With every step, it felt as if he was making a squelching sound. The metallic scent of iron hung in the air. Was the pooled water actually blood? He entertained the question but didn’t look down. The louder the sound of the water grew, the more the scenes he had tried so hard to dismiss kept replaying in his mind.
His thoughts were a tangled mess. If you were to take an ant and place it inside his brain, it would scramble through the convoluted paths, fail to find an exit, and die. It was that crowded. His head felt like it was boiling, and he wanted to grab just anyone, show them what he had experienced, and see their reaction.
He needed to know if he was going crazy and overreacting, or if this was a situation where anyone would act this way.
So, was the Forced Execution all a hallucination?
Then, the neighbor, the people at the shelter… all of them…
It was a truth he could uncover if he just found the final cluster of light. Unable to wait even that short a time, Sa-yoon was thrown into confusion. Then he spotted a shimmering light in the distance and held his breath.
Thump!
His heart plummeted. An oppressive weight he hadn’t even noticed settled on him, and Sa-yoon stopped walking, his eyes fixed on the light. A bitter smile flickered across his face.
“It’s not that I couldn’t wait…”
Reason screamed at him to run to it, but his feet remained planted in the same spot. His emotions, his reason, and his actions were all in conflict.
Once he confirmed what was in that light, it would truly be the end. He would have no choice but to leave this cozy space. He would have to stand under the sun again, watch it rise and set, and feel the passage of a fleeting life. He would have to watch everyone else live on normally while he alone was different. He would have to hear it all: the sound of busy traffic, of people arguing, of dogs barking—sounds that seemed to prove just how vast his own life force was.
Now that he knew this silence, there was no way he could readjust to that loud, chaotic noise. To be honest…
Sa-yoon struck his own cheek. A sharp crack echoed as his neck bone made a violent sound. If Han Geon-joo had been there, his eyes would have gone wide before narrowing, and he would have asked, as he always did, if he was crazy.
“Tsk.”
He had bypassed all his defense mechanisms and struck himself, leaving his cheek throbbing. The inside of his mouth was cut, and he tasted blood.
“You already made your decision, so what are you hesitating for?”
He’d thought he was tired of life, but maybe he wasn’t. Not if he was hesitating like this.
If you were truly tired of it, you wouldn’t have a single thought. But what filled his mind right now was worry.
Because he didn’t know how to live. Because he didn’t know what would happen. Because he didn’t know what the System would make him do next, because he might have to dispose of someone by his side with his own hands.
He had shouldered so much misfortune; it was impossible not to be afraid. He had an underlying conviction that no matter who came, no matter who he met, no matter what effort he made, he would end up unhappy. A belief that if someone was kind to him, they too would be one step closer to misfortune.
He could simply not accept such things. That was why Sa-yoon had given things to the executives of Night Rat, but never received anything in return. He had established a top-down relationship, placing himself above them so they could not carelessly show him affection. But that solution didn’t work for relationships that couldn’t be placed beneath his feet.
That’s why I was afraid of your gaze, too.
A look filled with affection was terrifying. So much so that he couldn’t bear it without covering it up. But more than facing that gaze, more than confronting a life of unknown terrors, more than digging through distorted memories he never knew he had—what was more frightening was losing the one person who had looked at him that way.
To be precise, what was more frightening was losing that one foolish bastard who threw himself into harm’s way just to understand another person.
And of all people, that bastard was even more of a coward than he was. He could be holed up somewhere right now, trembling in fear. Or maybe, because Sa-yoon had saved him time and time again, he believed he would be saved this time too, and was acting recklessly because of it.
He had to grit his teeth, slap his own face a thousand times if he had to, and walk straight.
Sa-yoon spat out blood and took a step. The light, which had been no bigger than a dot from a marker, grew larger. He grew breathless. The wetter his breaths became, the more resolutely he walked. Eventually, he started to run.
When he finally reached the light, Sa-yoon took a deep breath.
<Your Pair’s health has dropped below 5%.>
You always become the most extreme answer when I am at my most confused. There was no longer any hesitation in the hand that reached for the final fragment.
‘I want to save you, hyung.’
He thought he could finally answer what Geon-joo had said back then.
I want you to live, too.
Enough that I’m willing to face the terror of living for it.
The light swallowed Sa-yoon whole. As his body collapsed, a blue system window flickered faintly above him before disappearing.
***
Beep, beep, beep—
A rhythmic sound pierced his mind. Contrary to his expectation that he would see his 30th life unfold, what Sa-yoon saw was the final moments of his 29th.
The same broken notification window from before floated above the dead Sa-yoon. The red window shook madly before shattering with a sharp crack. Shards scattered in every direction, melting into the 29th Sa-yoon’s body as if absorbed.
For a long time, the seventh fragment showed an unchanging scene, as if paused. Then, suddenly, the arm of the dead 29th Sa-yoon began to twitch. The watching Sa-yoon focused his gaze.
The prone body of the 29th Sa-yoon began to heave, as if being pumped full of air. Its stomach expanded as if to burst, and its limbs convulsed. It began to seize violently, like a fish on land or a person being electrocuted.
BOOM!
An explosion sounded, and the 29th Sa-yoon’s arm burst apart. The debris then clumped together, reforming into a pure white arm more than three times the size of the original. Below it, a forearm, wrist, and fingers took shape.
BOOM!
This time, a similar transformation happened to his leg.
After several more parts of his body exploded, the 29th Sa-yoon’s limbs had all become massive, as if he had drunk a giantification potion. Finally, his face was enveloped in smoke and it, too, exploded. Sa-yoon watched the scene without breathing, his pupils trembling. The arm, the leg, the muscled body, the pure white skin—it was all too familiar.
At last, its face transformed, the 29th Sa-yoon slowly rose to its feet.
It stood on elongated legs, now easily over two meters tall, and touched its own smooth, white, featureless face, where a nose, mouth, and eyes should have been. Then, wings sprouted from its back.
Ha.
A hollow breath escaped Sa-yoon.
<404 not found>
Above the head of the now-white 29th Sa-yoon, an error code had replaced the regression number.
The Unknown.
The bug-species of unknown origin. The powerful enemy that mainly appeared in Gates and had clashed with Sa-yoon several times.
‘The seventeenth Kwon Sa-yoon.’ ‘The essence of the Unknown that my skill saw through was the seventeenth Kwon Sa-yoon.’
Lee Jaehee’s warning, which he had never paid much mind to since the day he first heard it, came rushing back. Now he finally understood what it meant, and why the Unknown carried his name. Having seen it with his own two eyes, he could no longer feign ignorance.
At the same time, Sa-yoon recalled his battles with the Unknown, whose methods were so eerily similar to his own. The way it swung its weapon, the way it used a variety of weapons, the way it revived after death, and its exceptional agility—it was all chillingly like him.
Of course it was.
That thing was me.
When I die, do I become an Unknown?
It was shocking in so many ways. Now that he revives after death, does that mean he can’t become an Unknown anymore? A shiver ran down his spine. The thought that he could become a mindless bug-species like that at any time sent a chill through him, and a frost seemed to descend upon his eyes as he stared at the Unknown. His boiling mind grew cold. It was as if knowing too much had caused all his thought processes to shut down.
In that state, the scene in the seventh fragment ended.
<Truth Fragment 7/7> <Congratulations! You have collected all fragments and met the conditions to view Heaven’s Secret. Would you like to view a part of the secret that the heavens have concealed?> <Upon confirmation, the ‘The True Evil of Humanity?’ Gate will be annihilated.>
A Gate clear notification appeared in his vacant vision. It seemed the Gate would only be cleared after he viewed this “Heaven’s Secret.”¹
This was the moment he’d been waiting for, yet it felt strange.
Was this Gate really just designed to mentally break me down?
There were too many things he had only learned after coming here. Things he never could have learned through ordinary means. Why did the System create a place like this?
The question, which before had been filled with distrust and suspicion, was now filled with pure curiosity. Having seen all the fragments, it no longer felt like a Gate created with purely malicious intent. In fact, it felt like the first real consideration the System had ever shown him. Swallowing his discomfort, he touched the notification window.
Whatever it was, he should be able to get a clue to this mystery by checking this damn “Heaven’s Secret.”
Besides, Han Geon-joo’s health was almost gone.
“What the hell is that bastard even doing?”
It had already dropped below 3%. He pressed the confirmation button impatiently. The system window turned to liquid and washed over him.
***
The first thing he felt was a refreshing breeze tickling his nose. The scent of grass filled the air, and a warmth from the endless sunshine spread everywhere. He could hear birds chirping. A garden filled with blooming flowers and lush greenery unfolded before his eyes.
It was a strange place. The tall flowers, the white, temple-like building in the center of the garden—it was all full of things not easily seen in reality. Just as he was thinking it felt like a man-made, illusory garden, he heard someone’s footsteps. They were accompanied by the sound of fabric dragging on the ground.
Sa-yoon turned his head toward the sound. A person dressed in white robes made of a luxurious fabric, the kind you would only see in mythological paintings, was walking toward him.
Long hair that fell to their waist caught his eye, shining with a golden light as if it had absorbed the sun itself. As the person drew closer, Sa-yoon confirmed the face beneath the golden hair and blinked. His mind went blank.
Han Geon-joo?
The face of the golden-haired man was familiar.