34. Summer Vacation (5)
In Aither World, there existed as many as three full moons, and whenever they periodically rose at full, mana swelled richly across the earth, to the point that it was even called “the Mages’ Day.”
The reason had long since been clarified through magic: it was because the Progenitor Mage had borrowed the power of mana from the starlight and moonlight in that sky.
“Tomorrow evening, Shalliemoon’s full moon will rise.”
Tomorrow, out of the three moons, Shalliemoon—the largest one, and the one that held the strongest power—would become full.
It was a little disappointing that all three moons would not become full like last time, but since three people were attempting to connect to the Constellatio Project, there should be no problem.
They had to arrive at the Moonlight Temple in Kalansar Gorge before the following evening, but that was not much of a problem.
The monsters along the way were at most around 3-Risk level, so they were no match for the girls at all.
Still, there was one slightly regrettable thing.
“Ahh~ the world really is wide~”
Stretching her body long, Flame walked barefoot along the pure white sandy beach of the Laplati Coast.
Because it was a completely deserted beach, there were only three girls on this vast stretch of coast.
“…If we wait a little, the ship that’s supposed to pick us up will come.”
When Flame played around by splashing water with her feet, Hong Biyeon frowned.
“There’s still some time left. Let’s enjoy a little breathing room.”
They had not come here to play.
All three of them loved the sea, so it was not as though they felt no regret at not being able to stay longer. There could hardly be anything as pleasant as plunging into an emerald-colored sea.
But none of them voiced any complaint.
They simply gazed quietly at the horizon.
“…Ah, right. Field study trips are supposed to have documentary evidence.”
Flame took something out of her bag and fiddled with it for a moment before making and setting up a tripod. Then she mounted a camera on top of it and called over Eizel and Hong Biyeon.
“Hey, hey, you two, quit standing there acting all pathetic and ridiculous and get over here.”
“Huh? What are you—”
“We don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
“You’re not even doing anything right now. You’re just standing there blankly striking a pose, aren’t you?”
“Come on, come on, c’mon!”
Flame forcibly dragged them over and stood them on either side of her.
With the blue sea at their backs.
As it happened, because they had needed to look like they were going on a trip right until just before departure, they were all dressed in light, flowing clothes as well.
It was enough for a commemorative photo.
“I know this isn’t what we came here for. Still, there’s nothing strange about leaving behind a photo, no matter where or when. These things all become memories. They’re life experience, so take it to heart.”
Though it was advice from Flame, who looked the youngest out of the three, there was somehow such weight in it that Eizel and Hong Biyeon could not bring themselves to brush it off as a joke.
“All right, then. I’m taking it?”
One, two, three!
—Click!
A burst of light.
A single memory that would be remembered forever.
Breaking through Kalansar Gorge itself was not all that difficult.
In fact, around twenty or thirty years ago, this place had been a famous treasure hunter hotspot, because on the day the “Moonlight Temple” was first discovered, a treasure of astronomical value had been revealed to the world.
It had soon been handed over to a museum, and there was a story that countless treasure hunters had torn through Kalansar Gorge hoping for a sudden fortune.
Of course, that too was an old story.
After that, no one was able to discover any treasure, and the Kalansar boom quickly died down.
But thanks to that, a perfect map had been drawn up, and Flame’s party was able to make their way through the gorge rather comfortably.
The three climbed the mountain without a word.
Each of them had been steadily training her basic physical strength, so climbing was not a problem.
The issue, rather, was the intelligent beasts that attacked them at intervals.
Just because they possessed only 3-Risk power did not mean they could be ignored. Creatures with intelligence often used tools to hunt stronger prey with weaker strength.
Just like their distant ancestors, who had hunted mammoths with nothing but stone spears.
Spending a night there was not a problem either. Princess or commoner girl alike, they each took three-hour shifts keeping watch, and they all slept in the same kind of sleeping bag.
And so the next evening came.
“We’re here.”
At last, the three girls were able to reach the Moonlight Temple.
The very temple that, thirty years ago, had drawn countless treasure hunters into Kalansar Gorge.
Wasn’t it said that the mysterious staff discovered there, “Enelina Moonlight,” had contained the power of moonlight?
But the temple itself was barren.
It was broad, about the size of a decent sports field, but it was nothing more than a ruin on the verge of collapse, and the only thing left standing was the altar at the end of those stairs.
“It’s there.”
Every time they stepped, stone dust pattered down, and after climbing the unstable, creaking stairs, the girls stood atop the altar and took their places in a triangular formation.
Eizel carefully raised both hands and sent the “Fragment of Constellatio” floating to the center.
Arain had already explained its usage to her thoroughly.
Mistakes would not be tolerated.
This was now the only fragment left in the world.
“Everyone, you’re ready, right?”
After confirming that Flame and Hong Biyeon had both nodded, Eizel drew in a large breath with a hardened expression.
Closing her eyes, she focused her mind on the Fragment of Constellatio, and slowly…
Slowly…
The sky began to spin rapidly.
It felt as though she were watching the stars in the night sky move at high speed through time-lapse photography.
It was an illusion.
The stars… are rotating in reverse?
The moment that thought struck her—
The three girls were walking through a boundless sea of starlight.
As Flame and Hong Biyeon blankly tried to step back, Eizel hurriedly gestured and ran toward the center.
The two, understanding the signal, came toward the middle and clasped each other’s hands.
“Is this… it? Did it work?”
“…Yes.”
Only then did conversation begin to go through properly.
Hong Biyeon turned her head and looked at the starlight filling this world.
To think that every single one of those lights was information recording the world’s data.
This is really… the Constellatio Project…?
There was no time to stand in awe.
Eizel hurriedly cried out into empty space.
“Show us the end of the world!”
Whoosh!
“Ugh!”
“Kh…!”
But as if refusing, the endless sea surged violently and produced a gigantic wave.
As though it were trying to swallow them whole and bury them beneath a tidal flood of information.
Hong Biyeon looked at Eizel with an expression that clearly asked what the hell was going on, and Eizel hurriedly shouted the same request she had made last time.
“Baek Yuseol…! Show us all of Baek Yuseol’s past!”
Thud.
Then, as if by miracle—
The tidal wave that looked ready to swallow the whole world sank heavily back to the ground.
…Boom!
A gigantic black dragon revealed itself.
A world that had already perished.
Red meteors filling the sky were pounding the dead land, and in their midst, a black dragon stood silently watching the ruined world.
“Th-this is…”
“Focus! That’s just a vision!”
As Flame seemed to sway heavily, Eizel shouted.
“…I know. I know that too, but…”
That thing.
What in the world is that?
That question rose in her mind.
There was no doubt that that scene was showing the end of the world.
But…
There had been nothing like that at all in the original romance-fantasy novel.
It should only have spoken of the Inner World’s encroachment, so why had a monster like that appeared?
She could not understand it at all.
“That person is…”
In the world where everyone had died, Hong Biyeon spotted someone.
A single man clad in armor that seemed to contain moonlight.
…It was the Baek Yuseol of the future.
Watching his back as he walked alone toward the black dragon, Eizel said,
“That… is the last scene I saw before.”
Back then, she had lacked the mana to see any further.
But now, it should be possible.
“More! Show us more of the past!”
What happened after that.
What in the world had taken place.
Fwaaaash…!
Heaven and earth flashed brightly.
And then, all at once, “countless worlds” spread out in every direction.
“Ah…?”
No one could open her mouth.
In the countless worlds wallpapering above and below, east, west, south, and north, “Baek Yuseol” existed in all of them.
Each one, a different version of Baek Yuseol.
In one place, Baek Yuseol sat quietly, resting.
In one place, Baek Yuseol died, impaled by a spear.
In one place, Baek Yuseol hunted a monstrous beast the size of a house.
Baek Yuseols from countless worlds.
But those were not parallel worlds or anything like that.
They were all… one single Baek Yuseol.
“Ah…”
Flame, having fully understood the situation, collapsed to the ground.
Look there, at that place.
Hadn’t Baek Yuseol just died after being skewered by a beast’s claws? And yet the next instant, he rose again somewhere else and moved forward.
Death.
And then, regression.
She knew it.
She knew that Baek Yuseol existed here after turning back time.
But…
There had been one thing she had never once considered.
Just how many times had Baek Yuseol regressed?
Naturally, she had assumed he had turned back time only once.
The curse of Silver Age November… was that kind of thing.
Even a single regression had erased his existence from the world.
But Baek Yuseol had regressed through time dozens, hundreds, thousands—
No, tens of thousands of times.
Dying, living again, challenging, being forgotten, dying, running once more, being forgotten, challenging again and again.
“This can’t be real, this…”
Eizel and Hong Biyeon too, watching Baek Yuseol’s endless deaths and endless challenges, could no longer maintain their sanity.
Covering her mouth with both hands, Eizel spoke in a trembling voice.
“How many…”
How many deaths…
has he gone through?
In the end, she could not force out the rest.
Flame stared blankly at a certain Baek Yuseol.
“Sleeping Giant’s Heart.”
There was a Baek Yuseol who had reached a place buried at the edge of the continent, hunted the guardian protecting it, and then stood at the summit with the sunset at his back, facing Green Forest April.
“Alamanka’s Deep Sea.”
There was a Baek Yuseol who had reached the legendary place that had sunk deep beneath the sea and was now said to be impossible to find, and finally came face to face with Red Summer June.
“Atlantes’ Whirlpool.”
A diameter of five kilometers.
The greatest whirlpool since the birth of the world had occurred there, but on that day, everything had frozen solid.
And there was a Baek Yuseol who stood alone atop the halted whirlpool, facing Blue Winter December.
“The Twelve Divine Moons…”
Flame too had known vaguely of their existence.
Even in the original romance-fantasy novel, the existence of the Twelve Divine Moons had been mentioned as legend.
Why was it?
Across other timelines, across other worldlines, Baek Yuseol had been desperately wandering in search of the Twelve Divine Moons.
Those beings now left behind only as legend…
He had found them, no matter what.
That was not the future.
It was a story of the past.
Why…?
Thump!
The instant she thought she felt a violent pain in her chest, the “countless worlds” all began folding shut.
The limit of the knowledge they were allowed to access had finally arrived.
“No!”
One by one, one by one.
As they all began disappearing beyond the starlight, Eizel desperately squeezed out every last drop of her mana.
The final question permitted to the girls.
“Tell us… no, tell us what we have to do in order to save Baek Yuseol… no, to save the world…!”
But whether the Star Archive had ignored her words or not, it did not stop and continued folding every world shut.
Did that mean no more knowledge would be permitted to them?
Just as she was thinking that—
One world still remained, not yet folded away.
It was the very first scene they had witnessed…
the moment at the end of the world’s destruction, where the black dragon and Baek Yuseol had faced each other.
“Huh…?”
But something was strange.
Unlike before, wasn’t the black dragon collapsed on the ground, bleeding?
He… hunted the black dragon…?
As the girls watched the impossible sight—of him hunting, alone, the very thing that had brought the world to ruin—Baek Yuseol suddenly turned his head, and their eyes met his.
A chill shot through them.
Standing atop the black dragon’s corpse, shaking blood from his moonlight sword, his gaze held not even the slightest trace of emotion, and for an instant it nearly stopped their hearts.
That was…
the 모습 of Baek Yuseol who had reached the very end of the very end.
After tens of thousands of regressions, having lost even all his emotions, he stared blankly into empty space.
Instinctively,
the girls followed Baek Yuseol’s gaze and looked around.
A mountain of corpses, a sea of blood.
The dead had piled into mountains, the flowing blood had formed rivers, every civilization humanity had built over thousands of years had been annihilated, and even the three moons that formed the source of the world had fallen to the earth.
…Then suddenly,
Baek Yuseol’s figure disappeared.
The reason…
they felt as though they did not need to say it aloud to know it.
At the end of tens of thousands of regressions, he had killed the black dragon, but nothing remained.
This life is a failure.
So he would turn back time again.
Thinking that, he had gone off somewhere to repeat the world once more.
“Ah…”
Eizel let out a long breath, as though utterly drained.
He had worked so hard, and yet nothing remained.
Perhaps, in this world, all of us had already died.
Baek Yuseol did not want that.
For him, memories and recollections had already become like a tightly tangled skein of thread, and yet even so, he continued onward without abandoning his convictions.
For a more perfect world, toward an ending where everyone could survive, without stopping even now.
He would keep running.
— Read only on MugenCodex —
Whoooosh…!
The wind blew.
…A world where nothing remained.
A world where even the disaster that had brought about the world’s destruction had been hunted down, and even the one who had done it had abandoned it and gone away.
Just as the question arose of why they were still being shown this place, twelve constellations, bright enough to blind the eyes, stretched out from the black dragon’s corpse and vanished into the sky above.
“Wh-what…?!”
“Constellations…!”
What in the world were those, that this had been shown to them?
Before they could obtain an answer, even that final ruined world melted away beyond the boundless sea of starlight.
Immediately after—
…Thud!
All three girls lost consciousness and collapsed.
