A Name Long Forgotten
The fact that you still don���t know your guardian spirit’s name is ridiculous. The time limit… half a year should be more than enough.
“……Ah….”
“Of course, getting the answer directly from the guardian spirit himself is invalid. I’ll allow… up to one hint. Since you’ve spent so much time together, I doubt you’ll need many hints anyway.”
Raven lifted his gaze slightly.
Guardian Spirit ??? glares at Death.
“……My guardian spirit seems to hate this idea quite a lot.”
Even though he was clearly being crushed by Death’s aura and could barely lend his eyes, the fact that he still sent a message said everything.
From the very first time they met, the spirit had refused to tell him his name. He had simply insisted he was an ancestor and demanded to be called “hyung.” Every time Raven asked for his name, he would dodge the question by saying that a title was enough.
So this bet probably wasn’t welcome at all…….
“Since you’ve already accepted it, none of that matters now.”
“I suppose you’re right……”
He had already given his consent to the bet. At this point, the only option was to win.
Raven quietly watched the cold fingers that flicked his chest with index and middle finger, then let out a hollow laugh.
His vivid green eyes, which held no trace of life despite their brightness, sank with self-mockery.
“I forgot my own name ages ago, and now I’m supposed to learn someone else’s?”
“Someone else? Your guardian spirit would be hurt to hear that. Besides, it’s not exactly a losing bet. Aren’t you honestly curious? After all that time together, why hasn’t he told you his name even once?”
“……”
“Why he watches over you so devotedly, what his true identity is, what his purpose might be—you must have wondered at least once—”
“Enough with the provocation.”
It was true that he had questioned all of those things before and still did now, but he wasn’t about to let Death see him swayed so openly. More than anything, the guardian spirit—who had helped him so much—was far less of a threat than Death.
Above all, that wasn’t what he needed to focus on right now. Raven slowly closed his eyes and gave a vague affirmation.
“Half a year starting now. Got it.”
It was time to prepare to return to the surface.
Raven raised a hand and pressed hard against his throbbing eyes. The faint tremor of his fingers transmitted through the sensitive skin around them.
“Anything else?”
“Hm?”
“Is that all?”
……He had stayed inside the Gate far too long.
It felt like his eyes were burning away. No—his entire body felt like it was on fire. The searing pain that engulfed him made him unconsciously run a hand down his arm to check if his body was still intact.
A memory from some long-ago day crept in like smoke, an event that should have faded by now.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“……Who knows.”
As the phantom pain grew stronger and he clenched his fist, Death seemed to notice and let out a small chuckle, shifting into a more relaxed posture.
“There might have been more, or maybe not. I think I need a moment to think.”
“……”
……So this was payback for the little prank earlier.
The stress that had been quietly piling up surged into irritation for a brief second. Raven slowly opened his closed eyes and forced his emotions back down.
He couldn’t afford to lose control here, of all places.
“Really? Well, we can’t just waste time here for no reason…… Shall we talk about something else while I think?”
There was one topic he had meant to address before they parted anyway.
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since you mentioned the bet. Don’t you think calling it an ‘eternally undying life’ is a bit much?”
He had been utterly dumbfounded when he first heard those words.
“You attached every possible condition because you were afraid I might start craving life.”
Suddenly, the dream he had today came to mind.
Though the dream had ended quickly, Raven knew exactly how the events that followed had unfolded.
Contrary to the expectation that Death would dismiss a mere human’s ordinary wish, he had actually shown a positive reaction. That said, the contract itself had not gone smoothly.
“You want to extend your lifespan ‘until you finish your revenge’? What exactly counts as finishing your revenge?”
“Ah, I see. So even if you find your targets, you won’t die unless you kill them yourself. In other words, you’re asking for an indefinite extension. And the price is your soul after death… That means I can’t interfere until you choose to die, doesn’t it? How cunning and shameless. Like a fox.”
“I’ll add a condition. One that will make you want to finish your tasks as quickly as possible and beg for death. A condition so harsh you won’t be able to desire life at all.”
“Eventually, you’ll be the one begging me to let you die.”
After saying all that.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
It was only a hypothetical, but assuming he would simply waste away was just as ridiculous. Raven let out a bitter laugh at the absurdity and flicked his dagger.
“Shall I make this clear once and for all? If I say it now, you won’t bother me about the same topic for a while.”
“……”
“You see, I—”
Crunch.
The words were cut off.
Death looked down at the headless body with dry eyes, then raised his gaze to the monster now chewing on the severed head.
Grrrr.
A monster that had approached without a sound was happily gnawing on Raven’s head.
A brief, heavy silence fell.
“—I hate monsters.”
Stab.
Raven’s body moved, driving a dagger deep into the creature’s eye.
The head the monster had swallowed had already turned to powder, slipping through its body and reforming in its proper place. As if he had never died, Raven climbed onto the thrashing monster and pulled out another dagger. He drove it straight through the handle of the first blade, pushing it all the way into the brain.
“Kuaaaaaah!!”
A horrific shriek and violent convulsions followed. Sharp claws grazed Raven’s body dangerously close, but he paid them no mind.
His dry voice continued.
“I hate Gates even more.”
More than the monster currently chewing on his skull, he despised the Gates that had unleashed them onto the surface. If he added the grudge of having his eyes and part of his soul stolen and nearly being killed, the hatred doubled.
While hanging precariously from the dagger embedded in the monster with one hand, he groped at his waist with the other and drew yet another blade.
“But what I hate most of all is……”
Crunch. Stab! Squish!
“Myself.”
That was why he felt such revulsion toward the version of himself who had opened the Gate.
In the end, after circling back again and again, the final destination of all resentment was himself. Life was something only those who could love themselves could crave. Raven had lost that right long ago.
And the one who had driven that final nail in was none other than Death.
“So—”
After several more slashes, Raven pointed his dagger at Death while standing over the now-still monster corpse. Whether from pain or emotion, the tremor traveling through his hand made the tip of the blade quiver faintly.
“There is no chance I will ever crave life, so stop testing me. It really pisses me off.”
“……Well, I see.”
Death nodded.
Humans were easily swayed and shaken, so he had been slightly suspicious.
“I’m relieved your mind hasn’t changed.”
The world, which had already been turned upside down once and had only just found stability after a thousand long years, would not welcome further upheaval.
Therefore, Raven had to maintain this mindset. The moment he truly began to crave life, the world would be overturned once again.
As the one who had extended his lifespan, Death had a duty to watch over him.
‘From the looks of it, I probably won’t need to worry for a while.’
A faint smile appeared on Death’s face—barely visible, yet impossible to misinterpret.
It was the kind of smile that was difficult to take kindly. Raven frowned as if he had seen something unpleasant and ran a hand down his torn throat, tilting his head from side to side. The pain from when his head had been ripped off was still vivid.
At least it had pulled him out of the burning pain and the memories of the past. That was something.
He let out a sigh and waved his hand.
“I already died once because of you. Can’t you just leave now?”
Death’s aura was so overpowering that he hadn’t even noticed the monster approaching. If he had missed it, the guardian spirit should have protected him, but even he had been suppressed by Death’s presence and couldn’t react properly.
On the surface, filled with living beings who feared death precisely because they were alive, Death was an overwhelmingly absolute existence.
‘I need to close the Gate too.’
He had waited without destroying the core because he assumed Death had a reason for choosing to talk here, but even that had its limits.
The fact that he couldn’t leave the Gate open indefinitely, combined with the desire to leave this place even a second sooner, urged him to close it and depart. Raven lowered his exhausted, heavy gaze.
Fortunately, Death didn’t seem inclined to hold him any longer. He nodded and spoke.
“Then let me say one last thing.”
“What now……”
“That thing around your neck.”
Tap. Tap.
He tapped his own neck twice, then pointed at Raven’s.
“It has a refined name—‘choker.’ I told you it was an indispensable tool to bind your soul to your body.”
Death’s fingertip pointed precisely at the small red gem hanging in the center of the necklace.
Raven silently raised his hand and fiddled with the red gem.
……He had known that, of course. Symbolically and literally, it was attached to the neck—the bridge and midpoint connecting the brain and heart, the two most vital parts of a human body—to bind the soul to them. In the process of finding a suitable form that wouldn’t accidentally come off, it had naturally taken this shape.
The “dog collar” comment and the sarcasm had simply been petty spite.
“Holding a grudge, are we?”
Raven clicked his tongue softly and grabbed the Gate’s core.
He was just about to crush it when Death’s voice followed once more from behind.
“Ah, right.”
As if he had only just remembered, his tone was utterly light.
“Since you seem to be starting proper activity again, I suppose it’s time for me to assign you some more ‘errands.’”
“……”
“I’ll tell you the location of the soul you need to collect.”
……After hearing everything, Raven crushed the Gate’s core without a word.
Only after returning to the surface did he understand why Death had followed him all the way into the Abyss to talk.
“……Ha. What the hell is this.”
If they had tried to talk after leaving the Gate, they would have had to wait quite a while.
Or the conversation would have been interrupted midway.
“Why is there a person here……”
The moment he emerged, what caught his eye was a young man—no, a child—being chased by monsters.
“Altare, this is just out of curiosity.”
“……?”
“Why exactly do you want to kill your master?”
Ah.
The hand stroking the diary on his lap stopped.
After a moment, the first disciple of Raven continued gently running his fingers across the diary’s surface, the corners of his mouth lifting.
“Because he opened the era of the Gates.”
“……!”
The worst traitor in human history—the one who caused the Gate incident and ushered in the Gate Era.
That was his master.
“The me of the past was truly pathetic. How gullible must I have been to follow a man like that as my teacher?”
I lost everything because of the Gates.
Yet the contents of this diary were filled with affection for his master. Altare suppressed the curiosity about his teacher that kept rising and narrowed his eyes coldly.
The sentence written on the back of the diary floated into his mind.
To my future self who has lost his memories.
Do not torment Master.
You will surely regret it.
It was written in a familiar handwriting that was undoubtedly his own. Yet it contained content he had no memory of writing—strange and unfamiliar.
Why?
Why had his past self forgiven his enemy?
He couldn’t understand it. His eyes, filled with irritation and rage, gleamed with killing intent.
──The world on which humanity tread had no sun. Instead, three moons rose above it. Beneath that surface existed another side called the Abyss.
The number of passages between them was extremely small and existed only in specific locations, making free travel impossible. In a way, that was fortunate. The Abyss was home to dangerous monsters of every imaginable shape and form. Humanity had struggled just to block and eliminate the monsters that crossed over through those passages.
The one somewhat positive aspect was the wide range of uses for the mana stones harvested from the monsters.
They could be used as offerings for jusul, expensive ornaments, beautiful accessories, and even as an energy source to create convenient “portals” for travel.
The problem began with those very “portals.”
Some insane human had used a portal to connect the surface and the Abyss.
The monsters had poured out as if they had been waiting for this moment, plunging the defenseless human world into chaos. The surface was painted red with blood, and innocent homes were left as nothing but ruins with no survivors.
Worse still, the energy released from the portals seemed to resonate with the Abyss’s power—perhaps because the materials originally came from there—and began forming new portals on the surface that connected to the Abyss. Humanity distinguished these from regular portals by calling them Gates.
And the “insane human” who had opened the very first Gate……
‘He must be kept alive.’
Because of that incident, he had placed a single shackle upon himself.