#118
“Please just die already.”
I muttered almost pleadingly as I gathered my last remaining strength. My stamina bar was flashing red and my health bar was precarious. Hoping this would truly be the end, I slashed my arm with my sword. Enduring the burning pain and dizziness, I leaped toward the massive ghost captain charging at me.
Avoiding the longsword slashing vertically, I stepped on the skeleton’s shoulder and jumped up, spinning to deeply slash around its waist from behind.
“Graaahhh!”
Finally, the skeleton collapsed in two pieces. Without even the strength to land properly, I tumbled across the deck. I wanted to close my eyes and pass out right there, but this wasn’t enough. I sprinkled the blood from my wounds that wouldn’t stop flowing over the pile of broken bones.
At last, the awaited green light burst forth and the skeleton was purified.
Only then did I collapse completely, releasing all tension from my body. My consciousness was fading. So I couldn’t tell whether what followed was real or a hallucination.
The circle of green light seemed to spread wider and wider instead of disappearing along with the skeleton. That light devoured not only the ghost captain, but also the chair made of bones he had been sitting on and even the massive bone tomb. The deck, from which the black stains and black corruption began to disappear, became brighter and cleaner. The dim surroundings accepted the light. It was like being in shallow seawater under summer daylight rather than in the deep sea.
“Ugya-ga.”
Then there was an object approaching while making a strange sound. When I barely managed to roll my eyes to look, a baby was crawling over.
‘What is that? Is it finally revealing its true identity?’
I thought it might be trying to attack now that I had exhausted my strength, but I no longer had the energy to respond. But thinking about it, this baby had been by my side the whole time, yet unlike the skeletons, it showed no particular reaction to purification potions or my blood. It was all or nothing. Either it wasn’t a monster, or it was such a big shot that something like my blood wouldn’t affect it at all.
The baby crawled through the spreading light, then looked at me with wide eyes and tilted its head. It seemed to be asking why I was lying there like that.
‘Don’t come closer. You’ll get blood on you. Shoo.’
I didn’t have the energy to speak, so I shook my head slightly to signal it to stay away, but the baby just stared at me with bright eyes and crawled even closer. Then it tried to touch the sword that had fallen beside my hand.
“No!”
I mustered all my remaining strength and reached out my arm. I put away the sword and pulled the soft little body toward me. The child looked rather wistfully at the direction where the sword had disappeared, then settled into my arms with a resigned expression as if accepting the inevitable. It was as if it had things to do but would humor me for a while since I needed it.
Even in this miserable situation, I somehow found it absurd and let out a hollow laugh. My mood lightened a little. At least it was clear that the child’s identity wasn’t that of a monster.
‘Let me sleep just a little. Just a little.’
I curled up my increasingly limp body and held the child as if wrapping it in my embrace. The baby curled up like a small puppy or kitten and burrowed into my arms. I wanted to pat it reassuringly, but I didn’t even have the energy for that.
The body heat from the baby felt strangely new. Warmth enveloped my body. No, it wasn’t just my imagination—golden light close to yellow was actually wrapping around my body. The burning pain from wounds all over my body subsided. At the same time, languid fatigue and drowsiness dominated my entire body.
Was I being healed, or was the pain fading as I was dying? Was the golden light I could see real or a hallucination? How much was real and how much was fantasy?
My eyelids were too heavy to keep open. Just before I passed out and closed my eyes, a system window appeared.
[Final gateway cleared. Receive a memory fragment as a reward.]
I was sitting on the island in the village lake.
A very different lake from the current one—clear, clean, and dazzling. Sunlight shattered on the water’s surface, and somewhere a sweet fragrance drifted on the wind. Spring, or perhaps early summer.
The calm surface rippled and something surged upward. I wasn’t surprised at all, as if I had expected this. What emerged, cutting through the surface, was a dragon. That white dragon I had seen in the desert’s hidden dungeon. A beautiful dragon with pretty crown-like horns and white, solid scales.
Just like in the desert, the dragon lowered its head to me and leaned against me as if acting spoiled. Without any fear, I stroked the dragon’s head and touched cheek to cheek.
‘I’m going to visit the village. Want to come along?’
The dragon seemed excited by my proposal, flying up into the air and stirring things up before shooting down toward me. I should have been completely crushed colliding with that massive body, but both the dragon and I remained calm.
The dragon instantly shrank down and settled in my hand. The giant dragon had become a small figurine of itself the size of a keychain. I hung the dragon dangling from my waist.
‘Can I take Yongyong too?’
A familiar voice came from behind. I turned around.
[Quest completed. You have obtained a treasure.]
“Raon, Raon. Are you coming to?”
When I opened my eyes, Carlisle was right in front of my face. He was looking down at me with a worried expression.
“…Carlisle?”
I opened my mouth in disbelief.
“Are you okay? You’re not badly hurt, are you?”
Was Carlisle really here to find me, or was I still in a fantasy?
“Really Carlisle?”
“…Of course it’s really me. Are you still not lucid?”
I reached out my hand. I had to confirm whether he was really there. When I felt him all over, Carlisle seemed to flinch but didn’t pull away. His stubbled cheek and broad shoulders, large hands and firm thighs. The texture of his skin and body temperature that had become quite lukewarm by now matched the him I last remembered.
My God. Really Carlisle Lightinger.
Without realizing it, I threw my arms around him. Who would have thought the day would come when I’d be this happy to see this guy! I felt like I might cry.
“Ra…on?”
Carlisle showed a somewhat stiff reaction to my response, uncharacteristic of his shameless personality, but that wasn’t my concern.
“Why are you only coming now! Do you know how much I suffered alone!”
Overcome with emotion, I yelled while hanging around his neck. Normally I wouldn’t say such things since I’d probably get cold responses like “Whether you suffer or not, what does that have to do with me.” But right now I didn’t care if I heard such words dozens of times.
What mattered was that Carlisle had finally appeared, and the fact that I was now saved. It was important in terms of combat power, but more than anything, I didn’t want to wander this kind of place alone, enduring anxiety and isolation by myself. It would have been so much better if he had come before I encountered the ghost captain, but…
That’s when it happened. A strange bell sound from somewhere interrupted my touching reunion.
Jingle jingle jingle.
It was a small, faint sound. Puzzled, I looked around, then pushed Carlisle away and examined my hands. The sound seemed to be coming from that direction. As it happened, there was a bell I had bought from Bisang attached to my bracelet. But as soon as I looked at the bell, the sound disappeared as if it had been an auditory hallucination.
I shook my arm. No bell sound was heard. That was natural, since that bell originally made no sound.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, there was a sound… Did you happen to hear a bell?”
Carlisle frowned.
“What sound?”
“……”
It really was an auditory hallucination. I think the ring also flashed with red light. It seemed to feel slightly hot too. But when I looked again, it was just ordinary platinum color. Not hot either. I glanced at Carlisle’s hand. On his left ring finger was the same ring, sitting quietly.
‘What the…’
I looked around again. I was still underwater and on the deck. Just as I had seen in my final moments, the ship that had seemed like a ghost ship was now cleanly transformed, like a well-maintained underwater amusement park sculpture. The skeletons and bones had also disappeared cleanly.
But there was a problem. The baby was also gone.
“Where did it go?”
“What?”
“Not ‘what’… When did you get here? Didn’t you see a crawling baby?”
Carlisle looked puzzled.
“I just got here and there was only you. A baby? How would a baby get to a place like this? Are you under some spell?”
“Under a spell, what are you talking about.”
Didn’t a quest completion window appear too? It said I had obtained a treasure. I hurriedly searched my pockets. But there was no trace of anything new in my tool belt or work clothes pocket inventory.
I was dumbfounded.
What, was I really under a spell? Were the quest and the baby all hallucinations created by the dungeon? That can’t be. Then what about the battle? I fought so desperately, tearing up my own body—was even that a hallucination?
Only then did I examine my body. The wounds that had been tattered had mostly disappeared, making me almost suspect it really had been a hallucination. But it wasn’t. Although the bleeding had stopped and they were healing, the cut marks remained, and the bloodstains on my torn clothes were still there.
The battle had really happened. Or were even these wounds the result of me falling into delirium alone and performing a sword dance by myself?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
