Chapter 369: Neutral Country.
Chapter 369: Neutral Country.
Now then, let's see how they react.
The thing that was inside me was like that, and so was the Yellow King, whose side just got blown away. Seeing how both of them were struck by mysterious attacks the moment they cursed "The End," it seems those voyeurs looking down from above are quite sensitive about people badmouthing them.
Therefore, I expected those things—who had just received a double bird from me—to take some kind of action, but even after a while, there was no sign of anything special happening.
"Hmm."
Was the swearing too weak?
Since things had already come to this, I wondered if I should pull out some names I knew. Just as I started flipping through the mental catalog of profanity variations in my head—
"If that's what you're planning, you'd better stop."
The Yellow King cut in, his voice tinged with urgency.
"Why?"
They're the bastards who ruined the world; they deserve to hear a few choice words.
"The only reason they do not interfere with you is an artificial reason, a forced construct to maintain their rules. The moment that crumbles, they will reveal their true nature and act."
I don't really get it.
"Rules? Do those guys have a society or something?"
"To them, rules are both the lightest and the heaviest of things. The moment they decide not to follow them, the rules hold no meaning. But as long as they intend to keep them, those rules shackle their actions more powerfully than anything else."
He seems to be explaining it earnestly, but don't we have something similar?
"Isn't that just like a law?"
Doesn't seem much different to me.
"For laws, there are external factors to ensure they are followed. The power of public authority. However, among those of The End, there is no hierarchy, no unified group, no interference, and no individuals. Therefore, the creation of rules, the monitoring of their compliance, and the punishment for violations—all of it rests solely within a single entity of The End."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Do not try to understand. Simply hold it in your heart as knowledge. Someday, that knowledge will have meaning."
Hey, even if you tell me to just know it as knowledge, there's a limit.
"That's not a rule; that's just a personal conviction or belief. How does that constitute a rule? No, first of all, Yellow King, how do you know all these different rules that each of them has?"
I snapped at the Yellow King, and separately, another doubt continued to bloom inside me.
The Existence of The End that I knew. The story about The End explained by the Faceless Queen of the Magic Kingdom.
What I heard there and the Yellow King’s explanation were significantly different stories.
"Because the contradiction between them is the most important reason they maintain themselves as entities."
"...Fuck."
Didn't you just say there's no such thing as an individual among The End?
What the hell is wrong with those "End" bastards?
Someone is clearly lying or mistaken.
Even if I try to deduce the answer, it feels like my brain is overloading the more I hear, so I can't come to a conclusion.
"And, for a different reason... the less they are mentioned, the better."
"...Ah, because it draws their attention?"
I've heard that story quite a lot.
That they're voyeurs, so if their names come up, they'll show up and make a mess of things.
But you're the one who brought this up first, Yellow King.
"That is only one of the reasons. What I worry about is something else."
"What is it?"
Man, you're really dragging your feet today.
"They are conceptual and ideological beings. They are nowhere, yet everywhere. They exist in the past, but not in the present. They are The End that will surely come, though we know not when. Therefore, statements that prove their existence hasten their footsteps."
"Keep it simple."
"The more stories there are proving they are real, the higher the probability—exponentially so—that they will cast off the rules they wear and manifest in this world."
Stories proving they are real... he means mentioning them, right?
Then what about manifesting?
"...An Avatar?"
"I am talking about their main bodies."
Holy shit, you should have said that first.
We've been blabbing about everything under the sun just now. How much have their footsteps quickened then?
Let's see, he said statements proving they are real?
"So, what you're saying is that the entities known as The End don't actually exist, right?"
Hello, everyone. I'm just a lowly lifeform who flipped the bird at the sky because I was pissed off. I definitely wasn't targeting anyone specific.
"...It seems you made that statement after some thought, but that question itself is one that establishes the existence of such a concept. So, just keep your mouth shut."
"...Can't you erase my memory?"
Since it's come to this, I want to erase as much content related to The End as possible, leaving only the essentials to reduce the mental mentions.
"It is impossible. As long as there are beings in the world who know they are real, they will one day come to this land."
"Is there any way to know when?"
"That is something no one can know. Whether it will be when the universe is reborn after its destruction, or whether they will descend the moment my story ends—no one knows."
What a crazy world-ending bomb.
"Even a mad regressionist terrorist would set a bomb timer more mercifully than that. Hey."
Those lunatics who are always trying to plant bombs somewhere in the Management Bureau, claiming we need to erase everything related to the Otherworld and start over as pure humanity.
I've never seen them succeed, but they keep popping up like cockroaches no matter how many you catch.
Setting those damn regressionist bastards aside.
"Then, what if we massacre everyone who knows about those 'End' beings?"
Including me, of course.
If that would work, I'd gladly offer up my own neck.
Let's see... who else knows about that... Oxymoron... and the Thunder God...
...Fuck. There's Linshua, too.
Maybe I'll just do the suicide part alone and exile everyone else...
"That action would only slow their steps; it cannot stop the footsteps that have already begun. It is not only Sentient Beings like us who whisper of their existence. The world itself, defiled by the rules of the Otherworld, whispers of them, and even the power that crossed over from beyond whispers of them. They will come, eventually."
Wow, a world destruction that could trigger at any moment and can never be stopped.
Just what I needed—another spoonful of shit on top of this already hellish world.
"...Right, thanks for telling me something I could have gone my whole life without knowing, Yellow King."
"I told you because you did not choose."
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
"It is insurance."
"...Explain."
"I refuse."
You've got to be kidding me.
"Fuck, why won't you tell me what I want to know, but you'll tell me all the stuff I'm better off not knowing? Give me the traitor's name, you bastard!"
Finally, my anger exploded.
This bastard, the Yellow King, dumped useless or purely negative knowledge on me, yet he keeps his mouth shut about the facts I actually need to know.
If I didn't get angry at this, I'd have to be Buddha, Jesus, or a Tree-Horned Deer.
...The lineup that came to mind is a bit weird, but let's move past that.
"What's the traitor's name!"
I kept screaming, venting the rage inside me.
After repeating it three or four times—
"A traitor is a matter of perspective."
"Explain it in a way I can understand! Did you all fall asleep during ethics class? Not a single one of you bastards can speak in a way others can comprehend!"
Screeeeeech.
A sound that was almost like a beast's cry escaped my mouth, even to my own ears.
"What if the reason for the betrayal was to save the world?"
"Who gives a damn about that? Every traitor says they had a reason... Huh? To save the world?"
Only after venting my anger for a while did I understand the Yellow King’s words.
Betrayal to save the world? What?
"Therefore, betrayal is a matter of perspective. The traitor believed that was the only way to save the world, and that action simply resulted in a betrayal of humanity."
...Uh. So.
The traitor who betrayed humanity did it to save humanity?
It's an interesting story, but there's too little information to judge.
"If you know that much, then spill the beans. What kind of betrayal was it, and why? You must know."
Come on, sprinkle some pieces that bring me closer to the truth, bit by bit.
I need to find the traitor and beat them up first before weighing the severity of their crime, right?
I spoke with such ulterior motives, but—
"I refuse. If you wish to know, find out for yourself."
Dammit.
In the end, he didn't give me a single piece of information I wanted.
"You have nothing more to say, right?"
"I do not."
Then I'd better think about how to get to America.
Just as I was about to move away from the Yellow King with that thought, a good idea flashed through my mind.
"Hmm. Can I ask more questions?"
"...It would be better if you did not."
Talk about a double standard.
He says I can't talk, but he went and said everything I didn't even ask for.
So, I'm going to do whatever I want, too.
"I'm going to North America. Is a plane better, or a ship?"
"...A plane will crash-land in Greenland, and a ship will sink."
"Arrival time?"
"...The ship is faster."
"Then, what if I show this conversation to the Management Bureau as evidence and squeeze a teleportation permit out of them?"
"...A hole will open in the Management Bureau, causing a catastrophe."
"...You're joking, right?"
"It is a truth with a very high probability."
Uh... why is my life such a mess?
Anyway.
That means the ship is less dangerous and faster.
"Thanks for the answers. I'll see you again later, in good health."
"...We shall see each other again before long."
"Is that also that 'future that exists alongside the present' or whatever?"
"A future belonging to the present. There are no side branches leading there. Everything has gathered and become thick."
"Right. Then I'll try my best to make sure we don't have to see each other's faces."
Saying that, I left the Yellow King’s house, which had returned to its original state before I even realized it.
Of course, I took more than half of what the Yellow King said with a grain of salt.
Future Foresight? He's never gotten it right.
Whether it's a future belonging to the present or whatever, in the end, it doesn't seem any different from Future Foresight.
With that thought, I crossed the quiet ruins.
How much time had passed?
Running quickly, I pulled my phone out from my pocket.
Three hours.
I realized that more time had passed than I imagined.
It didn't feel like we had talked for that long.
Was there some kind of time distortion?
Or was the future he briefly showed me that long?
...Whatever.
The conversation with the Yellow King, which I had been worried about, ended well enough, and I gained plenty of new information.
Most of it was information I'd rather not have known for the rest of my life, but information is information.
It'll be useful somewhere...
...No, I don't think it will.
Now that I think about it, these are all just landmines I can't even tell others about.
The stuff about The End is something that would cause a disaster if I blabbed about it.
And the other one is a disastrous Future Foresight like, "Everyone! Crimson★Hammer is the monster who will destroy the world!"
The Yellow King totally screwed me over.
What a complete waste of time.
Thinking that, I clicked my tongue and passed through the checkpoint.
I left the checkpoint at high speed, even faster than when I entered.
The moment I left the Yellow King’s residence—
An incredibly bizarre sight met my eyes.
"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Are you still here?"
Meteor was clicking his mouth with a completely expressionless face, as if his soul had entirely departed.
"Yes! So, the method for creating the Smiling Corpse Angel made by Happiness Drop is still being passed down even now..."
Baek Si-hyun was continuing her story, waving her hands and feet excitedly as if she were having the time of her life.
"I can't hear anything. I can't see anything."
Han A-bin was huddled in a corner, trembling violently as if she had heard something she shouldn't have.
"...Poyo?"
Brigadier General Un-ho stood stiffly with a dazed look, as if a fuse in his brain had blown, repeatedly shaking his head from side to side.
"Left! Right! Left! Right!"
Finally, there was one tentacle following Un-ho’s rhythm, as if it had mistaken his repetitive movements for some kind of game.
Seeing this scene, the thought racing through my mind immediately came out of my mouth.
"What the hell is this mess?"
The very words anyone in the world would have said upon seeing this sight.