Chapter 93 - The Trailblazer VII

11

—How should I write the diary of the battle that took place that day?

I think I have done a fairly good job of carrying this installment along so far. Yet now, as I reflect on the first time in my life I defeated a God of Alienation-class anomaly, I suddenly feel anew how difficult it is to describe.

My constant wish is to be as truthful with you as I can. If I falteringly sing poetry, it is not to perform some talent-show trick before you. It is simply because there are nights in the heavens that can only be expressed in poetic language.

Starlight poured down.

Those stars had the viscosity of water, not light. Red starlight cascaded down, roaring with the voice of a waterfall.

Like a tsunami suddenly crashing onto a beach, light made of water surged toward us as though to drown us.

Cheon Yohwa hurriedly turned toward me. We were still holding hands.

"Mister! Tell me what to do!"

"Never dissolve into your surroundings. That anomaly will probably do everything it can to test and experiment on you, ultimately turning you into a precisely defined object—a lab rat. All manner of fantasies and visions will engulf your life like a tidal wave. Don't let them color you. Anchor yourself."

"Yes!"

The red, watery light rushed up to our waists in an instant. Calm and unwavering, I stared down Gapless.

The distance between us and Gapless was a mere ten meters, and it was also a hundred meters. There was no reason it could not be 4,444 meters.

It was the distance between this shore and the other shore. It was gapless, and it was infinite. From that furthest horizon rang the anomaly's innocent laughter.

"Kyahahahaha hahaha ha ha—"

If thirteen kilometers were called a yojana, as in ancient India, that distance was one yojana and also twenty thousand yojanas.

Buddhism taught that the hell of sentient beings extended twenty thousand yojanas beneath the earth's surface. In other words, hell lay 260,000 kilometers underground.

The earth's diameter was 12,700 kilometers. The distance from the earth to the moon was 385,000 kilometers.

Since ancient times, the moon had been the otherworld closest to the earth.

Hell lay precisely between a distance more than sufficient to traverse this world and one woefully insufficient to reach another.

"Ka ha ha ha ha ka ka ka ka—"

The midpoint between this shore and the other shore. The realm of sentient beings who could no longer remain in this world, yet no longer had the strength to go to another.

Thus, in that territory of reincarnation where the wheel merely spun idly, only laughter mocking humanity split and creaked without end.

It was the derision of an anomaly that alienated humans from the world.

"Yohwa. Within that anomaly's domain, both time and space can deceive you however they like. But the fact that they are deceiving you never changes."

"..."

I tightened my grip on Cheon Yohwa's hand a little more. The distance between us was humanity's smallest unit of distance.

"... Yes."

"The chief culprit, the person, the being at the forefront of making a fool of you—that is the great nail holding the illusion in place. Understand? There will probably be something that feels uniquely abnormal, while everything else is normal. Pull out that nail and destroy it, and the vision will disappear."

"Oh! Ah, I totally get it! It's a scene you see in comics all the time. Okaaay. Mister, just leave it to m—"

A blink.

The fiery light rose beneath our chins, and our entire bodies sank into the water. At the very moment when even the feel of our interlaced fingers seemed to grow faint, swallowed by the water's undulations—

A clunk rang out. It sounded like an elevator falling, or perhaps a worn-out wheel turning.

Perhaps it was the sound of time.

The world before my eyes changed utterly.

12

A blink.

"—Undertaker. Undertaker, what's wrong?"

It smelled of summer. Soaked in a freshly fallen shower, the leaves' bodily scent had steeped as richly as green tea.

It was a cedar forest. The cedars stretched their roots in every direction, and atop those stiff legs, bright-blue mountain hydrangea petals sat down and stretched themselves out again.

Between the stretches of the green, grown-up trees and the blue, young petals, an old railway playfully slithered like a snake.

"Honestly. Ugh. Be careful, will you? The track's bumpy enough already. Keep getting distracted like that and you'll bite your tongue."

A tiny train sat on the rails like a toy. It was a three-car miniature steam locomotive of the sort you might see at an amusement park.

Dang Seorin, riding that very train in her witch hat, grumbled.

"..."

"Ah—ah—the track's broken again. I know the world's ended and all, but aren't the Korail employees slacking off a little too much?"

With a heave-ho, Dang Seorin hopped off the locomotive.

Following the example of the cedars and mountain hydrangeas around her, she stretched at length with an "Uaaaah!"

Well, we had already been riding the train for four hours. I could sit still for forty hours without a problem, but a frail mage like Dang Seorin would be stiff all over.

"... Cut them some slack. The Korail employees must all be out of work by now. The world's too harsh to demand they work for nothing but passion."

"Young people these days just have no grit. No grit at all. Ugh. I'll reconnect the track, so you check the wheels. The train's been clattering for a while now, and it's making me oddly nervous."

"All right. Leave it to me."

"Okay."

I fetched tools from the freight car and inspected the wheels of our steam locomotive... the Hogwarts Express.

Please refrain from commenting on the train's name. On this trip—that is, this insane plan to travel around the entire world in a tiny miniature locomotive—my share of authority was decidedly unimpressive.

The architect of this trip, who had loved Harry Potter so much as a child that she wore a witch hat all year round, swished her wand.

"Separate—restore."

A simple two-phrase song flowed from Dang Seorin's lips.

CLANK—CLATTER, CLANK

The rails we had just passed over detached and floated through the air. Then they moved on their own to the break in the railway ahead.

CLACK!

The broken railway was restored in an instant. Of course, the railway behind us was broken in exchange, but well. What did it matter?

It was hard to imagine there were any lunatics in the world besides us who would attempt such an insane journey.

"All dooone. How are the wheels? Broken?"

"No, a few screws had just come loose. I tightened them with all my strength, so they should be fine for a while."

"That's a relief. Then off we go again!"

CLATTER

The express began to move. With a long whistle, steam gushed vigorously from the locomotive.

For the record, that wasn't steam produced by actually burning coal. It was simply illusion magic Dang Seorin had cast.

And why stop at steam? Every inch of our express train breathed with details from the steam-locomotive-specific illusion magic Dang Seorin had spent a full thirty days designing.

It was excellent proof that, in a world gone mad, we were slightly madder than everyone else—and among us, Dang Seorin was incomparably mad.

"We'll be crossing into North Korea soon."

Dang Seorin unfolded a map.

A map heavily worn from handling, colored here and there with felt-tip pens in bright reds and yellows. It trembled like a maple leaf with the clattering of the railway.

"We'll go through North Korea to Tumangang Station, then cross over to Khasan Station, and we'll be in Russia. From there, we can follow the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way up."

"..."

"Ahh, riding the Trans-Siberian Railway has been on my bucket list forever!"

CLUNK, CLATTER

"To think I'd only get to travel after the world ended. Life really is mysterious. Well, anyway, once we reach Moscow, we'll head toward Belarus, Poland, Germany..."

"Yes."

"Hm?"

I murmured softly.

"Yes, this is my dream."

"..."

"To travel the world with you someday, Dang Seorin. And on a train like this, modified to suit your tastes, strange beyond belief."

"...? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

Dang Seorin tilted her head, map in hand.

"That's what we're doing right now."

The cedar forest swayed in the wind. I looked up at the sky. Hazy steam rose along the sky's breathing passages.

"The first car will be yours, Dang Seorin. Common sense says you'd never yield the first car to anyone else. That car will also be your room. You'll decorate it however you please, just like a caravan camper. Skulls, crystal balls, wands, broomsticks... You might even keep an owl."

"..."

"The second car will be my room. At first it'll be neatly organized, but as the days of our journey pass, somehow even your everyday things will creep in and encroach on my territory. You collect and hoard so much junk that one car won't be enough space."

CLATTER. CLUNK.

"The third car will be a dining and lounging area. The fourth will be storage. I have my magic suitcase anyway, so there'll be surprisingly plenty of room. If the railway breaks, you'll reconnect it with magic and song. If an anomaly attacks, I'll defeat it. Like that. We'll be able to go anywhere, as far as we like. We can travel forever."

"..."

"But not yet."

CLUNK

"Dang Seorin. On that night when we defeated Tenlegs, when I first revealed that I was a regressor, and you died—I swore an oath. That I would restore this world to the way it was, and only then set off on a journey with you."

"... When do you think we'll be able to leave?"

"Sorry. Honestly, there's still a long way to go."

I gave a quiet laugh.

"But... I always remember. Dang Seorin. And you need to get a little stronger, too."

"Me? Why?"

"Because we'll cross the Atlantic and Pacific by train, too. You'll freeze the seawater in real time with magic and make an ice railway. Even if we reach a beach with a lonely utility pole standing on the sand, our journey won't end."

"Good heavens. Are you insane? How much mana do you think it would take to keep freezing the sea in real time?"

"Listen. What's more... we won't simply cross the ocean. We'll follow the route the Titanic sailed!"

"Good heavens. Are you insane? That's a really good idea."

We laughed quietly.

"... I see. Undertaker, you have [Perfect Recall]. Then no illusion could ever make you lose your coordinates."

"That's right."

Dang Seorin looked up at the sky.

"Ah—ah—so the trip you promised hundreds of years ago is getting postponed again?"

With both legs hanging outside the train, she sighed through her mouth as though the locomotive were letting off steam.

"Hundreds? It must be close to a thousand years already. Seriously, what kind of friend schedules a trip a thousand years down the line and then postpones it again?"

"I'm sorry. It's mostly Old Man Scho's fault."

"Pfft. No—ahahaha! Riiight. It is that old man's fault. You're the support. It's the damage dealer's fault for running off on his own, yes."

Dang Seorin laughed for a long time.

Then she looked at me.

"I'm probably nothing more than an anomaly's illusion. Something like an AI that copied your memories to come as close as possible to the object called 'Dang Seorin.' Even so, why do you still treat me as a friend?"

"Don't be foolish. Life is nothing more than a dream. Why dismiss it as a delusion simply because you've dreamed again within a dream? If anything, I'm only grateful that you follow me into every dream."

"..."

My traveling companion was silent for a long time.

Then she smiled at me.

"... I'm looking forward to the trip. My heart's racing."

"So is mine."

"I'll be waiting. Even a thousand years from now."

CLUNK

The wheel turned.

13

What is imprinted in childhood leaves its footprints throughout a lifetime. As magic and magicians had for Dang Seorin.

Then the very first shape a person witnesses after birth is a circle, a ring.

A human pupil.

A mother's and father's eyes. Someone's eyes. A black island rising in a boundless white sea.

That island was not a solitary island, but twin islands forming two pairs.

For humans, the most perfect shape was a circle, and the circular form was always the original form.

Humanity's original form looked at me.

"—Ah! M-Mister?"

"Yes. I'm listening."

"Just now... Whoa, it's true. It's all the same... No way. I—I just started elementary school and spent more than five years there! Wow, really... Woooow."

"It took you quite a while."

"I'm—I'm getting chills. Seriously, an anomaly like this can really exist. How...?"

I smiled.

"Who was the nail holding the illusion in place?"

"Ah—um, my mother. She died when I was in fifth grade. My family is kind of... they're all cultists. Only my mother was normal."

"I see."

A firm squeeze.

Looking around, I saw that we were still in a Milky Way teeming with thousands, tens of thousands of colors. Scenes of schools, hospitals, prisons, cinemas, screens, and cities ceaselessly intersected.

"Ka ha ha ha ka ka ka—"

The anomaly sneered.

But the universe had unmistakably shrunk a little from before.

The extent of matter's absence was the capacity that held the mind.

"You swam out well. But it isn't over yet. Until we reach that anomaly's true body, an illusion will burrow into us with every step we take."

"..."

"If illusion is even the right word. You could effectively call it another life. Or a route."

"A route..."

"It inserts a replacement for your time, your life, your existence. In doing so, the anomaly takes your place instead. Just as it stole Hundred Flowers and turned it into Hundred Tales."

"... If I can't swim out of the route..."

"You will disappear from this reality, and something that has replaced you will walk around under the name 'Cheon Yohwa.'"

"..."

Cheon Yohwa nodded.

"... I don't want that. No. I don't."

"What a coincidence. Neither do I."

"But still... that anomaly looks so far away. Though, for some reason, I definitely feel it's closer than before."

Cheon Yohwa glared at Gapless.

"How much farther... I mean, how many more routes will we have to swim through? Honestly, I've just come to my senses after attending elementary school for three years, so I'm still dazed."

"Distance has no meaning in a void like this. There are only the anomaly's own rules, the laws of its existence. And in this case..."

A footfall.

Holding Cheon Yohwa's hand, I took a step forward. Then two footprints, two sounds of footsteps—jet-black twin islands—were etched into the world.

"Three more steps."

Four. Death.

A spell, a strategy, to return the anomaly that had mimicked death to the reality of four steps—the two words sharing a sound.

Since it was a rite for death, I named it a funeral.

I was an undertaker.

"Let's go, Yohwa. It's all right. As long as there are two people who won't let go of each other's hands, humans can do anything."

"... Yes! Ah, shit, the National Sports Festival final was way, way harder! Tell it to bring it on!"

A blink. A clunk.

Humanity's original form blinked its eyes, and the universe's circular form turned its hoop.

The wheel of time turned.

From the other shore to this shore.

Three more steps.