“I'm f*cked up.”
Svengali looked around and muttered so.
A space of darkness.
At least he knew exactly what had happened to him and where he was.
So he muttered again.
“I’m really f*cked up.”
He muttered with a look of lost enthusiasm.
His enormous body size, perhaps affected by this, gradually shrank, until he was the size of a basketball.
It doesn't mean anything here anyway.
He simply decided to conserve and stockpile all his energy, and just changed his form to the most advantageous form.
"But what the hell is he doing with that thing...!?”
Someone instantly caught Svengali, who was muttering, and threw him directly to the ground.
It was Lee Ye-Eun, who opened her eyes to the point where the blood vessels came up.
She gripped his neck with one hand while the other hand was held up like a hook and pressed it against his eyes.
“What kind of bullsh*t is this again?”
She muttered with a growl.
“You must have done something, right? Tell me right now. What the hell did you do to Ji-Hyuk? Spit it out before I gouge my eyeballs out. You f*cking birdbrain!”
“…! ……!!!”
And as if agreeing with her words, Mandragora nodded and slapped Svengali's head with his stretched roots.
Svengali flapped her wings, making choked sounds.
“O, okay! All right! I'll answer everything, so let go of me!"
When Lee Ye-Eun let go of her hand, he hurriedly got up.
Then he moved as if dusting with his wings and shook his head.
“To sum it up. We are f*cked up now.”
"What?"
"Me. And you, and you, my alter ego.”
Svengali pointed with his wings and said.
“All three of us are f*cked up. So we should just go somewhere and make a clean place to die... .”
Lee Ye-Eun's hand moved quickly and grabbed something.
Immediately after that, Svengali twisted his whole body as if in pain.
“Eua, ak! My eye! What if you really dig it up!”
Lee Ye-Eun, who had crushed one of Svengali's eyes, muttered coldly.
"Do you want me to do the same for the other side?”
"O, okay. I shall explain it properly. So I shall act like a bit of an intelligent person."
Svengali blinked, and soon a new one appeared.
He sighed and muttered with an attitude that said, where do I start?
"This is the mental image of the man. Or, more accurately, it is a place where the world in his memory is embodied."
"What?"
"So… we have now entered the man's memory."
He flapped his wings wide.
“I was using my ability to connect him to my mind, and suddenly the connection was broken. Needless to say, he must have worn something with such abilities or used some sort of means. The problem was that he was in my body, and his connection to me was particularly strong.”
There is the characteristic of being a Stranger.
Also, the piece of wood he has and the energy of Margo.
This was probably due to a combination of these things, but Svengali did not bother to explain it to her.
Because he didn't need to and it was too much trouble.
Lee Ye-Eun glared at him without a word.
The strange twitching of her fingers reflected her thoughts of snatching him up at any moment.
“I really did not know that I would be dragged into other people’s memories in such a semi-forced way, and you two probably were brought along because you were in my body. So, now the situation has been roughly explained?”
“… Then why the hell is our situation so bad? If you come in, there must be a way to get out."
“That is the problem. You need a key to open and close the door, but now it is like putting the key in the room and locking it.”
Svengali muttered in a helpless tone.
“I am locked in here, aren't I? In any case, as long as it is in his memory, he is the subject and I am nothing more than an object. There is no way for me to get out of there because I was dragged here semi-forcibly. Unless he wakes up on his own."
But.
“Look around here. It is crazy black, right?"
He burst out laughing.
“Memories like this show the memories that you wanted to hide, the so-called traumatic memories. He will never get up on his own. In the end, it means that he has to wake up by external contact, but he is in my body now, isn't he?"
"Then… .”
“We have to wait until he naturally dies. I do not know how much time will pass here, but in reality, it is three days at most. As far as I know, humans die in three days without water... !”
“In the end, that means you're the problem!”
Lee Ye-Eun hit him with her fist as hard as she could, and Svengali was immediately thrown to the ground.
But he looked at her with an expression that said he felt no pain.
“I am sorry, but you and I can not interfere with each other here. To be honest, I was a bit bored earlier, so I matched the rhythm, but I did not expect you to believe it so well."
He got up with a heut.
“Just go somewhere and think of a way to pass the time, because in time we will be able to get out of this. Well, it is getting bothersome now."
“Don’t bullsh*t… !”
She grabbed Svengali, who was about to pass by calmly.
“Tell me how to get out of here, now!”
“… As I said, he has to wake up on his own or wake up by external contact. But the latter is absolutely impossible.”
“Then, Ji-Hyuk will have… .”
“Is your eye blind? Look here."
He looked around.
A pitch-black space.
“I would never go to a place like that. If you get caught up in it, you really can not get out. Besides, how can he afford to worry about other people when he is probably struggling with his own trauma by now? I am glad I did not get caught up in it. So do not do anything useless and save your life. Anyway, I shall be in trouble too if you die."
"Hup."
She quickly threw him away.
Then she took a small breath, looking at where the light flowed out.
“So now you're saying that he's suffering and waiting for help. And his life is in danger if we delay.”
There is no sister anywhere who would sit still when she hears that her brother is in danger.
she muttered so.
She didn't care about Svengali anymore.
“…!”
Mandragora, who struggled up Lee Ye-Eun's shoulder, nodded.
Seeing this, Svengali shook his head.
"You freaking want to die.”
Svengali muttered as he said that.
“If you are the head of the World Tree clan, please think about how important your own body has become… !”
At that instant, Svengali opened his eyes wide without realizing it.
World Tree.
Come to think of it, he had spread roots all over my body.
Then wouldn't the nutrients needed to sustain life be supplied at the same time...?
“…… .”
Maybe it will take more than three days.
Maybe it will take several years.
Maybe even more... .
A few years was nothing to him.
There was no life span, no need to ingest nutrients like other creatures.
The problem was that if he stayed idle during that time, mankind would surely perish.
"No… .”
Margo, himself, and Ariman.
Two seals have long since been broken and one is empty.
From what Ariman said, Minerva, that lizard b*tch's seal has also weakened considerably.
He was a guy who didn't talk nonsense, so it must have been true.
Minerva, who he knows, has enough power to blow up a few continents on her own.
Is that all?
The fish, the stone head, and the mushy b*stard.
They are all savage, hostile to humans, and have dangerous powers.
The worst outcome was soon drawn in Svengali's mind, who had a mission to thoroughly manage and nurture mankind and preserve it for the future.
A world where, after a few years, when he went outside, mankind would be annihilated.
That was something that had to be prevented.
Having come to a conclusion, he immediately flapped his wings and approached Lee Ye-Eun.
"I am willing to help."
"What?"
“Thinking about it, it is not in my temperament to just wait. Would it not be better for the three of us to join forces here? So let us form an alliance through a temporary truce.”
He spoke in a sly voice.
“I may look like this, but I am the expert here. I think you are going to need my help.”
“…… .”
Lee Ye-Eun kept her mouth shut, not wanting to answer.
In her mind, she wanted to tear him apart and kill him right now, but she did as he said.
For Yoo Ji-Hyuk, she was willing to join hands with Seven Evils.
“Well then, let us go back to his memories, shall we? We just need to find him buried around the end and wake him up. It is that simple."
Svengali stepped forward, muttering that.
“Anyway, we need to know what the problem is to find a way to fix it.”
They were soon able to reach the first bright spot.
Lee Ye-Eun smelled perfume in the light.
Soon after, the figure of a young boy appeared.
* * *
Lee Ye-Eun felt as if she were watching a cheap movie.
Yoo Ji-Hyuk's childhood.
Besides being able to watch it right beside him, she could also vaguely sense what the boy might be thinking.
Lee Ye-Eun, who looked at the young Yoo Ji-Hyuk's face lovingly for a moment, could soon realize that a sense of uneasiness was coming through the boy that made even her uncomfortable.
“Is that him when he was young? He was pretty cute with bright eyes when he was young.”
“He's still cute enough?”
At Lee Ye-Eun's words, Svengali looked at her with eyes that said, are you serious? and turned his head again.
“It was the first moment he remembers.”
She could tell without listening to him.
Lee Ye-Eun found herself gradually assimilating into the boy.
And the fact that the boy hated the smell of his mother's perfume to the point of making his hair stand on end.
The smell of cheap, strong perfume.
Still, he didn't want to let the smell go all day.
“Didn't your dad say anything?"
Yoo Ji-Hyuk, who was sitting on the floor, shook his head at the question of the woman sitting in front of the dressing table.
"Really?"
Her voice is sharp as she asks back.
Her eyes were raised scarily for a moment as if it was unacceptable if a child, who was only a parent's possession, dared to hide anything from their parents.
As Yoo Ji-Hyuk nodded once more, she muttered as if she had lost interest.
Yes, what would you know?
"Mom."
“Mom is busy.”
“Mom, mom said mom is type O?”
“Mom said mom is busy.”
“Dad is also type O.”
“Yoo Ji-Hyuk, be quiet!”
The boy, who cowered his neck, mumbled quietly.
But why did the kindergarten teacher tell me I'm type B?
“I want to be type O too… .”
The boy, who was mumbling as if he were depressed, didn't want his mother to be angry, so he thought he would ask his father later.
The young boy was still too young to notice that something was wrong.
He knew nothing, and ignorance was bound to be a sin.
Then something broke and a loud noise was heard.
A woman's sharp scream.
A man's vulgar swearing and shouting.
Lee Ye-Eun, who was frowning, saw young Yoo Ji-Hyuk locked in a corner of the room, crying, and ran forward without realizing it.
“Ji-Hyuk… !”
“It is useless.”
She immediately tried to comfort him by hugging him, but her body went right through Yoo-Ji-Hyuk's body.
Seeing her making a black expression on her face, Svengali clicked his tongue as if saying, see?
“Let us not do anything unnecessary, just take a closer look at his memory. We need to find out the cause of his trauma. Well… I think I have a rough idea."
He smacked his lips.
“It seems that he was the result of unintended pregnancy, born of his mother's affair. Hmm, is this what people call illegitimate children? Oh gosh, it seems the father was also having an affair. What a harmonious family."
It was as he said.
The voice they heard was too strange and shrill.
They, Yoo Ji-Hyuk's parents and a married couple, beautifully decorated their relationship with words that could not be picked up from each other, and in the process, the words they spewed at each other were as pale as they could be.
“You b*tch, I'm asking which b*stard's kid is that!” [Note: the word "kid" is a cuss here, which roughly means worthless(has little worth) child, I'll highlight the ones in green that means that.]
“Your kid, whose kid it can be! So what did you do well?! You tell me whose rouge marks you buried that day!"
“Why are you talking about it now? More than that, you, the kid in your belly right now isn't ours either, is it? Huh? What kind of guy did you f*ck with this time again? Hm?"
“I told you, it happened once that day! You don't trust your wife that much, you worm-like bast*rd!"
Again, the sound of something breaking was heard.
Svengali shook his head at the scene and decided again that his thoughts were not wrong and that he should manage humans as soon as possible to get rid of all those negative things.
The world changed again.
This time, his mother, holding Yoo Ji-Hyuk's hand, was arguing with another man.
“Look, it’s your child! You bast*rd, you told me you were azoospermic!"
"Be quiet… ! Whose life you want to ruin?!”
The man said so and roughly pushed the woman away.
As she fell and make an akk sound, Yoo Ji-Hyuk approached her in surprise.
She looked up at the man, who looked at their son who asked her in a tearful voice, are you okay? once as if he was disgusted.
"You… You think I'm going to sit still like this? My life is over because of you, how will you take responsibility!”
“No, why is that my fault? After all, aren't you wrong too?”
He smirked and spat at her, who was on the floor.
Seeing this, Yoo Ji-Hyuk glared at him, the person who had injured his mother with eyes full of reasonable hostility.
“…The kid's eyes… .”
He muttered as if he was in a bad mood, turned around, and ran away.
Her woman sat there and buried her head in both hands, and Yoo Ji-Hyuk just sat down next to her and asked her if she was okay.
Svengali muttered, with a rare frown.
“He does not look like a good guy. He is like that even though he is clearly his own child... . No matter who looks at it, they have the same smell and blood... Tsk, tsk.”
And Lee Ye-Eun, who was staring blankly at the scene, murmured quietly.
“… He isn't his father.”
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