episode_0145

The Prophet of the End.

An old man bearing the karma of the world.

The dean looked at the boy in front of him, along with a cooling teacup.

Across the table sat a blonde with a brazen smile.

He had suddenly barged in during work hours, claiming to have business, and had taken the most inconvenient seat in his line of sight.

An unexpected private audience.

“Ahem.”

He had come to have a conversation.

But this time, he didn’t speak, just fiddled with his teacup.

Smiling meaningfully each time their eyes met.

“……”

He was waiting for the other to speak first.

The old man sighed softly. He was used to that cunning way of speaking.

In truth.

Though this was only his second proper conversation with the boy, the dean reacted as if he were already accustomed to it.

No. Perhaps he truly was accustomed to it.

For him, the present was merely a fragment cut from the future.

The old man eventually decided to humor the young man’s conversation for a while.

“I heard about this matter.”

A voice that began lightly.

A few sentences that recalled the previous topic and its aftermath.

The dean recalled a memory from a few days ago and spoke.

“Selena… that child has noticeably improved,”

“Did you speak with her separately?”

“I briefly stopped by her sickroom. How could a teacher be indifferent when their only disciple is bedridden?”

“Then that’s good. I thought your relationship had been awkward all this time.”

“Indeed. We had a deep conversation after a long time.”

A brief recollection.

The old man remembered his disciple lying in the sickbed.

The atmosphere had completely changed in just a few days.

Her eyes, which had always seemed devoid of emotion, softened, and tears welled up in her red pupils.

The unexpected downpour of tears streamed down her pale cheeks all day.

While tightly clutching the old man’s wrinkled hand.

-I’m sorry, Teacher-nim…

Her weeping echoed in his ears.

Gaston muttered, recalling the warmth that still lingered on his fingertips.

“It had been a long time.”

Nearly ten years.

It had been so long since Selena had expressed such intense emotions that the memory was now fading.

When he came to his senses, several new wrinkles had appeared on the old man’s forehead.

His mouth tasted bitter from the unbidden old memories.

-You… have talent.

-From today, call me Teacher.

Just for a moment.

He remembered the moment he took in the young girl.

The old man rinsed his mouth with lukewarm black tea.

“I suddenly found myself reminiscing. Of the time when Lianne was still alive.”

“……”

“It was a time when nothing had yet gone wrong.”

Lianne.

The atmosphere grew heavy when her name was mentioned.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

If one were to ask why they suddenly fell silent, it was because of the question the boy was about to ask, and because the old man already knew the content of that question.

The boy nonchalantly sipped his tea.

“There was always one part I didn’t understand.”

Clink.

He set the cup down.

“Why did you take her in?”

“……”

The reason.

The boy was asking about the reason.

Their gazes calmly intersected.

‘Selena.’

The boy knew a part of the future.

At the same time, he also knew that the old man before him was a prophet.

Thus, he couldn’t help but have questions.

Why did he take in a child who would become the seed of disaster?

Why did he merely watch as her younger sister was manipulated by the cult’s schemes?

Why couldn’t he protect the two of them?

The brief question contained countless ‘whys’.

The old man silently fondled the cup resting on his fingertips.

‘A reason, you say.’

Well.

There were two answers to the question.

One.

The old man could not oppose the will of the world.

As the boy in front of him also knew.

For his ability came with the condition, ‘one must not interfere with the story.’

This did not simply mean doing nothing.

It was closer to the process of fully executing the script and role given by the world.

If he had foreseen a future A, the old man had no choice to go to B or C, nor to not go at all.

He merely moved according to the script A, which the world had designated.

‘Puppet.’

The old man called himself that.

For he was an existence living according to a given script.

Taking in Selena was also in the same context.

Whether she half-destroyed the academy as a traitor, or repented and lived as the boy’s assistant.

In any future, the woman was a central figure in the story.

Gaston had no choice but to bring Selena in.

And the second was.

‘Juda Snakers.’

Because the boy existed.

Long before he met Selena, the old man knew she would be saved.

That’s why he had searched through all the slums of the empire to find her.

-Teacher-nim.

A life conforming to fate.

However, that did not mean the loss of emotion.

Selena was the old man’s only disciple and family.

How could he not love her?

The old man had always wished for her salvation.

From the serpent.

“……”

Though there was no way to convey it to others.

Gaston had followed the best course of action available to him.

Clink-.

The old man tilted his teacup in silence.

Had he been lost in thought for quite some time?

The liquid that touched his lips had already grown cold.

The boy opposite him furrowed his brow, then soon averted his gaze as if giving up.

He relaxed the cool atmosphere and leaned back in his seat.

He spoke briefly.

“Well… I wasn’t expecting an answer.”

Simply.

The boy merely needed someone to confide in, as if talking to himself.

Or rather, a kind of complaint.

“It’s hard to talk about these kinds of things. It just so happened that you came to mind as a suitable person, so I came.”

A story about the future.

It was a topic difficult to confide in or explain to others.

In that sense, the old man was a fitting subject for his soliloquy.

Because he was someone who, like the boy, knew the future of the world, and wouldn’t be flustered by any nonsense.

If a silent listener was the role he needed, the old man was willing to accommodate.

Since it wasn’t a particularly difficult role.

“If you feel like it, let’s have tea sometimes.”

“That’s unexpected. I thought you’d be disgusted by such trivial conversations.”

“When you think about it, aren’t we in a relationship of a disciple’s disciple, or a teacher’s teacher?”

Furthermore.

In some futures, they were also friends.

The old man swallowed the words that followed.

“…Therefore, I have no intention of treating you coldly.”

“Those are welcoming words.”

“However, I’m concerned that I’m not eloquent. I hope you understand that I can’t answer many questions.”

“Oh dear… that might indeed be a minus factor.”

A soft laugh.

The boy shrugged, as if to say that was enough.

He then set the teacup he was holding down on the table.

Perhaps he had a next appointment.

The boy soon got up from his seat.

“I’ll be going now.”

“Do so.”

“See you next time.”

“If there is a next time, that is.”

“Of course.”

A faint smile.

The boy turned his back with a brief smile.

The old man followed the receding figure with his eyes for a moment.

Soon, the dean’s office door closed, and the serpent completely disappeared.

“……”

The space was once again left empty.

Gaston idly fiddled with his left hand, which was covered by a glove.

Beyond the feel of the leather, nothing existed.

Last time. While leaving a prophecy to the boy, he had forced out a few extra words and paid the price.

His hand, shattered into a handful of ashes, could not be restored by magic or divine power.

It was a kind of warning.

‘Damn it.’

The world declared.

It meant not to overstep his bounds.

The role given to the old man was not that of a prophet, but an observer.

Fate cannot be changed without a terrible price.

‘Not yet.’

Foresight.

The old man’s ability transcended providence.

For it was fundamentally different from what astrologers typically performed.

To such an extreme degree that it became a problem.

For example, like this.

The old man knew everything.

From the fact that the boy would visit today, to what conversation would take place between them.

Even after entering the dean’s office. The number of times he inhaled, the amount of time he held the teacup in his hand, and how many sips he took from the cup.

‘834 times. 12 minutes 56 seconds. 21 sips.’

It wasn’t simply remembered through observation.

He had ‘known’ it all along.

That was.

Even before the boy entered the dean’s office.

Or before this morning dawned.

No, even before this cultist attack happened.

Perhaps even before he enrolled in the academy.

In fact, ever since the old man was a fifteen-year-old boy, from the moment he received the calling from the stars.

The prophet foresaw, memorized, and saw through all days.

Countless pieces of information flooded his mind, as if about to burst.

All along.

The old man had been living in a superimposed reality.

It felt as if he had been trapped in a dream for a long time.

The present and future intertwined in a chaotic mess.

Now, it was difficult to distinguish whether the scene before him was truly reality, or if he was seeing the future through prophecy.

As the story increasingly came into orbit, the prophet’s mind was collapsing.

Gaston realized that the remaining time was not very long.

‘One more year, then.’

Sixty years had passed since he received the calling of the end.

From a young fifteen-year-old boy to an old man reaching eighty.

Gaston had consistently endured all that karma.

Solely for the future.

‘The conclusion arrives.’

An undeniable thesis.

For disaster would break the peace and appear in the not-too-distant future.

The main and supporting characters would have to choose their final paths.

And.

The old man, too.

‘Indeed.’

Had to choose his final path.

Whether to remain an observer of the world, or to die as a chronicler, or another role…

The prophet pondered his complete utility to the world.

Along with the sunset fading outside the window.

The prophet thus fell silent.