Nord's Lucid Dream (2)
To be honest, this is pretty embarrassing to talk about with other people, so I've kept it hidden all this time. After coming to this other world, I couldn't dream about my family at all. Looking back now, that was strange. Back when I first started living alone or during basic training, my dreams were split four-to-six between my ex-girlfriend and my family. Like all of that had been a lie, after arriving in this world I simply couldn't dream of my family no matter what. It was extremely unfilial of me.
When I'd been here for about a year, my parents' faces had grown so fuzzy that I even hired a painter. I tracked down a famous artist and asked for a family portrait, but perhaps because I couldn't remember their faces properly, the result looked nothing like my mother and father. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this: after roughly fifteen hundred days, I finally got to see my father's and mother's faces again. Even if it was only a dream, I was incredibly happy.
"Buk-ho, come sit over here."
My father, who had opened a bottle of soju, spread out a mat on the grass and sat down. Since it had been four years since I came to this world, he should have been past fifty-three, yet the man before me looked exactly like my father from my childhood. Around the age he was when I was five, maybe. Back when he took me to the Han River to show me the Seoul skyline. Perhaps this was the clearest image of him my subconscious still held.
"Yes, Father."
I sat down and glanced around for anyone else. The only person visible was my mother, staring up at the stars. The spot where my father and I sat was bright daylight, yet somehow my mother was gazing at stars. In any case, Veronica didn't seem to be here today either. Maybe because no other guests had been invited into the dream, my thoughts and actions felt more swept along by the current of my consciousness than usual. I already sensed this was going to be a rambling, pointless affair. Why did it feel that way?
"You little bastard. Ever since I found the porn on your computer I've known what you were about, but you couldn't even contact your old man before shacking up with two daughters-in-law?"
Crack. For some reason I could never forget the sound of a soju bottle being opened. Having popped the seal, my father filled a two-liter beer mug to the brim with soju. Don't ask me how one bottle filled a two-liter mug. It was a dream; a glue-sniffing dinosaur could have walked by and it wouldn't have been weird.
Once the mug was full, I made my confession.
"Actually, Father, I still can't memorize the address of the house you moved into while I was in the military. To be completely honest, even if I went back to Earth I might have to stop at the police station first."
"That's something to brag about, my son. Whatever. First, pour me a drink."
"Yes, sir."
Glug glug glug. I poured exactly the way my Confucian hardliner grandfather had taught me. My father downed the entire two liters in one go.
"Khaa! That hits the spot."
He wiped the foam from his Viking-style beard. Red facial hair against Asian skin still looked pretty bizarre. At this point I felt like nothing that happened would surprise me anymore. So I emptied my own cup. The moment the synthetic-alcohol taste of mass-produced soju hit my throat, a wave of homesickness crashed over me.
Now pleasantly buzzed from two liters of factory booze, my father spoke with a slightly slurred tongue.
"Listen, kid. I'm not mad that you ended up with multiple daughters-in-law."
"You're not?"
"You're not? That's not the point! What I'm saying is, why the hell do you get married without any proper introductions and only report it after the fact!"
Bang! Bang! My father slammed the table in anger. Where the hell had the table come from? Some kind of summoning magic?
"How many times have I told you the thing I hate most in the world is after-the-fact reports? Huh? I thought when you got into veterinary school you'd finally grown up, but it was all just a front."
Using the emerald soju bottle like a trumpet, he drank straight from it, then ate rolled omelet as a side dish. He accepted another pour from me and clicked his tongue.
"You little shit. If you bring your grandchildren to see me later, that'll be the day of your funeral. Before you have any kids, bring all your daughters-in-law to show your faces at least once. Got it?"
"Yes, sir. I'll be careful."
Even as I answered, a hazy smile crossed my face. This wasn't my real father. It was a dream my own brain had created. Maybe my mind just desperately wanted to let my family know I was okay. In a way, this was dream therapy.
When I smiled like that, my father set his chopsticks down as if the taste of the liquor had suddenly gone bad.
"Why the hell is your expression like that? You understood what I said, right?"
"Of course."
"If you understood, that's enough. Business hasn't been great lately so I can't give you allowance, but take this instead. It's good advice for building patience."
Thud! A long frame resembling a full-length mirror popped out of nowhere. It looked like one of those traditional calligraphy pieces with Chinese characters you see in old houses. It was identical to the one that used to hang in our home. Since I'd once looked up what it meant, I let out a hollow laugh.
"Father. I didn't want to say this because I'm a good son, but this is just a mishmash of random Chinese proverbs strung together. It's not some profound saying written by a great person."
"Obviously. I made it myself. I wrote the calligraphy too."
"Why is our family so completely without roots?"
It was a dream, so I couldn't tell if it was true, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it was. As far as I knew, the Kang family had been non-religious for generations, yet both my father and grandfather loved this kind of thing. You know those older men who get suckered by those printed truck banners in bookstores that say 150 Life-Changing Proverbs! Read three a day and you too can become Buddha! My father was exactly that type. His influence was probably why I became a proverb-spouting addict myself, though most of the rootless poems I recited came from the internet.
"Here, I'll explain what it means. 'On the winding nine bends of Byeonsan—'"
"Father, that's enough. The secret respect I've held for you is evaporating by about fifty percent right now."
"I'll refill it for you. Your old man once worked at a gas station for a week and a half, you know."
"I'll treasure that as a family heirloom. Just put the damn thing down and talk."
When I slipped the frame into my coat pocket, my father looked satisfied. He climbed onto a motorcycle.
"Take care. Your father's off to work."
It was a red Chinese restaurant delivery bike. It reminded me of the time he briefly did delivery work after retiring and got smacked by my mother. Even in my dreams, the details were weirdly accurate.
Startled, I tried to stop him.
"Whoa, Father. You can't ride a motorcycle after drinking!"
"It's fine. I'll just use Beast Regression."
"Oh. Then it's okay."
I had no idea why that made it okay, but I accepted it anyway.
Vroooom! My father popped a wheelie on the Chinese restaurant bike and rode off standing straight up. A delivery motorcycle charging down the road at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
"Wow, I think I'm losing my mind."
My brain, which still had some rationality left, couldn't keep up with the situation and started to throb. Then my mother, who had been watching the stars, brushed off her knees and stood up.
"Hmm. Are you two finished talking?"
The mother in my dream looked like a fresh-faced woman in her twenties. She was leading a scrawny mule that looked like it might drop dead any second. It seemed ready to collapse before it even reached Jerusalem.
"Yes. Honestly, I'm not sure what any of this is supposed to mean."
Even though my mind felt hazy, I was aware this was a dream, so the whole thing seemed like a bit of a waste of time. Maybe it was because I'd gone to that bug bastards' other world recently. The experience of wandering through different worlds like when I first arrived here might have made me miss the past.
But the mother sitting sideways on the mule shook her head.
"Who in this world doesn't have worries or hesitations? Even those who seem perfect are secretly tormented inside. So Nord, you don't have to force yourself to imitate others."
"Huh?"
Imitate? The sudden non-sequitur made me answer dumbly, but then I caught the look in her eyes and realized.
"Who are you?"
This wasn't my mother. Her appearance was identical enough to fool me, but her words and aura were completely different. That gentle gaze, like one would give a growing child, was seriously unlike my mother. My mother was the queen of being two-faced, so I'd never seen her with such warm, cringeworthy eyes. The Kim Seon-hee who used to secretly fill my bachelor fridge with side dishes and run away like a shy shellfish wife. The same woman who got scared by horses on a Jeju Island trip and beat them with carrots. Would that woman really sit on a mule and speak tenderly to a son who'd been missing for over three years? And using my other-world name instead of my real one?
No matter how much of a dream this was, it was too absurd. My mind suddenly became crystal clear. Most of all, my mother and father were one hundred percent pure Korean. If my parents had actually been some important figures from this world, I honestly wouldn't have fought so desperately to find a way back to Earth.
Following the cliché of this genre, if this was my parents' homeland, then my coming here would have been completely inevitable. Like a third-generation Korean-American learning Korean, this would be my roots, a place I had to pass through. But that couldn't be it. Because that made no sense, I'd made finding a way home the goal of my life in this world. I'd lived harmoniously with my family. I couldn't just adapt to this world and live like its people. That might be fine for a novel protagonist, but the thought of my parents filming their own human drama back on Earth while I was here causing chaos at the other-world veterinary school kept me from settling down comfortably. Even if I was an unfilial son who was only now dreaming of his parents for the first time.
At the very least, there were things a decent human being had to do.
"Who am I? You're asking quite a difficult question."
Despite saying that, the person wearing my mother's appearance looked pleased that I'd noticed her identity. Was it that she didn't mind being found out, or had she wanted me to notice? If it was the latter, perhaps there was a reason she couldn't reveal her own name. In any case, the excited stranger changed her tone to her own and spoke.
"In the past I had ninety-nine nicknames and forty-one aliases, but I've lost all those names. The me who is speaking with you now is merely an arrangement left behind by the person I was in life. You can think of me as something like a spirit that reads books aloud."
"An arrangement from life..."
That meant her main body had already lost her life. From those words I roughly guessed a few candidates for who this person might be. And the fact that the 'arrangement' she left behind didn't have enough power left to do anything more than borrow the mouth of a character in my absurd dream.
The more my mind worked, the more I felt I wouldn't remain asleep much longer. That made sense. Dreams ended when consciousness became clear.
"...Was it your plan that brought me to this world?"
My question came from considering all these circumstances. There were mountains of things I wanted to ask, but it felt wasteful to spend our remaining time on trivial information.
Yet the stranger seemed startled and flustered by my question.
"Are you speaking as if I'm some mastermind? Have I done anything to deserve your suspicion?"
It felt like my question was something she had never expected deep down. That reaction didn't suit the avatar of a chief god who had once reigned at the pinnacle of a mythological system, which made it rather memorable to me.
"Honestly, isn't it worth suspecting? Oh, should I be using formal speech?"
"No, that's not necessary... Was the word 'arrangement' bad?"
The stranger tilted her head and chose her words carefully.
"I understand your suspicion, but that's overthinking it. The only gods left in Midgard are fakes and losers. Rest easy. You are neither a puppet of the Divine Throne nor a slave to fate."
"Really?"
"Ugh... You don't believe me. I thought as much. The current me can only ask you to believe."
I'd tried not to show it, but she'd noticed. It wasn't that I was bad at lying; she just had sharp eyes.
"Still, believe this one thing. I fear and hate the words 'fate' and 'prophecy' more than anything in the world. That's why I wanted you all to live with an uncertain future."
Having said that, the stranger pulled her witch hat down over the side with the eyepatch. At some point she had stopped looking like my mother. She spoke as if this was what she'd wanted to say all along.
"I'll say it again. You are free. So you don't need to imitate me or anyone else. I don't think I lived a life so exemplary that others should follow it."
The one-eyed chief god with the dizzying gaze kicked the mule's flank. Seeing its master sitting sideways on the saddle, the mule stood and transformed. The scrawny mule instantly became a sturdy gray horse.
"Holy shit."
How could I even describe it? It looked less like a horse and more like a horse-shaped tank. It seemed like it could kill me if it felt like it. One kick from its hind leg might turn my upper body into ground meat. It felt like a walking volcano with eight legs. The scene was so surreal that even watching it didn't make me feel scared.
"Don't forget. Do not drown in madness. Tame your rage. You must not be ruled by madness that is not your own. If you do that, rage will become the driving force that strengthens your power."
The stranger riding the incredibly charismatic horse waved at me in farewell. Then she pulled down her hat and winked.
"Well, that was the advice from the me who once lived. From here on is advice from the current me. Will you listen carefully?"
"There's still more?"
"I'd like to say more but there's no time. I only get to watch your fights very, very occasionally."
Having said everything she wanted, the stranger stuck out her tongue.
"My advice is just one thing! If you're my successor, act more proactively and coolly!"
"What?"
"First, fix your naming sense. Then, be more aggressive with the girls who like you. Seriously, are you a herbivore? Is your hobby making girls unable to wait and come to you first? You're not Sleipnir, you know."
【Neigh.】
When the gray horse protested with a whinny, the stranger kicked its flank as if telling it to be quiet. Despite looking like it could leap over a mountain in one bound, the horse seemed surprisingly timid.
"Anyway! Names are important! Didn't I tell you? I had ninety-nine nicknames and forty-one aliases! Want me to make one up for you right now?"
"No thanks. If you're done talking, go home. I think I'll be waking up soon too."
I shooed her away like chasing off a kid begging for Halloween candy. The god whose name I couldn't quite catch—Omu-gae or whatever—floated away like a falling leaf.
"Aaaah!! This feeling!! It's similar to when that hammer-headed idiot kicked me──!!"
The stranger flew off on the gray horse, flapping like a flag. Because of how light she seemed, I realized she could only speak and exist with such self-awareness because this was inside a dream. The woman flying away was nothing more than a daydream that no longer existed in reality. Like the cabin Veronica had built in my dream last time.
In twenty-first century terms, it was like playing back a previously recorded video on a movie theater screen. Since she was a god, creating an avatar probably wasn't difficult.
【Neigh.】
The gray horse politely bowed its head to me. Then it flew into the sky and grabbed the flapping stranger by the scruff of her neck.
—Gack.
The stranger let out a groan and went limp like a puppet with cut strings. So much for charisma. No wonder that crazy hot mess sometimes got treated like a punching bag in the myths.
I turned my eyes away from the flying god and divine horse and focused my consciousness.
—Whoosh.
The white sun in the sky grew brighter, and my consciousness began to rise from the dream.
—Flash.
I woke up in bed and opened my eyes. Veronica was draping a blanket over the cat.
"Yeah."
I thought about asking Veronica about the dream I'd had today, but the goddess-form Veronica drew back the curtain.
The sun rising over the mountain ridge shone as smooth and bright as a bald head. It would be sunrise soon. If we were going to the Bicorn's sanctuary, we'd have to save the chatter for later. I nodded and began equipping my gear.