Surviving Among the Entities

[“Seung-hoon Lee.”]

Its mouth opened. Not just one, but numerous mouths each uttered their own words.

[“The surname Lee (李).”]
[“To ascend (昇).”]
[“To instruct (訓).”]

When multiple people speak, it’s not easy to distinguish their words, but the Blue Moon’s speech was conveyed clearly, as if each language was etched into my mind.

“How curious. How did you know, when I didn’t tell you?”

I asked out of pure curiosity, but the Blue Moon didn’t answer.

[“You, Seung-hoon Lee, son of Jin-hyeok Lee, son of Ye-rin Song, grandson of Ja-cheol Lee, grandson of Ok-bun Yang, I ask you, why are you sane?”]
“Then allow me to ask, must I not be sane?”
[“You are the one-eyed, the destroyer of the 6th Corps, the thorn of Deok-gu Lee, the nightmare of Se-hyeon Ryu, the one who made the stars fall. My interest is the expansion of the microcosm, the realization of the self, so that I may gain the sight of the two-eyed, if only for a moment.”]

My curiosity was satisfied. From how it kept mentioning familiar names, it seemed the Blue Moon could see a person’s life.

‘Something the game didn’t reveal.’

I wonder if the Blue Moon’s creator designed it with such an ability? No, I don’t think so. At least the Blue Moon I knew was merely a creation based on the Western superstition that ‘the moon = a symbol of madness’.

‘An entity that has become reality transcends the creator’s imagination.’

It seemed only natural that beings beyond human understanding would transcend human imagination, just as they had wished.

[“When a one-eyed being sees the world of the two-eyed, it is only right to be blinded. Those unable to adapt to the blinding light seek to emanate their own, inevitably fearing the unknown. Yet why are you unchanged?”]
“If what you say is true, then it must be because I am two-eyed?”
[“You who smoke tobacco. You who do not have a picky diet. You who are the 127,642nd best at eating spicy foods in this world. You whose wisdom teeth grew in straight. You who have never had an ingrown toenail. You are not two-eyed.”]

The countless eyes on the Blue Moon, which had been gazing around as if trying to see the world from all angles, suddenly focused on me.

[“If you were two-eyed, I would have known! In the sixty eons I have observed, the two-eyed are few among you insignificant beings, but the microcosms they create are so beautiful, I could never forget them. You are not two-eyed.”]

The sounds of the world disappeared.

[“So you, you insignificant being, you unfathomable existence, you floating speck of dust, you aimless life, you wanderer who knows not the way, I shall give you an eye.”]

Intense pain shot through my right eye.

[“Prove whether you are one-eyed or two-eyed.”]

Something squirmed along my optic nerve, burrowing into my mind. I couldn’t see it, but I was certain it was a worm. The intense agony ravaging my mind was a fresh yet unpleasant experience I had never felt since birth.

And finally, when the pain subsided, I could see two worlds.

My left eye saw the original world.
My right eye saw the Blue Moon’s world.

[“Hello there.”]
[“Hello there.”]

In the world of my right eye, worms squirmed their way towards me.

“Are you alright?”
“Are you unwell somewhere?”

In the world of my left eye, people approached with concern.

‘How curious.’

Observing them, it was as if countless hues of emotion had been splashed onto my heart, causing it to sway. I felt the pity of seeing a street beggar, the fury of seeing a murderer who killed their child, the welling pride of seeing one’s newborn child, the compassion of seeing a young animal waiting in a cardboard box on a rainy day for a human to rescue it.

All these emotions arose simultaneously, mixing within me until I ultimately arrived at…

‘How pitiful, I should kill them.’

Kill them to save them. I don’t know why I reached that final conclusion, but the one thing I knew was that I could save them by killing them.

“Excuse me? Can you hear me?”

I reached out towards the person in front of me. I have to kill them. With no knife, I’ll strangle them. No, I’ll bash their head in with a rock – there’s a good one over there. But what if they run away while I go get it? No matter, I can just kill someone else then.

Whether they knew about the Blue Moon or not, the desire welling up inside me was more intense than the urge to eat food in front of you when starving, akin to the instinct to breathe.

“Yes.”

So I reached out my hand.

“I’m alright. Don’t worry.”

And grasping their shoulder, I gave them a smile.

After accosting those people, I wandered the streets. Suddenly, I had the urge to smoke, so I searched until I finally found a smoking room and lit a cigarette.

[“Who are you?”]

While I smoked, the Blue Moon kept speaking to me incessantly.

[“What are you?”]
[“Do you not wish to show compassion?”]
[“It was an emotion an insignificant being could not withstand.”]
[“Do you not understand my words?”]
[“I shall speak in words you can understand.”]

Around the time I finished smoking, the Blue Moon’s disparate mouths aligned into one.

[“Why did you not kill them?”]

Unlike the thunderous worlds it uttered, the question was utterly banal.

[“A mere ant cannot go against the flow of a stream. The two-eyed sight I bestowed upon the one-eyed is like the waters of a broken levee, and you insignificant beings have no choice but to be swept away by the current. Yet within that, I hoped for a miracle.”]

It was not emotion, but instinct, my will, an action that had to be carried out.

[“I hoped the ant would become a fish and swim, become a bird and take flight. But you did not. You are one-eyed. Even after I gave you an eye, you remain one-eyed. So I shall ask again.”]

But there was no need to necessarily carry it out.

[“So I shall ask again. You who steal knowledge, you who were scorned by your own kin, you who stole without desire, you who are scorned by the world beyond the screen, you who seek to walk every path – who are you?”]

To the Blue Moon’s question, I gave my second answer.

“I am human.”

As if to not miss my words, the Blue Moon’s mouths became ears.

“A rational animal that aspires to be virtuous, a being that craves true knowledge and strives to practice benevolence, a mortal that seeks to maintain the self amidst the harmony of the five aggregates, and a creation that wishes to love others unreservedly.”

I discarded the fully burnt cigarette butt and lit a new one.

“I tried to live as a human, so I set my own standards of right and wrong, and thought killing them was wrong, so I did not do it – even if it was a raging river pushing against my self.”

It had been a long time since someone listened to my story without any insults or preconceptions, so I became enthused.

“Modern people claim humans are ultimately beasts and our instincts cannot be stopped, but that is not true. There were scientists who starved to death amid the bombardments of war yet refused to eat the seeds, preserving their nation’s future. There are firefighters who leap into the jaws of certain death.”s are beasts. Yet we can transcend bestial nature because we have reason.

“I was merely the same.”
[“You, human. You, sage. You, fool. You, sinner. You, genius. So what is it that you wish to do?”]
“Nothing special.”

My life’s goal has always been one thing.

“To live as a human.”
[“And what kind of life is that?”]
“Never stopping learning, loving others, living rationally, living while accepting change, and moving forward.”

The pain in my right eye subsided.

[“You are a two-eyed being in the form of a one-eyed being.”]

The Blue Moon began to fade.

[“A being I have never seen before. A one-eyed yet two-eyed being – I shall give you my praise.”]

Again, a foreign sensation entered my right eye, but there was no pain.

[“It has been an enjoyable encounter after so long.”]
“Wait a moment.”
[“What is it?”]

Before the Blue Moon completely disappeared, I asked:

“Why do you do such things?”

The Blue Moon’s mouths opened simultaneously.

[“Because you are lovely.”]
[“Because you are pitiful.”]
[“Because you are adorable.”]
[“Because I wish to look after you.”]
[“Because you are beautiful.”]

Completely contrary to the Blue Moon’s actions.

[“Bestowing compassion upon you is my hobby.”]

With those words, the Blue Moon vanished completely. I opened just my right eye and looked around, but the space the Blue Moon had occupied was no longer visible.

“Compassion.”

I finished my second cigarette. Then I put a third one in my mouth.

‘That feeling I felt when my right eye was first given – it was definitely compassion.’

The feeling that everyone I saw was pitiful might be the emotion the Blue Moon feels towards humans.

“Euthanasia.”

Mercifully killing to end suffering – murder by another name.
Knowing the world of Surviving Among the Entities, I could understand the Blue Moon’s actions.

“I suppose so.”

Even so, it was not something I could accept.

“Whether friendly or not, entities are all equally dangerous.”

After returning home, I went to bed early, mentally exhausted.

‘But why didn’t I go mad and survived?’

The Blue Moon is clearly a transcendent being. The only ways to survive it are to use specific entities, avoid being targeted by it from the start, or raise your mental fortitude above 80.

‘Ordinarily it’s impossible to raise it past 70.’

That’s why exceeding 70 has you treated as a sage, and over 80 as the pinnacle of humanity.

‘The effect of the Blue Moon is that you cannot escape unless you reach the pinnacle of humanity.’

Suddenly, one assumption occurred to me – another way to overcome the Blue Moon’s influence without reaching the pinnacle of humanity.

“Moderation is best.”

Exceeding a mental fortitude of 90.
If your mental fortitude is too low, your character goes insane and the game ends. But if it’s too high, your character also goes insane and the game ends.

However, going insane from being too high means you went insane in a very different way.

[Your mental fortitude has exceeded the level permitted for humans. With your mental fortitude alone manifesting psychic abilities, the world has come to recognize you as an entity. However, such power is too much for a human, so you depart this world as a madman.]

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’m not a madman.”

Feeling tired, I closed my eyes.

“Who is as ordinary as me?”

I opened my eyes again and stretched my hand towards the ceiling. I imagined fire coming out, I imagined moving objects without touching them, but there was no change at all.

“I don’t have any psychic abilities either.”

I may have overcome the Blue Moon’s attack, but now I have something else to consider.

“Should I keep surviving, or die right now?”

Among the entities, there are many more dreadful than the Blue Moon.
Beings that inflict unimaginable suffering and torment, be it mental or physical, abound. And if my memory serves, due to the creator’s lack of restraint, half the dead endings were annihilation endings.

“City annihilation, nation annihilation, humanity annihilation, world annihilation, earth annihilation, universe annihilation.”

Even if I live quietly, who knows what calamity I’ll die from.

“Death may be the only repose now.”

Should I go buy some rope first?
As I headed out, it started drizzling.

‘Ah, real rain this time.’

I saw people with umbrellas and belatedly turned back to grab one, when I stepped on a worm on the ground.

“……”

This too was a real worm. It squirmed to survive, then luckily made its way to a grassy area, disappearing from sight.

“My apologies.”

Who knows if it will live or die. Worms have great regenerative abilities, so it might survive, but the damage might have been too severe and it could die.

“Sometimes acting on instinct isn’t so bad.”

It might be fine to just give up like this.

“But I won’t know until I try.”

Squirming like a worm might not be so bad either.