Ch.186186 – Lies 1

# 186 – The Lie # 1

This world no longer belonged solely to the living.

People filled every street.

A true flood of humanity. People from the past and future met, and the world drowned in this human deluge.

The water veins sleeping beneath Gaeryong City were indeed the bloodlines of time flowing from the beginning to the future. A hole had been punctured there, bringing an eternity that made past and future meaningless in the human era.

“Repent! Humans! Repent!”

No matter how much time passed, night never came.

I couldn’t even tell what time it was.

Because every clock in the world had stopped.

Perhaps infinite time had rendered the flow of time itself meaningless. And that had also made the separation between life and death meaningless.

“This is a dream. A dream! A dream I’ll wake from when I die!”

“Kyaak! That man just set himself on fire!”

Walking down the street, I saw a man setting himself on fire. But the flames on his body quickly extinguished, and the man didn’t die.

“Eeek! Why can’t I die?!”

Outraged by this fact, the man began to harm himself with a knife, but the wounds healed faster than they formed, mended by the eternal time.

A world where the concept of death had disappeared.

The consequence of opening the fourth floor door was more massive than any previous price. Could this be called heaven or salvation, where there’s no worry or fear of death?

All human fears ultimately stem from the fear of death. With death, the primal fear, gone, how should humans live in this eternal life?

I headed to the secret base.

Jeongseok, who was waiting for me there, shouted with bloodshot eyes:

“What’s going on! Wasn’t everything supposed to return to normal if we went to the fourth floor? My grandfather who died yesterday came to our house! My grandmother too! Why isn’t night coming!”

I looked around.

Memories of past times spent in this secret base flooded my mind one by one. Soon, the pirate crew members arrived after receiving the call.

Everyone looked serious, including Yang Juhui.

“You said we could find my sister! My sister!”

Pat-pat-pat-

Yang Juhui grabbed my arm and shook it frantically. I avoided her eyes. I remembered how I had boasted that we could save her sister, Yang Dohui.

To put it bluntly, I couldn’t save her.

Yang Dohui had been trapped in the vast sea of time for too long. Like the old man and Japanese soldiers we met on floor 3.5, she had been imprisoned in the sea of eternity for far too long.

It meant Yang Dohui was no longer the person called Yang Dohui.

To save her, I would have had to make a wish to the “Eternal Clock,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Because I had discovered its true nature.

I spoke to everyone who seemed to be demanding an explanation.

“But isn’t this okay? We don’t die or get hungry. We’ve been given infinite time. We can do whatever we want. We can achieve any dream.”

Most problems could be solved with enough time.

With the infinite time given to us, we could achieve everything we had longed for and desired. Yang Juhui shouted at me in response:

“This isn’t the time for that kind of talk! And why are Kim Geonho and Kwon Suho here! Why are those bastards alive!”

“……”

I looked at Kwon Suho and Kim Geonho sitting quietly at a corner of the round table in the secret base. When their names were called, they just shrugged and smiled.

Kwon Sua, Suho’s cousin, waved at her cousin brother as if somewhat happy to see him.

“I… I think it’s fine. My dad who passed away is talking again. My mom says she can see dad too. It’s nice to meet family members who had died.”

Kwon Sua seemed genuinely sincere as she spoke.

“Isn’t this the heaven people talk about? A world without hunger or fear. We can meet family members who died before us and be happy.”

“…Does it have any meaning?”

While Yang Juhui and Kwon Sua were talking, Jeongseok, who had been silent for a long time, finally opened his heavy lips.

Jeongseok was typing on his phone.

“The government is collapsing, and social systems are breaking down. In a world where living beings don’t die, what meaning do effort and achievement have? Is this heaven?”

The video on Jeongseok’s phone showed naked humans crawling on all fours, attacking and violating people. They were more like beasts than humans, like evil spirits.

“Honestly, this world feels like hell to me. We’ve opened the gates of hell. I vaguely expected something like this might happen, but…”

Jeongseok’s eyes now turned to me.

“…Is this what you wished for? You’re the only one among us who saw the clock. Are you saying you wished for this world? Is this your wish?”

“I…”

My mouth felt full of dry sand, leaving me speechless. Jeongseok’s words pierced through to the essence of the matter.

If asked whether I had wished for such a world… after serious consideration, I could only nod.

“Yes.”

The atmosphere instantly became gloomy.

Screech-

Soon someone stood up from their seat—it was Bong Jiyeon, who had been quiet all day.

“Where are you going?”

When Jeongseok asked, Bong Jiyeon snorted.

“Does it even matter if we meet here anymore? It’s all over.”

Bong Jiyeon left her seat.

Jeongseok seemed about to follow her but looked at me instead.

“I think there must be a way to fix this too. We didn’t go through all that trouble for this. I want some time to think. Maybe we all should take some time.”

How long?

How much time would need to pass before we could all gather here again like before, laughing at trivial jokes?

Those days of chatting about nonsense while eating delivered chicken seemed as distant as the dinosaur age.

# # #

Does night come to heaven too?

At least in this world, it didn’t.

I quickly grew bored under the endlessly blazing summer sun.

Yu Dahui bloomed like the largest and brightest flower in that midsummer garden. She was wearing a black dress, looking like a black flower.

Come to think of it, I had never seen “black flowers.” Flowers are generally yellow, red, blue, and colorful.

“Yeongwon, look at this. This is my mom.”

Yu Dahui introduced me to the woman watering flowers with her. She looked very much like Dahui, but her eyes drooped downward, giving her a gentler impression.

“Hello.”

“……”

Yu Inna responded to my greeting with a smile in her eyes rather than words.

Mr. Kang Bada was also beside Yu Inna.

“……”

Mr. Kang Bada was also silent. Only then did I realize that Mr. Kang Bada was a dead person. When? I don’t know. Honestly, does it even matter anymore?

“My grandfather’s brother also returned. I’m not sure if he’s younger or older. They were twins. Grandfather was arguing loudly with him… and then disappeared somewhere.”

“……”

I couldn’t focus on anything Dahui was saying.

A world where death had become a silly joke.

In a world where hunger wasn’t felt, people no longer needed to live diligently.

Whatever one did felt meaningless. Is there any point in endlessly repeating a game with no ending?

While I was thinking this, Dahui spoke:

“Yeongwon, I think all relationships and lives have predetermined fates. I believe every moment I’ve lived until now has been for this moment.”

Dahui’s eyes were looking far across the garden. As I followed her gaze, I could see something like a pitch-black mud ball standing at the entrance of the garden.

It was a being that had become like a ball with the souls of dead people disgustingly clinging to it. While I was wondering what this horrible thing could be, he spoke.

“What? Do you see something?”

It was a voice I knew well.

It was Cheon Aesu, the pastor of Yeong-gwang Church.

“What do you see?”

Cheon Aesu seemed unable to see the souls surrounding him.

Even in this situation.

“What do you all see? Heaven? Has heaven come? Angels blowing trumpets and clear streams flowing between golden houses in a garden!”

…Ah, I see. This man. He can’t see it.

As I was thinking this, Dahui spoke:

“Yeongwon. You need to take good care of this flower bed.”

Dahui bid me farewell.

Before I could stop her, Pastor Cheon Aesu, who had turned into a black ball, suddenly extended his arm and stabbed a knife into Dahui’s chest.

Squelch-!

The girl collapsed, bleeding like a red flower.

With that, the stretched time began to accelerate again.

With Dahui’s death, the sluice gate of the old school building was closing, and everything was starting to return to normal.

“Nooo!”

I could tell that Dahui had intended her own death.

Nevertheless, unable to bear that Dahui had died, I opened my status window and wound the clock.

The day I escaped from the corridor, I immediately ran to Dahui, and soon I could see her hanging herself from the cherry tree where she had carved our memories.

“…Why?”

I turned back time again.

Points accumulated just by waiting anyway, and I had more time than I knew what to do with.

But no matter how many times I turned back time, Dahui died in various ways at various times. As if it were her fate.

She was killed by someone, had an accident, or died coughing blood for unknown reasons.

“I can’t save her. Why? Why?”

I gathered at the secret base to express my pain.

Soon, Jeongseok, who had been listening to my story, drew a line on the table and said:

“How many times have you repeated this?”

“…I don’t know. So many times that counting doesn’t make sense…”

“It’s been 235 times so far.”

I was greatly surprised by Jeongseok’s words.

When I couldn’t understand how this was possible, Jeongseok explained:

“After opening the fourth floor door, when the flow of time became strange, we could also feel when you went back in time. I don’t know why.”

“……”

“Ha Yeongwon. Time seems to flow from past to future, but according to recent theories, that’s not actually the case. The future also has a bidirectional exchange with the past.”

Scratch, scratch-

The lines Jeongseok drew had transformed into something like a spider web.

“This is the flow of time. And between these flows, like the center of this spider web, there’s always a central event or narrative. In this case… I think it might be Dahui’s death.”

“What does that mean? Your words are hard to understand.”

“Events that are destined to happen will happen no matter what.”

“You’re saying Dahui will die no matter what I do?”

“…No, actually I don’t know either. This world isn’t normal in any way. Dead people return, clocks stop.”

“……”

“Have you… talked with Dahui properly?”

I had.

I don’t know how many conversations we’d had.

Jeongseok explained the flow of time with difficult concepts, but I actually understood why Dahui kept dying.

It was because it was Dahui’s wish.

A wish to restore our daily lives in a world that had inevitably broken after opening the fourth floor door.

No matter how many times I turned back time, as long as we had opened the fourth floor door, Dahui would continue to die.

I thought there was no solution.

“Jeongseok. If you could fulfill just one wish, what would you do? But if you grant someone’s wish… you’d be trampling on someone else’s wish.”

“…That’s a difficult question. If it were me… I’d probably choose the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

“I see. Alright, I’ve decided. Then I’ll turn back time one last time. Everyone, come to the secret base. Since things have come to this, I might as well make a proper wish to the clock.”