Chapter 5
Seong-Hwi gave up on survival and charged at Regnator as he summoned his D Weapon.
“HAAHHH!”
A golden card appeared in midair with a glimmer. It showed a man with long gray hair and crimson eyes, sitting on a rock with his hands on the guard of a greatsword stuck on the ground. Behind the man was a giant red dragon with its head severed, and next to it was an ashen horse tied to a tree with several birds on its branches.
“I will devour the dragon’s heart!” Seong-Hwi shouted.
[Activating Unique Skill: Borrowing Destiny.]
[Siegfried the Dragon Slayer]
[The destiny of the dragon slayer indwells you.]
[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]
[Renowned Horse Grani]
𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
[Holy Sword Gram]
Seong-Hwi rode the embodied ashen horse Grani and clenched the embodied holy sword Gram with both hands.
“Oh, so that is the ability of the human race. Fascinating,” Regnator muttered as he stared at the D Weapon, relaxed as if he were on a stroll.
That pride will lead to your death! Seong-Hwi shouted inwardly as he rode Grani, feeling its speed as he infused all of his mana and Destiny Force to activate Siegfried’s exclusive skill.
[Activating Exclusive Skill: Dragon Scale Slash.]
“Chaaa!”
Holy Sword Gram dyed red as it trembled, and the Dragon Scale Strike infused with the power of destiny burst forth in a crescent slash.
Regnator looked down at his hand, feeling an unfamiliar sensation. He had tried to take the creature’s sword and examine it because he could feel mysterious energy from it. He had done so because he had absolute confidence that no sword could penetrate his dragon scales. However, his skin had been cut.
“Blood?” he wondered.
I was cut? It’s not deep, but my scales were penetrated?
“How dare you?!”
His perplexity was soon replaced by fury. He couldn’t believe a mere creature managed to harm him. Regnator’s handsome face crumpled intensely. His face wrinkled, and ten crimson eyes opened from them. The twelve eyes, including the two he already had open, stared at the human running away on the ashen horse.
The immense mana and Draconic Mana he was born with burst from his Dragon Heart, and he immediately activated a skill.
[Activating Race Skill: Dragon Tongue.]
“Stop.”
“Kurgh!”
Seong-Hwi, fleeing on Grani, suddenly felt as if time had stopped. He couldn’t look back or even blink. He couldn’t even breathe.
“Hurgh!”
Invisible blades severed Seong-Hwi’s legs like slabs of ham.
[Canceling Borrowing Destiny.]
[Canceling Symbol Embodiment.]
He tried to hold on to it with all his might, but Siegfried’s destiny, which he borrowed, vanished along with the embodiment of Grani and Gram.
“Kurgh!”
Seong-Hwi, both his legs severed, fell to the ground.
Regnator looked down at him and remarked, “That is your rightful position as a mere worm. Make sure to remember it.”
“GAHHH!”
Invisible blades were swung again—Seong-Hwi’s arms were severed this time. Seong-Hwi convulsed from the shock of his dismemberment, and a leather pouch fell out of his pocket, half-revealing an ordinary-looking rock the size of a fist.
“What a pathetic-looking Race Stone. It suits your race well.”
Regnator extended his arm. He tried to lift the Race Stone with mana, but it did not budge.
“Oh? I suppose, despite its pathetic appearance, it is still a Race Stone. Very well. I will make an exception and lower myself.”
“NO!”
Seong-Hwi stared at the stone in front of him. It was the Destiny Stone, humanity’s Race Stone. It looked like any ordinary rock one could find anywhere, making it feel like destiny was all around them and that it was never in a special place. If Regnator got hold of that stone, humans would have to submit to dragons. He knew what horrifying end the fairies faced after their Race Stone was taken by the dragons. He couldn’t let the same happen to humans.
“AHHH!”
Seong-Hwi crawled like an insect, digging his chin into the ground. He opened his mouth and swallowed the Destiny Stone. The stone entered his stomach, and he could feel his throat tearing as it made its way down, along with the bitter taste of his blood.
“Gurgh. Kurgh! Kehehe. You’d rather not have it dirtied by our blood? Sorry to say... it already has!”
Seong-Hwi laughed mockingly as he looked up at Regnator. He knew he was only stalling the inevitable. Regnator would take the Race Stone—it was an unavoidable destiny. Seong-Hwi was frustrated, enraged, and ashamed of his weak self.
However, he wanted to distort that prideful dragon’s face if it was the last thing he did. Since Regnator couldn’t move the Destiny Stone with mana, he would have to cut Seong-Hwi open and pull it out with his hand. It was the final struggle Seong-Hwi could manage against the man who was disgusted to even touch an inferior race.
“Kehehe, I’m the wrapping. The gift is inside me... If you want it, you’ll have to pull it out yourself!”
“You’re quite tenacious for a creature. Very well. Tenacity is an important trait for a slave to have.” Regnator unsheathed a longsword from his waist and remarked, “It’s been a while since I’ve butchered meat.”
He smirked and approached Seong-Hwi.
It’s over.
Seong-Hwi could feel his end. This was the end of the line for him. He had bled so much that he felt dizzy. He closed his eyes. His imagination took him to a stage venue as an audience member watching a play.
The scene shifted, the stage changing to a broken-down train station where trains no longer passed, laid with rails of destiny. It was winter, and the day of the first snow. Seong-Hwi, in the audience seat, stared at a child on the stage—it was his five-year-old self. His cheeks were red from the chilling winds and snot ran down from his nose. The boy was waiting for the train at a station where trains no longer passed.
“Mommy... I’m waiting right here, because you said you’d come back for me no matter what. I’m waiting like a good boy.”
The young Seong-Hwi sniffed and shut his eyes tightly. Tears flowed down his cheeks. No one was coming to get the boy. Just then, the boy heard the bell whistle of a train and felt the vibrations of its wheels on the rails.
“Huh?”
The young Seong-Hwi opened his eyes in shock and saw a train arriving at the old station along with a blizzard. He wondered if it was a ghost train. The train stopped and its doors opened.
A woman got off the train, the sound of her boots stepping on the snow ringing. Seong-Hwi couldn’t tell who she was because her face was shrouded in shadow. The woman walked straight up to the young Seong-Hwi. The scared boy tried to avoid her, but she knelt and hugged the young Seong-Hwi.
“My baby... why are you crying?”
Her warm embrace and the scent of primrose melted the boy’s frozen heart.
“Mommy...?”
“Yes, Mommy’s back. Did you wait long for me, my baby?”
“Mommy! Waaahh!”
The young Seong-Hwi bawled his eyes out in his mother's arms. It had been too long since he felt her embrace. Even the first snow felt warm at that moment. Seong-Hwi smiled from the audience seat as he stared at the young Seong-Hwi reuniting with his mother.
“It was a long wait.”
Blood flowed from his mouth. He couldn’t feel any pain. Someone was cutting open his abdomen and rummaging through his intestines, but Seong-Hwi could only see the warm reunion of a mother and child on the stage.
He slowly closed his eyes, hoping for the stage lights to never turn off. He hoped the only thing to turn off was his vision. And slowly... Everything faded to black.
Click!
It was the final snapshot. The recollection was over.
***
ESTRAGON: What do we do now?
VLADIMIR: I don't know.
ESTRAGON: Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for Godot.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
***
[Commencing the Destiny of Return, the first and final destiny of the Mirror World.]
[Setting the name of this destiny as The Destiny of Cheon Seong-Hwi.]
Seong-Hwi opened his eyes after a long dream. He saw a circular LED light on the ceiling.
“What the...?”
His life had been flashing before his eyes at his death, but this was something else entirely.
What is this? A dream within a dream?
Just then, several Akasha Messages sounded inside his head.
[You are aware of the Mirror World.]
[Conditions fulfilled.]
[Preliminary awakening, successful.]
[Selection of language based on the universal knowledge of the race Human, complete.]
[Generating Status Window.]
[Generating Quest System.]
[Generating Cube System.]
[Under the Karma System, Karma can be acquired through clearing quests, hunting, and more.]
[Stat cubes, skill cubes, item cubes, and other items can be purchased with Karma.]
[The caliber of the race Human is below average.]
[Applying corrections accordingly.]
[Generating Destiny Weapon, the unique ability of the race Human.]
...
The messages sounded familiar. They were the messages Seong-Hwi and the other humans received when they were sent to the Mirror World and given a mandatory quest.
“Preliminary awakening?”
He had heard rumors of a few chosen individuals having awakened their abilities since their time on Earth and progressing much faster than others because of it. However, it was just a baseless rumor—one of the Mirror World’s urban legends.
Is my subconscious controlling my dream?
His limbs were intact. Most of all, he recognized this place.
“It’s my house.”
It was not his house in the Mirror World. There was his old leather couch, the TV on the wall, the dreary living room, his desk, bookshelf, bed, and a small bathroom befitting a 1LDK.
“What in the—”
His doorbell rang as Seong-Hwi was still fumbling in confusion. He walked to the intercom as if in a trance and his expression hardened. On the black and white intercom display was a man wearing a hazmat suit and oxygen tank, cautiously speaking into the speaker.
—Seong-Hwi hyung? Are you there?
“Dong-Hyun...?”
On the other side of the door was Seo Dong-Hyun, who grew up with him at the Calsanz Home for Children. He had seen this scene somewhere before.
Seong-Hwi put his hand into his pocket. There was a smartphone. He did not have his smartphone with him in the Mirror World, unlike other people, because he had been Lost from a prison. But of course, even if one was Lost with their smartphone, it was but an obsolete box of recollections unless their D Weapon could work with it. He never missed having a smartphone because he had no such memories in his.
The lock display on his phone showed that it was December 24, 2030. It was his twenty-sixth Christmas Eve—the day when his destiny drastically changed.
—Seong-Hwi hyung? I heard this is his address...
Dong-Hyun pressed the doorbell again. Seong-Hwi was about to reach for his intercom receiver when his hand froze.
Is this... a dream?
It was far too vivid for it to be one. Moreover, Seong-Hwi had never seen the Akasha Messages lie. The Akasha Messages rarely relayed the whole truth, but they never lied.
“Does that mean... Did I return to the past? To Earth in 2030? But why?”
Returning to the past was as unrealistic as Dragon King Regnator adoring humans. Seong-Hwi heard about high-ranking skills and items associated with time. They were extremely rare and limited in what they could do, but were powerful enough to shift the flow of battle. However, returning to the past was on another level entirely.
Such an unbelievable result could only have had an equally unbelievable cause.
“Could it be?”
Seong-Hwi remembered something. There was only one reason this could have happened—the Destiny Stone. Seong-Hwi had swallowed the Race Stone of humans containing unknown powers.
“Did I seriously return to the past?”
Dong-Hyun pressed the doorbell again.
—Seong-Hwi hyung... are you there? I-I know this is shameless of me to ask when we haven’t seen each other in so long, but... I’m here because it’s urgent. Are you perhaps... acquainted with anyone in the legal circle whom you met at Korea University? Please... Please help me.
Seong-Hwi stared at Dong-Hyun, breaking into tears. He wondered what he needed to do first if he had truly returned to the past. There were many things he could think of—the most fundamental things were to train his body, find out if he could complete quests on Earth, and collect more destinies at the library. He had always been disappointed in the Mirror World because he did not know enough.
However, there was one thing he needed to do first. He was the only one who could do it.
That fucking schizophrenic who loves Go-Stop should still be alive, right?
Dong-Hyun’s desperate doorbell rings echoed from the intercom. The gradual shortening of its intervals calmed Seong-Hwi’s mind.