77.
After Choi Jae-won joined them, Ryu Ho-yeon showed remarkable training progress day by day. Even Lexy, who had been reluctant to increase the number of people who knew the truth, clicked his tongue and said that if he had known the efficiency difference would be this great, he would have included Choi Jae-won in the plan from the beginning.
This was partly due to the emotional stability that Choi Jae-won personally provided to Ryu Ho-yeon, but the high-quality meals and snacks, comfortable bedding, and other amenities that Choi Jae-won’s people brought by boat every morning also played a very significant role.
The tasks Lexy assigned were now routinely completed before dinner even began. As April approached, the days grew longer, and the evenings became quite warm. It seemed there would be no difficulty in calling it full spring.
Every evening after finishing their daily routine, Choi Jae-won and Ryu Ho-yeon would hold hands and take walks to various parts of the island. They would tuck Lexy, who was complaining about feeling unwell as if he had body aches, into his bedding.
Throughout the deserted island where human presence was not just rare but nonexistent, unnamed flowering trees had begun to bloom luxuriantly for spring. For Choi Jae-won, who would tightly hold his hand pretending to be afraid of the dim dirt paths, Ryu Ho-yeon would create and hang a bright light—today on this path, tomorrow on that path. Even though he knew Choi Jae-won was just pretending to be scared as an excuse to hold hands, he wanted to do it for him. By now, the two had become so comfortable with each other that they could walk hand in hand without any such pretexts.
“So after you completely block the path from the future to the past, will dungeons stop appearing?”
“Theoretically, yes. They probably won’t stop all at once. The things that have already been dumped won’t disappear. But they’ll gradually decrease, and at some point, that will definitely happen.”
“A world without dungeons appearing. I can’t imagine it.”
“…Me neither.”
“You’re really amazing, hyung.”
Instead of revealing his genuine thought that Choi Jae-won was more amazing, Ryu Ho-yeon just nodded as if it were obvious. As his abilities grew rapidly, he became afraid to shed the thick layer of brazenness he had wrapped around himself like wax. The fact that his abilities were getting closer to achieving their goal also meant that the day he would leave Choi Jae-won’s side was approaching just as quickly.
In fact, since about last week, Lexy and Ryu Ho-yeon had been focusing more on coming up with specific plans to block the tunnel of time from the future to the past, rather than on developing abilities.
Originally, objects created by Ryu Ho-yeon’s ability lasted at most about a week. Therefore, what he needed to create was not just a simple object but something closer to a truth or law, like how the sun rises in the east or how the earth continuously rotates. Something that, once born, would permanently remain in the universe without ever disappearing, as it had no substance to begin with.
However, Ryu Ho-yeon couldn’t grasp the thread of power unless he started from an “object” when using his ability. It was like when he had thought about creating an intangible tensegrity structure to counter Howard’s gravity in the past. This remained true no matter how much his abilities developed through training.
So for the past few days, Lexy and Ryu Ho-yeon had been considering objects with appropriate properties to block the tunnel of time from various angles. Because only after he recognized that he was materializing an object with such properties, whether tangible or intangible, would the enormous power within him move.
“How long will it take for them to completely disappear? About… five years? Ten years?”
“I don’t know. Even I can’t tell.”
“If dungeons stop occurring, the legal basis requiring Espers to be forcibly affiliated with the state would also disappear, so we could just leave.”
“Leave? From where?”
“Where else? From the center, of course.”
Choi Jae-won continued speaking in an excited voice while swinging Ryu Ho-yeon’s hand back and forth.
“What do you want to do, hyung? Not as Esper Ryu Ho-yeon, but just like, your future aspirations.”
It was a question he had never thought about before. Ryu Ho-yeon’s mouth gaped open like someone who had been unexpectedly struck in a vital spot. Yet no words came out. Choi Jae-won started sharing his own answer first, as if giving Ryu Ho-yeon time to think.
“I’ll probably take the college entrance exam again and go to university. A degree is essential if I want to start working at the company later. Wow, our Chairman might faint from happiness.”
Chuckling as he continued, Choi Jae-won asked if Ryu Ho-yeon might want to enter university together if he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do right away.
“You’d probably go into something like engineering, hyung. Hmm, I’d definitely be in business administration, so we couldn’t be in the same department. But if we both entered as freshmen together, we could match our schedules to see each other at lunch every day, and take elective courses together. That would be so much fun. We should look for a place to live near campus, right?”
It sounded like a dream just hearing about it. Under a tall tree where small white unnamed flowers had bloomed, Choi Jae-won—five years younger, with cheeks flushed with shyness and eyes sparkling, looking particularly lovely and youthful with a face more fragrant than the spring night—made Ryu Ho-yeon want to nod without thinking about the future.
Anything you want to do is fine with me. In a world where dungeons and such would no longer appear, where Espers and Guides would have no reason to be bound—in that free world. How wonderful it would be if they could really live like that.
But promises that couldn’t be kept would only leave messy traces of deep worry in the heart of the one left behind someday. So Ryu Ho-yeon took a deep breath and answered firmly.
“…No. I don’t want to go.”
“Why not? It would be fun. Let’s go together. Let’s go together, hyung.”
Choi Jae-won’s voice, pleading with his nose wrinkled, was completely innocent. Ryu Ho-yeon struggled to control his watery eyes, feeling that tears might flow if he relaxed even a little.
“I’ll just play instead of studying.”
“Pfft, alright. I won’t force you. That wouldn’t be bad either. Oh, give me your hand. I have something for you.”
Choi Jae-won pleaded like that without any intention of releasing Ryu Ho-yeon’s right hand, which he was firmly holding. Ryu Ho-yeon absentmindedly extended his other hand. Then, a dazzling sparkle appeared, brilliantly illuminating the surroundings under the street lamp Ryu Ho-yeon had created.
“When… did you bring this?”
“I asked for it to be brought quite a while ago, but it arrived this morning. Don’t leave it behind anymore.”
It was the diamond ring that Choi Jae-won had given to Ryu Ho-yeon during his ineffective confession spree in Berlin. That absurdly large diamond ring with a stone reaching 3 carats. When he had received it, it had fit perfectly on the fourth finger of his left hand without any gap, but now the ring moved loosely, perhaps because he had lost some weight. Still, the burdensome weight that made his finger naturally droop downward remained the same.
“Ah, we need to reset it.”
Since Ryu Ho-yeon had just kept the ring without particularly wearing it after receiving it, Choi Jae-won hadn’t expected the size to become ill-fitting. He tried to take the ring back, contradicting his earlier words about not leaving it behind. Surprisingly, it was Ryu Ho-yeon who stopped Choi Jae-won’s hand.
“Hyung?”
Choi Jae-won’s eyes widened as Ryu Ho-yeon clenched his fist to prevent him from removing the ring. It had always been Choi Jae-won, not Ryu Ho-yeon, who attached meaning to the luxurious ring that had been unilaterally thrust upon him.
“It’s fine, I’ll just keep it as is.”
“Sssip. But… it would be uncomfortable. If it falls off your hand, you might lose it.”
“Why? If I lose it, won’t you make a new one? Will you make me pay for the diamond because it’s expensive?”
“No! No! Absolutely not!!”
Compared to how well Choi Jae-won knew Ryu Ho-yeon, Ryu Ho-yeon’s knowledge of Choi Jae-won was minimal, but by now, Ryu Ho-yeon knew him fairly well too. If the young master with his discerning eye wanted to reset the ring, it wouldn’t be entrusted to just any jewelry shop in a nearby small town—the ring would definitely have to go to Seoul and back. Ryu Ho-yeon didn’t want to waste that time.
He had thought he wouldn’t mind leaving everything behind, but strangely, he found himself coveting just this weight on his finger.
When he first received it, it had seemed like a useless accessory with a shiny stone attached. But now, when had the heavy weight wrapping around his finger become so dear?
“I love you today too, hyung.”
“I know.”
“What? Is that all?”
“I love you too, of course.”
It was a beautiful ring promising eternity. The radiance emitted by the particle of the universe, symbolizing unchanging love, was simply dazzling.
“Of course?”
“Yes, of course.”
As he gave a confident answer to Choi Jae-won, who was asking again with a soft smile, Ryu Ho-yeon vaguely thought.
Let’s create a ring.
A beautiful ring that can completely sever the future from the past.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
