In the End (1)
“Oh, the tragedy of it all. To prove that even a ventilation system can’t keep up with cigarette smoke. If we report this, the company’ll probably invite us over with a standing ovation and beg us to help upgrade their fans.”
A friend with hair dyed a loud yellow tore straight through the front door without hesitation. He’d rewired the whole security system so no one could get in without permission — and apparently they’d decided physical force was the next option.
“For the record, your parents said it was fine.”
“Man. Where else in the world do you find friends like this?”
They shoved the wrecked door to one side, still running their mouths.
“…Get out.”
“The fact that you aren’t denying it means you think it’s possible too, huh? Then how about taking it one step further and cutting back on the cigarettes? If only for the sake of a certain adorable non-smoker who drops by every now and then.”
“Jesus, Shoe, why is that bastard at it again?”
“Leave him. He’s probably trying to piss Big Dipper off so he’ll get some energy back.”
It was infuriating. He chewed on the cigarette he’d been smoking and kept his eyes locked on the game. Then a soft rustle — and a pair of baggy pants blocked half his view.
“Beep—”
“An adorable non-smoker asked nicely, didn’t he? So we should listen, right?”
Before he could even get angry about the blocked screen, the cigarette was plucked clean out of his mouth.
Thud. Doo-doo-doo-doo-roo-doo-doo.
And with that, his character died. Bad call while his vision was blocked. That was all it took.
A no-death, glitchless speedrun, shattered right on the doorstep of the ending. His first speedrun of his entire life — and apparently you really shouldn’t try things you never do.
“Ooooh, look at Big Dipper’s face. That pure-rage expression is rare as hell.”
“Anyone who doesn’t get mad after that is a living saint. Jesus. Wait, now I’m pissed.”
Shit.
The second the death sound effect hit, he hurled the controller and covered his face with both hands. How could even they do this to him. Rage and something rawer, something closer to grief, slammed into the back of his skull. For no reason he could name, the corners of his eyes burned.
“You crying? Are you crying?”
“What? Big Dipper’s crying!?”
“You don’t ask a crying person if they’re crying, you idiots. Just open a window. The smoke’s so thick I’m dying over here.”
“Lee Jang-hwa, you’re the biggest piece of trash here, so stop pretending to be considerate while you mock him and shut your mouth. Kim Tae-kyun, Kang Jeong-hee — you two ease up on the teasing too.”
“Whoa, the Scholar’s here!!”
“It’s the stickler! Run for it!!”
“Hold on, Seon-lim. That’s not fair. What did I even do?”
In the meantime, one more person had joined them. Shoe, Fried Chicken, Tea Leaf Maniac, Scholar. The whole usual pack had assembled.
“Kang Jeong-hee, you open the curtains and the windows. Kim Tae-kyun, pick up your little clones. Lee Jang-hwa, quit the smartass act and help Tae-kyun with the trash.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“Wait — if my clones are trash, that means I’m trash.”
“I was not being a smartass! Park Seon-lim, you’re a pro at framing people, you know that?”
“Jang-hwa. That. That is being a smartass. So shut up and pick up the trash.”
The overlapping voices were familiar and, at the same time, unbearable. No — he was grateful. Grateful, and he hated it.
Being seen like this was humiliating, and being hauled upright against his will was worse. He just wanted to be left alone. He couldn’t understand why they kept bothering him.
“This is so unfair. I was already picking up cigarette packs before anyone told me to. Why am I the one getting called a smartass?”
“Nah, Shoe. Even I have to admit you were being a smartass.”
“Fried Chicken, not you too?”
“Stop fighting and look at this. Look at this garbage. I don’t think this guy’s emptied the vacuum once.”
“Where? Holy crap, you’re right. I’ve never seen dust piled up like this. So this is what happens if you never empty the vacuum on time.”
The dark, sealed room brightened as curtains were pulled open and lights switched on. Air that had been nothing but trapped cigarette smoke began to shed its staleness. The dust- and trash-choked floor, the furniture — all of it the same.
“He hasn’t done laundry either. What has he even been wearing?”
“Scholar, the fridge is a lost cause too. Cooking is probably out of the question.”
“…Well, we were going out anyway, so it’s fine. But we should still clean out the fridge. Throw everything away.”
“Okay.”
“Seon-lim, he’s almost out of toilet paper. We need to buy more.”
“Good catch. Check what else is running low. Might as well stock everything while we’re at it.”
A laundry basket swollen with clothes no one had ever meant to wash.
A fridge with no real ingredients, only instant food.
Essentials left to rot from pure neglect.
“G… get…”
“Friend. If you’re a person, you should speak like a person. I get that you’ve basically abandoned every last scrap of human dignity at this point, but that doesn’t mean your language has to regress all the way back to beast.”
“You bastards, get out……”
“Yeah, see, we’re people, so we don’t understand beast-speak. So we’re not leaving. We’re not going to leave. If you really want to be alone, Big Dipper, come back as a human and ask again.”
“Scholar, can I hit Jang-hwa just once?”
“Do it on the way out later.”
The body that had been curled up crying was hauled forcibly upright. “If you can’t ask properly, then come on. We’re going.” The hand on his arm was too strong to shake off.
He hadn’t put on his brace. The leg that wouldn’t take any weight had never felt more hateful.
“Shit, you son of a—”
“Oh? So you’re saying you’re grateful to have such a kind, adorable, lovely person as your friend? Don’t worry. Everything we buy today — every item, every meal — is coming out of your wallet.”
“Isn’t Lee Jang-hwa pure trash?”
“Well… it’s not like we’re the ones paying. We’re putting it on the card his parents gave him.”
“Alright, alright. More importantly, let’s get you changed first. I don’t care if your dignity is in the gutter, but what did I do to deserve walking around with you looking like that?”
“…Separately from that, Lee Jang-hwa really is trash.”
“Haha. Kim Tae-kyun, you’re helping too, right?”
“Why me?”
“You want me to change him alone? Or should I ask Fried Chicken and the Scholar? Your personality is trash.”
“Damn it……”
One more of them piled on. In the end, his hair was forcibly washed, his clothes forcibly changed, and he was dragged outside.
“This bastard. After everything we just did for him, he’s still trying to bolt? That’s a crime. Eat more. Eat all of it. You need to put on some weight.”
“Hey, while we’re at the department store, let’s replace his blankets too. The ones at home look too far gone from never being washed.”
“Seconded. And while we’re at it, get him the most shameless weeb blankets possible. Embarrassment alone might finally make him leave the house to buy his own.”
“You think that’ll work? He’s already a total weeb.”
His first time outside in a year.
At the time it had filled him with resentment, irritation, pure heat.
Looking back on it later, it was an outing of almost unbearable happiness.
“…Was it that boring? You’re suddenly crying.”
“Ah, Fried Chicken. You were supposed to keep him marked. I told you not to let him think about anything else.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“What’s wrong? Did we go too far?”
He let the tears fall in front of those blurry faces.
“I’m sorry. We just… we just wanted you to hang in there……”
“Why won’t you come now?”
His vision clouded further, and faces he already couldn’t quite see blurred even more.
“Because I got angry back then?”
He didn’t want that. He wiped his tears away.
“I’m sorry. I won’t get angry again.”
Still, the tears came.
“So… can’t you come comfort me this time too?”
He was lonely, and that was why he cried.
“I don’t want to be alone……”
He was lonely.
“Grandmaster Craftsman, I was hoping I could ask you for a favor regarding this……”
Until now, the sleep system he’d been using had always felt like: close your eyes, open them, and it’s a refreshing morning.
Lately, though, waking up sometimes felt… off. Refreshing, sure — but also strangely heavy and sad, somehow.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
The one silver lining was that he had nothing scheduled today.
Even if a messy morning left him dazed, nothing would go wrong. He sat in a corner of Meister’s workshop and let his foggy head sink down. The chair Meister had magnanimously provided was a couch, so at least he didn’t have to worry about looking undignified.
“I’m certain I met the delivery quota.”
“Ah, yes, that’s true, but… the mermen have been strangely quiet.”
“…Ah. Right. It is past the point where the mermen should have attacked by now.”
While he sat there, Meister handled the visitor who had come calling.
From the continuous clacking that cut through the conversation, it seemed he was still working even while talking to the man.
“So then… same as before?”
“Yes, yes. Same as before — about this much every five days… if you could produce the extra amount.”
“What a pain……”
So the mermen’s behavior was different from usual, then? That explained why Archmage’s side hadn’t given a firm schedule either — just a vague note that things might run late.
They must have known too, and deliberately left the departure date open. Expecting something to go wrong while they stayed.
“Got it. You can go.”
“Yes.”
Still — he really didn’t want to face another ocean boss. Was a land boss truly not going to drop? Really?
Honestly, if this turned into another ocean raid, that would be crossing a line.
“Hah… maybe this time……”
He prayed. And right on cue, Meister — having just kicked out his guest — struck a similar pose. The earnest way he was praying at the ceiling suggested he’d just finished etching a formula into an item.
“Favor.”
What he did next was throw the finished piece at him. A request to pour mana into it, essentially.
The first time it had been “Could you do me a favor,” the second “Do me a favor,” and now, the third time, just “Favor.” Kind of absurd, but whatever.
Clack.
Either way, his hand caught it without looking. Black mana flooded in.
“Damn it. No reaction again……”
Of course there was no reaction this time either. No light, no vibration, nothing.
“Put it on the shelf.”
Still, there was always the chance of a late response like last time, so he stood it up on the display stand.
He set the item on the nearby side table, ignoring whatever curses Meister was muttering. One arm still over his eyes; the other handling everything alone.
“Hah……”
Time passed like that for a long while. Whether Meister was working on the new commission, something else, or his own research, he eventually stretched.
Crack.
A satisfying sound rolled through the room.
Tap. Tap.
Having stood up to stretch, he moved off to one side. Apparently to check on his equipment.
His presence shifted toward the reagent bottles that held his coat, gloves, and vest.
Zzzzt. Zzzzt.
A current in the air and something like a tearing sound flicked against his ears.
“I’m going insane. What kind of clothes even are these? How were they made to do something like this……”
Still no answers this time either, it seemed. Meister made a sound of pure suffering.
“The worst part is that they just… restore themselves, without any cost at all. Do you seriously have no idea why they do this?”
And now the sparks were flying his way too. Not that Meister’s prodding would get him any answer he could give.
“If these were originally made of some self-regenerating material, I’d accept that. But when you look at the structure, it’s just ordinary matter, so……”
Who knows. Maybe they originally were something regenerative, and the material was just disguised as something else. Freely rewriting their own bond structure.
“…What did you just say?”
“……?”
Oh no. Had he said that out loud just now……?
“Disguised? As something else?”
“…I was just thinking it could be possible.”
He was losing his mind for real. Being out of it was one thing, but there were limits. Letting thoughts slip into speech? He must be cracked.
“Quiet for a second. Bond structure… freely……”
But Meister batted aside every attempt to recover from the character break in a single motion.
At least he barely understood the concept, so he didn’t even notice it was a character break. Small mercies.
“Bond structure……!”
Instead, he muttered the words back as if turning them over, with something almost manic in it. Quietly lowering the arm he’d had over his eyes, he braced against the couch and pushed his upper body upright.
“For a musclehead, that was a pretty decent idea. I’ll give you credit!”
That was the exact moment Meister shouted his eureka. Being dismissed as a musclehead was mildly insulting, but the man looked so thrilled he couldn’t bring himself to scold him for it.
Unlike him, who’d just spit out whatever without running it through a thought process, Meister seemed to have landed on an actual solid hypothesis.
“Here.”
Then Meister threw something at him.
“If you understand bond structure, your brain must actually work somewhat. So stop wasting time sleeping and read a book. Stuff some knowledge into that halfway-usable skull of yours.”
A pile of books. Magic texts, alchemy tomes that bordered on science, encyclopedias of every kind of material, manuals on tool use, all sorts of crafting guides, and more.
He couldn’t sleep all day anyway, so having something to read wasn’t a bad thing… but it was still a little ridiculous. So this was how he was filling the hours now.
“Alright — if they really were a different material to begin with, then the experiments I can run now are… ah, wait. That makes the timing on the commissions a little tight. Hmm.”
He considered throwing a concept tantrum, then looked at Meister lost in his own world and gave up.
If Meister had been one of his party members, he would have gotten angry out of obligation if nothing else — but the man was still only a temporary connection that would end when the time came. He didn’t want to burn what little energy he had left on him.
Thump. Thump.
Instead, he looked over the books he’d been given. The mountain of volumes really was aimed purely at dumping knowledge into someone.
“……?”
Except for one. Exactly one of them was different. The title, The Broken Horn, and the prose when he cracked it open a little — no matter how he looked at it, it was a novel. Given how thin it was, maybe even a fairy tale.
It stood out so much from the rest that it was probably an accident, mixed in when Meister had been grabbing books to throw at him rather than anything intentional……
Well. Accident or not, from his perspective it was a gift. He was in no state for stuffing his head with knowledge right now. Not even close.
Flip.
So he opened the cover of The Broken Horn.
On a night when the moon hung upon the roof of a high tower and the lights of the taverns held back the dark, a boy set foot upon the street……
It wasn’t an old book. The cover, still close to new, turned over, and writing just a little different from the modern tongue raised the curtain.