“You don’t have to say it.”
At Lee Hyun-woo’s words, Angie slightly opened her mouth then quietly closed it.
Even to Hyun-woo, who only glanced down, this height was unmistakably clear.
A height where even Aslan would be in grave danger of losing his life.
For Hyun-woo, it was undoubtedly a deadly fall.
Even if he had fallen forward, the chances of survival were slim; yet, he had fallen backward.
“So this is how high it was.”
Hyun-woo gently pushed the precarious railing and watched as it fell. The creaking sound that followed brought a bitter smile that spread with resignation.
Suddenly, a past memory surfaced in Hyun-woo’s mind.
`The place where you fell, it’s the 8th floor.`
That was what That Being had said when it appeared as Aslan tried to rectify his mistake. Hyun-woo realized the truth in those words.
Hyun-woo wanted to go back but wasn’t sure if he could. With a sigh, a long white breath escaped him.
Could his body even return?
And if it did, would it still be intact?
The great height implied a clear outcome.
Hyun-woo stumbled and became Aslan, falling into Geladridion.
Amidst the haze, though unsure who sent him to Geladridion, Aslan wondered if everything he saw now was merely a dream.
Perhaps all of it was an illusion, a hallucination seen while dying. He thought about it.
Hyun-woo stared at the great height and thrust his hand into his pocket.
“Aslan…”
When the girl called out his name, Hyun-woo replied in the Empire language.
“This is why I obsess over good deeds.”
In the familiar foreign tongue, the girl flinched. The depth of gloom in his voice was incomprehensible.
“I couldn’t confirm my own continuity. I couldn’t even be sure if I was truly myself. Whenever I barely managed to sleep due to the difficulty of surviving, I always thought about it.”
He turned his head slightly to see the girl wearing an expression close to sorrow, revealing her worry. Hyun-woo smiled faintly at the sight.
“What if I’m not Hyun-woo? What if I’m another being carrying on Hyun-woo’s memories?”
Though the girl didn’t understand, she sensed the gloomy emotions flowing into her mind. Seeing the light flicker across her face, Hyun-woo gripped the intact railing.
“Or… what if all these memories and landscapes we see are fake, and only Geladridion is real?”
Memories can’t be touched, so their existence can be doubted.
It’s said that a madman doesn’t think of himself as one, nor does he doubt his own strangeness. Aslan doubted himself upon hearing this. Paradoxically, that was true.
Meanwhile, the words from some unknown entity that Aslan had heard—”the fall was from the 8th floor”—were enough to dispel some doubts while planting others.
It was like asking Aslan, who harbored hope of returning home, whether that hope was worthwhile.
Earth exists, and so does Hyun-woo, but it was unclear whether Aslan could return home and become Hyun-woo again.
It was entirely uncertain.
“That’s why… I tried to prove that I am Hyun-woo by acting with kindness and purpose not found in this world.”
Whether it was a good decision or not remained unclear.
Hyun-woo, gripping the railing, raised the corners of his lips, closed his eyes tightly, then reopened them.
“Therefore… I must return.”
Clutching the railing, Hyun-woo whispered a vow. His voice carried a small measure of courage and stubbornness.
Even if someone mocked him for his futility, even if there was doubt about his very existence, this was the lonely obstinacy of a stranger wanting to return.
“To where?”
Angie asked, unsure where this obstinacy was directed—Geladridion or Earth?
Hyun-woo knew he had to pass through Geladridion to return to Earth.
So he answered.
“Home.”
Hyun-woo stepped onto the broken railing, its jagged remains. The wind blowing from the great height tugged at his collar and swayed it.
There was no need to show this particular illusion at this moment. Sending him here, possibly to a time where he might have died in an accident before falling into Geladridion, was surely no coincidence.
Regardless of the reason, whether it was a carefully crafted illusion or not,
what That Being wanted from Hyun-woo was obvious.
To remain comfortably within this well-designed illusion and never escape. There was no other reason for such sweet deceptions to be set up.
Aslan guessed that what That Being absolutely did not want was for him to trace his memories and repeat the same action of falling into Geladridion.
The moment came to act on this intuition. Just as Aslan was about to step forward,
Wooong— Woooong—
Hyun-woo’s jacket pocket buzzed.
It was a familiar vibration, a clear mark in his memory even after twelve years.
After hesitating for a moment, Hyun-woo reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone.
It was a call.
[Mother]
“Complicated.”
Reading the clearly written name, Hyun-woo felt dizzy, tightly closed his eyes, and answered the call.
“…Hello.”
“Hey, our son! Where are you?”
The lively voice of his mother. Aslan struggled and bit his lip before replying.
“I’m outside with a friend.”
“Oh, right? Well, it is your birthday, so you should meet some friends!”
Birthday?
Hyun-woo momentarily detached the phone from his ear to check the date.
It was September 12th.
Reattaching the phone to his ear, his mother exclaimed,
“Happy Birthday! What do you want to eat today?”
A familiar voice. Suddenly, Aslan responded.
“Lasagna.”
The food Hyun-woo loved most, the one he missed the most. Homemade lasagna made by his mother. Answering with his eyes lowered, laughter could be heard from the other side.
“Eh, really? Alright, I’ll make it, so don’t come too late~”
“Yes, I won’t be late.”
Hyun-woo ended the call with a wry smile and sighed deeply. Thinking about how it was his birthday, his hand gripping the railing trembled slightly.
He didn’t want to go to Geladridion.
But he had to.
Because it was the only way back home.
Even if he couldn’t return, he believed it was something he had to do.
No matter what happened, Aslan thought he would definitely return.
“I shouldn’t be late.”
He steadied his resolve. Even if it was just an illusion now, he suppressed the desire to return home.
With the determination firmly in place, Hyun-woo turned around.
Even if he wasn’t Hyun-woo, but rather Aslan,
“If I don’t do it, no one else will.”
Aslan threw himself forward.
And as he fell, all he could see was Angie.
Angie looked at Hyun-woo with golden eyes through swirling crimson lights, filled with worry.
Without responding, Hyun-woo softly smiled and closed his eyes.
His eyes closed instinctively, and the overwhelming speed surged through his body. His hair stood on end, and finally, he should have hit the ground.
But he didn’t.
Realizing the sudden stop, Hyun-woo slowly opened his eyes.
What he saw was Angie. She had grabbed his collar with one hand and held onto the railing with the other, stopping his fall.
Her furrowed golden eyes. Hyun-woo observed the landscape reflected in her gaze.
Where Aslan had thrown himself, there was an abyss.
Not only that, the surroundings were turning black.
The shattered reality was falling into the abyss like shards of glass.
Angie spoke while holding Hyun-woo’s collar.
“I understand that you want to go back.”
Tightening her grip on the collar, Angie smoothed her furrowed brow and continued.
“I also understand why you’ve been trying so hard.”
The girl comprehended the flow of thoughts Aslan had gone through.
“I understand why you had to become stronger.”
She understood Aslan, who fought to prove his own existence under a mission that wasn’t truly his.
But,
“Why do you try to do it all alone?”
Aslan’s loneliness was the one thing Angie couldn’t understand.
The bungee jump from a height dangerous enough to kill Hyun-woo but not Angie, was something he could have entrusted to her. Yet, Hyun-woo chose to leap himself.
This fact irritated the girl.
So Angie pulled on the collar she held, bringing Hyun-woo’s body closer until their eyes met.
“Don’t you need a comrade to rely on?”
Then she repeated the words she had heard when they first met, when she was recruited. Words that had treated her merely as a quest objective.
Clearly a lie. Now, with shared thoughts, the girl fully understood the truth behind those words.
Despite being hurt, the girl looked into his eyes and said,
“Yeah, sure, other people probably don’t fight with reasons as desperate as yours, so you can’t trust them, right? And even if you could trust them, they wouldn’t fight the way you do. They’d break, die, or collapse before they got anywhere. That’s why you’re trying to do it alone, isn’t it?”
But! Angie shouted, pulling on the collar, laying Aslan down on the floor which was cracking and turning black.
“At least you could have used me.”
Having said that, Angie released Hyun-woo’s collar. She clearly felt untrusted. Angie was dissatisfied.
“You don’t know me well enough to trust me, and I haven’t understood why you keep doing good deeds or why you want to go home. I don’t know anything. But,”
Their thoughts were shared. Aslan realized Angie’s words were directly reflecting her thoughts, even though communication was possible without speaking.
Still, the girl persisted.
“I’ve seen who you are and how you got here. At the very least, I know this isn’t fair.”
Angie extended her hand. It was the same hand from the day they first became comrades.
“Tell me what you want to do, what you intend to do. I’ll tell you about me from now on.”
In that burning gaze lay a sincere will. A declaration of strong intent that wouldn’t accept anything less than spoken words.
“I’m Angela Tail.”
The girl smirked with effort.
“I want to kill a deity. What about you?”
Looking at the hand and the girl’s expression, Aslan noticed the subtle anxiety and fear in her forced smile.
The fear that he might not accept her.
The fear that she might confess she’s not a true ally.
After gazing at the hand for a moment, Aslan took it.
“I’m Hyun-woo.”
Their eyes met, and as he had returned to his original form, he spoke.
“I want to fix the world and return home.”
Finally, Angie’s lips curled into a smile. The black space around the girl and Aslan was slowly collapsing. The swirling abyss resembled black glass shattering and raining down like rain.
Through the collapsing pitch-black shards, someone was walking toward them.
A veil on her head, a thin silk dress revealing the outline of her body.
Dried tear tracks, black hair, and black eyes contrasting against her pale skin—a widow.
Stopping in front of Aslan and Angie,
“Congratulations on passing the test… Hyun-woo.”
Aslan recognized who she was.
One of the ancient deities.
The last ancient deity to perish.
The deity of sorrow and death.
The already deceased ancient deity stood right in front of him.
