Chapter 96
Chapter 96
“Is it you, Nari? No, wait a minute.”
Thump! Having discovered Nari, Kang Hana, who had instantly bound the pirate monsters with jade colored threads, rushed over in a hurry. Nari stood rooted to the spot like a stone statue and stared at her mother.
She could not distinguish whether this was reality or her own delusion. She simply did not know what was what. As Nari stood blankly, Kang Hana approached and caressed her cheek.
“What were you thinking coming here? Mom told you that you shouldn't follow. You could really die! What is your father doing right now...!”
Nari looked closely at her mother’s face. It was strange. There was a difference from the image of her mother that Nari always recalled.
She was a smaller person than what Nari remembered. When she was a child, she had to tilt her head back to meet her mother’s eyes, but now they were just slightly above her line of sight.
Her hair and skin were much drier, and instead of her usual vibrant face, her face was covered in scabs. It was not the mother who was always smiling in her memories, but a face filled with fatigue.
Seeing that, Nari realized that this was not an illusion, but reality.
“Mo... Mom? Are you really my mom?”
“Nari, you...”
The mother and daughter stood there in silence. It was because they seemed to have realized something.
A gate that looked to be at least Class 1. And her mother standing before her. A situation where a request for backup had been made, yet no one was coming.
If this was reality, it was self-evident where they were. Her mother, who was staring intently at Nari, asked quietly.
“...How old are you now?”
At those words, Nari’s eyes widened. Her suspicion was gradually turning into certainty. Her heart pounded violently. Nari could tell where this place was.
“Mom, here. Where is this? This looks like a gate. I mean.”
Because it felt like her ominous feeling was becoming a fact, Nari hurriedly grabbed her mother’s collar. The hem of the brown coat was pulled along.
Perhaps sensing Nari’s flustered expression, her mother took Nari’s cheeks in both hands. She spoke with a serious expression.
“Nari. The you in this world are fifteen years old. And right now, this place is...”
The East Sea Class 1 Gate.
At those words, Nari could not say anything while her eyes remained wide open. The East Sea Class 1 Gate was the main culprit that ruined the lives of her mother, Nari, and the people of South Korea.
In other words, she had traveled back in time. Through the door inside her heart. By a full ten years.
Nari finally understood the words of the White Rabbit. The statement that the Lord of Chaos was targeting her because of the cave inside her.
The Lord of Chaos had once mentioned that ‘regression’ was one of the hardest acts in the world. It was not for nothing that the Beast had enticed her by saying it would let her regress.
If she could so easily achieve that feat, which even a single Constellation could only barely see a glimpse of possibility for by paying a massive price.
Who wouldn't want to swallow this power?
Nari blinked.
If this situation meant she had regressed to the gate of that day through her own power, she could handle it here with her mother.
If that happened, it was certain she wouldn't suffer such pain, it was certain people wouldn't die, and it was also certain she wouldn't make a contract with a Constellation.
Was this the ‘growth’ the White Rabbit had spoken of? Thinking that, Nari looked straight up.
“Mom, you know what. I've become incredibly strong now. So, here, I can help you and...”
She wanted to say that she could help her mother because she had become a strong Hunter now. That they could handle this Class 1 Gate together. That despair would no longer exist.
The moment she tried to say that.
“Nari.”
Her mother caught her cheek. Nari looked at Kang Hana. She opened her mouth with a firm expression.
“Go back to your own time.”
“Mom?”
“Nari, you must not change the past. Ever.”
At those words, Nari’s expression, which had been wide eyed, slowly contorted. Was she not allowed to change it? She wanted to change it.
“Why?”
Nari screamed out those words. Tears flowed uncontrollably from both eyes. Kang Hana closed her eyes tightly at the sight of Nari in pain. Nari continued speaking.
“Mom dies here! You die here. That is why South Korea gets completely devastated. Do you know how I lived after that?! I... I had a really hard time. Dad joined some weird pseudo-religious cult, and I... I got beaten up by people.”
Her own pain, the deaths of people. She could undo all of it. Yet she could not understand her mother’s words telling her not to change it.
“I... I couldn't endure it. Everyone hated me! So in the end, I...”
Tried to destroy the world. Nari’s words, which had been venting anger, grew small again. It was because she simply could not say the rest.
Kang Hana, who had been listening quietly to those words, hugged Nari tightly. Then she patted Nari’s back several times.
“My daughter, did you have a very hard time?”
“....”
It was hard. Not only that, but she had almost dragged everyone down into the abyss while resenting her own hardship. Nari simply could not say that fact in front of her mother.
Was it okay to express that it was hard? Nari could not even answer and was just shedding tears. Kang Hana patted her head again and spoke.
“That is not your fault.”
“...!”
Nari raised her head. Her mother was smiling and caressing her cheek. Looking into those jade eyes, she felt as if all her secrets had been discovered. She patted Nari again and spoke.
“You were able to stop in the middle, and you did stop. That is why you came to find me. Isn't that right?”
“Mom...?”
Nari, flustered by the gaze that seemed to truly know everything, could not say anything. She smiled and stroked Nari’s hair.
“Mom, do you... know everything?”
At those words, her mother smiled softly.
Her mother knew everything. She made this choice even though she knew everyone would die after this and Nari’s life would fall into the abyss.
Nari pushed her mother’s embrace away in a momentary sense of betrayal. Seeing that action, Kang Hana laughed awkwardly.
“Perhaps, that was the best way, Nari.”
“What do you mean the best way, people die and I... what kind of best way is it for me to make such a choice.”
At those words, Kang Hana took Nari’s hand. This was her only daughter whom she probably hadn't been able to meet for nearly ten years. She could not guess how much she must have suffered.
She just felt sorry that the foundations she had laid out didn't seem to have served their purpose properly, as even that hadn't gone the way she wanted.
“Those entities have been targeting you since you were very young.”
“What?”
“They tried to drive you into despair somehow to destroy the world. Mom couldn't do anything about it either. I'm sorry, Nari.”
Her mother’s expression was bitter. Nari knew the meaning contained in her mother’s expression. It was guilt.
“The only thing I could do was build up your mental strength so you could easily rise from despair. But more than that, I am sorry for leaving you alone for too long.”
She said they had been targeting her for a long time.
Even if they targeted her power using despair for a long time, if she escaped this situation now... wouldn't everything be okay if her mother was by her side?
“Mom, if I help, people won't die. Then I won't have to fall into despair. Then.”
“Nari. Changing the past is not the problem. The ‘after’ is the problem.”
“After...?”
“The present is a result created by the accumulated efforts of the guardians of the past. If you change that, the recoil will come in an enormous form, and if things go wrong, the destruction of the world will accelerate. So don't do anything. Go back.”
Don't do anything, go back. At those words, Nari closed her eyes tightly. She did not want to hear that her current life was the best among all choices. Wasn't that too miserable?
Nari clenched her fists and stared at her mother.
“Why? Still, if I help Mom here, I can save people! I don't really understand what Mom is saying!”
Seeing Nari shake her head, Kang Hana tightened her grip on the hand she was holding.
“Nari, originally, this world was supposed to be destroyed once. We just forcibly kept it going. We missed the chance to set it right.”
Nari tried to protest further but shut her mouth tight. Her mother was looking at something with her head held up.
The universe was being reflected in her eyes. Within that universe, jade threads were weaving various futures. Nari, seeing her mother’s side as a ‘Hunter’ for the first time, could not say anything.
Somehow, she even began to feel that her mother was not a human, but a slightly higher existence. She looked at Nari while smiling.
“So it isn't your fault.”
Since it was already a planned event, she said it wasn't her fault that Nari had tried to bring about the destruction of the world.
“...Still, I was the one who accepted it. And.”
“Your Constellation is the self-destruct switch of this world. Everyone was playing a game of hot potato with it, and it just happened to be given to you. So, you are the one who protected the world. For twenty-five years.”
At those words, Nari blinked and looked at her hands. The words saying it wasn't her fault felt strange. Rather, hearing her mother’s words that she had protected the world made it feel as if it really wasn't her fault.
“Still, I don't know. Is it really the best that so many people die because of this gate? I... I really don't know, Mom. If this is right.”
“Nari, truthfully, Mom doesn't really know either.”
Kang Hana, with a casual voice, was tucking Nari’s side hair behind her ear with her other hand. It was an expression Nari was seeing for the first time.
An expression as if she would burst into tears at any moment. She closed her eyes tightly and then looked at Nari.
“Mom actually doesn't know well. How other people feel, or what kind of thoughts they have while growing up. Because Mom was raised as a vessel for a god.”
A vessel for a god. Those were the same words Nahan had used. ‘Incarnation of the Emperor,’ the ruler who governs the three realms.
Nari spoke quietly.
“Did Mom... also make a contract with the Creator God?”
At those words, her mother smiled and nodded.
“Yes. So actually, Mom doesn't really know the importance of human life.”
“...What?”
“Mom was raised as a guardian of order from a young age, so I didn't particularly feel emotions over private matters. I couldn't afford to have useless affection. I had to be able to do anything to prevent the destruction of the world.”
The vessel of a god. Nari reflected on the weight of those words again. A large vessel, an existence meant to act as a proxy for what a Constellation should do in the world. Those were much scarier words than she had thought.
“...You weren't really that kind of personality, Mom.”
“Yes, my priorities in life changed after I met your father and you.”
Her mother smiled as she caressed Nari’s cheek. Nari, who roughly guessed what words would follow, lowered her head deeply.
“Did things go wrong... because of Dad and me?”
If a Constellation from the outer universe who wanted the destruction of the world had targeted her since she was very young, her mother should have killed her as a guardian of order. But she could not do that, and eventually this disaster occurred.
If so, wasn't it indeed a problem that she was born? If she hadn't been born, her mother would have been okay. And people would have been safe.
The world wouldn't have faced such a crisis of destruction. So everything was her responsibility. Surely, if it wasn't for a daughter like her, her mother and the people would have been much happier.
Just as she was about to fall into depression again, her mother hugged Nari tightly.
“I'm sorry, Nari.”
At the sobbing voice, she snapped out of it. Her mother’s arms, which were hugging her, were trembling, and her shoulders were becoming wet. Kang Hana spoke again with a wet voice.
“You would have been happier if you hadn't been born under a mother like me, I'm sorry. Nari. Truly.”