Taeguk Fragment (2)
“Hey, how about you get up already? Sleeping in just because it's vacation will totally wreck your rhythm, you know?”
A soft, gentle voice laced thick with mischief that couldn't be hidden. Am I seriously chilling here dreaming away in a situation like this? I sneered at my own laid-back attitude and opened my eyes. Sorry, but it's not the time to be dreaming. Gotta face reality head-on.
And the first thing that jumped into my opened eyes was Kiru's face.
...Why?
“Huh, what? Am I still dreaming? Is there really a dream this vivid in the world?”
“Ahahaha! You like me so much you're even drawing me in your dreams? I'm flattered, but this is solid reality, you know? Time to wake up.”
I pinched my cheek, and the sharp pain felt all too real. No matter how I looked at it, perfect reality. What the hell? Did that mean touching the Taeguk Fragment was the dream?
“Nah, that's not it. You two definitely made it to my hometown. Whoa, seriously, I'm shocked. Just how much do you know? At first I thought you had some separate intel source or something~, but you keep pulling off these insane feats... Are you some kind of prophet or what?”
“...Right now, it's not about me. It's about you. How the hell did you get here? I was clearly with Yujin...”
Only then did I realize Yujin was missing. Where was he?
“Oh, don't worry. He's still sleeping over there.”
“Eut!”
First things first, I had to check on Yujin. Breathing? Heartbeat? Any issues anywhere on his body? After a full check, the verdict was he was just deeply asleep. Thank god. If something had happened to him, the protagonist of this world dying would've meant no future at all.
“...What're you staring at him with those shady eyes for?”
“Huh? Nah, nothing. Just, y'know, in situations like this, you give the male lead mouth-to-mouth to save him, right? Wondering if I could catch a glimpse.”
“Don't talk bullshit, idiot!”
Not even drowning, and you're on about CPR? Trying to steer this in a weird direction, you bitch?
“Hey, forget that—explain how you ended up here first!”
“Mm, seems like there's a misunderstanding, so let me correct it. I'm not the Ganwang you mentioned, not Kiru's main body. Think of me as a terminal fragment of her qi—a tiny shard, basically?”
“...No way.”
“Yup, that no way.”
During last comprehensive training, the qi fragment Kiru had forced onto Yujin was still breathing inside him? And it just happened to stick around during the qi-emptying process?
“No 'just happened.' It was inevitable. Yujin nearly perfectly digested and absorbed the qi from the Palwang main body. A bit more time, and I wouldn't even exist?”
So it got digested by Yujin but not fully erased—just the perfect timing. What a ridiculous coincidence.
“Thanks to entering Taeguk, my hometown, in that state, I regained my ego! Well, it's just talk for now, though. Anyway, explanation on my existence done? Now, back to you?”
Kiru—or her clone—twisted her lips upward, but her eyes weren't smiling at all as she asked me.
“What the hell are you, exactly? How much do you know, and from where?”
“......”
“Are you even a human from this world to begin with?”
“Haa.”
Couldn't be helped. In front of Kiru—who thought she had me cornered with her smug look—I drew my sword.
“...Huh? W-What're you doing?”
“Murder extermination.”
Impressive insight for a Palwang fragment. She even considered I might not be from this world. So that's why you feel the need to eliminate me ASAP.
“You're not even the real Palwang deal—just some lowly offshoot, right? Easy to kill, then.”
“Eek, w-wait a sec. How can a person be so barbaric? Normal folks can't decide that fast, right? You're still a first-year cadet.”
“Ah, ex-crime syndicate.”
Strictly speaking, it was the body's original owner, Joo Hyowon, but whatever. It sucked having to slice up a character I liked from the original story... but it wasn't the real body anyway?
“Dieeeeeeee!!!”
“Kyaaaaah!! Wait, wait, wait! Hold on! Who does that?!”
*
Even with my trained lung capacity, time passed until I was gasping. I had to admit it: with my current power, I couldn't take this bitch down.
“Tch, you won't die no matter how much I cut. Annoying as hell.”
“Auuugh, I don't die or vanish, but the pain's real, so quit it! Seriously, ever tried murdering someone?”
“Even without a body, you feel pain, huh?”
“It's the soul that remembers pain! Soulless humans like you suck at this!”
As I raised my sword again to shut her noisy trap, Yujin's groan came.
Finally awake!
“Yujin! You okay? How's your body? Anything weird?”
“Uuum, y-yeah, I'm fine. Where are we? Uh, so...”
He frowned, piecing together recent events with fuzzy memory. Then his eyes flashed toward me.
“Hyowon! Y-You okay? That qi dump...”
“I'm fine. See? Perfectly alive.”
“Good, relieved then. ...Um, not sure myself, but where the hell is this place?”
Yujin craned his neck upward. No sky above. No ceiling either. Downward? No ground. No floor. A void without up or down. And we stood in it.
“...Kinda like logging into a game, character loads but background's lagging.”
“That's your take? Felt like being in space to me.”
True, no stars made space weird. Bizarrely, no light source, yet perfect visibility. No footing, but jumping fine. No air, but breathing easy. Game world analogy fit.
“Hmm, game world, huh. Neat metaphor. Kinda deflates describing humanity's nemesis birthplace, especially the lame part—love it.”
“Huh? Y-You...”
Question marks popped on Yujin's face. Even I, knowing Kiru's truth, was confused at first sight; for him, it'd be worse.
Kiru bowed like a theater actor greeting, right hand to chest, formal.
Her real identity, no fake name.
“Hi. Introduced myself as Kiru before. Bit late, but properly: I'm your enemy, one of the Palwang, Ganwang's fallen fragment—and that fragment's sub-fragment clinging to you. Nice to meet ya.”
His short reply to that long intro: “Huh?”
What else to say to a classmate's bombshell after half a year together?
*
Explaining Kiru as Palwang remnant to Yujin took time. Linking grand foe to classmate ain't easy—or dangerous if it is.
Thought of hiding it, but nah. No other reason for her here.
“So... Kiru was actually Ganwang, thought dead? ...For real?”
“Kinda different from that Ganwang, but successor—daughter? Kids are parent's clones anyway.”
“...And you knew all along, Hyowon. ...What're you really?”
“Don't dig into a lady's past.”
Shivered at my own words. “Lady” slipping out naturally now. Gotta stay sharp or this body's femininity'll swallow me. Not yet, though.
“Mm, still fuzzy, but... I'll accept it. Kiru's Palwang. This her hometown. Saying it confuses me more, but whatever.”
“Ahaha! Quick on uptake—nice! So, wanna curse humanity's foe right here? I'm ready, go easy.”
To her taunting nudge, Yujin replied unflinchingly.
“If you harm humanity, I'll fight.”
“...You two are nuts. Never met weirder humans. Others make sense eventually; you two? No clue. Why'd you pair up? Weird attracts weird? Couples resemble, huh.”
I chopped Kiru's head for the nonsense.
“Who're the couple? Don't fantasize, idiot!”
“Ow, violence tsundere's out of fashion lately.”
Whatever. Don't need that popularity crap; not even tsundere.
“So why're we here? Looks empty.”
Kiru answered Yujin's question.
“Not empty. Everything's here, just chaotically mixed, looks absent. We can create anything here.”
To prove, she reached out. We realized we weren't on nothingness—but a mountaintop.
“Wh-What? How?”
“No biggie. Pre-world chaos state. Anything possible.”
I tried too. Spawned endless light and darkness in my palm, blended, painted the sky. The void sky turned starry cosmos.
Pretty stylish, right?
“Yujin, your turn.”
“Me? No special aura or anything.”
“Doesn't matter. You got Creation. Visualize strong image, manifest it.”
Kiru made land, I sky. Impossible in real world. But here, in fresh realm, anything imaginable becomes real.
Taeguk Fragment: even outside, soul-etched experience stays. Game terms: soul power-leveling dungeon.
“Strongest image in my head?”
Yujin tilted head, focused power, drew image. From his palm's direction, a statue rose.
My nude statue.
“......”
“......”
“...Sorry, can I explain real quick?”
“Perverted bastard.”