Ch.104Chapter 104 – Life

“So, why did you show me this memory, ‘Master’?”

Shin Jaehyuk immediately denied it.

“No, you’re not even my master.”

Shin Jaehyuk knew he had no one who could be called his master. The master was merely a fantasy he had created in his childhood.

After the death of the Godhands, Longino became obsessed with the image of an ‘ideal holy knight.’ He felt a responsibility that he should become such a being.

So Longino assumed and imagined such a being in his mind. The crystallization of the concept of ‘an ideal holy knight who perfectly fulfills his duties.’ That was born in Longino’s mind as the entity called ‘Master.’

Shin Jaehyuk struggled to approach the ‘Master’ and removed his helmet. The face he had encountered in his memory moments ago was there. Peter Godhand’s stoic face.

“As I thought… you’re just my fantasy.”

‘That’ Peter couldn’t have been his master. He was the one who kept interfering, telling him to give up on becoming a holy knight. It must be that since the greatest holy knight Longino knew was ‘Peter Godhand,’ the ‘Master’ appeared with Peter’s face.

The being before him was a kind of unconscious defense mechanism. An entity created by his brain in an extreme situation to overcome it. A collective born from Longino’s guilt, sense of duty, unconscious, and more…

The Master didn’t deny it. Nor did he affirm it.

“Well, that might be true, or it might not be.”

Saying that, the Master moved on. Shin Jaehyuk followed behind, climbing up the slope. It was a painful ascent. He broke the silence.

“Why did you become a holy knight?”

It was an abrupt question.

“You were the most insignificant among the thirty Godhands. You lacked not only holy power but also physical ability. What made you become a holy knight?”

The Master stood blocking the path. His firm attitude suggested he wouldn’t move until he got an answer. Reluctantly, Shin Jaehyuk played along. There was no need, but anyway.

“Because I had no choice in that world.”

Every day, several villages were destroyed by demon attacks. It was an era where humans fully bore the hatred of demons fermented since the beginning of hell.

“I was born with power, and fighting for those without power was the right thing to do.”

Shin Jaehyuk answered as he passed the Master. Higher up the slope, at a distance barely visible, there seemed to be a place where the land no longer continued. Is that the end of this world? The very peak of this mountain?

As Shin Jaehyuk tried to confirm, the Master interfered. He blocked Shin Jaehyuk again and asked.

“Was it noblesse oblige?”

“It was my destiny.”

Shin Jaehyuk said this and continued his climb toward the end of the world. But something hindered him. Mud rose from the ground like slime and grabbed his legs. Strangely, the mud took the form of the dead.

“Undead? No, that can’t be. This world is Belphegor’s mental space where normal laws don’t apply…”

Shin Jaehyuk could guess what this was. Given that it was hindering his progress toward the end of the world, it seemed to be a kind of defense mechanism protecting the mental world. Perhaps Belphegor’s unconscious. It appeared in the form of the dead and was hindering Shin Jaehyuk.

Struggling to shake off the sticky dead that prevented him from moving forward, Shin Jaehyuk cursed at the Master who just watched.

“Damn it, if you’re a fantasy my brain created, couldn’t you help a bit?”

True to being a self-created fantasy, he acted on his own. Far from helping, the Master climbed a few more steps and only blocked the way.

“Destiny, you say. Then was your entire life, including that miserable end, all destiny? A life spent chasing only the fiercest battlefields without enjoying any personal happiness?”

“Yes! That’s right! Damn it, if you’re just going to interfere—”

“Well, from my perspective, it seems like,”

You’re just looking for your own grave.

Shin Jaehyuk, who had been struggling to remove the clinging dead, froze at the Master’s words. The mud instantly climbed up his body and tightened around his neck. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Whether it was really because of the dead, even he didn’t know.

“Weren’t you just unable to overcome the guilt of surviving alone, wishing for the same end as us?”

A death that could be called honorable,

A glorious end that you could be satisfied with.

Shin Jaehyuk couldn’t refute. True to being a creation of his unconscious, the Master knew him too well. The Master’s words were daggers that Shin Jaehyuk threw at himself. The Master pinpointed Shin Jaehyuk’s obsessive symptoms.

“Why can’t you choose to retreat?”

Shin Jaehyuk heard hallucinations whenever he tried to flee from battle. The recurring hallucinations of that day. The screams telling him to escape alone. Those sounds paralyzed his reason. The moment he heard them, his feet, as if firmly held by the dead, couldn’t move away from the battlefield.

“Be honest. Don’t make excuses with words like destiny.”

The embodiment of guilt with Peter Godhand’s face asked.

“You’re still just a kid trapped in guilt. One who became a holy knight because you couldn’t forget our deaths.”

“Enough—!”

Shin Jaehyuk unconsciously burst out in anger. Was he hit right on the mark? He didn’t want to admit it. The Master didn’t stop despite Shin Jaehyuk’s confusion. He ruthlessly probed the parts that had been consciously and unconsciously covered up.

“Do you live for death? Do you live for the dead?”

To continue the Godhand legacy?

To take our place?

“If that’s the case, why did you become a holy knight? You could have lived as a kid forever. Just as I said.”

The questions eventually came full circle. Shin Jaehyuk unconsciously shouted out. His honest feelings mixed with emotion flowed out.

“I wanted that too! Who wouldn’t? I preferred playing ball to running around the training ground until exhaustion every day! I preferred having casual conversations with others to endlessly reciting scriptures that weren’t even helpful! Who wouldn’t like such an ordinary life!”

But,

But.

“I was the only one left… what was I supposed to do? I was the only one who could do anything…”

Shin Jaehyuk, Longino,

Was the survivor of the Vatican attack and the last remaining Godhand. That meaning was special. It was even more special for a cleric to accept.

One who survived alone by receiving God’s miracle.

The clerics believed there was a reason Longino survived alone. After all, in an attack by the Four Heavenly Kings where even veteran holy knights couldn’t survive, the one who was considered a failure due to his weak body and little holy power survived alone. In phenomena that couldn’t be understood rationally, the clerics found miracles.

Longino’s survival was thanks to God’s protection.

The “miracle” of Longino absorbing the blood of the other twenty-nine added certainty to their speculation. They believed that the Lord intended this small and immature child to fulfill a greater purpose. Therefore, Longino needed to grow as a representative of God’s will. He needed to be more than sufficiently strong, more than sufficiently… ideal for just one child.

Days of training bordering on abuse continued. Twenty-nine Godhands died for one Longino. Therefore, Longino had to produce the results of thirty people. Whether in training or on the battlefield. Thirty times the training, thirty times the battlefields. Thirty times the years continued for decades.

It was a daily life of fatigue that no ordinary human could endure. His body didn’t tire only because of his inexhaustible holy power, but mentally, he was overworked every day. He wasn’t allowed the ordinary daily life that a normal human would enjoy. There was no room for that.

In his life, the only beings he could treat humanly were Iscariot, whom he had known since childhood, and Orthesia, who later became his lover. Outside those brief times, he lived not as the ordinary human ‘Longino,’ but as the ideal holy knight ‘Master Paladin.’

He couldn’t help but be tired.

Even if the body doesn’t tire, the heart does.

Taking only the teachings of light as his compass, he painfully trudged through days filled only with suffering and despair.

He endured all sorts of adversities to reach this point. The betrayal of someone he regarded as a parent, the death of his lover, the corruption of his friend. Even he died and gained a new life alone. Holding onto the hope that someday there would be a day of sunshine, he endured and endured. But the final destination he encountered was a world of despair without a single ray of light.

A world of eternal night where sunrise couldn’t be promised. Even if he struggled to escape, the steep slope and the mud of the dead that clung to his feet like quicksand hindered him. Shin Jaehyuk sat down and cried.

“Damn it, what more can I do here…”

He collapsed on the slope. Not even caring about the touch of the dead trying to bury him in this desolate wilderness. He could see the night sky covered by clouds darker than pitch black. His life had been like that.

One shouldn’t die for the sake of one. He had regretted this countless times. If only I had died then… Now, he felt he could understand Belphegor’s ideology. Not everyone gets a day of sunshine. Sometimes, life itself becomes a curse.

Peter, if only you had been me…

“Holy knight.”

The Master’s mouth opened. Shin Jaehyuk expected his fantasy to torment him again. But he didn’t. Instead, a rather long monologue flowed out.

“Have you been broken? Are your feet bound in a swamp of darkness too deep? Have you lost the light to guide you in an eternal night where the sun doesn’t look down?”

Light gathered in the Master’s hand. Surprisingly, that light was flowing from near Shin Jaehyuk’s heart. Shin Jaehyuk’s pupils dilated. In a world filled only with darkness, light was gathering. This is Belphegor’s world. Holy spells shouldn’t work here, so how?

“A holy knight… doesn’t rise because of guilt, responsibility, or a sense of duty.”

The light gathered in the Master’s hand formed an elongated shape. As the intense light faded, a spear was held in his hand.

“The holy knight’s manual shouldn’t force your actions. The teachings of light shouldn’t determine your will. It merely presents you with one possibility and choice. It shouldn’t become your life.”

Shin Jaehyuk was surprised for the second time. It was an un-holy knight-like statement. A being embodying the ‘ideal holy knight’ was teaching him something that wasn’t befitting a holy knight.

“Take it.”

Saying that, the Master handed the spear to Shin Jaehyuk. It was a very crude spear with the tip and shaft made of a single piece. It had many scratches as if it had traversed all sorts of battlefields, and the blade had nicks, but it was sharpened blue-hot as if ready for immediate battle.

“…What is this?”

“This is your will. Your heart, your thoughts, your intentions, your ideology, your purpose, your actions. This is you.”

As Shin Jaehyuk grasped the spear, the dead that had been holding his legs writhed in pain as if burned and fell away. The touch of the dead could no longer restrain Shin Jaehyuk’s legs.

“All your actions should be chosen by your own pure will. Just as I chose to save you.”

The Master started climbing again. Shin Jaehyuk, in amazement, followed the Master’s back up the steep slope. The relentless dead clung to the hem of his cloak, but Shin Jaehyuk used the spear shaft as a staff to support himself. Step by step, he moved toward the summit.

As they approached the summit, the slope became as steep as a cliff. It was a painful climb. His thighs, overworked for forty days, swelled as if about to burst, and his calves were barely hanging on. He wanted to sit down right away. But Shin Jaehyuk endured and climbed the slope. The end of the road was not far.

“Do you walk to see the end of the road? Breaking, rising again, breaking again, rising again. Do you walk this path to see the unknown outcome that will exist at the end?”

Finally, the two reached the summit. At the top of this tilted wilderness. Shin Jaehyuk saw beyond what had been hidden by the slope.

“Ah… it wasn’t the end.”

There was no end, no exit in Belphegor’s mental world. Beyond the horizon that Shin Jaehyuk thought was an exit, another wilderness stretched out. The mountain that Shin Jaehyuk had climbed, thinking it was the end of the world, was just one mountain between wildernesses.

Climbing to the highest point in this world, he could see everything below. Truly, there was surprisingly nothing. No water, no food, no exit, no hope. Nothing at all.

Just as Shin Jaehyuk was about to give up finding anything meaningful on the ground and bow his head in despair, words pierced his ears.

“Wrong.”

From atop the cliff, atop despair, the Master denied everything.

“…What is?”

“You don’t walk to see the outcome. You don’t move immovable steps with the reason of seeing the end of the road. That shouldn’t become your life.”

The Master raised Shin Jaehyuk, who had sat down. Then, supporting his arm, he pointed the spear toward the cloudy sky.

“Steel doesn’t exist to become a sword, nor does it exist to become a farming tool. Through countless polishing and tempering, steel becomes something it didn’t know it could be.”

Life is the same.

The Master concentrated. There was a tingling in a corner of the soul. Shin Jaehyuk also focused on that energy. The feeling of a seed opening, taking root, sprouting, the stem growing, leaves unfolding, and flowers blooming. When the fruit ripened, light poured out like a backflow from the heart. The light flowing from the spiritual heart seeped through the arm into the spear.

The light, which had gathered and compressed, eventually couldn’t withstand the pressure and was emitted in a straight line. A beam of light shot up toward the sky from the spear.

“People are not born to be broken. Breaking, and rising again. That process, we call life.”

The beam of light, which showed no sign of stopping, finally pierced through the dark clouds. Like erasing with an eraser, the dark clouds around the light pillar dispersed. Stars hidden behind the dark clouds appeared. Like a ray of sunlight illuminating darkness, the beam of light from the spear brightly lit up the ground.

Shin Jaehyuk blankly stared at that impossible scene.

In a world of eternal night, an impossible sun had risen.

At this moment, Shin Jaehyuk was the sun positioned at the highest point in this world. The source of all light…

“Remember. When you truly become the master of your life, the whole world will dance for you.”

Shin Jaehyuk couldn’t speak for a while. And he looked at the Master’s face. He was merely watching quietly with the face of ‘Peter Godhand,’ Longino’s greatest guilt. Various questions welled up. How did you do that? Who are you? Are you really just my fantasy?

But he didn’t voice any of them.

Instead, he gripped the spear tightly.

“Honestly… I don’t understand what you’re saying,”

They were words full of reproach and admonition. One-sided harsh words that didn’t consider Shin Jaehyuk’s situation and feelings. Sentences filled with incoherent philosophy and Zen-like questions whose core couldn’t be grasped. Nevertheless.

Nevertheless, Shin Jaehyuk found comfort in this incomprehensible being.

“But thanks to you, I think I know what I need to do… ‘Master’.”

Shin Jaehyuk struck the light spear hard into the ground. The spear tip, emitting a beam of light, was deeply embedded in the wilderness. When Shin Jaehyuk’s will, embodied in the spear, collided with Belphegor’s mental image, the wilderness shook violently as if the world was about to collapse.

It was an earthquake that shook the world. The ground split, the sky cracked. Like a broken glass window, the mental world began to shatter. It was a catastrophe announcing the end of a world. The end of a world full of despair and darkness.

As the desolate land crumbled into a handful of dust and the dark clouds completely dispersed, only Shin Jaehyuk, the night sky, and the starlight beyond the night sky existed in the world.

In the middle of the night sky was the most brilliant light source. Emitting an intense golden light from his entire body, Shin Jaehyuk had somehow become the sun of this world. The being that defines the center of the world.

“This is a more pleasing sight than that desolate wilderness.”

Now he seemed to understand, just a little, what the Master had been trying to say. Shin Jaehyuk reached out toward the celestial sphere that unfolded with him at its center. As he tilted his head slightly, the whole world tilted precariously for him.

Between his spread fingers, existing stars set and new stars rose. As he turned his head, what unfolded through the narrow gap was a new constellation, a new universe.

“My will, my decision. Therefore, my life.”

He clenched his fist, grasping a star. He held the entire universe in his tiny fist.

Shin Jaehyuk slightly increased the speed of his consciousness. Binding three seconds to count one second, binding four seconds to count two seconds, binding eight seconds to count three seconds. Accordingly, the world’s time began to flow rapidly. Stars that had been slowly gliding across the sky now moved with long tails across the night sky, and unfamiliar constellations raced at full speed along the ecliptic.

As day and night changed countless times with the blink of an eye, and constellations of different seasons chased each other in a game of tag, Shin Jaehyuk closed his eyes. Not to end with them closed forever, but to open them again in reality.

The forty days in the wilderness had ended.

***

In the collapsing world, the ‘Master,’ turning into fragments of light and vanishing, smiled faintly.

“Still immature. But,”

You’ve grown a lot.