Chapter. 24. The Greatest Creditor (8)
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Couuuuuu –
The moment the rocket’s flame ignited, the eyes of both enemies and allies turned to it.
The reason why neither the Dome’s commander nor the Raptor’s single-minded warriors blamed the soldiers’ discipline even though they were distracted on the battlefield where life can be determined by a single moment.
It could be a yearning for those who completely leave this desolate land.
It could be because he was wondering what kind of joy he should find in the meaningless moment of victory that the commander mentioned.
-Quaaaaa!
It could be because of the human shape they knew well hanging on the surface of the spaceship.
‘Why on earth?’
Why did I choose this act of suicide?
Throwing yourself into a space launch vehicle that will soon reach 29,000 kilometers per hour?
What on earth was he thinking, clinging to a plane with his bare body going to a place where no living thing could survive?
‘I really didn’t want to do this.’
I wanted to live. I left Area 47, vowing over and over again that I would survive, even if it meant putting someone in front of me this time. Even as I was throwing myself into the enemy’s jaw, I was constantly assessing my limits in the back of my mind, and in fact, I even turned back before the battle was over at a point where I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
-Beon jjaeok!
What if the beam of light emitted from the dome formation did not go towards the spaceship as previously promised, but instead pierced the Raptor base.
———
Chiiik-
[A certain goal is maintained! Zeus missed!]
[It penetrated the signal guidance point without error!]
[In the end, Metal Joe, this foolish bastard…!]
———
The moment the attack aimed at that spaceship missed, the emotions were heightened. If President Haejin Young hadn’t said that over an open line.
Hahaha!
If the light that flew between the spaceship and the building had not cast the shadows of the two men facing each other precariously, using the vast wasteland as a canvas.
‘No…’
if I hadn’t seen it.
Taang!
Unless you heard a single gunshot.
If only I hadn’t seen someone other than Ian stumbling out from where the gunfire came from!
Kkeuddeukdukkkeuk!
….I wouldn’t have been digging my fingernails into a piece of metal headed towards space like I am now. I would have reached the rear where medical staff with cutting-edge equipment were waiting, and General Young anxiously measured my remaining time, which narrowly matched the ‘time required for server room mission completion and return’ in the data attached to the pre-command meeting, and said, ‘From the dome to space.’ I would have been praying earnestly for the ‘professional agents trained for the mission’ to bring me a cure on my behalf, as I had already exhausted myself to the limit. That’s probably the way to survive. I wanted to do that.
Boom!
That’s why I’m struggling to hang on to the surface of an already launched space launch vehicle instead of the safe rear.
The extremely high temperature cooked my flesh, my lungs shriveled, and in the end, all the faint remaining sensations in my body disappeared.
I ended up arriving somewhere cold and lonely beyond the blue sky, like a strange creature with only thoughts left.
“It’s all… your fault… you bastard…”
It’s your fault for letting me know things I shouldn’t know, Ian.
The fact that Zeus’s attack was aimed at the spaceship rather than the Nest probably means that Director Young intended to deceive me and destroy the spaceship from the beginning.
The fact that you uttered a curse word the moment you missed it probably means that you were the one responsible for that accurate guidance signal.
Even though you got right in front of the spaceship, the fact that it missed the mark means that you also fooled the Young Master.
Perhaps it was because of someone who said that it was humanity’s last hope and that only by it could we survive.
Maybe ‘If you get the cure in the server room, you will live!’ It may be because of someone who thoughtlessly made my transformation worse. Because that means you can’t live without a spaceship.
‘So I had no choice.’
Such a precise machine could fall just because there is foreign matter stuck to the outside.
My short lifespan may not be able to withstand the heat of breaking through the atmosphere, and I may disappear completely.
Even though I knew in my head that even if I survived, all I could do was hang on to the spaceship as a frozen body in space at minus 270 degrees without air, but I had no choice but to run anyway.
‘The reason is because I….’
Huwaaagh!
My last thoughts stopped the moment the heated air gave way to cold empty space.
At some point. The pressure pulling my body, the heat that was burning my whole body, and the noise that I felt all over my body in place of my already torn eardrums disappeared in an instant.
An extreme silence that I have never felt in my life.
I don’t know if I opened my closed eyes or if the carbonized eyelids fell off, but I had to wait and see at that moment.
Time in the middle of the night. The world I left behind was receding beneath my feet.
Overhead, darkness stretched endlessly, qualitatively different from that of the night.
The night sky I imagined, the moon shining brightly, the starry sky is an empty space with nowhere to be found.
The moment that deep silence touched my skin, I stretched out my half-frozen hands, crunching them.
‘If I die like this.’
Crispy!
Broken fingernails and fingers passed before my eyes and slowly receded into outer space.
‘The people who have died for this moment…!’
What comes to mind with that thought is not something like good will or cause, but fear.
Everyone on earth called me a hero and everyone in GG praised me as if I were a saint, but as far as I know, the person who pushed me forward until now was not that great.
fear. The shameful and secret nature of myself that I discovered after being immersed in the deepest part of myself against my will at April World.
The moment I forced my body to move became clearer now that I was infinitely closer to death.
Overhead, an infinitely heterogeneous white shadow appeared in this black universe.
It looks like a cone-shaped pillar placed in the center of a bicycle wheel.
『—』
The moment a silent vibration passed, the sleeping objects were lit up one by one from the part where the spaceship touched, revealing new life.
It looked like a top spinning alone in an empty universe, and the black letters [NEXT SPACE] were clearly engraved on its surface.
Finally, the cold darkness closed my eyes.
****
Snap. Snap.
.
.
.
.
….in the dark. It’s still pitch black and you can’t see clearly.
‘no. Is this… a dream?’
The difference is that, unlike the cold of space, where you can feel the freezing even with a body that has already lost all sense, here you can feel the warmth of a soft night. That there is shallow water on the ground.
The moment I recognized it, a familiar space appeared. Neat bookshelf. A place where organized miscellaneous items and sparkling glass beads hang in the sky like mobiles. old sofa.
And there was something somehow lying on the sofa that was small compared to the body.
‘no way. ‘Are you really there…?’
I was walking towards that place step by step, unable to even call his name, as if saying his name would wake me from a dream.
I felt someone lying on the small sofa moving behind me.
Long snout like a wolf. Sharp teeth. The brightly shining eyes of a beast.
‘Hyde.’
The moment I said the name, I had to work hard to keep the overwhelming emotions from bursting out against my will. I didn’t even know that I instinctively knew that this was a faint moment that would break like thin ice.
But how much I missed it.
The fear I hid so as not to cause any more worries to my loved ones.
The feelings that I have hidden to appear more confident to my loved ones.
The thoughts, agony, joy, and shame that I keep to myself.
I felt how big the empty space was in the existence of those who took for granted the feelings close to their essence that could not be shared even with those close to them.
As Hyde was a part of my mind the moment he disappeared, I thought we would never meet again even if there was an afterlife, but in the end, we met like this.
‘…God is more flexible than I thought.’
It was because of those thoughts that the first words of our reunion became such foolish words. I wonder if this is an illusion created by my freezing brain or the last synapse of my dying brain cells.
‘If this happens, it means I ultimately failed.’
The result is the same. Finally, my story is over. Although he saved the world twice, he was not lucky the third time.
Slurp!
As I threw myself into the spot he had moved out of the way, the old sofa kicked up dust just as I remembered. The names of those left behind along with the dust also came to mind.
Dana, Cynthia, Becks, Ezel, Woojin, old man Jocas, and many other bulletin board friends, Heungan Dumplings who may be alive or dead, and countless other faces and names that come to mind.
‘Hyde. You know, right? Even though everyone says I’m a brave person and an indomitable person, the reality is that I’m just Professor Park who is busy running around trembling.’
‘If you look closely, Metal Joe’s insight was amazing. You called me cherry, right? I have dozens of nicknames that I recently came up with, but no matter how much I think about it, I can’t think of one that suits me better. Even if he pretended to be cool, brave, and smart on the outside, he was still the same 17-year-old, scared, and smart Professor Park. Without taking a single step further from there.’
『….』
‘Hey, are you listening? We reunited here after a long time, but the reaction is sour?’
『….- — —-.』
Hearing those words, Hyde turned his head slightly and opened his mouth, but only his mouth opened and no sound was heard.
‘What is he saying now. ‘I can’t hear you at all, so speak louder, son of a bitch.’
As I spoke while kicking the guy’s large calf, I could see Hyde sighing heavily. The breath of the guy who passed by was surprisingly cold.
『—. — – —- — — ——-.』
‘….Hyde?’
The guy who was just mouthing suddenly stabbed me in the chest with his fingernail.
Knock knock!
cold. It was so cold that it felt like my lungs were freezing, my bones were cracking, and my whole body was being torn apart. The cold reminded me vaguely of something and I wanted to avoid it at all costs, but
『–. That’s right —.』
Pugh!
With Hyde’s voice faintly heard, its claws pierced right through my body.
‘no. This is…’
『There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s going well.』
‘Hyde, you know. You know. I am-‘
『….yeah. know. Don’t know better than anyone else.』
Fuuuk!
The claws penetrated deeper. My chest feels painful as if I had received an electric shock, and the world is frozen by the bursting cold. Hyde’s voice, that much closer, whispered.
『You’re almost there. huh? You know, right? It’s not over yet. You’re still feeling the pain. You’re still alive. Then you can still do more, right?』
Artifacts vaguely flicker through the cold air. White background. [NEXT SPACE] The infinitely cold and painful shadow of reality.
『There are many stories I want to hear. But I have no intention of accepting a story that ends so poorly.』
Okay!
『Go away, father. Go and get a proper ending, not this boring normal ending.』
The moment Hyde’s claws came out of my chest, what came out instead of blood was reality.
I was frozen on the surface of the spaceship with one arm outstretched. NextSpace, a space long-term survival habitat rotating above it. The spacecraft successfully docked there.
‘– —! —…. —!’
This time, on the contrary, he couldn’t hear me. Because there was no sound in space.
Hyde, who was looking at that scene, was seen laughing and returning to his original position on the sofa and lying down.
『Keep in mind. In your eyes, the guy in your heart may be a seventeen-year-old Cherry Boy, but in the eyes of everyone else who met you, he was a hero, a warrior, a saint, and hope.』
『It goes without saying to me. my father my idol. My hero.』
Damn
it!
In the end, the world collapsed along with the frozen water, and Hyde’s appearance completely disappeared.
At the last moment of April World, the only unclaimed glass was placed on his finger like a joke.
『Come visit me properly next time. Let’s have a drink then.’
The sound of grass rustling and the guy’s hoarse laughter dispersed like a reverberation.
****
-Fall!
….I flinch.
-Dismissal!
flinch flinch
– grab!
“Huhhh!”
[You’re awake! You’re awake! After all, he wasn’t made weak enough to die in a place like this! It has to be that way! haha! Hahahahahahaha!]
While I came to my senses and was in pain, struggling to breathe, a slightly slurred and angry voice struck my head.
[Ah, really. At this level, it can no longer be considered a coincidence! It so happens that inside your chest is a communicator connected to the strongest frequency of the Gedreuts Company, which includes a large capacity battery! It’s possible to communicate even when disconnected between outer space and Next Space! You being here and meeting me at this last moment is not what I intended at all!]
‘….Universe. Next Space. Gedroits.’
Slowly, very slowly, thinking was coming back. It was like there was a fog in my head and I couldn’t think deeply, but one thing was clear.
‘Still alive.’
Pajik! Pajik!
The sharp pain felt in the chest may be the cause. A battery that has been forcibly discharged by external intervention. A forced heart massage that burned everything around, but ultimately succeeded in giving the heart the shock it needed. This was the essence of the sharp pain I felt in what I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or an illusion.
[I won’t let you die. Cancer can never be left like that! It is the greatest asset of humanity going forward! I shouldn’t die in this cold universe!]
I turned my eyes towards the person who revived me from death.
He was not far away. It looks like it’s hanging from the window closest to me, my frozen body hanging on a spaceship.
His entire body was full of vascular-shaped bruises characteristic of someone who had been electrocuted, saliva was dripping from his limp tongue, his eyes were constantly moving in different directions, and his arms and legs were twitching or moving suddenly.
[Looking this way. That’s right, that’s how we focus on them one by one… Mutant viruses were basically developed to create humans who can respond to extreme environments, but since they are viruses that are active in the human body, their operating temperature is bound to be close to human body temperature. It won’t be easily activated in a universe near absolute zero…]
[I hope you understand even if I look ugly. As you can see, there’s a bullet lodged in my forehead. Most of the muscles that move involuntary muscles have lost their function. Personally, I think I’m glad you didn’t come into this facility. Because the smell might be terrible! Hahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!]
Gedreutz said that and was laughing like a crazy person, shaking his creaky body grotesquely beyond the window.
[Ah, to think that a scientist who would set the old world on the right path and a leader who would lead the future world in the right direction would face such a broken and ugly sight. [You can call it ironic or ironic.]
He said with a smile on his face as if he had lost control of his eyes and tongue, putting his hands and face close to the window as if he wanted to come over here.
[I have wanted to meet and talk to you for a long, long time. Professor Park, my perfect person.]
Even though he looked comically broken, his eyes were so vivid that they could be seen clearly even in the vast universe.
While Gedreutz was immersed in his own story that he had been cherishing for a long time.
….Tduduk!
I was feeling my right ring finger starting to move a bit.
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