Book 2 Chapter 629
Even the rather impressive view of the universe lost its intensity after about a day. Residue, his expression devoid of interest, shoved a piece of meat from a pack into his mouth as he looked out the window of the ship. It was a movement more mechanical than mealtime, like performing a preprogrammed command.
The universe was still dark.
An era where light had been lost.
But it wasn’t completely swallowed by darkness; the stars appeared to be faintly shrouded in mist, each one slightly dimmed.
“Ugh. Totally lost my appetite.”
Residue didn’t say that, even though he felt the same.
It was Luca, who sat sullenly, speaking with a displeased look.
“Why?”
“Because hyung is eating so tastelessly.”
“Well, it actually doesn’t taste good, right?”
“True. …Ah, I want to learn how to cook. Hyung, have you ever tried cookies? They say they're sweet, soft, and crispy, how can something be soft and crispy at the same time?”
“Because different parts are mixed together. If you put chocolate chips on a moist biscuit, you can experience both textures at once, right?”
“Whoa. I didn’t think of that.”
Luca seemed to have quite the appetite. Combined with her occasionally naive expression, Residue sometimes recalled the Blue Knight who was always starving.
Come to think of it, they might share a few similarities.
As he watched Luca pull something out of her clothes and write, Residue asked,
“What are you writing?”
“Wish Diary.”
“Wish Diary?”
“Yes! I decided to write exactly one hundred things I really want to do.”
“One hundred, huh. That sounds about right.”
“Right?”
Luca smiled faintly, but the smile didn’t last long.
She tucked the notebook back into her clothes, clinked the utensils pointlessly, then said as if in passing,
“What did you talk about yesterday?”
“A lot of things.”
“Hmm…”
“Even some stories from the past.”
“What kind of stories?”
Residue fell silent for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
“Forget it.”
“Eh? Suddenly, what do you mean?”
“There’s too much to explain before I can even start. Which means it’s annoying.”
“I see.”
Despite the half-hearted attitude, like swatting away a fly, Luca didn’t get angry. He didn’t respond immediately either, instead seeming deep in thought as he stared at the empty food pack. ṘἈΝö𝔟ËȘ
“…Ah, but there really is a lot to see here.”
“You sound like someone at an amusement park.”
“What’s an amusement park?”
Residue didn’t feel like explaining properly, so he snapped his fingers. Lightning branched out from his index finger and formed a miniature, precisely moving theme park.
“Wow…”
Luca stared at the scene as if hypnotized.
“Amazing… Where is this place?”
“It used to be everywhere. But now, it’s probably nowhere.”
“Do you think I can go there?”
“Who knows. If you look hard enough, maybe there’s still one or two places operating even in times like these.”
In times like this, there are always a few nuts around.
Such lunatics might still be running amusement parks even in a world ruled by Destruction.
“Heh… Ah. That’s not what I meant.”
Luca quickly snapped out of it and cleared her throat.
“Anyway, what I meant to say is. Down in the lower levels, there were all kinds of people. As expected from an Intergalactic Prison, there were all sorts of bizarre-looking races.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There was someone with arms growing out of their eyes, someone made of some kind of slime-like substance, and someone who looked really pretty but smelled awful…”
Luca listed off the appearances of the criminals she had seen.
Residue, half-listening and half-ignoring, replied offhandedly.
“I see. You really looked around thoroughly. There must be nowhere on this spaceship you haven’t visited.”
Then, after a brief silence, Luca said,
“Hmm. Except for one place.”
“It’s better not to go to the Engine Room. That’s the core of the ship. If you go in there and cause a ruckus-”
“No, not a place like that. It was more like a Detention Cell or something, and the entrance was covered with chains and talismans and…”
Chains.
It wasn’t something Residue liked. Just recalling that chilly sensation made him click his tongue unconsciously.
“It was like a solitary confinement cell, and you couldn’t see inside from the outside at all. Even among the inmates, it was said to be forbidden to mention that place…”
“Where was it?”
“Uh… Now that you ask, it’s really hard to explain where it was…”
Residue changed the amusement park-like lightning form into a blueprint of the ship’s interior.
As he looked at it, Luca clapped her hands.
“Wow. Hyung, is there anything you can’t do?”
“Yeah, yeah. This body can do everything except what it can’t. No need to waste words on the obvious. So, where was it?”
“Hmm. So… huh?”
Luca tilted her head.
“I think something’s wrong here.”
“What?”
“I’m sure it was around here…”
Luca’s index finger wandered over the third floor, which, depending on the perspective, was considered part of the lower levels.
According to Bardrog, the lower one went, the more vicious the criminals were, so inmates on the third floor wouldn’t be all that dangerous.
But that wasn’t the problem.
“Here. Right here. The solitary cell I saw was here, but now it’s completely empty.”
Between the third and fourth floors.
She pointed to a location that was completely vacant.
“Maybe you were mistaken?”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
Luca groaned and held her head.
She hung her head low and began muttering something to herself. Of course, Residue could hear it clearly, but it was mumbling that could hardly be called language.
Then, all of a sudden, Luca lifted her head abruptly.
“You idiot! Don’t speak about things you’re not sure of!”
And she shouted so while making her voice as deep as possible.
“Huh?”
“Hoho. Interesting. Now I’m intrigued. Where is that place?”
Residue blinked, unable to keep up with the sudden situation.
Luca changed her attitude and scratched her cheek.
"Originally, you would have said something like this."
“……”
“The fact that you didn’t means your mindset is different from usual, and if your mindset is different, then something must have happened.”
Luca pulled her baker’s cap down to cover her eyes as she spoke.
“If you want to tell me but don’t feel like saying it, I won’t pry. Even though I do want to hear it.”
“Keuk keuk.”
At the awkward consolation, Residue couldn’t help but laugh. Still, it wasn’t bad. It was at least a hypothesis grounded in logic.
Residue looked out at the universe again and changed his tone.
“It’s an era where dawn has vanished.”
“……”
“They say even if you twist a rooster’s neck, the sun will still rise. But that’s no longer true.”
“The sun… I’ve never seen it, so I wouldn’t know. Is that blazing star really that meaningful?”
“Meaning is something we assign. For people, the sun wasn’t just a glowing star; it was a symbol of hope. It also signified a beginning. When the sun rose, everyone would naturally begin their routines, and by sunset, they’d start wrapping up. In Meltown, no, in the world today, there’s nothing like that.”
“……”
“In other words, the boundary between beginning and end has become vague, and that’s not a good thing. I may not be fond of frames and rules, but I no longer deny their necessity either.”
Residue recalled a conversation with Destruction.
Humanity, he had declared, would one day adapt to a world where Destruction ran rampant. But the loss of symbolism wasn’t something to be taken lightly. To glance up at the sky and see no sun, and accept that as normal, there was something rather sorrowful in that.
“I thought he might become such a symbol. After all, he was also called by the name Sun.”
“Who?”
“An old entanglement, you could say. Not a comrade, but not exactly an enemy either.”
“……”
“Even if he were to die, I thought he’d die in a more meaningful way… No.”
Residue shook his head again and became a little more honest.
“Truthfully, I never thought he would die.”
Not even for a second did he think that.
Residue’s feelings toward the Ruler were a mix of love and hate. Not just the Lightning God, but the others as well. Though he had become relatively indifferent now, deep down he still harbored jealousy toward them.
At the same time, he felt confident.
The Twelve Void Lords, the Four Knights, Destruction, the Half King.
Despite the constant emergence of powerful figures, he believed the position of the Ruler would not be shaken. He still wanted them to “reign” as overwhelming beings.
That might have been an obstinate pride he could not discard, as someone who had once been a Ruler himself.
“Are you sad?”
“No.”
“Are you angry?”
“That too, no.”
He did not feel grief or anger over their deaths.
What Residue felt now was something different.
“The feeling this body is experiencing, though calling it an emotion might not be accurate, if I had to name it, it would be closer to a sense of loss or absence.”
It might not have been completely accurate, but he could find no better expression.
After hearing of the Sun God’s death yesterday, Residue spent the entire day observing his own thoughts but came to no conclusion. And he was slightly irritated at the fact that he couldn’t even clearly identify his own feelings.
“……”
Luca was no longer looking at Residue. Her gaze was now fixed, alongside his, on the empty void of space.
“The Tentacle Tree is dying.”
“……”
“I told you it had about a month, right? But maybe because the second Destruction was stronger than expected, or maybe enemy reinforcements arrived, it might not last that long. Or maybe it’s already dead… There’s no way to know. My connection with the tree has already been severed.”
Luca’s eyes carefully examined the wide, flat planet. As if searching for Meltown, somewhere down there.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that the tree stayed behind in my place. The responsibilities I held as the ‘End Destruction’, the things I had done, the negative emotions. It’s like all of that was released along with it… Hmm. Of course, that’s probably just my imagination.”
“……”
“But I don’t cry either. I’m not sad. If I had to describe it… it feels more like regret.”
“Regret?”
“Yes. And I think regret is closely related to remorse. Like, ‘It would’ve been better if I’d done it this way,’ or ‘It might have been okay if I’d done it that way.’ Those kinds of thoughts are where regret starts.”
“So what did you do?”
“I kept talking. All the things I wanted to say. While wandering around with hyung for a week, I said things like ‘thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ or sometimes just words that seemed to have no meaning.”
“But the connection’s already been cut, right? Your voice wouldn’t reach the tree anymore. And I’ve never heard you say any of those things.”
“I only said them in my thoughts. And whether they’re heard or not doesn’t really matter.”
Luca grinned.
“It was just comforting.”
“To the tree?”
“No. To me.”
Residue also let out a small laugh.
“So, just a way to comfort yourself.”
“Maybe a bit selfish.”
“More than a bit. You were a fellow with very bright prospects."
“Yup yup. You had to be cunning to survive in Meltown, you know?”
Luca stuck out her tongue, then picked up both their trays and trotted off.
Then, moments later, her voice came back.
“Don’t frown like that! With a face like yours looking so serious all the time, I’m afraid the seriousness might rub off on me too!”
“Ha.”
He didn’t need to hear it from someone else, Residue already knew it better than anyone.
As he let out a hollow laugh, he felt the unknown weight pressing on his chest melt away.
Residue looked at the planet with a much lighter heart.
He thought of the Sun God, who was likely cooling down somewhere on that world.
Words he wanted to say.
That phrase became the clue that began to untangle the knot in his mind.
The scene Kiel had shown him. The words that had suddenly come to mind while watching that vision. Words that didn’t suit him at all, which he had ignored.
But now that he thought about it again, those words didn’t suit the “Lightning God”. Maybe because it was related to the Ruler, or perhaps he still clung to that name and position.
Now, it didn’t matter anymore.
Because those words were something “Residue” could say.
“…Rest well, brother.”
Residue finished the short requiem and rose from his seat.
*****
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