As they sat facing each other on the sofas, the protector prepared coffee after unsheathing its sword.
He didn’t catch it when they were at the front entrance, but BM’s body was trembling endlessly. All the way from his head to his toes, as well as his hands that were holding onto his coffee.
Yu Jitae looked at his arm. Despite the hot climate of midsummer, he was wearing long sleeves and long pants.
BM didn’t look too healthy and appeared fairly exhausted. Yu Jitae focused on the beating sound of BM’s heart and realised that three to four hearts had disappeared from 13 or so of his hearts.
He seemed to have lost something in order to gain something else.
Turning his gaze, Yu Jitae looked to the side. After sneaking out of her room, Yeorum was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV and the young chimera carefully approached her.
“H, he, llo…” said the chimera. It was the voice of a young boy that had yet to pass his puberty and Yeorum silently looked back into his eyes.
“…”
Yeorum – she was empathetic of a colony of dying rats. Despite its horrendous appearance, she pitied them. Perhaps she found an image of her own self while looking at the poor existence who was born wrong, with predetermined death.
And now, another chimera was approaching her without being afraid.
“Da, ddy…?”
“I’m not.”
“I’m, not…?”
The white-skinned boy went even closer with a bright smile on his face. Yeorum frowned as if she would punch him if he got any closer, and the boy stopped immediately before she got uncomfortable.
He then slowly laughed.
“He, hehe…”
Yeorum turned towards Yu Jitae, asking whether this kid was okay in his head or not, and Yu Jitae returned a nod.
“You. What’s your name.” She asked.
“Na, me?”
“Why’s your hair red.”
“Re, d?”
“Do you know how to speak?”
“Da, ddy?”
“…”
When she frowned, the boy widened his eyes and tilted his head.
That was when BM turned towards the two of them after taking a sip of his coffee. He then stared at the child he made with a warm gaze.
“Hey, BM. Does he know how to speak?” This time, Yeorum asked BM.
“Isn’t he doing it right now?”
“He’s only saying words and can’t hold a proper conversation though?”
“That’s because he’s still a baby. He was just born.”
“When was he born?”
“A week ago.”
Yeorum apathetically glared at the boy, and the smiling child carefully approached her.
“Oi. Stop there.”
“Nn, nn…”
“Don’t come.”
“Nn…”
He toddled his way and naturally cuddled next to Yeorum.
“Hello? Do you not have ears or what… Oi, get off.”
“Da, ddy…”
She felt annoyed. Pushing the boy with her two arms, she sat him next to her. After being instantaneously pushed away by a powerful force, the boy slowly smiled, ‘Hehehe’ yet again.
“Why am I your dad, you… idiot.”
“You, are, not?”
“Do you not have a dad?”
The boy slightly pondered after hearing her question, before again pointing at her.
“Here…?”
“Like I said, I’m not. You fu… Ahh, this is driving me nuts.”
Finding it uncomfortable to stay here, she stood up and the boy followed her. However, he seemed to be having trouble standing – he stumbled and fell from the sofa so Yeorum urgently grabbed him by his clothes.
When she held him by the nape upside down, his clothes rolled up and revealed his upper body. Yeorum frowned when she saw the child’s heart that was covered by a strange purple flesh.
“Where, are, you going…”
The child asked after being put down on the sofa.
“You know what. I’m gonna go back to my room. He’s too much of a kid.”
“Do what you want.”
Ignoring the child, Yeorum started walking but a weird feeling stopped her on the spot.
“Don’t, go…”
Looking back, she found the red-haired and red-eyed boy earnestly looking for her. What was wrong with this kid? They just met and they weren’t even that close…
That was when she felt a seemingly useless memory resurface.
– Hey, where are you going!?
– I’m going first. Because you’re a bad younger sister.
– Don’t go! Come here…!
The memory of her youngest unni, the only one who had cherished her from the entire race, flashed across her head.
It was because that damned kid had red hair.
If it was any other colour, she wouldn’t have remembered such a thing.
Thinking that, Yeorum turned back towards the living room. She sat next to the boy, and the boy came near her with a bright smile on his face.
“Oi. Don’t copy me.”
“Don’t, co, py, me…”
“Stop.”
“Stopp…”
Yeorum grumbled with a sigh.
“Is this kid like this because he has no family or what…”
That was when BM opened his mouth.
“That child is my son.”
Yeorum pretended to have missed it.
After chugging the coffee, the middle-aged man continued with an extremely quiet tone of voice.
“To be exact, he’s like my son. His name’s Jung Taebaek, and I gave him the name. Both his father and I were from Taebaek in Kangwon-do.”
“Was the baby’s real body born in Arandot?”
“Yes. His father was a human who was transferred to a different universe due to the Babylon Incident with me, and his mother was a wingless Fire Demon – from the demon race.”
His eyes staring at the empty cup from behind the broken pair of sunglasses, were hazily looking at the distant past.
“Right. Tell me your story.”
“I had comrades.”
“Comrades?”
“Quite a lot of them. And that child’s father was my friend. My best friend who I lived with for almost 30 years.”
“…”
“One day, while the entire world was in a war, he brought a demon from somewhere. He wanted to bring it back alive without killing it and I thought he had gone insane.”
“An idealist, I see.”
“He was too much of an idealist. Later, I discovered him dating that fire demon. He was trying to persuade me that she wasn’t a bad woman and I thought he was possessed. We had a massive fight and I bashed the hell out of him.”
“…”
“I didn’t like it at all. Dating a demon… He liked her though so I let them be and they even had a child later on. That all happened in the middle of a war. They gave birth to a child while there were countless 15-metre long monsters flying in the air and I took the boy with my arms. And I named him, Taebaek, as a wish to go home. His red hair and red eyes were a spitting image of his mother.”
“…”
“Until then, I didn’t like that fire demon. She lost her wings and horns but I still thought of her as a demon. One of my other friends cursed her saying that her large butt was the only thing she had. In fact, my friend boasted about it… and the demon lady was proud of that as well.
“Since I didn’t like her, I was always on guard even when she was fighting on our side. Just like normal demons, she burned things and didn’t smile much. But when she gave birth in the middle of a war and looked at her own child…”
BM hesitated, before pushing his sunglasses up.
“She cried…
“She was crying her eyes out. That was when my values slightly changed. Until then, I thought people never changed but I started thinking that existences could change. Perhaps it was because of my change in values or perhaps humans are just like that, but our relationship changed a lot after that and we all became good friends.
“I had to apologise for harassing her. In Arandot, there is the culture of giving alcohol when asking for an apology, so I found some good alcohol and gave it to the demon lady.
“I was so harsh on her… and yet that lady drank it all too easily. At that point, I couldn’t even tell which of us was more of a demon.”
BM powerlessly let out a laugh as Yu Jitae quietly listened to him speak.
In the previous iterations, he had been BM’s ally and had sometimes been his enemy but he had never heard of such stories in any of those previous iterations.
“Arandot was hell itself. Some ‘lunatic’ was breaking everything in the world. Many of my acquaintances died, including my teacher who taught me everything on chimeras. It was literally hell.”
“Did you miss your home?”
“Yes. We vowed to definitely return. We’ll go back and let this young baby lead a normal life at the very least. End this stupid hell on our generation so that he didn’t have to go through it…”
“I assume it didn’t go well.”
“Yes. They all died to that ‘lunatic’. The fire demon lady was the first to die. She threw her body to save my friend and got torn apart by a blade. I tried to bring her back to the camp while she was still breathing and she asked, whether her butt was still there or not. It was probably a joke. But her butt wasn’t there… Her lower body just…”
BM stopped his words for a long time.
“…They both died in that fight. All my comrades just died there. So I wanted to die as well. What would I do. I was ready to put everything down and just die… but that baby suddenly started crying. I had to survive.
“Since you’re such an omnipotent human, do you know? What it feels to be the only one running away when all my friends are dying next to me?”
Yu Jitae didn’t reply.
“I hated everything in the world… At the start, I cursed the enemy. Then, I cursed the two of them for being stupid enough to bear a baby and after that, I cursed myself. I was mindlessly wandering like that…
“And that’s when the baby died.”
BM gave a self-deprecating smile.
“The baby, he died. He didn’t die because of something great either. Some random monster shot its sting while passing by and it hit the baby. He died because of my stupidity. It woke me up straight away.
“Fate is such a gross thing. Straight after that, a fissure appeared in the dimensions and I somehow found a way to go back. I killed a monster called Abraxas and returned using its power.”
BM killed himself in the 3rd and 4th iterations – that was what the world heard.
“I went through everything I had over and over again. And I found it. A strand of hair of the dead baby was on my shirt… that red hair he got from his mother.”
The truth however was different. After making a chimera with hundreds of human hearts, BM came to a conclusion that a normal superhuman heart lacked in power.
And the mad chimera engineer sacrificed his own heart in an attempt to create a chimera.
The result was a failure.
“Now I no longer have a friend to drink with. I couldn’t ask for anyone’s forgiveness. In order to live, at least I had to forgive myself. But, hundreds of times a day – I just couldn’t forgive myself.”
Right now, he wasn’t drinking anything.
“That’s the type of person I am. That’s how much a human-type chimera means to me.”
The engineer who had been seeking for a miracle soon died. Back then, there was no miracle.
“That’s what happened till now. Taebaek.”
“Nn…?”
The red pair of eyes looked back at him. The moment his eyes met with BM’s, the child happily gave a wide smile.
It should have been an unchangeable future and yet it seemed to have changed.
The Regressor, who had been silently listening to the story, looked back and forth between the boy and BM. He looked at BM’s eyes that were staring at the child, and the child’s eyes that were staring at BM.
Only then did the Regressor open his mouth.
“So that’s your story. Must’ve been rough.”
“Apologies for rambling on.”
“So what’s the reason you came here. Did you want an apology and acknowledgement out from me, who condemned you?”
“No. I don’t have anything against you. At the start, I was irritated and was later frustrated but after going over it without even sleeping at night, I was embarrassed.”
“About what.”
“The fact that you know more about chimeras than me, sir, means that you researched about it more than I did.”
The Regressor nodded his head. In the midst of his hazy memories after the end of the 4th iteration, he had researched chimeras for dozens of years by repeating his iterations.
“I had the chance to get taught on what you earned with difficulty, and yet I was lazy. I could give excuses, that I had repeated too many failures. But, I shouldn’t. Others could, and maybe for something else, but when it came to this, at least I shouldn’t have been like that…”
He again smiled self-mockingly.
“I couldn’t even ask for more help because I was too embarrassed to do so. So I decided to try doing it myself and using the hints you gave me, I was able to revive the child.
“He’s still young and it’s a precarious time period but I’ll try nurturing him to my best ability. I came here to say that. Sorry about my appearance – I was in a rush. Now that you know everything, let me say one more thing before I leave.”
BM took out a white alcohol from his dimensional pocket. It was a fermented wine from Arandot, which Yu Jitae had previously given to BM.
“I have shown you an extremely silly side. But thanks to you, I was able to succeed like this. So if you could please, sir…”
After opening the bottle, he poured alcohol into the cup-shaped lid.
He then gave it to Yu Jitae.
“Please forgive my laziness.”