***
“Whew, it’s over.”
After putting the last remaining Mana pattern into the ground, Hwang Soo-rim looked around the place. It was a plain field when viewed with the naked eye without mobilizing any Mana. However, if you opened the Mana circuit and looked carefully, the very subtle Mana was densely embedded, creating a complex pattern like a mandala.
When Eraser’s enormous Mana was injected into that place, the powerful restraint magic circle was activated.
However, the pattern can’t be easily detected by the Dragon. As things stand at that moment, it was only insignificant Mana. It wasn’t easy to notice if you didn’t pay attention to it. That was because it was a crystal close to the attachment that guided Mana’s path, rather than exerting power in itself.
Hwang Soo-rim, who was appreciating her work for a while, turned her head and looked at the robot, the temporary teacher who had been clinging to her side for hours and giving guidance. It expressed its appreciation through the resonance of its will.
[Okay, that’s perfect.]
It was a whisper in her head that she rarely got used to.
[It’s gradually getting faster.]
The toy turned back and observed the magic circle created by Hwang Soo-rim.
[You’re definitely talented in many ways. It’s excellent even considering that I’m instructing next to you. It might be similar to ‘Eraser’ at this level, simply considering the speed of spreading the pattern.]
Hwang Soo-rim replied unenthusiastically.
“But it’s why it’s not a high-difficulty spell, but it’s a pattern that you told me to make. It’s just labor work.”
She switched the topic.
“Where did Eraser and Mrs. Pearl go?”
The robot was silent for a while as if it were communicating with magic and then spat out its will again.
[It seems that they haven’t even reached the Dragon’s nest yet.]
“Huh, really? Normally, they finish stealing the dream from the Dragon around this time.”
[I think the Dragon who became the target this time appears to be a pretty old guy. It seems that the barriers spread around the nest are dense, so it takes time to approach without being detected.]
Hwang Soo-rim nodded. To use the magic to steal that dream, it seemed that the distance from the target must be considerably narrowed.
Even for Eraser, it looked like he wanted to avoid fighting the nest, which was the Dragon’s home ground, and the operation was based on pulling it out of the nest and luring it to the restraint magic circle.
It was said that the best way for an unrecognized human to cause that much anger on a dragon was to steal the Dragon’s possessions. After contemplating what the Dragon’s possessions couldn’t be stolen without invading the Dragon’s nest, Eraser came up with a ‘dream.’
“How long will it take?”
[It looks like it will take at least another half-day.]
Thanks to the delay in schedule today, she could afford to sleep. Hwang Soo-rim yawned and said to Parvache.
“Then I will take a nap.”
[Yeah. I’ll be on the lookout.]
Hwang Soo-rim glanced at such a robot and said as if she just remembered.
“Well, you said you didn’t sleep, right?”
[Yes. Because I don’t have a brain to accumulate impurities.]
“Then… what are you doing every night to spend the time?”
[I usually meditate.]
For Hwang Soo-rim, meditation was a kind of training to strengthen mental strength and build up Mana through concentration. Therefore, she couldn’t understand Parvache’s answer well.
“Even though you can’t use magic?”
[Rather than training, it’s a deep thought.]
“What are you thinking?”
[I think about the past immersed in a murky swamp and the future that will not come to me now.]
It was an uninteresting question and answer, so Hwang Soo-rim said with a grimace.
“I think you can just say that you don’t want to tell me.”
[… Oh, it looks like you were a little upset. Maybe because the timing wasn’t good.]
Timing? Hwang Soo-rim tilted her head, and she recalled the conversation she had heard.
Leaving Hwang Soo-rim, Garam, and Parvache in the container, Eraser, who wrapped Maru around his arm, and Mrs. Pearl left for the Dragon’s nest.
Dragons were said to have been asleep longer than when they were awake during the day, so the target would have a high probability of being asleep when they approached. If it was awake, they waited until it had fallen asleep, then Eraser came back at the right timing to steal the dreams from the Dragon and returned.
After a little more time, the Dragon who woke up was likely to jump out of the nest in a frenzy, and then, Eraser attracted the restraint magic circle with his Mana.
Hwang Soo-rim’s part was to lay out a pattern that functioned as a magic circle on the ground. She was under the guidance of Parvache, who remained with her.
However, that day, Parvache spat out a strange will toward Eraser, who was about to leave. Hwang Soo-rim recalled the sentence in her mind.
‘By the time you guys come back, I’ll move on to the next. If only the timing is…’
When Eraser heard that, he looked at Parvache with a strange expression. “Is it time already?” he murmured. Still, the two didn’t talk anymore, and Eraser quickly turned his back and walked in the direction he was going.
Hwang Soo-rim, who saw the scene, thought that something was strange, but she couldn’t even open her mouth at that time since it didn’t seem like it was time to interrupt. Hwang Soo-rim asked, intending to answer her curiosity since Eraser wasn’t there now.
“So, what did that mean? Moving on to the next?”
[… Is it by the time you woke up after sleeping? Or maybe they will come a little faster.]
Parvache seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said.
[I don’t know the details, but the process of becoming a mental body is not a natural procedure… Yes. I think it was more of an accident.]
She didn’t understand the meaning, so Hwang Soo-rim frowned.
“Accident?”
[Yes. Rather than simply changing into a mental body… it feels like degenerating into a mental body.]
Hwang Soo-rim muttered inside. It seemed that beings with physical bodies becoming mental bodies were a phenomenon closer to degeneration rather than evolution, right?
[I don’t even know if my will was involved in the process or not. I lost my body at some point, but I was barely able to stop the disappearance of ego.]
Hwang Soo-rim asked.
“No, the front and the back do not fit. When the body dies, the ego is destroyed, and memories are engraved in the soul with a very rare probability. That soul gets caught up in the ring of reincarnation and reincarnates.”
Parvache replied with a strange resonant will.
[I remained a mental body because my ego did not die even though my body died. But my soul was too weak to handle my ego. At that time, I would have made a judgment. If I stayed still, it might collapse under the weight of the ego. For me to exist as myself, I had no choice but to break my ego into tiny pieces. While splitting my ego, the memories engraved on my soul were damaged to a great extent.]
“… Splitting your ego?”
[After splitting the ego into countless fragments, the fragments take turns to control consciousness, and the ego that is out of order is put to sleep. That way, the soul could endure it. That doesn’t mean that a single ego continues to maintain control over and over without end. This is because, by forcibly dividing the ego, there is a limit to the control each has.]
“Fragment? Are you also one of the fragments?”
[The me you’re looking at… Well. After hitting the small number, it will probably be around the 2.42 millionth.]
“Hey, I don’t understand at all right now. Are you controlling your consciousness by taking turns? So, when you move on to the next ego, will your memory be reset for the first time?”
[Memory isn’t in the ego but the soul. Even if I move on to my ego’s next fragment, I will be connected to the memories accumulated before.]
“Wait a minute. Isn’t the ego collection of memories itself?”
[Memory and ego are different. Memory is one of the components that make up the mind. Yes, in terms of what you are familiar with, it’s just data. The ego is the agent that operates the data. It’s the characteristic of an individual called ‘you’ created by combining the way of thinking, personality, and values.]
“Wait, then, Parvache. You’re not really a single entity… but you’re sharing the same memory…!”
Parvache’s will was mixed with a feeling that was close to ridicule.
[It’s a kind of colony in which countless similar consciousnesses live in a single soul and a single memory.]
At that moment, Hwang Soo-rim asked as if she realized something.
“No, wait a minute. So, what happens when you move to the next? What will happen to you, the ego called Parvache who is talking to me now?”
[A different individual with the same memory will control the consciousness.]
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“No, what’s going on with you now?!”
Hwang Soo-rim’s voice rang like a scream. Meanwhile, Parvache calmly conveyed its will.
[Anyway, the ego that will have control next will have the same exact memory as I am now. You will not feel any discomfort.]
Parvache added a word to himself. ‘Yes, the memories of the soul who have endured the same time as eternity, the ego that constitutes the present ‘self,’ and Yoon Min-joon, who knows this principle, is familiar with this process.’
‘… This is something weird.’
Looking at it like that, Hwang Soo-rim asked herself. Could I remain calm just because I was dead and someone with the same exact memory lived?
“Hey… Still, it’s weird. You are once dead, but why didn’t you reincarnate?”
Parvache replied.
[… I don’t think it was there.]
“What?”
Parvache repeated its reasoning, which he had told Yoon Min-joon a while ago, to the woman in front of it.
[Probably, I think there was no reincarnation ring where I was. It was a closed world that had come to an end. A world without connected adult Channels. It was such a world where the Truth-Seekers didn’t feel the need to reconnect even though there was no guardian.]
Parvache mumbled inside.
‘Yes, it was a closed world.’
Until he called me…
Until the door to the dimension opened, which originally had no connection to the rest of the world.
***
-Khweeeeeeeerk!
A closed world had come to an end.
What made Hwang Soo-rim hesitate to ask for the word’s meaning was the desperate screams she heard outside the barrier.
-Khweeeeeeeeerk!
Once again, the scream tore the air.
“What… what is it?!”
Garam, who was sleeping in the container, opened the door and ran out.
“Over there!”
Hwang Soo-rim put her thoughts aside and turned her head toward the direction from which the noise was heard.
A little while later, dust rose above the horizon. Hwang Soo-rim opened the Mana circuit in her eyes and looked at the front. She then let out a startled voice.
“… What else is that?!”
Parvache shed its will as if it were frustrated.
[I can’t share my senses with you, so what does it look like?]
Hwang Soo-rim tried to describe what she saw.
The primary cause of the dust was a huge creature. It was covered in dark keratin, and at a glance, its body resembled an elephant. In particular, the four feet, which looked blunt and flat, resembled the largest land animal on Earth that Hwang Soo-rim came to mind.
However, when it came to its head, the impression of the creature was completely different. The shape of its head, which was larger than Hwang Soo-rim’s body, was different from any other mammal that Hwang Soo-rim knew. Thinking about how to describe it, she finally came up with the right expression.
“A huge animal with a snail head on an elephant body!”
Parvache, who was searching for Akashic records, soon came up with an answer.
[Tobogai. It’s an herbivore used as livestock by the native people of this world. Is that all you see?]
Hwang Soo-rim, who concentrated her Mana, saw another thing.
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“On its back… I can see someone riding on the nape of the neck. I can’t see detailed features, but… huh? The hair is blue?”
[That kind…]
Parvache, who was reading the information, expressed a ridiculous feeling.
[Oh, I see. Did the dragons of this world… use them in this way?]
“What?”
[I’ll explain it slowly. What else do you see? Tobogai doesn’t run around like that to the point of making a fuss.]
Hwang Soo-rim, who was observing the horizon with a little more concentration, finally discovered one more thing.
“Ah… I couldn’t see it because it was covered with dust. There’s a guy who flies behind it and chases after that Tobogai or whatever it is?”
Hwang Soo-rim explained one by one the sight that came into her eyes.
“The size is about a quarter of an elephant? The tail takes up half of the body. It’s a sharp, thick red thorny tail. It’s a strange animal with several pairs of wings that resemble dragonflies… and its heads look like centipedes… Ah! That flying centipede stabbed the snail elephant… with that pointed thorn!”
-Khweeeeeeeeerk!
Hwang Soo-rim’s words were buried in the screams of Tobogai, that was stabbed in the back. Tobogai didn’t stop running despite making a painful sound. The giant animal moved its tail and tried to smash the red flying creature on its back, but the opponent who successfully penetrated once flew back into the air while dodging the attack.
Parvache replied hastily.
[Ah! That flying guy is the male of Red Hiel! Oops, we can’t just watch and see.]
Even after one stab in the back, the Red Hiel predator narrowed the distance and then flew and chased Tobogai.
“… Anyway, that elephant-like animal is running straight toward this place, so if we leave it alone, it will hit us.”
[First, we have to chase that Red Hiel away. That guy will keep stabbing Tobogai like that instead of killing it right away, and then we’ll get bothered, too.]
“Huh? Come to think of it. The stabbed back looks a little swollen.”
Tobogai continued to escape desperately, and the blue-haired figure, who climbed near the nape of its neck, was also holding its body tightly.
“Did that flying bug put a spawning tube on the elephant’s body and laid an egg?”
Parvache denied her assumptions.
[No. That’s a male. It’s not spawning. It’s the stage before that.]
“The stage before that?”
[Yes. Let’s get rid of that male Red Hiel before it ejaculates further into Tobogai’s body.]
Hwang Soo-rim doubted her ears for a moment.
“Eja… what?”
[Originally, the male Red Hiel sticks that sharp, spiny genitalia like a knife anywhere in the female’s abdomen and then ejaculates. This is called traumatic mating.]
“What… what…?”
Hwang Soo-rim, who was dumbfounded by the unexpected expression, was speechless for a moment.
“Although those are different species at a glance. I heard you said it was Red Hiel and Tobogai!”
[If the female around here is too violent or too powerful to mate than the male, then the male will be tricky. Instead of females, they pick other weak creatures around them, stab them with their genitals, and put sperm into their bodies. The sperm absorbed in the animal’s circulatory system gives the female a very tasty smell. The female then gets twisted and eats the animal.]
Hwang Soo-rim’s expression had gotten worse.
“… What does that mean?”
[The creatures’ flesh, blood, and sperm swallowed by females are mostly digested in the stomach and used as nutrients. However, some of the sperm absorbed by the stomach wall is stored separately in a special organ. When females make eggs, they’re used for fertilization. As a result, males succeed in sowing seeds.]
“Ah… fuck. It’s disgusting.”
Hwang Soo-rim asked, raising her Mana in her hands.
“Anyway, we just have to get rid of that little guy named Hiel, right?”
Parvache nodded.
“Yes, that male’s use of that method, once again, means that the female Hiel around here is quite violent or powerful. We’ll have to chase it away before the females get twisted and burn that Tobogai.”