Chapter 200
Chapter: 200
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 200
>Chapter Title: Luise (3)
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The junior who had come to visit him in the hospital bowed his head with a remorseful expression.
“I’m truly sorry, senior. Still, it’s a tremendous relief that you made it back safe.”
At the impudent bastard’s words, Seongjin’s fist clenched involuntarily.
But realizing his body would erupt into a major disaster with even the slightest movement, Seongjin gave up on immediate retribution and simply leaned his head back against the bed.
He couldn’t exactly kill the guy for real.
“By the way, senior, you’re truly amazing. Who would have imagined anyone walking back from there?”
The junior dragged over a chair and sat beside him, nodding with an utterly harmless expression.
“You son of a bitch. Cough!”
He replied without thinking, and specks of blood flew out with the cough.
Cough, cough.
Still, for someone with severe airway burns, it was relatively mild. He could manage with just a small oxygen tube in his nose, without the need for a ventilator.
“This is all because of you! Cough! A guy who’s served in the control tower—how do you mix up Lima and Romeo, you lunatic?”
Thanks to the wrong orders, Seongjin had ended up leaving the operational zone alone and isolated right in the middle of a Fire Caterpillar nest.
Fire Caterpillars were monsters that spewed deadly poison. He had barely escaped the situation with quick wits and extreme focus, but normally, he would have been engulfed in toxic fumes the moment he was isolated, reduced to a puddle of blood.
The junior knew this well, so he stayed by Seongjin’s side for a while, dutifully pretending to nurse him.
“I’ve thought this before sometimes, but senior, even when you eat something as basic as field rations, you act all refined. Haven’t you gone two days without even a sip of water?”
As Seongjin eagerly dug into his first proper meal in a while, the junior, who had been fetching water beside him, suddenly said something out of left field.
Seongjin’s eyebrow twitched.
What nonsense is this now?
“That pretentious attitude of yours, senior. Is it some kind of compensatory psychology to hide your low self-esteem?”
“What?”
“When someone’s starving to the extreme, they might break down, but you eat while minding every single etiquette. Is that just a habit you picked up somewhere?”
Seongjin felt his appetite plummet.
What did this guy eat wrong? He botched the orders with his head in the clouds, and now he’s picking on how I eat?
Normally, he’d smack the back of his head and be done with it, but unfortunately, his condition right now was abysmal.
“Don’t make noise when you chew. Use your chopsticks properly. Isn’t that just basic family upbringing? What’s the problem?”
“…Pardon?”
As if hearing an unexpected answer, the junior stared at Seongjin blankly for a moment. Then, with a suspicious look, he asked again.
“Are you serious right now?”
“If not?”
What? Why? What?
Seongjin glared at him sullenly while moving his chopsticks, and the junior suddenly burst into laughter that shook the hospital room, as if something was hilarious.
“Hahaha! You? Family upbringing? Ahahaha!”
Clutching his stomach in roaring laughter, he eventually tumbled off the chair and onto the floor. He laughed so hard that tears welled up in his eyes.
Is this guy here to visit the sick or to rile me up?
“Hahaha. That’s the funniest joke I’ve heard lately. Thank you for leaving me with such a pleasant memory at the end, senior. I mean that sincerely.”
After laughing for who knows how long, the junior finally composed himself and said this.
“The end?”
“Yes. It’s about time I said goodbye. I should have moved directly like this much sooner, but I was too complacent, hoping for a miracle.”
He tightened his combat boots, straightened his uniform neatly, and continued calmly.
“Senior, do you know? This world is going to end soon anyway. Everyone will die shortly, and that’s an inevitable fact.”
Then the junior rapidly winked his right eye while staring piercingly at him with his remaining left eye.
“But why are you still clinging to life so stubbornly? It’s all pointless now—what on earth are you waiting for while holding on like that?”
Seongjin knew all too well when that habit of his appeared.
Left-eye amblyopia. The telltale sign when eyeing prey.
You bastard, lower your eyes right now.
Who the hell are you looking at like that!
Reflexively reaching for the familiar position of his sword, Seongjin suddenly realized his waist was empty and felt like he’d been struck hard on the head.
…Huh?
Walnut Cracker is gone? Why?
* * *
Gasp!
Seongjin’s eyes snapped open, and he gulped in a large breath while breaking out in cold sweat.
“…Walnut Cracker!”
As soon as he came to, he fumbled frantically at his waist. Confirming the familiar scabbard and hilt in their usual spot, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Ah, what the hell. You scared me.”
Thump, thump, thump.
As his heart pounded fiercely, a sense of reality gradually returned.
“It was all a dream….”
The moment he realized it, the vivid pain throughout his body from moments ago rapidly subsided. The burning sensation in his airways when he breathed was gone too.
Of course, it had been over a decade since then. He thought he’d completely forgotten about it.
With his energy drained, Seongjin lay there blinking for a bit.
“But where the hell is this?”
Looking up, he saw a highly unfamiliar ceiling. The room he was in was tiny, like the size of a hand.
“…Is there a place like this in Delcross?”
Bright lighting poured down from an unknown source, and the plain pastel wallpaper covering the ceiling and walls gave a modern feel.
As he puzzled over it and sat up, someone beside him spoke.
[Did you have a dream? Just lie there.]
The calm voice now felt very familiar.
Startled, Seongjin turned his head and saw a familiar figure.
[…Father?]
The only furniture in the room was the small bed Seongjin lay on and a tiny desk that could pass for a side table.
The Holy Emperor stood in front of that desk.
Dressed lightly in casual clothes without his usual ceremonial robes, he rifled through the few books with a leisurely demeanor and continued.
[Or would you like me to read you a book? It seems the effects of that tea will take some more time to fully wear off.]
…The medicinal tea!
Only then did the memories before he lost consciousness flash through Seongjin’s mind in sequence.
After drinking the tea given by Countess Zigsmunt, sensing something was off with the symptoms, Seongjin had tried to summon the Holy Emperor immediately.
His presence here now meant Luise had properly heeded his request.
But he had assumed the Holy Emperor would possess Sir Sharon’s body if he came—so what was this?
“Hey, Demon King? You listening? What the hell happened while I was out?”
He urgently called for the Demon King, but there was no response.
Instead, the Holy Emperor selected a book and approached Seongjin with slow steps.
[No matter how much you call, he won’t hear you now.]
[…Pardon?]
[This is a space where all external thoughts are severed. Thus, thoughts from here cannot flow outward either.]
A space that even severed the Demon King’s thoughts. The Holy Emperor’s voice transmitted directly into his mind, as if resonating in his head rather than through his ears.
After pondering, Seongjin reached one conclusion.
[This isn’t the real world.]
The Holy Emperor tilted his head slightly and replied.
[Well, it’s a bit imprecise to say it isn’t reality.]
He sat at the foot of the bed and met Seongjin’s gaze steadily.
[But you could call it not reality in that it isn’t the Delcross dimension. This is a newly created thought projection dimension.]
[Thought projection…]
[Indeed. There was no other way to completely block the thoughts pouring in from all directions.]
Seongjin slowly chewed over the meaning and was stunned.
Wait, did this guy just say he created an entire dimension to block thoughts?
‘Is creating a dimension or two no big deal for God’s proxy? No way… No matter how I think about it, that can’t be ordinary. There has to be a cost, right?’
Come to think of it, the Holy Emperor’s complexion seemed paler than usual, or maybe it was his imagination.
[Are you alright? You didn’t overexert yourself because of me, did you?]
When Seongjin asked worriedly, the Holy Emperor questioned back curiously.
[Overexert? Why do you think that?]
[Your face looks a bit pale.]
[…]
The Holy Emperor blinked as if slightly flustered, then sighed softly as if realizing something. A faintly bitter smile crossed his face as he looked down at the book in his hand.
[No. It must just be because this place doesn’t hold great memories for me. They’re all in the past anyway, so don’t worry about it.]
Of course, to create such a detailed and realistic thought projection, the caster’s memories would inevitably serve as the foundation.
And those memories wouldn’t all be good ones.
“I’m sorry, Father.”
Seongjin bowed his head obediently and said.
Regardless of the initial intent, he had drunk the tea with his own hands.
At the time, he thought it was the best way to smoothly defuse the situation, but who could have predicted the sudden hallucinations assaulting him from all sides?
As if grasping the circumstances to some extent, the Holy Emperor looked up and gazed at Seongjin steadily.
[I see. You didn’t expect this outcome either.]
“Yes, that’s true. I thought one cup wouldn’t matter.”
Even though Rophlum eggs were part of the ingredients, from the refining process Orden described, the content was extremely minute.
The tea had been circulating in Zigsmunt territory for years already, but clear abnormal symptoms had only begun appearing in a tiny fraction of people—and those were all recent cases.
Who would have thought one cup would cause such intense hallucinations?
‘Wait! And he just said he created a new dimension to block thoughts…!’
Does that mean what I heard earlier weren’t hallucinations?
That they were all real existing thoughts?
Suddenly, Seongjin’s mind raced.
The tea and Rophlum eggs. The gray plague and organs that receive thoughts. The people of Zigsmunt territory slowly going mad with nonsense.
‘I get the rough idea of how the tea affects people. But then, why did the changes happen so quickly only to me….’
An unpleasant premonition crept in.
Watching Seongjin’s complicated expression quietly, the Holy Emperor timed it perfectly and explained softly.
[You’ve probably guessed by now. The tea circulating in Zigsmunt territory does indeed, over long-term consumption, create thought projection crystals in the minds of a very low probability of users.]
Long-term consumption, low probability.
And with the Holy Emperor’s next words, Seongjin’s unease turned into certainty.
[But to stimulate what already exists, even a small amount of tea would suffice.]
Seongjin’s pupils shook violently.
That could only mean one thing.
“So I originally…”
No, not me.
Confirming the familiar combat uniform he wore and the tattered bandages wrapped around his fists, Seongjin bit his lip and shook his head fiercely.
The scabbard and Walnut Cracker he thought were at his waist had also vanished without a trace.
Of course. This was the thought projection world.
A space where strong thoughts took physical form.
“Mores—”
Seongjin continued in a trembling voice.
“That child was born with a thought projection crystal. He was originally an esper like the twins, wasn’t he?”
Suddenly, the realization that the Holy Emperor’s gaze was at a height not much different from his own pierced deeply into Seongjin’s heart.