Condition of Trust (10)
“Right, Brother Yu. The last time I stayed at the house of that Yoon Min-joon guy, didn’t I eat a lot of this or that unusual kind of metal? Perhaps because of that, after coming back, the strange nature of Maek’s Iron and Maek’s Copper came out. Now, I put them in the Maek’s house’s common warehouse, but when I think about it, it would be right to give them back to him. Although all the Gold has been omitted, it would be useless to humans anyway, and the use of the material itself will be found. How about passing this together when delivering the second aid?”
Yusu nodded his head.
“Yes, that’s right. Take care of it.”
“Ah, well…Daejong-maek.”
Mrs. Pearl intervened with a dark complexion.
“Even if you hand them over…why don’t you just explain it to the extent that it is a metal created with Maek’s Mana? I don’t think we need to explain how you made it.”
“…Let’s do that.”
“Oh, I think we’re almost there now.”
Garam approached the window, and he said, “I can see the river far away.”
Looking at it, next to him was Mrs. Pearl, who said, “Ah…I can see Yoon’s house over there!”
“So, have the elders concluded that we would no longer be wary of Yoon?”
“Exactly.”
“Is it possible to believe him?”
Yusu thought for a moment, then shook his head. More than a month ago, when the battle broke out with an alien from another world, Parvache refused the company of Garam and Mrs. Pearl. Both were at the level of a few hundred years old, and the Fake God could brainwash them. Because of that, the two couldn’t see the crack in the open space on Yoon Min-joon’s chest. Yoon Min-joon refused to explain it in detail to Yusu. After Yusu returned to White Deer, he informed only a small portion of the story to the village’s elders.
“Can trust be built up in a day like that? As long as we have completed the contract’s text, we believe in the coercion applied to each other. However, it would be of great significance just that this relationship was built based on goodwill and cooperation, not evilness or hostility.”
“Trust…”
“But this is the whole village’s perspective, and personally… isn’t he my lifesaver? Without him, all my strength would have been helplessly deprived by the demon. And even if that’s not the reason, I think I can trust him.”
Mrs. Pearl heard from Yusu about what had happened after he returned to White Deer. The alien races’ abilities were of a kind she had never imagined—the ability to manipulate the mind by erasing their most trusted entity and replacing the object with oneself. If she had a seed of domination in herself, what was the target? Could trust unmarred by doubt toward another person exist in her own heart? Even if it existed, what was the point of a mind after all if it collapsed in an instant due to a technique?
Having such complicated thoughts, Mrs. Pearl suddenly asked Yusu, “What about the report?”
“That’s it. There will be no more things to report or instructions with this.”
Mrs. Pearl nodded. She and Garam wrote a lengthy report a few weeks ago and presented it to the elders. It was all that she observed after seeing Yoon Min-joon. In Garam’s case, it was accompanied by an analysis of Yoon Min-joon’s dream. Like most dreams, the dream scene couldn’t be interpreted as accurate because of its improbable connection and hard-to-understand symbolism. At least it was possible to grasp only the extent to which it seemed that he had been in contact with something powerful and fearful as a child.
As long as the contract was revised after the case ended and the collection of dreams against each other was forbidden (there was a strong protest from Yoon Min-joon in the process, and in return, the size of the support product increased significantly), it would remain the only observation record of his dream. The elders weren’t very satisfied with the report’s contents produced through this process. Still, they seem to have stopped digging into his identity any further.
Mrs. Pearl quietly asked herself. In this situation, to create a plausible trust between the two groups, what conditions must be further satisfied? Even if not enough to become the seeds of domination. Feeling the altitude going down, Mrs. Pearl woke up from her brief thought.
* * *
“Hmm…hu-hmm…”
I was sitting on the terrace at home and staring at my laptop. The white ones should be filled in, the black ones should have been filled out, but the black strokes on the screen I was looking at were just too short.
“Ah, it’s been a long time since I have graduated from school, and I realized it again – I’m not good at writing!”
[…Is that so difficult? I don’t think you can easily recall memories before the age of seven.]
“No, there are more events I remember than I thought. But I keep getting stuck because I try to explain it in detail.”
I had to admit it: it was more complicated than I first thought!
“Well…so, after I moved to Ulsan…how old was I when I came back to Seoul?”
I was writing a word file in chronological order while squeezing my memories. From the first memories left in my head to the year before I met Parvache, this amount was the range set by Parvache and myself. I wasn’t sure how the story would work if I actually summoned him and signed a contract. I typed words one by one with the feeling I was trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
Parvache asked insistently.
[Isn’t it sad? Looking at how short your memory is.]
“Don’t ask me that.” Without taking my eyes off the monitor, I responded, trying not to have a gloomy voice.
“I already made up my mind. I’ll do everything I can.”
[…]
“And it’s okay. I can write it down like this. I’ll read it, memorize it, and remember it again.”
[…Okay.]
“What we need to worry about now is if this doesn’t satisfy it. Shouldn’t we be happy if we succeed at this price?”
[All right. I won’t bring this up anymore.]
That’s how Parvache shut his mouth and began to focus on what he was doing again. Time had passed. I felt the spirit that I had been waiting for.
“Oh, it has begun.”
I closed my laptop and got up from my seat.
My eyes were getting dim, too… I would have to stop working here today.
[It’s coming.]
I nodded and gazed at the night sky beyond the veranda window. The cool light emitted by the full moon burned the shadows of the clouds. But my gaze wasn’t on the moon but on something else flying in the night sky. I saw hundreds of meteors moving across the sky, bright, clear, full-colored tails, so the moonlight was colorless in comparison. A magnificent sight that ordinary humans couldn’t see. I followed the group of lights that went down to the Han River, leaving behind a beautiful scene just beyond my sight.
“My neighbor’s life will not be long… but I have to go and get the rice cakes. Now that the relocation is over safely, I have to ask them to release the second batch of aid products as soon as possible.”
After that, all that was left was to learn the magic of using dreams, which I was putting on hold for now. There was something I had been working on these days. Even if I knew the dimensional coordinates, it was quite tricky to use them to set up an existence’s first call-up.
[In fact, isn’t that street too far away to be called a neighbor?]
“Because it is within the range of the Mok-dong barrier anyway. Well, even if the barrier got removed after the preparation is completed…”
As I said, it wouldn’t be long for the White Deer Village and me to stay as neighbors. As for the contract details, it was essential to maintain the barrier in the Channel, but it didn’t matter whether or not the Mok-dong barrier was maintained. All of the related phrases were about opening the way for a while when they started the great migration.
“I won’t live here anymore, so there’s no need to keep maintaining the Mok-dong barriers.”
Knowing the possibility that the Fake God’s actions had been exposed to at least two groups, I decided to move as far away from Mapo Bridge as possible. There was no evidence that the country would reveal the individual identity for them. Hence, it wasn’t a matter of great urgency. However, it was judged that we didn’t need to continue to hold on because interest in this area would be more concentrated now that the secret was leaking out.
Although the Mok-dong Barrier was a waste, I would take this opportunity to upgrade the barrier’s nature and function and make it a new place. It wouldn’t happen right away in a few days. I was planning now wasn’t the kind of oblivious blocking as it was now but establishing a barrier that strengthened the boundary function and selective response. It would take quite a long time just to write that spell.
The problem was persuading my mother and my younger sister to move. How to solve this problem now was the most troublesome issue I had on hand. I was thinking of a way, and I was surprised to find myself thinking, ‘If I were a Fake God, I would be able to induce two people to move.’ And I felt terrible that I was now consciously avoiding such thoughts.
No matter how much I sought my family’s safety and mine, there was a bastion that shouldn’t be touched. Even if I don’t use it that way, I think I could somehow find a way to persuade or induce them to move. I do not have to abandon my humanity to get my family to safety.
“…”
The subject of my thought changed, and I quietly observed the anger that filled my heart and rose.
[…Min-joon?]
Parvache, seeing the change in my eyes, called my name but stopped talking when there was no answer. Have I ever had any time in my life bursting out of insane anger? Have I ever felt the murderous intentions when the blood all over my body boiled furiously?
How about the Truth-Seeker? It seemed to me that the fear was more remarkable because it was a subject close to a tremendous natural disaster. Rather than be angry with earthquakes and typhoons, I would have been frustrated and mad at my fate that had been swept away by them. But now, I was feeling new emotions I had never felt before.
Hundreds of dimensional portals had opened in this world, but I think I can live with that fact somehow. In any case, I would even run away to the dimension of the Dell Giants. The Earth had become a mess, but I still felt that it was a safer environment for me than before. The supernatural fear that threatened me, the Earth, where the transcendent Truth-Seeker’s existence had been erased. But… now I knew. The fact that guys were trying to bring back the horror that I thought I had run away from after decided it would no longer have anything to do with my life.
If the Truth-Seeker came to me alive, I could prepare for it and learn the dimensional leap again. Until I have mastered the magic completely, I could either avoid the power of the Echo of the Truth-Seeker and keep the barriers on Earth, or I could live with barriers on another dimension in case he risked the penalty and threw the power of the anti-Magic all over the planet. But…what if I could stop it in the first place?
It was unknown how the Truth-Seeker’s regeneration was possible. But at least what was sure, those who directly plan and carry out the process of regeneration wouldn’t be the dead Truth-Seeker himself. I felt a rage of unknown depth toward the ascetics of the Earth, who had only now recognized its existence.
Without knowing, I clenched my fists to the point where the blood disappeared from under my skin, and my hand became a pale white color. I will use all possible means, even if there was a limit to throwing away something precious because of that.
And I would use all available targets, regardless of whether there was trust or not.
Yes, as Parvache said, I was a coward, an idiot. But I was an idiot who learned the sweet taste of liberation. If there were those who tried to bring that horror back into my life, they too would see how violent and enraged a liberated idiot like me could get.
I wasn’t going to let anything threaten my life again.
