Ch.139Season 2 – Never Seen the Sky

    “At least have some of this.”

    Since they were still guests after all.

    Dorothy was offering us tea out of courtesy…

    “…Hot water?”

    “It’s precious water.”

    “Ah, right…”

    There was no tea, of course. Just clean water that had been warmed up.

    “Fortunately, this tunnel village is connected to an underground water vein. So we’ve been able to solve our drinking water problem at least.”

    “That’s something to be thankful for.”

    Right, they’re people living in tunnels 1,000 meters underground—expecting them to have tea would be ridiculous.

    I suspected that even this warm water wasn’t something everyone got to drink.

    After we each took a sip of the warm water.

    “Phew…”

    “…Shall we move on to the main topic now? Shinwoo.”

    “Yes, Lady Kurumi. I was just about to suggest that.”

    Since we’d made it into the rebel hideout—the only group actively opposing my future self in the current era.

    It was time for us to prepare our next move.

    “Dorothy. We’re trying to rescue Sophia, who was taken to the future, and defeat my future self.”

    “Defeat… You mean Han Shinwoo?! That’s impossible! Even if we could somehow kidnap Sophia back, that demon lord is a monster on a completely different level!”

    “Why are you so certain about that, Dorothy?”

    “Because I witnessed that monster crush humanity’s hopes one by one with my own eyes! …Besides, we barely have any fighters left in our tunnel village who could stand against Han Shinwoo.”

    Indeed.

    The rebel organization formed to fight against my future self seemed to have lost its strength.

    This was just a tunnel village created to somehow survive away from my future self’s eyes.

    Moreover, according to Jaewon, this tunnel village was once discovered, resulting in the annihilation of most of humanity’s key figures like Cheran, Jin-ah, and Katarina.

    “We’d like to help if we could! But honestly, we’re barely managing to feed ourselves right now.”

    “Dorothy…”

    “Chief…”

    “I don’t think we even have ten fighters including myself and Jaewon. At our village’s current level, we’d all be wiped out if just one of his legions attacked, let alone the current era’s Han Shinwoo himself.”

    “Father… I’m sorry, but I have to side with the chief on this.”

    Jaewon truly looked apologetic.

    Come to think of it, this child was born and raised in the tunnel village.

    No matter how much this concerned his mother, he couldn’t carelessly put the hometown people who had raised him at risk.

    “No, I realize now that we weren’t thinking clearly.”

    I apologized as I realized this fact.

    If most of the tunnel village’s fighters, including Jaewon, joined our side, the village would receive no support during that time.

    These were people who were already eating monster corpses because they had nothing else.

    Taking away the fighters who hunted those monsters would surely lead to everyone starving to death.

    Therefore.

    “Let’s discuss this matter later.”

    “Yes, let’s do that.”

    “W-what?! You’re just backing down? How are we supposed to defeat your future self with just us?”

    I decided to postpone requesting immediate support from Dorothy, the rebel leader.

    This prompted Saint Kang Mirae to start questioning me.

    “We can’t just take the tunnel village’s fighters without thinking. If we did, everyone here might starve to death.”

    “T-that’s true, but… do you have any other plan?”

    “No, not really…”

    I hadn’t expected the rebels’ situation to be this dire.

    At this level, they couldn’t be reliable allies—they’d only hold us back.

    Perhaps it was because I’d been stuck in that stuffy mud room for too long.

    I went outside to get some fresh air.

    But even outside, I couldn’t see the sky from this underground tunnel.

    “So Jaewon has been living in a place like this…”

    Come to think of it, Jaewon.

    When we first met at the department store, he kept turning his head around in amazement, didn’t he?

    I understand now.

    How wonderful must that brightly lit department store have looked to a child who had only known a world covered in brown in every direction?

    “Sophia… I need to get you back quickly, but we’ve already hit a roadblock.”

    To recruit fighters from the tunnel village, we’d need to solve the problems here first.

    That meant developing infrastructure—starting with food issues—to the point where fighters wouldn’t be needed for a while.

    But how long would that take?

    As I was sighing deeply, cultivating new worries from existing ones.

    “Mister, are you okay?”

    “Huh?”

    “D-did you really come from outside?”

    “Wow! Look at that! Now that I see it, his clothes are completely different from ours!”

    Three small children wearing ragged cloaks approached me.

    Each held what looked like wooden clubs trying to pass as weapons, and wore perforated pots on their heads that were too damaged to be useful.

    Looking closely, they were the same children who had greeted Dorothy when we first descended into the tunnel village.

    “Who are you?”

    “I’m Park Hyeok!”

    “I’m Alfonso!”

    “I-I’m Aya…”

    One boy who looked like a gang leader.

    One boy who looked smart.

    And finally, one girl who seemed rather timid.

    The ideal trio combination.

    “So why did you come looking for me?”

    “W-we wanted to ask you something…”

    “Ask me something?”

    “Y-yes, well…”

    “Can we really ask this?”

    “C-come on, guys! Why are you so scared!”

    I wondered what they wanted to know that made them all look so secretly terrified.

    As I watched quietly, the gang leader-like boy, Park Hyeok, pointed at me and boldly asked.

    “Mister! T-the sky!”

    “…The sky?”

    “Have you seen ‘the sky’? Just tell us that!”

    “…!”

    I see.

    Come to think of it, that makes sense.

    Children born in this tunnel village would never have gone to the surface.

    That’s because the surface was crawling with dangerous monsters that killed ordinary humans like insects.

    So these children were growing up without ever seeing the “sky.”

    But human instinct always seeks to explore the unknown, and children’s curiosity is something that even adults can’t contain.

    *Grin*

    “You just want to see the sky? My phone is full of pictures of the outside world.”

    “P-pictures?”

    “Ah! I know about those! It’s the technology that saves what you see with your eyes! I read about it in books—people used to do that in the old days!”

    “Really?! Such a thing exists?”

    “I-I want to see too…”

    “Come here. I’ll show all of you.”

    “””R-really?!!?”””

    These children should have been living normal lives under a blue sky, but they ended up like this because of me.

    To atone even a little for the sins my future self committed, I decided to grant the children’s wish.

    And more.

    “Here, this is the sky.”

    “Wow!”

    “It’s really blue! I’ve never seen that before!”

    “But what’s that under the sky?”

    “Oh, that’s a house. On the surface, people build houses with wood and bricks to live in.”

    “Wood? Bricks? Aren’t those really rare?”

    “That’s right. Especially wood—I know it’s very precious because it’s needed for cooking.”

    “And I’ve barely even seen bricks.”

    “Is that so?”

    Well, it makes sense that things like gas burners wouldn’t exist in a tunnel village like this.

    I thought that if we could go to the surface next time, we should cut down lots of trees and gradually develop the tunnel village, starting with basics like this.

    As I continued showing various photos to the children’s sparkling eyes.

    “What do you think you’re doing?”

    “Huh?”

    “Oh! Hunting Captain!”

    “Hunting Captain! When did you get here?!”

    “Just now. What do you think you’re doing? I’ve told you so many times not to look at things from the outside world!”

    “Ugh…”

    “B-but we were curious!”

    Suddenly, a voice came from behind me.

    I turned my head and looked back along with the children.

    There stood a woman with cherry-red hair and a samurai outfit made from what appeared to be a torn red kimono modified for easier movement.

    And finally, eyes that shone like amethysts.

    No matter how much more mature she looked now compared to when I last saw her, how could I forget someone I’d flown all the way to Japan to meet?

    “Princess Kitsune Asuna…?”

    “Huh…? …Eh? Ehhh, ehhhhhhhhhhh?!?!”

    The youngest direct descendant of the Kitsune family.

    Princess Kitsune Asuna.

    She was the one who willingly forfeited despite being an opponent when Lady Kurumi declared she would become the head of the family in the underground arena, actively supporting her.

    I never expected her to be the hunting captain of the rebels in the future world.

    “It’s been a while! Princess Asuna!”

    Since we’d even exchanged phone education before.

    I waved my hand happily.

    But Princess Asuna, after making eye contact with me, stood frozen with a dumbfounded expression for a moment.

    “Come forth, Tengen.”

    “Huh?”

    She suddenly summoned a samurai monster dressed exactly like her.

    As I watched quietly, wondering what was happening, the princess suddenly took the monster’s sword and assumed the same battōjutsu stance as Tengen.

    “Die! Han Shinwooooooooo!!”

    “Wh-whaaaaat?!”

    She drew her sword filled with rage.

    *Shing!*


    0 Comments

    Heads up! Your comment will be invisible to other guests and subscribers (except for replies), including you after a grace period.
    Note
    // Script to navigate with arrow keys