The Immortal's Shadow
I couldn't make sense of it. Immortal Koschei. Real name unknown. A Russian super soldier and the very first of his kind. The man who had performed his own superhuman modification and gone on to dominate battlefields across Russia. That title had undoubtedly belonged to someone from my world.
He had slaughtered Japan's super soldiers, killed Captain Gu Sihyeok of Korea's superhuman forces, and even wiped out Britain's and America's. He was the monster I had barely managed to defeat in a fight so brutal I still remembered thinking I might lose. A creature who wielded white lightning at will, who refused to die even when he should have been long dead, and who turned the tables to slaughter his enemies instead.
Yet I had killed him with my own hands. I had stormed a South Korean government bunker, seized their equipment, and fought him at the height of his power. I had blown his head off multiple times, pierced and shattered him with Astrape, stripped every inch of flesh from his bones, and burned what remained until not even a fragment was left. Even after he stopped regenerating, I had doused him in napalm and kept burning until the last handful of ash scattered to nothing.
That was why I had been certain. Immortal Koschei was no longer immortal. This time, he was truly dead.
But the information now before me left me utterly powerless.
Leader of the extremist faction of the Church of Darkness. Its master, its boss, its bishop. Immortal Koschei.
Even after the exhausted Vertea had fallen asleep, I could not erase the thought from my mind. Could it be a coincidence of names? Like how Alice had seen me and assumed I was merely some fool inside the labyrinth using my name without knowing its weight?
…No. That couldn't be it.
The Koschei in my memories was not the same as the one in Vertea’s. And yet his appearance and abilities were exactly as I remembered. Therefore, it was no coincidence. It was the same Koschei.
That realization drove me even closer to madness. I couldn't understand any of it. Nothing fit together. Had he truly gained true immortality to match his title? And what in the world was he doing inside this labyrinth? How, and why, had he become the leader of the Church of Darkness's extremist faction?
I simply couldn't tell.
He had always been that kind of bastard. The kind you could never figure out. When the frustration became too much, I let out a long sigh.
Then I felt a hand gently stroking my face. The touch was soft. Familiarly, almost painfully soft.
Given the place and circumstances, I couldn't truly rest, but I could at least turn off my micro-current and allow myself a shallow sleep. I exhaled, letting my overheated mind cool down.
“Jinwoo. Wake up.”
Kiyara had returned. When I rose from Sera’s arms, I saw that Kiyara looked somewhat tired.
“You’re back, mister.”
Her usual bright energy was noticeably absent.
“I’d like to ask about the situation, but… since Uncle Remy let it happen, I assume there’s no danger. I won’t press you. I’m tired too.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re companions, after all. Anyway, I found traces of Pon.”
Vertea still hadn’t woken. Remy clearly didn’t like the idea of Sera carrying her, but Kiyara paid it no mind, and I trusted Sera completely.
“This way.”
We soon reached a place littered with corpses. They appeared to be human. If Kiyara hadn’t nudged one over with her toe, I would have assumed they were simply dead people. But this was clearly something else.
“…What is this?”
“An insectoid. You don’t know them?”
“I don’t. This is the first time I’ve seen one.”
Insectoid. One of the races living in the Guro District. I had only known that they practiced cannibalism. When I first heard about them, I had pictured something like bipedal insects… but they were very different.
Insectoids had the general shape of ordinary humans, yet they also possessed insectoid body parts.
“They’re usually disgusting creatures. They treat humans, beastkin, halflings, dwarves, elves—everything—as both prey and livestock. They mostly gather on the western side of the Karnevarin mountain range.”
“They look exactly like people. Except they can partially expose insectoid bodies and are far stronger than humans.”
So they could hide it. I examined the insectoids, noting their split abdomens, burst heads, and severed necks where swords had cut clean through.
“This is Pon’s work.”
The slashes and stab wounds could only have been made by Pon’s blade. I recalled the scar that had remained on Pon’s neck. These were undoubtedly beings resurrected from within Pon’s memories. And unlike me, Pon seemed to share a clear, hostile relationship with the entities from his past.
Kiyara said, “Pon came from the western side of the Karnevarin mountain range. He was livestock for the insectoids.”
Karnevarin. The name of the enormous mountain range that surrounded the area where this labyrinth existed. Once the heart of a thriving dwarven empire.
“There was a tribe even further west from a place called Starfall Castle. Pon was apparently a real noble. He was too young to fully understand it at the time, though.”
“A noble.”
“Yes, a proper one. But the insectoids attacked. His birth parents were killed, and he, his retainers, and all his relatives were turned into livestock.”
It was impossible to imagine how that must have felt. To know you would be eaten. To be torn from your previous life and reduced to nothing but food.
It was something I couldn’t even empathize with.
“I don’t know how Pon escaped and reached the labyrinth. He wasn’t in any state to explain, anyway. But considering the nature of this place…”
Pon would be beyond these traces. And just as I expected, he was.
We passed through areas splattered and torn apart, places where ambushes and frontal clashes had left pools of dried blood. The further we went, the stronger the feeling that we were getting closer.
And that was how we found him.
Pon stood there, breathing hard with exhaustion, clutching the head of an insectoid whose throat had been pierced by a sword. His trembling eyes met ours, then stared blankly at the insectoid before he yanked the blade free. When the creature’s hand reached out to grab the boy, Pon kicked it away with pure hatred radiating from every motion.
He really loathes them.
“Pon.”
Perhaps because they were close in age, Pon first looked at Kiyara as if checking on her safety. Then his gaze moved to Alice.
[Is Alice okay?]
“You don’t need to rest?”
“If you’re tired, we can take a break.”
[No need. Let’s go.]
The boy had good stamina. Or perhaps it was sheer willpower. Despite Kiyara and Remy’s concern, Pon joined us, and the five of us continued walking. Vertea remained unconscious on Sera’s back, but no one questioned it. We all understood the nature of the Transmigration Labyrinth too well. The fact that their rear mystic was still alive was fortunate enough.
We had been walking for quite some time when my micro-current picked up something. A tingling sensation. As if my micro-current itself was being distorted.
I frowned, raised a hand to stop the group, and slipped into a bathroom with sickly yellow wallpaper and a damp floor. The others gave me questioning looks, but I had a suspicion.
If Alice were to remember me—especially a hostile version of me—it could be quite dangerous.
Sure enough, beyond the tangle of my micro-current, I faintly sensed a silhouette.
“Wait, please—!”
A gunshot like an explosion. The roar of a double-barreled shotgun. Then the sound of blood splattering and, disgustingly, chunks of flesh hitting the ground.
The owner of that shotgun was wearing the same gear I had once worn. An exoskeleton, an Astrape launcher mounted on his back in a position where it could be drawn forward instantly, a custom rifle designed to fire multiple barrels simultaneously via an electric trigger, a shield and hyper-alloy greatsword for close combat, and the shotgun itself.
It was Ha Jinwoo from someone’s memory. More precisely, Ha Jinwoo at the peak of his rampage across battlefields. The version of me who had carried out a massive purge and slaughtered most of the South Korean military’s generals.
I held my breath and felt that version of myself move on without detecting me through his micro-current. It was worth the blessing that had enhanced my own micro-current. I couldn’t win against that right now. Equipment or not, I was simply outmatched.
Only after that version of Ha Jinwoo’s micro-current had moved completely beyond the range where it could sense us did I step back out.
“…Let’s go. Preferably in a direction that avoids detection.”
There were clearly many questions. About the owner of that gunshot, that roar, those servo motor sounds. But there was no time to explain. If that version of me changed his mind and came back to check, I would have to consider using the kill switch, turning into lightning, and even Astrape. After expending that much, would I even be able to escape? I couldn’t guarantee it. So we had to remain undetected. Combat was only an option, never a necessity.
I led the group forward with extreme caution. Before long, the office space had transformed into a lavish government building. It resembled the Blue House, the National Assembly, and a luxury hotel all at once. Corpses lay scattered throughout the strange corridors.
“…By the gods, what is this…?”
“Kiyara, stay quiet.”
This was proof that someone was thinking of me with pure malice. The security personnel had been torn apart and killed, and the bodies showed signs of merciless overkill. If Alice had encountered something like this, I couldn’t guarantee her survival.
I suppressed my anxiety and kept moving, creating hiding spots whenever my micro-current field detected something approaching. Fortunately, my senses were superior. We slipped through the “Ha Jinwoo” zone without being noticed and reached the next area.
This zone was a dead end. A bedroom.
A blonde woman with a deathly pale face lay on the bed. Standing before her was a woman with the exact same appearance. They looked like twins, yet something was different. Their eyes. The one dying had eyes that shone far more vividly.
“…Alice.”
At the sound of her name, the android lowered her head. No tears came. She didn’t have that function. Even so, she looked solemn. She expressed sorrow in the best way she could. Downcast gaze, tightly clasped hands, a faintly trembling voice. Even if it was fabricated, she clearly believed with all her heart that it was genuine.
Then, could the fake and the real truly be distinguished?
I took a step closer.
“…Ah.”
The human Alice lying in the bed looked up at me.
“Ha Jinwoo?”
The android Alice flinched and stared at me in shock. No sound came from her, and while her mouth moved silently, the human Alice on the bed asked,
“Why… are you here?”
My current attire was inappropriate. It looked too casual. It would have been better if I had been wearing a formal uniform. But I didn’t have one, so there was nothing I could do.
Standing beside the android Alice, I said,
“The South Korean government wishes to take custody of ELAF-173108 following Alice’s passing.”
“Why…?”
“As the war drags on, a new plan to colonize space has emerged. ELAF-173108, with its exceptional sensitivity, learning ability, and compatibility, has been selected as the top candidate.”
Alice stared at me with dazed eyes. Her heart was slowing, her muscles were failing. With all the neurotransmitters her brain could produce now fading, her life hung by a thread.
I knew she was a fake. But mourning had always been for the living.
“If Alice agrees, we would like to recruit ELAF-173108 as South Korea’s first android astronaut under the name ALICE for the Korea Aerospace Agency… Would that be acceptable?”
I saw hope bloom in the dying Alice’s eyes. The girl who had dreamed of going to space. The household android who had wanted to become a singer. The girl who had entrusted her unfulfilled dreams to her.
She looked at the android Alice.
“…What do you want to do?”
She didn’t push her dream or give an order. She simply used the last of her strength to squeeze the hand she held and asked.
“I want to. More than anything.”
“Then… can I leave it to you?”
The android Alice held that hand tightly and nodded.
“…So, sleep well, Alice.”
There was no more strength in the hand she held. The heart had stopped. No more neural signals. The muscles went slack, and the shining eyes above that pale face slowly dimmed.
The hand that resembled a doll gently closed those eyes and carefully placed the now-lifeless hand back onto the bed.
“…Shall we go?”
The same face. The same eyes. Yet an android standing there with a different soul rubbed at the corners of her eyes and smiled.
“Every labyrinth has a ruler. Even the Transmigration Labyrinth.”
“A ruler. Do you have any guesses?”
“It’s usually the strongest being within that transmigration labyrinth, or the one who has been there the longest.”
“Specifically, how do we find them?”
We had all gathered in what could be considered the only truly safe zone—Alice’s bedroom. She continued,
“We just need to follow the strongest memory.”
The strongest memory. My gaze instinctively flicked to Sera for a moment, but I quickly realized that wasn’t it. Here, “strength” was intuitive. If it had been language, the meaning might have differed, but thanks to the death of the god of language, the meaning came through clearly. It wasn’t about precision of implementation. It was about raw power. The most powerful existence.
Sera’s abilities and strength had been implemented with precision, but that was simply because the total volume of her memories was different.
In that case.
I looked outside Alice’s bedroom, toward the hotel-like area. The zone where micro-currents flickered past and the periodic roar of a double-barreled shotgun could be heard. The ruler of this labyrinth was there.
Someone who knew me—Ha Jinwoo—was there.