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Chapter 133

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Eschatologist V

7

When I opened my eyes, leaving another death in my memory, I found myself in the waiting room of Busan Station.

It would have been nice to say that I caught sight of the familiar 399 survivors... but that wasn’t the case.

Even Busan Station\'s waiting room couldn\'t escape the chilling wave of mass layoffs. This time, only one person was there to greet me.

"Oh. Guildmaster, you\'re awake?"

"...Yes."

"Here, some Ceylon tea. When you get up in a bit, have a sip to moisten your throat."

Koyori was sitting on a bench in the waiting room. And I was lying on the same bench.

At that time, I didn’t realize it, but there was something called the logic of genres in this world.

[Same Bench] [One Sitting] [One Lying Down]. When these three concepts combine, they always produce an inevitable outcome, transcending time and space.

Simply put, Koyori was giving me a lap pillow.

Her pink hair draped over my eyes like a cluster of acacia flowers. Like a bath soak, a subtle scent wafted in the air, with a fruity aroma reminiscent of an apple dipped briefly in cold water.

"..."

I reflexively tried to get up but decided against it.

Perhaps it was because I had used the forbidden technique [Friend Shield] earlier. I felt a slight pang of guilt. Surprisingly, it seemed my heart still had room for the emotion called \'guilt towards Koyori.\'

Not that I could escape the presence in front of me anyway.

"Am I dead?"

"Yes. And no."

Koyori brushed her hair behind her ear. The strands swayed gently like bellflowers.

"You were indeed killed by the hands of the [Bad Ending]. The Guildmaster has died. But it\'s hard to call it a true death. In dreams, one cannot truly die."

"...I see."

Even if I die in this unconscious world, \'regression\' won\'t activate. The real me is still surrounded by tutorial fairies, enjoying a deep sleep.

It was good information.

"How did you get out? The enemy seemed impossible to confront."

"Well, if you try to confront them like you did, it would be difficult. But I don\'t bother to antagonize such beings. If you want to escape, it\'s quite simple."

True enough. Hooray for brainwashing hypnosis beams.

I let out a sigh.

"That old man was too powerful."

"..."

"In this unconscious world, it is said that what one fears most is reflected. Indeed, I was afraid of that old man."

It wasn\'t that I disliked Emmett Schopenhauer as an individual. He was my comrade.

But.

"If the old man hadn\'t gone on leave and stayed by my side, what would have happened... I used to imagine that scenario a few times."

IF. The hypothetical scenario.

The route where the old man didn\'t go on leave.

"The old man had a soft heart. Even if he hadn\'t gone on leave, love and despair for his wife would have continued to coil inside him. If he had forced himself to endure that and insisted on going to war with me...”

Wouldn\'t he have broken at some point?

There were countless dangerous moments.

For instance, when we defeated the Isolated God Endless Hell. Endless Hell shows people the \'most perfect timeline\' in a hallucination.

Naturally, the old man would have been immersed in days of happiness with his wife.

I managed to shake off the temptations of Tang Seorin, Noh Doha, and the Saintess... but could the old man have escaped?

Wouldn\'t he have fallen into becoming Endless Hell\'s new apostle?

For example, when it was revealed that the tutorial fairy was actually a succubus. By negotiating with the succubi, one can manipulate dreams as desired.

That, too, would have been a temptation difficult for the old man to refuse.

For example, when the entity in front of him began to take a genuine \'interest\' in the old man.

Like the nightmare I just encountered, wouldn’t the old man have ended up becoming a villain, driven by the delusion that he was reunited with his wife in reality and moving only for Koyori?

The best comrade turns into the worst enemy.

It was a common storyline.

"Looking back, maybe it was a divine stroke of luck that he left with his wife as he did."

"..."

"A troublemaker in life and in death. Honestly, that old man is of no help in life."

The waiting room was quiet.

As if hundreds or thousands of years had passed in an instant, undergrowth began to sprout across the waiting room floor. Through the broken roof and ceiling, ancient sunlight dripped like candle wax.

Koyori didn\'t respond.

She just listened quietly, smiling as if she found it difficult, as if she knew that this \'silent listening\' was the form of comfort I desired at the moment.

"Guildmaster."

After a long silence, Koyori whispered.

"Can you always feel better?"

Her whisper carried the scent of green apples.

"After all, life is like countless dreams. The final dream a person has is simply called reality. Guildmaster, you\'re like a ghost wandering in dreams forever, searching for a reality you can accept. You\'re an Undertaker burying your dead dreams one by one as they die. This place is an interlude where the corpses you\'ve buried come back to life and dance."

"Dream within a dream, the world after the bad ending, parallel worlds, collective unconsciousness. It\'s probably a void where such concepts have turned into anomalies."

"And you can become the master of that void, Guildmaster."

"..."

"I\'ll help you, Guildmaster."

Koyori\'s thumb stroked my cheekbone.

Like a child peering down into a deep well from above, Koyori was gazing down into my eyes.

"Help? You, help me?"

"Yes. This place isn\'t just your unconsciousness, it\'s the unconsciousness of all humanity. What do you think would happen if you could manipulate it at will?"

A soft breath. The scent of apples settled on my cornea.

My face felt itchy.

As Koyori moved her lips, her breath drew closer and closer.

"You\'d be able to impose your dream on all other humans."

"..."

"That\'s right. Dreams that no one else can experience, the landscapes of destruction that only you remember. You\'d be able to share those with others, with your loved ones, with all humanity."

"..."

"Show them your life, Guildmaster."

Suddenly, the fruity aroma turned into a wine-like scent. Wine brewed from apples.

As if petals were blooming and unfolding, Koyori\'s breath, laden with the scent of wine, spread out all around.

"Show them how much you suffered, how much you ran around for others, how wise and powerful you were."

"..."

"And so, let them suffer from your pain, let them be devoted to your dedication, and let them marvel at your abilities."

The voice from Koyori\'s lips, which parted like flower petals in a pink hue, flowed out thickly like honey.

"The Guildmaster can become the dream of all. A dream everyone has. If we were to name it a myth, then in this apocalypse, you would become a single flower blooming like a miracle."

"You don\'t think I\'ll nod in agreement just because you say so, do you?"

"No."

Koyori smiled with her eyes.

"Not right now."

Her finger gently pressed against the tip of my chin.

"But as your pain matures, won\'t that nod also become more pronounced?"

"......"

"Please, don\'t become sweet so easily, Guildmaster. If you keep becoming more tempting, I\'ll want to devour you without even realizing it."

The words whispered right in front of me seemed to be truly spoken by Koyori—or perhaps it was merely my illusion murmuring.

It was impossible to gauge Koyori\'s sincerity in any statement.

She called me a wraith of dreams. But in reality, it was she who was a mirage made entirely of breath and flesh woven from the fabric of dreams.

Perhaps that was the tragedy assigned to the existence known as Koyori.

Looking up at Koyori\'s red well, I suddenly had such thoughts.

8

A week\'s worth of nights passed.

It was quite a shock to have offered my neck to an old comrade, but my mental state was fully restored after a few rests.

I tossed Ceylon tea into my mouth and farmed a silver bell at a souvenir shop. Koyori was watching my actions with an amused expression.

"What do you plan to do? That bad ending is an unbeatable foe, just as you said, Guildmaster."

"A bad ending has its own uses."

Jingle.

The silver bell wrapped around my wrist rang softly. My personal item (pre-apocalypse price: 9,900 won), engraved even into my unconscious, felt particularly special today.

"The old man will return someday."

"Pardon?"

"More precisely, I\'ll make him return. The company\'s co-representative ran off thinking he\'d find happiness on his own, so shouldn\'t we drag him back? The problem was that even if we managed to return the old man, we\'d only hear the sound of a water rocket at first."

The potential of the old man, Scho, was tremendous.

But it was just potential.

Back when Scho was alive, the Korean Awakener Federation couldn\'t even catch a meteor shower.

Can you believe it? A meteor shower. Something so insignificant now that it\'s almost embarrassing even to call it a mid-boss, was once enough to make Scho say, "What, you expect us to beat this?"

Scho\'s time stopped at the 23rd turn. That\'s well over a thousand years ago by my standards.

This is why no matter how successful one is, it\'s essential to adapt to new eras constantly. It\'s like trying to claim that the Epic of Gilgamesh is the most trending genre of literature today—absurd, right?

"I originally planned to train the old man non-stop once he returned. With his talent, I figured a light 200-year training regimen would make him somewhat competent."

"Heh."

"But wasn\'t such a wonderful answer key provided in this subconscious world?"

Koyori tilted her head.

"Answer key?"

Yes, an answer key.

I was fully prepared to face the bad ending, the corrupted alternate version of Scho, known as the Sword Demon.

As before, the Sword Demon wandered through the scorched remains of Seoul. He was dragging a dull construction site pipe around with no sense of style.

Seriously, wasn\'t this guy devouring all the style and dignity left for the awakeners?

For the sake of preserving the dignity and character of the awakeners, it seemed that I, Doctor Jang, had to step up.

I took a deep breath.

And I yelled with all my might.

"Hey, you National Socialist German Workers\' Party bastard!"

"......"

Freeze—

The racially charged hate speech, which would cause any sensible and cultured German (except in the 1930s) to convulse, rang out loudly.

For reference, the National Socialist German Workers\' Party, or NSDAP, was better known by its alias, the Nazis.

Also, Scho had always voted for the Social Democrats from birth until the day the world ended. He was a true red-blooded socialist.

Germany produced both Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler. While fascism and communism were just ideological struggles in other countries, in Germany, it was an internal feud filled with self-loathing.

Even if one were to turn into a monster, a true revolutionary never betrays their ideology.

"Take this!"

Swish—

I waved an old banner.

"......!"

Seeing the proud emblem drawn on the banner, the Sword Demon\'s eyes wavered uncontrollably.

卍.

In the East, it\'s merely a symbol of Buddhism, but what Westerners, indoctrinated by Occidentalism, could understand the profound teachings of Buddha?

The DNA of "Ka" sleeping within Scho\'s bloodline began to react allergically to the "Hi" sound, triggering an overblown immune response.

"Uwoooaaaaaaahhh!"

The German-born super-communist Sword Master roared. If his aura had turned red, it would have been perfect.

But the power was undeniable.

In line with the ideology embedded in him since birth to destroy the outdated world, Scho’s swordplay—no, pipe strikes—were instantly destroying the city.

But the Sword Demon\'s hand, which was about to strike me down, suddenly slammed on the brakes.

"......! ......!"

The Sword Demon’s aura, which was about to strike, suddenly froze upon seeing the clay sculptures lined up.

Busts that bore the exact likeness of \'Karl Marx\' and \'Rosa Luxemburg\'!

The Sword Demon hesitated like an NPC caught in a bug, wearing an expression similar to that of a Japanese Kirishitan who had been ordered to step on a Christian image to prove they were not a Christian.

Indeed, to a German-born elder, those two busts were akin to sacred icons of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

A leftward strike would destroy Marx, while a rightward one would shatter Luxemburg.

"Ugh, uoooooo......!"

My preparations didn\'t stop there.

Just in case, I had also displayed the busts of Kurt Schumacher, Willy Brandt, Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, and so on. Any German leftist politician whose name I knew had their bust on display.

Regardless of which faction Scho supported (though I had no interest in German politics, the idea that the left could unify was but a fantasy, akin to a monster), one of them was bound to get him!

That\'s right.

I, Doctor Jang, had spent a whole week loitering in Busan Station\'s waiting room just to prepare this.

Thanks to my repeated frivolous endeavors during each vacation turn, my sculpting skills had reached a fairly high level.

"You think you\'re the only one who can deploy a domain? This is my domain deployment."

"Uwooooo......"

"I\'ve hidden sculptures like mines all over this city. Come on in, to my personal boundary. The crimson slaughtering revolutionary space."

"Uwooooooaaaahhh......!"

Come at me, old commie.

Cry and prove your ideological purity.