Milited for a split second, then died the instant it saw who'd walked in. It scrambled to its feet.

The two who stepped through the door were Yu Ji-hyeok and Han Su-yeong.

"Drinking? Must be nice."

"Y-You're alive! Thank god, truly!"

At Yu Ji-hyeok's remark, Milited hastily set the bottle down.

Even with the sarcasm in his voice, Milited just beamed and came barefoot down off the throne.

The last image it had of Yu Ji-hyeok was him fleeing toward the sea while fighting Minerva. On top of that, Milited had committed an unforgivable betrayal—selling him out to save its own skin—and ever since, it had been sick with worry that he might tear up the pendant deal entirely.

"Yeah. Thanks to a certain someone, I nearly got killed by Minerva, but I managed to scrape through."

Yu Ji-hyeok said it as he glanced back at Han Su-yeong behind him.

"My friend came to help me, and that's the only reason I made it. I'm late because I spent the time recovering from the wounds—and then I started hearing your side had put a bounty on us?"

"A b-bounty…? What on earth are you talking about…?"

Milited, who had personally ordered a bounty large enough to buy a castle on the two of them, mumbled the words like it had never heard of such a thing.

Landschi dropped to his knees on the spot and slammed his forehead against the floor. He drove his head down again and again until the skin tore—skin tougher than steel—and blood began to run.

"My deepest apologies. The order came from me. I gave it out of concern for both of your safety, and it seems the men below me misinterpreted it."

The giant kept hammering his forehead into the floor as he spoke.

Milited watched, then exploded.

"Who gave you permission to bleed your filthy blood in front of them!"

"Master… I, that was—"

"Shut up!"

Milited snarled in a vicious tone and shot across the room, kicking Landschi clean off his feet.

The giant flew limply and crashed into the wall, and Yu Ji-hyeok—who'd shifted his body to shield Han Su-yeong almost on reflex—watched the obvious performance with a bored expression.

"I'll deal with your crime once this is settled."

At Milited's order to leave, Landschi staggered and crawled out the door. Almost as if on cue, Natalia Milited stepped in.

"Master."

"What now, you this time? Natalia."

She took up where Landschi left off, all polite deference.

Still, better than Landschi. Yu Ji-hyeok watched her and silently rated their acting.

"I know it's rude to interrupt, but I came to let you know the bath has been prepared. Our guests look exhausted… and I've also ordered the kitchens to put together a meal right away."

"Ah, right. Of course. Where are my manners."

Milited nodded.

The performance was so theatrical it made anyone watching want to look away. Yu Ji-hyeok bit the inside of his cheek, and Sbeungali—who had no reason to hold back—burst out laughing at how hard the bastard was working.

"For now, the both of you, go rest and wash up. Fill your stomachs, and then we can talk—how does that sound? My cooks are quite skilled, you'll see. And… ah, yes! I'll have someone sent to attend you at the bath as well."

Yu Ji-hyeok and Han Su-yeong traded a brief glance.

They held that look for a moment, and only after Han Su-yeong gave a small nod did Yu Ji-hyeok—who had been watching her with an oddly tense expression—finally open his mouth.

"Sure. Fine."

He added in a quieter voice:

"We've got plenty to talk about anyway, just the two of us."

"Haaa…."

Han Su-yeong let out a languid sigh, sunk down in the enormous tub.

The moment she eased into the hot water, the strength drained out of her on its own, and even her eyelids felt heavy.

Natalia and the others who had tried to follow her into the bath under the pretense of attending her—she'd shooed every last one of them out, telling them she didn't need any of it. Now she rubbed her face with both hands as if washing it.

"…."

She let her head fall back against the rim and stared blankly up at the ceiling, where droplets of water had gathered.

She watched them fall, one after another, plink, plink, watched them without thinking at all.

Her head was full again of the conversation she'd had with Yu Ji-hyeok before they'd come back to this era.

"Why did I do that…."

Han Su-yeong muttered to herself.

The words she'd thrown at him still echoed in her ears.

'…Ji-hyeok. Are you hiding something from me?'

She'd meant to ask it gently. Somehow it had come out sounding like an interrogation.

And then, flustered, she'd gone and tacked something else on:

'I'm not even going to ask you to tell me everything. Just this one thing. Are you hiding something from me? Are you?'

She covered her face like she couldn't bear to look at it and mumbled, on the verge of tears.

"Right after I tell him I met Ahriman—of course it sounds like I'm accusing him…."

Yu Ji-hyeok's startled face.

Then the look that came after, twisted with guilt and torment, hesitating.

And then the whole truth—everything the other version of herself had told her.

[This world is the world of a video game.]

"…."

A world inside a game.

Me. Hyun-woo. Master. All of this.

All of it less than a dream.

Han Su-yeong let out another deep sigh before she could stop herself.

[And Ji-hyeok—he knew the game we were in.]

[It's a cruel joke, isn't it? That everything in our lives, from start to finish, was already written.]

[You won't believe it. …Honestly, I still can't believe it. I don't want to. But once I saw what I saw, there was no choice.]

[Before then—]

[Ahriman came to me.]

[Things were so bleak then. The Calamities were breaking their seals one after another and running wild, the world was caving in, building strength was a joke when just surviving each day was almost more than I could handle… and I didn't know the first thing about who'd really killed Ji-hyeok and Hyun-woo.]

[That's when it appeared, just like that.]

[I'd lost any reason to keep going. I was thinking about ending it. And it came to me with an offer.]

[It would help me get my revenge. And it would tell me the truth about this world, everything about me and Yu Ji-hyeok.]

[All I had to do was promise not to take my own life.]

[…What do you think I did?]

[Remember how I told you never to make a deal with Ahriman or even talk to it? It's embarrassing to admit, but I said that because I'd already made a deal with it myself.]

[Yes… that's right.]

She had handed over every single thing she'd learned, paid for with her own life, without holding anything back.

Because she didn't want to watch Yu Ji-hyeok, Choi Hyun-woo, and Nam Hyun-hwa die again.

And because she hoped the other version of herself wouldn't end up walking the same road.

[Ahriman's targets are us. I told you that.]

[More precisely, the people who serve as this world's main cast.]

[It wanted something from me. That's why it stepped in to keep me from dying before I could hand it over.]

[And when it told me the truth about Ji-hyeok, it put it like this.]

"Something that should not exist in this world."

That was how it had called Yu Ji-hyeok.

And the people Ahriman was after—the main cast, Han Su-yeong included—had to remove 'something that should not exist in this world' from it, no matter what.

Remove.

Put plainly, kill.

"…."

Han Su-yeong closed her eyes.

But even with them shut, the image of her other self came back, sharper than before.

[…If it ever came to that, what would I have done?]

[And Ji-hyeok? What in the world would he have said?]

[Was I really nothing more than a character in a game to that kid?]

[Or was I… real?]

[I wanted to ask. I wanted to know.]

[But now I can't.]

[You're different, though. You're not me….]

[So please….]

"Haaah…."

The sighs kept coming, one after another, born of the same tight feeling in her chest.

She had wanted to ask him too.

Whether she was just the Han Su-yeong in his game, or actually Han Su-yeong.

Or whether all of them, herself included, were nothing more than a passing dream to him.

If.

If he could go back, and when he did—how would he remember any of them?

"…."

That was why she had tried so hard not to let it show, why she'd intended to keep this to herself.

She knew, very clearly, how impossible Yu Ji-hyeok's position must be, how much it had to be eating at him.

So when he'd finally forced himself to admit he came from another world, all she'd wanted was to be there for him, to be his support.

But now….

"No… I can't think like that, I really can't…."

Han Su-yeong muttered to herself, shaking her head back and forth.

Restless and frayed, she dunked herself under the water all the way to her hairline, then came up with a sputter.

That's when it happened.

A splat—the sound of wet footsteps reached her ear.

"…What now?"

She'd told them very clearly to stay out.

As that thought crossed her mind, she turned her head toward the source of the sound, and her hand flew out at the same time.

A thin metal needle bounced harmlessly off an invisible barrier. Han Su-yeong stared at it, wondering what fresh hell this was now.

"Quick."

A skin-crawling voice.

It sounded like bubbles popping, and when Han Su-yeong turned to look she actually flinched back. The thing in front of her was that revolting.

"Our master wants you."

It looked like someone had crudely mashed a frog, a fish, and a person into a single body.

The things were the size of small children, and their hands clutched implements crusted with moss and seaweed.

The one that seemed to be in charge—holding what looked like a blowgun—puffed out its cheeks with a gurgling croak.

"The Master of the Sea commands that you be brought. Come quietly—!"

It didn't get to finish.

However grotesque the creature, a head bursting apart tended to interrupt conversation, and along with it, life. Han Su-yeong shook the sticky green fluid off her hand and muttered.

"What is this thing supposed to be."

Han Su-yeong thought, quietly:

She'd been needing a distraction anyway. This worked.