76.
That day’s training was exceptionally successful. Ryu Ho-yeon, who solved Lexy’s mission in record time, managed to enter the village hall with a somewhat triumphant expression even before dinner time.
While Ho-yeon focused on training, suppressing his resentment, Lexy shared most of his secrets with Choi Jae-won. Jae-won, who had initially treated the supposedly normal future person as a fraud, only began to believe the story after seeing and touching several items Lexy had brought from his original era—items impossible to create with current technology.
At this point, exactly four people knew the truth about the world: himself and Ho-yeon, and Choi Jae-won and David Howard.
Of course, the story shared with Jae-won included appropriate editing and adjustments. For example, the fact that Ho-yeon’s life would be in danger during the process of saving the world, and that he would likely die, was deliberately omitted.
If Jae-won knew that fact right now, he would certainly take Ho-yeon and run away, regardless of whether the world perished. To him, the destruction of the entire world and the death of Ho-yeon alone probably wouldn’t carry much difference in weight.
Even after hearing Lexy’s entire story, Jae-won maintained his persistence until the very end. Only after repeatedly confirming that Lexy could support Ho-yeon with relatively light guiding methods such as radiation, hand-holding, or hugging—without needing imprinting or intense contact thanks to their fatefully high matching rate—did he finally let Lexy go free.
“So what happens to you?”
However, near the end of their conversation, he asked this question.
“What happens? I return to my era.”
Lexy presented the same skilled lie he had already told Ho-yeon and David Howard, with a straight face and shameless composure.
While both appeared to be connected by time travel, in reality, traveling from the future to the past required far more complex and higher-dimensional technology than going from the past to the future. In fact, it was fortunate that he had survived through that arduous process so far. There might be some time lag, but Lexy would eventually die. Certainly, after saving the world with Ho-yeon.
He had given Howard roughly the same explanation as Jae-won, and Lexy had liberally made unfulfillable promises that he would definitely take Howard with him when returning to the future. Believing this promise wholeheartedly, Howard was still waiting obediently at his original residence, lying low, expecting Lexy to come for him after completing everything.
Was he sorry? He wasn’t sure.
The leaders of future humanity, including the prophet, were deeply concerned that Lexy might emotionally connect with the Esper from the past who showed such a high matching rate and try to prevent his death. Countless historical precedents showed how minor emotions like love or friendship had ruined important missions. So, to ensure such a situation could never occur, they opened Lexy’s head and removed most of his frontal lobe.
After the surgery he never consented to, Lexy became unable to experience deep emotions that would make his heart flutter.
Still, thinking about Howard did give him a piercing headache, like someone who hadn’t slept for days.
“Return? Completely?”
“Yes. I’ll return. Completely. You can rest assured that I won’t appear before your eyes or Ho-yeon’s ever again.”
“Good. That’s great. Then let’s do this. Let’s pretend you’re terminally ill.”
It was like accidentally hitting a frog with a casually thrown stone. Jae-won’s clever scheme unexpectedly hit upon the truth Lexy was hiding.
“You felt a strong attraction to the high-matching rate Esper you met like fate, and your last wish before dying was to spend time together. Kind-hearted Ho-yeon hyung couldn’t refuse that request, so he briefly took care of you until your death. Yes. A kind of… hospice?”
Jae-won nodded with satisfaction, saying that if they spread this story to the media, they could simultaneously cover up Ho-yeon’s unauthorized departure.
“What are you two talking about so animatedly?”
“Oh, hyung. Finished washing up?”
Jae-won, despite his gaunt appearance, smiled broadly with upturned corners of his mouth, seemingly overjoyed.
“You should dry your hair completely. Aren’t you cold?”
“…There’s no hair dryer.”
Though he could easily create a hair dryer with his eyes closed, Ho-yeon maintained his blatant lie that no one would believe and simply handed Choi Jae-won a thick cotton towel. It was a request to dry his hair. Jae-won’s smile widened further, quickly catching Ho-yeon’s rare display of clinginess.
“Come sit here. I’ll dry it for you.”
“Okay.”
“Where did your cheeks go? I noticed there’s hardly any cooking equipment—have you been eating well all this time?”
“No.”
“Don’t worry. From tomorrow morning, I’ll make sure you eat lots of delicious food again. The team leader has agreed to bring meals and other necessities by boat every day starting tomorrow.”
“Then I want… strawberry cake and coffee…”
“Yes, of course. Is there anything else you want to eat? Just tell me anything.”
They’re well absorbed in their own world despite someone else being right in front of them. It’s quite a talent. Knowing this scene wouldn’t last long, Lexy decided not to interfere. It was just fascinating. Both Ho-yeon and, even more so, Jae-won, who had desperately crawled all the way here to follow Ho-yeon’s trail.
Perhaps, just perhaps… the final bastion of this universe that hadn’t yet been destroyed might have been Choi Jae-won’s specialization rather than Ryu Ho-yeon. Lexy suddenly had this thought.
Since coming to the past, Lexy had often pondered: why this universe out of countless parallel universes? Why was this universe, not significantly different or special compared to others, still not destroyed?
There must have been hundreds or thousands of other universes where Ho-yeon existed, but why hadn’t the Ho-yeons in other universes been reborn as the “messiah”?
“Why are your hands so cold again? How did you manage in the cold outside?”
“If that one gets warm, it makes me sleepy…”
“That one? Oh, you mean Lexy? That’s really too much.”
Though his mental suffering was real, his body shouldn’t have been particularly tired due to the continuous high-quality guiding he received. Yet Ho-yeon, nestled in Jae-won’s arms (who looked like he might collapse backward at any moment), was excitedly chattering away.
And in the sight of these two people, Lexy found a clue to the long-standing question he had been harboring.
Perhaps this universe was the single fruit of Jae-won’s determined efforts that had reached Ho-yeon’s heart.
In some universe, five-year-old Jae-won might never have gone to his cousin’s sports day and lived his entire life without knowing Ho-yeon. In another universe, he might have given up on Ho-yeon early due to the extremely low success rate of the matching rate enhancement experiments and the accompanying pain. Or in yet another universe, despite being admitted as a pair Guide, he might have finally fallen away, exhausted by years of Ho-yeon’s unintentional coldness.
Whatever the case, only this world survived until the end among tens or hundreds of thousands of parallel universes.
That was virtually proof that in all other universes, Ho-yeon either died or never developed the will to save the world.
“Right. He’s a ruthless bastard. Even though I only slept three hours a day, he told me not to be lazy.”
“Oh my, did he really? Our hyung has suffered so much.”
The individuals involved seemed completely unaware, but to the foreigner from the future, it was clear.
Choi Jae-won’s endlessly sacrificial love, which was almost like agape offered to an absolute being… had kept this world alive as the “one possibility” that hadn’t been destroyed until the end. Without realizing it, Jae-won had with his own hands deeply thrust the crown of a messiah onto Ho-yeon’s small head.
Whether that fact was a blessing or a curse for Jae-won himself was a question that an emotionally devoid foreigner from the distant future couldn’t even begin to guess.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
