Two Mothers Must Be Nice (4)
In Disaster Order, rifts were nothing more than a game mechanic. Just like in reality, rifts would periodically erupt and spew forth disasters. You gathered those disasters, synthesized them to obtain higher-star disasters, strengthened them, and sent them on expeditions. With the resources collected, you upgraded your base and gathered even more disasters. After that, the cycle simply repeated until you had collected every disaster in the game.
Because of that, rifts in Disaster Order were treated as vague, background elements—a systematic feature that spat out the resources the game needed. But now that the game had become reality, its rules no longer applied.
“Inside the rift…”
The Queen Who Swallowed the Stars, Asteria, was currently inside a rift. Since Karne, whose tracking skill was the best among all disasters, had said so, it couldn’t be a lie. Still, I remained confused.
Could anyone even enter that place in the first place?
If this were a comedy movie, the disasters inside the rift would probably be strapping on parachutes and preparing to sortie. But reality wasn’t a comedy. The rift was a completely unexplored domain. Neither the game’s lore nor the system had ever revealed anything about what lay inside it.
Karne, the Mother of Ill Omens, seemed to notice my unease and spoke softly.
“I understand why you’re surprised, my child. Normally, no one can enter the inside of a rift. A rift is an irresistible vortex of power. Even disasters like this mother, Selene, or Mirien cannot withstand it.”
“Then how did Asteria…”
“Asteria has never left the rift in the first place.”
“…?”
I raised a question mark. Never left the rift? What did that even mean?
Karne gave a bitter smile and explained.
“Selene, Mirien, and this mother were expelled from our base and emerged into the higher dimension through the rift. But if there exists a being who can resist the fall into the higher dimension with their own power—if there is someone with that much strength—what do you think would happen?”
“…Don’t tell me.”
“That’s exactly it. Asteria built her nest inside the rift using her own power.”
The Queen Who Swallowed the Stars, Asteria. The forgotten queen of a ruined kingdom that even transcendents had feared. An irregular great disaster who wielded authority through colors that flowed in from the cosmos.
Like all games, Disaster Order couldn’t escape power inflation. Later disasters were inevitably stronger than the early ones, and Asteria, added in the final update, was the final boss in every sense.
Her background lore alone was overwhelming. While other 5★ disasters operated on a continental or planetary scale at best, Asteria’s setting played out on a cosmic level. Perhaps because of that, her in-game performance was also outstanding. If Mirien, another mage-type disaster, was a small hexagon, Asteria was a massive hexagon—an upgraded version with excellent performance. I remembered using her often myself.
If such an Asteria appeared in reality, she would be an opponent even other 5★ disasters would struggle to face. The reason I had sought out Karne first wasn’t just because of her tracking magic’s performance, but also because I had been afraid to confront Asteria.
“If Asteria built a nest inside the rift, does that mean she can manipulate the rift itself?”
“That’s not the case. No matter how strong Asteria is, she cannot compare to the time when you wore the divine mantle and ruled over the rift.”
“…”
I decided not to correct the misunderstanding that I had once been a divine being or ruled over the rift, or that I was merely a mortal human. I had long since given up on clearing up that misconception. To these great disasters, Nam Juyeon was the perfect, flawless Ruler of the Rift, Actor. That was how it had to be.
Instead, I asked a different question.
“Is Asteria strong enough to force her way into the rift and claim a place there?”
“Her own power isn’t that great. But in this case, the crown you gifted her is the problem.”
“The crown.”
There was no way I could forget. The exclusive quest for the Queen Who Swallowed the Stars required the 5★ equipment she was said to have lost—the Crown of the Great Star. I took out the 4★ equipment I had obtained not long ago from the nest under the Daejeon Clan’s jurisdiction: a fragment of a broken crown.
Seeing it, Karne nodded.
“Yes. Asteria must have shattered the crown and used the power within it to fix her coordinates and build her nest. The broken fragments of the crown would have seeped into the disasters that were inside the rift.”
“Then these fragments weren’t something Asteria deliberately scattered among the disasters… but something that unintentionally flowed out from inside the rift.”
“Exactly.”
Asteria had shattered the crown I gave her and used its power to secure a place inside the rift. I didn’t know how she currently felt about me. But the fact that she had gone so far as to destroy the crown I gifted her meant she, like Karne, held no favorable feelings toward me.
“Actor, what will you do?”
“…There’s no good way. I can’t exactly go inside the rift myself to negotiate, so I have no choice but to draw Asteria out. For that… I’ll need to collect all the lost crown fragments.”
There were seven fragments in total. Excluding the one I currently held, I needed to gather the remaining six and restore the crown. Then Asteria would naturally be drawn outside the rift by its power. That seemed like the correct answer.
Karne nodded and gently stroked my head. It felt strange.
“That’s a good mindset. This mother will always support you.”
With a warm smile, Karne pulled me into her embrace. A soft sensation brushed against my cheek.
“By the way, Mother.”
“What is it?”
“When are we going down?”
At my question, Karne made a genuinely hurt expression.
“Do you dislike being with this mother?”
“N-no… It’s not that…”
“This is a rare moment for just the two of us. Since the nuisances won’t be interrupting for a while, let’s enjoy this long-awaited reunion.”
Thousands of meters in the air, Karne spoke, and with my life literally in her hands, I had no choice but to nod.
“Actor, this mother has prepared so many things I wanted to say when I met you.”
Like the other disasters, Karne believed there must be some noble reason I had become a mortal, and she seemed satisfied just being able to talk like this. Even now, her pair of wings, which kept moving up and down, seemed unusually excited.
“Mother, I…”
“It’s all right. I understand. In the end, you came back to find this mother again. That’s enough for now.”
Unlike with Selene or Mirien, conversations with Karne had a strangely calming charm. Her voice, like jade beads rolling across a metal plate, was also a big part of it. Or perhaps, as they say, people cling to what they never had. Having never received a mother’s love, I found Karne’s kindness deeply moving.
Karne continued asking me questions. Whether this face was my original one, or if I had prepared a separate mortal body. Some questions were difficult to answer, but I did my best to make excuses. When a question was truly hard to answer, I responded with silence, and Karne didn’t press further. This must have been what conversations between parent and child felt like.
“…Hmm.”
After some time had passed like that, Karne, who had been chatting away, gave a bitter smile.
“It seems we should head down soon.”
“Huh?”
Karne folded her black wings.
——Kwaaaang!
The moment she finished speaking, a flash of light burst before my eyes, followed by a deafening roar. Lightning and a downpour of rain came crashing down.
5★ Storm of the North Sea Mirien casts the skill 「Thunderstorm」.
If I didn’t come down quickly, she looked ready to electrocute me.
*
To draw the Queen Who Swallowed the Stars, Asteria, out of the rift, I had to collect every fragment of the crown she had shattered. The fragments were surely scattered across the world. It was a vague goal, but with Karne joining our base, it wouldn’t be too difficult. Her tracking magic was powerful enough to cover the entire globe and even locate something as small as a crown fragment.
“The closest fragment is to the west.”
“The west?”
“Yes. It’s practically right under our noses.”
“Hmm?”
Just as Karne said, the crown fragment came from an unexpected source.
“Hyung-nim.”
“Little brother.”
After hearing the whole story from me, the Awakened Leihu took out a small lump of metal from his inventory.
“I obtained this from a disaster that appeared near Shaanxi Province not long ago.”
The second crown fragment had been in the possession of none other than Leihu, the leader of China’s Awakened Alliance. Having the Chinese Alliance naturalize into Korea had been a stroke of genius. It was like catching a mouse by accident while stepping backward. Like finding a 500-won coin under a vending machine.
At this rate, finding the remaining five fragments was only a matter of time. But right now, something more urgent had come up.
— ‘Excuse me, is this Nam Juyeon? You might not remember me, but I’m the leader of the Daejeon Clan…’
That evening, a phone call came in. The Daejeon Clan leader, Jeon Tae-min, spoke in a hesitant voice.
— ‘I’ve synthesized the item you ordered. And there’s something else I urgently need to tell you…’
Finally, the Elixir was in my hands.