Myu died.
To be precise, Myu wasn’t dead.
Her physical body was still alive but the unique character and identity that had been with Myu ever since her birth had just then vanished from this world.
Turning his head, he looked at the paper on the ground; at the dirty piece of paper and the picture and words written on it.
The mirror image selected as the host by [Will of the Ancient One (SS)] was none other than the mirror image of [Personality]. In order to break the Will of the Ancient One, Myu had to die.
So to be precise, Myu wasn’t dead.
He killed her.
“…”
He turned around and quietly observed the world. Conceptual fragments that had once filled the sky were falling endlessly, flickering in its path.
A few of the fragments landed in front of his eyes as he extended his hand to let the falling shards rest on his palm. He then gazed at them deeply, until they dissipated into nothing.
Everything in this world would return to such fragments after losing their concept. Since concepts do not exist in reality, they could not be retrieved once they disappear.
Myu will never be able to come back now.
The conceptual fragments on his palm gave off its last glitter before scattering into the air. Like a pile of dust they gradually flew off, and it was impossible to even tell its path.
He moved his feet. His feet were in quite a rush.
Once he cancelled [Conceptualisation (SS)], Myu’s world that he had resided in for a not-so-short time started to crumble. On the way back to reality, there was a time where he was unable to see nor hear anything.
In that place, he organised his thoughts.
It was quite common.
Locked dimension; an enclosed period of time. That was something anyone was bound to experience several times when living a disgusting life for a thousand years.
There should have been nothing new in his emotions.
But his mood betrayed that preconception.
He felt something concurrently twitching in the depths of his mind. The dark thing that reared its head time after time was looking up into his eyes.
He was in a hurry.
The 7th iteration was the cause of all problems.
This wretched iteration that had an especially large number of variables was constantly throwing problems at his face. Things that must happen according to his anticipations – all those events he had planned over the long time frame were subtly steering away from his plans.
How nasty of an iteration this was. How hateful of a life.
It repeatedly threw tedious and miserable things at his face and towards the end it was now throwing in a variable that overturned all the previous iterations.
Being made to walk through a desert for a thousand years, it was natural to expect the last day to also be through a desert. So why was it that his path was filled with thorns all throughout?
Variables.
That was instigating his irritation.
Or was it really irritation?
Can this be just labelled as ‘irritation’?
Maybe he was anxious?
No. That can’t be. He refused to believe it. Anxiety was the emotion of a weak existence. He didn’t even know when the last time he felt such an emotion was.
However, his mind was still in a rush. It felt as if a ball rolling down a smooth path had suddenly met a wrong slope.
After a thousand years he had finally found the answer. Though there may be some trivial matters along the road still, this was practically the end.
All he had to do was use the coordinates of the outer dimension which he would soon find and send the baby dragons back to that place.
Even though there was his personal greed, spending more time with the kids was only going to expose them to more unnecessary variables of the 7th iteration. Despite his presence, this land might be dangerous because there were still unidentifiable variables including the [Hostility].
In the vastly empty and silent world, he reflected on the words Vintage Clock had conveyed.
[You will. Definitely. Become happy.]
…It was a somewhat strange statement.
With his mind pushed into a corner, Vintage Clock’s words felt even more significant than before.
His mind was burning.
He had to find the Vintage Clock as soon as possible.
He had to ask what its definition of ‘happiness’ was.
***
Yu Jitae was back in the real world when he opened his eyes.
It had been around a month since he had entered the conceptual world. He had been sitting still next to Myu for a whole month.
Myu was lying down on the ground. She was breathing; there was blood flowing in her body and her eyes were half open.
There was a part of him that thought, maybe. He brought his hand to her eyes and slowly waved it up and down.
Her faintly opened eyes showed not a single response.
This time, he used his watch to shine light into her eyes. The pupils contracted – the reflex system was still there, but he could not find any conscious response.
She was no different from a stringless puppet.
He closed her eyes,
With his hands trembling.
First off, he decided to finish the experiment.
Because of the firm lock on the door, no-one had come in but it seemed that the room had been shaken, evident from the fallen chair and experimental tools rolling around the floor. One of Myu’s legs was also falling down the bed.
After having her sit properly, he raised his knife.
The barrier under the name of [Will of the Ancient One (SS)] had already been cracked open. Now, he could dissect the authority organ, [Emergency Summon], and find the formula for the long-distance dimensional intersection.
This too was written in words that could not be seen on Earth but there were no problems as he had an ability that could understand languages and letters of other worlds.
<The skill, [Fallen Babel (S)] analyses the magic equations of the distant dimension.>
<Current state of Analysis: …0%>
The percentage slowly rose up. Even though his proficiency at the skill had reached the limit, he still had to wait several weeks at this rate.
It was always like this. Anything related to the dragons would always take a long time with zero exception.
He had been waiting for a thousand years. Waiting for an extra month or two was not that big of a deal.
At least that should have been the case.
Maybe he was in a rush, but the extra required period of a month made him feel very uneasy.
In a rush? Me?
He did not want to acknowledge it.
But more importantly, what was taking this damn number so long to crawl up?
<Current state of Analysis: …1%>
His senses were sharpened like the edge of a sword.
Even then, he had to hold it in.
Once this analysis was over.
He would finally be able to send the baby dragons back home.
***
Regardless of what had happened to Myu, and regardless of whether he had to send the baby dragons back home or not;
There was something more important for him to do. He had to find the Vintage Clock, and his mind quickly thought of a clear method that could make that happen.
Leaving the underground isolation room, he headed to the ground with rapid steps.
The shockwave that had shook the conceptual world;
The power that tried to ruin the end of his long voyage.
The Regressor clenched his jaws. The surging irritation had with it a force of inertia as it accelerated even further over time. He had never felt this irritated recently.
He would now head somewhere, and would find whoever possible. He would then ask them questions about this incident.
Whoever it may be, they would have to give a satisfactory reply.
All sorts of messages and contacts had been flooding his watch ever since he turned it on. Most of them were from Jefferson and Kang Ahjin and there were also several from other agents but he did not bother checking through them.
He went up to the ground. People saluted after seeing him.
“Chief!”
“Aht…”
Ignoring their salutes, he carried his feet forward.
Despite the unwavering gaze of his eyes, he scrutinised everything near him. With the eyes of a snake, he scanned through everyone; their faces, eyes, weapons and postures, and lastly he placed the value of their existence on the scales of [Eyes of Equilibrium].
Those that looked into his eyes froze from the unfamiliar sense of fear.
“We’ve been waiting for you! Season.”
Hearing the news of his arrival, Jefferson urgently ran up and started walking by his side as he began reporting the things that had happened recently.
However, Yu Jitae shook his hand to make him shut up.
His watch rang – he was getting direct calls from various executives including Zhuge Haiyan but he ignored all of them.
“…Are you okay sir?”
Jefferson, who had received the order to make sure there weren’t any problems until his return, asked nervously due to his failure at following through with his command.
“Return to your office and look after your own work.”
“Ah, yes sir! Certainly.”
Yu Jitae did not blame him and instead continued walking forward with rapid steps. There was nothing wrong with Jefferson – he had been moving in accordance with Yu Jitae’s plans.
He lent his ear to the accurate information being relayed in real time by Clones 1 and 2.
– The one who has attacked the Association was Oscar Brzenk.
It was as expected.
– The target used every bit of authority as a sovereign to push the Association into confusion and constantly tried to head towards the underground isolation chambers.
As he had expected, it indeed was an action that was aimed at him.
– Currently, Brzenk is 7 days into isolation, and is locked up in Room 27. However, the Brzenk Family is protecting his equipment including the Level 5 artifact!
Now what the heck was this about.
He once again felt irritation surging inside.
– This is regarding the current extent of damage.
– 415 injured civilians, 177 injured superhumans, 2 civilians and 1 superhuman dead. Chairman Chaliovan had activated the [Force Field of Life] to decrease the number of casualties.
– 12% of the defence facilities have been damaged, 35% of which were destroyed beyond repair.
– Something else that might be of importance, is that the ‘Returnee’, BM, alongside the ‘Nuclear Bomb’, Jeanie Inssirem, have been hospitalised due to a serious injury.
– It was thanks to the sacrifice of the two that the human casualties could be minimised and in the meantime, I borrowed the power of the Witch to capture the target alive.
– Since this is a unique situation different from normal terrorist attacks, the target has been handed over to the Association’s administration.
This too was a report that gnawed at his mood.
It was a [Sovereign] attacking the Association with determination and yet the number of casualties were irritatingly few.
No matter how Clone 1 was to retaliate, if Oscar Brzenk had used even a tiny bit of his brain to attack while jumping across the dimensions, he should have been able to kill 30% of the Association’s military without difficulty.
– Yu Bom had predicted the situation.
He furrowed his brows.
Bom did?
– Yes. An urgent conference was gathered under Chaliovan’s lead. Although it was met with severe opposition, she managed to cleverly persuade them.
– I will now send memories related to that.
Images appeared in his mind. Central Conference room – the room was filled with loud voices criticising Bom’s words for being ridiculous. Bom persuaded them by putting her prestige on the line and it worked.
– Chairman Chaliovan has fallen asleep after using all his power in activating the [Force Field of Life], and it is currently the acting chiefs of each department that are giving commands in his stead.
He usually would have looked for Bom to check her condition.
However, Yu Jitae cut the communication off for a while.
Although the result wasn’t that bad, the process was very unpleasant. He had never requested Bom to do such a thing.
A frown appeared on his face.
This was clearly a ‘variable’.
It felt as if someone had peeled his hangnail off.
The military prepared by Yu Jitae was on standby at the Association. They would have been able to protect themselves even if Oscar Brzenk was to carry out an ambush. Although they would have suffered a greater loss, there would have been zero problems to their continuance.
But if Bom came into the picture and shook the command centre, things might have turned worse.
Both the result and the reality did not matter. This was a matter of ‘uncertainties’.
A matter of ‘variables’ which irritated him significantly.
It was when a fair amount of irritation was impulsively gushing out of him when Bom’s aura just happened to come nearby.
Before long, Bom walked out from the other side of the corridor. She appeared to have used [Teleport (S)] on repeat to follow his hazy tracks from a distance and had a slightly rushed breath.
It was a re-encounter after a month but he was not happy.
In fact, he was close to getting angry.
“…”
Collecting her breath, Bom looked at him. She was forcibly suppressing a bright smile from showing on the outside.
But the moment their eyes met was when the smile slowly began to disappear from her face.
“…”
Silence.
The two quietly looked at each other.
Bom gazed deeply at his face and his eyes to read his mood, before carefully opening her mouth.
“…Hello.”
He didn’t reply.
“Welcome back…”
In the face of the nonchalant greeting, he closed his eyes for a bit. He had to soothe his anger.
From now on, he had to tell as few lies as possible. Words had power, and he knew how absurdly strong they could be. Lies that cannot be regulated outside of his mouth would continue rolling like a snowball, becoming an even bigger problem over time.
“Bom.”
“…Yes.”
He couldn’t bear saying to the child, ‘Why did you do something unnecessary that I didn’t even tell you to do’… Because the result was good despite it being outside of his words… Because she was a precious child despite her irritating actions…
Whatever it was. For whatever reason it may be.
Yu Jitae restrained his expression as much as possible.
He opened his mouth.
“Go home.”