Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: A Gentle Knock
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A fat dragon, looking like an inflatable toy lizard, stared intently at a smoked chicken leg and spoke with a newfound seriousness.
-Why is it so delicious?
Beside the fat dragon, the Glutton, the little spider Anetium rubbed her forelegs together and replied.
-Does the reason matter? As long as it’s delicious, that’s all that counts.
The fat dragon nodded gravely.
-It matters. I want to eat delicious things outside, too!
The little centipede, Ogong, spoke with a rather solemn expression.
-Wouldn’t environmental factors be the most significant reason? The principles and laws here are different from the outside world.
The Glutton swallowed the smoked chicken leg in one bite, his body trembling with a rapturous expression.
It was truly a heavenly taste, and the biggest reason the Glutton couldn't bring himself to leave this strange and bizarre world.
The Glutton was curious.
Why didn’t things taste this good outside?
And why did they taste like this here?
His gluttony sparking a spirit of inquiry and curiosity, the Glutton’s eyes gleamed as he spoke.
-But hey. You guys are residents of this world, right? Then… do the laws of this world apply to you, too?
An inexplicable sense of dread washed over Anetium and Ogong. They glanced at each other, then swallowed hard and nodded.
-W-Well, yes?
-…I suppose so.
A droplet of drool escaped the Glutton’s mouth and trickled down his chin.
-Then you guys must be delicious, too, right?
Anetium had a fit, waving her forelegs left and right like car wipers.
-Wh-What a terrible thing to say! We’re not delicious! Not at all!
Ogong froze, not moving a muscle.
He knew this reckless dragon never joked when it came to food.
The Glutton’s eyes crinkled into a cheerful ‘>.<’ shape as he spoke.
-Hey guys, don’t be so stingy. You’re immortal here. Even if I eat you, you can come back to life.
Anetium shrieked, practically convulsing.
-Damn it, it still hurts even if we come back! And I’d rather just die than be eaten!
-It’s okay, my tummy is warm. Come on in. It might be cozy.
As the Glutton spoke such chilling words so casually, even Ogong couldn't hold back and raised his voice.
-I-If it’s so cozy, then you get in there yourself! We don’t want to!
Anetium raised a foreleg, shouting, “Hear, hear!”
-Yeah! If you want to eat something that delicious, why don’t you try tearing off your own wing! I heard dragon wings are a delicacy, they might be tasty!
-No way. I don’t like pain.
Anetium and Ogong shouted in unison.
-Neither do we!
-It’s fine. It’s not me who’s in pain. C’mon guys. Don’t be so scared. The pain is brief, and the taste is… also brief, but that’s okay. I’ll be happy instead.
-Damn it! You’re the only one who’ll be happy while we’re the only ones in pain! How can we not be scared?!
-U-Uwaaah! Bbi-bbi! Butler! Help us! This crazy dragon is eating the residents!
The Glutton, who had been licking his snout like a child before a cake, suddenly tilted his head.
He had seen Lee Si-woo walking out of a portal that had formed on the other side of the village.
-Huh? It’s the Lord. But he’s been infected with something weird. Hehe, well, it’s probably fine. The Lord is super amazing, so he’ll take care of it himself.
Having lost interest in Lee Si-woo, the Glutton turned his attention back to Ogong and Anetium.
Gazing at the trembling pair with half-lidded eyes, the Glutton unknowingly voiced his inner thoughts.
-Come to think of it, you’re both insects. Hmm… I heard insects are tastiest when fried… What should I do?
Ogong and Anetium clung to each other and screamed at the top of their lungs.
***
The young, faceless butler, who had appeared out of nowhere, spoke to Lee Si-woo.
“My Lord, you seem to have been infected by a peculiar energy.”
Hearing the Butler’s words, Lee Si-woo also noticed a strange energy pulsating in his chest.
It was an unknown energy that transcended his own cognitive abilities, which was likely why he hadn’t felt it outside of Barathrum.
As Lee Si-woo frowned and tried to eliminate the energy at once, the Butler stopped him.
“Of course, it would not be difficult for you to eliminate such a base energy, my Lord. But since we’re getting rid of it anyway, why not deliver a light warning to the rat who dared to disrespect you?”
“A warning? In what way?”
The young butler replied, his voice tinged with a faint smile.
“From the looks of it, that energy seems to be a kind of marker. It was likely their clever little trick to track you, my Lord. However, if the energy serves as a medium for tracking, would it not also be possible to trace it back?”
“You mean…?”
“Naturally, you cannot physically affect your opponent while you are within Barathrum, my Lord. However… a mental influence would not be so difficult.”
***
Yoana pierced the heart of the last mage with the silver knife on the back of her hand.
With that, she had dealt with all five mages who had ambushed her. Yoana lightly stretched her neck.
‘Strange.’
The brainwashing bug was dead, but the signal from the mark it had managed to plant before dying was still clear.
Well, it had been, until a moment ago.
‘The marking’s signal was cut off? How is that possible? Once you’re marked, it’s impossible to remove it by any means. Unless the opponent is… an existence on the level of the Spider Matriarch…’
Startled by her own thought, Yoana flinched.
Just as she thought, the marking energy, a culmination of the Ancients’ magi-science, could not be dispelled by an ordinary mage.
Therefore, the fact that it had been removed meant her opponent was by no means ordinary.
‘Faceless, is that you? Are you truly alive? If so, why did you abandon us? Why…?’
Unable to control the emotions and feelings riddled with longing, Yoana became agitated.
She was on the verge of a panic attack, barely regaining her senses only because of the bizarre changes that began to occur to her.
‘What? I can’t see?’
First, she went blind. Then, she lost her voice.
“Ghk? Kaaack!”
Yoana clutched her throat, trying desperately to speak, but only the hollow sound of wind escaped.
And so, having lost her sight and voice, a pitch-black darkness descended upon her.
It was a strange occurrence.
Strictly speaking, for her, a cyborg, senses were nothing more than artificial phenomena utilizing electrical stimuli.
Therefore, for her to lose some of her five senses without receiving any physical damage meant either her mechanical body was broken beyond function, or her mind had been encroached upon by something.
‘This is all an illusion. I haven’t lost my senses, and I couldn’t have. So this… something has entered my mind.’
Her years of experience told her.
This place, filled with a darkness devoid of a single speck of light, was her mental world.
Was it because she realized this fact?
She was finally able to regain her lost vision.
‘Ah… I can see. Myself, standing alone in a space filled with darkness.’
It was a bizarre experience.
It felt as if she were swimming alone in an ocean of darkness.
As she stared up blankly, overwhelmed by the darkness, her ears suddenly twitched.
She had heard a strange sound.
*Srrk.*
It was the sound of a long cloak dragging on the floor.
She felt a presence slowly approaching from down a long corridor.
And she realized.
An uninvited guest had come to find her.
‘That… no! I must not face it!’
Just before meeting the uninvited guest, she instinctively judged that she must not confront it and hastily erected a wall in her mind.
As if to prove that this world of darkness was within her mind, a massive gray fortress wall rose before her at her will.
Behind the wall, which seemed as if it would never crumble or break, Yoana let out a sigh of relief.
Then, the uninvited guest knocked on the wall from the other side.
Knock, knock.
A polite, careful knock.
But she could tell.
She could sense the veiled malice hidden behind the courteous sound.
Like a small child trying not to look at the crack in a closet door left ajar in the middle of the night, she buried her head between her knees.
Knock, knock.
Strange. The knocking was so clear.
As if it were right beside her.
Knock, knock. Knock.
She didn’t want to hear it. And she wished for time to pass as quickly as possible.
Telling herself ‘this too shall pass,’ she tried to endure and ignore the moment, but then her body flinched.
At some point, the knocking had stopped.
Unable to bear the seemingly eternal silence, she cautiously raised her head.
It was out of a sliver of hope that the uninvited guest had given up and left.
However, that was her delusion.
In the center of the fortress wall.
Two eyes had appeared in the gap, open like the crack in a closet door, and they were staring at her.
Black pupils, and whites unpleasantly webbed with fine red veins.
Her mouth fell open, and she let out a silent scream.
‘No. That’s not Faceless!’
Like a diver trapped alone in the deep sea, Yoana struggled and thrashed about.
She did it to escape this abyss and get away from that thing.
In a time so long ago it felt more like antiquity than the past, more like primeval history than antiquity.
She had once been with Faceless.
That was why she knew.
This thing, which reeked of Faceless’s scent, was an entirely separate entity.
‘Those eyes look similar to Faceless’s at a glance… but no. They’re completely different. He was kind and warm, whereas that thing…’
It was viciously selfish and sinister.
Like a hungry ghost, an Agwi, that was never satisfied no matter how much it ate.
The black pupils contorted.
Only after seeing the crescent-moon shape of the eyes did she realize that it was smiling at her.
Then, the eyes vanished, and she woke up.
“Keoheok!”
Yoana coughed dryly again and again, as if she had been plunged to the bottom of a black body of water and then resurfaced.
Though it was impossible for her mechanical body to produce saliva, she retched repeatedly, as if trying to vomit everything inside her.
*Crackle.*
A faint spark flew from Yoana’s mechanical body.
A condition check with her scanning system revealed her body was a mess, as if a virus had infiltrated her systems.
Yoana activated her repair system and began to restore her condition.
Slumping down like a broken doll, Yoana muttered.
“I don’t know what that was… but the moment its malice reached me, I knew. That thing is still as weak and feeble as a newly hatched chick. So I have to catch it and kill it. Yes, before it… grows any stronger.”
The red eye in the center of her mechanical helmet flickered like a dying lightbulb.
***
The young butler spoke in a tone filled with regret.
“It is a shame. Had there been enough surplus energy, we could have killed her. Still, this has inflicted considerable damage, so she won’t have the strength to pursue you for the time being, my Lord. In exchange, however, we had to expend all of our reserved energy.”
Lee Si-woo moistened his mouth, which was as dry as desert sand, with his tongue.
But no saliva came.
His body’s moisture had evaporated, and his stamina had vanished as if he had run a marathon under the scorching sun.
It seemed to be the price for using Barathrum’s energy to exert influence on the outside world.
Yet, despite that, Lee Si-woo thrilled at the feeling that bloomed like a fever deep in his chest.
For a brief moment, he had felt it.
He had felt just how exhilarating it was to hold a worthless life in the palm of his hand and play with it like a toy.
“Butler, if there’s enough energy… can the me of this world go outside?”
The greed that tinged Lee Si-woo’s eyes was laid bare.
The Butler let out a faint chuckle, as if pleased by that desire, which could even be felt as sordid, before replying in a calm voice.
“No. It is possible to exert some influence as you just have, but you cannot leave. Absolutely not.”
As the Butler placed a particular emphasis on the word ‘absolutely,’ Lee Si-woo couldn’t hide his disappointment.
However, the Butler wasn’t finished.
“But is there really a need to leave?”
As Lee Si-woo’s curious gaze turned to him, the Butler spoke in a gentle tone.
“Through Barathrum, the Lord of the outside world will eventually grow to be as powerful as the Lord of this world.”
“Exactly the same… you mean?”
To Lee Si-woo’s question, the Butler answered with a meaningful nuance.
“Yes. After all, that is why Barathrum exists.”