The End and the Beginning (1)
“……”
The child asked if I was all right, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
The orphanage…
This was the orphanage I’d lived in back when I was young.
My hand, which I raised to check, was absurdly small compared to the one I’d been looking at just a moment ago.
So when exactly was this?
How far back was this, relative to the day that incident happened?
I looked around at the dim surroundings, then squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
“Are you all right or not?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Ah.”
Before the director heard us and snapped at us for no reason, I grimaced and tossed him a warning.
It was dark, so it was probably bedtime. Seeing how a few kids were tangled together in the cramped room, maybe it was even close to dawn.
“……”
“What’re you staring at?”
“……I guess I am.”
Maybe because I was looking at someone I would never get to see again in my life.
I kept staring blankly.
A boy who was handsome if you called him handsome, pretty if you called him pretty.
If he’d been born into an ordinary family, he would’ve been an idol, the sort of kid who would’ve lit up the internet with his looks.
He was, truly, an achingly beautiful boy.
Fuck…
Maybe he was around the early grades of elementary school. Just from his looks, I couldn’t tell exactly when this was.
His body was so small that it only made it harder to judge. If I could see my reflection in a mirror, maybe I’d know.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“……About what?”
“……Never mind.”
I shook my head at the way he blinked at me.
He looked fine.
At least, for now.
……I thought that back then, too.
There was no way people living in this hell were normal.
And yet I, stupid little me, had thought exactly that.
I was one of the few people who lived somewhat comfortably in this place.
So, naturally, I’d assumed everyone else was the same.
“Han—”
“Do-jun.”
“Hmm?”
“Go to sleep.”
“……Okay.”
A snort escaped me.
He’d started to speak, then just nodded instead, and I let out a dry laugh.
What a soft-hearted bastard.
What had he been thinking, what kind of resolve had he been living with, to keep enduring all this?
How much time was left?
How much longer until Park Do-jun died?
What am I supposed to show me this for?
What was the point of it all, anyway?
I didn’t believe that ridiculous story about having returned to the past.
My memories of the Tower were too vivid for something like that to have actually happened.
If this had been another tower, maybe. But since I’d entered the Tower of Mind, it made more sense to assume this was something it was causing.
Sniff— sniff—
“……”
I looked at Park Do-jun, who had already fallen asleep, then turned my gaze away.
By now the director was probably asleep too. I looked at the children who had all gone off to dreamland except for me, then quietly pushed myself up.
---
creeeak—
“……”
I stepped into the toilet stall and checked the phone in my pocket.
My iron sword and magic stones and everything else were gone, but thankfully the phone was still there.
I’m not sure if this is some effect of the Irregular or what….
The Tower of Mind
50th-floor strategy, first run: No strategy exists.
Clear condition: Complete the scenario.
The strategy that showed up on the wiki wasn’t exactly something I liked.
No strategy.
Or rather, maybe it meant there was no need to strategize at all.
I wasn’t sure what “complete the scenario” meant, but it looked as if simply watching was enough.
As if it was only trying to stir up my trauma.
As if it was trying to force my mind into a corner.
As if it wanted me to drag up the memories of that hellish past and keep me from climbing the Tower properly ever again.
That was the feeling it gave me.
“Haah….”
I didn’t really know what I could do in this place, but….
“This is fucking bullshit.”
I was deeply grateful for the privilege of being made to remember such disgusting memories.
---
“Ha… fuck.”
“……Han Seol, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you curse.”
“If I swear, I get my ass kicked half to death, so I just didn’t do it.”
The next afternoon, after that hellish night was finally over, I let loose with a string of filthy curses that didn’t fit a kid my age at all.
Right then, Park Do-jun and I were twelve.
Older than I’d expected. We’d both been so small I hadn’t even realized.
“Guess so. Maybe I should try swearing when no one’s looking?”
“Don’t pick up bad habits just because you feel like it. They’re hard to quit.”
“Wow, you talk like an adult.”
“……Was that an insult?”
I snorted at the way he shrugged his shoulders.
“Adults” were no different from demons to us.
At least, inside this space.
“It’s tomorrow.”
“……Yeah.”
I gave a slight nod at the lower tone in Park Do-jun’s voice.
The once-a-month “social gathering.”
A delightful day when we met the high-ranking politicians who supported our warm and wholesome orphanage, along with the investors who generously donated hundreds of millions of won to this remote orphanage where human feet rarely wandered.
It was the day we all gathered with those truly grateful human beings.
“……Hey.”
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
“What? I don’t know what you mean, but I’m fine.”
“I see.”
And the highlight of this social gathering was that the beloved children of our orphanage gave those adults their “thanks.”
In a space where only two people could be thanked.
…No, maybe not just two.
I’d never experienced it, but there were probably cases like that too.
“You’re getting that person again, Han Seol?”
“……Probably.”
I always got chosen by the same person.
By the biggest whale in the orphanage, the one who poured in the most money of all.
“……What’s that person like?”
“You forgot I’m not supposed to say?”
“Ah… right?”
“……”
The target of our “thanks” was decided on the day of the gathering.
More precisely, the exalted great ones picked us like merchandise.
There were almost no children who caught one person’s eye the way I did.
No, maybe it was more accurate to say there were none at all.
The customers who threw around such huge sums of money didn’t have any reason to keep making the same choice.
Though that would only mean choosing just me was the act of a complete fucking lunatic.
I’d never imagined I’d run into that woman again.
And it hadn’t even been all that many years since I stopped seeing her in my dreams, but ever since I’d entered the Tower, our lives had been tangled together in the most grotesque way.
“Lucky you.”
“……”
At the words that slipped out of Park Do-jun’s mouth, I shut mine.
Back then, I hadn’t thought this was a bad thing.
Maybe I’d believed some pretty woman was better than those pig-like old men.
No… more accurately, it was probably her personality rather than her sex or her looks.
That woman never crossed the line.
She just waited, talking about “maturation” and whatever else, until I became the “finished product” she wanted.
She kept me entirely at her side so no one else could touch me first.
After the gathering, when everybody else was either spacing out with dead eyes or crying, I was the only one who was still fine.
That thought filled my young head.
I’m glad I didn’t end up like that.
I’m glad I met a good master, I thought.
“Heh… heh heh….”
“What’s so funny?”
“Because it’s fucking disgusting.”
“……The person taking you must have a filthy mouth.”
“Who knows. Maybe they were the type who never swore once in their life.”
“Then why….”
Was this what they called learning the filthy taste of society?
The twelve-year-old version of me wouldn’t have understood, but I’d lived more than twice that long and had been through enough bullshit to last a lifetime.
You’ll understand when you go to the military.
Though, since I was an orphan from birth, that day would never come.
Clap, clap!
“Focus.”
“……”
On the stage in the huge banquet hall where the social gathering would be held, I looked up at the orphanage director, who was clapping to gather everyone’s attention.
The biggest pig of them all.
The owner of this orphanage, so revolting that just looking at her made bile rise in my throat.
Wasn’t it something like hundreds of billions of won sitting in her account?
I remembered seeing that in the news once. Given how much money she’d swallowed whole, it made sense.
“You all know what day tomorrow is, don’t you? And you know exactly what happens if you make trouble, if you make a mistake, don’t you?”
“……”
At the director’s words, everyone lowered their heads.
There were about twenty children here.
Whether boys or girls, all of them between roughly ten and fifteen years old averted their eyes from her.
“There, Park Do-jun.”
“Y-yes…!”
“Can you tell us what happens if you make a mistake?”
“……”
At the sight of Park Do-jun, who’d been singled out at random like bad luck itself, I closed my eyes and lowered my head.
“Y-you get a big punishment… and then you have to put on a ‘performance’ in front of everyone at the next social gathering….”
“That’s right. The people who sponsor our orphanage love performances, but they don’t like being forced into anything, either.”
“……Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue lightly at his trembling voice.
The “big punishment,” of course, was corporal punishment.
For a month, you got beaten senseless and weren’t allowed to eat properly.
After a whole month of that kind of hell, you had to perform alone at the next gathering.
A performance so fucked up I couldn’t even begin to describe it.
“Since there aren’t any new children, there’s nothing else for me to explain…. The director trusts that all of you will do a good job handling this gathering too, yes?”
“……”
“If you understand, then hurry up and get ready—!!!”
With a shout like thunder, the children sprang to their feet.
They decorated the hall and cleaned it.
They prepared the tables and chairs and handled all the little tasks.
They also made all sorts of preparations for the “story rooms” they’d be taken into tomorrow night.
“What are you doing, Han Seol? Come on, hurry up. You’ll get in trouble.”
“……Yeah.”
I stood up at the voice beside me.
……Getting older and actually experiencing this makes it even more fucking disgusting.
Preparing a place where children would cry and scream was so vile and filthy it defied words.
---
“Why? You dragged me into the bathroom all of a sudden….”
“Do-jun.”
“W-well… yeah.”
“Are you really okay?”
“……? Yeah, I’m fine.”
Thirty minutes before the social gathering began, during the final preparation time we’d been given, I dragged Park Do-jun into the bathroom.
If my memory wasn’t wrong, Park Do-jun would break within a few social gatherings.
He’d take a huge shock, pretend to be fine in front of me, then quietly leave this world on his own.
I didn’t know exactly when it happened.
I only vaguely remembered that it happened at this age.
I’m not letting that happen.
I’ll save you somehow.
If you thought I’d be crushed and fall apart because I had to face a trauma of my own, you were dead wrong.
I wasn’t so weak that I’d break down inside a shitty illusion like this.
I’d already finished all of this with my own hands in reality.
I’d faced Behemoth and died over and over again. There was no way I’d be broken by something like this.
So I was going to make sure you didn’t die this time, no matter what.
“Hold on, Do-jun.”
“……”
“I’ll end it. All of it.”
“What are you suddenly talking about….”
“Even if it’s hard, even if it’s fucking awful, even if it’s filthy and disgusting and revolting.”
“……”
“Just live one more time.”
I wanted you to hold on just this once more.
Because I was short on time, I hadn’t been able to prepare anything this time.
So please.
Just this once.
I couldn’t suffer the pain you were going to go through for you.
There was nothing my twelve-year-old self could do for you right now.
“Do you remember?”
“What….”
“You said your dream was to become a pilot.”
“……”
“You said your dream was to get out of here, fly a plane, and soar freely.”
“Seol-ah….”
So hold on once more.
I was sorry that all I could say was this to someone who had already endured for years, but….
“You asked me about my dream too, remember?”
“……You said you didn’t have one.”
“To travel the world on the plane you’re flying.”
“……”
“So live. For my dream, too.”
Even if this was just an illusion created by the Tower, even if these were only fragments of my old memories, it didn’t matter.
“……Hey, am I dying or something?”
“……”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make your dream come true, Seol-ah.”
A snort escaped me.
“I told you not to call me Seol.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
I was going to save you somehow, no matter what happened to my first and last friend.
---
“Hoo….”
I stood before the tightly shut door and squeezed my eyes closed.
I wanted to run. I’d acted so high and mighty in front of Park Do-jun, bragging that I’d save him, and yet my heart was pounding like crazy.
I never imagined I’d have to see that fucking woman again.
“What are you doing standing out there? Aren’t you coming in?”
“……I’m coming in.”
At the orphanage director’s voice from the end of the hallway, I dipped my head lightly.
It was something I had to go through anyway.
I’d already gone through it countless times.
For Park Do-jun, and for the sake of the other children in the orphanage, I couldn’t afford to be scared here.
knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
“……Excuse me.”
At the disgustingly familiar voice from inside, I let out a dry laugh.
It had been almost ten years since I’d last heard it, but the instant I did, I knew it was her.
creeeak….
“My, my little Seol has come?”
“……Ha ha.”
Yeah… I’m here, you criminal bitch.
The moment I stepped into the room, I let out a bitter laugh.
Too familiar. That gaze, that voice, everything about her was disgustingly familiar.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen our little Seol smile. You must be in a good mood?”
Well, I was already trembling from the thrill of thinking about killing you with my own hands again.
---