The Foreigner on the Periphery

The playback of memories ended there.

Jeongpal, hovering like a phantom in the darkness, stopped moving. He looked exactly as he had on the day Minjun returned to Earth.

"He's an incredible person."

"He is."

He nodded.

Even before Minjun regained his memories, Jeongpal was one of the few people he wanted to keep 'working' with.

"The human Ha Eunseong was born on Earth, but he didn't know much about this planet's history. Mr. Jeongpal, however, was different."

To fulfill Jeongpal's wish, Asiph-1 had to observe his mind.

As a result, the Pope gained a deeper understanding of why the orc had made his second wish.

"Like Choi Panseok."

"Yes. Sacrificing a few for the sake of the many is something that has repeated time and time again on this planet. One for the sake of ten, a thousand for ten thousand... until, eventually, they massacred seven million for the sake of seventy million. Mr. Jeongpal was terrified of becoming that kind of demon."

"Even knowing the chances of that happening were near zero, he wanted to eradicate even the slightest seed of it."

His motive of eliminating every variable was exactly the same as Minjun's.

Except that what those variables meant to each of them were polar opposites.

Ssss!

Finally, Jeongpal's form faded away into the darkness as well.

Minjun and Ha Eunseong were still walking along a carpet of light that cut across the darkness. Stepping on the radiant ripples, Minjun felt he understood why he had been meant to see those four phantoms.

'I see.'

Lakefield, who had broken his own long-standing principles for the person most precious to him.

Cathy, who simply wanted someone she cared about to live their life doing what they loved.

Dong-cheol, who prayed that those suffering from the flames of hatred could be freed from them.

And Jeongpal, who had vowed never to lose his convictions, yet constantly guarded against the possibility of harming others because of those very beliefs.

"You are the founder of Dark Magic. People nowadays use it in all the wrong ways, but originally, it was a system of Magic born from self-sacrifice. What you're trying to do for us right now is, in the grand scheme of things, a Dark Magic concept."

To shoulder the sins alone and allow the rest to transcend.

"I thought it was the right thing to do. If the many could achieve happiness through the sacrifice of the few."

"Are you saying that any choice can be justified as long as the outcome contributes to the greatest happiness of the greatest number?"

"If it were a choice between good karma and bad karma, then no, it shouldn't be. But until now, my choices have always forced me to the crossroads of bad karma and bad karma."

He meant that since neither option was morally flawless, he had no choice but to choose the lesser evil.

To Ha Eunseong, those words sounded like an implicit answer to various decisions Minjun had made, beyond just his choice to sacrifice himself. After all, it was a contradiction to dismiss a sacrifice where one was the agent of action as bad karma.

"But you condemned Adkiel in the past. She used you as a test subject for the prosperity of her kin. That, too, was the sacrifice of the few for the many. Yet you are about to inflict something just as cruel upon yourself all over again. We're afraid that this, too, might be a negative influence Adkiel left on you."

Minjun didn't answer.

Ha Eunseong guessed that he had already been asking himself this very question for a long time.

The ghost enveloped in light, and the people connected to him, wanted to help their king. They now knew what their king wanted as a person. They knew what he had long given up on, dismissing it as an impossible wish.

"What exactly are you trying to propose to me?"

"Your people have tangled their minds together, brainstormed a method, and confirmed each other's intentions. We think we can be your 'alternative.'"

Minjun stopped walking. He did so partly because he couldn't agree with Ha Eunseong's words, but also because the path the two of them were walking abruptly ended right there.

Beyond the severed edge of the Path of Light, something shimmered in the distance like a mirage. It felt as though they could reach it if they traveled the same distance they had already come.

Minjun could also tell that Ha Eunseong could continue walking forward from here on his own, extending the path.

If Ha Eunseong, blended with the people, stepped into that darkness, the light would scatter in a straight line to match his pace.

But it was impossible for Minjun. He could no longer match Ha Eunseong's stride.

In fact, he hadn't truly been moving forward until now; he had merely been experiencing a compressed version of the process the people had endured so far.

The moment his thoughts reached that point, Minjun fully understood the symbolism of this mental world... and the people's plan.

"...If you hadn't slowed down halfway, this path would have already reached its destination."

"Yes. We would have completely merged and already become the blood of the universe."

"But you've only made it halfway."

"And we plan to stay right about here for a while."

Not even noticing that the other's tone had changed, Minjun roared.

"You must not!"

"You sacrificed your long life for us. Therefore..."

The people voiced their resolve.

"Now it is our turn to sacrifice our lives for you."

"That is absurd! I already told you, didn't I? A safe, swift path has been guaranteed for you!"

"You fear that the disgust and fury filling you will taint us, do you not? Do not worry. Soon, when you open the door to your heart and awaken your people, we do not intend to awaken fully. Instead, we will entangle ourselves in a shallow slumber, just as you once did. Simply put, we will remain in a half-asleep trance. And the dreams we dream will not be purely joyful ones like in the past."

"...!"

"We know the wish you hold as a person. Just as you feared, the king's ego is heavy and profound. So, in a way that won't burden you, we will begin our connection while you remain awake. We intend to share the pain you had to bear alone—those memories akin to nightmares. What we have gained, we will give to you, and what you had to endure alone, we will take upon ourselves."

The people planned to remain half-conscious, helping the isolated Minjun catch up to them.

The king was briefly at a loss for words.

"Please continue to stay awake in reality, to act and lead your life, while dreaming happy dreams that shine upon us when night falls. We will remain in a faint consciousness, dreaming nightmares that reflect on your life, gradually etching our connection deeper. Because if we cannot understand the agony of having been isolated for so incredibly long, if that pain isn't healed, we can never truly blend together."

It was a method Minjun had considered in theory but had absolutely no intention of executing.

"That path isn't perfect. It consumes far too much time, and the success rate isn't one hundred percent!"

"Your original plan didn't have a one hundred percent success rate, either."

"Even so...!"

"The most certain method is inevitably extreme. For example, wouldn't the most foolproof way to eradicate evil from the world be to either strip away human free will or wipe out humans altogether? You have already tried one of those and failed."

Ha Eunseong smiled.

"Do not worry. The time passed was by no means in vain. Thanks to the king's sacrifice, we have connected this much, and we've become more adept at similar tasks moving forward. Thanks to that, the process of accepting you will likely not take as long as you think. You might even be surprised by how fast it happens compared to your expectations."

Now, the people would lead their king.

Minjun tried to say something. 'You all...'

But he ultimately couldn't finish the sentence, and the holy soul spoke first.

"However, it is impossible in our current state. First, please awaken us. Only then can we move forward. That was your intention from the start, wasn't it? To temporarily awaken the rest of your kin, identify the problems, make improvements, and resume your plan."

At that moment.

Asiph-1's mind rippled from far away, as if signaling that the time had come.

Then, Minjun's body, projected into this mental realm, began to slowly pull away from the path.

"Give us a chance to repay our debt. Please awaken us. And the method... that is solely up to the king to choose. After all, both Dark Magic and Divine Power are forces that originated from you."

Which Magic would he use to awaken them?

"We ask that you make the choice that will make you, as a person, happy. The ruler once said: even if you have transcended kinghood to become a god, your foundation remains human. And an entity that is half-god and half-human should not exist in this world. You must be entirely a god and entirely a human simultaneously."

Just as Minjun hurriedly tried to speak, Ha Eunseong smiled faintly, as if he already understood.

"I also know why you granted the request for the four of us to gather and intertwine our minds—a request you normally would never have accepted. It is because at least a fragment of your people's minds lingers here, isn't it?"

The very first question Minjun had asked upon facing the soul here was "who" it was mixed with.

Just as they had yearned for their king, the king had yearned for them.

The king was finally able to reunite with his people, however incompletely.

"Again..."

"Through a method like this, we should be able to speak again in the future, even in a half-asleep state. ...Though, of course, it will require rather grand preparations and the help of many people each time."

In Minjun's vision, the path of light receded and grew faint, turning into a thin golden line. Eventually, he could see nothing at all.

He felt the minds of Ha Eunseong and the people, which had risen up like bubbles, flow back out across all time and space. They left only the pure 'power' accompanying their will behind in this limited space-time.

Ha Eunseong's final words echoed in his mental landscape.

"With joy and honor, we will wait for you in every time and every place. Our King."

   *

Minjun pulled the anchor of his mind back to reality.

—!

Fourth still couldn't open his eyes, and Asiph-1, standing beside him, was in a state of profound shock.

He was the only one who had been able to comprehend the conversation between the Holy Spirit and the Creator. He looked at Minjun with a stiff expression.

There was also one goblin who was just as stunned. Dong-cheol couldn't perfectly grasp what had just happened. However, the aftershocks of a sensation that defied logic still lingered in his body.

'Just now... everything definitely converged on me!'

The scope of it seemed to encompass the entire planet, just as that long-haired man had explained in complicated terms.

The rest of his explanation had been spot on, too. Dong-cheol had acted as an antenna, and the collective will he gathered wasn't limited to the goblin species.

In the end, Dong-cheol had successfully harvested the wishes of the vast majority of Earthlings and the seeds of Divine Power they harbored—all of which Asiph-1 had stimulated through their subconscious.

Unlike his worries, it didn't hurt. Instead of unbearable agony, he only felt something welling up inside his body.

Then, after some time had passed and just as he began to think it was a bit overwhelming...

'The Master... helped me.'

As Asiph-1 guided it, the tangled minds seemed to tilt and flow toward Minjun.

As a result.

'Whoa...!'

A darkness comparable to a core, and the blood-red flames covering it.

However, its intensity looked much weaker than before.

Furthermore, above that.

'It's similar to when that guy named "Fourth" showed his power. No, it's far brighter than back then. Even so, it doesn't hurt my eyes.'

What enshrouded Minjun was a truly overwhelming flash of light.

Yet, the eyeball-scorching pain he had experienced before was absent.

The light was warm, gentle, and comforting. Because it enveloped him on a much grander scale than the other symbolized elements, the darkness and flames buried beneath it sometimes seemed as if they had vanished entirely.

"..."

Minjun was staring straight ahead. Through the scenery before him, the texture of the air, and the movement of magical energy, he could tell that—just as Ha Eunseong had said—not even a single second had passed.

The procession of dragons blanketing the sky.

The Dragon Race that had been blocking the invaders—the brainwashed ones—had mostly already crashed into the ocean or oxidized into nothingness, and the enemies' dimensional leap was nearing its end.

Asiph-1 waited in tense anticipation for his Creator's words. He didn't need a special ability like Dong-cheol's to realize that Divine Power was boiling violently inside his father's body.

How would the Creator use that power? In what way would he experiment?

The moment he asked himself those questions.

Minjun issued a command.

"...Yes, understood!"

Asiph-1 briefly flashed a surprised expression, but he immediately relayed the order to the entire fleet.

The barrier surrounding the battleships dissolved.

Roooar!

The dragons filling the sky thickened their siege formation, confronting Minjun's battleships.

Knowing the incidents that had occurred on Earth in the past, they did not let their guard down. The battle would begin once the rest of the dragons had fully crossed over.

However, Minjun didn't seem to have any intention of waiting until then.

—!

Centered around him, light blazed and flowed like smoke.

Minjun looked down at his own two hands.

Fourth had scattered the spores of light across the entire planet, Asiph-1 had implanted directionality into them, and Dong-cheol had reaped the harvest.

Receiving it, Minjun murmured to himself.

'In the first place, it is a 'wish' that determines the manifested form of Divine Power.'

However, these wishes didn't belong to Minjun.

Therefore, when using this power, Minjun knew he couldn't go against the common prayers and hopes of the vast majority. The further he deviated from them, the weaker and more scattered the power would become.

Minjun kept thinking.

Back when Minjun and two dragons fought on the East Coast, the aftermath had blanketed the entire central region.

When he killed Changcheon, it had been severe enough to trigger nationwide martial law in Korea, as he later learned.

And recently, after Minjun hunted thousands of dragons, everyday life on Earth ground to a halt for several days despite the immense effort put in by the order's priests.

And now, with even more dragons appearing on Earth than back then, Earthlings were bound to feel an instinctual hostility. Consequently, there would be absolutely no resistance to Minjun using this power to attack the dragons.

So, wringing out all their blood right here and now was one option, but...

"..."

The reason Minjun didn't immediately do so was because he had zeroed in on one of the lumps of light drifting within him.

Asiph-1 had said this: the spores of Divine Power would have virtually no effect on dragons.

Thus, the wishes of the dragons—whether they were the extraterrestrial invaders here or the dragons residing on Earth—would not contribute to the Divine Power.

But...

'This guy.'

Among the fruits Dong-cheol had harvested, Minjun discovered a very familiar fragment.

His lips parted, and a name slipped out.

"...Jenkinson."

It was a situation Minjun had desperately wanted to avoid.

Being directly exposed to the mind and fragments of a certain race.

Actually, Minjun's original plan had been to brand all those dragons with the stigma of a sinner, engage in battle, and then collect the survivors to wring out their blood. Given their sheer numbers, a clean hunt like last time would have been impossible, though.

"..."

After hesitating for a moment, Minjun asked his son.

"Can you brainwash all those dragons at once? Could you completely dominate their minds, or inflict enough mental damage to paralyze their movements?"

Asiph-1 shook his head.

"N-no, that's impossible. Their numbers have already reached the tens of thousands."

That was the moment Minjun decided what kind of spell he would weave with the gathered Divine Power.

His lips twitched as he appeared to converse with someone far away. Then, various expressions flickered across his face—looking somewhat flustered, or perhaps like his head ached.

Finally, looking as though he had confirmed something, he spoke.

"That guy Jenkinson... he never absorbed the heart after all. It's still intact, isn't it?"

"Pardon?!"

Asiph-1 gasped in surprise, having understood his words.

The Creator seemed to have just exchanged a long-distance transmission with Jenkinson.

"Are you referring to the previous Dragon Lord's heart?"

"Yes."

He fell silent for a moment.

Then he added the reason why Jenkinson hadn't absorbed it.

"Actually, saying it's 'still intact' is wrong. He even went and overlaid his own 'stuff' onto it."

"...?!"

"We just finished talking. It feels a bit like taking back a gift, but I've decided to borrow it again for a moment."

Flash!

In that instant, a massive red crystal appeared in front of Minjun.

A Teleport that bypassed a vast distance.

It was an item that a certain dragon had been keeping safe until just moments ago.

Asiph-1's jaw dropped.

"A Dragon Heart?!"

"Don't look too closely. Right now, the memories of two Ancient Dragons are stored intact in here. Well, I suppose you wouldn't be completely buried by them, but still."

Minjun had gifted the previous Dragon Lord's heart, which he had inherited, to Jenkinson. It was because it would help extend Jenkinson's lifespan and foster his magical growth. Asiph-1 knew this much.

However, there was a part even he didn't know. First of all, the spell holding an immense volume of memories was still active within the Dragon Heart.

Furthermore, the fact that the Red Dragon who obtained the heart... instead of absorbing it, had overlaid his own memories onto it.

Minjun spoke with a bitter tone.

"That guy anticipated that he'd become the number one assassination target among the extraterrestrial dragons. Even knowing I'd protect him, he overlaid and recorded his own memories just in case. It wasn't even difficult for him. After all, he inherited everything from the dragon who created the spell."

There was a will that must not be lost to time.

Jenkinson believed that, just like his predecessor's memories, his own memories and true feelings had to be passed down to future generations.

Thus, even after acknowledging Minjun's ownership of the heart, he still used it like a storage device, intending to pass it down to a like-minded member of his kin in the future. He held onto the hope of meeting even one such dragon before his death.

Minjun looked down at the heart and veiled it in golden light.

Then he muttered, as if justifying it to himself, evaluating what he was about to do.

"...Well, I suppose you could call it a type of mental attack. You could practically consider it brainwashing, too."

The Magic designed by the previous Dragon Lord was limited to transmitting memories to one or two individuals at a time at most. And every time it was used, it consumed an enormous amount of magical energy.

Minjun recalled what Asiph-1 had just declared impossible.

Finally, he reflected on the dying wish of the previous Lord, which Jenkinson had once explained to him.

—The successor's ego would be preserved while the thoughts, emotions, and memories the Lord wished to convey were additionally passed on. He described it as being like plugging a secondary storage device into a PC.

—Furthermore, the successor would recognize it completely separately from their own. There is no intention to negatively affect the recipient. The entire process ends in a split second.

The previous Lord and Jenkinson.

The only two dragons he had ever acknowledged as 'both friends and people.'

Roooar!

Tens of thousands of the Dragon Race surged forward like a tidal wave. An army of vibrantly colored individuals began their charge, blotting out the sky and the sea.

Toward them, Minjun let out a murmur that would never reach their ears.

"The dragon species only survived in the first place because of us, and those two were merely the Dragon Lords of a small planet called Earth, but..."

The dragons roared. Their heads and eyes were fixed on Minjun. From their maws erupted the excited, beast-like howling of impending battle, bereft of language, alongside the hatred-filled curses that only people could hurl.

Taking them all in his eyes, Minjun spoke.

"Perhaps your true Lords... were those two all along."

The moment he finished speaking.

Minjun controlled the primal power boiling inside his body with a precise spell.

Ordinary people often conflated the terms Divine Power and Divine Magic. However, just as there was no such word as 'esper magic' and it was simply called 'esper power', Minjun knew that 'Divine Magic' was a misnomer. It was a supernatural ability in the realm of instinct, one not controlled by spells.

But right now, Minjun was going to attempt it for the first time. Using the power transmitted through the tangled minds as fuel, he crafted a high-difficulty spell that only the primordial race might have known. Driven by the keywords he threw out, memories tangled together and converged at his fingertips.

Strictly speaking, it was the first true 'Divine Magic' to ever be activated in the history of the dimensional realms.

Flash!

The light radiating from Minjun's body washed over all the dragons like a wave.

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