ALL NOVEL Chapter 257
Loneliness.
I was so lonely I wanted to die, but at that time, I didn’t even understand the concept of ‘death.’
Why do I exist?
As I contemplated why I was alone, the fleeting years quickly flowed by.
In a world filled only with void, the space I occupied was merely a small corner.
No one knows how I came to exist, let alone how I managed to persist without vanishing.
It felt as though someone had placed me there and then forgotten about me.
As I think and ponder, my consciousness gradually expands.
At the same time, the space I occupy grows larger, swallowing the void.
Before I knew it, my soul had become so immense it formed a dimension of its own.
Of course, at that time, I had no idea.
There was nothing to compare my size to.
Because I was alone.
In fact, I didn’t even know what it meant to be alone or to feel lonely.
I only discovered all of this when I found light in the void.
When I discovered something ‘aside from myself.’
It was then that I finally felt loneliness.
“What are you staring at?”
[Huh…?]
I opened my eyes wide.
For a moment, I was lost in memories.
Looking around, the world was all turquoise.
An endless expanse of blue land and sky stretched before me.
I felt a jarring sense of strangeness.
The most jarring thing was the massive tree filling my line of sight.
Was it called the World Tree…?
A truly magnificent tree that guards this land.
[I had destroyed the sacred tree of those humans…]
Slowly, I approached, dragging a mana stone, and placed my hand on the trunk of the World Tree.
I felt its heartbeat.
I sensed that it was alive.
Then a boiling emotion washed over me.
[Thank goodness… I’m so glad…]
I thought I had committed an irreversible act.
I believed I had left scars that could never be healed.
But the humans were far stronger than I had thought.
Those tiny, seemingly fragile lives managed to stop me.
They succeeded in putting me into a body that could communicate with them, despite our language barrier.
[I never tried to understand you…]
Looking back, it was a foolish act.
If those who couldn’t communicate were adamantly rejecting me, shouldn’t I have assumed there was a rational reason behind it?
But at that time, I was just wrapped up in paranoia that someone was obstructing me.
I never once tried to understand my counterpart.
I simply poured all my energy into getting closer to the current world.
I was scattering my will, adding to my attraction without knowing how much my power and authority were corrupting and destroying that world…
[But how much sacrifice did you make to understand me…?]
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was living like a puppet all my life.
As if there were some predetermined role for me.
It felt like I was carrying a fate where I couldn’t communicate normally with anyone else in order to fulfill that role.
But I also never even tried to escape that fate.
What good is it to have immense power?
I was merely wielding it within a set framework.
However, Yoo Jin was different.
The humans were different.
They rebelled against fate and struggled to escape the mold.
The result is this.
Understanding a counterpart I couldn’t comprehend.
Feeling the warmth of a world I once thought I could never reach.
Feels like a dream.
The one who made this dream a reality was Yoo Jin.
[I want to repay you. I want to repay the debt to you who have given me so much. What should I do?]
“It’s nothing special. Just don’t make trouble, and enjoy the new life you’ve gained, and everyone, including me, will be satisfied. That’s why I brought you along.”
[Is that so…?]
You just want to see me living happily?
From Yoo Jin’s words, I couldn’t find a hint of deceit.
He was a human who didn’t tell lies from the start.
Perhaps that was because I’d been lying so much throughout countless regressions.
Now, I seemed to have become nauseated by lies.
[Truly too kind…]
My heart grew warm.
Tears began to flow down.
A body that shouldn’t be able to cry.
Tears that appeared from somewhere endlessly soaked my cheeks.
…
…
…
In a void filled only with darkness.
In that pitch-black space, there was something small shimmering.
A fragment of will that had long fallen from a dimension called Draken.
That fragment, faintly shining, was drifting in the void.
In the fragment’s line of sight, a small planet appeared.
A distant planet in another dimension.
It was so far that it was impossible for the fragment to approach with the remaining energy.
The view expanded, and it expanded again.
And just as it finally caught the machine operating as a gear of that planet.
The fragment, which had been shining faintly, gradually began to lose its light.
[Beleritenyudipdengmeoubelgwedtalebalmikgakkbyeorrunggeobdoryeob]
A fragment mumbling a bizarre language.
As it lost energy, its existence itself became blurred.
It was the moment before it scattered into the void and vanished.
[…Hidden protocol activated]
…
…
…
Time flew by really quickly.
When you think about it, it’s just like a wedding of the leaders from various nations.
You can overspend, but you can’t have anything lacking.
With cultural differences among each nation and race, the issue of wedding preparation quickly turned into a pride battle.
Which way should it be done? Which tradition should we follow? Where should it be held? Even who should go first…?
No matter how many compromises were suggested, it seemed everyone was dissatisfied.
Even though everyone seemed to get along well now and were in harmony.
The rift between races and nations ran deeper than I thought.
There was only one solution.
“What? You want to do it the way from Yoo Jin’s hometown?”
“Yeah. Let’s do it the way from the world I came from. Wouldn’t that be fair?”
“Hmm…”
The eyes of the wives narrowed.
They looked intriguingly at each other.
The wives, who were checking each other’s reactions, one by one nodded.
“Alright, if that’s the case.”
“That should be… fine…”
“That makes me satisfied too. But, what kind of place did Yoo Jin come from?”
At Yerina’s curious question, a deep sigh escaped me.
Come to think of it, hadn’t I ever told my wives the story of where I came from?
Until now, I had only been yearning for it quietly to myself.
But now, it seemed like I could openly share it with my wives.
“Alright. The world I came from is…”
“Yoo Jin, you sound like a grandfather telling old tales!”
“Alright. Quiet now.”
A place I had given up returning to.
I began to slowly tell the story of where I once lived.
A place similar to here but completely different.
As I recounted details, the reactions of my wives varied.
Jill sat quietly, listening with interest.
Yulia interrupted every time a technical story was told, asking if it made sense.
Yerina seemed quite shocked that beastmen were considered fantasy there.
“I… I thought Yoo Jin was just a foreigner until now…”
“Me too. So, did Yoo Jin have to suddenly part from his hometown friends?”
“Well, that’s true…”
“I was planning to ask Yoo Jin to visit his hometown together someday…! Hwaaaaang!”
Before I knew it, the scene had turned into a sea of tears.
Wait, it’s my story, why are they the ones who are more upset?
I was quite taken aback.
‘Is there really no way to go back?’
Now I could freely split spaces and jump dimensions.
Before, the Underworld felt so distant, but now I could reach it in a heartbeat as if visiting a neighbor.
Of course, thinking of seeing the God of the Underworld made me feel goosebumps, so I wouldn’t go near.
Anyway, my ability to manipulate attraction had grown that strong.
In the case of the God of the Underworld, despite their immense power, their physical form was too heavy to be constricted by strong attraction.
But having a relatively lighter human body alongside that strength, it was much easier for me to jump around.
So, I even thought, could I not reach the world I originally lived in by splitting and splitting dimensions?
I thought with this power, I’d be able to reach it.
But… I was wrong.
I feel zero attraction.
One would typically feel some faint attraction to any object.
Yet I couldn’t sense anything from the world I had left behind.
How strange.
How many connections were there intertwined in that place?
“I suppose we must conclude that we can’t ever go back. It seems we’ve been completely severed from that side.”
With the conclusion that there’s no way to return, I felt rather relieved.
I embraced my tearful wives and received a warm comfort.
‘Is there really nothing? Really?’
But just when I was about to give up, I felt a lingering attachment.
Really? Am I truly supposed to let go?
Is there truly no way back?