211 – Period
– Gooooo…
The silence that came after a flash of light that was so brilliant that it enveloped the entire artificial island enveloped the sky.
“……..”
In that silence, after standing still for a while, I soon began to quietly walk forward.
“Ugh… Ugh…”
A place where intermittent screams can be heard, as if they will go out at any moment.
When I arrived there, I saw a being that looked like me, crushed to pieces and groaning.
I was trying to project my power in all directions until the end, but that power was blocked by my completely changed abilities and had no effect on those around me.
“…Is this the end, in vain?”
The guy must have noticed this right away and relaxed his body, muttering with a dejected expression on his face.
“In the end, was I… A puppet until the end?”
“…….”
“To give birth to you…?”
The guy’s face was so damaged that his eyes and expressions were unreadable, but one thing was certain.
Probably, the despair he is feeling right now is more painfully deep than anyone else’s.
That’s why I didn’t even have any thoughts of criticizing them or causing them physical pain.
Because, for this guy right now, just looking at me would be close to torture.
Even if it were just me, I think it would be quite painful to realize that the guy I thought was just a copy of the plan was actually the real protagonist.
How would he feel if he had been struggling for one goal for eons?
– Turp, trudge…
As I was looking down at him for a while with that thought in mind, I heard footsteps next to me.
“…Ha, ha, ha.”
Someone said that it was Dice who managed to get up even though his whole body was in disgrace.
As she begins to walk towards us, my other gaze quietly moves towards her.
“Die… S.”
Soon, he tried to say something, but he seemed to have no strength and just kept his mouth shut.
– Sigh…
Dice, who was looking at that guy with cold eyes, quietly took out four blank cards and placed them on his heart.
“Let go of this…”
– Shake it off…
“Ugh…”
At that sight, the other person, who twitched his eyebrows for a moment and stretched out his arm upward, thought he was going to make a final resistance, but soon his hand collapsed to the floor.
“…If you take out those abilities, even the last chance will disappear.”
“……..”
“The last chance… To destroy the world’s management system… And for all beings to be free…”
And after a while, a dying voice began to leak out of his mouth.
“The appearance of increasingly stronger demonic beasts continues… And the ordinary world… Becomes more and more tainted by the strange… Do you want a world like that…?”
“…….”
“If I die… There will be no more God in this world… We will just move towards destruction…”
It was a voice that seemed as if it would become persistent at any moment, but the guy persistently held on to the tail of his words.
It wasn’t that I pitied it, but apart from that, I could now even feel pity for it.
“…Do you really think so?”
It was at that moment that Dice, who had been silently extracting abilities from such a guy for a long time, suddenly asked a question in a low voice.
“Do you think Kang Ha-neul’s current appearance is truly oppressed?”
“That’s…”
My other self, who seems momentarily dazed by that question, soon focuses his gaze on me.
“Rather, don’t you feel freer than ever?”
“…Why?”
Soon, the guy started asking me questions in a voice that seemed like he couldn’t understand.
“Why can you do that…?”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”
“You… Must have made a deal with the system at the end…? Otherwise, there’s no way my administrator system would have worked… Right?”
His voice was full of deep suspicion and despair, as if he were possessed by the mind.
“Even though you are bound by the will of the world in the end… How can you be so free?”
What kind of nonsense is this guy talking about now?
From Noble mtl dot com
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please… Answer me…”
“……..”
“It’s my last wish…”
I was quietly scratching my head with that thought in mind, and soon answered in a low voice as he had wished.
“I rejected the last request the system made.”
“…..What?”
Then, an expression of shock flashed across his face, even though it was completely ruined and hard to tell.
“What on earth is that…”
“Just as you said, the system offered me a deal. What was it? So… Did you say it would give me a chance to return?”
“……..!”
That expression became even stronger after hearing what I said.
“That was the same for me…”
“…Yes, anyone who has lived an unhappy life like me or you would naturally accept that offer.”
I quietly looked down at him and continued speaking quietly.
“But I declined the offer.”
“Why…?”
Then his voice begins to tremble more than ever.
Perhaps it was because it was a choice that made absolutely no sense from his perspective.
“Of course, I definitely regretted it at the time. Unlike in the past when I had no regrets in life, now that I have made so many connections, there are so many people I left behind.”
Actually, I don’t fully understand the choice I made at that time.
Obviously, even the moment of deciding on the system proposal, Pandora, Narae, Dice, Mystic Shine, and Noona, etc…
Because there were so many things I left behind that shook my decision.
“But… I chose to no longer be buried in the past and regrets.”
However, in the end, I decided to do so.
“Because the reason people regret is so that they can make better choices next time and achieve a better future.”
“……..”
“So, I thought it wouldn’t matter if I could protect them all by sacrificing myself.”
“Ha…”
“So the feelings of regret also faded.”
For that reason, as I answered calmly, a question began to fade away from me.
“The choice not to go back to the past… How can you protect them all?”
“…….”
“Rather… If it were you now… You could have gone back to the past… And achieved a more certain victory… And happiness?”
That question, surprisingly, made me realize the reason for my choice, which was not clear.
“…There is one blind spot in that argument.”
“Blind spot…?”
“Because if I go back to the past… It’s like resetting everyone who’s been with me so far, right?”
“…….!”
As I relay that realization to him, my other body twitches.
“I don’t know if the memories we had together come back for some reason, but if that isn’t guaranteed… It’s just that they become separate beings that resemble their appearance.”
“That’s… But…”
“I can’t lose them all because of my selfish regret. That would be a shortcut to endless regret.”
“Ah…..”
Soon, another me trying to say something and ending up at a loss for words.
“So, I was willing to make a choice to protect everyone.”
I quietly drove a wedge into him.
“…You just didn’t do it.”
And then the silence began.
“Is that so…?”
In that silence, my empty voice, which seems to have finally realized something, resonates softly.
“I wanted to escape so much… From the cage… From the shackles…”
“……..”
“In the end, what was imprisoning me…”
Remorse was clearly evident in his voice, but he was so exhausted that anyone could tell that it was a late regret.
“…It was me.”
After those words, my body went limp, losing all its strength, and after that, I never heard his voice again.
“”……..””
“…Hey, over there!”
I watched the pitiful end with Dice for a long time, and then I started to turn my head when I heard a voice coming from behind.
“Do, dodo… Help me…..”
“Ah, ah… Ahhh…”
Himari, who had temporarily evacuated downstairs with the magical girls, deployed her territory to stop Narae, who was about to run amok, and asked for help.
– Rumbling… Rumbling…
– Pajik, Pajijik…
Given the significant level of energy already concentrated in the sky, urgent intervention seemed necessary.
– Sigh…
“The abilities of the Four Knights… Have all been extracted…”
At that time, while I was in a trance, Dice extracted the abilities of the Four Knights from another me, who had become a cold corpse.
“Take it and… Save the world.”
“…………”
“…My hero.”
Dice, who placed it in my hand, lost consciousness again and fell forward.
– Sigh…
I held up her head with my hand just before it hit the ground, and soon after checking that Dice’s pulse was beating slightly, I began to quietly walk forward.
“Oh, don’t come… Sky…”
“…….”
“I… I don’t think it will work… So… Run away… Run away…”
Na-rae, who found me like that, started muttering urgently to me with a bloodshot face, but even so, my steps did not stop.
“No matter what happens now, I won’t run away.”
“…………”
“Because I decided not to regret any more.”
It is time to put an end to everything that has happened so far.