Chapter 20
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Too Late
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Isel let out a wry smile as she gazed at her broken sword.
Even fleeing from ordinary wolves was a challenge, let alone from wolf monsters.
From the moment she was spotted, the outcome might as well have been decided.
The corpse lying there was hardly different from a stark summary of the fate awaiting her.
Isel closed her eyes.
Her lungs throbbed wildly after forcibly wringing out every last breath, as if they might burst.
Her body had clearly reached its limit.
‘Still.’
She had endured far beyond what could be chalked up to mere luck.
But now even that was over—a dead end, blocked on all sides.
Crossing the hill would bring open plains again, but the Magic Wolves weren’t likely to let her.
Leaning against a tree, she aimed her broken sword.
“Haa, really. Damn it.”
Honestly, she lacked the strength to swing it.
She could tell just from the trembling blade tip.
But a lack of stamina didn’t mean a lack of fighting spirit.
In the end, the one that bit her nape first.
She’d take that bastard with her.
The ferocious monsters bared their fangs at Isel in hostility.
Gray-maned, they raked the ground with sharp claws.
Tension coiled as if they’d spring forth any second.
Kraaang!
The moment Isel gripped her broken sword tight and steeled her resolve, someone diced the charging monster.
Isel couldn’t believe it, staring with round eyes.
Her expression twisted bit by bit until it became a face she couldn’t show anyone.
All to hold back a single sob.
“…Professor.”
“Too late.”
The Magic Wolves growled at Aiden upon seeing their dismembered kin.
Aiden stood with his back to the baring-fanged wolves as he regarded Isel.
One leap and they could sink teeth into his nape.
Aiden seemed so defenseless, such easy prey, that the wolves shook off their fear and lunged.
For a split second, Isel held her tongue instead of crying out a warning.
No mistaking who the fool inches from danger was.
By the time Aiden glanced at the wolves, only formless pulverized liquid splattered to the ground.
Splat.
The countless feathers from his second lecture.
An elegant, beautiful aura tailored to their infinite variations.
In real combat, it shredded the enemies mercilessly.
Aiden swept the wolves away with a casual flick, like brushing dust from his clothes.
No sword was needed in the process.
Truly, just one gesture.
All that remained was the splatter of red liquid.
It was so effortless that her own struggles now seemed laughable.
But she held no grudge.
She knew that overwhelming swordplay wouldn’t turn on her.
Instead, she felt relief in how mercilessly he carved through the wolves.
“What the hell. You’re really late.”
Isel’s eyes reddened.
As if only now it sank in, stifled sobs escaped her lips.
Aiden drew near slowly.
Calm and languid, as always.
That somewhere-roguish leisure unchanged.
One difference: where leisure usually held a tempered sharpness, even that had softened now.
Isel looked at Aiden.
So many questions burned inside her.
Why he’d told her not to go back at the cafe terrace, why he’d let it happen if he knew, why he’d arrived so late.
But more than that, the self-reproach clouding his eyes held her gaze.
“Yes, too late. Far too late.”
Slowly, Aiden’s hand settled over Isel’s head.
It gently swept down her face, caressing her cheek.
She didn’t know what meaning lay in the gesture.
Only that the warmth in his touch pricked at her heart.
“I’m sorry.”
As if confirming every feature, he traced her face before withdrawing his hand.
A sudden pang of regret made her lips pout.
“I have so many questions.”
“I figured.”
“But…….”
So many questions she wanted to ask.
That was inevitable, but first came the relief of survival overwhelming her body.
Unable to hold herself up, she clung to Aiden, sobbing into his chest.
Then, abruptly, Isel spoke.
“What about the other students?”
“I rescued them.”
She followed as Aiden tugged her hand suddenly.
An urgent grip, as if hastily conceived.
Unaware of her own strength, his collar crumpled badly.
“Elin, what about Elin? How many... I held out until you came, but that girl.”
Aiden gently laid his hand over Isel’s and nodded.
“Elin’s fine too. Focus on yourself right now.”
“A, ah… Is that so. Elin’s okay…….”
“Rest if you’re tired. Don’t worry.”
Isel sank to the ground like melting away.
Aiden draped his coat over her and turned on his heel.
Scratches and gashes everywhere, clothes caked in dirt—Isel was a wreck.
That spoke to how dire and grueling it had been.
Pale with worry for Elin, her wails resembled a wounded beast.
My fault for arriving late.
Haa……
‘Elin should be fine.’
I’d found Elin first on the way to Isel.
I hadn’t intervened right away because she was making contact with Spirit Mountain’s lord.
‘Unclear what happens if an interloper butts in.’
I’d merely swept away the wolves trailing her moderately before rushing to Isel.
Elin had likely completed her contract by now.
Impulsive as she was, her nature suggested she’d head for the clearing to save the others.
Belief that Isel had escaped safely there would play a part too.
Even if recovered Elin searched for Isel, she couldn’t find her in this forest without a medium.
‘In the original, they’d all be dead…….’
The Magic Wolf leader.
It struck first, annihilating the students before Elin reached the clearing.
What remained was Elin, fueled by despair into vengeful fury, clashing with the leader.
Through that, Elin completed her awakening.
That was the original.
But I planned to meddle.
At minimum, I’d take on the karma myself so Elin wouldn’t despair enough to burn with revenge.
Even if it meant twisting the original.
“That’s my sin, then.”
The sin of being unable to stand by.
A responsibility I’d bear all the way to the ending.
* * *
I slowly replayed the question from the cafe terrace.
The gray-haired girl sat before me, face utterly inscrutable.
Isel eyed me suspiciously.
At me, no less.
“What on earth?”
She’d clung to that question from the cafe terrace, locked in rumination.
Even poring over etymologies yielded no answer.
That was why my worries deepened day by day.
Why?
Why, you ask? Obviously you’d get hurt if you went—no, even aside from that, bad things seemed likely.
Instinct? Or what should I have said instead?
Anyway, a reason not to go……
I squeezed my eyes shut.
That day, I hadn’t said a word.
“Stupid bastard.”
Yeah, stupid.
Ridiculously obtuse.
“Is this pointless meddling, Kim Sung-ha?”
I asked myself like a third party.
A mutter, so no answer came.
With no one to explain right from wrong, my torment could only deepen with time.
Yes, unavoidable hesitation.
I know the original ending.
Ruin worthy of the word apocalypse, nations annihilated, endless plunder and strife in an Asura path over meager rations.
Even if protagonists repel the descending myriad evils in the final phase, the moment they declare total war and marshal every force, rear-line security collapses predictably.
Players end by defeating the final boss and watching credits roll, but reality doesn’t.
To sustain the war, they conscripted all food and men.
No winter provisions meant someone had to die; surviving seasons demanded sacrifice.
If not, become bandits and raid elsewhere.
No law or morals there.
Humanity’s utter fall.
A place of nothing but struggle for survival.
“Haa…….”
My lungs burned with heavy breaths.
“I might survive even in that environment.”
But to do so, I’d have to abandon countless people dear to me.
Costs paid to reach that point.
In the thick night of fallen darkness, in the pitch-black lab, I asked self-mockingly once more.
“Is this pointless meddling?”
This?
This too?
The silver lining: abandon one, and the next grows easier.
Only the first is hard.
That was Isel.
But… if I protected one.
“I’d have to protect them all.”
That’s the karma of twisting the original, the burden to shoulder.
If breaking the smooth highway to the completed ending, I had to bear at least that much.
It’s a story already concluded with full arc.
Change it, and every gimmick warps into chaos.
Foreshadowing tangles; protagonists deviate from required growth paths.
I had to steady the work crumbling under the butterfly effect.
Me, the only one who knows the original.
I buried my face in my embraced knees.
“Am I prepared for that?”
Gambling with lives assured in my survival and the original as betting chips.
Still no answer.
Hating the silence, I held my breath quietly.
“Pointless.”
The answer had been there the instant I saw Isel in peril.
I raised my head to the clear sky.
The high vault unlike the dim lab. Savoring the emotion its blue evoked, I closed my eyes.
“All futile worries.”
If I’m confident I can do better, then do it.
I’m this game’s director, after all.
I looked at Isel leaning against the tree trunk.
Faint breaths mingled with teary sniffles, even the strange thrill of choked sobs.
All turbid emotions contained in the vessel of self-mockery.
Powerlessness against coercion, the precariousness of accepting the irrational.
‘I won’t let you despair like that.’
I drew a single strand of aura from my body.
Starting as one thread, gradually layering countless thread-lines.
Forming shape, birthing intricate changes—amid infinite transformations of threads, one feather took form.
The realm of cloaking sword in aura, extending beyond to the body.
Further still: extending consciousness to regard the exterior as part of oneself.
‘If aura straightforwardly manifests the self…….’
This feather was swordsman Aiden’s life distilled to its essence.
The feather drifted gently toward the Magic Wolf lunging at Isel.
The wolf, seeing no feather before, suddenly airborne, lost its focus.
The instant it took in the harmony wielded by the once-feather something.
Pashasak.
The feather touching its body scattered, unraveling into threads.
The countless thread-lines overlapped before shaping the feather.
Strand by strand, they rippled and dispersed; invisible fine blades tore through its body.
Puhwak.
After slashing the charging Magic Wolf, I revealed myself.
“…Pro, fessor.”
A face on the verge of tears, choked with emotion.
Half-disbelieving if what she saw was real.
I stand here now.
Disbelief? As if I’m a ghost.
I met Isel’s eyes to instill certainty.
Calmly, in utmost serenity.
No need for many words.
Aiden was never a talkative character.
“Too late.”
I took in Isel crumbling slowly, then exterminated the Magic Wolves charging from behind.
“What the hell. You’re really late.”
“Yes, too late. Far too.”
I placed a hand on sobbing Isel’s head and stroked slowly.
Slowly, slowly… neither too fast nor too slow.
Cradling her so her wounded heart wouldn’t sting.
While Isel buried herself in my chest, I gazed at the sky.
‘If it’s like this, surely worth changing the original.’
At least gathering up what the original discarded one by one—that holds value equal to following the script.