Chapter 20: The People He Remembered Wrong

[[System (Temporary)] Please give me a memory, Yoon Taehyun. As I mentioned before, the more specific and emotionally rich the feelings contained within it, the higher the dungeon’s difficulty becomes.]

Following Replica’s advice, Taehyun called up a memory in his mind. He had already decided which memory to send to the other side.

Perhaps things would have been resolved more easily if he had sent this memory from the beginning, but after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that might not necessarily have been the case.

Everything had its proper order. There had certainly been meaning behind the memories Rigor had sent as well. But if Rigor were left to his own devices, there was no way he would ever send this particular memory, so Taehyun had no choice but to send it himself.

‘…Done.’

Taehyun clearly felt the sensation of Replica taking the memory from his mind. So Rigor must have gone through this every time he sent a memory to the other side. He had to mull over his past, then retrace the emotions he had felt along the way.

And yet, even while doing that, he had stubbornly repeated the mistakes of his past.

‘You’re really quite the hopelessly stubborn fool, aren’t you?’

[[System (Temporary)] The ‘Memory Exchange’ has ended. The third regular battle will now begin.]

‘Hopefully, he’ll understand what I’m trying to say.’

With that wish in mind, Taehyun squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. In an instant, the scenery around him had changed.

It was the same magnificent hall they had seen before.

The difference was that the interior was much older and had partially fallen into disrepair. Even so, it did not look completely abandoned. The broken windows and collapsed sections of the walls had been carefully covered with wooden boards and cloth.

There were also various bundles of belongings, sleeping bags, and other miscellaneous items scattered about the hall, things that seemed completely out of place amid its former grandeur.

People were living here.

It was hardly a prosperous or comfortable environment, but they were living here nonetheless.

“…So you’re saying you came here to apologize to us.”

A man’s voice reached Taehyun’s ears. There was hesitation and uncertainty in it.

When he turned toward the voice, he saw hundreds of knights standing opposite someone. Their armor was somewhat worn, but it was still sturdy enough to protect them.

As Taehyun had expected, the person they were facing was the Emperor.

Not Rigor’s actual younger sister, of course, but the Curse that wore her form, the one they already knew.

It seemed that the man had been moved by what the angel had said earlier.

‘Is this the ‘truth’ he wanted to tell them?’

[That is correct. For many years, without even knowing who I truly was, I damaged the wishes of the original owner of this body and mocked your general. I wish to apologize to you for that first.]

The little girl bowed deeply.

The knights exchanged startled glances, clearly at a loss for how to react. Although they knew that the person within the body was someone entirely different, seeing the person wearing the body of their former sovereign bow her head so casually must have been deeply unsettling.

“Please raise your head. It is the proper thing to do for our sovereign. It would be unthinkable for Her Majesty to bow her head to us.”

[Understood.]

“There is one thing I would like to ask. Why did you apologize to us before apologizing to the General? Is it perhaps because you consider us…”

[…I know what you are thinking. But I did not come to apologize to you first because I considered you beneath me. I simply thought there was an order to things.]

“An order?”

[It is nothing significant, but… I wanted to know first. What kind of life the owner of this body lived, and what kind of feelings they carried. I wanted to understand all of that before apologizing to him.]

One had to understand one’s wrongdoing before apologizing for it.

The little girl continued to explain in a quiet, mumbling voice, her gaze still lowered.

‘So this Curse wanted to understand Rigor after all.’

Perhaps it had simply taken a somewhat roundabout route to do so, the person who, despite being almost like blood family to him, had spent all those long years at odds with Rigor without ever truly understanding him.

[I committed countless vile and terrible acts without knowing anything, repeating them throughout that long cycle. To simply bow my head and apologize while remaining ignorant… perhaps that man would still accept my apology, but I don’t think that would be respectful toward him. Nor toward all the other people I hurt because of my foolishness.]

“…”

[No. Perhaps I really did look down on you. I am afraid to apologize to those people, after all. There is also the older sister of the man who died because of me in that other world. I still don’t know how I should apologize to her. So, I… What I want to do here is…]

The knights exchanged somewhat strange looks.

Perhaps everyone present had realized the same thing.

They did not know how long this little girl had lived, repeating what she called a ‘cycle,’ but one thing was obvious.

She was extremely bad at apologizing to other people.

“…You don’t need to explain that part any further. I don’t think we need to hear it.”

[I, um. That is…]

“Whether or not we can forgive you is something we will have to consider after hearing a little more about other matters. We… would like you to explain more about this ‘cycle.’”

[What? You want to ask me about that? Why…?]

“Because there is no one else we can ask. Of course, that invader explained some things to us, but honestly, we don’t know how much of his explanation we can trust. We understand that he has changed somehow, but we still cannot completely trust what he says.”

[I see. That makes sense. But if that is the standard, then I am also his subordinate.]

“Even so, you… Well, we have a feeling it will be all right. Besides, we aren’t exactly in a position to be picky. Since the General has yet to set foot here, shouldn’t we at least hear the story from you?”

The atmosphere was utterly peaceful and gentle.

So peaceful, in fact, that it was almost bewildering to listen to.

Taehyun had assumed that the two sides would begin by baring their fangs at each other, only for some incident to push the situation past its breaking point and trigger a battle.

Instead, he could only stare with his mouth hanging open.

Rigor was no different.

“Those guys are more…”

Judging by his mutter, Rigor had apparently imagined that the knights would be in a much more desperate and exhausted state.

But the knights Taehyun saw through the memory, although clearly tired and confused, were surprisingly calm and gentle.

Perhaps they had never been the sort of people who would become cornered and extreme, as Rigor had initially claimed.

And then Taehyun suddenly remembered something.

‘Rigor hadn’t set foot in that world for an unimaginably long time. So long that he had even forgotten his own name.’

After such an enormous passage of time, was it possible that his memories of the people he had once called his comrades had become distorted?

Of course, the people of this world did seem far more belligerent than the people Taehyun knew. They had been caught in an eternal war because of the obsession with victory passed down by their distant ancestors.

But…

‘Perhaps Rigor’s own fear had obscured some of their better qualities.’

Perhaps that was how the misunderstanding had begun.

Perhaps, if that misunderstanding had never occurred, these people could have communicated with one another normally.

Taehyun was thinking along those lines when the Emperor suddenly spoke.

[Hm? The General never came here? Why not?]

The atmosphere changed instantly.

“…What?”

[I naturally assumed he would have come at least once. I was even somewhat afraid that he might be here when I visited this world. It has been quite some time since I began wandering through various worlds alongside the System… He hasn’t come even once during all that time?]

“Wait, what? That…”

[It shouldn’t be particularly difficult for the General to enter another world if he simply asks Replica, should it? I heard the other Curses are wandering through various worlds as well. But I don’t understand. Why hasn’t the General even set foot in this world…?]

As the Emperor continued speaking, everyone’s expressions gradually became awkward.

At some point, the Emperor seemed to sense that something was wrong and fell silent.

Then, one of the knights who had remained quiet for a long time stepped forward.

It was the same man from before.

“Then, the General…”

[…Hm?]

“Has the General… abandoned us?”

At that very moment, an inexplicable tremor shook the entire hall, while a shrill noise tore through their ears.

It sounded like a scream.

Or perhaps a roar.

Within that cacophony, their field of vision began to distort strangely.

It was as though space itself were being stretched like a rubber band, only to be violently crushed again and again.

‘What? What on earth is happening?’

Taehyun staggered and nearly fell before desperately regaining his balance.

Replica then displayed a troubled system message.

[[System (Temporary)] The resolution of the memory has become excessively low, causing distortion. The presumed cause is excessively heightened emotions during the opposing party’s recollection of the memory. Please exercise caution for your safety.]

‘Exercise caution? What kind of danger is about to happen?’

Before Taehyun could even ask, he saw the people beyond the distorted field of vision begin to change.

Dark-red masses swelled from their bodies.

They were the same grotesque pieces of flesh Taehyun had seen on the battlefield earlier.

‘But why are they appearing now? Weren’t those the powers bestowed by their ancestors along with the Curse? Since most of the world had been destroyed and these people had effectively become the final victors, shouldn’t that ancestral Curse have already been lifted?’

“Those are probably distortions too. When we saw them before, those guys definitely weren’t covered in those strange pieces of flesh.”

—Uh, yeah, that’s true, but… well, we don’t exactly have time to stand around watching this! Those guys really did attack the Emperor, so we need to fight them right now!

The knight had a point.

The people had already raised their swords toward the Emperor, and some of them were even beginning to show hostility toward the intruders who had suddenly appeared in their midst.

But whether they were in any condition to fight properly was another matter.

Because Rigor, who was practically their greatest source of combat power at the moment, had simply sunk to the ground and was staring at the floor.

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