Chapter 139

“Friend... hasn't this been enough?”

“Funny. I could swear I heard that a moment ago. And what did I say in reply...?”

“You devilish... No, you fucking devil.”

Beyond the stone wall where the alchemical formula had been, there was another small chamber. It was too empty to be much of a secret room, so Woojin considered it a suitable place for a conversation.

“A devil? I don't know. I doubt you'd say that if you could see yourself,” Woojin told Juter.

“Oh... Right. You can't see.”

Juter's head had been split into two pieces: the upper half with the eyes, and the lower half with only the mouth.

“Still alive with your head cut in half... If destroying your brain doesn't kill you, I don't know what the hell you are.”

Finding himself talking to Juter's bisected head inexplicably reminded Woojin of a film in which a man talked to a volleyball with a face painted on it in blood.

Was he growing numb? He had gone beyond the horror of splitting a person's head open to calmly conversing with the severed pieces.

“... Anyway, there's nothing much I can tell you. The Antarian Federation? Those kingdoms are ancient history... Their downfall wasn't my fault. They fought among themselves until they fell apart.”

“Your followers were doing research there about eighty years ago.”

“My followers? No idea. I don't care whether I had any. They probably picked up some unfinished treatises I left lying around and made a show of it.” Juter snorted.

“Hallucinogens? Why would I waste my precious time making something so trivial?”

“Then what? What were you doing back then?”

“Well... Around then, I was probably in the Kingdom of Brian.”

“... The Kingdom of Brian?” The unexpected location made Woojin ask again in puzzlement.

In this other world, it had become a land of demons, but in the game, it was the holiest of the five great kingdoms.

“The king of Brian summoned an Archdemon and caused an uproar. Plenty of people went there to close Hell's Gate after it opened.”

“You went to close Hell's Gate too?”

“Are you mad? I went to gather materials. Thanks to all the humans who died then, I had a wonderful time with my research.”

“...”

Woojin regarded Juter with an uneasy expression at that reply.

'Hell's Gate... and the Archdemon...'

He knew those names. They were the very quest the Genesis Corps had been pursuing.

“The demon summoned back then nearly brought the Kingdom of Brian to ruin.”

“... What?”

Hell's Gate had definitely been a B-grade quest. Even when the Archdemon chain quest triggered, its grade hadn't changed.

'A mere B-grade quest nearly wiped out a kingdom...'

There had, in fact, been discussions in the community about how quests of B grade and above could affect the balance of power across the continent, depending on their outcome. But with A-grade quests and even the SSS-grade [Dragon Lord] quest underway, B grade hadn't struck him as particularly significant.

'Maybe the grade could rise as the chain quest progresses...'

Whatever the case, he couldn't afford to take even B-grade quests lightly from now on.

“Brian's collapse upset the balance between the five great kingdoms. What do you think happened? An age of war began!!”

His voice made it sound as though, had he still possessed limbs, he would have spread his arms and jumped up and down in excitement.

“The kingdoms started pouring every resource they obtained from Vandarius's Tower into their wars. Corpses littered the land. Ah... I miss those days. It was a festival.”

“And then?”

“What do you mean, 'and then'? What happened to the Antarian Federation after all its infighting? The five great kingdoms were doing exactly the same thing.”

A tangled melee of kingdoms.

“Idiots. Fighting one another when they should have been busy clearing the tower...”

“Not really.”

“What?”

“You need to study some history. Honestly, this is the problem with people who swing sharp objects...”

SHUNK

“Hey! You lunatic!! I'm talking here!!”

As Woojin drove his sword into the crown of Juter's head, the jaw lying beside it chattered.

“Get to the point.”

“... The war actually led to all sorts of advances.”

Juter began pouring out an endless stream of past events. The Red Tower had received unprecedented funding. Improvements to magic cannons had led magical engineering to produce more inventions than ever before. Trade, medicine, mercenary work, alchemy, and more besides...

Ironically, the many fields that had stagnated during peacetime had exploded with progress in the age of war.

“Thanks to that, even with the wars going on, that period saw the fastest progress through Vandarius's Tower.”

Technological progress driven by war. It was certainly plausible.

'Prosperity and progress are separate things, after all.'

But learning that left Woojin's thoughts in turmoil.

'What should I do...?'

If Juter was right, he couldn't simply decide that the wars between the five great kingdoms had to be prevented at all costs. Doing so might cost them the opportunities for progress that period would bring.

Peace among the kingdoms, and technological advancement. Ideally, he would find a way to achieve both, but...

“You're an odd one, though. Did you really bring me here out of sight just to ask about this? You could ask anyone about what's happened on the continent,” Juter said as Woojin briefly sank into thought.

“Come to think of it, you said something like that earlier. That you couldn't ask them because they're your companions.”

“...”

“What does that mean?”

Woojin gazed at him for a moment.

“Because you deserve to die.”

That was the answer he gave.

“... What?”

“You're an alchemist. You should know all about equivalent exchange and causality. The absolute rule that gaining something means losing something else.”

“What nonsense is that? All you're doing is listening to things that have already happened. Why make it sound so grand—”

At that moment, Juter's mouth stopped moving.

“You...”

His voice trembled.

Whatever else he might be, Juter, the inventor of countless alchemical techniques, was a genius among geniuses.

“You're not from this world?”

And, true to form, he instantly grasped the real meaning behind Woojin's words.

“That's right. I came from a different world that resembles this one.”

“Tell me about it.”

“... What?”

“About the place you live!! Does it trouble you to simply tell me? Right! Then I'll do the talking. You just answer my questions! Yes, that should work!”

Was it a researcher's curiosity? Hearing that only seemed to delight him, and he began prattling on even more than before.

“...”

Now it was Woojin who couldn't hide his bewilderment.

It was strange. Ironically, the man who had tried to kill him just a little while ago was now the person he could speak to most freely since coming to this world...

“Right, you said your world resembles this one? Since you asked about eighty years ago... is that roughly where your world stands? Yes, a time before the five great kingdoms fell! In that case...”

Recalling their earlier conversations, he began deducing things about Woojin's world, one by one. Only then did Woojin feel he understood a little of the man called Juter Boas.

[“You're just a human. What would you even use that for?”]

Woojin recalled Juter's words.

He was a monstrous villain who had killed countless people, yet he didn't kill out of malice. He did it purely for his research. Alchemy took such absolute precedence that he had gone beyond even good and evil.

'That doesn't make him any less insane, though...'

Ironically, it was precisely because he was such a lunatic that Woojin could freely discuss the two worlds with him. He hadn't been able to speak openly even with Ruen or Irurin, afraid that their conversations might tangle the worldlines and cause them harm.

“Pwahahaha!! What? Really? The king of Esten is high on drugs? Hey, those followers of mine do good work. Even I've never managed to get a king to take an alchemical drug.”

Even after learning the truth, Juter seemed untroubled. No, he looked positively delighted.

“... It's no laughing matter. It'll cause a war. You know that too. You know what's going to happen.”

The war against the monsters. They had to prepare for a long, horrific ordeal that wouldn't end even after decades.

“Don't agonize over it so much. What will happen will happen in the end. That's causality. An absolute law that constitutes the world,” Juter replied with surprising composure.

“All your struggling won't change the world much. Look at me. Yes, I used humans in my research, but did the world fall apart because of me?”

“...”

“It didn't. What a mere human can accomplish is less impressive than you'd think. There's always something greater out there.”

“Don't use that to justify what you've done. Who knows how the future might have changed if the people you killed had lived?” Woojin snarled.

He was struggling desperately to survive. Juter's words sounded as though he was saying all that struggle was meaningless.

“Really?”

Yet Juter seemed to have been waiting for that very response.

“Then I'll help you.”

His voice was laden with meaning, but Woojin's response was cold.

“Don't try anything clever. Desperate to stay alive, are you?”

“Of course.”

“Don't get your hopes up. Having a conversation doesn't change what I think of you.”

SHING

Woojin planted his sword in front of Juter's head.

“I'm not talking about the me here and now.”

“What?”

“I mean the me in your world.”

Juter's eyes looked at Woojin.

“As you say, I'm obsessed with my research... but eighty years ago, I hadn't started experimenting on humans yet.”

“That's absurd. I saw alchemists researching Human Golems in the Great Forest.” Woojin sneered.

“They even dumped their Failed Experiments in Lake Kriemhild, contaminating Kelduan, the lake's guardian.”

“That wasn't my doing.”

“... What?”

“I only started making Human Golems after the Kingdom of Brian fell. I began my research using the corpses I obtained there.”

“Then...”

“Like you said, my followers must have picked up the theoretical writings I discarded and started from there.”

Indeed, even the books describing how to make hallucinogens had been left lying around without a care.

“... Why discard your theoretical writings?”

“Because I thought it would be nice if someone read them and made something. There are plenty of alchemists in the world.” Juter answered as though it were nothing.

“I'm interested in perfect results. I have no intention of monopolizing them.”

At that moment, Woojin's gaze wavered.

“So you can change me.”

It was a proposal he had never imagined.

“Me... change you?”

Juter Boas, the continent's greatest and most terrible alchemist. Not once had Woojin ever considered the possibility of taking him on as a companion.

“Use me.”

“Why? Do you want to start living a good life now?”

“No. I told you. I'm curious about the results.”

Juter told him, “The results of a different future for me.”

At that unwavering answer, Woojin unwittingly let out a bitter chuckle.

“Use me, friend.”

At that moment, Woojin suddenly recalled the Fairy Queen's last words, as relayed by Nissen. Her instruction to use this world.

Perhaps... that meant more than simply taking information and tools back with him.