Chapter 70
“You’re asking if this place is safe?” Gilder said.
“Yeah. The Shadow Fairy Queen has started to move. What if she finds the entrance?”
Gilder swept his bald head with his hand and answered, “The entrance isn’t so easy to find. Honestly, you’re the anomaly, Seong-Hwi.”
“But what if she does?”
Gilder’s expression turned serious. “Even if the Shadow Fairy Queen discovers Larayu Cradle, she can’t just enter.”
“Why not?”
“Look around you. It’s the complete opposite of the dreary world outside, right?” Gilder pointed at the green vegetation and continued, “Like how it’s filled with Chaos Mana out there, this place is filled with Harmony Force.”
“Harmony Force? Isn’t that the secondary force of fairies?”
“Yes. Even if the Shadow Fairy Queen finds this place, she would never willingly enter a place that would halve her power just by being in it. Although she’d probably send in her subordinates to harass us without end.”
That’s good news, Seong-Hwi thought as he nodded, becoming more certain of his plan. There’s no need to stall. I’ll start as soon as tomorrow!
Gilder stared at Seong-Hwi deep in thought and called, “Seong-Hwi.”
“Hm?”
“Do you have time this evening?”
“Why? Do you have a new plan?”
Gilder replied awkwardly, “Oh... no, not about that. We’re a team, but we barely know each other. I was thinking we should talk about life stuff.”
Seong-Hwi chuckled. “Life stuff, huh?”
“You know, stuff about Earth. It’s good to reminisce about our home. Come to think of it, when were you Lost?”
“January of 2031.”
“I see, 2031... Wait, what?”
Gilder’s eyes and mouth widened.
***
Seong-Hwi created a fireball floating in the air with the Ace of Wands in place of a bonfire. He lay on the grass and looked up at the night sky.
It looks like this world also has stars.
He was reminded of his name, Seong-Hwi, that Mother Maria gave him whenever he looked at shining stars.
“Yo! Sorry for making you wait!”
Gilder approached Seong-Hwi with a jar made of dirt in one hand and two cups in the other.
“What’s that?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“Oh, this? It’s called fairy spring water. I got it from Queen Dryas. I’ve never had anything so refreshing.”
Gilder placed the jar next to Seong-Hwi and sat down. Once Seong-Hwi sat up, Gilder handed him a cup and poured the fairy spring water into it. Seong-Hwi stared at the clear water and took a sip. It was sweet and refreshing, like melted peppermint candy.
[Consuming Fairy spring water.]
[Boosting fire resistance for 1 hour.]
“That’s good,” Seong-Hwi remarked.
“Ahaha! Right? There’s no alcohol here, but this is great in its own right.” As Seong-Hwi sipped the fairy spring water again, Gilder asked, “That aside, are you sure you were Lost in 2031?”
“Yeah. I paid my first survival tax not long ago. Five hundred Coins.”
“Your first survival tax...” Gilder trailed off as he shook his head. “That means it’s your second month in the Mirror World! How is that possible?”
He stared at Seong-Hwi as if he were a monster. Seong-Hwi’s Magic stat was at least C-rank, no one would think he was a newbie from his battle sense, and his ability to use so many skills went beyond the realm of talent.
It’s not something one can achieve in less than two months, Gilder thought.
He had grown strong relatively quickly, earning him the reputation of a talented rookie. However, he was a mere tortoise compared to the monstrous hare before him.
Is this what it takes to become a High Ranker or possibly a World Ranker?
Seong-Hwi replied apathetically, “Possibilities like growth potential, innate talent, and the future are all meaningless. The only thing that matters is current power.” He sipped the fairy spring water again and continued, “At this moment, I’m weaker than you. I’m a Single-C. What about you?”
Gilder hesitated for a moment and answered, “Triple-B.”
“Magic, Strength, and... Health?”
“Yeah.”
“What about your caliber?”
“I’ve just barely reached the intermediate caliber.”
“I’m still in the inferior caliber. Honestly, I would have retreated if we continued to fight back then,” Seong-Hwi remarked as he shook his head.
Gilder was dumbfounded as Seong-Hwi talked about how weak he was.
He’s saying... he stood toe to toe against me despite being an inferior caliber Single-C? Is he dissing me? Gilder wondered.
However, Seong-Hwi’s expression was serious, indicating he truly thought he was insufficient. Gilder understood what kind of person Seong-Hwi was from his response. Seong-Hwi endlessly devoted himself to moving forward. He always craved more because he only saw his insufficient sides.
“An intermediate caliber Triple-B, huh? You could aim for Single-A if you get the chance,” Seong-Hwi said.
“I guess so.”
“If you do, you could even become a Ranker.”
Gilder shook his head and responded, “I’m not leaving this dungeon. I have to protect Dryas.”
Seong-Hwi stared at Gilder silently and said, “Don’t get too absorbed in your role-playing. This is a dungeon. It’s a foothold for growth, not a place to settle.”
Gilder hesitated momentarily and replied, “I’m not role-playing. My desire to protect Dryas is real.”
“Remember the taboo. Residents don’t have to pay the survival tax—”
Gilder interjected, “I know! You don’t have to tell me! I haven’t been getting much Karma from hunting Chaos lately!”
There was a taboo regarding dungeons in the Mirror World. It warned travelers not to grow mentally or physically close to the residents. Due to Chaos Mana contaminating them, the dungeon worlds were on the verge of collapse. They could disappear without a trace at any moment.
There was no precedent of people who stayed in a dungeon on the verge of closing, returning to the Mirror World. Not only that, but dungeons were a limited space, unlike the Mirror World. The more one got stronger and accustomed to fighting the Chaos in a dungeon, the less Karma they obtained. Over time, the survival tax would catch up to their Karma profits, and they became escapers, who were then ultimately reduced to Chaos.
“If you know that, I won’t say anything else,” Seong-Hwi remarked.
Silence fell. Gilder moved his right arm out of habit, deep in thought.
He said, “I told you I used to work for a PMC, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where I lost my right arm,” Gilder added as he closed his eyes.
***
Gilder was part of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) stationed in Afghanistan. He was acknowledged for his achievements and entered a PMC.
He initially worked as a bodyguard for key figures in Middle Eastern companies or protected cargo ships traveling along the Somali coast. He earned a relatively high income, including incentives for performing hazardous duties; he once earned ten thousand dollars in one month.
After years of completing missions without any hitches, he received an offer from the company to join a special team they were setting up to be stationed in Iraq. Gilder immediately realized the team was a black ops team.
Many countries entrusted missions that their soldiers couldn’t perform, due to political reasons, to private military companies. Black ops teams were created especially when those missions were internationally illegal.
Gilder accepted the offer. He would receive enough money to retire on the spot if he were to return successfully from the mission, and he also had immature thoughts about mercenaries having to carry out at least one secret mission in their life. And so, Team Black Scorpion was born, and Gilder got a tattoo of the team’s symbol on his head.
Their mission in Iraq was to search and destroy rebel forces. Black Scorpion, as one would expect from a squad of super-elite mercenaries, carried out the mission without issues. Gilder killed someone for the first time in Iraq; it was a man who aimed an RPG at an allied vehicle.
The second kill was easier than the first, and the third was even easier. Gilder soon became accustomed to killing enemies, and his hesitation eventually vanished. However, one experience changed everything.
***
“Huuu, damn rebels. Where the hell do they keep appearing from? There’s no end to them.”
“They’re like cockroaches.”
“Argh! I wanna go home.”
“Kekek! You were from the UK, right? Don’t go back to that gloomy place and come to my hometown. Las Vegas! Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Members of Black Scorpion were having field rations for lunch in a safe zone made with three pickup trucks. Just then, they heard quiet footsteps.
“Who’s there?!”
“Come out with your hands up!”
“Show yourself or a grenade will blow you to bits!”
Gilder and the other mercenaries pointed their rifles at a large rock, one of them even pulling out a grenade. A small and grubby Middle Eastern girl walked out from behind the rock, trembling.
«النجدة...» (Please help me...)
“A child?”
“Kill her! It must be a rebel ploy!”
“Wait! Stop!” Gilder stopped his comrades as they were about to pull the trigger. “She might be a captive!”
“Wake the fuck up, Gilder! Don’t you know the rebel bastards use children wearing explosive vests?”
“You can see she doesn’t have anything like that! She might know something if she escaped from the captors.”
Gilder had a point. One of his comrades pointed at the girl with his chin and said, “Then you bring her here. There might be a sniper on standby.”
Gilder hesitated momentarily and answered, “Okay.”
He left the pickup truck's safe zone and approached the girl, who shook uncontrollably as if convulsing.
“It’s okay. Come here. Were you held captive somewhere?”
“Ahh... Ahhh...” the girl only mumbled.
“Oh no,” Gilder remarked, noticing the girl was not in her right mind. He quickly checked the girl’s body, made an OK sign to his comrades, and shouted, “It’s okay! She’s clean!”
He said to the girl, “Come this way. Man, you’re only skin and bones. Do your captors not even feed you?”
He returned to his comrades with the girl.
“Gilder, our mission is to root out the rebels, not rescue captives.”
“Rescuing captives can lead to rooting out rebels. Stop complaining and stay with her. I think there was a chocolate bar around the passenger seat,” Gilder replied as he headed to the pickup truck to find the girl something to eat.
He thought, The girl’s eyes were... odd. They were crying for help, but also empty, as if she had given up on everything.
He partially got into the passenger seat when he heard the girl shouting.
«شيطان!» (Demon!)
“What is this brat saying?”
“What did that word mean again?”
Gilder’s comrades expressed confusion, but Gilder knew what the word meant.
Could it be? he wondered.
However, the plastic explosive the girl had swallowed exploded before he could warn his comrades.
“Kurgh!” Gilder groaned as he felt burning pain in his right arm and turned around.
All he could see was the flesh and blood of what used to be the girl and his comrades.
“Ah... Ahhh!” Gilder screamed as he trembled uncontrollably like the girl when she saw him.
***
Black Scorpion was wiped out except for Gilder. After investigations, the girl who blew herself up was the daughter of one of the rebels they killed. Gilder bought a cheap apartment in Toronto with the compensation he received from the company and fought with PTSD.
I drove my comrades to their deaths!
If only I had killed that girl back then!
What if I had? Would that have been the right choice?
Why am I in this state? What was I missing?
Gilder could only think about the memories of that day as he fiddled with his cheap prosthetic right arm.
Why did I sign up for the black ops team? he asked himself.
It was for money and glory. He was given so much money that he would never have to work, as compensation and to keep his mouth shut, but he was not happy. As for glory, he had only wanted to brag to women in bars about his mercenary life in Iraq.
He couldn’t believe how moronic he had been but most of all, he despised that he had no conviction. He had spent his life chasing money and glory. His missing right arm felt like his missing conviction. With that, Gilder spent every day drinking and doing drugs to forget the pain from that day. He was Lost on one of those days.
***
“I gained a right arm once I arrived in the Mirror World,” Gilder said as he showed Seong-Hwi his D Weapon Prosthetic Arm of Sin. “But I didn’t gain the conviction I never had in the first place.”
“Conviction, huh? Quite an abstract thing you’re searching for,” Seong-Hwi mumbled.
Conviction was a firmly held belief or opinion. Seong-Hwi recalled Mother Maria, who believed not in God but in those who desperately wished to find God.
“You might not believe it, but I was a super rookie. Various clans showered me with offers. They promised me Coins, executive positions, items, women, and more.”
Seong-Hwi nodded and thought, I’m not surprised. Anyone would want a former member of a private military company with experience in war.
Gilder continued, “But I refused them all. I felt... something was lacking in their offers. You could say it was no different from Earth.” He chugged the fairy spring water like it was alcohol. “I wandered throughout the Mirror World alone, hoping for the world to find my conviction... just like how it found my right arm.”
“How reckless of you.”
“Hah! That tends to happen when searching for abstract concepts like dreams, hopes, happiness, and conviction. No one knows how to find it, so they just try to brute-force it.”
“Seong-Hwi, my kind and brave child. Become someone who takes hold of his destiny.”
Seong-Hwi recalled Mother Maria’s words. He understood Gilder because he was also chasing an abstract goal.
“But in my journey, those goddamn goblins captured and interrogated me. I happened to discover this dungeon entrance by pure luck.” Gilder remained silent momentarily and continued, “That’s when I met Dryas. Her eyes were empty as if she had given up on everything, but carried a trace of hope for someone to help her.”
Gilder recalled his first encounter with Dryas, who had been fighting alone for a millennium to prevent the eradication of fairies. The last fairy had become an ancient being, but she was broken beyond belief. She faced solitude, waiting for the baby fairies with no certainty they would be born, but she never gave up hope despite the heart-wrenching pain.
“I thought only one thing once I saw her,” Gilder remarked.
“What?”
“Naturally... that I wanted to protect her.” Gilder raised his right arm and closed his fist as if he were grabbing a star. “Isn’t it funny? I killed countless rebels with this hand. Karma manifested itself as a little girl and took all my comrades.”
Seong-Hwi remained silent.
“I... still can’t forget that little girl’s eyes. Once I saw the same eyes on Dryas, I resolved not to let her die this time. I... want to protect her.”
Gilder stared at Seong-Hwi, his brown eyes as unmoving as a boulder.
“To protect. That is the conviction I’ve rediscovered along with my right arm. Do I still look like a Role Player to you?”
Seong-Hwi couldn’t answer Gilder’s question.
Conviction, huh? Seong-Hwi thought.
Seong-Hwi had a goal: to do whatever it took to become stronger, surpassing even the Ten Lords and Fiends, to guarantee humanity’s survival. He also strove to grasp his destiny and shine brightly as Mother Maria wished.
However, a goal was different from conviction. A goal was a result, while conviction was the path taken toward a goal.
If I had a conviction, what would it be? Seong-Hwi thought deeply and instinctively recalled something related to his most painful memory. At the very least, I won’t abandon the people close to me before they do.
It was why he was trying to grow stronger for his kind; why he cared for his past comrades despite being in a different timeline; why he did his best to keep his promise with Thumper, and wanted to help Gilder.
I don’t want to be irresponsible, unlike a certain someone.
Seong-Hwi had a debt to humankind since he had returned to the past through the Destiny Stone, the Race Stone of humans.
***
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler