Chapter 124
Chapter 124
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 124
Chapter Title: Stopped World
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“What do you think was the most peaceful time in imperial history?”
“When the Founding King unified the continent.”
“Wrong. The most peaceful time was during the Great War, when the Evil God descended and massacred humanity.”
Joaquin continued without waiting for my response.
“At that time, nobles and commoners, the imperial family and the church, even hostile nations joined hands. Instead of pointing swords at each other’s throats, they fought back-to-back. If they didn’t, they’d all die.”
“…”
“But what happened once the Evil God was sealed?”
His eyes darkened.
“With the common enemy gone, humans turned their blades on each other. Territorial disputes, wars of succession, religious inquisitions. There are records saying more people died in the decade right after the sealing than during the Great War itself.”
Joaquin turned his gaze to the window.
“War only truly stopped after Founding King Cyrus established the empire.”
“…”
“The peace you mentioned? Sure, it might come briefly once the Evil God is gone. But after the intoxication of victory fades?”
Thud!
He slammed his glass down roughly.
“Do you think Grabner’s forges will halt? Far from it. They’ll churn out weapons to kill humans, not monsters. The border armies won’t disband—they’ll become vanguards for civil wars.”
“…”
“Bloated military forces, unemployed mercenaries, nobles squabbling over spoils. That’s the true face of the ‘after’ you speak of.”
I couldn’t argue.
Game epilogues always ended with the heroes’ triumphant return.
They never showed the chaos or panic that followed.
At best, they’d show the main characters’ happily-ever-afters, never shining a light on the shadows of the era.
So it came down to this?
The Evil God as the empire’s centripetal force? We had to leave it be, or the empire would tear itself apart?
Sorry, but that wasn’t justification enough to let the Evil God run loose.
If Joaquin feared imperial division, leaving the Evil God unchecked meant annihilation.
History wouldn’t flow the same way anyway.
The fact that the Evil God would descend in three years and wipe the empire off the map—that was info from the game, not history books.
‘Let’s prod him once more.’
“Your Highness, are you afraid of what comes after the Evil God is gone?”
Joaquin fell silent.
“Your Highness’s insight is admirable, but shaping the future is ultimately the role of His Imperial Majesty and the princes.”
A statement teetering on the edge of treason.
Discussing the next reign while the current emperor was hale and hearty was disloyalty in itself.
But it had to be said.
“The chaos Your Highness fears is a luxury for survivors. If the Evil God descends, even that luxury vanishes.”
Division was better than extinction.
Torn pieces could be mended; the erased couldn’t be undone.
“The turmoil after victory is a burden for the living. Choosing death by sitting idle out of fear of that weight is mere sophistry.”
Joaquin scoffed at my retort.
“You don’t think what I saw was just some history book, do you?”
“…Pardon?”
“Don’t delude yourself. What I saw wasn’t the past in some book.”
Joaquin slowly rose.
I instinctively went on guard, but he showed no intent to harm.
“A boy came to the village carrying a flame.”
He stared into empty space as he began his tale.
“The people, seeing the flame burn nobly in gray, reached out one after another, calling it beautiful.”
A fairy tale?
No, he wasn’t one to spout nonsense.
And gray flames?
‘Is he talking about me?’
It felt that way.
Joaquin shared blood with Alicia. This dramatic metaphor was typical royal rhetoric.
“Then, I saw it. The moment hands touched the flame, the fire engulfed their bodies whole.”
Up to this point, I thought it was just a warning not to overstep.
But his next words left me baffled.
“So I swept the flame away. To where the winds blew strong. Thinking it would snuff out quickly in the gale.”
A name flashed in my mind.
Where the winds blew strong.
Stormstrike Squad.
‘It was this guy.’
When I’d met Ragnar alone, he never once mentioned the Stormstrike Squad.
I’d thought he would, given Cecilia’s case.
Back then, I figured it was just past history.
Before I arrived, the Stormstrike Squad had one of the highest casualty rates among raiding parties.
I’d nearly died there myself, and in the original story, Adelin lost all her subordinates.
Meaning Joaquin had thrown me into the jaws of death.
“But the flame meeting the wind spread like wildfire instead. Feeding on the moth-like crowds as kindling, the inferno grew uncontrollably.”
I’d thought I met Alicia first, but this man had been watching me even before that.
Hoping I’d burn to death.
“In time, the boy’s flame turned the village to ashes. And in the midst of those ruins.”
Joaquin looked at me and added.
“The boy sang a dirge.”
“…”
“I wondered what that boy brought the flame for. When I went to confront him, he was already gone.”
He toyed with his empty wine glass and murmured.
“As if he’d never existed in this world to begin with.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“Is peace what comes after defeating the Evil God?”
“If you mean division…”
“No.”
Joaquin shook his head.
“Division can be mended with blood if needed. But what I saw wasn’t mere division.”
“Then what did you see?”
“A world with nothing.”
‘What…?’
The cabin air grew heavy at his answer, choking my breath.
Undeterred, his mouth kept moving.
“No war, no peace, no chaos. Time didn’t flow, seasons didn’t change. A world severed from causality, isolated and frozen in space-time.”
Joaquin’s lips twitched.
“A stopped world.”
“…!”
“I saw the stopped world after Tartarus vanished.”
A chill ran down my spine.
I knew the scene he described.
‘The world after the ending.’
What happens when the game ends?
After the epilogue and credits roll, with “Thank you for playing.”
The player quits or starts a new playthrough.
What of the left-behind world?
What becomes of a world with no more story to progress?
“I witnessed the stopped world, so I chose maintenance to prevent it from stopping. This resolve won’t waver against any wind.”
He had seen it.
The eternal silence left as mere save data after the player departed.
“I’ll ask again.”
Joaquin’s red eyes bored into me.
“I know what I saw with my own eyes. But what certainty drives you?”
Killing intent tightened around my throat.
He was asking.
“What did you see, boy?”
Is the world you’re trying to make really a happy ending?
“Do you even exist in the peace you prattle about?”
“…”
Doubt reared its head.
How had Joaquin seen that world?
I’d considered he might be a regressor or like me, a possessor.
But too passive for a regressor, and no need to ask me if a possessor.
One thing was clear.
He was convinced I was like him.
I’d started with hope of changing him. Now I was sure it was impossible.
He was already changed.
The original Joaquin moved only for the empire’s stability.
This Joaquin Cyrus was different. His goal had expanded to the world’s survival.
‘A stopped world.’
It must have been intolerable to him.
‘But.’
Joaquin knew one truth but not two.
The story I’d started right before possessing Halibal Belder in this world.
Was utterly different from what I’d experienced so far.
Perhaps it existed.
A true ending beyond the happy one.
I couldn’t change him, but.
The conditions remained the same.
“Your Highness. Have you ever thought this?”
If I proved the true ending’s existence.
Proved a world beyond the stopped one.
There might still be a chance to join hands with him.
Even if just wishful thinking.
“That you got scared reading a book and closed it?”
“What?”
“Afraid of an unwanted ending. Or fearing the book’s end, you shut your eyes before turning the last page.”
There was ending avoidance syndrome.
Gamers’ chronic ailment, preferring process over result, eternity over finale.
But that had nothing to do with me.
“Are you certain the world you saw is this world’s true end?”
“Then you saw something else?”
I shook my head.
I hadn’t seen it either.
“Isn’t that why I’m talking with Your Highness now? To confirm.”
Joaquin’s eyebrow twitched.
“I’ll prove it. The world beyond the closed pages that Your Highness hasn’t seen.”
Of course, it was sophistry.
The true ending’s existence was uncertain, and even if real, as a game, it would stop someday.
Even if Joaquin aged and died with everyone smiling happily, the game would end.
But.
So what?
What could I do?
A stopped world. One that doesn’t continue after the ending.
Stay still out of fear?
That wasn’t my way.
Even if only the silence he described awaited at the path’s end.
My grand rule in this world.
Do what I can.
And.
Stake it all.
“If I find that world, will you acknowledge it then?”
Joaquin stared without answering.
After a long silence.
“…Fine.”
His lip curled.
“I’ll watch if your tongue speaks truth or a conman’s ploy.”
The killing intent lifted.
“But empty conviction won’t do. Bring proof of that other world.”
“Proof?”
Joaquin pulled something from his bosom and tossed it onto the table.
I instinctively knew.
This was why he’d summoned me and spun this long conversation.
“South of Baran lies a ship sunk in a typhoon.”
A map somewhere.
Though I’d never seen it, it felt familiar for a reason.
It was the hidden dungeon whose map wasn’t revealed in the original game.
The shipwreck dungeon—our destination.
“Fetch the compass slumbering there.”
‘The Compass of the Heavens?’
That’s all that came to mind.
[Compass of the Heavens]. A simple item drop rate buff with no direct story impact.
Why did he need that?
“Will that prove it?”
“Bring it, and I’ll give you a chance. To make me believe in the ‘next’ you describe.”
If this deal worked, it wasn’t bad.
It was my destination anyway.
“Understood.”
“And one more thing.”
Joaquin’s gaze brushed my inner pocket.
“Guard well what you’ve taken.”
“…!”
He knew about the Abyss Fragment?
Then why not seize it?
“I’ll keep watching.”
With that, Joaquin turned away without lingering.
The conversation was over.
Thud.
“Haa…”
Only after the door closed did my held breath escape.
‘A compass.’
In the end, I’d danced to Joaquin’s tune.
Without recruiting me, he’d made me fetch what he needed.
Think positive. It meant he acknowledged my value.
Alicia was on my side anyway, so this bought temporary freedom from imperial scrutiny.
I’d handle what needed doing in that window.
As thoughts cleared, a fundamental question arose.
‘How did Joaquin see that world, anyway?’
Prophecy existed in the original game.
But only for in-game events.
Like the prophecy True Nosha received.
The church could do it to some extent.
But the stopped world was meta, outside the game.
How had Joaquin perceived it?
Gazing out the window amid reverie, moonlight shimmered across the rain-cleared night sky.
⁎⁎⁎
After Halibal left, silence enveloped the cabin.
Joaquin sat alone, staring at the ledger in his hand.
Whoosh.
Infusing it with mana, red flames engulfed the ledger.
This erased traces of the Getel and Rainport branches. Part of the deal was fulfilled.
The rest, Halibal would bring himself.
It wasn’t one-sided extortion.
He’d done his part by not taking the “fragment” Halibal held.
“Afraid, huh…”
Joaquin chuckled.
Not wrong.
Huge words about Halibal’s conviction, but truthfully, he wasn’t unshaken either.
In the past, “he” had shown him a world of ruin and said.
This is the end you’ll meet.
With your power, you can change the ending.
He’d wanted to dismiss it as nonsense, but the vivid stopped world before his eyes silenced him.
That world held only a horrific silence Joaquin never wanted to see again.
Yet today, from the boy “he” warned against, he heard something similar.
‘I’ll prove it.’
Joaquin accepted his proposal, leaving choices in his hands one by one.
He didn’t blindly trust either side yet.
His path was always one he blazed himself, not dictated by others.
Thus, he now straddled both.
Whichever showed him a different world from that one would suffice.
Joaquin looked at the card in his other hand.
Flipping it revealed the Tartarus Church emblem.
With these words.
Strength.