The World Created by the Constellation (10) EP.26
In any fantasy tale—game, movie, or comic—there always seems to be some meddlesome obstacle standing between the heroes and their destination. Dungeon monsters, golem gatekeepers guarding the boss room, that sort of thing. But the secret passage we were crawling through had none of those threatening hindrances.
Instead—
-Squeak!
“Eep…!”
A tiny mouse brushed past her side, and a startled Han Gamin clapped both hands over her mouth.
“They called it a secret passage… This is just the castle’s ventilation system.”
We were currently crawling single-file through a duct barely wide enough for one person.
“Hehe!”
Lorang burst into a mischievous giggle, clearly having the time of his life.
The “secret passage” the boy had bragged about turned out to be the castle’s air vents. I had adapted to the Tower so quickly that I’d forgotten the child in front of me was, by Korean standards, elementary-school age—a total kid.
“It’s so cramped…”
Lorang and the petite Han Gamin seemed fine, but as full-grown men, Namgung Cheonho and I were suffering. While I crawled after Lorang, I took every chance to study the castle interior. The view was limited to fleeting glimpses of corridors, so pinpointing our location was difficult, but I still gathered useful data on how many soldiers were moving and where.
“We must capture them all.”
“Understood.”
“The prime suspects have fled the castle. Do not let any of the others escape.”
“Yes!!!”
The conversation of soldiers passing directly beneath us drifted upward. It was far from welcome news.
“What exactly is going on?”
“Honestly, I’m so confused I can barely think straight.”
Park Jocheol and Seo Seyeong. Their rooms had been right next to each other, so the moment the brainwashing lifted they had stepped out and found one another. Sensing the soldiers’ movements were anything but normal, the pair began gathering people. Fortunately, with many already rescued, they were now all holding their breath together inside a quiet, out-of-the-way room.
“It looks like the mission parameters have changed… but why?”
“This came out of nowhere.”
At someone’s remark, Seo Seyeong calmly reviewed the updated mission. The original objective—simply “find the path to the second floor”—had been replaced with “annihilate the enemy.”
Enemy Annihilation
📍 Objective: Eliminate all hostiles
🎁 Reward: ???
In truth, her memories after arriving here were hazy. She remembered meeting people and holding conversations, yet the details felt blurred, as if someone had spilled black ink across the record.
“Maybe… Siin did something?”
“Siin?”
“He’s always like that, isn’t he?”
At Park Jocheol’s words, Seo Seyeong gave a small nod and a soft hum of agreement. It might be strange for anyone else, but if it was Kim Siin, it made perfect sense. This was the man who had spoken rudely to a Helper, drawn the gaze of multiple Constellations, and accomplished impossible feats in the tutorial. Causing yet another incident was hardly surprising.
Still, why would he alter the mission?
“No way……”
A thought flashed through Seo Seyeong’s mind and a quiet groan slipped from her lips.
The reason the mission had changed.
“Could he be trying to solve everything alone again… just to protect the rest of us?”
“…What?”
“You all remember the original mission briefing, right?”
The others nodded. No one could have forgotten it. The instructions had been so vague—nothing but “find the path to the second floor”—that everything had felt like a riddle. Pure bewilderment.
But what if Kim Siin had solved that riddle by himself? What if, in the process, he had discovered some kind of error?
“The original reward was definitely listed as ‘???’ wasn’t it?”
“That’s what I remember.”
Someone spoke cautiously, yet the implication hit like a bomb.
“What if the reward was… ascending to the second floor alone?”
“……!”
The group looked as if they had been slapped across the face.
“N-no way?”
“Still… can anyone really be that selfless…”
Doubt colored their voices. But Park Jocheol’s next words scattered those suspicions.
“No. He really is that kind of person.”
“……?”
“Do you remember the beginning of the tutorial, when the monsters first appeared?”
“Of course…”
Shoulders flinched at the memory. The terror of that day was still branded into their bodies, triggering instinctive reactions.
“In that situation, would any of you have charged straight at the monsters to save someone else?”
“……Excuse me? That’s insane. How could anyone—”
“Siin did.”
Eyes widened. Faces filled with shock.
A sense of justice. Everyone possessed some degree of it—basic morality, a conscience. Barring true psychopaths, human beings could generally tell right from wrong.
But that only held in ordinary circumstances. When one’s own life was on the line, helping others became an entirely different matter. They all knew how hard it was.
“Incredible. Even when he sent us down into the underground passage and chose to sacrifice himself, I suspected he wasn’t ordinary, but…”
“His character is worthy of being called a sage… Doesn’t the Bible say something similar? ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”
The people who didn’t know the full truth about Kim Siin began speculating wildly, their imaginations running free. The misunderstanding snowballed, feeding on itself.
“Maybe when he ran all the way up to the twentieth floor of that building alone, it was for our sake too?”
It wasn’t.
“Th-that makes sense. He was covered in blood and still jumped down to the elevator.”
That’s not what happened.
“As expected… He really is amazing. Going that far for other people…”
He had simply done it because he needed to survive.
The group, mistaking the current crisis for another selfless act by Kim Siin, grew more and more fervent. When the heat reached its peak—
“We should help him somehow.”
“Right! We can’t keep being dead weight forever!”
One person’s resolute declaration sparked the rest. They rose to their feet one by one.
Determination. Resolve. Youthful, romantic fire blazed in their eyes.
“The soldiers are moving so frantically—they must be searching for Siin. He’s the one closest to clearing the first floor of the Tower, after all.”
“While we were relaxing and doing nothing, he’s been carrying out the mission all by himself in silence…”
The group showered praise on Kim Siin’s courage.
And then—
“Let’s draw the soldiers’ attention! We’ll buy him enough time to finish the mission perfectly!”
“Yes! This time we’ll show them what we’re made of!”
The very people who had been hiding in a corner waiting for the mission to end were now fired up by nothing more than a single baseless assumption. A miraculous misunderstanding.
“Here!”
When we finally reached the end of the palace corridor and dropped out of the vent, the first thing we did was stretch.
“My whole body is killing me…”
“I thought my shoulders were going to pop out.”
The ventilation ducts had been narrow. They were well-maintained, but we had still run into a rat, and because they were carved from stone rather than modern metal, our elbows were raw. Yet the worst part was—
“Just how many floors did we crawl up, exactly?”
The slanted angles that constantly tormented us had been brutal. Even during my military days doing individual movement drills in mountains and hills, I couldn’t remember ever crawling this harshly. The exhaustion ran bone-deep.
“Let’s move.”
Still, we had a job to do. No matter how large the castle was, it was still an enclosed space. The others would eventually be discovered by the soldiers. The ideal solution would have been for the group to realize the soldiers were weaker than expected and seize the castle together… but without any motivation for them to unite, I wasn’t going to count on it.
“Ahjussi… I think there’s someone up ahead.”
Han Gamin’s whisper came from behind me.
Straight ahead—right at the entrance to the magician’s laboratory. Standing in front of the door that looked exactly as it had in the illusion was a familiar silhouette.
“Are you the ones who assassinated His Majesty?”
A rough, masculine voice rang down the corridor. A knight in full plate armor glared at me.
“Von Gregory…”
“Silence! How dare a mere assassin utter the glorious name bestowed upon me by His Majesty!”
It was the same knight who had escorted me to the castle and sparred with me in the training grounds.
“It wasn’t us.”
“Nonsense! If not you, then who would commit such treason?”
At his fury, Han Gamin shouted back, clearly irritated.
“How should we know? And after you put that weird brainwashing magic on us and tried to control us however you wanted, now you’re calling us murderers?!”
“I will hear no more! A knight’s only duty is to cut down his lord’s enemies! I have nothing further to say to you regicides!”
Shing!
Von drew his sword. Rage had completely overtaken his features; he looked ready to charge at any second. Since we needed to get through that door regardless, if words failed, combat was inevitable.
I drew the sword at my waist—the blade that had faced monsters and slain zombies. The crude edge of the Ownerless Nameless Sword flashed in the moonlight.
“Stay behind me.”
I pulled Han Gamin back and placed her safely behind me. Seeing this, the knight Von Gregory gave a short nod, placed his free hand over his heart, and declared in a solemn voice:
It was the final courtesy a knight named Von could offer.