Chapter 152

Where did he go? He definitely wasn't anywhere else.

Tae-un hurriedly entered the room. The boy wasn't on the bed or in any corner. He turned and went out of the room. After running around for a while, searching the house and the shed they had gone to yesterday, he came back inside.

"..."

Did he go back to where he lived?

It was something that could happen, but he didn't know why he felt so angry. He wasn't sure if he was angry at the boy for leaving without even a greeting or a note, or at himself for being away.

"Haa..."

He threw his bag behind the bed. He opened the window because the unnecessarily high boiler setting made it even hotter. The cold wind from the mountains quickly cooled the room.

Did he really go back in this weather?

Moooo―

A cow mooed loudly outside the open window. Even that familiar sound irritated him.

"Huu."

At that moment, a groan was heard from somewhere.

Moooo―

"Close the window..."

"...Are you here?"

"..."

"Where are you?"

Tae-un looked around the room. His eyes, searching for a space where a person could hide, finally turned to the clumsily stacked pile of blankets.

...Now that he looked closely, the space between the bottom blanket and the floor was unnaturally raised. When he lowered his body to the floor, he could see someone's toes under the blanket.

"Co-come out! What are you doing?"

"Your house is too noisy..."

He pulled at the clothes, but the boy, far from coming out, covered his ears and burrowed in deeper. The moment Tae-un reached in to pull him out, his hand touched the floor, heated to the point of almost burning, between the boiler turned up high and the piled blankets.

Tae-un quickly pushed the blankets aside. The boy looked up at him with reproachful eyes. His bangs were wet as if he had a fever, and his cheeks were red.

And had he been crying a little? The corners of his eyes were reddened.

While Tae-un was dazed, the boy tried to go back under the blankets. Tae-un grabbed his arm and pulled him out.

"Aren't you hot?!"

"This much won't give me burns..."

"Say something that makes sense."

"It's not like it's lava."

"What lava all of a sudden..."

Moooo―

"Aak!"

The cows mooed loudly, perhaps it was their feeding time. The boy covered his ears and curled up.

"Are you scared of that...?"

"..."

Tae-un hurriedly closed the window. He closed the room door too. Meanwhile, the boy had pulled the pillow and blanket over his face again.

It would have been right to tell a grown boy to just bear with it. Geez, to be scared of mere cow sounds.

But he didn't know why he felt like doing something more for him.

"G-get up."

Tae-un took out his MP3 player and earphones from his pocket. He removed the hands covering the boy's ears and put the earphones in.

The latest dance song with a fast beat that he had been listening to on his way to school started playing.

"I don't like it."

The boy threw the earphones away as if discarding them and covered his ears with his hands again. Tae-un hadn't expected gratitude, but this was a bit too much.

"Why?"

"I don't like that song. It's tiresome."

Really, to be picky about that in this situation? Although he felt annoyed at having his kindness thrown away, as the cows continued to moo loudly, dogs started barking along, making the boy curl up even more. Tae-un played a different song and put the earphones back in.

"How about this?"

"I don't like it."

"Don't take them out. Then how about this?"

"I don't like it."

"..."

"I don't like this either. I don't like it."

Oh, really...

The boy who had said nothing about wearing someone else's clothes, eating potatoes and corn, or sleeping on bedding laid on the floor was suddenly being incredibly picky. Is this how all Seoul kids are? He kept playing the first 10 seconds of dozens of songs before moving on to the next.

Then a certain song started playing. The mouth that had been repeating complaints fell silent. Tae-un thought, 'Isn't this a song he's heard even more times?' but finally, there was a song he listened to without saying anything.

"..."

The tension that had been in his body also melted away. Yesterday he acted like he'd seen it all, but isn't he just a child?

One song ended quickly.

"Play it again."

The boy finally straightened his curled-up waist a little. Tae-un tapped the MP3 player's screen. The song started playing again from the beginning.

When the second chorus of the song came, the boy hummed along with the lyrics.

Even if I fly freely in that sky, don't be surprised.

Watching him, Tae-un said,

"You can't sing."

"..."

The boy was about to furrow his brows but just fiddled with the earphones plugged in his ears.

***

Han Tae-un seems to think I'm a scammer. He even treats me like an idiot who can't do anything alone.

[How to turn on: Press and hold the top right button -> Playlist -> Find songs with up and down buttons]

Next to the note was a blue MP3 player and black corded earphones.

"...You probably don't know that later, the earphone cord disappears and only the buds remain."

It was around the time when smartphones would become widespread, but this MP3 player and earphones weren't low-end models when they were released. Moreover, even though he inherited his uncle's house, for a high school student to have a whole building to himself. Han Tae-un seemed to have grown up in a more affluent environment than expected.

Thanks to this, Soram was staying here for the third day.

"What did he say this morning? He said he'd come back because of something..."

It wasn't clear because he heard it while half-asleep. Anyway, Han Tae-un went to school, leaving someone he thought was a scammer alone in his house.

Soram lay sprawled on the floor with earphones in his ears. Lying on the floor heated by the boiler and basking in the sunlight made him feel completely detached from the all-white outside.

The song "Magic Castle" that he had listened to dozens of times flowed through his ears.

Everything before his eyes felt unreal. Originally, he should have been at the headquarters by now, repeating the same life for the 20th time. Heading towards the ending where the country collapses due to the Great Rift and he too is killed.

"..."

Soram turned his body to the side. And he rolled back and forth across the wide empty floor. When blocked by the wall, he rolled in the opposite direction. He rolled as if meeting the young Han Tae-un had made him become a child too.

Pak, pak.

Kkiing.

"Hmm...?"

A pitiful sound was heard through the earphones. What was knocking on the veranda facing the yard was a countryside puppy about half the size of a forearm. It was the one that had visited yesterday when Tae-un was away.

The puppy was a white dog, completely white all over. Reminded of Lee Ayoung and her partner dog, Soram's eyes twisted gloomily. Even after repeating several lives, his feelings for Lee Ayoung were only guilt.

Kkiing.

"..."

Pak, pak.

Kkiing.

"...Why are you knocking? I don't have anything to give you... Ah."

Come to think of it, Lee Ayoung used to give her dog chicken breast or sweet potatoes as treats besides dog food. Would potatoes work too?

If he had a smartphone, he would search right away, but Soram had nothing. However, there was Tae-un's desktop in the living room.

[dog potato]

[can dogs eat potato]

[dog potato side effects]

Fortunately, the conclusion was that they could eat it. Soram reached out towards the dining table. A blue mist stem was about to go towards the plate but stopped. He had broken one doing this yesterday.

He got up, went to the kitchen, and brought the plate of potatoes himself. This was no different from an ordinary person who hadn't awakened. The accusation of being a scammer wasn't entirely unfounded.

Peel the skin, serve cold, 5-10% of the amount of dog food, mashed.

Soram sat facing the puppy through the window and peeled the potato skin. He split the carefully peeled potato in half and mashed it with a spoon. After putting the mashed potato on a plate, he opened the veranda door just a hand's width, quickly set down the plate, and closed the door again.

"Eat."

The puppy sniffed at it, wondering what it was. Then it licked once, took one bite, and immediately turned around and left.

He brought the potato back inside, knowing it would freeze if left outside.

"...Why won't it eat?"

After waiting a bit in that spot, the puppy came back. He gave the potato that he had brought inside again, but there was no reaction. The puppy just came and went a few more times like that, not touching the potato plate.

It would soon be time for the cows to start mooing.

"It might be too cold to eat now."

Kkiing.

"Do as you like."

Soram put the potato plate outside and went into the bedroom. He rolled up in the blanket and covered his head with a pillow.

Moooo―

Everything else here was good, but that sound was the problem.

Soram disliked animal sounds. Hearing the low rumbling sounds brought on nightmares of the huge black crack drawn in the sky, the deformed beasts pouring out, and them brutally killing the hunters.

The start was clearly a trauma from being left alone at the zoo when he was young. The small fear imprinted in his mind had grown, feeding on the memories of the 4th Great Rift.

Moo, mooo―

The 1st-grade hearing cursedly amplified even small sounds. The hand pressing down on the pillow trembled. Soram turned up the volume of the earphones to the limit.

"Huu."

Every gesture towards you is always full of difficulties.

But there's always a firm resolve. That I will save you again.

Jin Soram, hiding in fear of cows trapped in a countryside barn, was a regressor who had died 19 times and started his 20th life.

After numerous regressions, he finally realized in his last life.

That it was already too late.

I prayed with both hands clasped. For endless courage and wisdom.

While repeating the same time, Jin Soram accumulated countless experiences. He grew stronger endlessly with each round. Now he could face mutants without even needing weapons.

However, at some point, Soram's body, merely human, could no longer handle the power. He often lost control to the point of being unable to fight, and his weakened mind would panic first.

Dungeons grow terrifyingly stronger with each round. But the one human balancing that scale could no longer be a hero.

The Great Rift grows stronger, hunters are defeated by it, and when they meet death, they return to being eighteen. The repeating vicious cycle had now become too solid to break.

There might have been hope up to about the tenth time. But everything was too late, and this world can never move forward again. Forever.

* Past the magic castle, across the swamp, far in the dark cave, I can see you.

Now there was only one thing Soram could do. He prayed that when the world completely shattered to the point of being unable to revive, when the scale creating this loop tipped over, he might be able to escape.

Because now he couldn't even end his own breath due to the abnormally strong recovery ability that had grown along with his power.

* The Classic, Magic Castle, 1994.