Don't Cry
I walked through the darkness for what felt like an eternity. Every now and then I encountered people—starving, injured souls. I helped them, spoke with them, and kept walking. How long had it been? From somewhere far in the distance, a sound reached me. I turned toward it.
There was a child. Five years old, perhaps. A small boy gripping a tree branch in his tiny hands, standing off against a wolf. Behind him huddled five more children around the same age.
The wolf growled.
They lunged at the boy. Then—flash!
Lee Hyun opened his eyes.
“Ugh.”
There was no time to steady himself before a sharp pain lanced through his heart. He looked down. “Huh?”
It had definitely been pierced straight through, yet the wound was gone. The torn clothes proved it hadn’t been a dream, but… what was this?
“Cough, cough. What kind of smoke is this?”
The situation left no room for quiet reflection. Thick, acrid black smoke wrapped the entire area, so heavy it made every breath a struggle. Lee Hyun pushed forward, parting the haze. The swift-movement technique he had learned from Siren proved invaluable. He barely made it out of the crumbling building, but the smoke remained so dense he could hardly see a foot in front of him.
“What the hell is—”
A violent gust tore the smoke away, revealing the answer.
Rumble—!!
He looked up. Heat so intense it felt as if it would dry the blood in his veins poured down from above.
“…A dragon?”
Above the sky choked with black smoke loomed a colossal form that appeared only in glimpses—a dragon seemingly forged from lava itself. That dragon was locked in battle with the very black entity that had run Lee Hyun through.
The outcome was painfully clear. The black being fired beams from its forehead and whipped up whirlwinds with its scythe, but they were nothing more than feeble twitches before the dragon. The dragon exhaled fire that mirrored the sun. The black entity tried to shield itself with its wings, yet it ignited like dry tinder and plummeted. Before it even struck the ground it had already turned to ash and scattered on the wind.
A pitiful end for malice born from one human life.
“…Is it over?”
Yet Lee Hyun’s only concern was finding Siren. The only person capable of such a miracle was her.
As expected, he spotted her quickly. Against a scene that looked like the world itself was being remade, that bright yellow magical-girl outfit stood out like a beacon. And Siren’s condition… was visibly dire. She stared blankly at the sky like a soul that had left its body. She didn’t react at all to his approach.
The heavens remained ashen gray, and the fire dragon’s movements grew only more ferocious.
“Siren…”
No wonder he hadn’t seen anyone earlier. They must have all evacuated already. Code Zero… the alert reserved for a nation-ending dungeon break. The identity of the threat was obvious. Their Siren. She’s been left all alone…, Lee Hyun thought bitterly.
BOOOOM—!!!
The dragon’s fiery breath slammed down near him. Even at a distance of several hundred meters, the scorching heat lashed his skin. His instincts screamed at the same moment: even a graze would kill him.
He knew it, yet he kept moving forward. There was no one who could help. He knew that too. None of it was reason enough to stop. He pressed on toward Siren, using swift steps to close the distance, raising barriers to deflect falling debris, until he was finally close enough to see her face clearly.
“Siren.”
Her eyes were completely unfocused. Even when he called her name she gave no reaction. What had shattered her was obvious.
“Siren…”
Lee Hyun took another step. The heat from above intensified. The dragon was staring down at them. It was terrifying, but he paid it no mind. He believed in her. He believed Siren would regain herself. The fact that he—a mere former porter—had made it this far without being incinerated wasn’t coincidence. Even unconsciously, she must have been instinctively restraining her magic to protect him.
The dragon drew closer. The heat grew so fierce it felt as if it would scorch his very soul; every drop of moisture in his body seemed to evaporate. It became impossible to keep his eyes open. At some point Lee Hyun simply closed them.
He walked through darkness. The sensation felt strangely familiar, so it wasn’t difficult. He kept moving. One step. Another. Until finally he reached her. He stood before her.
“Siren.”
His eyelids were too dry to lift. Relying only on touch, he pulled her into his arms and spoke.
He stroked her hair the way he had when she was small.
Because I’m right here.
But there was no answer. Siren’s body burned like living flame. Blue veins stood out across her skin, and the cracked flesh leaked surging crimson mana as if it were bleeding power.
Lee Hyun’s own condition was no better. Prolonged exposure to the heat had pushed his body to its absolute limit. If he wanted any chance of survival he should release her now and seek healing. Instead he only held her tighter.
Whenever things grew difficult I endured them by looking at you. On days I wanted to cry, your smile gave me laughter. You were a pillar of my life, the one who held me up. How could someone like me…
“…How could I ever leave you behind?”
In life there are paths you should never walk and rivers you can never cross again. Lee Hyun knew this moment was one of those times. And so he made his choice.
“Rather… let’s go together…”
Lee Hyun did not leave. He lost consciousness on the spot, still holding her.
Humans are made of lines. Where lines meet are relationships. Multiple lines may cross at a single point, or one line may pass through many. The traces of those lines form a life, and the collection of every intersection point is given the name “me.”
Every single one of Siren’s intersections had begun with Lee Hyun. The set of existence called Siren could not stand without the entity called Lee Hyun.
“L-Lee Hyun… please, open your eyes.”
The black entity’s scythe had not only pierced his heart. It had severed every line that formed Siren. It had cut the very root of her being.
So in that single instant she had lost everything.
“Ah… aah. Ah…. Hyun…?”
“Hyun. Hyun… Hyun…?”
The one who smiled at her, who stroked her hair, who spoke to her with warmth, who comforted her, who told her she was pretty, who looked at her with love, who brought spring to the landscape of her pain and loneliness, who gave her a name, who spent a lifetime beside her, who raised her, who she loved, an irreplaceable part of her life—my, my, my—everything was gone.
“Please. Please… please answer me, Hyun. Please.”
“Ugh… uwa… ah, aheuh.”
There was no way she could remain sane.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Everything collapses.
“A-aaaaah, aaaaa—”
She falls. There is no floor.
From some point onward she had no memory left.
“I’m going to kill them all.”
Killing intent. The reddest of all emotions.
“I’m going to kill every last one of them.”
The name of the crimson emotion that flooded the emptied vessel called Siren. No—it was the name of an emotion that overflowed far beyond mere rippling.
Siren summoned flames. She created a dragon. She attacked the black entity. The being that had once snapped her golden chains could do no more than that. Without facing even a single crisis, Siren utterly overwhelmed it.
Yet her killing intent only swelled. She knew things were spiraling out of control, but she no longer possessed the strength to calm her own heart. It kept crumbling.
Hyun is gone. Hyun no longer exists in this world. What meaning could a world without him possibly have? She simply… hated it all.
That was when it happened.
—Do you wish to see him?
—Shall I send you to the world where he exists?
—Live inside the dream where he is.
—Rather than suffering in the real world, is it not better to be happy within a lie?
—I will ensure you never realize it is false. I can even make him move exactly as you desire. The others as well, if you wish.
—That is correct. A world that moves only for you.
—Then what about this place? Is this world without him not simply another hell for you?
—Live in the dream. Happily.
—I am certain the dream will be far happier than this world.
—Your body. The archmage forged from the most brilliant talent. I desire your body.
—Will you accept the contract?
She almost answered. But then—
“Siren.”
His voice reached her.
The previously unwavering voice trembled for the first time.
The voice grew desperate, adding new threats, warning her that refusing the contract would doom her to a lifetime in a hellish world without him. But it was useless. The moment she heard his voice again, Siren’s heart had already turned.
‘Get lost.’
She seized back control of her body from the voice’s influence, catching the collapsing Lee Hyun in her arms.
“What do you mean, die?”
She held his unconscious form close and whispered into his ear.
“Thank you. For staying by my side.”
Drip— A single tear, long overdue, rolled down her cheek.