Chapter 54
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Wanderer
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It had been strange from the very beginning.
University? Where would I get the money for that?
You're an orphan beggar, aren't you?
Those were words I'd heard my whole life. I didn't have the means to cover astronomical tuition fees.
Fine, let's say the modern admissions system is generous and I'm such a good student it works out.
Two S-rank beauties from the province sitting side by side with me in class?
Acting friendly and approaching me first? How could someone like me, without a single decent friend, get close to them?
Maybe the whole universe decides to lend a hand once in a while.
The professor's a beauty too? Okay, they could push you into the protagonist role in a rom-com.
The classes are too easy? Wow, am I a full-ride scholar? I don't think I studied that hard.
The professor's spouting expert-level stuff, and I'm 'understanding' it all. The Analects is a classic recording Confucius and his disciples' words and deeds.
Obviously in classical Chinese, and I'm grasping every implicit, layered meaning?
That could happen. But the next passages flow effortlessly into my mind.
Still possible, I guess. If you say, 'I'm a chosen genius.'
So, all this weirdness is improbable, but not impossible.
But me having zero reaction to it? That's impossible.
I'm not a eunuch. If a pretty face shoved in my direction, I'd naturally blush, stammer like a broken man, and react.
Yet here I am, calm as if doused with cold water over my head. My heart feels the same. This is prime time for any guy in his twenties to fall in love.
No tickling in my chest or anything. Like I can't feel love at all.
No sense of blood flowing through my body. Even dozing off in a boring lecture, no sleepiness. No hunger.
No interest in the two beauties.
No physiological urges whatsoever.
"Oppa? What's wrong?"
"Byul-ah, you okay?"
"……."
The blonde and black-haired super beauties flanking me, worrying over me, and my heart isn't even pounding.
This is too unreal.
"Still, it was fun."
Time to wake up from the dream.
Snap.
Time freezes. Iru Ri and my first love from memory, who moments ago were vividly talking to me, turn into pictures.
So Seori's chalk at the front, mid-lesson, halts with powder scattering.
Crack.
A splitting sound echoes as cracks spiderweb across space.
Shatter!
The auditorium shatters like broken glass, leaving me alone in the void.
A sight I've seen for ages.
Shining stars hold their positions, radiating Star Force as light.
"Did you find it amusing?"
The universe writhes like something alive. The brightest star even flickers visibly.
As if answering 'yes, fun,' the universe ripples like waves.
"You've attained transcendence, yet you still dream mortal dreams."
A voice I've never heard.
But I know this being.
Never met or seen it before, but utterly unforgettable.
"Long time no see... no, first time, huh."
My fist clenches involuntarily. The source of all my torment and the one who can answer my questions.
"Wanderer of the Vast Deep Sea."
My grimoire's ex-wife.
The cosmic space twisted bizarrely at my words. I could sense it.
This was the Wanderer's 'smile.'
"To me, it was shorter than an instant. But to you, it took so very long. I pity you."
No emotion from the pitying Wanderer. Just picking appropriate words—no real sympathy.
So many questions. Why now? Why give me the grimoire? How to escape? Are you tied to the apocalypse?
They swirled in my head; I wanted every answer.
The being's pressure was immense. Like the awe non-awakened feel from my true form?
Hard to even look at, mouth frozen. Fear it'd vanish.
"Hoo…."
Still, I spoke. One question I had to ask amid the swarm.
"Why me?"
Why pick me? In this Earth, this universe smeared with regressions and other dimensions, a powerless, unremarkable weakling?
"Why! Why!!! Did you pick me?!"
I knew. Yelling anger at a cosmic entity is meaningless waste. But I had to vent this sinless agony.
All the lost time, possibilities, life, body, youth, life's worth! A human life stained in pain erupted from my chest like waves.
Couldn't bear not to scream. Finally, a target for my pent-up rage and fury—I couldn't just stand dumbly staring.
"Why me, you ask! Wanderer! Pity the fool toyed with, unable to resist your petty prank? You dare! Dare!! Do you even know human suffering?!"
No tears flowed. My body can't make them. Yet I was crying.
"In the prison you made, I was trapped beyond human limits. No one in Earth's history lived longer or suffered worse."
It watches me. No eyes, yet watching.
"I wish I'd died. 24/7, 365... a whole 118 years! In that void, no eating, no sleeping, just writhing in agony."
Knowing it'd be 118 years—would that have eased it?
Humanly unbearable torment. Not some 500 million-year button game; I felt every second bodily.
The button's fatal flaw: no human... no creature endures that. Brain explodes from stress.
Why I clung to humanity? Because I discarded it.
Devouring stars, learning magic, I shattered my heart.
I sealed away pieces of 'Moon Byul's' self into Etoile one by one.
Love, lust, fear, jealousy, attachment, pride, vanity, passion, excitement, competitiveness, devotion, fatherhood, greed for beauty, inferiority—countless things sealed.
"Behold what your voyeurism wrought! Answer me! Wanderer, I deserve to know why you did this!"
Not 118, but 200, 300 years? I'd have sealed more emotions.
At some point, I wouldn't rage at meeting the Wanderer. That Moon Byul? Barely human, even falsely.
"Are you done?"
Emotionless voice echoed. My wailing worth just that. A brief vent.
"Uwaaaaaah!!!"
I unleashed every spell I knew into the void. Target's the universe—what can you do?
"Rage! Agni! Nemoha! Prenin! Grat!"
Spells tear the void. Lasers fire, massive mass attacks, thermal magic, poison, gravity, space, slashes.
Every spell I could think of, poured out.
Aside from space and gravity slightly warping the universe's edge, no reaction.
Just my tantrum, ultimately.
"Are you done?"
Same voice.
"Haa, haa…."
Stomach churning. About to puke. But venting emotions and magic felt good.
My life's research, all futile against the Wanderer. Whatever. I vented.
"I didn't choose you. You were simply close to me."
It spouted nonsense.
"Bullshit. You know the outside situation. Spill the info I want."
No need explaining to it. The Wanderer knows my questions; just recite the answers.
"Child, you can still act now. But struggling to the end has meaning too. Towers exist to be climbed, though perhaps not for you."
"The grimoire? You know how I feel about it."
Felt the Wanderer couldn't grasp my question.
"I cannot know its intent. How refuse my fragment bestowed?"
Figures, you bastard. How can humans know ants' minds?
"Then tell me how."
"You already know. You don't act due to the calamity blooming outside, no?"
No clue what it means, but I knew: it'd translated to human speech as courtesy.
"Child, how not know your ordeals led you to transcendence? Now perfectly suited as my fragment's master—think those tiny outer towers can bar you?"
This was consolation. Damn. Understanding its sincerity made me sicker.
"Useless help, so why show? No—why now?"
"I've always watched, child. Only now you sense me, so I came straining to congratulate. Now fully my fragment's master—I rejoice."
Its voyeur fragment caused my hell.
Regardless, I felt the time had come.
"Remember, my purpose aligns with yours. You already grasp what I know."
Grasp what? I know nothing.
Despite my negativity, it felt like a patron. Realizing my pain stemmed from unwanted patronage spiked my nonexistent blood pressure.
It departed. I glared till it vanished to the universe's edge. Instinct said no next meeting, or eons away.
Wriggle.
"Ah...?"
Last realization before waking: what I took for eyes weren't on a face.
Wriggle.
Felt it in the living backdrop.
What I spoke to wasn't the Wanderer of the Vast Deep Sea.
Human terms: I talked to a finger.
Crackle.
The universe fades; I open my eyes on the bed.
"Fucking bastard…."
The longest dream of my life.