162. The perpetrator who became the perpetrator
My reality, my despair.
Those were memories from when I had just arrived in another world.
Originally, this is the first time. No matter how much time goes by, it gets dull, but there are still memories that are sharp enough to cut your fingers if you still hold it in your hand.
For me, it was like that when I came to this world. A strange world, a separated family, and a brutal environment. I had to compromise and adapt to everything around me.
“One loaf of bread, one loaf, please… (I want to die, huh?) Please, please. I’ll do anything…”
“Ugh, ugh. The f*cking smell of orc dung… I want to take a shower, but water is expensive here. Hi-Hi. hehehehe. Woo-wook, this bread is the starch we ate today, but if you spit it out, you won’t…
“I can’t fall asleep. Can’t sleep please. If you hold out until morning, the guards will come again. It’s me, please.”
As if reflecting my unstable psychological state, the world that has changed once again has not formed a complete form like a room I live in. Countless pasts and pains unfolded like an aurora.
In a harsh winter, when even the stables were full of beggars, I spent the night alone by the fountain in the square. The guards will come early in the morning. If they see me looking like a beggar, they will try to put me in jail. Yes, cozy, in a pile of straw that smells like horse manure.
I just spent the night biting my fingers. The red flesh is exposed on top of the wounds that have already become painful and full of pus, and the nails fall off from chewing carefully, leaving the tortured hands covered with scars, and some fingers get frostbitten and burn red, then rot, but instead of pain, they are cold. Falling down
Obviously, the other world was a hellish place, but there was one good thing about it. It was the existence of the divine power of the source that heals everything. I was saved, and even though I succeeded in reattaching the limbs I cut myself off in order to survive.
Of course, there are far more unsaved people in the world than saved ones.
“With barely, barely this much pain! Are you making my hundreds of years of waiting in vain!”
Just like the ‘other me’ who is swept away by the waves of memories he recalls and loses his reason and goes wild. However, even though he lost his self-control, his momentum was incomparably stronger than before.
A battle of spirit is, after all, a battle of spirit. Admit it. The madness of the guy who danced headbanging with foam at the mouth succeeded in getting even me a little fed up. As a result, the influence it could have on this abyss of the unconscious increased even more.
The black dome surrounding us bubbled anxiously. Soon, holes opened one by one beyond the barrier, and something poked out its head. Beings who only get substance in my mind.
Unlike from the outside, they only appear as black shapes made of darkness, the ghosts in the spirit world had distinct personalities. Some were young, some were old, some were male, some were female, and some were not even human.
This is also somewhat familiar. As if watching a movie, the specters nailed to the wall, poking their heads through the cracks in the black dome, began to watch the continuing panorama of memories.
However, if there was anything different from before, it was the reaction of the ghosts. Their gestures and words were much more lively than before.
“You also had times when you were sick.”
A time when I felt like I was going to lose my mind because I was hungry. I saw myself knocked down while begging for bread from a rugged mercenary. I saw a group of beggars dragging me along and leaving me roughly in the back alley.
“You could have sacrificed yourself for someone else.”
With my head and belly tied tightly with a dirty cloth, there was me returning proudly with the evening sunset at my back. In her hand was half a loaf of hard black bread, as if it had been eaten by a rat.
There was a soft hand pulling me back as I faltered around the lair. Skinny little boy. Even though I was in the same situation, I hesitated for a while, and then I saw myself breaking the bread with all my might.
The bread was dry and crumbly and dirty hard. After applying strength several times, the bread split into two loaves, but the difference between the two loaves was obvious to anyone. The child snatched a large chunk of them and ran away without saying thank you.
“You were someone who could laugh with someone else.”
I saw myself lying limp at the fountain, dragged by the soldiers and thrown into prison. As I was almost fainting, someone called to me by touching me.
A beggar imprisoned in the same room was holding out a black-spotted hand to me, giggling. I took the rotten rat carcass from him and took a bite of it with all my might.
Foul-smelling blood and oil splattered in all directions. Swallowing the chewy meat like chewing raw rubber, we met for the first time there that day, looked at each other and laughed heartily.
“But why?”
And, in all those scenes, ‘another me’ was a passionate actor. I laughed so madly that it made the narrow prison roar, and at some point, my laughter stopped. The whispers of the ghosts, too.
In a landscape where time seems to have stopped, ‘I’ was looking at myself. Behind him, tens of thousands of ghosts were staring at us from the gaps between the floor, ceiling, and walls of the black dome, with only their heads sticking out.
‘I’ sang first, and the voices that followed sang in chorus.
“But why?”
“A person who has suffered more severe pain than anyone else.”
Said the specter with a dagger stuck in one eye socket.
“The person who knows the weight of sacrifice more than anyone else.”
The ghost of a child with a skinny body like a scrawny branch and a grotesquely huge head spoke.
“The person who knew how to laugh in despair more than anyone else.”
The ghost of an old man with an earthworm wriggling in his mouth instead of a tongue spoke.
“Why Us.”
“Why Us.”
“Why Us.”
And my ghost, who had to be imprisoned in the holy relic with only one mission for hundreds of years, was scattered and shattered at the end of the wait, forgetting even its own mission.
Just as the ‘other me’ read my memories, I was also able to read his memories. It’s just that I didn’t want to hear it until now.
“Why me!”
I still had the magic sword Karval in my hand.
I laughed. Yeah, the situation itself was really funny. An orchestra of ghosts who vomit curses and hatred as one. A conductor who leads everything to the climax using his own body as a baton.
The abyss of unconsciousness shook so violently that I wondered if it had ever happened before. As the earthquake occurred, the tower tilted, the boundaries of the black dome blurred, and the darkness that did not belong to me engulfed my darkness.
A battle for dominance. Countless ghosts were struggling to get out of my control and enter the arms of ‘another me’. Looking at it, I was silent.
I lowered my sword.
“Noisy.”
Innumerable memories were scattered and erased under the black trail. Among the fragments of memories that are mixed and collided with each other, there were other people’s as well. Things like the last dregs left by the specter.
However, I was in the middle of all those memories. I was in their hands, or in the hands of their enemies. I cut them down and exploited their souls, burying their souls in my unconscious.
Sometimes whispers led to corruption. It showed meaningless fantasies and made us struggle with vain hopes. It gave the pain of being sucked out of the soul for no reason, and deliberately pulled out the specter and threw it into the wave of divine power to make it disappear.
All of that was one life. It was a being that had one life, emotions, memories, pain, sacrifice, and laughter. Whether human or non-human. They were the ones who wanted to prove themselves to the world in their own way.
From noble mtl dot com
However, the ghost swallowed by me was engulfed in darkness and forgot its own name. Deprived of free will, even his face was erased, and he could only appear in reality in the form of a black mass.
I lived by chewing and swallowing the existence of countless people.
“You don’t even have a sense of guilt!”
“Excuse me. What the hell did you have the right to ruin my life for, talk about it!”
This will continue to be the case.
Even though they are buried in the waves of despair, they struggle like tenacity, and even as they tear each other apart, their mouths gather in one voice to denounce me.
What I felt while watching the chaos was neither anger nor guilt. Exhilarating heat. The delightful joy naturally made me smile. No matter how much they try to erase the sense of debt from me, all I can feel is a sense of release.
“Big, puh ha ha ha! Hey, you guys are really funny.”
“What?”
“Entitlement and guilt, why the hell are you asking about those things? Will you forgive me then?”
The world around us ripples once again. This time, not by my will, but by my will. Yes, it was a very simple reason.
That guy was able to play so well in the mental world of others. The fact that I didn’t budge even from the master’s attack, and that wasn’t enough to trap me in an illusion in my mental world.
Because the other person was also really ‘me’. Because this spirit was my mind and his mind at the same time. No, even this distinction is meaningless. I’m not even a batter in the first place.
The Holy Sword said the other day. Did you say Shin Ki-jeong? The logic of the continuity of existence. According to him, we are the same being. Same soul, and now we have the same memories.
“I also had a very sad and strange story. Then what, will you forgive me? Isn’t it? Nothing to say about qualifications.”
Reconstruct reality with memories. What is manifesting this time is a much more recent memory. More precisely, the memory of when I was active on this earth after taking Cream’s body when God’s eyes were hidden.
In the world of imagery, everything you can imagine comes true. The important thing is how strongly and specifically you recall it. And it was not easy to forget the feeling of omnipotence that engulfed me at that time.
Relive that moment again. Remember My mental body has changed wildly. Hair dyed white grows, and the pupils embedded in the slender face embrace the radiance of the deep universe.
“In this world, power is the law and qualification. If you twist it, you will become stronger.”
However, all that came out of those cherry-like lips were frivolous remarks that would never be said of the usual cream. I borrowed her form again and got up from my seat.
Numerous circumstances pointed me to a single answer. It’s not like there aren’t still unanswered questions, but that’s enough for now.
It was not enough that a mere human soul dwelled in Solium, which was the flesh of a god, and as a result, Solium was degenerated. A powerful spiritual world that could command thousands of specters even with a part of the soul nested in the ego weapon.
The biggest proof was the ‘other me’ itself staring at me. It’s strange no matter how you think about it. That the fragment of the soul contained in the holy relic of the evil spirit is the same as mine.
“Because no one remembers favors.”
Like the last time I swallowed the cup of darkness. I didn’t notice at the time because so much had been damaged, but instead of becoming a specter, the spirit in the cup of darkness merged with mine.
The feeling of incompleteness and emptiness in the soul that I felt while spiritually bonding with Cream. The feeling of filling that empty hole. Recalling that, my soul pounded hard with anticipation.
“You are fake. You are just fake! To the topic that still hasn’t escaped from the human way of thinking, to the topic of toys that are still foolishly and stupidly wielded by others! How dare you!”
My other outbursts no longer tickled my ears.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Are you pretending to be God?!”
This is a myth of another world. Before the beginning of time, the evil spirit whose name has now been forgotten was defeated and disappeared. The night he hung was lifted, and his soul was torn into five parts.
Four of them descended to the ground: the Sword of Terror, the Goblet of Darkness, the Crown of Rest, and the Secret Bell. They became the four holy spirits of evil spirits. And the last one –
“That doesn’t suit us.”
A sense of omnipotence that ecstatically fills the mind. Yes, at this moment, I really feel like I can do anything. Power is also power, but the eye level of seeing has changed.
If you give a radio to an ordinary person, just playing music and listening to broadcasts would be the limit of the device. But what if it gets into the hands of an expert? A radio can be a washing machine or a refrigerator.
“Smile, isn’t it the last time?”
This is a myth that has not been recorded anywhere else. A girl loved by a dark god is afraid of her night, so her god created a new concept just for her.
As I smiled and beckoned, white darkness began to color the black world.