Ch. 19 Fly Me to The Moon
by AfuhfuihgsChapter 19 – Fly Me to The Moon
“Have some sense of crisis! A sense of crisis!! Don’t you feel anything even when things have gotten this bad? What’s wrong with your head?”
I stomped my feet in frustration.
Across from me sat a gray-furred werewolf, cross-legged, meditating as usual.
Even as I vented, the werewolf remained silent, continuing his meditation.
Meditating in a situation like this, when tomorrow itself is uncertain.
“Dozens of werewolves vanished overnight again! Doesn’t that seem strange to you? Do you really have no thoughts about this?”
“First, calm your mind. Getting angry won’t solve anything.”
“Meditation, meditation! That damn meditation! We’re on the brink of death here! Should I just lay it all out for you? This place, what you call the ‘mental world,’ is just a dream, a dream!! All this talk of spiritual eyes and meditation is nonsense!!”
“Rushing things always leads to mistakes.”
This is why I can’t get through to him.
I don’t even know how to start a conversation with the other werewolves, and they probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.
If I were to persuade anyone, it would be this werewolf, the first one I spoke to when I entered this dream.
But there’s no sign he’ll listen.
I pounded my chest in frustration, realizing this approach wasn’t getting me anywhere.
“Fine. Let’s think of a solution first. We have two days left until the deadline Cheong-an gave us.”
“Good, that’s a calm way to think.”
“Let’s think together, okay?… Never mind, what’s the point? I’ll just end up taking the blame alone.”
What is the priest doing right now?
Since learning I could enter this dream, the priest insisted on handling security himself. He said gathering information in this dream was something only I could do.
That stone-faced priest overlapped with this gray werewolf in my mind. Both impossible to reason with.
What could possibly make these kinds of people move?
I’ll have to think about that later. Right now, there’s something more important.
“Anyway, we have two days. And according to my calculations, the remaining werewolves will disappear from this dream within those two days. That includes you, by the way.”
“I don’t have as much information as you. Besides, when the person we need to suspect is the leader of the White Wolf Faction, whom we’ve trusted completely until now, there’s a risk of bias clouding our judgment. For this matter, it’s better for you to use all the information you have to make a decision. It’s the ‘bias,’ you see, the bias.”
“Alright, fine. So, you’re saying you can’t make a proper judgment because of your bias. You didn’t fully serve him as the leader of your faction, but you still trusted him, huh?”
The gray werewolf showed no reaction to hearing that this place was just a dream, not some mental world.
Was he expecting it, or did he just not care? Either way, it’s impressive.
“Then let’s do this. We’ll split the investigation. I’ll tell you what you need to do, and we’ll meet here tomorrow in the dream to share information. We can’t enter your hideout, after all.”
“True, it would look strange if outsiders entered a place used as a faction’s dojo. Understood. What should I do?”
“It’s simple. You understand that this is your dream, right? Logically, the only space you can enter after sleep is a dream.”
The gray werewolf nodded.
“Then, after you wake up, check how many werewolves are left. We need to find out if they’re disappearing from this dream because they’re dying, because they’ve stopped dreaming, or for some other reason. Once we figure that out, we can get a rough idea of what’s going on.”
“Understood. But many werewolves still respect Baekmo Cheong-an as their faction leader. If I start snooping around, they’ll figure out I’m suspicious of him. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to meet tomorrow night.”
“Don’t say such unsettling things… Why are you so calm about this, seriously?”
It felt less like he was keeping his mind calm and more like he was mentally ill.
Maybe something like stimulus insensitivity syndrome would be a fitting term. Staying calm in the face of adversity isn’t the only way to keep your mind steady.
You need to think about how to push through, right?
I stomped on the gray werewolf’s knee, annoyed by his pointless flag-raising.
“If we can’t meet here tomorrow, I’ll storm into your ‘dojo’ The steel frame factory, I mean. So don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll do my best.”
I looked past the gray werewolf’s shoulder at the hazy hills in the distance.
A massive hill standing alone in this desolate space.
No matter how much I ran, it felt like I’d never reach it.
Maybe it wasn’t a hill I was meant to reach.
* * *
“…Father?”
When I opened my eyes, it was midday, the sun high in the sky.
The priest should’ve been on guard. When I fell asleep leaning against a factory pillar, I could see him standing on the railing.
But the priest was gone. Did he skip work and run off?
Well, I did wake up a bit earlier than usual. Things are a bit urgent.
…Surely he hasn’t been slacking off like this the whole time I’ve been asleep.
A pointless suspicion crossed my mind.
I got up and searched the factory from the first floor to the third.
After confirming the priest wasn’t inside, I checked the outside grounds.
‘Where did he go, this guy?’
Skipping work? That didn’t fit the priest’s usual demeanor.
There must be a reason he left his post.
Is this what gaslighting feels like? Seeing the priest’s stone-faced demeanor so often, I found myself rationalizing his actions.
“…Ah!”
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the priest had skipped work.
Not long after, I spotted him walking under the scorching sun.
But the direction he was coming from…
“Why are you coming from there? That’s the werewolves’ dojo.”
“Dojo? It’s just a steel frame factory. There was some trouble. I noticed a commotion in the factory earlier.”
I looked past the priest at the massive steel frame factory behind him.
Despite the supposed commotion, the factory grounds were eerily quiet. Even in a place where sound should echo, it was silent.
Only the occasional sound of a crushed can rolling on the ground echoed faintly.
“It’s quiet now. I must’ve been mistaken. I thought I saw dozens of werewolves gathering in one place.”
“Are you sure?”
A pointless unease. Of course, deep down, I knew better.
Because the werewolf I had been strategizing with was in the dream world until just a moment ago. Meaning, when the priest went to the steel frame factory, he was still asleep.
So, if dozens of werewolves suddenly moved, there must be another reason.
I held my breath as I thought that far.
“What’s wrong?”
“…Father, based on the information I got in the dream, are you sure you saw the werewolves moving?”
“Yes.”
Then there’s a contradiction.
At the time I was strategizing with the gray werewolf.
Meaning, while the gray werewolf was asleep, the priest saw dozens of werewolves moving?
“The werewolves of the White Wolf Faction, after awakening to the mental world—that is, after taking the elixir Cheong-an provided—sleep and wake at the same time. I heard it directly.”
“What’s the problem?”
“At the time you saw the werewolves moving, I was in the dream talking to another werewolf.”
“That is strange. Could the werewolf who gave you that information have been lying?”
…It’s possible he was lying. I haven’t actually seen the White Wolf Faction’s werewolves sleeping and waking at the same time.
But I heard it from someone who was part of the faction. And the explanation was detailed.
He described it like this:
‘It might be some kind of connection between those who’ve awakened to the mental world.’ That’s how he put it.
As I pieced together the information, a thought struck me.
“Come to think of it, I feel like I’ve seen that gray werewolf before. The really big one.”
“Aside from the first day we arrived here, and excluding the dream, we haven’t encountered any werewolves in reality.”
“I mean the first day we met.”
“Then….”
Right, he’s one of the werewolves who attacked us.
Werewolves don’t die unless hit by silver bullets, so even if his body was crushed, he wouldn’t have died.
The way he charged at us like a beast, maybe…
“Could it be that even if the werewolves’ minds are asleep, their bodies don’t rest? The moment their brains fall asleep, the savagery hidden in their instincts takes over, making them act so ferociously.”
“That explanation doesn’t have any contradictions. When I saw the dozens of werewolves moving, they definitely looked almost like beasts. I could hear their growling all the way to our factory.”
It’s just a hypothesis.
“Is it possible Baekmo Cheong-an used the elixir to awaken the werewolves’ savagery? Normally, their savagery only awakens on the night of the full moon, but could Cheong-an have artificially triggered it?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. But it does fit. For now, it’s good to think that way. It’s the simplest hypothesis that explains the current situation.”
In other words, Occam’s razor. Right, let’s start with the simplest hypothesis.
Time is tight. But there’s nothing we can do right now.
The werewolves of the White Wolf Faction, alternating between reason and savagery.
The elixir provided by Baekmo Cheong-an behind it all.
Even if we stormed in and exposed everything to the hundreds of werewolves, given their nationalist tendencies, we’d probably…
‘Be rejected as outsiders trying to cause division.’
So, force is a last resort.
I tapped my foot impatiently, waiting for night to fall.
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