Chapter 114: Nightmare. (0)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 114: Nightmare. (0)
When I came to my senses, I was standing in a very familiar place.
It was a scene I had buried in the corner of my memory because I didn’t want to recall it, yet it was one I could never easily forget.
And there, before my eyes, stood a person I had once longed for so dearly—a person I had hated just as much, someone I resented so deeply, yet could never truly cut away.
“What does our Ha-neul want to eat?”
Ha-neul.
It hadn’t been that long since I’d heard it, yet my original name felt strangely foreign.
My parents had told me they named me that so I would become a person as broad as the sky, someone capable of embracing others.
The sight of her was so shocking it made me feel nauseous, as if I were about to throw up.
Yet, instead of gagging, my mouth curved into a smile and poured out words toward her.
“I love anything Mom makes.”
It was hard to believe those were the words of a mere four-year-old, but that was the kind of child I was.
In truth, I said it because I knew all too well that I had no other choice.
Stir-frying kimchi with pork fat obtained for a pittance at the butcher’s, and boiling bean sprouts bought in bulk from the market to drizzle with soy sauce.
That was the most expensive and highest-quality meal my family could afford.
Even so, I had no complaints.
Dissatisfaction stems from comparison. Knowing nothing of the outside world, with that tiny one-room apartment and my mother being my entire universe, I think I was happy enough with just that.
What is this?
Who is showing me this bothersome thing that I had finally managed to shove into the corner of my memories?
I didn’t know what my father did for a living, but he was a man who often came home drunk.
My mother was clumsy at many things. Looking back now, I remember her being far too young to have become a mother.
“I love you, Ha-neul.”
“Me too.”
Become like the sky. That was the meaning behind the name I was given, but even back then, I vaguely knew it was impossible.
My father would often bring home old books as “presents” from outside.
He probably picked up the ones that looked somewhat decent from among those discarded somewhere.
Because of that, I was able to gain knowledge, limited as it was.
By the time I had mastered all the letters, I understood the gist of it.
Ah, we aren’t exactly a normal family, are we?
A place where I was occasionally beaten by my drunken father with a padlock or a broken remote; a place where my mother, exhausted from crying, would laugh and say she gained strength because of me, only to burst into tears again. This place was perfectly natural to me, but it seemed it wasn’t very natural at all.
Still, it didn’t matter.
Even though she sometimes hit me while crying, I liked my mother.
I even liked my father, who would get wasted and shout that I could become a great man if I read books.
The violence was a punishment for my mistakes, a problem that could be solved if I worked harder.
I just had to become a great man, like they said. Perhaps that was what my younger self thought.
It was a scene I had once yearned for so much, but seeing it again now, I felt indifferent.
It was a sight too old to grieve over now, a memory too blurred from being recalled too many times.
Human misfortune takes many forms.
However, the destination of a child’s misfortune usually ends up looking much the same.
Whether it was out of some pathetic sense of guilt, or if she truly intended to at first—or perhaps it was a safety net in case she regretted it later.
That day, I celebrated my fifth birthday and experienced the outside world for the first time.
I even tried ice cream.
I remember my mother smiling as she wiped my cheek, her hand trembling so much that I held it tight and told her not to shake.
Her expression contorted.
My father didn’t come, but I wondered if I had wished he were there with us.
As time passed and the air grew chilly.
I felt anxious.
That day, I was feeling a strange sense of unease that went beyond my curiosity about the world outside.
Adults might not realize it, but a child easily senses even the smallest changes. A child is a being who notices a shift in their mother’s attitude faster than anyone else.
Because she was my god and my only source of value.
“Our Ha-neul. Do you want more ice cream?”
“…No.”
So, that refusal might have been the only small act of rebellion my younger self could muster, having realized what was about to happen.
“Oh, what should I do? Mommy has to go somewhere for a moment.”
…At this hour? You expect me to believe that?
But I believed her. There was no reason for my god to tell me a lie.
“Just, just wait a little bit, okay?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just going to buy something quickly. You have to stay here and wait while you buy some ice cream with this. Don’t go anywhere. Promise.”
Why did she do that? Did she think I would follow her and cling to her relentlessly?
Did she think her resolve would waver if she looked at me?
“Okay. You’ll be back soon, right?”
“It might… yes, it might take a little while. But you have to wait here, okay?”
She should have just brushed me off with a look of annoyance. Why did she have to look like she was about to cry from such sorrow?
Even after the money was in my hand and my mother disappeared from sight, I didn’t go to buy ice cream.
I felt like if I went to buy it, that would be the end. Anxious, I just stood there, staring at her receding back.
Our house is poor.
There’s no way we can eat things like this often.
So, I’ll wait so we can eat it together when Mom comes back after buying her things. So it doesn’t melt. Let’s go buy it together again, holding hands.
Maybe Dad would like it too.
Maybe he would even praise me for not spending money recklessly.
No, that wasn’t it.
I already knew.
Was it because it was so strikingly similar to the scenes in the countless books I’d read where bad parents abandoned their children?
I’ve been abandoned. The price of the conscience she needed to cut me away was worth only this single banknote.
This is the last connection between her and me.
That was the thought that struck me.
If that was the case, I should have run away or found a way to survive. Instead, I foolishly continued to stand there.
Maybe she would come back.
She said she loved me, so wouldn’t she regret it?
If I’m not here when she returns, wouldn’t she truly lose all affection for me?
“I hope she comes back soon.”
Once the sun completely vanished and the moon rose, the temperature was not something a child in thin clothes could endure.
People’s gazes began to gather.
“Are you okay, kid?”
Who was it? I don’t remember, but some adult said that to me.
“Yes, I’m just waiting for my mom for a bit.”
Their expression turned serious.
They had clearly been watching me for a long time. It was an unnecessary kindness.
He contacted the police, and I denied everything.
But there was nothing a child could do, and I was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Then, in the middle of the night, I secretly escaped the hospital and went back to that spot.
Or rather, I tried to.
But the path was too complicated for a child to remember.
In the end, I slumped down in front of the hospital. Tears started to fall. For the first time in my life, I sobbed uncontrollably.
It felt like the world had ended.
Eventually, the police took me back to that spot after I insisted that my mother might be looking for me, and I quickly ran away.
Because if they thought there was no hope as time passed, they would take me away again.
Well, it wasn’t a very meaningful rebellion. I was caught again soon after and became an orphan shortly thereafter.
Life in an orphanage is more territorial than one might think.
Children growing up in isolation want to test what the new kid is made of, and if you don’t respond to the test, they dish out their own form of punishment.
At the time, I didn’t accept that I was an orphan, and those brats tried to beat me.
And when I resisted, they tried to take the banknote my mother had given me, so I fought back even more fiercely.
Life in the orphanage was like hell every single day. It was cursed.
The one who saved me from there was…
“You like reading books, don’t you?”
It was a girl who approached me while I was always reading alone.
“I love writing stories! You should read this!”
But at first, I strangely disliked that girl, who was so cheerful despite being an orphan.
“No. You’re ugly.”
Tsk.
“Fuck, this has gone on long enough.”
Creeak.
The filth nestled in my heart surged in response to my emotions, and the world created from my memories began to crack.
My heart felt like it was going to explode as the price for using power that wasn’t mine, but it was better than continuing to watch this pathetic display.
As my physical sensations gradually returned following the pain, it became even clearer.
I don’t know what method the one who showed me these memories used, but if it ultimately follows the laws of this world, they won’t be able to resist this filth.
“Sorry, but I overcame these shitty memories a long time ago.”
My mother wasn’t my only god.
I lost my family, but I also made precious connections.
I learned that when you lose something, you gain something else, and that once you gain something, you must eventually experience parting again.
Something like this was no longer a nightmare to me.
The moment I moved my body, the world froze like a photograph and shattered.
Now that I’ve regained my freedom, it’s time to find out what caused me to see this crap.
Right, I was definitely in the ballroom, wasn’t I?
Looking at the state of the frozen world, it was clear I had been caught up in some nasty incident.
For now, it seemed I could use my artifacts.
“Well, that’s a relief, at least.”
* * *
And there were those who noticed his change.
As members of a race extremely sensitive to dreams, the culprits behind this incident noticed a single person within the vast and expansive dream world.
Somehow, they sensed a boy who had partially regained consciousness.
“…Huh? One of them broke out.”
“What? What do you mean? One broke out?”
“Everyone is supposed to be trapped in the dream and unable to snap out of it. How could anyone wake up?”
“I don’t know! We have to send the ones to deal with him quickly! It’ll be a disaster if the Queen finds out!”
This operation was a matter of life and death for their entire race, and since she had emphasized that it was essential for their greater advancement, they couldn’t afford to let even the smallest irregular slip by.
“If we don’t catch him, we’re all going to be in so much trouble…!”
Of course, it wouldn’t end with just getting in trouble, but that was the extent of what a low-level succubus, lacking in life essence and wit, could say.
* * *
“…So, this is a space created by mixing vast amounts of demonic energy with human desire, and the reason I could maintain my consciousness was thanks to you two resisting it?”
I see. So the Will of the Saint maintained my consciousness through mental and resistance fortification, while the Touch of the Devil blocked the demonic energy intended to induce a hypnotic state.
The fact that it was thanks to those two also meant it was something high-level that couldn’t be dismantled with my incomplete Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils.
“…Then is this some kind of mental realm?”
— It is likely something similar.
“Oh, what. You were here?”
— Ah, yes. It’s embarrassing, but I was also caught in a nightmare and had to revisit some of my dark past.
…A nightmare.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that both Sun Wukong and I fell into a dream.
The culprits behind the kidnapping incident a while ago were succubi, if I recall.
I can pretty much see the full picture now.
I don’t know how they did it, but it seemed some powerful succubus had created a massive dream world.
They must have targeted the moment when a large group of people focused their consciousness simultaneously.
Using the perfect timing of the ball’s first dance, they trapped everyone inside a dream.
Their goal is likely to extract life essence from this dream to do something, and no doubt, it won’t have a very positive impact on humanity.
“This is a headache.”
To be honest, this wasn’t an incident that happened in the original story, so I’m not sure what to do.
Is there anyone else awake besides me…?
Should I aim to cross over into someone else’s dream first?
But how do I do that?
Earlier, when I broke the dream, the filth just did it on its own because I felt angry.
Should I try asking it?
“Hey, can you let me cross over into someone else’s dream?”
Right. Honestly, if it could do that, it would be too much of a cheat. I shouldn’t try to get a free ride like this.
Static.
Huh?
But then.
Surprisingly, the briefly shattered world began to break down further, and a space that looked like a door began to open.
And the filth wriggled proudly(?).
…Oh, it works? Right. I believed in you. Of course.
— …Just what is that thing nestled in your heart? It didn’t even budge when I tried to interfere with mana last time.
“Well, you know. It’s something amazing. Actually, I don’t fully understand it myself. If I had to use a term that has the fewest restrictions…”
Even as I tried to name it, the thing resisted and rebelled, but it seemed willing to allow one particular term, as it stopped its struggle.
“It’s likely what they call an ‘Authority.’”
A portion of the authority of the Creator who made this world.
The power that interfered with the world, the same one that had overwhelmed Professor Cathy that day. A fragment of the Authority of the Creator was the true identity of the filth occupying my heart.
— The pronunciation is blurred; I can’t hear you.
Ah, as expected, it doesn’t work. I tried it just in case since we’re in a dream.
I can say it, but he can’t hear it.
“Anyway, it’s something like that. I’ll tell you later; for now, let’s go wake the others.”
Time to go wake some more people up.