Chapter 16: The First Memory Exchange

The choice of which memory to send to the other side was left entirely to Rigor. After all, he was the one who knew the other man best, and he would also know which memories would be most effective.

[[System (Temporary)] ‘Memory Exchange’ has ended. Beginning the first ordinary battle.]

[[System (Temporary)] Once both sides have completed their ordinary battles, the next exchange will take place.]

As soon as Rigor sent his memory, the curtains covering the walls slowly drew aside, as though a play were beginning. In an instant, the scenery around them changed.

They were in the middle of a battlefield.

It was a desolate wasteland where the stench of blood and clouds of sand seemed to choke the throat every time one breathed. Countless people were engaged in a chaotic melee.

They appeared to have been human originally, but their helmets and armor were bizarrely shaped, and their bodies were covered with strange things. From a distance, they all looked like monsters.

‘Was there a war going on? Was this from after the System’s invasion? Or… perhaps before it?’

Taehyun couldn’t say for certain which it was.

One thing, however, was unmistakable.

Every one of these people belonged to the world where Rigor had lived.

‘What could the other side possibly be thinking by choosing this memory?’

<Still, he’s trying to establish dominance right from the beginning. But, uh… are we seriously supposed to defeat all of these guys? It’d help if we could tell which ones were allies and which ones were enemies.>

“Sorry, but from our perspective, they’re all enemies right now. We need to hide first!”

Rigor answered and immediately led them somewhere at a run.

Surely they couldn’t all be enemies. Thinking that either the man from earlier or perhaps Rigor himself might be somewhere in the battlefield, Taehyun kept looking around, but there was no one recognizable anywhere.

When he continued glancing about, Rigor grabbed his hand and pulled him along impatiently.

“Even if I or that bastard from earlier were here, you wouldn’t be able to recognize us on this battlefield. None of them were in their original forms, and they weren’t in their right minds either!”

“Their forms, I can understand, but what do you mean they weren’t in their right minds?”

“They were just repeating meaningless battles. My world was one that had been going in circles, driven by the grudges of our ancestors, since long before the System ever set foot in it.”

“Grudges? What kind of grudges…?”

“Grudges that no one even remembers anymore. As the years passed and blood piled upon blood, the original reason for the grudge had long since lost all meaning. Only war for the sake of war continued endlessly. To survive in the middle of that madness, people had no choice but to throw away almost all sense of self!”

His explanation was nearly swallowed by the surrounding shouts and clamor.

Yet amid all that noise, Taehyun thought he understood what Rigor meant by grudges.

His attention was drawn to the unidentified pieces of flesh clinging to the bodies of the warriors engaged in battle.

Looking closely, it seemed the people weren’t actually swinging their swords through their own strength. Rather, the pieces of flesh were moving the swords for them, while the humans merely followed their movements like puppets.

The pieces of flesh constantly wriggled mouths, or things resembling mouths, and whispered to the warriors.

Strangely enough, the voices came through with perfect clarity.

[To you who will continue living even after we fall, we shall leave behind an inheritance of power you could never accumulate on your own. We shall offer ourselves as sacrifices so that we may add our strength to the future….]

[To you who will continue to exist even after we disappear, inherit the eternal grudge we carried. You who have received this grudge must achieve complete and eternal victory.]

It seemed as though the enormous grudge accumulated by some bloodline or nation over countless generations had transformed into a curse, casting its shadow far into the future.

The curse appeared to grant these people overwhelming power.

But there seemed to be an equally overwhelming price.

The grudges inherited from their ancestors had been mixed with their own grudges, accumulating over generation after generation until the inherited power and resentment had already begun binding their descendants so tightly that they could no longer even think for themselves.

Of course, the ancestors of this land would never have considered it a curse.

The real problem lay in the words they used:

Complete and eternal victory.

There was nothing in this world that was complete, and nothing that was eternal.

Those people were destined to keep piling curses upon curses until they were eventually crushed beneath their weight.

Taehyun realized that instinctively, without anyone having to tell him.

<Whew. Now I think I understand how our Wraith ended up developing such a vicious disposition. He received some pretty intensive training in this field long before the System ever showed up, didn’t he?>

The Prisoner muttered sarcastically, apparently noticing something similar.

Rigor didn’t bother responding.

Instead, he stopped and looked toward the sky.

They seemed to have reached their destination.

At first glance, the place looked like the middle of the battlefield as well. But upon closer inspection, there was a crooked line floating in the air, as though someone had roughly drawn it with their hand.

Rigor reached toward the subtle crack and pulled it apart with both hands.

A pitch-black hole large enough for a person to enter appeared in the air.

They immediately went inside.

The interior was roughly the size of a small cave, just large enough for four or five people.

Once everyone had entered, the opening rapidly shrank until only a thin slit remained, barely wide enough to look outside.

“I don’t want to fight them directly this time. I’d appreciate some help.”

—From whom? Me? Or him?

“At times like this, just help me. Both of you.”

The Knight chuckled and exchanged a glance with the Angel.

The Angel gave a small sigh before nodding.

Silver ink flowed from the Knight’s body and seeped outside through the opening, while the Angel sat quietly with his eyes closed, as though meditating.

That alone was enough to cause a change outside.

The people who had been foaming at the mouth and trying to kill one another moments ago suddenly hesitated, as though caught in an inexplicable illusion that had been overlaid upon their eyes.

Their confusion lasted only a moment.

Soon, they knelt with reverent expressions, as though the hope they had secretly desired had suddenly taken physical form before their eyes.

“Replica’s victory condition is the complete neutralization of the enemy, right? I’ll try to guide them onto the right path, but it’ll take some time before they throw down their swords and stop fighting. They have far too many lingering attachments.”

The Angel’s voice was faint, as though his entire attention was focused on what was happening outside.

He was probably attempting to amplify to the extreme the ethical principle the other side possessed, the desire for peace.

Considering the ancestral curse surrounding those people, it would likely be difficult.

But the Knight was helping as well, so for now, they had no choice but to trust him.

More importantly, the other side probably hadn’t expected them to deal with the battle this way.

Hadn’t he assumed they would simply fight their way through?

“Then we’re supposed to wait here for a while, right? In that case, I’d like to take this opportunity to hear more about… well, all of you.”

<When you say ‘more,’ what exactly do you mean? Our Angel has already told you quite a bit, hasn’t he?>

“He did, but honestly, there are more than a few gaps in the story. For one thing, no one told me that the Emperor was there. The Emperor… do you know what happened to that Curse?”

Hearing that the Emperor had been captured in that world left Taehyun deeply unsettled.

Of course, he didn’t believe that the Emperor was an entirely innocent victim.

That being had harmed countless people as the System’s subordinate.

For example, Choi Jeonghyeok’s death had ultimately been caused by the Emperor.

Even so, hearing that the Curse had gone to Rigor’s world and been captured there inevitably left Taehyun feeling uneasy.

‘How did the Emperor end up going there? What had he hoped to gain by returning there? And what had he been thinking when everyone turned against him and attacked?’

‘Well… the feelings of those people when they attacked the Emperor are understandable. If an unfamiliar soul had entered the body of the lord they had worshipped, anyone would have been horrified.’

He understood that.

But his heart still felt heavy.

Perhaps it was because the Emperor had helped him during his final moments.

If the Emperor hadn’t brought all of his companions along and divided the cost among them back then, neither Taehyun nor Rigor would even be standing here now.

“…That’s one thing, but I also don’t really understand why you guys invaded my world in the first place.”

<Well, about that….>

“Replica must have warned you at least once not to go there, right? I’ve known for a while that all of you have a habit of leaving half your brains behind in your own particular ways, but what exactly happened?”

Rigor seemed to be concerned about a somewhat different aspect of the situation, which was why he asked that question.

Taehyun was curious as well.

If those three hadn’t invaded Rigor’s world in the first place, the man from earlier probably wouldn’t have come chasing after them.

Then they might never have discovered that the Emperor had been captured either….

The moment the Knight heard Rigor’s question, he suddenly became extremely animated and began blurting out words.

—Oh, now that you mention it, I’ve got a lot to say about that! I didn’t think things were going to turn out like this in the first place!

“Then go ahead. How did things end up like this?”

—Where should I even start…? Well, we were wandering through several worlds when we met the System. Not this little Replica here, the main body.

“Hmm.”

In short, after listening to the Knight’s heated explanation, Taehyun came to the conclusion that the System itself seemed to be fulfilling its duties more diligently than he had expected.

It was stabilizing the new worlds that had branched off from the dungeon so they wouldn’t become unstable, while simultaneously helping their inhabitants move toward the directions they desired.

Apparently, finding the appropriate balance gave it quite a headache.

Still, despite all that worrying, it seemed glad to have taken on the responsibility.

That was apparently a relief.

However, the System had apparently asked the Curses, who had been leisurely wandering around, for a small favor.

—The Emperor suddenly disappeared without saying anything, and the System asked us if we could find out where he’d gone. You know, that guy had been traveling around with the System for a while, supposedly keeping an eye on it. Then, once he apparently decided everything was fine, he disappeared. Leaving is one thing, but if someone just leaves without saying a word, anyone would be worried, right? I guess the System felt the same way.

“So you went to my world to find the Emperor?”

—There were only two places the Emperor could have gone. This world or your original world. But if he were in this world, the System wouldn’t have asked us in the first place, right? Replica would have detected him. So naturally, we had to go search your world.

“That much is reasonable. But if you were going to invade my world for that reason, you could at least have told me…”

—That’s where everything went wrong! That idiot! We even told him to, at the very least, go and get reinforcements! There are plenty of people sitting around with nothing better to do!

The Knight suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted at the top of his lungs, even attempting to kick the Angel.

Fortunately, the Prisoner stopped him in time, so the Angel wasn’t actually hit.

Still, it was obvious that the Knight was furious with him.

—Listen to me! Fine, deciding that the Emperor might be in danger was reasonable! And when we actually got there, he was in danger! But that idiot charged in without even the slightest bit of strategy, stuck his head into the Imperial Palace, and started shouting at the top of his lungs for them to stop bullying the Emperor! I thought I was going to lose my mind! Why does someone who actually has mind-control abilities become so completely reckless at times like this?

<To begin with, the Angel’s mind control isn’t exactly useful for extracting information, is it? And you know his personality perfectly well, so why are you getting so worked up? It’s hardly anything new.>

—You always take that bastard’s side whenever this happens, don’t you? Fine! I’m never traveling with you two again!

Apparently feeling terribly wronged, the Knight huffed and kicked the Prisoner.

‘Even though they traveled together, it seems those two really didn’t get along with him.’

Still, Taehyun could understand the Angel’s perspective.

If the Emperor had truly been in danger, perhaps he simply hadn’t been capable of standing by and doing nothing.

“So what happened to the Emperor? Did he escape?”

—Honestly, I don’t know. We did manage to break the restraints and return the Emperor’s soul to his body. But then all hell broke loose. Everyone who was there attacked us, we argued with that idiot while trying to escape, and eventually that bastard somehow opened a door leading here…. So we couldn’t check.

—If he was lucky, he escaped. If not, I suppose they caught him again.

“I see.”

So they still didn’t know.

Taehyun nodded with complicated feelings, and the Prisoner shrugged before speaking up.

<You seem rather troubled. Whatever ending the Emperor meets, I’d say it’s at least partially his own karma.>

“Karma…?”

<That Curse was hardly what anyone could call a good person. Not that someone as lowly as this prisoner has much right to say so…. But even if he was being used by the System, weren’t the choices he made along the way still his own, to some extent? The Emperor could hardly be said to have lived a life befitting his original self. So if he received such treatment upon returning to his original world, I’d say it was simply cause and effect.>

The Prisoner had presumably meant to comfort him in his own way.

But hearing those words only made Taehyun feel more troubled.

A recent conversation he’d had with Park Hyung-jin overlapped with his thoughts.

Even if someone had been used, if genuine feelings had been mixed into the process, then they still had to take responsibility for those genuine feelings.

Even if they begged for forgiveness.

‘But…’

As Taehyun sat lost in thought, troubled by the bitter aftertaste of it all, the Angel, who had kept his eyes closed throughout the conversation, finally opened them.

At the same time, system messages appeared in the air.

[[System (Temporary)] Both sides have completed their ordinary battles.]

[[System (Temporary)] Before moving to the next room, you may observe how the opposing side responded to the ‘exchanged memory.’]

In the blink of an eye, the scenery around them changed, and they returned to the theater-like room they had first entered.

The curtains, however, remained open.

On the wall revealed beyond them, an image appeared as though a movie were being projected.

The scene showed the man driving a sword straight into Rigor’s neck and killing him.

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