Chapter 336

[No need to grieve over it so.]

I was gazing at Minerva — turned now to stone — when her voice came through to me.

[In the end, hasn't this Minerva met you again, after a span that you can call long if you want, or short if you want? It had to happen.]

At her words, I looked at the statue once more.

I had no idea how three hundred years felt to Minerva, but at least to me, it was a vast, near-endless stretch of time.

What was I supposed to say to her — to a Minerva who had to be even more shaken than I was.

"Ji-hyeok."

Then Su-yeong took hold of my wrist.

She tucked the crystal of Milited — which had slipped halfway out of my grip — back into my hand and looked up at me.

"Let's go. Now."

Her own eyes a touch red, she looked at the now-statue Minerva and went on.

"After all this — if we end up too late, there'd be no point in Minerva accepting a choice like that. So…"

"…!"

Rauné, hanging from her shoulder, also gave a big floppy nod in agreement.

After staring at the two of them for a beat, I gave a small nod of my own.

"Yeah. We should."

With that, I picked up the pendant.

Still gripping the Milited crystal, I tightened my hold on the pendant, and it began to tremble.

"Hold on tight, both of you."

There was no real need to say it.

Su-yeong was already pressed close against me, and so was Rauné.

Light began to leak out of the pendant, and that same light from before slowly started to wrap around us.

In front of my eyes, just like that time, a notification window appeared once again.

A strange pulse of power is being felt!

The 'Traveler's Guidestone,' having returned to its true form, indicates the direction of the path you wish to travel.

A pull from a strange power is being felt…

Through continued use of the 'Traveler's Guidestone,' you have come to dimly sense the endpoint of the path you are about to travel.

You are heading to the future, 256 years ahead.

"…What? Hold on — what? Two hundred and fifty years from now?"

"Huh? What? What do you mean, two hundred and fifty years?"

I'd ended up muttering it dazedly at the notification window in front of me without realizing it.

Han Su-yeong jerked at the sound of me talking to myself, looking over with startled alarm as if to ask what on earth I meant.

That was the moment.

"……"

"Hm?"

Rauné, hanging from my shoulder, abruptly pressed its face against my cheek with a soft thwap.

It stroked my face with its roots in slow, gentle motions, and when I turned my eyes to look, it was staring back at me with its usual unreadable eyes and expression.

A chill ran through me for an instant, and just as I went to grab it —

"……!!!"

"What — hey! Rauné!!!"

Rauné dodged my hand with astonishing quickness and leaped clear of us, landing well back.

I tried to reach toward it as it slipped past the ring of light, but I couldn't.

The place where Rauné stood and the place where we stood were already different worlds.

[I'd had a hunch.]

Even in the middle of all that, Sbeungali muttered in a strangely calm voice.

[I'd been wondering why that creature Ahriman was being so cooperative.]

Sbeungali let out a small sigh.

[Didn't it say a moment ago — exactly two people's worth? This body of mine and Minerva are half-absorbed into you, Yu Ji-hyeok, living on you as parasites — so broadly speaking, we count as subordinated to you. Parts of you, you might say.]

But this one isn't.

A sharp click rang out.

[The mandragora I created… what you call Rauné slipped out from under my shadow long ago. By now, it's effectively a fully independent spirit — its own being. Which is to say, plainly: that one over there should have been counted as a person, too.]

For a beat I almost shouted why on earth didn't you say so sooner, but he saw what I was about to say coming and beat me to it.

[What were you going to do about it?]

Sbeungali said it in a cold, flat voice.

[You have to go back, don't you? If you were planning to come out with something like let's catch another Seven Calamity and travel back through time again, don't even bother. It'd only make my chest hurt.]

He let out a clucking laugh.

[Half-measure in everything — and on top of that, your biggest problem is trying to drag every useless thing home along with what matters. There's no end to how foolish you are.]

Useless thing.

At those words, my teeth started grinding all on their own.

"Sbeungali, you absolute bastard — in a moment like this, you're still going to—!?"

I had no choice but to break off midsentence.

Sbeungali.

I'd only just realized — his voice wasn't coming from inside my head. It was coming through my ears.

[See for yourself.]

A sharp click rang out.

When I turned my head to look, a tangle of wooden vines lying outside the ring of light was already squirming, working itself into a pair of eyes and a mouth.

It was Sbeungali.

[How dense and dim does a man have to be to only now notice that this body of mine had broken off? Hm?]

"You… how on earth, just now—"

[Fool that you are.]

Sbeungali snapped out another sharp click and raised his voice again.

[Have you forgotten that you've been handing power over to me all this time, knowingly or not? If I'd wanted, I could've slipped out from under your influence whenever I liked.]

He muttered that he simply hadn't, and went on, in that awful voice of his, with his usual flat calm.

[…You can hear the details from Minerva. The two of us had already worked it out between us.]

"What the hell are you on about — hey!"

[Don't you remember even what I just said?]

Sbeungali muttered through a sigh.

[I told you — stop trying to carry off every useless thing with you.]

He rolled his eyes around.

Rauné stared sullenly at the eyes and mouth that had just sprouted right next to it.

[A spirit's intuition, or you might call it a sixth sense, I suppose. This little thing came and told me — when you went back, it knew without a doubt that it would end up the obstacle. So it warned me in advance that, if it came to that, it'd stay behind and ride out the three hundred years on its own.]

Rauné jolted in shock and lunged at him, roots flailing, as if to demand why are you telling them that, but Sbeungali paid no mind and went on.

[But how is this little thing supposed to ride out three hundred years alone? This fearless creature puffed itself up boasting that three hundred years was nothing — but it'd probably last only a few years before its lifespan ran out and it withered, or something ate it. So shouldn't at least one guardian stay behind with it?]

A memory rose up in my head — the first time we'd run into Milited and fought it.

Back then, Belluna — who shouldn't have had a ring — had still come through the barrier, and she'd said she'd received it from Rauné.

But the Rauné who'd fallen into this era with me had clearly been wearing its own ring around its neck.

Rings whose numbers didn't add up.

The Rauné who'd supposedly handed Belluna a ring.

It couldn't be.

It couldn't…

[Then I'll see you in three hundred years. When the time comes, follow the trace of my energy, and you'll find me well enough.]

With those words, Sbeungali simply vanished.

Rauné was watching me without a word.

Around its neck hung the ring I'd given it, and one of my scales.

"……"

It waved a hand at me silently.

The same as always — that unreadable expression that gave nothing away of what was going on inside it.

Just the way it had been from the moment we first met until now.

Same as always.

A strange light can be felt wrapping around you…

And then a bright light came flooding down on every side.

The first thing to come into view was an interior pitch-dark all around.

Beside me, Su-yeong was hunched in an awkward half-crouch, feeling around at her surroundings.

Thanks to Henir's Shadow and Dragon Blood, the dark didn't bother me at all — I could see clearly, and it took no effort to recognize where we were: right back where we'd started, inside the barrier we'd set up for the fight with Milited.

"Su-yeong, here."

When I held out my hand, she carefully took hold of it.

While I waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark, I spoke quietly to Minerva to hear the full story.

"…All right — start explaining, Minerva."

[This Minerva doesn't know the details either.]

She spoke to me in a quiet voice, almost like she was coaxing me.

[I don't know whether you were aware of it, but the only beings who could hear that little mandragora's voice were other spirits, or Sbeungali, who could be called its creator. All this Minerva heard from Sbeungali was a passing remark — that if anything unexpected ever came up, they would wait out about three hundred years, the way the past me had. That was the extent of it.]

"……"

[Sbeungali, and that spirit you call Rauné as well — they each turned it over for themselves and made the choice. To wait out three hundred years for your sake. So…]

"I know, Minerva. I know that."

I nodded.

"Which is why we need to go meet them again as soon as we possibly can."

[Yes.]

Minerva let out a small, relieved smile.

[Just the way you did with this Minerva. Yes — that's how it should be.]

"Hey, Ji-hyeok…"

Su-yeong, whose eyes had adjusted to the dark to some extent, spoke carefully.

Even as she spoke to me, she kept glancing around at our surroundings.

"Something feels off, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Looks like the timing's slipped a little."

"Mhm…"

She nodded.

If everything had gone to plan, we should have come back to the moment just after we'd left for the past.

The time alignment had clearly been knocked off.

"The question is, how far off it slipped…"

Going by the fact that the marks from our fight with Milited were still here inside the barrier, we hadn't landed in the past.

After looking around for a moment, I could tell — this place had been sealed up and abandoned.

After we'd disappeared, the others must have left this place intact rather than tearing it down.

"Let's get outside, first."

"How? You going to break through? Spatial magic isn't going to work in here."

This place had been built to hold Milited, so the barrier wasn't anything you could smash through easily.

Of course, I could manage if I put my mind to it — but there was no reason to burn that kind of strength.

I tipped a small gesture down toward my feet, and she nodded as if she'd just caught on.

A short while later, after we slipped out through Henir's Shadow, the warmth that hit us all at once made us flinch in spite of ourselves.

"…It's hot."

She swallowed and muttered it softly.

It hadn't been cold before we'd dropped into the past, but at least it hadn't been hot like this either.

I was just starting to worry that the time slip might have been more than I'd reckoned for, when —

"And what are these flowers about?"

A cluster of flowers had been gathered in one corner.

They hadn't grown there on their own — someone had brought them and set them down.

They looked like flowers laid at a memorial for the dead.

No — to anyone's eyes, they were exactly that. Memorial flowers.

"……"

"……"

Neither Su-yeong nor I could say anything at the sight.

Scattered around, on top of that, were the kimbap I used to like, one of the daggers I hadn't managed to retrieve, and what looked like Su-yeong's staff.

"Su-yeong — your phone, by any chance?"

"It broke ages ago. I tossed it…"

"Bad news. Same here."

Phones aside, we didn't have a good way of getting in touch with anyone right now.

I was just starting to wonder if the situation was more serious than I'd thought, when —

[Someone's coming.]

I jolted at Minerva's words, grabbed Su-yeong's hand without thinking, and ducked out of sight before I knew it.

By the time I caught myself wondering why are we hiding, exactly?, my body had already done it on its own.

Even Su-yeong, the moment she realized someone was coming, grabbed my hand right back and tugged me along into hiding.

And so the two of us stayed crouched out of sight, waiting for whoever was walking toward us.

A woman.

Small in build.

Light brown hair.

"It's Yu-na."

That someone was none other than Lee Yu-na.

I watched her carefully as she came slowly toward us.

Thankfully, she didn't look much different from the Lee Yu-na I remembered.

At least it didn't look like the kind of years have passed situation that you couldn't laugh off — and I was letting out a small breath of relief when —

"Sorry — I'm a little late, aren't I?"

Lee Yu-na said it and carefully set down the flowers she'd been carrying.

Then, from the bag in her other hand, she took out a lunchbox.

"The tuna kimbap Ji-hyeok used to like. Some sandwiches. And I made some of the chicken Su-yeong used to like and brought it along."

As she spoke, she deftly cleared away the food that had been left there before and set down what she'd brought.

Then she began a quick tidy-up of the surrounding area.

"……"

"……"

For some reason, neither Su-yeong nor I could so much as think of stepping out in front of her — we just stayed put, holding our breath.

Maybe it was because there was something so reverent about her.

"…A whole month already, huh."

Once she'd mostly finished tidying up, Lee Yu-na crouched down in front of where the flowers and the other items lay, and murmured to herself.

"There are still people who can't bring themselves to believe it, but some are starting to come around. And really, you can't blame them…"

She let out a small sigh.

"Even the World Tree clan and the Ten Powerhouses all stepped in to search, and they couldn't find a single trace…"

Another sigh.

She was still crouched there in a way that hurt to watch.

"I… don't want to believe it either. That the two of you, just like that…"

Sniff.

A small shake ran through her shoulders.

"…If I'd been a little stronger, would it have turned out differently?"

Without either of us realizing, large tears had welled up in Lee Yu-na's eyes.

"Ji-hyeok, you said it yourself — that when we fought that Seven Calamity, I was important. That you needed me. But in the end, I… in the end, I couldn't do anything… and so…"

She gave a thick, drawn-out sniff.

She'd had both arms wrapped around her knees, but she pulled one free to rub at the corner of an eye.

"If I'd been… just a little stronger. If only… then maybe…"

Her words trailed off into mumbling that grew less and less intelligible the further they went, until at last she broke into open tears.

She buried her face between her knees and started bawling — so heartbreaking to watch that Su-yeong, right next to me, murmured what do we do… under her breath.

"Ji-hyeok… Su-yeong… please, answer me… please…"

I couldn't stay still any longer.

Su-yeong's eyes met mine. She gave a small nod, and then, with a resolved look on her face, got to her feet. I stood right after her.

Even as we crossed those several steps toward her, she was sobbing so hard she didn't seem to notice in the slightest.

"Yu-na."

"Lee Yu-na."

The moment we called her name, almost in unison, the figure curled there sobbing flinched.

"……"

The crying had stopped, so we called her name once more.

"Yu-na, it's me. Su-yeong."

"Hey, Lee Yu-na."

At our voices, her body began to tremble, a fine shudder building slowly.

And then, slowly.

Very slowly, her head began to lift…

"Hii — hiyaaaaaaaak!!!"

The instant her eyes met ours, Lee Yu-na let out a piercing scream and dropped flat on the spot.