Chapter 142
Translator: uly
Chapter: 142
Chapter Title: Narcissus Dungeon (2)
[Heavenly Demon. You must not fight.]
Nameless, arms raised high, hopped frantically to intervene.
[No matter what, he is our benefactor who helped us. How could we repay kindness with enmity?]
“Hasn’t this seat already shown ample mercy?”
At that moment, the young man glanced down at his palm and nodded.
“Impressive power.”
The young man’s palm, which had blocked the Thunderclap Human Annihilation, was cracked like a spiderweb.
He shook off his hand and looked at the Heavenly Demon, speaking flatly.
“You seem like someone working in a high-grade territory. Head back for today.”
Seeing the young man spit out informal speech at every turn, the Heavenly Demon burst into laughter instead.
“A mere fledgling dares to speak informally to this seat.”
“This body belongs to the Black Blood Clan.”
Black Blood Clan.
They were known as belligerent yokai who not only possessed extraordinarily long lifespans but also wielded a power similar to the S-grade gravity manipulation skill ‘Graviton’.
“And I’ve passed a hundred years old this year.”
“Young indeed.”
“What did you say?”
As the young man’s eyes widened, the Heavenly Demon crossed his arms and declared.
“This seat is the Heavenly Demon.”
The young man wore a puzzled expression.
Confidence blazed fiercely in the Heavenly Demon’s eyes. It was the superiority of one who held the paramount status in the martial world.
‘He’s no ordinary human, then.’
Realizing the Heavenly Demon was no common figure, the young man spoke bitterly.
“I’d appreciate it if you yielded today.”
“Yielded?”
“It’s not a difficult request.”
Sorrow and worry filled the young man’s eyes.
Nameless, who had been carefully observing him, ventured cautiously.
[The rumors said that looking into the pond shows only good memories… Were they false?]
The young man shook his head.
“No, it shows them clearly and well.”
[Is that so? Then why does your expression look so grim?]
As the young man fell silent, Nameless scratched its head.
[Ah, sorry. I asked something unnecessary.]
Even as it apologized, Nameless didn’t stop talking.
[Truth be told, the reason I held my ground wasn’t just to verify the rumors with my own eyes… Your eyes looked so melancholic that I worried you might be harboring dark thoughts.]
What a chatty and affable tone from a machine.
A soft chuckle escaped the young man’s lips, who had remained expressionless amid Nameless’s meddling.
“Humans act like machines, while the machine seems more human.”
[Hahaha. Is that right?]
As Nameless joked around, the young man gave a wry smile.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t come here to do something foolish like suicide.”
[Then, may I take a peek into the pond?]
“That won’t do.”
[I’ll just look for a moment. Ten seconds—no, five seconds? Wouldn’t that be okay?]
The young man let out a sigh before shaking his head.
“This pond reveals one person’s memories only once a day. If someone else looks into it, I can’t see anything for the rest of the day.”
Nameless blinked its eye sensors.
Such a rule existed for the pond in this Narcissus Palace?
“Today is the anniversary of my lover’s death. For thirty years, without missing a single day, I’ve come to this pond on her anniversary and spent the entire day commemorating her. But if someone else uses the pond midway, I have to leave just like that.”
[Th-thirty years?]
Nameless trailed off, speechless.
It turned out this Black Blood Clan yokai had been coming to the Narcissus Palace for a long time, performing this ritual to honor his lover.
[…I see.]
With such circumstances, it couldn’t insist on looking into the pond.
As Nameless turned to leave, the Heavenly Demon suddenly interjected.
“You’re doing something pointless.”
“What?”
“Staring into this pond every year won’t bring the dead back. You’ve lived a hundred years—haven’t you grasped even that truth?”
At the Heavenly Demon’s sneering words, sparks seemed to fly from the young man’s eyes.
[Hea-Heavenly Demon.]
Startled, Nameless tried to restrain him.
[Honoring the departed soul of one who left first—isn’t that an age-old tradition?]
“There’s no issue with honoring a soul. The problem is that fool’s pointless obsession.”
[What do you mean?]
The Heavenly Demon pointed at the pond.
“He said he comes here every year for a whopping thirty years to relive memories. That’s not honoring the departed. It’s merely being haunted by their ghost.”
Nameless felt as if its circuits were overheating.
It knew the Heavenly Demon had unconventional thinking and worldview, and wasn’t one to empathize with others’ emotions.
But to pick a fight with a yokai who had shown them kindness, intentionally?
“Haunted by a ghost?”
The young man trembled as the Heavenly Demon nodded.
“Whether good memories or bad, they fade naturally with time. That’s the law of nature.”
“There are things that never fade, no matter a lifetime!”
“Of course. There are memories that don’t fade even after a lifetime.”
The Heavenly Demon bared his teeth in a grin.
“But deliberately coming to this pond is just forcing yourself to revive memories that had naturally faded.”
Strange words.
The young man’s face stiffened instantly.
Truth be told, he visited the pond every year on her anniversary—and stared into it all day—to recall his lover’s memories that he had forgotten, just as the Heavenly Demon said.
Because as time passed, her face and memories gradually slipped away.
“How did you know?”
The Heavenly Demon scoffed at the young man’s question.
“No matter how good the memory, there’s no need to chew it over for thirty years.”
“…….”
After a moment of silence, the young man bowed his head.
His eyes, fixed on the ground as if reminiscing, grew dim and melancholic.
[If it’s all right, could we hear your story?]
Nameless cautiously stepped forward once more.
Ever since the previous dalgona incident, Nameless had learned one thing from the Heavenly Demon: that deep-seated knots in a human heart could be unraveled through words.
“My lover was human.”
The young man, head still lowered, took a deep breath and spoke.
“I loved her with all my heart. I swore I’d never part from her until death, and that we’d meet again in the next life.”
He clenched his fists tightly, murmuring low.
“But she didn’t live to a ripe old age and passed young. And as time went on, my memories of her slowly grew faint.”
He took another deep breath and continued.
“They faded more and more, until one day I even forgot her face. I wondered if it was because of the long life granted to me as a yokai that I could no longer remember her.”
“So that’s why you came to the pond every year.”
At the Heavenly Demon’s question, the young man gave a bitter smile.
“Because coming here brings back every memory we shared.”
“What a foolish thing to do.”
The Heavenly Demon snorted coldly.
“Forgetting is a gift from heaven. Rejecting it is what plunged you into suffering.”
“A gift? Losing even good memories is a gift?”
The young man scanned the Heavenly Demon up and down, his eyes filled with hatred.
“What does a territory worker like you know, blathering on? Other people’s lives must seem trivial. The world probably looks nothing but beautiful and happy to you?”
He ground his teeth and shouted.
“How dare a human drowning in happiness lecture me!”
“Uhahaha!”
The Heavenly Demon suddenly erupted in wild laughter.
“The most amusing nonsense I’ve heard lately.”
He stopped laughing abruptly and turned to Nameless.
“You said looking into this pond shows the most beautiful memory of one’s life.”
[Y-Yes.]
“What if two people look?”
[What do you mean?]
“I mean, can another person see the memories of the one gazing into the pond?”
Nameless pondered briefly, then its eye sensors flashed as it replied.
[I’m not certain, but according to rumors, yes. If you gaze into the pond side by side, you can share the memories of the first one looking.]
Nodding, the Heavenly Demon fixed his blood-red eyes on the young man.
“Do you have the courage to look into the pond?”
“What?”
“Behold. This seat’s memories.”
Without waiting for a reply, the Heavenly Demon strode toward the pond.
“No. I need to see it today!”
Desperate, the young man spread his arms wide and poured all his power.
The moment he tried to warp gravity and make the Heavenly Demon’s body hundreds of times heavier,
Pang!
Crimson light burst from the Heavenly Demon’s body, repelling the force. It was the Heavenly Demon’s supreme ability.
“Impossible.”
He had hidden such power until now?
As the young man gasped in shock at the Heavenly Demon’s unexpected might,
Saaak.
The pond’s surface, smooth as clear glass, began to ripple as the Heavenly Demon gazed into it.
Chalang chalang.
The waves grew fiercer, suddenly turning into a transparent screen that projected various scenes.
They were all memories from the Heavenly Demon’s past.
“Th-this is…….”
The young man gaped at the scenes unfolding on the surface.
[Heavenly Demon.]
Kiriririk.
Standing beside the young man and gazing into the pond, Nameless’s head emitted successive mechanical whirs, its eye sensors flickering repeatedly.
[Why, why…….]
Nameless could no longer look at the surface and turned its head away.
Beautiful memories?
How could anyone call such things beautiful?
The memories rising on the pond were a life of indescribable misery and devastation.
Abandoned namelessly.
Beaten mercilessly by beggar gangs while begging.
When starving, scavenging filth from dirty waterways or chewing bugs.
The most luxurious meal in the world was scavenging a field mouse half-eaten by a cat.
These were… the Heavenly Demon’s happiest and most beautiful memories in life.
Chwaaak.
The screen on the surface shifted, finally showing the Heavenly Demon ascending to the throne of the supreme martial artist under heaven.
Having surpassed the absolute limits of humanity, was the life of the transcendent grandmaster beautiful?
No, it was not.
Loneliness. Folded within it, more loneliness, more solitude……
At the pinnacle of all under heaven, the Heavenly Demon felt the ultimate anguish and isolation humanity could know.
“Ugh.”
The young man squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look any longer.
Those were supposed to be good memories?
For an ordinary person, it would be torment enough to end one’s life.
Relentless, without a single breath of ease, as solitary as being adrift in a vast ocean.
Yet because he never gave up and persevered, it was, in a way, heartbreakingly beautiful.
“I’m sorry.”
Having watched the memories on the pond, the young man bowed politely to the Heavenly Demon.
“I sincerely apologize.”
Only then did he realize how great and extraordinary the human standing before him was.
Taking a deep breath, the young man glanced at the pond.
His own memories no longer appeared there. But as if resolving something, he nodded.
“I’m ashamed, so I’ll take my leave first.”
He slowly vanished into the forest where the exit lay.
A stifling silence hung over the Narcissus Palace pond for a moment.
-Forgetting is a gift from nature.
Nameless finally understood those words.
The Heavenly Demon remembered even the most unbearable pains of life as joys.
Then, the painful and grueling memories the Heavenly Demon held must have been diligently erased by the gift of forgetting.
[Forgetting truly is a gift from the gods.]
Nameless murmured in a desolate voice.
The pain humans feel and the endurance they can bear differ for each.
Some can laugh even when stabbed with a sword; others feel pain worse than death from a mere needle prick.
No one but oneself can judge the weight of one’s own suffering.
But seeing the Heavenly Demon’s memories, Nameless realized how blessed most humans lived.
[Without forgetting, humans could only live in suffering.]
The Heavenly Demon, standing impassively, turned his gaze from the pond.
“Humans seem to live remembering much, but in truth, they live forgetting much.”
Looking back on the past, all sorts of events come to mind. Yet one can’t even recall what was eaten for dinner ten days ago.
A human life isn’t filled with memories; it’s filled with forgetting.
Pondering the Heavenly Demon’s words, Nameless smiled and said.
[But you never forget a kindness shown to you, Heavenly Demon.]
Only after the young man expressed his gratitude and departed did Nameless realize why.
The Heavenly Demon, utterly indifferent to others, had intervened in the young man’s life.
Because he had halted the crisis for them in that moment.
“Opportunities to show kindness to this seat are exceedingly rare.”
The Heavenly Demon wore a faint smile, uncharacteristic of him.
The Heavenly Demon, who had mastered supreme martial arts ruling the world and amassed every honor and wealth achievable by man.
For someone to help him was rarer than plucking stars from the sky.
[I see. Even by chance, helping you must be less likely than winning the lottery.]
At Nameless’s words, the Heavenly Demon turned toward the exit and spoke solemnly.
“Even a sip of water’s kindness is repaid by digging a well—that is this seat.”
[What a fine set of values.]
Perched on his shoulder, Nameless chattered boisterously.
Soon, the Heavenly Demon’s shadow too vanished into the forest toward the exit.
But then.
Chalang. Sarararak.
Behind the departing Heavenly Demon’s back, ripples stirred once more in the pond.
There appeared the Heavenly Demon eating tteokbokki with Nameless in the marketplace.