Chapter 134
Chapter 134
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: Chapter 25: Sprouting (3)
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‘It was scary.’
I already had a record of failure.
As the price of that failure, the twins had matured far too quickly.
They started by learning to read adults’ moods and hide their true feelings instead of showing them.
‘At some point, they stopped being picky about side dishes.’
Not satisfied with that, they began searching not for what they wanted to do, but for what they could do.
I could never forget the day they first did my laundry for me.
The twins were just eleven then.
In truth, such a change was inevitable.
‘I couldn’t handle raising and supporting them all by myself.’
But knowing it was inevitable didn’t make it any easier on my heart.
Watching that uncomfortable transformation is part of why I couldn’t muster the courage again.
I knew it was realistically impossible for me to protect the children’s innocence.
In the end, it was like I was pulling back out of fear of repeating that failure.
“Ha.”
Confronting my cowardly inner thoughts head-on brought a bitter wave of self-mockery.
Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to reach out.
There are walls so distant that even looking up at them feels forbidden, and above all, I knew that wall was reality.
I had experienced it firsthand.
The reality that wouldn’t budge no matter how much I screamed and thrashed, and the suffocating helplessness that stood beside it, gnawing away at me.
‘Especially in Biharr, it’s even more impossible.’
We were at war with monsters whose origins we didn’t even know.
In a world like this, was protecting a child’s innocence even plausible?
It would be better to help them realize reality as soon as possible.
In reality, it’s advantageous to live cruelly, coldly, and selfishly.
Instead of offering such pure gratitude, it’s more profitable to use their wits to stir an adult’s pity.
That’s reality.
‘Purity in a place like that? What nonsense.’
I couldn’t protect those children’s purity.
‘No need to play a game I know I’ll lose again.’
What difference was there between that and the futile life of a moth flying into the light?
My mind raced through the calculations swiftly, urging me toward a decision, and acting on it wasn’t hard at all.
The children gave their prepared greetings, and I received them.
So all I had to do was stand up, turn my back on them, and go my own way. It really was that simple.
But when I opened my eyes again, I couldn’t bring myself to do that simple thing.
“Uh…….”
I saw Elena looking at me anxiously, gauging my mood.
My hand moved on its own, lightly patting her head.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
My voice came out a bit hoarse, but it was reasonably normal.
That should have been enough, but I went and added,
“If anything happens, tell the priests to contact me. Ask them to pass the message to K.”
“……Yes?”
“You can contact me anytime you’re bored, too.”
I skipped the details about the homepage and just told her there was a direct way to talk.
At that, the anxiety faded from Elena’s face, replaced by a bright smile blooming fully.
“Yes!”
I knew what I was doing was a foolish choice.
As long as reality existed, I’d fail again, and for dreaming the impossible, I’d flail in helplessness.
I despised myself for jumping in even knowing that.
But even realizing it was inefficient and stupid, I couldn’t turn back.
So now, all that was left for me was to grit my teeth and run harder to avoid repeating past failures.
This time, I hoped the outcome of this foolish choice dictated by my heart, not my head, would be different.
I mulled over another name for this hopelessly naive choice.
What those who refuse to yield to the impossible and keep struggling dream of.
What you believe might be different next time, even knowing what’s coming, unable to let go of lingering attachments.
People call it hope.
* * *
The contract for the building to serve as our party’s base hadn’t been finalized yet.
Embracing my tangled emotions, I returned to the Bennett mansion with the party members.
“Welcome back, K-nim.”
The one greeting us was the deputy butler, who held the second-highest rank after Chentler.
Chentler hadn’t returned yet from his trip to the main house.
According to the deputy butler, the mansion’s master, Rashar, was away at a church army meeting, and for some reason, Velta hadn’t visited either.
Thanks to that, the mansion was quieter than usual.
The fact that the silence felt awkward meant I’d grown accustomed to life here.
As I reflected on that and sank into a strange sentiment, the deputy butler asked,
“Shall I prepare a meal?”
We’d returned right after the morning victory ceremony, hitting lunchtime exactly.
We’d already agreed to have personal downtime after returning.
‘It’d be better to handle it all at once and spend the rest of the time separately.’
I had no plans to hunt right away anyway, so going up and coming back down would be a hassle.
After a brief hesitation, I turned to the party members and said,
“It’d be more convenient to eat before heading up. What do you think?”
“We’re all together, so asking them to bring it to separate rooms would be silly.”
“Meat for me, definitely meat!”
It was unanimous. We headed to a private room and waited for the food.
In the meantime, I decided to sort out the rewards we’d obtained.
‘Let’s start with the intangible rewards.’
I still had some main scenario rewards I hadn’t claimed yet, so I needed to check those.
‘Fame and achievements come automatically with a message.’
For mana, I usually chose the attribute mana option.
‘Next up is the divine blessing.’
Yang Tae-ho and Kim Yul had automatically received blessings from the gods they were affiliated with.
Just like priests or holy knights, they could use a divine power once.
Normally, I should have gotten Pala’o’s blessing too.
‘Another lottery this time.’
A roulette wheel appeared for me.
‘It’s probably because of that “Token of Alliance” trait.’
On top of the random boxes I’d been collecting and combining every time, now another lottery.
‘What pointless crap I keep doing.’
Random boxes and this roulette were both systems based more on luck than effort.
It wasn’t my preferred type, but I couldn’t just discard it, so I hit the draw button.
*Whirrr-whirrr-whirr.*
The cheap sound effect and flashy graphics were all grating.
But when I saw the text that emerged at the end, my eyes widened involuntarily.
[One-Time Use Voucher for Mepheroseta’s Power]
I stared intently at the voucher that materialized in my hand amid a brilliant light.
“Mepheroseta…….”
Mepheroseta was the denomination that had prophesied the players’ arrival.
As soon as I pulled out the questions tied to that name, my mind grew noisy.
‘The oracle came down about a year and five months ago.’
But the number I heard in my first conversation with the system was two years.
‘It definitely said they planned to connect the servers two years ago.’
But because the Seven Gods missed something, they couldn’t use the existing gates.
I hadn’t spoken to the system since then, so I hadn’t asked what the Seven Gods had overlooked.
But that number, I remembered clearly.
‘If they planned to connect the servers two years ago, that means the Seven Gods and the system formed their alliance before then.’
So why did the oracle about my coming descend after that?
Moreover, it wasn’t a god who issued the oracle—it was Mepheroseta’s apostle.
‘The Seven Gods must all know about the alliance, so why not relay it to each church and let the apostle speak instead?’
What if that apostle hadn’t seen my future arrival?
From what I’d heard, Mepheroseta’s power wasn’t about seeing exactly what one desired.
If they could precisely select and view the information they wanted, Biharr wouldn’t be in this state.
‘They described it as seeing what must be seen…….’
Since they couldn’t select future information, it was essentially random.
Of course, an apostle who could use divine power without restrictions could see more futures.
‘But apostles have side effects instead of restrictions on the power.’
Mepheroseta’s priests could speak of the futures they saw through the power.
They’d already paid the price through rituals.
But apostles, who used divine power without that causal process, faced all sorts of constraints.
A prime example: Mepheroseta’s apostles die if they speak of the futures they’ve seen.
Rashar had explained it as them breaking the discipline of temperance, so Mepheroseta punished them.
He said it was a constraint on those using such causality-ignoring power without divinity.
Half-right.
‘It’s not Mepheroseta punishing them for breaking temperance; it’s causality intervening to eliminate them.’
It also meant apostles always had to live wary of causality.
Yet Rashar, Pala’o’s own apostle, believed causal intervention was divine punishment.
‘The results are similar, though.’
Whether the Seven Gods directly spoke of punishment or it was misunderstanding built over time wasn’t clear.
But their failure to actively clarify let me glimpse their true intentions.
I considered giving Rashar a precise explanation on the matter but held back.
I wasn’t convinced it would be for Rashar’s benefit.
‘Learning they’d been deceived by the gods they trusted and followed.’
If Rashar sought the truth, maybe, but otherwise, wouldn’t it just be my self-satisfaction via exposé?
It might even be petty revenge.
‘I don’t like the Seven Gods.’
There was always this lingering desire to smack the back of their heads for treating me like a meat shield.
In the end, topics related to the Seven Gods couldn’t fully exclude my personal feelings.
That left me hesitating.
As long as that hesitation lingered, I wouldn’t bring it up first.
I shook my head to clear the stray thoughts.
‘For now, let’s use the power.’
Better to know one thing than nothing.
I activated the voucher in my hand.
My vision warped immediately, flipping earth and sky.
A floating sensation like riding a rollercoaster shattered my sense of balance.
“Ugh.”
I clamped a hand over my mouth against the nausea and squeezed my eyes shut.
The broken balance righted itself without my control, and my vision brightened.
Even with eyes closed, I saw the familiar forest of skyscrapers I’d known all my life.
Black smoke rose above them as screams pounded my ears.
-Kyaaang!
An unfamiliar cry.
-Crackle!
A familiar spark.
-Seolgi-ya!
-Are you crazy?! Wanna see hyung lose it?! Get over here now!
Kim Yul shouting with a fierce expression, and beside him, a dear shadow.
The moment callused hands snatched a slender arm and pulled it close, lightning struck.
Right after, the ground flipped again. Having been through it once, the nausea was less severe.
I furrowed then relaxed my brow slightly, and my balance steadied.
Yang Tae-ho appeared then, bearing a long scar from his left cheek to his lips.
-Damn, you’re back again.
And standing before this unfamiliarly scarred Yang Tae-ho was a man.
‘An apostle?’
His eyes were golden.
No emblem meant apostle, or a priest/holy knight right after using a blessing.
‘……Build like a knight, though.’
I wanted to examine him more closely, but there was no time.
Before I could focus on the man, the ground and sky flipped again.
Moments later, as a new scene filled my vision, all thought stopped.
The man with golden eyes from before clicked his tongue, bending at the waist.
-Tch, what a filthy sensitive bastard.
He grumbled with a twisted scowl.
-They always dump the shady crap on me. Damn it. Think you’re all that ‘cause you’re gods?
Then he hoisted someone who’d been sprawled on the ground onto his shoulder.
Before I could take in the face of the limp figure on the stranger’s shoulder, earth and sky returned to normal.
As soon as my balance normalized, I snapped my eyes open.
‘What…….’
The person the golden-eyed man had carried off—it was unmistakably me.
Goddamn System