episode_0144

46. Looking at the collapsing tower (4)

As I entered the tower, I felt eyes on me from all sides. Thanatos. It must be the gaze I felt as he was watching me from above.

I took a quick look around and saw a barren room with nothing in it. Up until now, when I had conquered the tower, there had been at least a torch or some decoration appropriate for the tower, but here, there was nothing.

As if representing the mind of Thanatos, who is waiting for me from above.

” Heh, maybe that was a bit too forward thinking? Well, whatever, it’s clear that guy is waiting for me up there. ”

As soon as I finished speaking, as if responding to him, the door opened with a ‘creak’ sound in the empty wall, and I threw myself into it.

What you see when you enter the bright white interior, unlike the bleak room you were in just a moment ago, is…

A garden full of colorful flowers and trees, the complete opposite of the bleak room, welcomed me.

Not knowing how to react to the sudden change in scenery, I just slowly looked around.

I was walking around humming a tune without realizing it, feeling quite good because it was a place filled with gorgeous flowers and trees.

I was surprised by the sight and stopped for a moment to look around. The sweet scent of flowers and the soothing scent of trees wafted in.

Why does this scenery exist on this tower?

The tower of Namsan, seen from outside, was strangely twisted, blackened and ominous.

The scenery shown in it made me feel ironic.

‘ Yeah, it’s like… I really wanted to show you this… ‘

As we slowly walked forward, we came into view of a small garden. On a table in the garden was a cup of tea that seemed to have cooled down a little while ago, along with some sweet cookies.

When I reached out and touched the teacup, I felt a faint warmth. When I moved my fingers to touch the cookies, I felt a similar heat to the teacup, as if they had just been made.

‘Why on earth are these desserts and teas placed here? What is this garden…?’

I tried to send out divine energy to the surroundings to see if I was hallucinating, but I felt no such sign.

The moment I turned around and was about to leave the garden, I heard the voices of a young girl and a woman.

*****

” Ahahahaha! Hurry up! Hurry up! ”

” Just… wait a minute… phew… ”

I could hear the sound of a girl’s footsteps, as if she was moving around, treading on the grass in the garden, and the sound of a woman’s footsteps, plodding and moving with difficulty.

When I turned my head towards where the sound was coming from, a small girl and a woman in black shapes appeared.

The young girl moved quickly and called out to the woman, and the woman followed the girl, moving from place to place.

A girl running around with a cheerful smile and a woman following her, panting and struggling, but slowly.

The two of them looked like… a mother and daughter.

” I love it here! It doesn’t fade away like other places… It makes me smile! ”

” Well then… that’s fortunate… ”

” And… there’s… a lady here! The food that the lady makes is so delicious! Until now, I was so hungry because it disappeared as soon as I touched it and I couldn’t eat it… ”

” I see. Don’t worry. If you stay here… you won’t have to worry about that. ”

The little girl slowly approached the woman and hugged her with her small arms.

” So… from now on… can I call you ■■? ”

The woman seemed surprised at those words, shrugged her shoulders for a moment and tried to get away from the girl, but then nodded as if she had made up her mind.

” Then. You can call me…■■ anytime. Thank you. For…calling me that. ”

With that scene, the black figure turned to dust and disappeared, and the garden in front of me also disappeared.

It’s like someone is showing you a memory of a time when they were happy.

*****

As the garden before me, with its colorful flowers and trees and sweet-smelling desserts, disappeared, a bleak room appeared.

No, if you look a little closer… the blackened, crumbled dirt, the rotten, rotten trees, and the sight of a ruined garden.

” Indeed… This was the place… ”

If we match the scene we saw a little while ago with the room we see now… we can see that this is where the garden used to be.

Why did it change like this?

There’s probably only one person who knows the answer to that question.

” Well, let’s ask about the reason later. Where should we go…? ”

The moment he said that, a black door appeared. It felt as if the tower was answering him, telling him to hurry and come this way.

” Okay, I’ll do whatever you want. We both have a debt to repay anyway, right? ”

As I opened the blackened door, another place appeared.

There was a large bed with a fireplace that made it cozy and warm.

As I walked past the fireplace and approached the bed, I saw a bouquet of flowers and a piece of paper containing cookies that looked like they had been made clumsily.

However, unlike what I had seen in the garden, the flowers in the bouquet that should have been colorful were all dried up and the candy in the paper was almost completely burnt.

Let’s take a closer look around. There was a large window next to the bed, and the only thing reflected there was a garden that had turned black and desolate.

As if ‘death’ had come to a ‘garden full of life’.

Two voices were heard behind me as I looked out the window.

The voice I heard was not that of a young girl, but rather a voice that had grown to a certain extent and had lost its girlishness, giving off the feel of an adult woman, and the voice of a middle-aged woman that was long and powerful but still had dignity.

*****

” How… can you… do that? Why on earth…! ”

A black figure in the shape of a woman leaning on a bed, with the voice of an adult woman, who seems to be crying while being angry about something.

” Don’t hate them too much. They are my ‘children’ just like you. ”

The voice, punctuated by a weak, squeaky sound, came from a black figure lying on the bed.

” How… How could that be? They took everything from you. The world… The power… And… The people…! ”

” That’s the ‘circle of life’. You, who fought them before, know it now, don’t you? ”

” That’s…! Phew… But those guys don’t even know what state you’re in right now. If we keep going like this…! ”

” Everything comes in its own time. Just as there was a time when you came to me… there will be a time when I leave you… ”

” Don’t say that… that kind of thing. I still need you… my■■■ ”

At those words, the woman lying on the bed continued speaking while caressing the woman looking at her.

” As you know… if I am the ‘beginning’… you are the ‘end’. Originally, that meeting would have happened much later… but because of my ‘greed’, the world was distorted because of you and I meeting, and they took the ‘world’, the ‘power’, and… the ‘people’ in my place. ”

” Don’t… Don’t say any more…! I don’t… want to hear… ”

” Baby… This… It’s not your fault. It’s all my fault for not being able to control my greed to have a ‘new family’. ”

After saying that, the woman turned her head in the direction of the window, stopped looking, and continued to stare.

Is it just looking outside? What fun is there in looking at the already devastated landscape? That’s the moment I thought to myself!

” !!!! ”

I could tell that what she was looking at was not the scenery seen through the window next to the bed, but ‘me’ standing next to it.

Although it only existed as a black figure, I felt that it was smiling at me. And with a very gentle… expression…

” Baby… I have one last favor to ask. ”

” I hate this! I want you to be like this…! ”

” I wish you would protect the last world I have. For the sake of the ‘child’ who will come after me. ”

” Yes…? What is that… the child who succeeded you…? ”

” Surely… if you’re with that kid… you too… ”

With those words, the woman lying on the bed began to disappear, and the woman holding her hand began to cry and shout pitifully, as if she was crying.

First, the sadness that the woman has disappeared, second, the denial that the woman has disappeared, and finally, the hatred towards others along with the belief that they are the reason for the woman’s disappearance.

The increasingly tearful voice then changed into a ‘mad’ laugh.

” Haha… yeah… all of them… those guys are bad. Because those guys left her first… so she felt lonely and left me… yeah, yeah all of them… those guys are bad.

And this world… no longer believes in her… salvation… is not needed… ”

With those words, the bedroom that had once felt warm disappeared and I returned to a desolate room.

With this… I could know for sure.

Who were the two people talking?

And who is the owner of this memory?

*****

This time, after a while in the bleak room, a black door appeared and I opened it and went in.

Then a voice, tired from crying, is heard.

” How was it…? Was it fun? Because you learned something you didn’t know? ”

Where the voice came from was a woman with her whole body dyed black, looking at a small pond.

The floor ripples with a ‘thud’ sound as you slowly move your feet.

And the floor is covered in pure white stars.

This is… the place where you can watch the world. [Constellation]

” Well, it wasn’t that fun. Rather… it was just a pity. ”

” Haha! What do you know…! Do something…! ”

” I don’t know, as you said. I just saw the memories you showed me. Is this the first time we’ve met each other in person? The evil spirit… no, the goddess of death. Thanatos. ”

At the word ‘death’, she was looking at the pond with her long hair down and only moving her eyes, glaring at me.

I thought I met her in the other world, ‘Maderona’, but now that I think about it, it was just a ‘fragment’ of her.

A woman lying in bed. A fragment of her that was created and sent out out of hatred for the other gods who left ‘Goddess Gaia’.

I was happy with Patruna for saving the world after just painstakingly destroying her fragments, but it was a mistake.

Now, looking at her like this, I felt goosebumps so much that my hair stood on end.

‘ Well, that doesn’t mean I’m losing though. ‘

As I was looking at her, who was staring at me, she slowly opened her mouth.

” Yes… The one who succeeds the goddess Gaia. Charlotte… No, the goddess of judgment, Manienu. ”