168 – Simulation
“Thinking, breathing, heartbeat…”
“You…”
“…Everything stops!!!”
As Kang Maru’s command with all his might echoes everywhere, silence flows around for a moment.
“”……””
Soon, Lee Se-ah and Kang Ma-ru freeze in their seats at the same time, without even knowing who goes first.
“…Huh?”
“Puh-ha! Ha-a…”
“Cluck, cough…”
At the same time, Kang Ha-neul and his party, who had been rigid due to the restraints of the shadows, are released from their restraints all at once and begin to exhale harshly.
“What happened…?”
＞ I almost died because I couldn’t speak! Actually, I don’t say it out loud, but…
“Shh, everyone be quiet.”
After a while, the group began to look at the situation in front of them one by one with wary eyes.
“I’ve seen that person a lot somewhere.”
“…Aren’t you Kang Ha-neul’s older sister?”
Meanwhile, Ariel, who was lying face down on the floor, lowers her head with a tired expression and begins to mutter.
“I tried numerous episodes… But this was the best.”
“…Ariel?”
“The route that could save you… Was the only one.”
After hearing her words, Kang Haneul tilted her head for a moment, then stumbled over to her and tried to help her.
“…Aren’t you in worse condition than me?”
“But…”
“I’m fine, so I’m going to end this…”
But she shook her head resolutely and muttered as she pointed towards the direction where the hardened Ise Awa River Maru was.
“For your information… You already made a choice there once.”
“…What?”
“But I regretted it until the end. So I came back…”
“Ariel, you…”
After hearing her meaningful remark, Kang Ha-neul bursts into a cold sweat and asks a question.
“You’re talking as if you’ve experienced this situation… Once?”
“Push…”
When Ariel heard those words, she looked up at the sky above her river with helpless eyes, then burst into low laughter and muttered.
“It wasn’t just once…”
“…You, no way.”
“Sorry, I’m so sleepy right now…”
Her river sky, which was looking at her with her slightly pale complexion, began to shake her urgently.
“uuuh?”
“You can’t close your eyes here. I’m going to the doctor right now…”
“…I’m not dying.”
“I can’t lose even you… Justia alone was enough to lose…!”
Ariel, slightly embarrassed by such a situation, began to mumble helplessly, but her river sky continued to shake her with a pained expression.
“No, you really won’t die!”
“…Ah.”
“I’m just going to faint for a moment, so listen carefully…”
In such a situation, Ariel, who could not stand it anymore and raised her voice, momentarily took her gaze away from her river Haneul, who had begun to make a blank expression, and turned her head towards her companions.
“Try a different choice this time…”
Then, she mumbled with a slightly tearful expression and quietly closed her eyes.
“…I’m glad.”
Feeling a coldness in her chest, Haneul checks her pulse and soon realizes that Ariel’s words are true, sighing and lowering her head.
“”…………””
And then the silence began.
– Sigh…
When Kang Ha-neul, who had been keeping his head down for a while, stood up, the group members who were quietly watching him flinched all at once.
“Ugh, the head…”
“…………”
＞ W, we have to get out of here. River sky. It took too much time. The heroes’ radios are being intercepted by my wiretapping device.
“That’s what I think too. First of all, that crazy b*tch has been neutralized… And the heroes will arrive soon.
Then, everyone except Rumia, who was holding his head with a frown, and Death Concept, who fainted from the aftermath of the battle, began to spit out words to him one by one.
“…I will follow your opinion. This is my first time experiencing a situation like this.”
Finally, when Dice who said that began to look at him, Kang Ha-neul sighed and lost in thought.
– Sigh…
“…….!”
As he quietly walks away, the eyes of his companions widen.
＞ Nim, where are you going?
“…Kang Haneul?”
The direction Kang Ha-neul is heading towards is not towards the group, but towards the opposite side. So, it was a place where Lee Se-ah and Kang Maru were solidified.
＞ If you don’t leave now, you might be late!!
“…You guys go first. I’ll follow soon.”
Pandora, who was looking at the scene anxiously, hurriedly flew a drone to deliver a message. Kang Ha-neul mumbled and stared at the person in front of him.
“…Why did I suddenly make this choice?”
“……..”
“I’ll have to look into it.”
He reached out his hand to Kang Maru’s head, which had been frozen silently, and soon silence began to flow once again.
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.
.
“…..?”
After finishing the command, Kang Maru opened his eyes in the darkness, unable to see an inch in front of him.
“Why am I here…?”
She was walking backwards, looking around her surroundings with wary eyes, and then she placed her hand on her own face, which was somehow damp.
“…Ah.”
Then, she soon realized that tears were flowing from her own eyes.
“Okay…”
From that very moment, all the memories from before begin to appear in my mind.
“…It was my choice.”
Soon, her legs began to tremble.
“So, was it successful…?”
How many trials and errors did you go through after first arriving at the place where Kang Ha-neul and his group were?
If some of one’s memories had not been inherited in that infinitely repeated situation, it may have been impossible to produce a result like this.
“Thank goodness…”
But the fact that I have now arrived at this unlikely place means that I have achieved something in that repetitive situation.
For some reason, in this space, unlike what he commanded, his thoughts, breathing, and heartbeat remain the same.
‘…It’s not a failure, is it?’
I had that thought for a moment, but I soon found out that it was wrong.
No matter how you looked at this place, it at least looked like the afterlife.
If not, it is a space created by one’s own unconsciousness that did not want to die until the end.
– Parr…
“…Ha.”
Kang Maru, who quietly realizes that his legs are shaking, falls down helplessly in his seat and mutters in a low voice.
“I made up my mind so strongly, but I’m still like this until the end…”
The tears did not stop flowing from my eyes.
A terrible fear came over her as she thought that she might have to live in this space forever.
She is someone who has hated her darkness so much since long ago.
For her, this space where only her endless darkness spread was a place so terrifying that it was difficult for her to maintain her sanity.
“……..”
From Noble mtl dot com
Because of her
Before she knew it, her calm had disappeared, and she quietly sat down in her seat and hugged her own body.
– Exciting…!
“…Huh?”
A terrible pain suddenly spread through her heart.
“Ahh…”
She bowed her head, letting out a sigh from the terrible pain that felt as if her heart was being stabbed with a knife, closed her eyes tightly, and began to gag.
“Wow…”
The bodily fluids she exhaled slowly mixed with the darkness and disappeared, like water spilled on her sand.
“…Ugh?”
As she stared at the scene blankly, she soon realized one thing.
– Tsuzuzuzuzu…
It wasn’t just the bodily fluids she had vomited that were disappearing into the darkness.
Her body, too, starting from her legs, was slowly blending into the darkness.
“Ah…”
When Kang Maru realizes that fact, he is at a loss for words for a moment.
“…As expected, I’m dying.”
She begins to mutter in a trembling voice as she feels the pain in her heart once again.
“Thank goodness…”
– Crackling…
“It’s right for a monster like me to die quickly…”
Finally, Kang Maru said that and quietly lowered her head.
“That’s true…”
Her lips are starting to dry out.
“…It’s scary, I can’t help it.”
However, soon her lips quietly twitched.
“Hae-neul must have been several times more scared than this during this time, right?”
Kang Maru quietly closes her eyes, lowers her head, and begins to quietly adapt to reality.
“Compared to that, it’s only a few minutes at most. I…”
– Tsuzuzuzuzu…
“…I’m sorry, Sky.”
As tears flow from her eyes once again, she thinks of the face she will no longer be able to see.
“……Ha.”
However, no matter how much he thinks about it, Kang Maru’s eyelids flutter as soon as the image of him making a painful expression comes to mind.
– Rustling…!
“…….!”
But at that very moment, a sound came from behind her.
“W-what…”
When Kang Maru, who was startled thanks to this, hurriedly turns her head, an unbelievable sight unfolds before her eyes.
“……..”
“Sky?”
For some reason, Kang Ha-neul stood tall in this dark space without a single ray of light.
“W-how can we get here…”
She looked at that and made a blank expression for a moment, but then quickly asked a question.
“Sister…”
“…Huh?”
However, she soon stops talking and starts making a blank expression.
“Are you training today too?”
The river sky in front of her was as young as it was ten years ago.
“Oh, can’t I… Do it today?”
At that time, when her own terrible training had just begun, she looked like she was crying.
“…I, the bruise I got yesterday hurts so much.”
Kang Maru’s eyes, who had been seeing her like that in her eyes, begin to shake violently.
“Ha, sky…”
“Hey, hey.”
When she eventually reached out her hand to him without realizing it, her river Sky backed away, looking at her with her frightened eyes.
“Why are you pretending to regret everything…?”
At that very moment, someone began whispering in a creepy voice in her ear as she sat down in her seat.
“No matter how much you repent… The abuse you committed in the past will never go away…?”
“……!!!”
It was none other than Se-Ah Lee’s voice.
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‘…I roughly understand the situation.’
I entered Kang Maru’s image world and watched the situation for a while. As I expected, when Se-ah Lee appeared, she frowned and raised her hand.
‘I’ll have to test it soon.’
If this is an image world that Se-ah Lee created as a makeshift solution just before being driven into a corner, and if it is Kang Maru in that state, it is possible to fully recreate it with my abilities.
– It’s not easy…
If Se-Ah’s abilities had not been fixed, we could at least simulate how the situation would have played out.