Episode 554: A signal beyond the horizon (1)
Shoot.
It was a beach with waves.
The beach covered with pure white sand was so long that the end could not be seen.
Whether I looked to the left or right, all I could see was pure white sand and the border of the sea.
Every time a wave mixed with foam hit, the soles of my feet got wet.
When I lowered my head and looked down, I saw that my feet were bare and had no shoes.
‘What am I doing here?’
I felt dizzy, as if I had just woken up.
I couldn’t remember where I was or what I was doing here.
Just endlessly.
I just stared beyond the horizon where the waves crashed.
It was a quiet world.
There was no life or sound except for the periodic sound of waves.
‘Who am I?’
Faint sunlight scattered across the sea from a sky full of clouds.
Pure white light scatters like tens of thousands of glass fragments. Waves mixed with light continued to roll in.
‘that’s right. I was making something.’
Ludger quietly squatted down and shaped sand with his hands.
Just like a child playing with sand on the beach, the white sand collected by hand was piled up and shaped to create a castle.
Because it was hastily built, it was just a pile of sand, too crude to be called a castle.
I don’t know what the point is in making this.
It wasn’t something I did with something in mind.
I just did it because I instinctively felt that I had to do it this way.
Shoot ahhh.
The incoming waves hit the sand castle.
The outside of the poorly constructed sand castle collapsed and was swept away by the rushing waves.
Okay. Okay.
Ludger scraped up more sand from the surrounding area and added it to the sand castle.
When sand is brought in to repair the castle, waves come in, destroy the castle, and escape.
make it.
Broken.
Make it again.
It breaks again.
The waves were endless. As long as the sea exists, waves will continue to hit.
No matter how strong Ludger made the sand castle, it was useless against the waves.
The best thing to do was to barely scratch the remains of the collapsing castle and prevent them from being swept away.
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Why am I doing this?’
No matter how hard you tried to build a sand castle, it would only be broken by the eternal waves.
Is there a reason to be so desperate for something that will break anyway?
Thinking rationally, it would have been better to give up.
Building a sand castle in front of the waves.
Isn’t this a story that even a passing dog wouldn’t laugh at?
However, contrary to what my head thought, my hands continued to move and grabbed the sand.
Strangely enough, I couldn’t give up.
I felt like the moment I gave up on this, there would be no turning back.
I don’t know what can’t be undone. It was just that thought that fueled his actions.
Don’t stop.
Do not give up.
Another voice I couldn’t hear whispered to me.
Shoot ahhh.
The waves hit.
The waves were a dream and someone’s memory.
It contained the life of someone from birth to growth and death.
Ludger desperately defended his sand castle amidst the waves.
It’s something precious.
It’s yours.
So never forget.
Ludger suddenly realized that someone was talking to him.
Someone was cheering him on behind him as he desperately built a sand castle.
‘Who are you?’
Ludger asked, continuing to build his sand castle.
At those words, the cheering voices stopped.
It hasn’t disappeared. He just kept his mouth shut because he didn’t expect the question to be asked back at him.
‘Why are you helping me?’
Ludger was curious about that.
Why on earth do they continue to encourage this senseless behavior?
Why are you cheering me on instead of laughing at me?
No answer came back.
Instead, Ludger could feel the other person smiling faintly.
Why on earth are you smiling?
The moment I was about to ask that question, a wind blew from beyond the horizon.
Oooh.
It felt like I could hear the howl of a wolf in the wind blowing through the waves.
Ludger’s eyes opened wide.
‘Hans?’
It was the sound of an animal, but Ludger could tell whose sound it was.
At the same time, my foggy head cleared and my reason, which had been blurred, returned clearly.
“Yes, I…” I
was falling into a dream created by Nirva and was having a dream from which I would not wake up.
In his dreams, he became a child, an old man, a soldier, a nobleman, a woman, a butterfly, a knight, and an adventurer.
Over a thousand dreams.
Over a thousand memories and experiences.
All of it was mixed together and threatened the identity of Ludger Cellisi.
But Ludger did not disappear.
At this moment, firewood was kindled to the faintly dying embers.
The ego that had been swept away by the waves returned to its original form, and Ludger realized what he had to do.
“We’re getting out of here.”
To do that, I needed to wake up from the dream.
But there was no way to do it right away.
What Ludger could do was in a purely linear way.
Breaking through straight ahead.
‘There is no other way.’
As many dreams remain, you must continue to reach the end without forgetting who you are.
I don’t know how many memories will flow in from now on.
Now he had to steer alone and cross the sea with huge waves.
A dangerous adventure that ends the moment the boat is swallowed by the waves.
It was a desperate moment where I had no choice but to hope for someone’s salvation.
“It’s worth a try.”
I don’t want salvation.
No matter how difficult it was, in the end, it was up to oneself to overcome the crisis.
Because I was the only one who could save myself.
* * *
Sedina and Julia ran away eagerly.
While the monster of Gévaudan and Nirva were fighting, I had to get as far away from the seat as possible.
As the distant screams and explosions faded away, the sounds soon stopped.
The fight is over.
“What happened?”
Julia was confused.
It was a reaction that came from not knowing which of the two won.
On the other hand, Sedina’s expression was not good.
In the current situation, it is not good even if Zevaudan’s monster wins or if Nirva wins.
But this silence bothered me.
If the monster of Gevodang had won, there was no way it would have been this quiet.
‘That means…’
The worst thing happened.
Nirva won.
‘Senior Hans.’
At the thought of Hans being harmed, Sedina wanted to go back and save him right away, but she tried to suppress that feeling.
Judging by the fight before fleeing, it seemed unlikely that Hans, who had turned into Gévaudan’s monster, would be easily defeated.
The fact that it became quiet like this was more like Nirva had distanced herself from Hans in some way.
‘that’s right. Nirva is quite tired now. There’s no way the match could have been won in an instant there.’
After completing her judgment, Sedina urged Julia.
“Julia. You have to keep running. “The devil will come after us now.”
Once you have been caught by Nirva, it is impossible to escape his grasp no matter where you run.
However, if I could join other people, there might at least be room for a counterattack rather than being unable to do anything.
The moment Sedina said that, golden light was seen flickering in the distance beyond the darkness of the distorted space.
“It’s already here!”
Nirva’s speed was very fast.
As he flew in, creating a local sandstorm, his face was covered in a hideously creepy smile.
“Where are you going like that?” “Did you think that even if you ran away like this, you would be able to escape from me?”
Sedina bit her lip.
It was impossible to see the match from the front like this. I may have consumed too much power, but even if I was in perfect condition, I was no match for the current Nirva.
I had to find time somehow.
“…What happened to that monster?”
“Can’t you see that I have come to look for you like this?”
“Maybe I look like a fool, but who was it that had a hard time fighting that monster? From the looks of it, it looks like they didn’t have a proper match.”
Nirva’s expression distorted as the words struck a painful spot.
Sedina immediately added the following words:
“Do you know who that monster is?”
“A monster is a monster, but what else is there?”
done. succeeded in diverting attention.
“It’s a person. “He is someone I know well.”
Of course I don’t lie.
If you lie carelessly in front of Nirva, the apostle of dreams, you will be found out right away.
‘sorry. senior.’
I feel sorry for Hans, but I decided to sell his information to buy time.
Since this is information that will be learned over time anyway, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to deliberately say it first to attract attention.
“I just have a unique constitution. “I’m not that strong of a person.”
“That sounds funny. “A person with only an unusual constitution can become such a monster?”
Nirva turned on the light in her eyes to determine whether Sedina’s words were true or false.
From what I have confirmed, what Sedina said is true.
It was quite surprising.
That the monster that could be said to be his extreme form was actually a human.
“It is a constitution that allows you to transform into that beast when touched by the elements of the beast. With that, he can use the power of the super-sized monster that once terrorized a country.”
“The power of a monster… I guess you meant that monster.”
“It’s the monster of Gévaudan. “It’s a very famous monster.”
“So what does that mean? “That guy is not here right now.”
“That’s not the problem. “You couldn’t defeat that monster, so you used expedient means to avoid the fight, right?”
It was an obvious provocation, but Nirva, who was not in a good mood, was influenced by the provocation.
Nirva’s eyes narrowed, and life erupted from his body, killing Julia and Sedina’s necks.
Sedina swallowed her saliva.
“But there is still a strong person here who can defeat that monster. “I know as many as two people.”
There are two people here who can defeat the monster that he couldn’t face?
That was tantamount to saying that he, the apostle of dreams, was worse than a human being.
My pride was almost crumpled, but being treated like a person who looked down on me was an insult that was hard to bear.
But Nirva did nothing.
He even gestured at Sedina as if asking him to say more.
“One is a great beastman warrior and the other is a very excellent knight. These two are really talented people. “It’s so hard for you to treat me so carelessly.”
“A beastman and a knight. “You mean those two.”
It was in my memory.
These were the two strong men who attacked him after losing one of his arms to Franz.
A large beastman who threw a harpoon and a blonde man with brown skin who used a unique sword technique.
Although he wore a mask to hide his identity, Nirva easily saw through such a trivial disguise.
Are they enough to take down that monster?
Nirva opened his eyes again to distinguish between truth and lies.
After checking, the truth is ambiguous.
It wasn’t a lie, but I wasn’t sure about the truth either.
Sedina did not actually witness how strong Gevaudan’s monster was.
I only knew from the information I had gathered that it was a great cryptid.
However, I have seen Pantos and Alex fight in person several times.
Alex gets stronger every moment, and Pantos is on the same level as Alex.
I have a faint confidence that with those two, they will be able to sufficiently hunt down the monster of Jevaudang.
Because of that, Nirva did not carelessly deny Sedina’s words.
Because it meant that it was an ambiguous truth, but not a lie.
“I don’t know where those two are and what they are doing now, but they are probably still getting stronger. To the point of threatening you.”
Sedina’s words were simple.
The question was whether there was a need to waste our time here and now.
In a way, it seems like they are passing it on to their seniors, but in reality, it is the opposite.
Sedina trusted the two men.
To be exact, I trusted Owens.
Because they were the best force she knew of right now without Ludger.
“If what you say is at least partially true, those two guys are very threatening. “But there’s no need for me to move to get rid of those two guys, right?”
However, Nirva did not move as Sedina intended.
Nirva grinned at Sedina, who had a look of disappointment on her face.
“Why are you doing that? “Did you think I wouldn’t know his shallow intentions?”
“That’s…”
“Yes. Why did you listen to this even though you knew? “That’s to make sure you can’t escape this time.”
The surrounding area was already surrounded by sand.
“If I absorb the energy of you two, I will recover much more strength than other humans. After that, I will gradually eat the people you hold dear. “Don’t feel so lonely.”
Sedina bit her lip.
In fact, I didn’t know that it was a meaningless struggle.
Still, I thought I had to struggle as hard as I could until I was about to die.
Because I learned from Ludger that in moments of crisis and despair, giving up everything completely is the end.
But now this too is over.
In the end, all of this was nothing more than meaningless resistance.
Sedina made eye contact with Julia with a perhaps positive gaze.
The moment she saw Julia nodding her head, saying that she had done well, a line appeared on Sedina’s lips.
His struggles were not meaningless.
Paaaat!
White light exploded behind Julia’s back.
Nirva frowned at that.
“What kind of trick is this again? Are you planning on blinding yourself with light? Or did you just call something like this an attack?”
“In the first place, this is not an attack or anything like that. Rather, it is a signal.”
“what?”
“Did you think we just ran away?”
While running away, Julia continued to analyze the structure of this infinite dream prison.
Continue without stopping.
Even the moment when Sedina buys time.
“The basic structure of this prison has been analyzed.”
“This space I created so easily….”
“I guess you’ve forgotten who I am.”
Julia sneered at Nirva.
“I am the next master of the Dream School.”
The light became stronger.
Julia’s words were not bravado. As Nirva rushed to stop her, the door in the ceiling opened and a pink column poured out from there.
Nirva had no choice but to give up rushing and step back.
“Tap.”
A bunch of flowers landed on the ground with light steps.
“It’s an old monster persecuting young students. As president, it’s hard to just ignore it.”
Elisa Willow smiled brightly at Nirva.
Of course, his eyes weren’t smiling at all.
