The Future He Could Not Save

Seonwoo framed his [Precognition] a little differently from what people usually imagined when they heard the word [Prophecy].

Most people thought of prophecy as telling the future before it happened.

But Seonwoo said his precognition was the ability to see the future that would follow after a certain action was taken.

It was all for the sake of grasping the future he wanted.

Rather than simply saying that something would happen, it was far more effective, when trying to guide events toward a desired outcome, to say that a certain action would lead to a certain future.

That was how he intended to change the original story, which had been crammed full of misery, and create a future where everyone could be happy.

And that first attempt—his precognition regarding Beomho Development and Sihyeok Group—had seemed to succeed.

Not only Seonwoo's family, but the world itself had rid itself of Beomho Development and Sihyeok Group, the forces that had brought countless tragedies upon it, far earlier than in the original story.

There had been a moment in the middle, when the probability of successfully altering the story had suddenly dropped to 2%, that made his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heart plummet.

But the System had not declared failure, and everything he could see suggested success.

So Seonwoo believed he had succeeded.

And then, to alter the second story he wanted to change, he made another prophecy.

In Goddess Saga, there were countless misfortunes and tragedies, and one of them was the Elementalist Who Brings Ruin.

A spiritist far beyond all common sense, one who had wiped out multiple S-rank hunters alone—even after the military joined the battle.

Amazingly, it had not been a monster, but a human.

And not a companion of the protagonist, but an enemy of the world.

A boss so absurdly powerful and so tragic that not only newbies, but countless players, had fallen into despair and simply given up.

Seonwoo wanted to turn her from a boss into an ally.

The System put the success rate at 0.00003%.

The same as when Seonwoo had first thrown himself at the men from Beomho Development.

It was, in practice, a declaration of failure.

Even so, Seonwoo chose to move forward.

Because he knew how the Elementalist Who Brings Ruin came to be.

A girl who had shut her heart away after suffering horrific bullying, hiding herself in a narrow, dark room.

A girl who had tragically lost her only guardian—her grandmother.

At the end of that unbroken chain of tragedy, she had become an enemy that destroyed the world.

Seonwoo wanted to change that future for her.

The reason so many players had abandoned Goddess Saga wasn't just the difficulty.

It was those tragic storylines more than anything.

Seonwoo knew all of it.

He even knew the timing.

So he could move first.

He met the newly enrolled Seol Yun-ri through Kang Han-na and Seo Eun-yu, who were now second-years.

He met her before the horrible bullying at school could begin, protected her, and supported her.

She no longer had to suffer from poverty, and Seol Yun-ri's Grandmother was spared some of her hardship as well.

He had thought all he had to do now was wait for Seol Yun-ri's talent to bloom.

But—

"I-I'm sorry..."

Seol Yun-ri never awakened that talent.

Even though she had unquestionably received support from Changseong Group.

She still failed to awaken the talent that should have made her a spiritist beyond even S-rank—one known as an anomaly.

And then—

[KuoOOOOOOO-!!]

She became ruin.

Countless hunters melted into black bloody slurry just from breathing.

That was how horrific the poison was as the pitch-black dragon-shaped spirit, made entirely of venom, roared.

[Kiriririk-]

Across the earth, countless Adders—serpent-shaped spirits carrying that same poison—gnawed and dissolved everything that existed.

They were alien spirits, unlike any previously known spirit.

And at the center of it all, endlessly summoning them and blackening the world, stood Seol Yun-ri, transformed into calamity.

She, who had never once managed to summon even a single low-tier spirit into this world.

Unbelievably, in a single instant, she had become a being that explosively called down catastrophe.

And beneath that calamity—

Drip.

Seo Eun-yu was there, vomiting blood mixed with black-melted fragments of her internal organs.

Kang Han-na had already turned into black gore; not even her shape remained.

"..."

I have to save them.

Seonwoo stood there, stunned, before the tragedy his own [Precognition] had created.

He had never wanted this.

He had never even imagined this.

And yet the reality before him refused to blur no matter how desperately he denied it. If anything, it only became more vivid.

KWA-A-A-A-A-A-!

...No matter how many times he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠repeated it, the same catastrophe played out again.

And coughing up blood mixed with chunks of black-melted organs, Kang Han-na said,

"I'm sorry, Seonwoo."

"...Why?"

I have to save Seol Yun-ri.

"Because I couldn't make your prophecy come true."

But I was the one at fault.

The truth was, I was the one who deceived all of you and forced my wishes onto you.

Huuuk—!

...He couldn't understand why he kept failing.

No matter what he did, Seol Yun-ri never awakened her talent—her ability as a Spiritist.

Then, all at once, she would become a calamity and bring tragedy.

It was the same every time he repeated it, and he never learned the reason.

And he could never stop that tragedy either.

"I'm sorry, Seonwoo."

Before she died, Kang Han-na always apologized.

...Seonwoo changed direction.

He admitted that, for now, he could not accept Spiritist Seol Yun-ri as an ally.

Through Chairman Kang Suhyeok, he met the Elves.

He borrowed the Dagger of Severance from them.

At this point in time, it was an object humanity neither knew of nor could have borrowed even if they had known.

But with Seonwoo's [Precognition] and Chairman Kang Suhyeok's guarantee, he was able to borrow it.

Thrust.

And with it, he stabbed Seol Yun-ri at the very moment she awakened into calamity.

By doing so, he turned Seol Yun-ri from an awakened ability-user into an ordinary human.

The Dagger of Severance was, in essence, a cursed item that severed communication between humans and spirits.

But an item was only as good or bad as the way it was used, and with it he was able to leave Seol Yun-ri as a human.

...He should have been satisfied with that and moved on.

After that, in his third prophecy, he compromised again.

This time, it was someone who could be accepted as an ally simply by following the story.

The protagonist had actually done it.

There was no need to alter the story. All he had to do was follow it.

But Seonwoo couldn't do it.

Even though he knew everything.

Even though, in Goddess Saga, it had been something so natural he had done it too many times to count.

Seonwoo could not save the Genius.

Unable to endure the repeated tragedy, he ultimately failed to make her his ally.

It was a miraculous probability, one he had never seen before.

But the alteration came in a form he had never wanted.

He moved forward only after killing someone who should have become his ally.

At some point amid all that repetition, failure, and relentless repetition again—

"You wear the face of a man burdened with too many thoughts."

"...Yes."

Seonwoo slowly turned his head toward the one who had approached without a sound.

She was a beautiful Elf, dressed simply, yet making every ornament she wore seem like an incomparable treasure.

Her dazzling golden hair and vivid emerald eyes made her look like a woman in her twenties, brimming with fresh life.

But in truth, even among the Elves—who commonly lived for centuries—she was counted among the eldest.

The leader of the Elven Knights. Guardian of the World Tree.

The most famous Elf on Earth.

That was Athenia Trianne.

If one maintained a good relationship with the Elves, she became an ally who would stand beside them in the final battle of the latter half of the story.

She was, without question, one of the strongest beings across multiple dimensions.

And yet Seonwoo had never liked her much as a character.

Because if you looked closely, she possessed a deeply pessimistic way of thinking.

"There is no need to trouble yourself so greatly, is there? You need only tell others the results shown by your precognition."

"If you do what lies within your power, that is enough. Why suffer by yearning for what cannot be grasped beyond that?"

The limits of the individual are clear. To ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reach beyond them is only to invite disaster.

That was Athenia's way of thinking—and because it seemed to deny the self who had always stretched a hand beyond his limits, Seonwoo had found it hard to like her.

...And yet, thanks to that way of thinking, the Elves had not gone extinct even after losing the World Tree. They had been able to migrate to Earth.

And now, once again, the thought sank into him with undeniable depth.

The final battle.

The fight to stop the destruction of the world was right in front of them.

He still remembered the excitement of the first time he had reached this point in Goddess Saga after making countless attempts.

But now that he faced the final battle in reality, not even a fragment of that old thrill remained.

Even though countless S-rank hunters were listening carefully to the words of D-rank Hunter Kim Seonwoo, he could not feel joy.

Because the situation before him looked like a wound running with blood had been forcibly, grotesquely stitched shut.

Seo Eun-yu was here. Kang Han-na was here. The Elves led by Athenia were here. Even the Murim warriors, said to be so closed-off, had come together.

But many of the people Seonwoo had wanted by his side were nowhere to be seen.

They could not be here.

"We made it this far because you were here, Seonwoo. I think you can stand a little taller."

That was what Kang Han-na had told him.

"I think so too."

That was what Seo Eun-yu had told him as well.

But Kang Han-na and Seo Eun-yu didn't know.

The people who said they had miraculously reached this point thanks to Kim Seonwoo the Prophet didn't know either.

They didn't know how tragically they had had to die for Kim Seonwoo—who was not truly a prophet—to make it this far.

They didn't know how many stretches of time had been repeated before Kim Seonwoo, who could not even qualify as an ordinary civilian, reached the distant realm of a D-rank hunter.

And so Seonwoo, now a D-rank hunter, strode forward past the many hunters who followed him.

Though he advanced into a danger zone that even S-rank hunters treated with extreme caution, doing so with the body of a mere D-rank hunter, no one tried to stop him.

Because he was the Prophet.

If he acted without warning them in advance, then surely that too had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meaning.

Up to now, Seonwoo had shown them enough for that kind of unquestioning faith.

"Can everyone take about seven steps back for a moment?"

And so, after Seonwoo said that—

Jijijijik—!

"...What?"

The instant he stepped on it without hesitation and triggered the Spatial Trap, everyone froze in shock.

A spatial trap.

If you were caught in it, it could neither be blocked nor evaded.

Space itself twisted and began to swallow Seonwoo whole.

"Why?"

Kang Han-na murmured in disbelief.

Seonwoo gave her that expression a faint smile and said,

"I'm sorry."

No one remembered it, but this Spatial Trap had already produced tragedy many times over.

No matter how hard he had tried to avoid it, he could not. Too many people had been caught in it, and once they were gone, they could never be found again.

So Seonwoo had stepped on it himself.

To learn something, anything more.

If it was a forced-transfer trap, then at the very least he wanted to know where it sent its victims.

Because this was the best he could do right now.

Jijijijik—!

"Next time... I'll do better."

And then Seonwoo was swallowed by the twisting space.

...

Seonwoo opened his eyes with the strange sensation of surfacing from the deep, deep sea and facing light filtering down through the water.

It felt a little different from the countless times he had experienced this before, and that put him on edge.

Chizik—!

'Urgh!'

Then a horrific sensation exploded through him, as though he were being torn apart from the inside rather than the outside, and sparks burst across his vision.

His senses were not functioning properly.

His eyes were open, but he couldn't make things out clearly.

I'm... not dead?

Spatial traps were broadly divided into two kinds.

One killed you instantly by crushing you along with the warped space itself.

The other forcibly transported you somewhere else.

And since he was conscious now and could feel this terrible pain, Seonwoo assumed the trap he had triggered had been the latter.

And yet—

What?

For the first time in all his countless Restarts, Seonwoo encountered something that had never happened before.