Haydam
Even up to the moment I blacked out, my body had been little better than a rag. Waking to find it was merely a little thirsty was strange enough.
Stranger still was the powerful force I felt inside myself the instant I opened my eyes.
I figured that power had everything to do with the Eye Giant’s core that had been shoved into my mouth right before I lost consciousness—and with the moonstone cat that had shoved it in.
If it was that creature, it would know what this force really was. Yet it stayed silent no matter how I called. It had only shown itself when I was on the brink of death, so answering a summons this mild would have been almost funny.
No choice, then. A little childish, but…
The NPC sealed inside this ring only ever reacted to the Commander. When the Commander appeared, a quiet sorrow bled through; when the Commander was in danger, a desperate yearning. If I thought anything unkind about the Commander it protested; if I behaved in a way that wasn’t “Haydam,” it seared my finger as if telling me to snap out of it. So the thing would definitely answer my private muttering.
“What would happen if I went to the Commander and said I’m not Haydam?”
No!
The moment I threw the provocation, a childish voice rang out from the moonstone. A bright light flared, and something white popped free and landed squarely on my lap.
A snow-white kitten, no bigger than a baby.
So I didn’t imagine it after all.
Back then the situation had been so desperate I’d half-convinced myself I’d hallucinated. But the cat sitting in front of me now was identical to the one I’d seen right before I blacked out. I’d assumed an NPC lived inside the ring. Never once had I imagined something that wasn’t even human was sealed in there.
The kitten that had burst from the ring began scolding me at once.
You broke the promise! You said first—you said first you’d treat me like a father and keep me from dying!!
“Finally decided to show up, huh.”
Treat me like a father and keep me from dying… That had been the vow I made at Luna Moon’s grave. Ah—back then it had existed in ring form, so of course it had heard the oath I swore to Luna Moon as well. Was that why it had been cooperating with me all this time?
But if so, something still doesn’t add up…
You… are you really going to go tell them you’re not Haydam…?
Just as it said, the creature knew I wasn’t the real Haydam. An NPC tied to Luna Moon ought to have been furious that I was impersonating him. Yet its attitude suggested it wanted me to keep pretending—no, more than that: it wanted me to become Haydam perfectly.
You can’t… That would make them so, so sad…
What on earth was this cat?
Because the ring reacted in the Commander’s presence, I’d first wondered whether Luna Moon’s soul dwelt inside it. But the emotions that filtered through whenever we were near the Commander had never been those of a lover. And if the cat truly were Luna Moon, there would be no reason for it to be uncooperative with me, a fellow player. Judging by the way it talked and acted, it clearly wasn’t a player at all. Even so, it had to be an NPC closely bound to Luna Moon. Nothing else would beg so desperately not to make the Commander sad.
Tears began to well in the kitten’s eyes, so I spoke quickly.
“Alright.”
Alright?
“I mean I’ll keep living as Haydam.”
Really?!
“Yeah. Really.”
If it had been watching from inside the ring all this time, it should already know I had my own reasons for having to live as Haydam. Naive little thing—exactly as young as it looked.
Then don’t break the promise this time!
“Have I ever broken a promise? I saved them exactly the way you wanted. I nearly died for real pulling the Commander out of there, you know.”
That’s…! That’s why I gave you the Eye Giant’s core too!
Ah. So because I’d saved the Commander, it had forced its way out and helped me even when I was on the verge of death?
Got a temper, but it’s cute enough.
I leaned in close to the cat and asked,
“So… who are you?”
The answer that came back was completely out of left field.
You can’t call me ‘you’!
Can’t call it “you”?
“I don’t know your name, so I’ve got no choice but to call you ‘you.’”
It’s not ‘you’! I’m your big brother!
“…How do you figure?”
A kitten that looked every bit an infant was claiming to be the older brother. Did cats measure age differently? I vaguely remembered that one cat year equaled about ten human ones. My real body was past thirty, but in this creature’s eyes the current me probably looked like a ten-year-old kid. Even so, the thing itself only looked about six months old.
Then it delivered an unexpected answer.
I was born before you, so I’m the big brother!
So it was going to insist it had been born first.
“Then… you’re saying you were born more than ten years ago?”
Yeah! So I’m the big brother!
Hmm. I’d thought it was just being stubborn, but it looked completely serious. Well, it was a monster—maybe only the appearance was young.
Call me big brother! If you don’t call me big brother I won’t answer!
Mental age definitely still looked young, though…
“Fine. So who is big brother, then?”
It wasn’t exactly hard, so when I smoothly called it big brother the creature puffed out its chest in satisfaction, tilted its head up a little, and declared,
I am the beginning and the end of all things.
“…What?”
And your big brother.
Somehow I didn’t think conversation with this guy was going to go smoothly.
“Are you… like Luna Moon’s pet or something?”
I’m not a pet! And not ‘you’ either!!
“Then why was big brother inside Luna Moon’s ring?”
That’s…
The arrogant little thing suddenly drooped both ears, looked dejected, and hung its head.
I can’t say…
“Can’t say?”
Seeing it so thoroughly deflated, it seemed there really were circumstances it couldn’t talk about, so I decided to let it go for now. After all, I hadn’t summoned it because I was curious about its identity; I needed to ask about the unknown power that had settled inside me.
“Then I’ll ask something else.”
Something else…?
As if feeling guilty that it couldn’t answer me, the moment I said I would ask something else it lifted its head and looked at me happily.
“Why did you feed me the Eye Giant’s core?”
That I can tell you!
It hopped up and down on my lap, padded closer, and pressed a soft jelly-like front paw right against my chest—exactly the spot where that unknown power had been thrumming for a while now.
You lot are vessels that can hold cores.
“You lot?”
Kids like you!
Did “you lot” mean players? While I was still turning that over, the cat continued.
Cores contain a monster’s power. Absorb a core and you can use that power.
This one talks more like an NPC than any of the ones I’ve met so far.
Absorb a core and you could use a monster’s power. The whole mood had suddenly turned into some supernatural ability battle story. What the hell even was the genre of this insane game?
“So what you’re saying now is—”
Nyaang!
“…Big brother’s saying I absorbed a monster’s power?”
Yeah! The reason your body recovered so fast is because you absorbed the Eye Giant’s regenerative power exactly as it was.
So that was why there hadn’t been a single wound on me when they found me? But for it to be mere regenerative power, the force I felt inside was far too vast—something so close to omnipotence that if I simply reached out I felt I could do anything I wanted.
Of course, what you absorbed wasn’t only regenerative power. You inherited the most special thing.
“The most special thing?”
Exactly the Eye Giant’s supernatural ability. The power to control the weather.
The power to control the weather. That force which had whipped up blizzards and called down lightning was inside me now?
Not quite omnipotence, then.
Still, the claim was hard to accept at face value. Raising regenerative power by absorbing a monster core… that much sounded plausible. Players really did possess the ability to heal through eating. But absorbing a core to take a monster’s supernatural ability itself? That was a setting that had never appeared even once in the game. Yet it was hard to dismiss as nonsense when I could actually feel the power thrumming inside me.
“If that’s real, I want to test it. How do you use this power?”
How to use it… is hard for me to explain too. A supernatural ability is like your arms and legs. When you’re first born it’s hard even to roll over, but eventually you start taking steps. Now that it’s part of your body, you’ll be able to handle it someday.
“Someday, huh.”
Even the Eye Giant took years to get used to controlling the weather, so for a human like you it’ll take time.
So I couldn’t wield it right away. If it came naturally with time, that was fine. More importantly—
You can absorb a monster’s core and gain its power…
What if I got cores from decent large-class monsters and fed them to Taejeong and Bang-guseok Yeobo? Legendary-class monsters with supernatural abilities weren’t exactly common, but even large-class cores should make them noticeably stronger. The fact that you could reinforce your body through cores was a setting that never appeared in the game. Other zones wouldn’t know this information, so our zone could pull far ahead.
Thinking that, the little creature suddenly felt extremely cute. I had no idea how it possessed this knowledge, but it had information I didn’t. And above all, that ability to extract cores even from legendary-class monsters with ease. It would definitely be useful. If I could later obtain a flying monster’s core and gain flight on top of everything else, that would be the icing on the cake.
“If I absorb a flying monster’s core, can I fly?”
If it’s a monster that possesses a flight ability. Just because you eat a core from a monster with wings doesn’t mean you can fly. Humans don’t have wings.
So absorbing a flying monster’s core didn’t make wings sprout. Well, even if they actually did, that would be a whole other problem.
And even if you ate a core from a monster with that kind of flight ability, you still couldn’t use it.
“Why?”
You can only hold one core ability at a time.
“Ahh…”
As I listened, a chill ran down my spine. What if I hadn’t known this and had shoved some random monster’s core into my mouth? Of course, I’d only ever known monster cores as things to smash, so that wouldn’t have happened…
But the fact that the very first core I absorbed was a legendary-class monster’s… is that a coincidence?
I had the distinct feeling the board was being stacked far too favorably in my direction. This little brat who insisted on being my big brother was part of it too.
“But how do you know all this?”
Because I am the beginning and the end of all things.
What the hell was that beginning-and-end nonsense supposed to mean.
“Don’t you have something like a name?”
A name… I have one, but it’s not mine right now.
You have one, but it isn’t yours right now?
At those words a thought flashed through my mind. Someone related to Luna Moon. Someone who possessed a name that was no longer theirs. An existence born a little earlier than the players who all begin at exactly ten years old. And family who didn’t want Commander Hayden to be sad.
There was exactly one such NPC, wasn’t there?
“You… don’t tell me…”
I asked the creature in a trembling voice.
“Are you… Haydam?”