The Foreigner on the Periphery

Asiph-1's throat felt dry.

This was a crucial moment. Mistakes were unacceptable, and failure was out of the question.

To keep his nerves from ruining everything, he forced a smile.

"I apologize for babbling on with stories only dwarves would enjoy. Come to think of it, who mentioned the concept of omnipotence to you, Father? Was it a dwarf?"

Minjun thought of Cathy. He was certain she didn't have a single drop of dwarven blood in her veins.

Hearing that the person was none other than his former secretary, Asiph-1's face lit up with pleasure. This time, his smile wasn't forced.

"Ah, you mean Sis? Come to think of it, I haven't seen her once since returning to Earth. I assume she's doing well?"

Cathy was the person who had used Asiph-1 the most during his time as a Frying Pan.

Naturally, they had plenty of opportunities to converse while he taught her to cook or handled the cooking himself.

"She surprised me in so many ways. In stark contrast to omnipotence... she was an icon of absolute, localized incompetence, proving that some people just can't do certain things no matter how hard they try. If it weren't for me, she would have burned her house down several times."

His trip down memory lane traced all the way back to his first meeting with Cathy.

Suddenly, Asiph-1's face twisted in shame. He had just remembered the first words he ever said to her.

"Just call me a dog or a pig, Sis!"

Back then, as a Frying Pan, he had thoroughly played the part of a masochistic, passive tool.

An object that enjoyed having pain inflicted upon it, accustomed to being wielded by the will of others rather than acting on its own.

Thinking about it now, that might have been his subconscious manifesting as a mirrored inversion.

His desires to inflict pain on others instead of suffering it himself, and to assert his existence as a being with self-determination, had been utterly frustrated.

In despair, he had expressed those desires in the exact opposite manner.

‘Even though my memories were erased, did my hatred and aggression toward the Committee that tore me apart remain in my subconscious? I suppose that got distorted and directed at the dragons, too.’

He stopped his train of thought there.

‘Damn it, I'm avoiding the issue again.’

He was so afraid of Minjun's reaction that his mind kept wandering.

"I will get back to the point. The massive wall I've run into lately is none other than you, Father."

Minjun didn't look surprised. Asiph-1 figured he must have already guessed.

A creator who felt like an insurmountable wall.

A man to whom he owed unconditional obedience.

Asiph-1 was now about to resist him.

"I know you tore off a piece of your soul to create me. If so, am I still a part of you, Father?"

"Yes, and no."

"Then am I your property?"

"You are not."

"I think and judge freely. That's why I disobeyed you once in the past. If I were to rebel again, and you decided I was no longer of any value, would you absorb me and make me a part of you once more?"

"That won't happen."

Asiph-1 felt a rush of relief.

Minjun explained why.

"It's the same reason I chose not to absorb Ha Eun-seong after rescuing him. Do you think that you—whose soul was dismantled and reassembled—are the exact same being I first created?"

"..."

Asiph-1 couldn't say for sure.

His creator was asking if a shattered and reassembled ego retained perfect continuity.

One thing was certain: the version of him from back then would never have disobeyed Minjun.

"Before I was caught by the Committee, I thought living with a different personality for a few hundred years wouldn't severely impact my ego, even after recovering my memories. I was wrong."

His time as a prisoner had left a massive ripple in his ego, one that was still spreading now.

And if Minjun were to absorb Asiph-1 and Ha Eun-seong on top of that?

Would he still exist as Minjun?

"Even in the future, when I become the blood of the universe and share my life with my kin, I have no intention of mixing everyone's egos. It would be even more dangerous if they tangled now. The 'me' that absorbs you might suddenly change his goals. I could become an obstacle to myself."

It was the lesson his life as Asif-666 had taught him.

Hearing those words, Asiph-1 mustered the courage of a lifetime.

"I apologize, but I feel I must say this. I am opposed to what you are trying to do, Father."

Minjun's eyebrow twitched.

"Opposed to what? Don't tell me... you think there's a problem with granting life to the universe?"

"No! Not at all. In fact, I was moved. A plan to grant the universe eternal life just so we can live forever—I thought it was the most magnificent path an advanced race could choose. I am not opposing the goal."

"Then it must be a problem with the process and the method."

"Yes. I want to talk about the Kavites."

A soft sigh.

"So it comes down to that."

"Yes. The internment camp was completed right before I left for Earth. I oversaw the operation and watched the Kavites being relocated there with my own eyes."

And for the first time, Asiph-1 must have made 'contact' with the Kavites in a manner that didn't involve combat, brainwashing, or murder.

Minjun began to wonder if letting him do that had been a mistake.

"And after returning to Earth, I reviewed the video records from the Space Mothership."

"...You shouldn't have had the free time for that."

"I felt I had to make time for it, no matter what."

He kept checking his creator's expression as he steered the conversation back to the internment camp.

"You already explained it to me, Father. A bomb is hidden within the Kavites' DNA. One they copied and implanted themselves. And when the time comes... you will flip the switch."

The reason for doing so was clear.

"The Kavites will serve as a sacrifice to awaken the primordial race."

This was the creator's original plan.

Before falling asleep, Minjun had stockpiled massive amounts of Mana Crystals on the planet that would come to be known as Yongreung. He had intended to use that immense energy as fuel to awaken his kin, who had fallen into a deep slumber unlike him.

But the Kavites' betrayal had ruined everything.

"The Ancient Race squandered the Mana Crystals like water. There aren't enough left to complete the awakening magic. Since it's already insufficient, you've been supplying what's left to other dimensions, Father. All to make it easier for me to control them in the future."

"..."

"A substitute for the Mana Crystals has been prepared. You declared it once. The Kavites will go extinct. You are preparing a horrific spell of Dark Magic, unprecedented in the history of the universe. Every Kavite across all dimensions will be forced to forfeit their lives."

Minjun's gaze was steady and unwavering.

Asiph-1's voice, on the other hand, was beginning to tremble.

"You explained everything up to that point before, but I still had questions. When that day comes... how exactly will the Kavites be sacrificed? Will their bodies all explode at once? Will they shrivel up into mummies? Or will the gates of hell open and suck them into the darkness?"

Asiph-1 had recently found the answer to that question.

"Dark Magic is an art that draws not only from the life force of its sacrifices, but also from negative sensations and emotions like pain and despair. And you, Father, are the creator of Dark Magic."

The more gruesomely a sacrifice was tortured, the stronger the Dark Magic became.

Whether the target was oneself or someone else.

"If that's the case, will you really kill the Kavite sacrifices quickly and painlessly?"

His voice trembled even more.

"...At this point, I have to mention the 'Shelter'."

Asiph-1 had seen the footage secretly recorded by the Space Mothership.

A dragon, ground up into minced meat. Such a feat had only become possible after Minjun got his hands on the Shelter.

Now all the clues had been laid out, and the picture they formed was shocking.

The son voiced a hypothesis he desperately wanted to disbelieve.

"You're trying to create a link between Dark Magic and the Shelter, aren't you? When you release the virus in the internment camp and flip their DNA switch, the Kavites won't die instantly. Instead, a mark will manifest on their bodies. I speculated that... this mark will act as a locator, designating them as targets for the Shelter."

Virus and genetics.

A dual safety mechanism to ensure precise targeting.

"And once all the preparations are complete, every Kavite with the mark on their DNA will be ground up alive."

Asiph-1 spoke in a voice on the verge of tears.

"If I may dare to guess, you can even control the speed and method of the Shelter's operation."

He prayed that Minjun would deny his speculations.

"A Kavite's body is shaped like a long rope. Large ones can be over three meters long, but as long as their head—the apex—and about ten percent of their body remain intact, they won't die for a very long time."

"..."

"I can imagine exactly how the Shelter will grind them up. It will start at the tail and slowly, methodically crush its way up."

Slowly.

Very slowly.

"It will be an agonizingly slow and absolute death. I also assume the virus will maximize their pain. This horrifying 'Butcher's Knife' will sweep over every Kavite simultaneously."

The Kavites locked in the internment camp would be completely unaware of what was happening. In an instant, they would watch in horror as the tips of their bodies were crushed into a thick, bloody mist, screaming and wailing in agony.

That living hell unfolded vividly in Asiph-1's mind.

"Please tell me if anything I just said is incorrect."

Asiph-1 stoked one last spark of hope.

‘Please, let him deny it. Let him scold me for harboring such baseless doubts and tell me I'm wrong.’

However.

The response from Minjun was ice-cold.

"There isn't."

"...!"

Asiph-1 had already killed countless Kavites during the war.

The reality of him defending them now felt incredibly surreal.

But in his eyes, Minjun's plan was wrong.

"They say there are no innocent bystanders. I partially agree with that. But the punishment you've prepared, Father... it's too much to bear simply for the crime of being born a Kavite."

He remembered Dell's words, and he agreed with them.

There was no original sin.

"There are certainly war criminals among the Kavites in the internment camp. Mixed in with them are the culprits who caused the suffering you endured, the hardships I pushed through, and the harm inflicted upon people across all dimensions. As long as they enjoyed the glory harvested from that blood-soaked fruit, none of them are clean. None of them are innocent. But it is unjust for them to be tortured to death over such a long period of time for that reason alone."

He brought up the dragons as an example.

"At the very least, the Dragon Race had a choice. They only get demoted to livestock if they commit a crime. But the Kavites are facing this simply because they were born into that race...!"

"Do you have an alternative?"

"...!"

Cutting him off, Minjun stared at him intensely.

"The Mana Crystals were depleted on a massive scale during the war between the Dragon Race and the Ancient Race. And I need energy to awaken my kin. I absolutely cannot fathom why you are defending the Kavites. So... if you want to spare the Kavites, who should I kill instead?"

"Father...!"

"Or should we wait until the Mana Crystals pile up again? We would have to butcher a tremendous number of dragons. The ones currently alive might not even be enough, since the hearts of young dragons hold very little value. Should we force their population to grow first? Are you going to brainwash them into laying a massive clutch of eggs against their will?"

The creator muttered in a profoundly exhausted tone.

They were contradictory words that would enrage anyone trapped in hell if they heard them.

"As you all say... I am not omnipotent. I do not have the power to achieve everything without sacrifice or cost."

The man who would be worshipped as the god of the world declared:

"I am human."

At the resonance of those words, Asiph-1 felt a suffocating rush of emotion.

"And as a human with limitations, this is the absolute best I can do."

"...Yes. You are human, Father."

Asiph-1 pleaded earnestly.

"That is why I'm begging you. You can consider this my wish. Even if the priests worship you, even if everyone in the future deifies you, please let your core... your essence... remain human. The moment you carry out an ethnic cleansing, you will no longer be human. I want to prevent that."

Before the creator who had denied his own divinity, the Pope bowed his head.

"I do not want you to lose your humanity, Father."

He was pointing to the act of affirming original sin, using things beyond one's control as grounds for punishment, and committing genocide based on race.

He claimed that the perpetrator of such acts forfeited their right to be called human.

Minjun, who had been staring at him quietly, spoke.

"Both him, and you..."

His voice rasped like crumbling sand.

"Why must you both choose such difficult wishes?"

Minjun closed his eyes in thought.

"..."

A long silence passed.

He repeated the same question.

"So, the alternative?"

Asiph-1 lifted his head. Resolve sparkled in his eyes.

"I have an alternative. However... it might be a method you won't be very fond of, Father."

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