Chapter 8

“…”

Conjecture rapidly solidified into certainty. As though resonating with the fallen Guild Master’s soul, the crushing emotional turmoil Hae-gun had endured felt as if it were his own, tormenting Eui-rim without mercy.

[An uninvited guest has arrived]

Just then, a colossal ‘hand’ revealed itself out of the void. Fingers jutting up like towering mountain ranges loomed directly ahead, blocking his path.

[How did it reach this place?]
[How did it evade that creature’s gaze?]

Each time the fingers murmured, the surroundings shook as if battered by gale-force winds. Swept up in the soundwaves, the healer’s body lost balance and pitched violently, inducing bouts of nausea.

[To arrive here without breaking apart]
[Is it a fragment of the Origin?]
[No]
[This is merely a lowly creature]
[Nothing more than crumbs that cannot even stand upon the scales]

Eui-rim barely managed to raise his chin toward the fingers, but no voice came out. Though his mouth was not forcibly gagged, the suffocating pressure left him struggling even to breathe.

Khehehehe…< At his suffering, the five voices burst into laughter. Finding his desperate struggles to shake off the pain amusing, the fingertips peering down wriggled like the heads of arthropods.

[Fascinating]

The one addressing him was the elongated middle finger. Contorting itself into an uncanny angle, the pale digit tilted its apex downward:

[Who sent thee to this place?]

“Kh, haah…”

The breath trapped in his throat burst forth the moment the question fell. Like a prisoner released from shackles by the master’s permission, the crushing pressure weighing upon his body dispersed rapidly, and his breathing returned to normal.

Eui-rim cast a wary glance at the middle finger still waiting for his answer. Perhaps because it was exceptionally pale compared to the others, the column resembled a plaster statue far more than a living creature.

[We asked who sent thee here]

The question dropped again like rolling thunder. In the dull, heavy reverberation, a staggering sense of powerlessness took hold.

Yet no matter how pressingly it demanded an answer, the young man did not know what to say. He doubted whether these strange entities would even understand if he answered that Seo Hae-gun had sent him.

Just then, the little finger standing farther back erupted into boisterous laughter. Bending at its joints, the pinky cackled for a long time before speaking to the middle finger looking down at it.

[It doubteth us]

At the little finger’s words, the remaining digits squirmed and laughed. To doubt us! From the words repeated over and over, an uncanny heat radiated outward.

[Truly an amusing soul!]

As the manic laughter dragged on, the healer’s inner ears plugged up as if stricken with extreme pressure. He caught the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, and hot crimson surged up his esophagus.

The mountain-like fingers shifted their forms in an instant.

Eui-rim grimaced through the pain as he faced the fingers transformed into five humanoid silhouettes. Uncannily white outlines steadily closed the distance toward him.

Before long, he lay sprawled atop a wide plate. The endless sensation of floating had vanished without a trace. Like an insect crawling along the ground, he clung to the pan of the scale and looked up at them.

Floating in the air and looking down upon him, the silhouettes burst into boisterous laughter again. Whatever they found so entertaining, their circling dance was utterly childlike and innocent.

Soon, the plate began to move. Screeech. Screeech With the sensation of tilting, the pan swayed up and down, emitting metallic groans.

[Has the fragment of the Origin paid the weight?]

The silhouette that had been the pinky approached just as the pan ceased moving. Barely lifting his eyes to look, Eui-rim saw a familiar eye reveal itself across the silhouette’s face.

An iris of iridescent, kaleidoscopic hues and a vivid blue pupil.

It was the very ‘eye’ he had encountered right before being dragged to this realm.

[Hast thou come to cross the timeline?]

His astonishment did not last long.

Timeline. At that alien yet momentous word, an electric revelation struck him.

That brutal demise was not in vain. In the end, Seo Hae-gun succeeded in casting the skill properly.

Turning his gaze, he saw the silhouettes surrounding the pinky looking down at him with identical eyes. Eyes so terrifyingly beautiful glittered like eternal starlight, radiating their immense presence.

Realizing they awaited his answer, Eui-rim answered at once. “…Yes. That is so.” His voice came out rough and scraping, but it held.

The inside of his mouth was raw and stinging. As if the blood that had welled up earlier were no illusion, the pooled crimson trickled down onto the plate the moment he spoke.

“Will you… help me cross the timeline?” The plea came out half-choked, but the healer did not look away.

At his hesitant question, the eyes of the silhouettes curved into gentle arcs. Though they did not laugh as boisterously as before, it was still a smile blended with curiosity and childlike innocence.

[Crossing the timeline is not something that can be aided]
[Pay the price and anyone may cross, yet no one can cross]
[Yet thy weight is so insignificant that the price is not great]
[The fragment of the Origin hath already paid the greater portion, so the balance of the scales is fitting]

Weight. Fragment of the Origin. Timeline. Price. Scales. Balance…

Each time abstract words poured down like oracles, his head spun. Facing something almost within grasp yet completely unreachable stirred impatience and discomfort in equal measure.

Each slow blink blurred and sharpened his vision in turns. Swallowing saliva mixed with blood, Eui-rim waited for their words. Though the figures claimed no aid was needed, he had an intuition that unless they permitted it, he would never be able to return to the past.

[Thou trivial, curious creature]

At last, voices devoid of inflection or emotion spoke. The nebulous silhouettes swayed gently, speaking playfully.

[If thou so desirest, thou shalt pay the price and cross the timeline]

When the one who had been the little finger extended an arm, a long shadow unfolded. As the tip of the shadow pointed like an arrow toward a point, the surrounding area brightened, revealing a strange horizon.

[Shouldst thou not shatter, thou shalt finally attain what thou desirest]
[Yet never shalt thou arrive in whole form]

Presently, the plate holding him vanished without a trace. His legless torso floated up like a leaf riding the wind, and the distant horizon closed in.

A sensation scalding as fire struck him just as the horizon arrived before his eyes. Startled by the sudden burning, Eui-rim cast his gaze downward to find a massive clock hand piercing clean through him.

Clack. Clack. Clack…<

Dark crimson blood soaked into the pitch-black clock hand, a rhythmic ticking reverberating outward. Each time the vast gears interlocked, fissures ripping through heaven and earth pulled at his body.

This time as well, without letting out a single scream, he was sucked into somewhere beyond. That he could not distinguish whether it was darkness or a fragment of light was the only difference.

❖ ❖ ❖

The pain repeated endlessly, as if wandering through an eternal purgatory. Body and soul shattered and fused anew in endless cycles; laughter and weeping echoed in succession, displaying the past before him.

There, those who had died long ago returned to life as vividly as if it had been yesterday.

“Healer Kang Eui-rim, thank you so much.” The hunters who had bowed and thanked him repeatedly as he treated their wounds appeared before his eyes, their faces worn but warm, their gratitude the last thing some of them ever gave anyone.

“Eui-rim-ssi, I’m fine. Go, quickly…” Healer Kang Yura had breathed her last right before the safe zone—so close to it that he could still count the steps she never took.

“At least you all must survive. Live on, please…” Director Lee Sang-jong had faced the Seed alone to buy them time to escape, and the door at his back had never stopped closing in Eui-rim’s memory since.

“Eui-rim-ah, don’t come to Mom! You can’t come! Get out of here right now!” His family, whom he had ultimately failed to save and had to leave behind at home.

Disordered memories crumbled into a messy stream. Like a shipwreck battered by tempestuous waves, each time shattered fragments were swept away by the current, he felt himself breaking apart alongside them.

Amid the turmoil, the sensation of plummeting shifted into weightless levitation. Like dust drifting through the cosmos, his untethered form was torn apart and reconstituted over and over.

He could not tell when he had begun weeping. When he came to his senses, he was begging a nonexistent god to simply end it all. Please. Anyone. Anything. Just make it stop. He pleaded to escape this hellish cycle, even if it meant vanishing without leaving a shard of bone behind. He prayed to no longer see the fractured memories, to no longer look upon the dead who were gone.

Then, tracing a long trajectory, light appeared.

Flicker, flicker

As his vision blinked, silhouettes cast their shadows, and the instant his tears and pleas were swallowed back into his throat—a familiar landscape manifested before his eyes.

A worn wooden desk slightly lower than his sitting height. Walls papered in off-white and a ceiling tinted pale green. The cold glow of fluorescent lights and an unfashionable ochre waiting sofa. A nameplate bearing his name. The low hum of an old desktop computer. The pungent smell of disinfectant stinging his nose, and reams of stacked paperwork forming miniature towers.

The space where he had spent more time than at home over the span of seven years.

It was the examination room.

…What?