Chapter 442 – #92_Wandering(5)
#441
1.
A dilapidated, tilted sign marked the border of Tarot Town.
Pushing through the chaotic space, Siwoo was already drenched in sweat.
“This is insane.”
Around him, circular distortions hummed, drawing blurry circles.
Two different types of ‘distortions’ met, creating layers like oil and water.
The red branch distortion, normally invisible to the naked eye, became clearly defined upon entering the deformed space.
-Keeek… keeek…
The biggest problem was that the distortion was emitting ominous screams, like a submarine that had recklessly submerged below its maximum depth.
Having adapted to the environment immediately after crossing the border, Siwoo dashed towards the center.
Since there was no way a clock would function normally here, his only way to estimate time was his biological clock.
He guessed that about five minutes had passed.
Reaching halfway to his destination in just five minutes could be seen as a positive sign.
But let’s think about it the other way around.
The interference wasn’t severe yet.
Merely walking this distance in armor had already taken up one-sixth of his time.
In the distance, he could see a storm of particles raging like the eye of a typhoon hitting the ground.
It looked more like a massive natural disaster, like a volcano or an earthquake, rather than a magical phenomenon.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of crisis awaited him as he stepped into it.
“……”
Looking back, he could see the path he had taken.
Footprints that zigzagged because he had avoided excessively twisted areas and chosen safer ground.
If he followed those footprints, he could easily escape.
Countless compromises came to mind.
Maybe Amelia could stop her rampage on her own.
Navigating through a random space while breaking through magic might be impossible in the first place.
Even if he managed to reach her, he might die from Duke Erelim’s bombardment.
Siwoo wasn’t immortal, nor was he Super Mario with extra lives.
Trying to save Amelia was an irresponsible overreach, an act of recklessness.
What kind of nerve did he have to try and enter a disaster that even the great witches avoided?
After parting ways with Amelia, they had never met again.
At first, it was agonizing, like half of his body had been torn off, but life had bloomed over time, covering the sorrow of separation like vomit.
“Meeting is the beginning of parting.”
Perhaps it wasn’t such a big deal to drift apart from someone precious and become strangers.
After all, every meeting is a promise of a future farewell.
Even without Amelia, the world would keep turning, and Siwoo’s life would go on.
If he gave up now, he could return to the cozy home where his teacher, Sharon, and the twins were waiting.
He had the chance to enjoy the same peace as always, a comfortable and sweet option.
“No.”
He shook his head.
The hesitation that had been creeping up on him was cut off with a light gesture.
He had many similar experiences.
Many people who knew Siwoo had asked him.
Why did he risk his life for others every time? How could he be so reckless?
He had received worried scoldings from his loved ones.
Some had even praised his apparent courage and altruism.
But each time, Siwoo would just scratch his head awkwardly.
Because his actions weren’t driven by altruism or self-sacrifice for justice.
Shin Siwoo was neither a hero who made impossible fights possible, nor a saint who transcended worldly concerns to lead the masses.
He just knew.
If he ran away and gave up because he was afraid of the immediate danger, the future wouldn’t be the same.
Even if it looked like a flawless work of art, it would be fatally distorted somewhere.
Even if his daily life seemed peaceful, he would inevitably be filled with regret.
He would lament with a sticky sense of disappointment, “I should have been a little braver back then.”
Siwoo didn’t want that.
Rather than being steeped in remorse, leaving behind regrets, and smiling bitterly in an imperfect future, if there was a hand he could reach out and grab, he wanted to pull it up.
It was pure selfishness.
-Keeek! Keeek! Keeek!
“Just listen to me this once. I’ll oil you up when we get back safely.”
As soon as he took a truly painstaking step, both to avoid being swept away by the random space and to control the red branch, the ominous red branch started to go berserk.
Siwoo felt a wall brush past his body.
The pressure coming from the distortion changed instantly, as if the quality of the atmosphere had changed.
The world transformed with just one more step.
Siwoo was definitely looking at the same spot.
But with just one step as the boundary, Tarot Town had been turned upside down.
It was as if the world had been shattered, like running a game with a graphics card that had been rolled around in the sand a few times.
2.
When he received the overview map and decided on his destination, he was secretly worried.
Tarot Town wasn’t some English village, nor was it a small place.
It was a town that proudly boasted the second-largest branch in Gehenna.
Moreover, he was pessimistic that searching inside a random space would be a struggle, starting with finding Amelia’s location…
But that was no longer necessary.
The world was very intuitively telling him where she was.
-Kuuuuu!
It was like a painting created by a surrealist artist who had heavily indulged in hallucinogenic drugs.
He could see stone houses floating in the air. An overturned carriage, sharply rising ground, and a bell tower bent into a circle like a tree with a curved trunk.
The distortions weren’t limited to objects.
The sky was strange.
In a world entirely lit with a green hue, like a patchwork of scraps, some parts were the dawn’s light, some parts were the clear afternoon, some parts were the burning twilight, and some parts were the pale starlight.
It shone ominously, like tattered pieces of cloth sewn together.
The ground was strange.
If someone asked, “What happened in there?” he could roughly describe it.
But if they added, “So, what happened to the ground?” he would be at a loss for words.
What was spread out was clearly flat ground.
But for some reason, Siwoo’s brain perceived it as a deeply carved crater.
Yet, if he closed and opened his eyes for a moment, it would look flat again.
The disconnect between what he saw and what he perceived.
Even his left eye, which could see through the flow of magic, couldn’t define this space.
However, one thing was certain: Amelia was in the center of the black particle storm, the core of the silently raging storm, the deeply sunken center.
Siwoo tried shouting as loudly as he could, just to test it.
Hoping for a response.
“Amelia-nim!”
Only silence returned.
This damned space didn’t even echo.
Only the particle storm, spreading like a colony of poisonous mushrooms, expanded its range.
“……”
This is where it truly begins.
He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.
There was no time to look around any longer.
Siwoo carefully moved forward, step by step, being careful not to damage the distortion.
-Kigik! Kigigik! Kigigigik!
If this place were a radioactive contamination zone, the sound coming from the distortion would be no different from the warning sound of a radiation detector.
Even without the warning, his head was already burning up.
Maintaining the distortion, which was trying to crumple like a can sinking into the deep sea, required tremendous agility.
“Huh?”
Siwoo was dumbfounded.
He had seen an unbelievable sight.
“A girl?”
A silhouette shining with a brilliant golden light, like a fairy.
It was hard to be sure because even the sense of perspective was strangely twisted, but a child who barely reached Siwoo’s waist was running.
And she disappeared after blinking a couple of times.
Like a phantom.
Was his mind starting to go crazy from excessive tension?
There was no way a girl could be wandering around in a place like this.
Unfortunately, he had no time or room to hesitate.
And finally.
Siwoo reached the vicinity of the sunken crater.
The scenery was even more surreal up close.
A dark pit, as if the entire town had been sucked inwards.
Around it, small particles began to stick to the distortion, like iron filings swirling in a hurricane.
-Kiiing! Kiiing! Kiiing!
At first glance, they looked like fallout after a volcanic eruption, but they were not so easy to deal with.
Every time countless tiny particles hit the distortion, a chilling spark flew, causing miscalculations.
This was the state of things with just a few scattered pieces colliding.
The pressure intensified with each step he took, clutching his burning head.
He hadn’t thought it would be easy, but he never imagined the resistance would be this strong.
The thought, “What the hell is she thinking, doing something like this?” naturally crossed his mind.
-Pachik!
Then, a single particle that had pierced through the distortion touched his fingertip.
Strictly speaking, it didn’t even touch him directly.
“Kuh!”
It had only touched the gauntlet of his black armor, but the entire shadow armor, which had been so firmly woven, shuddered greatly.
Siwoo barely managed to regain control of the shadow that was trying to break free and bulge out.
If it hadn’t been for Sharon’s reinforcement, his control would have been lost in an instant, and the armor would have scattered.
This was impossible.
If he went inside like this, he would die.
He had to come up with a plan.
“Okay. It’s alright.”
Calming his anxious mind, Siwoo intentionally created a tiny gap in the distortion.
He deliberately accepted a few particles and immediately repelled them with his armor.
-Kiiiiiiik!
It was like a vaccination, but the armor wailed as if it had been caught in a high-pressure press.
There was no time to say anything or think.
He just had to reverse-calculate and deduce the nature of these particles by observing the effects on his armor.
That was the only way to survive after throwing himself into that pit of death.
-Kiiiiiiik!
He stabilized the structure of his armor, as if calming a wild horse, and reverse-calculated the influence of the particles.
“This is…”
As a result, he discovered one thing.
It was surprisingly similar to an autonomous defense system.
A deformed autonomous defense that didn’t allow anyone to approach and secluded itself.
She was trying to push away everything that existed in the world.
Why?
He put aside the rising questions for a moment.
He closed his eyes and focused his mind, connecting to the circuits that extended throughout his armor.
Sparks flew.
A battle between Siwoo’s armor, which was desperately trying not to lose control, and the black particles that were trying to consume it like cancer cells.
The flames that bloomed so mysteriously that they hurt his eyes resembled the endless geometric patterns unfolding in a kaleidoscope.
It seemed like a series of irregularities, but there was a pattern.
In the burning sensation of his heated, elongated brain nerves, Siwoo followed the pattern.
He tried to create a new pattern by connecting the magical knowledge and experience he had accumulated so far, and the inspiration that came to him spontaneously.
A huge chalkboard, covering an area of several hectares, unfolded in his mind.
He discarded, wrote, verified, discarded, wrote, and discarded magical formulas and equations faster than a printer.
“Ah…”
After calculations that were no different from overworking his brain, Siwoo realized.
This attempt was like trying to accurately depict the appearance of a crystal glass three seconds after it had fallen to the floor.
And not just one, but dozens of glasses at the same time, with a tight time limit.
There was no way that could be possible unless he brought in Laplace’s demon.
He opened his eyes, and as his vision, which had narrowed due to excessive acceleration of thought, cleared, the particle storm was already right in front of him.
A strong metallic smell came from his tingling nose.
He realized.
It was impossible to block it.
Neither reverse-calculation nor defense was possible with Siwoo’s abilities.
-Kiiiiik! Kiiiiik!
The particles, which were now turning the surroundings pitch black, began to savagely tear at the distortion.
The red branch vibrated madly, extending barriers and distortions in all directions, but it seemed meaningless.
Soon, Siwoo would be swept away by the particles.
“Kuh…!”
Let’s get out of here for now.
Entering like this was no different from suicide.
He had to try again after spending more time on calculations, or after finding another way.
As Siwoo, who had made that decision, pushed off the ground.
-Kuuuuuung!
A violent tremor, as if the heavens and earth were shaking, occurred.
“What…?”
The floor was tilted.
A pit that had suddenly expanded its area, as if a sinkhole had formed, was taking away the ground.
In this space, Siwoo could only run while maintaining the distortion and his armor.
He couldn’t use ribbons, teleport, or even spread his wings.
“This is bullshit.”
A timeless exclamation, deeply imprinted in his genes, burst out.
Siwoo was sucked into the bottomless abyss, the end of which was nowhere to be seen.
