“Th—Then.”
Gulp.
Oh Dok Seo swallowed her saliva.
“Leviathan or Hecate or whoever. Were they originally your comrades too? They were all humans once, but ended up like that…”
—Ah. I do not rember.
“…What?”
On the laptop screen, the white-haired girl lifted the corners of her mouth in sixteen-bit resolution.
The amplitude of emotion that could be expressed with a single pixel was about that much.
—Literally, I have no mories regarding them. No faint nostalgia, nor hostility. Even such emotions have been worn away.
“…You an you’ve completely lost your mories?”
—Who knows. From the beginning, the very fact that I beca “personified” like this was nothing more than coincidence.
Bzzzt—
The sound imitating a human voice was crackling on the surface of the speaker.
—Perhaps, yes. They might have been comrades who once ran across the world with . Perhaps they might even be predecessors to your predecessors. How would I know?
“……”
—Had I not been given a human form, it would have been impossible even to imagine that I, too, had once been an Awakened. Well, even now, to call human like you all would be flawed in many ways. A trace of humanity. A sort of epilogue, shall we say.
“You, All-Encompassing Play…”
—Oh Dok Seo.
All-Encompassing Play’s eyes blinked.
For , it was difficult to read emotions from that expression and voice. But perhaps for the partner who had journeyed together with her countless tis, it was different — Oh Dok Seo’s shoulders trembled.
—I am not talking to you right now. At this mont, you are the one who presents the choices, not the protagonist who selects among them.
“……”
—What will you do? My master.
Eyes with faint traces of emotion turned toward .
—Perhaps you and your companions, unlike us, might succeed. Yes. After all, even if fate repeats itself, how many tis has there been a trinity of reincarnator, regressor, and possessor acting as a single squadron?
“……”
—If it is all of you, perhaps…
You might be different. No — you are confident you can make it different.
If not you, then who could sever this chain of evil karma?
—Who knows? Whether you will be able to avoid corruption forever.
“……”
I cald my pounding heart with a deep breath.
“There’s no use trying to tempt . If it were before I realized the truth, maybe. But now that I know, there’s no way I’ll make the sa choice as you.”
—Oh my? Did you only half-listen? You and I are different. My master is far superior to . Surely you don’t think soone as inferior as I would share the sa end?
“Yes.”
The screen flickered.
The laptop’s resolution was still terribly low, but even so, I could tell that the being on the other side was flustered.
—Pardon?
“When I think back, there were so many foreshadowings. Even Go Yuri, who was greater than I, could not stop her own corruption.”
—……
“Not only Go Yuri. The Saintess… and Yeji. Both greater than I. Yet both fell faster than anyone else.”
—That was before you had forged enough bonds, was it not?
The voice that escaped from All-Encompassing Play was buried under noise, but its core did not waver.
Like a deteriorated music file that still carries a trace of lody.
—You have built the most unshakable pyramid of bonds and relationships. If one of you were alone, it might be different. But if the seven chosen by my Priestess stand together, there will never again be collapse.
A laugh slipped out of unconsciously.
Perhaps taking it as mockery, her expression twisted slightly.
“All-Encompassing Play. You’re always such a fool.”
—What do you an by that?
“Noh Doha, the Commander, isn’t here.”
—……
“Right. Now I understand why Commander Noh Doha flatly refused the proposal to beco Humanity’s Sentinel. She’s a truly wise and cruel woman.”
As for her deeply twisted psyche, I could talk for six or eight hours straight, but since I’d already devoted quite a bit of text to it before, I left it out.
“You might endure longer than anyone. Maybe longer than anyone ever has. Enduring has beco as habitual to you as breathing.”
But, I said—
“In the end, it will still repeat soday.”
—Ha. So you’re saying you’ll all give up the power of Awakening?
All-Encompassing Play burst into laughter.
—Shall I be frank? I’m in perfect agreent with my Priestess. You all have already pierced through the impregnable miracle. And now you would entrust the recreation of that miracle to your descendants? Do you truly believe such a miracle will repeat twice, three tis, eternally? Absurd romanticism. Negligence disguised as faith.
I was sorry to say, but—
The truth was, I wasn’t even listening to her fervent speech. It was a logic I had already predicted and rehearsed in my mind countless tis. There was no need to dwell on it.
Yes. At that mont, my thoughts weren’t with All-Encompassing Play—
but with an entirely different being.
“Enter through the narrow gate.”
Mo Gwang-seo.
“The gate that leads to destruction is wide and the road broad, and many enter through it.”
“But the gate that leads to life is small and the road narrow, and few find it.”
“Scribe.”
“Enter through the narrow gate.”
Until now, the words that Mo Gwang-seo had left behind — neither prophecy nor re will — had been a mystery to .
What kind of situation had he foreseen that made him speak of a ‘great gate’ and a ‘narrow gate’?
Each ti I pondered it, my interpretation had changed.
“No… perhaps he had intentionally left the prophecy broad so it could be interpreted differently depending on circumstance.”
The enigmatic being who had borrowed Mo Gwang-seo’s body.
“If he, too, like All-Encompassing Play now, had been soone who failed in a previous generation…”
Then even as his humanity was erased, if he had left that final testant to those who would co after—
“Then perhaps the aning of that ‘narrow gate’ he spoke of… might have finally arrived here.”
Perhaps it was at this very mont.
Once more, I left All-Encompassing Play and Oh Dok Seo behind, recalling like a mirage the choice that had brushed across my mind.
[1. Remain as Awakened and defend humanity.]
[2. Abandon Awakening and return to being human.]
A choice.
One led to destruction’s great gate.
The other to the back door of life.
“Ah-ha.”
And I laughed.
All-Encompassing Play flinched.
—…What does that laugh an?
“I think all the hero parties before us never once chose [Option 2]. Always. Without fail, they must have chosen [Option 1], repeating salvation and destruction from the beginning.”
Then the problem beca simple.
“We will be the first to choose [Option 2].”
—……
All-Encompassing Play bit her lip.
—And if, decades or centuries later, the Void descends again? What if tragedy repeats itself, regardless of your choice? Then humanity will have no one like you. They’ll have to fight the horrors defenseless, without even reincarnators or regressors! Why? Because you abandoned your responsibility, my master!
The speaker trembled violently.
—By then, you’ll all likely be comfortably asleep in your graves, wrapped in your cheap self-satisfaction. But the future generations will still have to live! You fled to death, leaving the truth of your choice unproven!
“Well. I can see quite clearly how our final choice will prove itself.”
—Prove…? How?
The answer was very simple.
“Didn’t we make a promise, even with you?”
—A promise?
“The surrender contract. Even though it stripped you of all the powers of a Forgotten God, there were a few things you were still allowed.”
—……?
The promises written in that surrender were as follows:
――――――――――
† The Regressor, the Undertaker, permits [the Operator of All-Encompassing Play] to retain her ego and mory without being caught in the regress of ti.
† The laptop provided by [the Operator of All-Encompassing Play], and the manuscripts written upon it by the Priestess Oh Dok Seo, shall be acknowledged as an ‘Ark’—a vessel preserving its own singularity, untouched by the waves of ti.
――――――――――
“Do you rember?”
To my question, All-Encompassing Play replied hesitantly.
—Of course… of course I do.
A covenant that could not be forgotten.
A vow carved upon the chalkboard of a classroom dyed by the sunset.
Naturally, if I were to abandon the powers of Awakening, those words would one day fade from my mind.
The sealed graveyard of the elder twin, Cheon Hwa, would vanish along with it, the very place where that vow had been made weathered away into dust.
Even so—
—To , that covenant is not re letters. It is a curse. A chain. If my soul were a blank sheet, the vow with you would be the one inscription engraved upon it.
There were mories that could not be erased.
The true power humans invented to seal ti was not my crystal gravestone, but the black-and-white manuscript carved from language.
A prayer offered to the world.
An Ark sailing against the torrent of ti.
“All-Encompassing Play.”
I stroked the fra of the laptop.
“Leave behind this story.”
—…Pardon?
“Let them see — that I, that the Reader, that we, upon reaching the final choice, at last stepped through not the great gate but the narrow one.”
—……
“And if, perhaps, we had chosen the great gate instead, becoming Awakened once more… then tell those who may have one day fallen, the people of this world and the next, which choice we made.”
—……
“Who knows what kind of world those people will be living in when they read this story. Will it be, like before, a world defiled and destroyed by the poison of the Void?”
If so, then our choice was wrong.
Our faith had failed. We were reckless.
The one who had achieved the miracle should have beco Humanity’s Sentinel, an eternal guardian ensuring no tragedy ever returned.
Please—
May you be more capable than we were.
“But if. Truly if.”
—……
“……”
All-Encompassing Play and Oh Dok Seo held their breath, watching .
The moonlight, the streetlamps, even the nightbirds that had forgotten how to photosynthesize yet still cried toward the stars—
“If, when soone reads the story you pass down—if in that world, the Void no longer exists; if the laws of physics still remain laws; if the universe still remains a universe—”
—……
“If, when one looks up at the night sky, it no longer curses humanity.”
“When crossing at a junction beneath a streetlight, the red signal simply ans ‘stop,’ not a command to replace your footsteps with red blood.”
“If song is still song.”
“If the sound of falling rain is not the cry of so transparent insect, but truly the sound of sumr rain.”
“When you eat a delicious al at a restaurant, it is not human flesh or anything else—just truly, simply, good food.”
“When you love soone, you don’t need to wonder whether they’re human or a monster.”
“If the knocking sound that brushed against my door just now was yours.”
“If this world no longer hates humanity.”
“If you can still call the world beautiful.”
“Then that will be proof that our choice was right.”
—……
Every ti soone reads this story—
Each ti they turn the plain white and black pages without the curses of the night sky or the lant of raindrops—
Again and again, the [Narrow Gate] chosen upon this abandoned school rooftop will be proven true.
“You said you wanted to see my ending.”
—……
“Yes. I want to entrust that role to you. Will you keep watching, forever?”
The laptop screen crackled.
“Our rights and wrongs. The aftermath of the choice we made here and now. I’d be grateful if you kept watching it all.”
Silence fell.
—…Writers.
Hair, faded and weathered.
A body barely rendered in a few colors.
A voice unable to contain all emotion.
Existing only within the screen.
—Writers are ant to speak little.
The Forgotten God—
A small, lonely god spoke.
—Undertaker. You have spoken too much. Oh Dok Seo, you too. No matter how much you change your outward guise as ‘editor’ or whatever, you cannot deny that you both spoke too much.
—In the field asking for the na of the author of this story, neither “Undertaker” nor “Oh Dok Seo” can be written.
The one who was destined always to lose to the protagonist spoke.
—Therefore, yes, my master.
She who watches to the end—
—Gladly, I shall inscribe my own na into the Ark that holds your story.
“……”
—But using my real na, All-Encompassing Play, would be unfitting. That should be reserved only for the one who reached ‘Proof’ at last, here upon this abandoned school rooftop.
She who leads the Ark.
—After the na of the one who built the very first Ark in myth—Noah.
She, a god always lower than man and weaker than you.
—But if I use only the sound of “Noah,” my other na would be too easily guessed. So I shall cover it with a camouflage hue—by placing the word God before it.
She who exists only as an epithet—
—God-Noah.
—Upon the Ark that holds your story, every ti its first page turns, my pen na, God-Noah, shall be inscribed as the watchman.
On the screen—
The white hair lted away. The lted colors beca manuscript pages.
The outline that barely held her human shape collapsed. The collapsing silhouette beca letters.
—I promise you.
—I will be watching you.
—Now, here, until the day I disappear.
And then—
My, our, and her—
oldest journey began.
—He who was once a Regressor.
The End.
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