The Foreigner on the Periphery

Just as the king had lied because he could not abandon his people, the people, too, could not abandon their king.

"People usually lie for two reasons: to deceive someone for personal gain, or to cover up their own sins and shame. But sometimes they lie for an entirely different reason—to spare someone else from feeling guilty."

Altruistic lies existed in this world.

—!

The part of the surrounding landscape symbolizing Asiph-1 began to churn. Only then did Minjun realize his son was also listening.

Asiph-1 was shaken. He had once been punished for telling three great lies to his creator. But it seemed his creator had lied to him, too.

Instead of anger, the son felt a mind-shattering wave of shock and concern.

"He's completely stunned," Ha Eun-seong observed.

Looking at the landscape pieced together like a four-dimensional mosaic, Ha Eun-seong read the memory.

Those were Minjun's words.

Asiph-1 had naturally assumed his father was included in that "we."

"In ordinary language, 'we' has two meanings," Ha Eun-seong said. "A 'we' that includes the listener, and a 'we' that excludes them. Right now, the two of 'us' are talking, right? That includes both of us. At the same time, 'we' are bleeding out across all time and space. That 'we' would be the latter. However..."

Minjun already knew what he would say next.

"What about a 'we' that excludes the speaker? The king who contributed the most to turning his people into the blood of the universe had no intention of joining them. So what he told his son was a lie."

Even after his people journeyed on, the king himself would stay behind, never becoming part of that bloodstream.

That was the secret he had been hiding.

Ha Eun-seong sank into thought for a moment before speaking.

"Or perhaps you conceived a new concept with that declaration. A 'we' as a collective that excludes 'me.' You expanded yourself by erasing yourself. It's paradoxical. I suppose that could also be seen as self-transcendence. Even so, the reason you can't use Divine Power... is it because I originated from you, yet I am not you?"

Meanwhile, the vortex churned up by Asiph-1 grew even more violent. Guilt was woven into its roaring resonance.

It stemmed from the realization that everything he had done for his creator had essentially only facilitated his father's sacrifice.

Fwoosh! Minjun's outer form, projected within this mental space, continued to burn crimson and black. He barely managed to speak.

"How did you know?"

"As I said, when the consciousness of so many people converges, it forms an immense repository of information. The expressions, actions, and tone of voice you showed each of us before you fell asleep—even your most trivial word choices... Synthesizing all of it made me certain."

The darkness coiled within Minjun undulated. Ha Eun-seong pointed at it.

"Adkiel. You once spoke with a nuance suggesting you would eventually pass your penance to her. You claimed the king would fall back asleep alongside his people and connect with them. That was a lie, too. As the gatekeeper of hell, Adkiel will eventually become hell itself if enough time passes."

Minjun had planted false hope in Adkiel.

"That is your revenge. She will never manage the 'heart' directly. Knowing the kind of person you are, there's no way you would ever entrust Adkiel with a domain that important. That task was meant for your son. The ruler connecting god and humanity would one day guard the gates of heaven, wouldn't he?"

Asiph-1's mental projection radiated continuous bursts of shock. Ha Eun-seong cast a sympathetic glance in his direction. He could read exactly what Asiph-1 was saying.

— But Father, didn't you declare as much to Adkiel?! That you had now completely freed yourself!

Ha Eun-seong denied it.

"You can hardly call it complete liberation. Your guilt toward Adkiel has vanished, but your hatred and resentment remain exactly as they were."

His gaze shifted back to Minjun.

"And you still carry the guilt of what you intend to do next, which is why the flames are burning away at the darkness within you."

Minjun no longer denied it.

"You weren't supposed to know that."

"The king was incredibly thorough. Even after becoming a prisoner, you never fully assimilated the Talent you absorbed. That was why red human blood spilled from your wounds instead of scattering motes of light. You isolated it, storing it away to use only when necessary. That behavior... seemed like an unconscious attempt to avoid mixing with us."

"...You're right. I did," Minjun said. "Even after awakening, I couldn't allow myself to mingle with you. I was terrified that the tiny fraction of blood I had absorbed would somehow transcend spatial boundaries and mix with the heart. I knew it subconsciously, even without my memories."

"The one thing we couldn't be entirely sure of until the very end was your motive."

Why had he done it?

"Why did you refuse to mix with us? Why did you insist on remaining completely isolated outside, knowing that in the distant future all your people would flow through the veins of eternity?"

After a long silence.

The king spoke.

"Because at a certain point in the plan, the one lagging behind is not you, but me."

The space trembled. Asiph-1 thrashed about mentally, desperate to interject, but he couldn't exert any real influence on the conversation.

Ha Eun-seong's expression remained relatively calm, as if he had anticipated the answer.

In contrast, the flames wrapping Minjun flickered precariously, crackling like a candle in a gale.

"You didn't fall asleep with us. You established a Shelter in an entirely separate location."

"Someone had to continually observe and manage things. Rather than slipping into blissful dreams, I had to sleep lightly, plagued by nightmares. Meanwhile, the rest of you were able to connect with one another unhindered, carrying on your respective lives."

"It was an unfathomably long time."

"Yes. Far too long."

Though his face was obscured by darkness, Ha Eun-seong felt he could read the profound exhaustion there.

"During that time, all of you continued to move forward," Minjun said. "You just said it yourself. Everyone already possesses a piece of everyone else. Hearing that reassures me; the plan itself was a success. However..."

An anguished echo.

"All the while, I stagnated. While I slept alone on the outside, I never mingled—not even a single drop. You all marched forward together, but I remained frozen in place. That disparity grew proportionally with the passage of time."

The king spoke firmly.

"And so, you can leave me behind. You have to keep moving forward. You never should have purposely slowed your pace for my sake. Because of that, the gap between us has only grown wider. You must continue down the path of eternity and perfection."

"No, we purposely slowed down," Ha Eun-seong countered. "Now the disparity isn't proportional to the time that's passed."

"I existed alone for a span you cannot even begin to compare yourselves against. My sense of self maintained its independence, utterly disconnected from anyone else."

If Minjun were to assimilate with them now, he could no longer be considered a mere drop of water falling into the ocean.

He was a condensed mass of immense memories and an ego heavier than any other.

The king would become an obstacle for his people. He would block the very path leading them toward eternity.

"Ultimately, it would decelerate the formation of the universe's circulatory system. It might even fail entirely."

"What about other methods?"

The people were desperate to find a way for their king to walk alongside them.

They brought up the proposal Minjun had once made to the Kavite.

"You once offered the Ancient Race a path to become greater beings. Even though they betrayed you. That method... it didn't involve mixing with us. Instead, it involved their race forging a second heart. After all, the universe doesn't strictly need to have only one heart. Two distinct sets of blood vessels connected to their respective origins wouldn't interconnect, but they would nourish the cosmos together."

"That is impossible for me. I cannot mix with another race to forge a second heart. Just as I am a flaw to you..."

Minjun felt a boiling agony tear through his mind.

It was because of the other reason he could not connect with his people.

When Minjun failed to finish his sentence, Ha Eun-seong echoed his final words.

"Just as you are a 'flaw' to us...?"

Now he thought he knew the answer.

"So that was it."

Ha Eun-seong thought back to the reason the king had conceived and executed this plan in the first place.

Could paradise be resurrected?

Could people reach a point where they no longer hated one another?

Could the hatred one group harbored toward another be stopped forever?

"Yes."

Minjun confirmed.

"After I awoke, another reason emerged as to why I couldn't connect with you. From that moment on, my heart was already overflowing with hatred and fury. Unlike all of you, who slept peacefully, dreaming happy dreams and preparing to understand one another and even other races, my walls only grew taller and thicker. And my ego is heavier than anyone's!"

And so he must not assimilate, he said, voicing his long-held resolve.

"To ensure you can move forward, I will eliminate every variable. I will excavate the earth to rip out the roots. I will burn the seeds. I will taint the very soil so that no sprout can ever grow there again."

At that moment, Asiph-1 desperately tried to interject.

He echoed the exact words Minjun had once used to condemn the Kavite.

— But that is the way of beasts. It is not the way of humans. No one hangs the neighbor's child just because they might one day gain the strength to strangle them.

There was no way Minjun had forgotten his own words.

But he ignored them.

"What drives me is my duty and responsibility to my kin," Minjun stated coldly. "For the sake of 'us,' I am willing to shed oceans of blood. And the responsibility is entirely mine."

Minjun intended to drench his own hands in massive amounts of blood.

He would handle it all himself, bearing every sin alone.

The process would undoubtedly be an agonizing pain, and it would breed even greater suffering.

But he had resolved to paint his own life with hardship.

"What do you think will happen if the circulatory system is completed with me mixed in? My hatred will taint you. What if the blood filling the universe's veins attacks everything other than itself? What if it develops an immune system that rejects everything that didn't originate from us?"

What if it treated everything that wasn't the primordial race like cancer cells or bacteria?

"Karma will continue to tangle. The other races will not stop sinning. You would forgive and tolerate them. In fact, you wouldn't even pay them any mind, since metaphorically they would be nothing more than germs. But me? I can't guarantee that. What if a universe mixed with me views them as foreign bodies invading 'my' flesh?"

Minjun was terrified of tainting all his people with his hatred.

"What if the universe achieves eternity, but slaughters everything except us? What if only blood remains inside it? I would be the error that ruins the genetic blueprint of the cosmos. I am the flaw."

"Wait."

Ha Eun-seong stopped him.

"Even so, we decided to find a path that doesn't demand your sacrifice."

"You already have the easy and fast path I prepared for you," Minjun countered. "There is no need to take a rough and long detour."

At that moment, Ha Eun-seong moved the mental landscape.

"We are also responsible for your anger and hatred. Because we were late to assimilate, you accumulated new karma. Therefore, that karma belongs to your people. It is a consequence we must bear together."

As he finished speaking, the shifting world formed a shape.

The figure of an elderly elf. It was the man Minjun had formed a bond with during his days as a prisoner.

But the elf's mind wasn't actually linked to this space. Ha Eun-seong had simply conjured him from memory.

"This elf was a man who distinguished right from wrong. He lived by rules he set himself. His conscience was his principle."

Minjun murmured the man's name.

"Lakefield."

"He accumulated a lot of karma with the king. Mostly by receiving favors," Ha Eun-seong said. "During your days as an agent, you saved him multiple times while he worked for a foreign intelligence agency. Because of the karma he built up with various governments, he was hunted even after he retired, yet you brought him to Korea and kept him safe."

Later, you even healed his crippled leg.

"So he thought he could no longer ask anything of you. Quite the opposite—he believed he should dedicate the remainder of his short life to repaying his debt to you."

The mental landscape rippled, reflecting a relatively recent memory.

"But in the end, Lakefield broke that principle. He begged you to find his family. Why? Because his daughter was so precious to him. Enough to abandon his life's principles. Can you empathize with how he felt?"

"...I can," Minjun admitted.

"If the roles were reversed, would you make the same choice as Lakefield?"

"Why are you bringing this up?"

"Because to us, the king is like Lakefield's daughter," Ha Eun-seong replied softly. "Someone we must save, even if it means breaking our other principles. A reason good enough to forget all other reasons. To a person, another person often becomes that kind of existence."

The mental landscape rippled once more, and Lakefield's illusion collapsed to form someone else.

Minjun muttered the name.

"...Cathy."

"She never made a wish to you," Ha Eun-seong said. "Regardless of the gap in power and authority, she wanted to remain equals to the very end. Among people on Earth, you can count on one hand those who treated you as a human until the end, rather than a god."

"Yes, she never made a wish."

"But she did convey a hope."

She had told him that he wasn't omnipotent.

"Because of that, there were naturally certain duties he had to let go of."

"She hoped that you would sometimes turn your attention to what you wanted to do, instead of what you had to do."

"What I have done until now is what I wanted to do."

"That is what the king wanted to do. To protect your people, you tried to become something beyond a king. You tried to reign as a god instead of a human, didn't you? But..."

Ha Eun-seong's eyes were asking him:

"Is that really all?"

You, who desires sacrifice as a king...

What is it you want to do as a 'human'?

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