“Oh, it’s fine as long as I put the TV on for him,” said a middle-aged, overweight woman, chatting on the phone while having a cup of coffee at the dining table. “I was a little worried when they mentioned he has autism, but I was surprised to see he was a lot more docile than I expected.”
She sipped her coffee and turned to the living room to look at a man in his twenties, sitting in front of the TV with his hands covering his face. However, upon closer look, the man was watching the TV while peeking through the space between his index and middle fingers.
“A genius? No, he’s not. That’s a separate thing called savant syndrome. Yeah. Rather, he’s even mentally challenged, so I doubt his IQ even reaches fifty.” The woman then laughed loudly, hearing a joke from the person on the other side of the phone. “Really? A crow has an IQ of fifty? Does that mean I’m looking after a crow?”
“Wow~!” the man shouted.
“Oh, it’s nothing. The turtle ship probably appeared on screen. He loves shows with Yi Sun-Sin in them, and he always shouts like that whenever he sees the turtle ship.”[1]
The woman laughed loudly again as she talked about how the man sounded like a dolphin.
“The madam? She’s super chill. More like, she doesn’t seem to care. Of course, she’s rich. I heard she got this house because of her son.” The woman took another sip of coffee and continued, “She’s in her forties, but her skin is still super supple. She looks like she’s in her early thirties, at most. The wonders of money, right? Should I get some care done, too?”
The woman began to talk about cosmetics and real estate, but the man in his twenties stomped his feet in excitement with no care for her conversation. The imposing turtle ship on the TV screen destroyed the enemy ships as sulfur gas rose from its cannons.
The eyes of Lee Kang-San, the autistic young man, sparkled due to the light from the TV.
I wanna... save my country, too... he thought.
***
Kang-San’s mother was the only daughter among many sons of a Korean chaebol family, owning a conglomerate so famous that everyone knew of it. She was spoiled due to her overindulgent father and her older brothers, who were much older than she was. She was also reckless to the point that she had gone on a trip around the world to hide the fact that she had gotten pregnant when she was twenty.
In the end, she was summoned back to the house after her family found out, and gave birth to Kang-San. The baby Kang-San received much love from his grandfather, who soon realized something was wrong with his grandson as time passed. Kang-San did not respond when called or even make eye contact. It was as if he were trapped in his own little world.
“What? Autistic? Keh, tsk, tsk. Bad seed,” the grandfather said, losing interest in Kang-San once he found out.
Kang-San was unfortunate to have been born with a genetic defect in one of his neurotransmitters, but was fortunate enough to be born to a family more than wealthy enough to take care of him. However, his mother was still young, charming, and loved to party. She had no intention of wasting her life on Kang-San and hired one caretaker after another to look after him.
He loved TV the most—a sparkling magic box—and was docile enough that he would instantly stop crying once they turned the TV on for him. The TV contained everything.
—There was a murder in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, at around 6 AM. The victim, Miss Mo, was...
So bad... Kang-San thought.
—The World Health Organization has named this newly discovered virus pestilitas, and is continually...
It hurts... Kang-San thought.
—The social issue of child abuse is becoming more serious by the day. A son was locked inside his carrier...
So sad... Kang-San thought.
The news always reported unfortunate, worrying, and hurtful events. The world was far too miserable. Hence, Kang-San developed the habit of covering his face with his hands whenever he watched TV, covering his eyes to shield himself from scary stories.
On the other hand, dramas and shows were always amazing. Heroes always appeared and emerged victorious.
—I still have twelve warships.
So cool! Kang-San thought.
—The white snake has been known to symbolize fortune and healing since ancient times, and...
So pretty! Kang-San thought.
Documentaries took him to places he had never been and introduced him to mystical animals he had never seen. Among the countless animals, he screamed with joy whenever he saw turtles and white snakes. The turtle was the symbol of Yi Sun-Sin, whom Kang-San liked the most, and the white snake was a symbol of healing, which would heal the hurtful and miserable world.
—This creature, drawn on the Great Tomb of Gangseo, is the Black Tortoise. It is one of the Four Symbols that appear among the Chinese constellations, and represents one of the five elements. The Black Tortoise is a combination of a tortoise and a snake, and is the guardian of the north. It also represents Water in the wuxing, and...
Wow! Kang-San thought.
To him, whose favorite animals were the turtle and the white snake, the Black Tortoise was the perfect entity. He created an imaginary Black Tortoise in his mind—a tortoise with a dark green shell, and a white snake for a tail.
Kang-San named it Lee Kang-Il and treated it like his little brother. The Black Tortoise was both his little brother and his subconscious. He talked to Kang-Il whenever anything was on his mind, and the wise and powerful Black Tortoise always consoled him. Hence, Kang-San never ended up disliking anyone.
Kang-Il, Kang-San called in his mind.
What is it, hyung? the tortoise asked.
Is something the matter? the snake asked.
I wanna talk to people.
Then just talk to them!
Why can’t you?
It’s not that easy... I wonder if I’ll be able to communicate with people if I protect them, like Admiral Yi Sun-Sin?
Of course, you will!
You can do it, hyung.
Kang-San’s mentality and willpower grew firmer as time passed, but no one knew that fact. Then one day in the year 2021, metal pillars began to appear throughout the world, and Kang-San vanished with them.
***
“It’s time... to put an end to this long journey,” Kang-San said, smiling as he stood before the confused Archangel Gabriel and Ice Dragon Biphatogenes. “I’m sure the name Lee Kang-San was called the most among my people in the past decade.”
Kang-San had earned Lee Kang-Il, the Black Tortoise, as his D Weapon. The powerful divine beast allowed him to become one of the powerful in the Mirror World. The better he became at controlling mana, the more the effects of his autism vanished.
Evgeny, Remy, Yi-Hwa, Radix, and many comrades he had met on his journey helped him emerge from the prison in his mind to the outside world. As a result, the repetition learning miraculously cured him of his autism, which had been known to be impossible.
After that, Kang-San devoted himself to expanding humanity’s rights, wishing to reduce even a little of the misery he had seen from the news by protecting his people as Admiral Yi Sun-Sin had. He charged forward with no regard for his life, earning him the nickname crazy motherfucker, but as more people acknowledged his accomplishments, he earned the title Tortoise Emperor.
“Since my name, which had been trapped in darkness, is now spread so far, it’s my natural duty to pay back the favor,” Kang-San mumbled as he stared at his cracking star, Communication.
His unique caliber granted the wish he had desperately wanted since his days on Earth. It allowed him to communicate with anything he wished and discover their new form. However, the people under him right now, fleeing or fighting for their lives, were far more important than his star.
[Lee Kang-San attempts to record in the Akashic Records.]
[Insufficient causality stored in Communication.]
[Supplementing the insufficient causality through a supernova, the death of a star.]
[Temporarily enhancing the magnitude of Communication.]
[Magnitude: 7 → 2.2]
[Unlocking a new star power.]
...
[Commencing the final history of The Adventures of a Tortoise and a Snake.]
[Lee Kang-San gave up on Communication and resolved for Autism, closing himself off to the world. He chose to seal an angel and a dragon inside him to fight against them for eternity.]
...
Kang-San covered his face with both hands and peeked between his index and middle fingers, staring at the dragon and angel as he had when seeing scary stories on his TV.
[Activating Star Power: Autism.]
The tortoise shells surrounding Gabriel and Biphatogenes began to condense and cling to them like pieces of paper. The madness of the human who had destroyed his star to write history sent chills down their spine.
“Bastard! Tortoise Emperor!” Gabriel shouted.
“You crazy motherfucker!” Biphatogenes cursed.
“I will not let you!” Gabriel screamed as his halo spun rapidly. His star, White Lily, bloomed. Its light began to reject Kang-San’s tortoise shells, peeling them off of him.
“HAAAAAH!” Biphatogenes also screamed as his star, Blue Pride, shone with a sapphire light and began to freeze the shells.
“It’s pointless,” Kang-San said.
Just then, Communication shattered completely with an explosion of blinding light. Kang-San closed his fingers completely after seeing the destruction of his desperate wish. There was complete darkness—he couldn’t see a thing. It was the place where he had closed himself off in his past. He felt more comfortable here.
“It looks like I’ll have two new friends. Now, angel and dragon! Let us engage in a never-ending battle inside my mind!” Kang-San shouted.
“O-O ALMIGHTY GOD OF HEAVEN!”
“NOOOOOO!”
The tortoise shells enveloped Gabriel and Biphatogenes like mummies. They were condensed again and again until they were sucked into Kang-San’s heart.
Kang-San panted heavily as his heart pounded intensely. His arms fell lifelessly to his sides, he drooled from his open mouth, and the light in his eyes vanished, becoming a haze. He fell toward the ground like a bird with broken wings. However, a mysterious power cushioned him before the fall broke his neck.
Opukia walked out of a warp gate made of Demon Force and tilted his head as he stared at Kang-San, who had returned to his autistic state.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, but Kang-San could no longer answer now that he was trapped in his own world. Opukia asked, “How do you feel right now?”
Kang-San did not answer again. Opukia remained staring at Kang-San for a while until he carefully lifted him. He generated another warp gate made of Demon Force and disappeared from the Capital with Kang-San.
A fragment of a shattered star fell to the ground.
***
The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing[2]
***
Those fleeing from Ismailia and those fighting against the dragons simultaneously looked up at the sky.
“W-what just happened?”
“The largest dragon and the angel just disappeared!”
“Did Lee Kang-San win?”
“I thought I saw him falling.”
The world-shattering battle had ended out of nowhere, leaving deathly silence in the sky. Even the dragons who had been destroying the city as they faced the human High Rankers were confused by the disappearance of their leader, Biphatogenes.
“Father?”
“What’s going on?!”
“I can’t feel his presence!”
Seong-Hwi, who had been rapidly flying as the Wings of Evolution flashed, lost his balance and tumbled across the ground.
“Cough! Bleghhh!”
[Applying Debuff: Overload.]
[Applying Debuff: Internal Injury.]
[Applying Debuff: Exhaustion.]
...
[Temporarily reducing Health drastically.]
[Health S(28) → D(52)]
Seong-Hwi groaned. Although he had absorbed the Fruit of the World Tree’s energy and made it his own, his body couldn’t fully handle its immense power. His Health stat plummeted alongside countless debuffs, but he paid no attention to his body condition and staggered as he looked around.
“He was around here... Where is he?! Where are you, Lee Kang-San?!” he shouted.
Lee Kang-San’s star... shattered? That’s impossible. I-I must have seen wrong! Seong-Hwi denied.
He saw Kang-San’s star breaking, and the white and sapphire stars being sucked into something. Now that Seong-Hwi had become a Recorder, he knew exactly what the falling of a star meant. The owner of that star could no longer connect to the Akashic Records, nor could they write history. They would have become a cripple, at the very least.
“There’s no way... You would have fallen!”
Seong-Hwi continued to look around where the star had fallen when something hit his foot. It was a faint dark green fragment with a white border. Seong-Hwi grabbed the fragment with a shaking hand.
[Fragment of Communication
Description: The fragment of the star of a man who dreamed of communicating with all things. It has lost most of its power, but holds enough power to communicate with one item once to change its rule.]
Seong-Hwi stared blankly at the Fragment of Communication. It meant only one thing—Kang-San had fallen without leaving even a corpse. Just then, he sensed an immense mana wave.
“What the—”
He looked up at the dark sky and saw a colossal python, large enough to swallow a city whole, opening its mouth wide.
“Could that be... a Snake’s Den?”
A Snake’s Den was a naga, also known by many as a mobile fortress, and was managed by Patala, a naga faction. In other words, the python’s appearance meant that Patala had gotten involved in the battle.
“Vipera... Anguis!” Seong-Hwi called the name of the Eighth Lord, the leader of the nagas who had close ties with the Third Lord, Regnator.
Countless snakes and nagas swarmed out of the Snake’s Den’s mouth.
Hiss!
“Let’s go! For Nagaroka!”
“Biphatogenes is dead! It’s our turn now!”
“Hiss! Sucks for you, humans!”
Their appearance was enough to be the final counterpunch for humanity’s forces, who had already been driven to their limit.
Seong-Hwi tightly grabbed the Fragment of Communication, his eyes filled with crimson fury, and shouted, “Hah...Hahaha! You’re dying to devour us, aren’t you?! Hehe, fine! It’s my turn now!”
Lee Kang-San did it, so what’s to say that I can’t? he thought.
Just then, a golden arrow unrelentingly flew upward toward the sky. No one paid any mind to the arrow, but the world was enveloped with a golden light once it struck the Snake’s Den.
There was no sound of explosion nor shockwave. The golden light simply devoured the Snake’s Den whole, like the morning sunlight. The blinding golden light vanished as instantly as it had appeared, leaving the Snake’s Den nowhere in sight. All anyone could see was the serene night sky.
***
A man walked along a desolate alley in the Capital. His pale skin carried a golden sheen. He had golden hair and eyes, and long, sharp ears. The elf resembled Irura, the leader of Viridis. His mere presence illuminated the dark alley. On his shoulder was a shabby bow that appeared to have been made by coiling an old tree.
“Cheon Seong-Hwi... was it? An interesting item he possesses,” the man said as he recalled the human, whose powers had been running out of control earlier.
The energy that the human was releasing closely resembled that of the World Tree. It was pure Nature Force that one could only feel from someone as powerful as the Fifth Lord, Keter.
The male elf walked down the alley in thought, then stopped. He looked up and saw a man with long black hair, leaning against a wall and reading a book. The man skimmed through the pages with his heterochromatic green and black eyes, then shifted his gaze to the elf.
“I am quite surprised, Fallen Tree. You did not even bat an eye as your kind was being slaughtered, so why did you meddle in the business of humanity?”
“I would prefer not to hear that from the one who caused the World Tree’s confusion, Curiositas,” the elf replied.
Curiositas smiled and remarked, “I missed an interesting spectacle because of you. How will you repay me for this?”
The elf smiled back, not losing to the demon’s imposing aura, and said, “Are you challenging me, you crazy demon?”
A momentary silence filled the alley.
Curiositas shrugged and said, “That would not be interesting. The result is already decided, after all.”
“Oh? In your victory?”
“I wonder? But I am sure you know. Rather... I am curious. Why did you help the humans? You, of all people, whose activities are as rare as those of the Fourth Fiend. I am very curious.”
The elf shook his head once he noticed Curiositas’s eyes sparkling like those of a cat discovering a ball of yarn.
“Will you step aside if I tell you, you crazy demon?”
“Of course.”
“It’s simple. I repaid a favor I owe them for Viridis.” The elf walked past Curiositas and mumbled, “Moreover, I despise those who bunch together and those with scales. Even more so if they’re a bunch of scaled bastards.”
Curiositas chuckled, his expression filled with pleasure after his curiosity was sated. He turned to the elf, who had vanished before he had even realized it, and said, “I suppose a rotten tree is a tree, nonetheless. You must have had lingering attachments, former Hod.”
The elven man was Lapsus, the Fallen Tree, thirteenth in the world ranking, and the Seventh Fiend, one of the few unaffiliated members of the Ten Lords and Fiends.
1. The turtle ship (거북선) is a warship that was used by the Korean Joseon navy, and Yi Sun-Sin (이순신) was a Korean admiral and military general known for his victories against the Japanese navy in the Joseon period. ☜
2. I’m not sure if this is the correct quote, but it’s the closest one I could find. ☜
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