I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

~!%*#( calculated its remaining power.

The losses were greater than expected. At this rate, it wouldn't last long. No, it wasn't even a matter of lasting. It could collapse as soon as tomorrow.

So recovering a damaged Core really had been too much to ask. It had examined the Core over and over, but staring at it didn't bring the broken parts back.

Then what should it do now?

The directive was to blow the door apart before it sealed shut from power loss, but that was only ever the final purpose of mindless beasts. It didn't want to do something like that.

Of course, it could simply sit still and wait for the end, like the old ones had. In truth, if the directive was off the table, that was the only option. Unfortunately, this was a modest little Cradle without even a Prophet, which made it all the more impossible to do anything.

'......?'

The mana wavered.

*(~(&! forced its sprawled body upright.

It listened carefully. Noise, coming from far away. Life. Vigorous lives were entering the Cradle.

Ah, they would have disappeared on their own if left alone. And yet they had to come all the way here to poke around, of all things. The living creatures here were so tiresome.

And it had its pride. No matter how dying the Cradle was, it refused to be killed at the hands of such lowly life forms.

Still, something to pass the time had come along just when it was bored. Maybe it would keep them here until the power ran out. After all, even if the Cradle collapsed, they could go home.

When everyone on this side was already gone. Surely a little venting was forgivable.

Their goal was to destroy the Core, no doubt. Given that they'd entered this Cradle, they were probably classified as strong by their standards. Would killing them be more beneficial? But when it was going to die anyway, what was the point of being beneficial?

There were certainly zealots who'd throw themselves into battle regardless of the outcome, but %!%@ didn't feel like it. There was nothing to gain, so why should I?

It shifted its body. Maybe it should just deal with them halfheartedly and send them on their way. The Core was on its last legs, true, but it couldn't just let them smash it. Or maybe it could send out the beasts to...

'......!'

~!()#$ bolted upright. Life!

No, not the old, worn-out lives of those intruders. A newborn, tiny and fragile, barely on the verge of drawing its very first breath!

Life!

It listened carefully. The whispers of the old lives reached it.

'This dungeon's pretty quiet.'

'The ones that seem docile are always the most dangerous. Just look at Yi Jun.'

'Why am I being brought up?'

'Looking like some rich family's little princess, and then...'

'And then?'

'Quiet. No messing around inside a dungeon.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Sorry.'

Then they fell silent.

But )~!&(@! crept closer to the intruders.

A dozen or so lives. It examined each one carefully. It found what it was looking for quickly. A female body with long hair braided and pinned securely so it wouldn't get in the way while moving. The female body was small compared to the other lives around it, but the important thing was not the female body itself. It was what the female body carried within.

It could see clearly. The faint, glimmering sprout of a tiny life in the female body's lower abdomen.

There was no Prophet, but to &_%() that light looked like a kind of revelation.

No matter how sturdy the mother body was, the fact that such a fragile breath had passed safely through the Cradle's door could only be called a miracle. And it wasn't as though simply passing through the door was enough.

This Cradle may have been small, but precisely because it was small, the mana was densely compressed. Even a life confident in its own strength could die of Mana Poisoning with one wrong move. That tiny, delicate life was already flickering as though it might go out at any moment.

Two days old at most. Barely enough to even call it a life. If not for _~$!!%, it would have gone unnoticed entirely. The mere fact that it had survived the passage through the door to get here was remarkable.

Left as it was, the mana inside the Cradle would sweep it away and snuff it out in no time. The female body would go on living without ever knowing that a life had briefly taken root inside it.

And that was fine. It was none of its concern. No, it would have been none of its concern. If only the Cradle's power hadn't dropped to critical levels.

Sitting inside a Cradle that could seal at any moment, to ~!^* that fragile life looked like an escape route.

It didn't want to sit still and wait for the end. Even if it blew the door open and got outside as the directive instructed, it would die before long.

But if it could activate the old gene and inhabit that life.

It examined the small life once more.

Forget limbs; the major organs hadn't even formed yet. Closer to one of the mother body's somatic cells than an actual life. The fragile life that could vanish at any moment had a high chance of not surviving if ^!％= entered it. In that case, %* would vanish too.

Even so.

A feeble, sly smile leaked out.

Even so, wasn't betting on a slim chance far more enjoyable than a guaranteed end?

If luck was on its side, it could get out safely.

!%*@ smiled with delight and reached a hand toward the mother body. The pale, snow-white hand began to disappear along with the light.

To state the conclusion: the gamble paid off.

Q_%&! became a tiny cell. Rather than possessing a self, it was more like a concept, submerged in darkness. The flow of time was forgotten, and the existence of the Cradle and !(%~^= blurred away.

But slowly enveloping the darkness...

Thump... thump... thump...

A peaceful sound.

The sensation of floating in water.

A tranquility it thought it had forgotten long ago. A comfort it never wanted to wake from. Within it, ^!(*^%'s consciousness slowly surfaced.

It was much later that it realized the quiet rhythm surrounding it was the mother body's heartbeat.

'Shanshan, my little star.'

When it next came to its senses, it had been given a name.

The existence that had vanished became distinct again. It was being reconstructed not as *@()!@ but as a fragile life.

'Shanshan, Mommy can't wait for the day I get to see you.'

It could move its arms and legs now, and it could distinguish the voice speaking to it.

In that time when everything else was indistinct, the softly whispering voice was always heard clearly.

'Should Mommy read you a book? What kind of story does Shanshan like?'

'Shanshan's going to prefer Daddy reading to her over Mommy. Every time I read to you, you perked right up.'

It wasn't only the mother body's voice. The male body spoke to it too.

'Maybe she kicked because she doesn't like your voice?'

It stretched its hand toward the voice.

'Oh, look at that. Shanshan agrees with Mommy.'

'She recognized her daddy!'

The bickering voices always ended with the same words.

'We love you, our Shanshan.'

'Daddy can't wait to meet you too, Shanshan.'

Something ticklish was felt. It wasn't anything grand, but it wasn't unpleasant. If anything, it wanted to feel more of it, for longer.

What did it have to do for that?

&@%*~ came out of the mother body without finding a clear answer. Even as it burst into tears by the instinct left in its tender flesh, it was still searching for the answer.

Its whole body was tingling, its eyes stung, it was cold, its crying throat hurt... the unanswered question kept going.

And another, more fundamental question arose.

'I'm out of the Cradle. Now what do I do?'

It had been so preoccupied with not wanting to lose that ticklish feeling that it had completely forgotten about that.

As the confusion deepened, @%&#^) felt soft hands embrace it tightly. Fingers gently tickled its cheek, and through its buzzing hearing came a familiar laugh.

'Shanshan, congratulations on being born. Let's get along from now on, you and Mommy.'

'Sniff... hic, D-Daddy too... please, take care of me.'

Everything is forgotten.

Thump... thump... thump...

Listening to the familiar heartbeat, Shanshan fell asleep.

This young life takes a long time to grow. So it would be enough to think about it later. Later. Later...

"And so, the moral of this story is: 'A mother's love is great'!"

"...How does the story end up there?"

"The fairy who grew up bathed in a mother's love decided it wanted out of the hassle of stealing people's homes!"

Alex Hope finished cheerfully and laughed out loud.

*

Changeling.

A fairy swaps its own baby with a human baby and has the humans raise it, or something along those lines... a bizarre tale.

A legend mainly found in European folklore.

But Alex Hope's story seemed less like a Changeling and more like the ecology of a cuckoo. Parasitizing another species to grow.

"......"

I carefully looked at Hong Seok-young. The man who, whenever I was about to forget, had been forced to deal with a fairy that claimed to be from the future was watching Alex Hope with an unreadable expression.

"Can other bastards come out like you did?"

"Hm? No. They can't."

"You sure?"

"If they could, Noah would've burned all the humans by now."

Hope giggled throughout, endlessly amused by something.

"First, a pregnant human has to enter a dungeon, and that alone is already hard enough."

"......"

"There's also almost no fairies as capable as me? More than anything, the fact that Noah's clinging to me is proof that I'm the only one."

Hope shrugged.

"Anyway, what we wanted to tell you was... what was it again, Sandra?"

─...I'll take it from here.

Hope looked at Gamble, and Gamble answered in a voice that sounded oddly deflated.

Still, Gamble tried her best to understand and explain the questions floating in our heads.

─Alex made concessions to Michel in order to protect his parents and me. In exchange for doing what Michel told him to do, he asked her to delay opening the doors. He asked her not to open them as long as Alex's parents and I were alive.

"...Doors?"

─Dungeon Gates.

A vibration that couldn't possibly be there pulsed from my wrist. Without thinking, I rubbed my left wrist where my watch sat.

The day every dungeon burst open.

─We didn't know how long Michel would hold back, but since it bought us time...

Sandra Gamble dies in a terrorist attack. Whether she had been the target or simply unlucky was never determined, right up to the end.

─We were looking for someone who could stop that crazy bitch.

"Like Hunter Hong Seok-young?"

─...I never expected Alex would get caught bringing the lab kids over!

"That wasn't my fault!"

─Then why did you get caught on CCTV!! You could've easily avoided it! I had a plan to approach more carefully! Not like a psychopath!

"......"

Hope ducked under the table to escape Gamble's raised voice.

"Noah told me to do it."

─Aaagh! You should've listened to me, not that bitch!!

"But... if I didn't listen, she'd get suspicious, right?"

─Fine! Fair enough!! Good call on that one!!

Gamble's face turned rapidly exhausted as she looked at us.

─Anyway, so to stop Michel...

"No."

─Shanshan... I said I'd do the talking.

"Yeah. But what I want to ask them for isn't to kill Noah."

That Hope's words were not agreed upon with Gamble was obvious just from Gamble's expression.

Hope staggered to his feet and turned his back on the screen filled with Gamble's face. He stepped fully out of the camera's view, leaving Gamble unable to see even the back of his head. All she could hear was Hope's voice.

"If I die, I'd like you to protect Sandra."

Listening to that resolute line, I calmly drifted into a different thought.

...With a story this big on the table, surely Hong Seok-young had forgotten that I blurted out that word? I hoped so. I really, truly hoped so.

***

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