…It felt like his head was covered in thick fog. His body felt heavy. Dizziness seemed to swallow not just his mind, but his entire body.
And yet, in the midst of that, a fact that couldn’t be ignored pierced its way to the forefront.
‘He’s dead.’
Kasajin was dead.
Although he had been reduced to a pitiful being who didn’t even know if he could call himself Kasajin, and his appearance had changed greatly, that man, who was able to share memories with Lukas, was now dead.
His heart sank.
So vainly.
He’d died at the hands of a being he never would have expected.
‘The water in a canteen is the essence.’
Those were the words Pale had said to Kasajin in the past.
The canteen was just the shell. The liquid it contained was the essence.
Death in the World of Void was like breaking the canteen. But just because the canteen was broken didn’t mean the liquid in it disappeared.
It just scattered.
The spilled water would wet the ground, and it would be impossible to collect it again. In a sense, it could be described as returning to nature.
That was what death in this world was.
The void that made up the body would scatter into the atmosphere. It was close to impossible to revive someone even if all of the scattered void was collected again.
So it could be said that Kasajin was truly dead.
“…”
He didn’t realise.
He’d felt the way he was feeling now before.
When he’d finally escaped from the Abyss and entered the body of Frey Blake.
At that time, he hadn’t fully recognised the weight of those 4,000 years, and the fact that most of the things he knew were dead or forgotten. At that time, too, his brain had trouble accepting it.
That was still the case.
Lukas had seen Kasajin’s severed head, but he still hadn’t fully accepted his death.
Perhaps it was because of the fatigue, but his head throbbed.
Suddenly, he felt like he wanted to fall into a very deep sleep.
* * *
“-that’s why. I’m gonna kill that Diablo guy.”
It was like reporting your daily routine to your parents.
Sedi spoke in a relaxed voice.
“I’m not going to attend that meeting. So how will I get to kill him? There has to be a way. That skeleton is in the Dump Site, so maybe I can go there myself and…”
It seemed that Sedi intended to get rid of all of Lukas’ obstacles first. But her voice didn’t reach his ears. She didn’t receive a proper response. He just stared blankly with dead eyes.
And Sedi didn’t like that unresponsiveness.
Paak
“Kuk…”
His abdomen sank. Sedi had kicked Lukas.
“Father, I’m talking to you.”
“…”
“Say something.”
Puk, puk.
She was engrossed in beating him as she tried to get Lukas’ attention or see some kind of reaction. There were times when she wouldn’t say anything and would just unleash violence all day.
“Why aren’t you smiling, Father?”
“…”
“Smile. Like you used to. And call my name. Stroke my head.”
Sedi’s mind was no longer normal. It had been barely stable before the truth was discovered, but it seemed to have collapsed completely after the discovery.
First of all, Lukas had no hands to stroke her head with.
Jurk-
One time, Sedi coughed up black blood. When he first saw it, it poured out from her nose and mouth, and in the end, it even flowed from her eyes.
It looked like she was vomiting black mud from her eyes.
“…that’ll be all for today.”
When that happened, Sedi hurriedly wiped her face and left the dungeon.
Lukas gradually came to realise that she would leave when she began to bleed black blood.
* * *
Even in this situation, he was able to grasp the approximate passage of time.
It had only been about three or four days since he’d been imprisoned in this place. But it felt like it had been tens of times longer than that.
“That must hurt.”
He heard a voice.
At first, he thought it was a hallucination. This was because he couldn’t sense anyone else, and the voice was so faint as if he was hearing it in a dream.
“That must be painful.”
When he heard it again, he thought it might be the Black Horned Demon God. Because it was likely Sedi’s mind and his intention that had caused him to be locked up in this place.
“How are you feeling now?”
But the third time he heard, Lukas realised that wasn’t the case.
He opened his eyes… That voice. He’d heard it somewhere before.
With his lone eye, he looked ahead. In his dim vision, a certain being could be seen.
It was a frog.
He saw a frog standing there while moving its head.
Hop.
The frog jumped through the bars of the cell and stopped about two steps away from Lukas.
“Kukuku…”
A low but cheerful voice rang out. It had definitely come from the frog.
But it was strange.
He could hear the voice from the frog, but the frog’s mouth remained firmly closed. It didn’t seem to be using any sound projection or telepathy technique either.
As if it didn’t care about Lukas’ curiosity, the frog continued to look at him with its characteristically emotionless amphibian eyes.
…A frog in this situation. Had he finally gone crazy? Or was he simply hallucinating? It didn’t really make a difference which one it was, but he wasn’t sure.
The current Lukas lacked acuity.
“The loud voices ringing in your head. They weren’t necessarily a bad thing, young man.”
The moment he heard those words, Lukas realised who the frog was.
“Beginning Wizard.”
“You are a living witness. This is what happens when the voices disappear.”
The frog chuckled.
“They were constantly awakening your mind. Of course, you wouldn’t think so. You must have simply wanted to get rid of the voices.”
“…”
“But is that really possible? After all, they are all ‘Lukas Trowman’. They eagerly handed their responsibilities over to you so that you could fulfil their unfulfilled wishes on their behalf. There’s no way those people would interfere with your work, is there?”
He hadn’t thought that far.
He hadn’t expected the voices to have that kind of effect. That meant the reason Lukas’ mind was so foggy now was because the awakening effect they had given was gone.
“There are certain thoughts that you can only have in such a state.”
“…what do you mean?”
“There was a time like this when you couldn’t move, wasn’t there? At that time, you didn’t even have a body, and you couldn’t get anyone’s help, so if you just judge from the situation, I think this one is better.”
He felt his mind clear up.
The time the Beginning Wizard was talking about was when Lukas had been locked away in the Abyss.
Lukas looked at the frog.
“Wh-, who are you?”
The frog’s eyes seemed to shine strangely with brilliant blue light.
“How do you know about me? By chance, are you from the same universe…”
“Show me what you’ve already shown me time and time again. Don’t let me down.”
His manner of speaking changed.
“Think about revenge. Vent your hatred on the person who made you like this. Even if it’s dark and negative, it’s fine for you to use it. In this situation, it’s a useful factor for maintaining a broken mind.”
“…are you another Lukas?”
The frog didn’t reply.
But Lukas somehow had the feeling that he was smiling faintly.
“Come to the Magic Planet whenever you want. I have a lot of gifts for you.”
“…”
Hop.
The frog jumped out of the cell.
* * *
-Hatred and rage. Revenge.
That’s what the frog… no, the Beginning Wizard said.
The more constrained the situation was, the more unorganised and rough emotions could be transformed into the most efficient driving force.
But the current Lukas’ hatred had lost its direction. He could not direct it at Sedi. He knew it in his head. She was also a victim. Although she had killed Kasajin, although she had tricked him and tortured him, that was probably not what Sedi wanted to do.
‘Demon God?’
In that case, could he direct his hatred towards the Demon God? Of course, Lukas hated the Black Horned Demon God. However… it wasn’t enough.
He couldn’t vent as much rage at him as he had when he was trapped in the Abyss in the past. This was a matter of emotions. While it was possible to control them to an extent, it was impossible to control them completely.
And.
‘-ah.’
Lukas suddenly realised.
His heart had felt stuffy ever since he’d returned to his home universe and realised his existence had been forgotten. An unresolved resentment. It was like he was suffering from an insatiable thirst.
The reason had become clear.
Lukas had no being that he could focus all of his hatred and rage on. He had been toyed with by fate, accidents, or laws, but never by a specific being. From a more human perspective, it was like being swept away by a natural disaster like a typhoon or tsunami.
‘…driving force.’
Lukas pondered those words.
In the end, he was the one who knew himself best.
* * *
In front of Sedi, he still acted as if he’d lost all of his energy. As such, the level of violence that Sedi unleashed gradually increased, but he didn’t care.
When she left him alone, Lukas would get lost in his thoughts and he often meditated.
‘It’s been a long time.’
It had been a long time since he’d focused on meditation. At least, since becoming an Absolute, he had never immersed himself in meditation with the goal of development. Because he was already mentally complete.
But it was different now.
Lukas was now realising his own imperfection.
-There are certain thoughts that you can only have in such a state.
The Beginning Wizard’s voice lingered in his mind strangely.
…There were thoughts that he could only have when he was like this.
That meant there were also ‘things’ that he could only do in this state.
But Lukas had no clue how he could escape his current situation.
‘I would just rather die.’
His lips twisted into a sneer at the sudden thought. It was in mockery of himself.
He didn’t think of dying to be more comfortable.
Lukas was simply suffering from the desire to start over.
‘Trash.’
He stopped to swear at himself.
You want to die and start over? So what, would you kill yourself? There was still the question of whether he’d even be able to regress this time.
In itself, the thought was an insult to life.
Life was only beautiful because you only had one which meant you’d always do your best.
If you could have two, three, or even more lives.
If you could undo as you please, revert as you please, and repeat as you please.
Then you would probably regret every choice you made. It would reach a point where you could only be satisfied with a perfect judgement, and that compulsion would eventually devour you from the inside. It was a self destructive choice.
Lukas respected life. He respected the dignity of a single life.
To want to kill himself because of the possibility of starting over?
It was an insult.
A clear insult to the path he’d walked so far.
‘I have no intention of killing myself.’
There was no point in doing that.
This perspective.
In a situation where he couldn’t use void.
In a situation where Kasajin was dead.
In a situation when all of his limbs had been cut off and he was struggling to find a way to reverse this situation.
Sss-
A bluish aura appeared within Lukas eyes.
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