A mont later.
Or a few months ago.
Gong Isu and I returned to the past.
[System : Penalty Trait [Prey of Tindalos] is activated.]
[System : An error has occurred. [Master of Tindalos] is absent. Recovering error....... To recover the error, please save the current configuration under modification and reboot the world.]
[System : Activation of [Prey of Tindalos] is on hold.]
Fortunately, the [Veil Ripper] hasn’t returned yet.
In other words, as a ti traveler, Gong Isu can use his abilities a little more freely than before for the ti being.
[You have crossed the wall of space-ti and returned to the beloved past. No doubt it was your sense of duty to prevent the catastrophe you confird in the future. And there is still a truth you must uncover. What wounds that ordeal and truth may inflict upon you are unknown, but with unbending conviction and a sense of justice you will resolve it all. Be brave!]
Oh really? It tells to be brave?
“Quit saring syrup and get that out of my face.”
I waved my hand vaguely and checked my surroundings.
A “beloved past,” huh?
It’s a stretch to slap that phrase on this situation—especially in a place like this.
A cramped, gloomy underground with heavy yin energy pooled thick.
It’s underground like the basent of the [Hungry Mansion] where we were just staying, but this is sowhere else.
“Looks like we’re back at the bunker.”
Right—the [Underground Bunker] where I was making the [Golden Hairpin] together with Gong Isu.
“We didn’t move through space.”
Gong Isu, whose head had recently kept an hourglass shape, had returned to his usual clock head.
Except we did move through space, didn’t we?
Ah, I get what this is about.
Because [Kim Sinhwa of this ti fra] was in the Underground Bunker—we had no choice but to land here?
I feel like I both do and don’t understand Gong Isu’s concept of space-ti.
Can it be read to an that a target’s position is partially specified by ti slice?
Wait—maybe this isn’t so much ti travel as it is closer to save and load?
If you tried to move in ti but ended up moving in location too—that’s... sowhat acceptable.
I asked Gong Isu about the thought I had, but he shook his head.
“Kim Sinhwa. This world isn’t a ga.”
“No, I’m saying if you interpret it like that, so of it starts to make sense.”
“Does it? I haven’t really played many gas, so I wouldn’t know.”
Mm. Not helpful.
My brain feels itchy.
If I dig a little more, I feel like I could find a slicker answer—but I still know less than I don’t, so I can’t be sure.
“Whatever. Think about it later—want to head outside first?”
“Let’s.”
In this narrow, dark Underground Bunker, it still doesn’t feel real that we’re back. I want to see a wider space.
A moon with a bite taken out of it and tossed away.
Stars pricked bright.
Looking up at that sky, it finally feels like we’re back.
Of course, what’s spread under the sky is Tanhyeon in its unreal landscape—
But even that is far better than the “roughly ruined world” we’d been stuck in.
The air itself feels different from the future where gray despair lay like ash. That alone puts in a bit of a better mood.
And one more thing.
I spoke toward the air-headed voice on the other end of the phone that really sold the feeling I’d returned.
“Yeah, Hyundeok. That’s how it is, so if you’re free, swing over here. Mm, I’m turning in a little early today. A reservation? How much is that custor paying you? Five million won? Hey, how about I pay you more and you cancel that? What? Huh? Heh? This guy, seriously—what? What did you say? Ah? That so? Hahaha—wait right there. I’m sending fifty million won right now. I said I’m sending it! Bye!”
I hung up and imdiately opened my banking app—
“Kim Sinhwa?”
“Senior, one second! I need to thrash this idiot first!”
“Thrash?”
He said five million won, right? I transferred fifty million won to Jang Hyundeok on the spot and called back.
“Hey! Check your account right now! What? Huh? Eh? I’m going to lose it! I said check your account—your account! Your account! Man, just hang up and look! Then pull over! No! Park on the shoulder! Aaaagh!”
Watching rave, Gong Isu asked in bafflent:
“Kim Sinhwa, why not just move comfortably by magic? I have spatial movent in addition to ti travel.”
“No! I already sent fifty million won! I have to ride that moron’s car if only so the money isn’t wasted!”
“Mm...... right.”
He gave the warm look people reserve for lunatics, then said:
“Take this while you wait for your lacking friend.”
Bzz-crackle!
At so point he had torn off his own head.
“Hey? What are you doing, clockhead! Why your precious head again!”
“You might have a bad mory of it— but this is all I can give you.”
What he reconfigured his head into was that sa pocket watch from before.
“This is—”
“It’ll be a bit different from the last one.”
There was a definite difference.
[Reversal Pocket Watch (?-grade Singularity) : A tastefully designed pocket watch. Forged by combining “wise tal,” “gold beyond space-ti,” and a fragnt of an “abyssal being.”
The fervor of observers who lauded the one who sought to overturn his own fate is concentrated within.
Thus it has been granted the na Reversal.
Reversal : Flip a situation or position to its opposite. However, each ti this effect triggers, one of the abyssal beings is granted a trendous advantage.]
The pocket watch he made before didn’t print a ssage like this.
And not just the ssage.
The stored mana and constituent materials are completely different.
Gazing at the ssage window, at Gong Isu, and at the pocket watch at the sa ti with [Spatial Dominion], I asked:
“Singularity. What is it?”
It’s a concept that never appeared in [Cthulhu World]. And the part about “observers,” too.
“I don’t really know.”
Flat, short answer.
Yup—typical Gong Isu.
“How did you use sothing you don’t really know?”
“......That was poorly phrased. I an I don’t know its fundantal identity. A singularity is like a supra-real energy that grants power to abyssal beings or others. As for ‘observers’—we personify them when we talk, but they’re probably not personal entities. Think of them as an abstract source that provides the wellspring of a singularity.”
He sounded like he was quoting soone.
“So soone taught you how to use it?”
“Right.”
If he says even this was told to him by future Kim Sinhwa, I’ll—
“The futu—”
“Argh! Damn!”
“—I taught Idian—what? Why? What’s wrong?”
Startled by the yell I let out, he flinched back—and I hurried to arrange my face into sothing respectable.
“Ah, not future Kim Sinhwa, future you, Senior.”
Maybe my reaction was funny—Gong Isu chuckled and continued.
“Hahaha, right—it wasn’t future Kim Sinhwa. Future learned it from Idian.”
“Your past self can know information you learned in the future?”
“With a slightly complicated thod, yes. Thanks to that, so specifics get lost, like now.”
He said it’s like hiding a ti capsule to be opened at the desired mont. It triggers ti paradoxes, so even he doesn’t use it often.
“And I have my own singularity separate from that.”
He tapped his head as he said it.
“Separate?”
“[Hourglass of Distortion]? Sothing like that.”
He spoke like he was reading letters off a screen.
“The narration printed it a mont ago. I’ll read what’s printing. ‘There were two singularities. Gong Isu collected the power of a singularity that had been shattered to pieces. But he hesitated. Would it be all right to give this to Kim Sinhwa? Using that power, Kim Sinhwa might one day betray Gong Isu. Gong Isu is spouting hollow delusions. Enough—stop speaking. Kim Sinhwa is looking at Gong Isu like he’s a madman. Stop talking.’ The narration throwing a fit telling not to read it out loud is delightful.”
Looks like the way things print for him is a bit different from the ssages I get.
After a brief low laugh, Gong Isu addressed in a sober tone.
“This could be a trick too—but in fact, there were two singularities. One was for you, the other for . They’ve been spent and damaged in various ways—but let’s split what’s left.”
And indeed, he could do absurd things like tug the horizon closer—or swat a teor hanging in the sky.
So yes, it does provide so transcendent strength.
“But the side effects are stronger than we thought.”
I read out what I saw in the ssage window.
[However, each ti this effect triggers, trendous advantage is granted to the abyssal beings.]
“Right. I knew ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) that much, but I didn’t realize the advantage they’d get would be that strong. It’s possible the singularity concept itself is a trap set by them, so don’t use it carelessly.”
“Got it.”
Mm, true—the explanation ‘singularity’ sounds fancy, but it may be more dangerous than it looks.
I laid a simple sealing formula over the [Reversal Pocket Watch] and tucked it into my clothes.
We decided to walk up to the roadside so it’d be easier for Jang Hyundeok to approach.
When the road ca into view in the distance, Gong Isu spoke.
“Kim Sinhwa.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated awkwardly for a mont.
“Now...... what are you going to do?”
A question I hear a lot.
What now?
Obviously, start with what matters most.
“Mm. First we go to the [Hungry Mansion] and eat.”
There was a ton of food left in that house, so it wasn’t a huge inconvenience—but not enough to nibble off for a month.
I miss a proper al.
“Food again? Kim Sinhwa, is there anything in that head of yours besides food?”
“Ah, I’m joking. Are you really that touchy?”
Besides, you liked Heo Sanghyun’s cooking too, didn’t you?
He sighed.
“Fine, we eat. And after that?”
“I heard Mun Gyeongha of Yeonam Group is throwing a party soon.”
He must have found the word random—he looked like he was trying to decide if I was joking again.
“A party?”
“Yes. A party. Not a joke. That ss that broke out in the future looks like it was Yeonam Group’s doing.”
“A plan to stop the nearest disaster first?”
I nodded.
“That, and—there’s soone to et there while we’re at it.”
“et who? That woman, Mun Seunghee?”
“No. It’s a party where famous rich people flock in droves besides Yeonam insiders. Plenty of well-heeled cultists too—if we’re lucky, we might et the head of Helistic.”
Right.
Helistic.
If I want to check information related to the body I possessed, I have to look into that place.
From the future slice I searched places linked to Helistic—
And for so reason, every important piece was wiped.
Honestly, that was one of the reasons I decided I had to co back to this ti fra.
“Helistic? You an Baek Beomjin?”
Baek Beomjin is the na of Helistic’s C.E.O.
He’s famous in this world, so it isn’t weird for him to know the na—but there was a fairly specific emotion in Gong Isu’s tone.
“You two know each other?”
“Once—in the past—I killed him.”
Normally you can’t use the past tense for soone alive, but conversations with ti travelers are truly entertaining.
For reference, what kind of person Baek Beomjin is—you can tell from Helistic’s track record so far.
Human trafficking, organ trafficking, smuggling, human experintation, murder-for-hire as a baseline—
And like any other famous figure in [Cthulhu World], he’s a madman capable of kicking off an apocalypse-level end of humanity.
Probably among the ti I spent with Gong Isu and my future self—
“He’s soone I fought long before I t you—in other words, back when I was the Feast’s Offering.”
Mm, I didn’t foresee it tying into lore that deep.
“Yahoo! Wizard, I’m here!”
“Are you laughing?”
“Ugh, why say that the mont you see my face? Did sothing happen?”
I definitely argued with Jang Hyundeok on the phone, but that was just in my head.
From his point of view, that squabble was just “the wizard is saying weird stuff again,” apparently.
“Where’s your senior?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“He said he was going to check into sothing and flew off.”
Until the [Veil Ripper] returns, he can travel ti relatively freely.
So while I do what I can do in this ti fra, Gong Isu decided to try as much as only he can do.
Specifically, he said he’d go et the Ndians.
“Oh, then when’s he coming back? Tomorrow?”
“Mm—not for a while.”
More precisely, he said he’d be back when needed—and left. Not a sudden farewell.
“Huh? Really? He just whooshed off without even saying goodbye?”
“Yeah. He says he doesn’t do goodbyes.”
Even if he leaves such a note, people usually don’t rember him anyway.
“Eeeh—”
“Let’s just go ho. I’m starving.”
“Mm—okay.”
I did say I’d attend Mun Gyeongha’s party, but there’s still ti for that.
“First, we fix your problem.”
“? What problem do I have?”
“The used car, idiot! The used car!”
“Eh? What about the used car?”
“We’re taking care of that first thing tomorrow.”
“Eh? Why so suddenly?”
“Because when I need you, you’re off doing sothing else, and that’s a pain.”
And as a human being I just can’t stand it.
At this rate, if I stumble into a situation where I get violently killed one day, my dying words might be, “Before I die, that bastard Jang Hyundeok—his car—”
“Anyway, it’s decided. Act accordingly!”
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