Chapter 126

***

The extended rift passed through the floor, bent, and continued to the wall. The unidentified person was inside that crevice. Only the face up to the ears and both arms were visible outside, while the rest was either fused with the black wall or buried and hardened, it was impossible to tell.

He couldn't even distinguish the gender with the naked eye. The hair that had grown to above the chest was tangled and disheveled as if it hadn't been groomed for a long time. Moreover, below the bloodshot eyes, there was no flesh to the point where the cheekbones protruded sharply, and the cheeks were sunken, casting shadows.

Heu, heu, euh...

Between the lips of the eerie face, a dried white tongue was visible, but only the sound of wind escaped, unable to speak properly. As if a hunter who had experienced severe overload.

He noticed Soram and Tae-un who suddenly appeared and opened his bloodshot eyes wide. Soram moved his hands again.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?"

He... heu...

Along with an indistinguishable sound, the strange person's hand moved. Although it was close to flailing weakly, the meaning could be understood. It meant "yes" in sign language.

As he was about to speak again, Tae-un grabbed his wrist.

"You, are you talking with that person right now?"

"He seemed unable to speak or hear, so I tried just in case, and he understands. I've only greeted him so far."

"What on earth..."

"I'll tell you if I learn anything more."

Leaving behind the trembling black eyes, Soram took another step closer to the black wall. The strange person raised his bony arm and moved it like Soram.

"So it's you who came this time."

"That's right. It's very different from 'last time'."

Soram's eyes narrowed as he answered. 'This time' meant...

"Seeing that you and Han Tae-un have come, it seems Park Jae-seon and Shin Gi-hyeon have already died in this life."

...As expected.

The strange person knew about the people who had jumped towards the rift without hesitation in past lives. He remembered past lives like Soram did.

When Soram didn't answer, he revealed his blackened teeth along with the sound of wind coming from his throat.

"How was it? It seems you've given up on this life, so I used my power to end it quickly."

The strange person spoke as if he was acquainted with Soram. Soram felt uncomfortable with his appearance, trembling lips and giggling. Separately from that, he gained certainty from the words the man had just conveyed.

...I vaguely suspected it, but the rift was indeed created by a person.

"...It was impressive. Because of you, many things collapsed this time too."

However, even while thinking he should play along, Soram found it difficult to hide his killing intent towards the person who had created that hell.

"Your expression is worth seeing. Did you think I would let go of my hand after seeing your despair?"

"..."

"I didn't know you had the capacity to fall into delusions after experiencing all that time."

The more he listened to the strange person's words, the more subtly something felt off. However, the words themselves were too clear to consider him mentally unstable.

As the hand gestures between the two stopped, footsteps approached from behind. Contrary to the expectation that he would ask what conversation they were having, Tae-un stood half a step ahead, holding his sword and just cautiously watching the strange person. Soram glanced at his side profile and moved his hands again.

"Are you also the one causing the next Great Rift?"

A mocking expression flashed across his gaunt face.

"Even if human society is unfair, the laws of the world are quite fair. Would such an opportunity be given twice to a mere individual?"

"Ah... So you mean it's someone else."

Clang―

As Soram drew his sword, he disappeared from where he was standing. Instantly moving in front of the strange person, Soram pointed his sword at his neck.

"Tell me who it is."

The pupils in his brown eyes contracted tightly, and suppressed anger lingered on his shadowed face.

"Now!"

"Soram-ah."

"Han Tae-un, this is the first order I'm giving as Chief. Stay where you are."

After a silence, footsteps stopped. Soram brought out sign language in front of the strange person who remained calm even with a sword pointed at him.

"There are many parts of your body that are outside the rift that I can cut off or dig out. Answer."

"If I tell you, do you plan to eliminate them before the 4th Great Rift breaks out?"

Soram's sword withdrew from the neck. Instead, the cold blade slightly dug into the strange person's earlobe. As if it wasn't just an empty threat. Before the 4th Great Rift breaks out? There's no way he'd have such leisure. Soram would go to take that person's life first, without even going to the hospital, the moment he leaves this place.

Heu, ha, huha, ha, hua, hak, ha...!

The strange person burst into silent laughter. Without erasing his smile, his hand moved.

"Kang Yu-min."

A woman? It wasn't a very common name, but it didn't seem like there would be few people with the same name either.

"Kang In-cheol, Kang Sin-young, Ki Tae-shin, Kim Seon-ju, Kim In-hee, Kim Bok-nam, Kim Ha-neul, Kim Hyun-jae..."

"What are you doing?"

"Why? It's still far from listing all the people who have been cast out by this country, this society, and harbor resentment."

"..."

"Why don't you try stopping the Great Rift after killing thousands of Seoul citizens? Their families will harbor a new origin!"

Soram's arm trembled involuntarily without him realizing. The wound where he had inserted the magic stone the day before seemed to have reopened, throbbing. Along with it, the headache that was a side effect accompanying the magic stone sharply stabbed his mind.

Someone's deeply held wish becomes an earnest desire and creates a miracle.

Then, if someone vaguely harbors a wish, and someone else around them harbors the same wish, and yet another person harbors it too, can that earnestness be said to be less than that of an individual?

In this life, Soram spent a long time alone, sleeping, blankly staring at his phone, or reading books that others called bizarre. He escaped from reality in ways that at least didn't involve looking at himself.

What he felt while blankly looking into stories other than his own was this.

The wishes of people who encounter extreme happiness varied greatly depending on the type of happiness. Eternal wealth, honor and achievement, the health of loved ones, and so on.

However, conversely, the wishes of people who encounter extreme unhappiness were almost similar in nature.

May others become unhappy like me.

May I not be the only one stuck in this hell.

It was an emotion that Soram vaguely knew as well. Moreover, it would be the only wish that could encompass the entire world with different interests and lifestyles.

"Ha..."

Yes, so that's what it was.

Relief and despair came simultaneously. While it was fortunate that it wasn't the doing of a divine being that couldn't possibly be dealt with, if that was the cause, there was no way to prevent the creation of rifts.

At that moment, his shoulder was enveloped by a large hand. The approaching arm pulled Soram in without giving him a chance to say anything.

"I'm sorry. I didn't take the order lightly. If you want, we can go back and you can punish me."

"..."

"What did that person say? Why are you suddenly trembling?"

His face filled Soram's entire field of vision. A thin smile leaked from the corner of Soram's mouth. Perhaps Soram too could have harbored a wish that creates rifts. However, fortunately, in this life, Soram had someone who grabbed hold of him before he could resent and curse the world.

"Sigh, it's the end of the world. The end of the world."

"Why?"

"The rift was created by the wishes of people who want the world to perish. Like the awakening origin."

Tae-un's eyes widened and trembled.

"...Then have all the rifts that have appeared so far been created like that? Like that person?"

"No. Most of them gained power from the collective wishes of unspecified masses hoping for an unhappy world to come, and those who can create rifts themselves are among the people who harbored such wishes... probably, people who have the potential to become awakeners."

Soram pointed at the strange person with his hand.

"If that person had harbored a different wish, he might have become a hunter colleague."

The 3rd Great Rift had many strange points compared to the pattern of rifts that had occurred in densely populated areas so far. The fact that it occurred in the distant sea, and that it occurred in a place that wasn't a major city even within Busan.

A similar case was the 2nd Great Rift. Then, were the Great Rifts that should have originally come to this country only the 1st and 4th Great Rifts with a cycle of about 10 years, and the rest were artificially created?

After pondering for a moment, Tae-un said,

"Perhaps, the person who stabbed me with a knife at the police station..."

"Ah, the rift at that time could have been created by that criminal. Since that person seems to think of the rift they created as divine punishment, they might think that hunters breaking the rift are violating providence."

"..."

Tae-un looked down steadily at the person hardened in the wall. A person who came to harbor an earnest wish for the world to become unhappy. In his current state, anyone would inevitably feel sympathy, but thinking about how many hunters had suffered and died because of that person, his gaze naturally turned cold. And.

"In the end, it was a war between humans. This too."

A bitter voice flowed out. The rifts and dungeons, and awakeners too, were like the numerous fights based on interests and the blood that flowed because of them in the long history of humanity. It was the result of a clash between wishes and different wishes.

Rifts and hunters were not some supernatural phenomena, but merely a collision between humans with wishes to curse the world and wishes to protect this place.