Chapter. 22. Last Parade (12)
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When a person returns after being away from home for a long time. What should you do first?
Lying down while shouting “Home, Sweet Home”?
While away from home, would you like to try doing the things you wanted to do when you get home?
Ssssssssssssssssssh!
no.
The answer is cleaning. Accumulated dust, all kinds of small creatures that have entered through unknown gaps, and items that have changed their condition for some reason must be washed, shaken, and dried.
thud!
Crrrrr –
And that was the same thing for Hyde, who returned after 220 years.
“Damn it.”
The place, which was called a ‘ritual space’ because it had no defined name, was now at a point where its past appearance was no longer recognizable.
Rumbling –
In the distance, something resembling a modern high-rise building was collapsing under its weight. Next to it, a sign that read [INN] creaked precariously over a destroyed wooden house, and in front of it was a handsome white horse and a subway was running behind it.
Those were also some kind of memories. Just as the professor unknowingly created his old sofa here, and just as Hyde created a bookshelf to organize his memories. The data souls within the countless fragments absorbed while working as a Warlord are located here, building up all kinds of incomplete unconsciousness with the strong memories each person has.
“Our tenants really used the house so dirty.”
Of course, for Hyde, who returned to his hometown after 220 years, it was a very frowning sight.
Kuung-!
Crrrrr!
Sssssssssssssssssssssw!
As a result, Hyde, who until a few minutes ago was fighting a battle for the fate of the world, became absorbed in housework.
“They say if you leave home, you’ll be in trouble.”
“I don’t know why I wanted to become a person so much when I was young.”
Honestly, no matter how much I thought about it, it seemed impossible to get rid of all of this. It’s a building and a castle, so what’s the point if you destroy it and clean it up?
[Celine, Celine, ahhh….]
[Uuu…. If only I could go back to London, back to London….]
Those friends. The things that were lumpy and mushy like sludge at the bottom of a river were like broken video tapes. Souls that have been compressed and crystallized just like the name ‘fragments’. Thanks to that, they are buried in their most powerful moment, imagining the moment they have constantly missed in this dark and vast consciousness,
[Ah, my London. Regent Street If only I could go to the bakery that made miraculous sandwiches out of tasteless bread before it was destroyed and before the bombing….]
….Doo doo doo doo doo doo!
In this way, I am pouring out my own London streets in Professor Park’s consciousness.
My own space of consciousness is destroyed in a matter of seconds because I know that I can’t go back.
There were almost as many personalities repeating such actions as the entirety of April World, and thanks to this, the dark and vast space of consciousness became a garbage dump where all kinds of moments from modern and medieval fantasy were broken and mixed together.
Chagrak swaaaaaak!
Compared to them, Hyde’s cleaning tools were extremely crude. It had monster-like strength and a tail with bones sticking out in rows like a hoe. Even if you clean it up for a hundred days, it will only end up being a dried sandfish.
Ssssssssssssssssssh!
“Shit. “It was easy when I just remembered it.”
At one time, Hyde, like them, could create something real here just by imagining it, but now his situation was different.
Grumble!
A white flame aura that flickers in the soul.
If the fragment is a soul that has been forcibly compressed and hardened, Orunite is a being that has voluntarily carved out and compressed its own soul.
“The density of the soul is different. “The article is.”
Purity and strength of soul. The reason why I raised myself as an Orunite based solely on that was now coming to light.
Kurrrrrrr!
“Well, I guess this is all.”
While he was thinking about this and that, Mute’s strength was faithfully cleaning up the surrounding area.
Just about 10 meters in diameter. The furniture that had been prepared in advance was placed on the circular empty space where the black surface of the water was revealed thanks to the push with tremendous force. An old gray sofa and a large bookcase that he used to organize his memories a long time ago.
Of course, there were some differences from the past. The old gray sofa looked almost torn apart, perhaps because of all the remnants of memories spilling over it, and the bookshelf… was even more miserable. As an individual who did not belong to Professor Park’s conscious space, he had to pick up the shattered furniture from the rubble and piece it together instead of creating it from his imagination like in the past.
I adjusted the axis with something that could have been a pillar of a log house, set up a piece of something that could have been someone’s gate, hammered in a poker instead of a nail, brought in a few bundles of wires like power strips, tied them, and connected them….
“….Okay, right?”
This is how we created a 10-meter by 10-meter bookshelf.
.
.
.
.
Sneak-
beep!
Gugeuugh!
“Uh hmm….”
I just swiped it with my finger to check, but the entire bookshelf shook and screamed, and the electric wire mobile hung on top with a fishing rod shook violently. No matter how I look at it, it looks like if I put my memories in a place like this, I would live with dissociative personality disorder like a chronic illness.
“Hey, I don’t know. “I’m telling you in advance, have I done enough?”
In fact, there was no need to insist on the same old form as all we had to do was convey the memory in some way.
“…I should get compensation too. “It’s a whopping 220 years.”
Still, I wanted to do this.
A space where black water surface is revealed. An old gray sofa in the center and a large bookcase in front of it.
Hyde enjoyed the feel of the stretched leather of the old sofa against his body and reached for the bookcase that was about to fall apart.
It may be ugly, but his ‘last’ has finally been reached.
Passsss –
Mute’s strong body. From the tip of the finger, light becomes like a small firefly and flies towards the clumsy mobile towards the creaky bookshelf.
“Continuing memories. “I am the last runner.”
My memories, which I had kept for a long time through several lifetimes to reach this moment, and Professor Park’s memories, with which I shared the very bottom of my consciousness and unconsciousness, flowed into the repository of re-created memories.
“…I didn’t plan on doing this from the beginning.”
“Body, mind, and soul. “After about two centuries, things have changed in one way or another.”
In the past, sharing memories with professors was as easy as breathing. Because they are two consciousnesses that shared the same soul in the first place.
But now. What about now?
“…I can’t use this sofa anymore because it’s so uncomfortable.”
The old gray sofa, which felt like skin in the past, has no choice but to sit on it awkwardly thanks to Mute’s tail and spine.
A small being who just wanted to be a human became a Master Knight, which can be called the pinnacle of self. The spirit was crystallized to the point where it could not be divided even on its own.
The body has escaped the human form. If the body follows the form of the soul, the soul is also influenced by the form of the body.
“It means that if you don’t grind it up this finely and hand it over, you will no longer be able to look at it and share it as easily as in the past.”
Thanks to the existence of the Orunite soul, I was able to maintain my consciousness even after being absorbed by the ‘Warlord’, but the soul that could not be divided no matter what… prevented me from sharing my memories with Professor Park. Unlike the past, it is a completely independent consciousness.
The professor’s memories were scattered and captured by several corrupted data souls. If this continues, even if the personality of the guy who fell into the server room comes back, he will be no different from a warlord who is like an empty can.
I have to somehow fill in his memories. Here, inside Professor Park’s subconscious.
Seaaaa –
so it disappears. After 200 years of hard work, without saying a word about suffering in a place where no one was watching. If I can’t share the memories stored in me no matter what I do, then I should just hand them over in their entirety. Even though the existence of ‘Hyde’ will disappear, it will still be passed down anyway.
“I’m saying this is the last time I’m even talking about this. Professor Park.”
My self-talk will be contained in that memory and passed on to Professor Park. The moment he reads it, it will be our last conversation.
I really want to keep talking endlessly for 220 years, but if I do that, he might fall asleep while listening and I don’t have that much time.
“I guarantee you that by the time you read this memory, you will be running wild.”
In my heart, I want to give only the professor’s memories, but Oranite’s indivisible soul will put all of my memories on top of them and pass them on to him.
It will run wild all the time. Because he is a guy who cares for his people so much. Just accepting my 200-year life story full of adversity would make me feel sorry for myself, but the next memory would be of me passing on memories from inside that guy and then disappearing.
Even if you didn’t watch it, it was a video. He will scream, pouring out the most carefully selected swear words he knows. ‘why! Why did you do it, Hyde, why did you do it like that, you stupid fool?
“I know. Why did you do that? I thought about that for a while too. Even though it was intense, the time I spent with you was two years and the time I lived without you was a little over two centuries. Aldrich also asked at first. Why don’t you stop here? Why don’t you quit the ascetic ‘preparation’ and go back to your life? “They said they couldn’t see me because they felt sorry for me.”
In 10 years, rivers and mountains change, and in about 200 years, mountain ranges evaporate and continents split apart.
Has there not been a single new relationship created in 200 years? Among them, is there another relationship that you wanted to cherish and take care of? Nevertheless, why did I leave all that behind and come all the way here?
“No matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t know, but at some point, the answer suddenly came to me.”
Grumble!
White flames bloomed on Hyde’s disappearing body.
A white aura resembling the flame first lit in the 3 World Empire. The meaning of embrace is indomitable.
“This isn’t something that can be shared. So, when I got there in the end, I used Aurors, and you, who had developed all your potential as a wizard, warrior, and shard knight to the limit under the careful care of the system, were not able to use Aurors.”
“It means that indomitability belonged to me in the first place. “Not Professor Park.”
The first clue is that the ‘Auror’, which is the most powerful will of a human being, belonged to Hyde himself, who was nothing but a fragment of consciousness.
“And as you know, this GG is a simulation of reality, so there is a lot of overlap even in completely different worlds. Just as the outside world was turned upside down by a nuclear war, April World was destroyed by the Dragon Vein Distortion. If there is a city-state called ‘Dome’ outside that survived after its destruction, here is an empire that maintained its national foundation even after the Dragon Vein Distortion.”
Even the name of the magical device for twisting the dragon vein was ‘A-TOMB’, and the imperial flag that Gainax changed was an exact inversion of the Dome flag. Even worlds that extend in completely different directions have overlap at some point.
“And if there was a mutant virus out there, GG had a mute factor.”
One day, Professor Park looked at the mute factor and thought, ‘It looks like a mutant virus, only in a different form.’
“then. What if it’s a mutant virus that digs into the host’s most distorted memory trauma and takes root? Where is the origin of this ‘conscious life form, Hyde’, which is its mirror image, the mute factor?”
Likewise, it will become a place in the weakest and most hurtful memories of human beings. And Professor Park had very clear scars.
“Surviving. “Your trauma was that you survived because those closest to you died for you.”
“The guilt created in that way becomes self-loathing. “The self-hatred that grew out of control ended up cutting out one human instinct from you.”
The most basic instinct that humans, or any living thing, has, from higher animals such as humans to microorganisms such as paramecium.
“Self-love. The instinct to prioritize oneself above all else. “Your guilt, because you loathed yourself for surviving, ripped from you the ‘heart of love for yourself’ that all animals have.”
That was Professor Park’s true inner self as seen by Hyde. A deformed personality in which ‘self’, which is the highest priority for judgment in any living creature, has been torn away by PTSD and placed behind reason and conscience.
Like all wasteland survivors, he was also a type of madman. A soul compressed and crystallized by the excessive stress caused by a traumatic event.
That’s why it’s strong and that’s why it survived in this difficult world of destruction.
The ‘angular goodness’ created by chipping away at one’s affection for oneself. That’s how Hyde defined Professor Park. That’s why Professor Park couldn’t bear to see someone sacrificed before himself, and said,
“That’s why I couldn’t turn away from you no matter what.”
….The trauma of being released like that. ‘Hyde’ grew out of the mute factor rooted in ‘self-love’.
“So you throw yourself away and save the world.”
“That’s why I throw away my world to save you.”
Two souls who were once one, but were separated by a strong impact and turned towards each other in opposite directions.
“It means that I am a stranger who cares about you more than anything else in the world.”
So indomitable.
Whoa.
The words I had kept alone for a long time came out with a sigh.
I felt dizzy, perhaps because the bookshelf was already half full. What else did I have to say?
Why are you so dedicated? I talked about it. If you don’t tell me this, you’ll blame yourself for the rest of your life for sacrificing yourself because of me. It’s a bit fatalistic, but… what would happen if I said I was born that way? I have to agree.
hmm. and.
“…It was luxurious.”
He’s about as old as my father, so I should at least write a thank you note in his will.
“What kind of personality can enjoy this luxury? “To be surrounded by someone’s most powerful and beautiful moments and to be able to relive them over and over again.”
A memory of someone as strong as you.
The disintegrated soul became a memory, filling the bookshelf with darkness.
The brightest memories were placed one by one in a mobile made from broken fishing rods. Looking up from the old sofa, it looked like a small milky way blooming in the dark and vast sky. The surface of the water, like a black mirror, reflected it and revealed another night sky beneath Hyde’s feet.
“okay. “I wanted to see this again.”
That moment when he felt so beautiful, as if he was at the center of a small universe while lying on an old sofa.
Returning to a moment I’ve been picturing in my head for 200 years. That was all the compensation Hyde had hoped for.
….Small.
If I were to be specific, his reward is even a small piece of memory that he snuck away while he was disappearing.
‘Anyway, I’m a data soul that was absorbed, so I’m entitled to take a memory with me like other fragments… right?’
My consciousness became blurred in my thoughts and the surroundings were filled with light.
“…It’s time…for me.”
It disappears slowly and surely. If even a speck of ‘Hyde’ remains, it means that ‘Professor Park’ is incomplete. His ‘self-love’ would not allow it. Just as Professor Park reaches out without abandoning even a single abandoned person.
Somewhere far away. Professor Park’s fragmented personality may be contained in the piece of machinery called the server room.
“Get ready… the last runner…”
Even as he was disappearing, Hyde’s face was filled with only happy smiles.
Because the plan that has been in preparation for 200 years is finally beginning to turn around in just a moment.
“Go. Finishing…..”
After 200 years of running through memories, Professor Park took over the baton called ‘I’.
“Don’t go astray…. Make sure you get a good look… I even put the flag….”
In my blurry vision, I could see the finish line like an illusion. A silver sword pierced the heart of the system that stood tall in the empty place of April World. Lionel.
A signal announcing the destination and a stake that pierces and secures the enemy. A meaningless and ignorantly large chunk of compressed data that would take even a machine intelligence a year to disassemble, having accumulated 700 years of complex data called worship and that much hostility from the empire’s enemies.
You’re probably in trouble right now because you can’t move in the empty April World.
‘Cheat and get drunk. That’s our way.’
‘….right, shell?’
From the beginning, head-to-head competition was not our style. Both professors and I have always had to confront unreasonable situations, and the formula for victory has always been a surprise blow.
That is Professor Park’s method. I don’t want the way I learned from him
to disappear. I just want to shout out loudly to that damn system, ‘You were fooled!’ and let them know what I have been doing.
okay. Let me ask you one more thing. I did that much I asked for.
Hyde used what was left of his mind to choose his words over and over again.
What to say to the system that coldly declared victory while looking at his severed head.
『Congratulations on clearing April World, you idiot.』
You can’t win in April World. Because it is the most detailed artificial intelligence in the world and at the same time a god who controls the power of the Creator.
『So, enjoy it to your heart’s content.』
So what you do on the board where defeat is confirmed is not victory. It’s just preparation for what comes next.
『After party for the winner.』
The last of the world. The only moment of opportunity that will come when the word “April” falls apart.
Beyond the ending, towards the final moment of the end.
After struggling for 220 years, the soul has reached its destination and is in a cloud of light. Relieved and without a single regret.
‘…Hide over and out.’
has disappeared.
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And at the same time.
Tiring-!
Tiring-! Tiring-! Tiring-! Tiring-! Tiring-!
“….why.”
A void without anything. In a space where only she, the warlord who was a shell, and the sword that pierced her heart existed.
Tiring-!
[congratulations! Player ‘World’ World 4 cleared!]
A notification sound that she, the system, couldn’t hear came to mind, and a phrase that shouldn’t exist came to mind.
To the system that moved its core data to the 4th world at the player level in order to exert a powerful influence in the world like a dragon.
Kuung-!
There was a large, ornate, old-fashioned door.
The roar of the crowd coming from beyond the door. Faint sound of instruments.
and.
Giggle, squeak, squeak!
‘Clear congratulations↗ha↘ ♪ Clear congratulations↗ha↘ ♪♪’ A
suppressed and gloomy singing voice that sounded like someone chewing their lips leaked out along with the noise of tearing metal.
“It can’t be erased… can it?”
It’s impossible. System Her terminal ‘World’ has already secured the authority of all data souls and administrators that exist in April World. Now, you can wield the authority of your developer account as long as you go out of 4 World, but even if you don’t, in the empty 4 World, you can wield it to your heart’s content right now, whether it’s creating or destroying the world, so why?
Kkeeeeeeeek –
The antique door opens left and right towards her in confusion.
Sigh!
The system was dragged into the grasp of a wild beast without even being able to resist.
Out of the stage.
“Welcome.”
A small world that exists beyond the ending.
“Welcome to the extra stage.”
Crash!
“…On behalf of the only knight who is not here.”
When everything is over, into the festival held by all the data souls that make up this game.
“…Congratulations on clearing World 4, idiot.”
Everyone is willing to wait for her.
Finally, finally.
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