EP.106 The Answer We Had Been Searching For Was Not Far Away (2)
It was quite a while after their meeting before Parang and Alice could begin their intended conversation.
Time had passed as they hugged and cried together, and even after the crying, there were still difficulties.
“Pfft, hahaha!!”
Having cried for so long, both of their eyes were rimmed with red. Just looking at each other’s faces made them burst into laughter, taking even more time to calm down.
“Let’s sit down. I have a lot I want to tell you.”
Gruuuuuuuud-
As Alice gestured, the floor of the empty stone chamber rose up by itself, forming chairs and a table.
“Sorry. I wish I could offer you something to drink.”
‘It really is Alice.’To deliver such a line without changing expression even underwater – it was exactly like the Alice that Parang knew.
Finally able to have a serious conversation, Alice said to Parang:
“Feel free to ask anything you’re curious about. It’s better to get everything you want to know out in the open – it’ll help you focus better.”
Things to ask about.
The questions that immediately came to mind were mountainous.
What she saw in the Kraken’s memories, what Parang should do now, what that unidentified monster really was, and so on.
Alice was someone who had glimpsed the Kraken’s memories. What she knew could be of immense help to Parang.
To use an analogy, Parang was the warrior, and Alice was the sage.
But what came out of Parang’s mouth had nothing to do with any of that – it was something quite unexpected.
“Have you… been well?”
Parang asked after Alice’s wellbeing.
Reunited with a dear friend after years of searching, this was their first conversation.
For this moment at least, they wanted to continue this conversation as ‘friends.’
Alice hesitated for a moment, but seeming to understand Parang’s feelings, she soon gave a gentle smile.
“Have I been well… Well, if I had to say, yes. I’ve been well. Though that’s relative, considering ‘what I’ve been through.’”
“We made a grave for you, you know? Every year on that day, we’d visit, pour out drinks, and sit there talking.”
“I saw that. You made quite a nice one, didn’t you?”
Though she spoke casually, almost jokingly, Alice’s expression wasn’t entirely at ease.
Just as Parang and Oceanos had missed Alice, Alice had missed her friends too.
The days she had to spend watching from behind Capulus must have been painful for her.
Parang could see that in Alice’s eyes.
So without even realizing it, Parang began to unfold stories. For Alice, who must have missed her friends. For Alice, who must have suffered as much as they had. ʀÂN∅ʙʧ
“You know… Diego passed the B-rank test. Vertea still hasn’t passed. Russell got a girlfriend but was dumped, and…”
Though Parang was supposedly the one who came to hear stories, somehow they kept wanting to tell more.
Because Alice’s smile as she listened to these stories looked so genuinely happy.
“And about the deep-sea hunter ranking test, it’s going to happen soon. You used to talk about it a lot, remember?”
Even though it had started as just a cover story suggested by Seo Sunwoo to deceive Natsuko and meet Parang, Parang had taken the deep-sea hunter test development quite seriously.
Despite being busy, they had researched materials in their spare time, contemplated appropriate evaluation methods, and proposed several concrete plans.
Seo Sunwoo, who had originally planned to scrap the project after Natsuko’s death, saw Parang’s attitude and seriously began planning the deep-sea hunter ranking test.
As a result, by the time of Natsuko’s death, the deep-sea hunter ranking test project was nearing completion. Though it was temporarily suspended when the association became paralyzed.
There were several reasons why Parang had poured so much passion into the deep-sea hunter test, but Alice’s influence was certainly one of them.
After all, Alice had been the most passionate advocate for implementing ranking tests for deep-sea hunters.
She had appeared on broadcasts for interviews and even submitted her own articles. Though they were buried under public indifference.
That’s why Parang had been determined to tell Alice about this when they met.
Alice smiled brightly upon hearing Parang’s story. It was a truly happy expression.
Looking at it made one naturally think, ‘I’m glad I told her.’
But why? Alice’s expression was definitely brighter when listening to stories about Parang and their friends.
Was hearing about her friends more joyful than learning that her long-held wish had come true?
Parang felt they could understand that feeling.
Oceanos was the most precious group of friends in Parang’s life.
The sea and deep-sea hunters that had been all but abandoned by the world, and the spine-chilling monsters.
The grim reality where someone you saw alive underwater today might be found as a sunken corpse the next day.
In such circumstances, Oceanos had supported each other, relied on one another, and protected the world together.
Without them, even Parang, who loved and cherished the sea, would have struggled to come this far.
And surely, to Alice and everyone else too, they were equally precious to each other.
Then, why…
“Did you know? That we were desperately searching for you…”
Parang’s voice dropped slightly.
“Yes. I knew from the moment that monster grabbed and dragged me down. I knew you would all search every corner of the ocean for me. I would have done the same. Though I didn’t see it with my own eyes until later.”
“Then, why…”
Parang stopped there and just looked at Alice. Parang’s pupils trembled slightly.
“Why did I keep hiding myself, you mean?”
“…Yeah.”
Alice’s expression also darkened considerably at that question. She too knew how desperately her friends had searched for her, and what wounds they had suffered in the process.
But she was no different. Alice too had watched her friends’ figures day after day, taking in their image with tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t avoid you because I wanted to. Through Capulus’s eyes, I imagined running to you and falling into everyone’s embrace thousands of times.”
“Then why…?”
“But I didn’t. No, I couldn’t. If I had met with you directly, there was a chance that monster would have encountered you too.”
“That monster…”
“Yes. The very one you’re thinking of. Even at this moment, that monster is probably drifting through the sea searching for me. Thanks to this cave I’ve gotten a brief respite, but I’ll have to leave here someday too.”
“Looking for you? That monster? W-why? No, is that even possible? For it to have will and actively search for you?”
Alice closed her eyes briefly and sank into thought. The fate of the world would be determined by how she answered here.
Tens of thousands of possibilities flashed through her closed eyelids in an instant.
“No. I don’t think it’s searching for me with any will of its own. It’s probably something like being naturally drawn to me because part of that being is mixed with my body.”
Alice chose to tell a lie.
She added with a bitter expression.
“Actually, even meeting you like this now is something I shouldn’t be doing. But I asked to meet you because I felt something terrible would happen if I just kept watching the situation.”
“This can’t be…”
Parang’s heart grew anxious. From what Alice was saying, an encounter between Parang and that eye monster at this point would be extremely dangerous.
“Then is this place safe? Where exactly are we anyway?”
Parang looked around. Alice and Parang were sitting in a stone chamber about one pyeong in size, made of red stone. It seemed to be the same stone as the cave they saw earlier.
“This place is relatively safe. It’s the deepest level of the Mariana Hive. You teleported here through this.”
The deepest level of the Mariana Hive would indeed seem good for avoiding detection.
After all, isn’t this the place that even Oceanos couldn’t reach the bottom of after diving all day?
Alice made a slight gesture with her hand, and a piece of the wall broke off and took the form of a Capulus.
“This is more useful than you’d think. You can connect two different Capulus together and use them like a warp device.”
Parang looked back and forth between Alice and the Capulus with an astonished expression. She wasn’t surprised by the fact that teleportation was possible using Capulus. What truly astonished her was the creation process of the Capulus itself.
“Wait, you said this is a Hive? But how did you just…!”
Hives, or Objects, cannot be destroyed. That’s because physical interference is impossible.
Not just breaking, but heating, scraping, digging, or bending – all of it is impossible.
Even the Gears living in Hives and Objects cannot dig tunnels inside them. They can only occupy spaces that already exist, like caves.
Therefore, if this is the Mariana Hive, Alice’s action of breaking off the wall to create a Capulus should be impossible.
But Alice casually performed the feat of disassembling the Capulus and putting it back into the wall as if it were nothing, then kindly answered Parang’s question.
“That’s right. Usually, it’s impossible to physically interfere with a Hive. Have you ever thought about why that is?”
“Well…”
She hadn’t thought about it. She’d just accepted that it wasn’t possible.
As Parang scratched her head with a lukewarm expression, Alice continued her explanation.
“It’s because the state of Hives and Objects is fixed. Because they don’t belong to our world, our timeline, we who are bound to this world cannot interfere with them.”
“Wait, I don’t understand. What do you mean? Our timeline, that means…”
Parang’s pupils shook violently. The implication that our timeline exists, and that there are objects that don’t belong to it…
“Are you saying… multiple timelines exist…?”
And when Parang’s knowledge considered what the existence of multiple timelines meant in novels, there was only one answer.
“Regression…”
Yes. Regression. Going back to the past.
“That’s right. This world is constantly regressing. Endlessly, eternally. In that process, the previous worlds and newly born worlds kept colliding, and the Hives and Objects are the result of objects from previous worlds flowing into newly created worlds.”
“What…”
Parang felt dizzy. She hadn’t expected to hear such profound secrets of the world out of nowhere.
“So you’re saying this world is infinitely regressing? That it returns to the past from a certain point, and keeps repeating that?”
“Yes. While the ending points of worldlines vary slightly, the starting point is always the same.”
“…When is that?”
“March 19, 2018.”
Parang’s pupils shook as if hit by an earthquake.
“March… 19… 2018…?”
March 19, 2018.
1. March. 19.
A date clearly etched in Parang’s memory.
That day.’I choose the trait,.’
That day.
The day Parang awakened.
The day she became the ‘Daughter of the Kraken.’
The world was endlessly regressing toward that day.
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