The Contaminated Lord

When I opened my eyes, I was in darkness.

A darkness so absolute that I couldn't see an inch ahead.

So this is the belly of Jormungandr.

Fortunately, I wasn't dead. Being eaten, it seemed, did not mean instant death.

But I doubted this mad star — a star that had already consumed its own master — had any intention of keeping me alive.

Sssssssssss.

Something was moving in the dark. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it — something so vast and so long that its end was nowhere in sight.

That's the real Jormungandr.

This place was Jormungandr's domain. I had been transferred into the space where the true Jormungandr resided — and this was where it took its meals.

The serpent that swallowed the world. True to its name, true to its legend, it loomed before me in all its terrible glory. Standing before that monster, I was nothing more than a speck of dust.

—You…

Jormungandr spoke. And yet its voice was trembling — laced with something like panic.

—What are you? How do you carry the Poison of Ouroboros within your body?

The Poison of Ouroboros?

Ah. It must mean the poison Gracia had fed to Baal. Come to think of it, since Baal had fused with me, the Poison of Ouroboros could well have been stored somewhere in my body. And when this creature swallowed me whole, that poison had spread into Jormungandr itself.

—This is absurd…!

Kuuuuung.

As Jormungandr thrashed, the world around us began to collapse. Then the darkness peeled away.

"…Randolph?"

Isabella emerged from wherever she had been hiding, her eyes wide as a startled rabbit's. This was Isabella uncorrupted — Isabella in her right mind.

"Why have you come this far? Leave. Quickly!"

But instead of relief, Isabella began to grow angry.

"Why should I leave?"

"That is…"

"Give me a reason."

Isabella bit down hard on her lip.

"…The previous Desert Queen conducted experiments on children — myself included. Experiments involving a 'pollution source.' What they called the Sky Plague was, in truth, a summoning ritual."

"A summoning ritual?"

"When the continents rose into the sky, they came into contact with countless otherworlds that had already been destroyed by Ruin. The Sky Plague is a summoning rite by which beings still remaining in those otherworlds can cross over into this one."

Otherworlds destroyed by Ruin. So Earth's invasion wasn't the first time Ruin had set its sights on a world?

"The Desert Queen herself was originally a being from another world. She orchestrated all of this in order to summon the Demon Blood King from the world she once belonged to. Children of great talent — children of exceptional gift — are already 'open' to otherworlds, you see."

So that was why the pollution source appeared. Not the Sky Plague. Not the birth of a new species. It was a ritual to summon a being from a world that had brushed against this one.

"I had to stop the Desert Queen's experiments here. The only way was for me to accept the pollution source myself — to take in the Demon Blood King and die together with this city."

"You accepted the pollution source? Then where is it now?"

"…Did you not just defeat it on your way here?"

Ah. So that thing in the form of Jormungandr had been the pollution source. That was why Jormungandr had been moving of its own free will. And that also explained how Isabella had managed to keep her mind intact.

Isabella smiled bitterly.

"Randolph. Please leave. I… have nowhere left to return to anyway."

"Nowhere? I told you to come back to me."

"…"

"The time we agreed upon hasn't even passed yet. Or is it that you simply didn't want to return?"

"That's not it. I…"

"Then wait. I'll bring you back."

I slowly retraced the path I had come. There, the impossibly vast serpent lay collapsed, drained of strength. The pollution source had not yet been removed. And this place — real, yet not real — was a mental domain created by the star, Isabella's own spiritual realm.

I slowly opened my mouth.

Crunch!

And I ate it. The pollution source. Jormungandr.

Basrak Forest.

Every dryad in the woods turned their gaze at once toward the Divine Greenery.

Sssrrr!

Saaaaah!

The roots of the Divine Greenery trembled in fine, rapid shivers — as though the tree itself were screaming. The Divine Greenery had made the forest flourish and raised the level ceiling of the dryads, the forest's own people. But this kind of agitation was beyond anyone's understanding.

"The Divine Greenery has been acting strangely of late."

"High Dryad. It seems to have grown worse ever since that child arrived."

The High Dryad — guardian of the forest — looked at the child leaning against the Divine Greenery. A child of androgynous features, hair blazing like blue flame. The One Who Sings Nature's Song. Their brother had brought the child to the forest not long ago.

The child was of the forest folk as well, a member of their kind, so there was no reason not to welcome them. And yet…

That race is supposed to live among the elves.

By nature, the One Who Sings Nature's Song was a rare people who dwelled alongside the elves in the City of Divine Greenery. But that city was cut off from the outside world, and even a High Dryad had no means of contacting the elves who ruled it. Naturally, no one knew how to treat this race — and so the dryads kept their distance.

Our brother freed the child from human slavery, they said.

Randolph — brother of Basrak Forest. This was the child he had brought. The noble heart that had liberated a slave from human hands was enough to move even the High Dryad. And dryads could not ignore a request from their brother. Least of all him, the High Dryad.

"Child. Are you communing with the Divine Greenery?"

"…"

He had asked the same question dozens of times. But the child answered nothing, mute as a stone.

The High Dryad tried again.

"Not long before you came, every leaf of the Divine Greenery fell. They grew back anew, but we still cannot grasp the tree's will. Will you not tell me why the Divine Greenery behaves this way?"

"…Hurts."

For the first time since arriving in the forest, the child spoke. The High Dryad pricked up his ears and asked again.

"Hurts? The Divine Greenery, you mean?"

The child stroked the tree.

"The tree's master. Hurts."

"The master of the Divine Greenery… You mean Randolph?"

Nod!

The child nodded and pressed a face to the bark, as though listening to someone's heartbeat. The High Dryad tilted his head inwardly. It was true that his brother Randolph had planted the seed of the Divine Greenery. But he had never dreamed the tree would shift and change according to Randolph's condition — that Randolph was linked to the Divine Greenery itself.

Then when all the leaves fell not long ago…

Taken at face value, it meant he had nearly died. But the leaves had regrown in an instant — which meant he had weathered the crisis and, one way or another, survived.

The High Dryad's expression grew grave.

"Then is my brother — is Randolph — in danger now?"

If so, the problem was far worse. The Divine Greenery's present agitation was anything but ordinary. Not the leaves — the entire root system was shaking. And if Randolph were truly in peril… then the High Dryad and the whole forest would have to move to aid their brother, no matter the cost.

"Please, tell me. Who dares threaten our brother…!!"

His teeth ground together — at himself, for not knowing his brother had stood at death's door. But now that he knew, he would never let it pass. Forest's judgment would fall upon every soul involved.

I'll tear their limbs apart.

He would dice their entrails and cast them as feed for beasts, and hang what remained of their hides upon the trees to make them into Ents. As an Ent, one kept only consciousness — neither fully dead nor fully alive — and suffered for eternity. It was the cruelest punishment a dryad could inflict.

To the dryads of Basrak Forest, Randolph was more than a friend. He was a brother. Kin of their own blood. And could they forgive anyone who threatened and wounded their brother?

The High Dryad fixed his eyes on the child's mouth. Then the child of nature spoke.

"Stomachache. Ate something weird. Hurts."

"…?"

Gurgle!

Gurrrrgle!

My stomach churned like mad. Because I had eaten something I shouldn't have. Because I had swallowed something that should never have been swallowed.

"…!"

My gut felt ready to tear free of my body. Cold sweat poured down every inch of me. My mind swam, and I barely held back the urge to retch.

Chaos. My entire body was thrashing in rejection of the pollution source, writhing to force it out. If I simply spat it up, the pollution source couldn't harm me — but forcing myself to hold it down produced exactly these kinds of abnormalities. Even the omnivorous Glutton was refusing this, as if to say it absolutely could not be eaten.

Gurrrrrrr!

My stomach heaved like thunder. I clenched my fists and endured it. It felt like the worst case of food poisoning imaginable. Only after waging that war for what felt like an eternity did the messages change.

Fortunately, complete erosion had not taken hold. Even so, I was drenched in cold sweat.

—…Are you sacrificing yourself?

The great serpent, Jormungandr, had come to its senses and was looking at me. What I had eaten were only the polluted portions of Jormungandr. I had no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠intention of devouring the star whole. This was a star Isabella had won for herself, and outright plundering a healthy star was not something a Star's Successor should do.

Every class came with a concept. Fail to uphold that concept, and the character collapses. Besides, Jormungandr was a star I could not inherit. Named stars of that caliber sought out their own successors — the same principle by which this star had granted Isabella the Mysteries of Jormungandr.

—You… you must have seen it as well. My child awakened her memories together with me.

I knew. As I tore into Jormungandr's pollution source, memories had flowed in alongside it — the memories that had surfaced when Isabella transcended. Namely…

—Memories of you. Not Randolph — Park Hyunmyung. That child will never forgive the one who cast her into despair. The moment she learns the true identity you have hidden, the moment she sees your real face, she will shudder with betrayal. And still you would save her?

Just as I had synchronized memories from Jormungandr, Jormungandr could sift through the memories of mine that were connected to it. But a greater problem loomed beyond that.

…Isabella had recalled her memories of me. She had recognized my existence on Earth. She knew my face, and she hated the man who had ruined her life.

And the problem was that Isabella would not be the only one.

The characters I raised and left behind. Those characters, too, will recover every memory upon transcending.

Now I understood why the Death God Religion had characters that seemed like alts. Perhaps the Death God Religion was a collective formed from characters players had abandoned — characters that had transcended. That would explain the seething hatred they held for players. They could never forgive the players who had toyed with them and used them as playthings.

Honestly, I would feel the same.

If Isaac ever finds out… there is no worse scenario than that.

Isaac was the real problem. Of all the alts I had raised, Isaac was the one I had put through the most vicious acts — created from the start to test whether Pangenia's developers were monitoring the game. Isaac's notoriety was so extreme that he had rationalized every atrocity as his own doing, even though he likely couldn't properly remember what he had actually done. He seemed to know his deeds only from the things people said around him.

But if he learned that none of it had been his own will — that someone else had puppeteered him into those acts — what would that hatred and rage become? I could scarcely imagine it.

…I left behind hundreds of characters alone.

And it wasn't just Isabella and Isaac. Alts abandoned for every reason imaginable — hundreds of them. Many had been close to transcendence; some had already genuinely transcended. And every player had left countless alts in this world. Thousands upon tens of thousands of characters remained in Pangenia.

If all of them transcended and turned against us?

My head was spinning already.

…And it seemed the Death God Religion was seeking out such characters and forcing them to transcend through some special method.

Then Jormungandr spoke.

—However. If, knowing all of this, you still choose to save this child — then I shall keep silent. For your sake, and for my child's. I will ensure she never learns, from this day forward.

A promise to keep the secret. A vow to go on keeping it. Jormungandr, it turned out, was a reasonably sensible creature.

—But that pollution source is far too powerful. The Demon Blood King it will summon is a being of the highest caliber — even I could do no more than hold it in check. What do you intend to do now?

What did I intend?

I didn't have some special method either. Just this.

"I'll make it descend into my body."

I was simply doing what Isabella had meant to do.

—…Do you truly mean to die?

"We'll see who dies."

I gave a dry chuckle. It was all or nothing at this point. All I could do was hope my body proved sturdier than whatever this Demon Blood King was.

I tore open the space and stepped outside.

The Demon Blood King opened his eyes.

At last. The ritual has succeeded.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

His long effort to enter a new land — an otherworld — had finally borne fruit. It had been long. So very long. An uncountable gulf of eons, vast enough to make the mind reel, had at last been bridged.

For a being of his caliber to cross into another world required preparation of equal magnitude. His daughter, sent ahead, had completed every arrangement on the other side.

A new world. A new beginning. The final chance to make the Demon Blood Clan prosper once more.

Rebirth.

He meant to be reborn. He was too vast a presence to cross over as he was. He would become something like the origin of the Demon Blood Clan itself, and sow his seed far and wide across that world. He had already confirmed that certain otherworldly beings were doing the same.

Once the ritual was complete, he would devour the final "seed" and be born anew in that place — as a more perfect existence!

"It has begun."

The door opened. The door leading into the final pollution source — the heart of the ritual. Only one last step remained.

The Demon Blood King trembled faintly. Boundless rapture. Overwhelming emotion. His chest swelled as though he might take flight. Everything was prepared. From here, nothing difficult remained. He need ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only consume the prepared seed. He need only seize control of the body that held it.

The Demon Blood King slowly crossed the threshold.

Hm…?

…Something was wrong.