206 – Final Battle (14)
“…Who is that guy?”
Na-rae, who was examining Dice’s condition with wide-open eyes, only then discovered a being sitting on the edge of the rooftop and opened her eyes wide.
“River… Sky?”
Then, she looked at him and me alternately and muttered in a quiet voice.
“Two heavens?”
“…That can’t be possible.”
Although she initially denied what she said, I wasn’t really sure either. Is what is in front of me real or fake?
“…Who are you?”
Then there is one way. I guess I have no choice but to ask directly.
“You probably know better than anyone else.”
“……!”
“…I guess you don’t know much yet.”
When I ask a question with that thought in mind, a voice completely identical to mine comes out of his mouth.
“You know that this world is constantly repeating itself, right?”
“…Okay.”
“I am the one who created that repetition.”
As I listen to the next words, I find myself chewing my lips.
“Yes… Speaking from your perspective, you could say it is the first ‘Kang Ha-neul’.”
“The first…”
Is it because the prediction that I tried so hard to deny became reality? I feel nauseous and cold sweat begins to flow.
The first country. Is it really me who has caused this living hell to repeat itself over and over again?
So, have I always been trapped in a hell of my own making?
“…I can see what you’re thinking, sky.”
“…….”
“Cough, cough… I can tell you, no.”
While I was about to lose my mind for a moment with such thoughts, Dice, who was coughing up blood behind me, began to speak to me in a hushed voice.
“I can say with certainty that the you you are now… And ‘that bastard’… Are completely different beings.”
“Get in the way.”
“Why… Ugh.”
However, when the ‘other me’ who was looking at her raised her hand slightly with an expressionless expression, Dice lowered her head before she could finish her sentence.
“Dice…!”
“…Cough, cluck.”
Then, she coughed up her blood again, her eyes blurred, and she gasped for breath.
“…Why are you doing this?”
“Are you asking why…?”
When I, who was staring at that figure with gritted teeth, asked a question, another me opened my mouth, staring at me with dark eyes.
“Well… It’s a reason.”
“You probably didn’t do this without wanting anything…”
“…Yes, there definitely was one.”
Soon, another me quietly raised my head and began to look at the night sky.
“After destroying everything in the world… And being left alone, I somehow became curious. Why did I have no choice but to meet such a fate?”
“…….”
“In order to find the reason, I began wandering the devastated world endlessly and seeking power. Before I knew it, I had reached the point where I could touch the power of the dimension itself…”
His dry voice echoes across the rooftop.
“At about that time, this came to mind…”
“That’s…!”
As I was listening to that blankly, something else appeared before my eyes.
“…System. A management system that manages this world.”
Surprisingly, it was the same type of system as the one I had.
“There is always one such being in every dimension. Can you guess why it appeared to me?”
“That’s…”
“…I was the first god of this world.”
As I was staring at that blankly, another story came out that I found hard to believe.
“Isn’t it funny? The reason why the normal world suddenly became strange… And all kinds of curse-like powers appeared… Was simply to create a being powerful enough to manage this dimension.”
“……..”
“…I don’t have to tell you how much I laughed when I realized that, right?”
As I say that, my expression changes for the first time.
It was impossible to explain it accurately, but if I were to try to describe it as closely as possible, it would be an appearance of a sneer with the corners of the mouth slightly raised.
Still, it didn’t look very pleasant. On the contrary, he seemed to be in the exact opposite mood.
“I couldn’t hold back my disgust when I thought that this was happening not in the dimension where we exist… But in other dimensions as well due to the rules of the world…”
“So…”
“…In that case, I would use an outside entity to break the rules of the world. That was my plan.”
I quietly intervened in the words of the ‘other me’ who was making such a mysterious expression.
“Is that… The blacktail project?”
“I’m surprised you even know my name.”
Then the guy quietly tilts his head and mutters.
“Then… What is the so-called ‘great being’?”
“It’s a fragment of a creature that existed in the outer dimension. I brought it in to make my plan succeed, but it resisted so much that I had no choice but to tear it apart…”
“……”
“But they still didn’t listen… So, I changed my method. By combining the four most powerful concepts in this dimension, I created a completely new being…”
As I listen to that crazy story, my whole body starts shaking with discomfort.
“I’m not in my right mind.”
“But no matter how many times I repeated it, it failed. I wanted to intervene directly, but then things always went wrong.”
“…….”
“Thanks to you, I had no choice but to induce it indirectly. You, like I did, will destroy everything… And become a being that can apply all four powers at the same time.”
But it seemed like the other me didn’t even care what I was saying.
“But you always failed in the end. Even if you killed everyone, you never once fully obtained the four powers.”
“…….”
“So, after repeating this tediously for eons, I finally thought I would succeed…”
The other me, who had been talking helplessly for a while, muttered as I looked at Dice, who was lying limply behind me.
“I never thought my assistant would betray me at the last moment…”
“…Hey.”
Then, Dice with a pale complexion opens his mouth in a dying voice.
“Did you really forget…?”
“…What?”
“Our real… Purpose?”
At her anxious expression, my other self quietly tilts my head to the side.
“The reason we started this repetition… Wasn’t that big of a deal, right?”
“……..”
“It’s just… Will there be a happy future for ‘Kang Ha-neul’? It was a repetition that started with that question…”
Following Dice’s next words, another me begins to stare at her without saying a word.
“Why… Don’t you remember?”
“……..”
“Now… We’ve finally found the possibility we wanted so much… But why?”
Dice, who forced her head up, pointed at Narae, who had a slightly dazed expression, and pleaded with him.
“After finding the possibility you wanted so much… Why are you saying something different now?”
However, the other me just stared at Dice with an expressionless expression.
“…I’m not interested in that anymore.”
“What?”
“I… Just want to destroy the management system.”
When he muttered that in an emotionless voice, Dice quietly gritted his teeth.
“If you do that, the entire dimension could be ruined! You know that, right?”
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“It doesn’t matter.”
She raised her voice and shouted with all her might, but the other me dismissed her words with one word.
“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Ha…”
Dice quietly burst into laughter at those words.
“Now I can be sure…”
She mutters, looking at another me with her cold eyes.
“You are no longer Kang Ha-neul.”
“……..”
“He changed from a victim to a perpetrator… He is just a monster eaten by the darkness.”
At those words, my eyebrows twitched slightly, albeit slightly.
– Sigh…
“aaahhh…”
Soon he raised his hand again, and Dice let out a sigh and fell limp with his eyes closed.
“Dice…”
“…I wouldn’t have killed her. That girl is absolutely necessary for that guy’s plan.”
When I was chewing my lip at that sight and tried to run, Narae, who was holding my arm, started muttering in a low voice.
“But… If we don’t stop him now, he won’t be able to maintain his sanity any longer. He might be brainwashed and become a machine that resets the world…”
“…Your head seems to be spinning a bit.”
As if he had somehow heard those words, ‘another me’ intruded into our conversation with a cold voice.
“You are a variable. An extremely unpleasant foreign substance…”
“Shall I guess one more?”
After interrupting him, Narae raises the corner of her mouth and whispers as if provoking him.
“The reason you’re such a great being but can’t do anything about us…Is it because you can’t intervene directly for some reason?”
“……”
“Is this like a penalty that divine beings have? It’s really unfortunate.”
Maybe those words hit the nail on the head, but there was another me who was just looking at us in silence.
“It’s true to some extent… But there’s one thing you’re overlooking.”
He smiled and raised his hand again.
“Things that are not from this dimension… Can interfere as much as they like.”
“…Kuh?”
It was at that moment that I began to feel a terrible pain in my heart.
“Ugh… Ugh… What on earth is this…”
“Huh…!?”
I collapsed to the floor helplessly, feeling dizzying pain as if a thousand needles were piercing my heart. Narae, who was standing next to me, also fell to the ground with a pale complexion.
“The heart of a great being and the body of a great being… These are all the parts that make up you.”
“Ugh…”
“…Needless to say, it’s all critical.”
The other me, who was looking at that scene with cold eyes, quietly got down from the railing and started walking forward.
“I need to retrieve all four body parts and reset the world.”
“”……””
“If I create the exact same situation as last time, I’m sure I’ll be able to do it this time.”
I didn’t survive, but despite that, I couldn’t even move my feet due to the terrifying feeling of intimidation.
“A being that can destroy the system…”
Because of this, the thought of what to do now just occurred to me.
– Ji-ing…!
“…….!”
The smartphone, which had been placed in phone mode in my pocket earlier, vibrated low.
‘Okay…’
There was still hope.
‘…You guys were still there.’
Because, unlike that guy, I was no longer alone.
– Sigh…
“…I hope everyone is okay.”
When the sound of walking up the stairs began to echo a few seconds later, I smiled quietly as if that fact had been proven.