#37 Cleanup
#37 Cleanup
We swept every island off the west coast. Code 3. That made cleanup considerably simpler. Wolf stared, lost in thought, as the great black flames consumed their final facility — Area E.
"......."
Lately, his emotions had been boiling over before he could stop them. At the Blind Spot and the Academy, there were reasons he could accept — the sort of thing that would enrage anyone, the kind of thing that warranted bitter fury.
But this time.
'This time was different.'
He hadn't seen it himself. He had boiled over at nothing but the traces. It was proof that his boiling point had dropped dramatically without his noticing. Like the protagonists in novels who rage at injustice. As if he had wanted to be this way. As if he had been led into becoming this. And that was clearly...
'The System.'
As though answering the thought, a message surfaced.
[Destruction Probability 95.06 → 93.39%]
[Karma acquired: 1.67%]
[Karma 5.51%]
Karma. At some point it had sailed past five percent. He still didn't know what the System truly was, but when he had been caught in Agail's illusion and when he had evolved, he had felt Karma envelop him and had unmistakably sensed the existence of 'them.'
And that the System was not something that could be called a single entity.
'And as for what Karma is.'
One thing was certain: it originated from 'them.' Someday, the questions surrounding it would surely be resolved. He steadied his breathing and recalled what still needed to be done.
'There are still people left.'
He had to get them back to the mainland.
***
A bleak energy snapped Eun Ja-rim's eyes open. As Changseon's disciple and his successor in carrying forward his legacy, she felt this energy with excruciating clarity.
"A monster...!"
One minute to change clothes. By the time Eun Ja-rim gripped her spear in the early dawn, the presence she had sensed was slowly receding. —She had no intention of letting it slip away. She closed the distance in an instant and came face-to-face with a presence that had stopped in its tracks. A shadow in the shape of a Wolf, as if it had been waiting for her.
'B-class?'
Or perhaps higher. The mana she could feel at a glance was around that level, but there was an inexplicable menace to it. Her intuition warned her she should not fight this thing.
'What on earth is it?'
If it were a Black Wolf, a Warg would exist, but she had never seen nor heard of a Wolf monster like this before. Eun Ja-rim, holding her silence, scanned the surroundings.
'No civilians.'
The place where it had stopped was a park. There was no one nearby to get caught up in it. Believing she only needed to subdue it as quickly as possible, Eun Ja-rim leveled her spear. Just before the pure and dense mana could pour into the weapon, her eyes flew wide.
"......!"
Because of a single Fairy Dragon. It had grown since then, but there was no mistaking it.
"Eun Gong...!"
Eun Ja-rim's expression immediately hardened. A Wolf together with Eun Gong. That meant, in all likelihood, this Wolf was...!
***
'Still calling her Eun Gong.'
He let out a hollow laugh inwardly. She hadn't originally been such a frivolous character. But seeking out Eun Ja-rim had been the right call.
'I have no way of knowing where those bastards might be.'
He hadn't yet built up enough strength. He needed to be careful not to reveal his identity if possible. Since he didn't know every single Prodigal Son, he needed to find a place where none of them were. And if it was the Hermit's Forest, which had most recently severed ties with Lee Baek-seom —
'And if it's Eun Ja-rim.'
If she was anything like the figure he had seen in the novel, the woman who had never lost her integrity to the very end, then no matter how much the future had changed, she could never have lent a hand to the Prodigal Sons. He nodded slightly. She had aimed her spear, but a fight had not broken out.
'Thanks to Perry, things turned out well.'
Fighting Eun Ja-rim would have been a tall order, and it was an unnecessary battle.
"Alpha (Jirisan Warg)!"
Still, Eun Ja-rim's eyes were brimming with wariness. The way she kept glancing at Perry all the while suggested she still believed he was coercing the dragon. They had even spoken once before, yet the ingrained hostility a hunter holds toward monsters was starkly apparent. He sighed inwardly but kept it off his face as he spoke.
"The islands off the west coast. Go there."
"......!"
"There are survivors remaining. Save them."
He had said what he came to say. The moment he turned to leave, a streak of light shot past him, blocking his path.
[Perception (E) Lv.9 proficiency has reached its maximum. Perception (E) Lv.9 → Perception (E) Lv.10]
[Perception (E) Lv.10 has reached its maximum level. Perception (E) Lv.10 → Keen Perception (D) Lv.1]
It was a spear-thrust like a ray of light, but dodging it wasn't difficult. It had only been meant to halt his steps. When he turned back around, she asked:
"What exactly do you want? Depending on your answer...."
The spear she had thrown was already back in her hand.
'I thought it would go smoothly.'
Apparently, it wasn't going to be that easy. As if ready to fight this very moment, she was mustering a dense, imposing mana.
"Answer me. What are you...!"
—That was honestly what he wanted to ask. He was the one who wanted to know why he had been reincarnated as a slime. He had no answer for a question about his identity. But as for what he wanted.
'Didn't it tell me to change it?'
[If the ending displeases you, then change it yourself.]
If he could steer the world to a proper ending, he would be able to return. One way or another, whether circumstances had changed or not, the task he had to carry out from beginning to end had never changed.
"Stopping the end."
Stopping the Destruction and The End. He was running toward nothing but that single goal. When he looked at Perry, the little creature wagged her tail as if she had been waiting for it.
And so he and Perry returned to the Illusion Realm.
***
"I'm glad things turned out well."
Eun Ja-rim nodded at Gu Jin-ha's voice. Countless ships were afloat on the waters off the west coast. Just as the Wolf had predicted, she had lent her aid to rescuing the people on the west coast islands.
"It's astonishing. How could this many people...."
"There's one more reason we can't let those bastards run loose. We'd better check not just the west coast islands, but every island."
Just then, a monster surfaced. Eun Ja-rim hurled her spear, and it pierced through without fail. As the massive shark sank beneath the water, the people clutched their chests in relief. Eun Ja-rim cast a sidelong glance at Gu Jin-ha.
"I'm surprised you're here, too."
"...The timing simply overlapped."
Gu Jin-ha gave a bitter smile. Deokjeok Island. If he had only thought a little more carefully, it was something he could easily have recalled, but his mind had been consumed by major events like the Academy raid and Muno's death and had never reached it. It was a relief they could at least rescue the survivors now. Watching the people disembark one by one, Gu Jin-ha asked Eun Ja-rim:
"The Alpha (Jirisan Warg) said that to you?"
"Yes. Stopping the end."
To the question of what it wanted, the unidentified Wolf had given that answer. The end — vague notions came to mind.
'.......'
At a glance, humanity seemed to have regained its stability. People were enjoying stable lives, as if only a little caution was needed. As if peace had arrived and all they had to do was block the dungeons.
'Absurd.'
Even in this very moment, they were hurtling toward destruction. Europe had already been destroyed. The Disease and the Plague still... and while the Purple Black Tiger had not moved from Baekdu Mountain, it was questionable whether they could stop it if it did. On top of that, because of the Cataclysm of the Sea, humanity had been forced to abandon the islands and the ocean.
'The end, it said.'
The fact that extinction was approaching for humanity was undeniable. Someday, when an unstoppable calamity came, it would certainly —
'The idea that the end the Alpha (Jirisan Warg) spoke of is humanity's destruction.'
That felt like a self-serving assumption. The Alpha (Jirisan Warg) was, after all, a monster. Over the past fifty years, humanity had been forced to learn. That humanity and monsters could never, ever coexist.
'But.'
If, by any chance, the end that the Alpha (Jirisan Warg) desired truly meant humanity's destruction. And if stopping the end it desired meant stopping humanity's destruction.
"......."
For a fleeting instant, the thought crossed her mind that perhaps, the Alpha (Jirisan Warg) alone might be able to coexist with humanity.
***
"Baekrok."
"I've grown completely accustomed to you dropping by now."
The moment they moved into the Illusion Realm, Baekrok rose to his feet as if he had been waiting. The way he shook off his stiff body was almost catlike. When Wolf stared at him with flat eyes, Baekrok asked what the look was for.
"Nothing. More importantly — "
"I've located one. Shall we head out right away?"
Wolf nodded at Baekrok's words, which made it clear the creature had already known what he was going to say. As they walked at a leisurely pace, Perry fluttered down and settled onto his head.
"Kyu-oo."
"She really has grown a great deal. Both her and that Young Dragon."
"...She has."
He still thought there was a long road ahead, but at the very least, he couldn't deny Perry's growth. She had passed the 500-gram mark, her weight now nearly four times what it had been when they first met. Most impressive of all was her mana, which had broken past 100.
'Phantom Beasts are called Phantom Beasts for a reason, I guess.'
Spiritual Creatures were beings that maintained reason even while wielding mana. Baekrok had said that Phantom Beasts were a step beyond that. Her mana certainly lived up to the title. She was still this small — there was no telling how much she could grow with time.
"Kyu-oo-oo~!"
Of course, looking at her right now, those thoughts didn't really enter his mind. Before he knew it, they had arrived at a dungeon.
"This is it."
Namsan, in Seoul — what kind of dungeon was it? Standing before the dungeon's boundary, his thoughts grew heavy. And not because of the dungeon before him.
'Neverland.'
The name surfaced unbidden in his mind. He didn't remember it clearly, but he thought he'd caught a glimpse of it on a TV news broadcast on the way to Daejeon to meet Eun Ja-rim. Something about Neverland's opening period approaching, and which clans would or wouldn't participate, this and that.
'Right now it's Year 69.'
He didn't know exactly how the Neverland raid had gone at this point in time. But one thing was certain: it had failed. The successful raid on Neverland came far later. Besides, in this chaotic period, with Muno's death and the Academy raid following one after another, it was hard to imagine they could clear it right now.
'I need to go.'
Not in order to lead the raid to success, but because of Neverland's unique property.
'The reset.'
Neverland was a dungeon that closed after a set amount of time, and the next time it opened, everything — monsters included — would be completely reset. Without this condition, no matter how difficult the dungeon was, there was no way it would have remained uncleared for over a decade.
'And those conditions.'
Were the best possible boon for him. If it was a high-level dungeon that reset at irregular but periodic intervals, it would serve as the ultimate supply of experience points.
'But for now.'
It was time to focus on the dungeon right in front of him rather than the one that hadn't opened yet.
He steadied his mind and stepped toward the dungeon's boundary.