Twilight (4)
Kangnan stepped up to Gaold.
"Are you all right?"
His eyes were wide open; he looked as if he'd taken an enormous psychological blow.
'It's inevitable.'
Kangnan didn't know the specifics of Gaold's pain, but he understood how vast the gap between imagination and reality could be.
'Those pupils must be the Ultima of a Gaia—Ruber mentioned that. In an instant Gaold was defined.' Along with a pain no human could endure.
"Hey! Is everyone okay?"
Sein led the Merchant Union as they rushed up.
"You actually did it?"
The merchants were shocked by the destroyed armory, but Sein's face was grave.
"Those eyes just now..."
"Yeah. Looks like the merchants couldn't see them. The compromise was broken. Shirone and Miro awakened..."
Now it was Gaold's turn.
Sein watched the sprawled, dazed Gaold for a long time.
'So that's what it is.' If the real world was true, that explained why Gaold couldn't get up.
'Must be overwhelming terror.'
Kangnan said, "The more we awaken, the more the world collapses. Imir is still hunting us."
Would it have been better to have done nothing?
"Let's go."
Gaold rose.
"No need to overthink it. First we find Miro. She'll have gone back to base."
Kangnan asked, "Will you be okay?"
Could he awaken again?
Gaold himself couldn't be certain, but he didn't stop moving.
"The fact that I awakened means Miro and Shirone aren't in the states we thought. I can save them."
A faint nostalgia touched Kangnan.
'That's the kind of person he is.'
For him, forgetting was a skill.
'Even pain that should be impossible to forget—he wipes it from his memory and keeps going.'
The edge of humanity.
Tamo's organization base was a four-story building.
Bullets raked the second and third floors, and Miro was deflecting them with a power that bordered on the divine.
'I'm getting the hang of it.'
She wasn't just deflecting them—she was sending the rounds right back at the attackers.
"Damn it! What the hell is that?" The men who'd chased from the harbor fired from the rear but couldn't pierce Shirone's ability.
Miro grew bolder. "Nice, brother! Keep it up!"
"You bastards...!"
One org member, losing his temper, pulled a grenade pin and hurled it down.
"No!"
A lieutenant shouted, but the grenade arced toward Miro.
"Yes!"
Miro's Thousand-Armed Kannon snapped, deflecting it; the grenade that flew to the third floor detonated.
"Ugh! Damn it!"
Arius, who'd risen like an immovable fortress, clutched his head and twisted his waist—Shirone's mental attacks were severe.
"Boss! At this rate we'll be wiped out!"
Tamo, peering down from a fourth-floor window, studied the battlefield.
'Using a strange ability.'
The rounds were being repelled at supersonic speed; it even seemed as if their destructive force itself was being nullified.
"How beautiful."
Tamo's men—who knew him as asexual—were taken aback by their leader's remark.
'The boss...'
Rumor had it that when he'd been a mercenary he was captured and tortured; they'd even castrated him. Perhaps his brutal, superhuman combat prowess had awakened since then.
"One hundred people entered the 1.5th floor, but they probably don't all run the same program," Ruber said.
"There'll be differences in combat level. And the leader Tamo is likely pain-insensitive," Monga added.
"You mean he can't feel pain?" someone asked.
"Yeah. That parameter must be applied—either congenital or the result of some accident. In any case, the important thing is Tamo resembles Imir."
Monga propped her chin on her hand. "Giants are neutral by nature. And Imir is so strong you can't even sense resistance."
"It's the sense of being alive that's gone. We can infer what that state is like from Imir's magic. It's gone now, but it was said to have been an incredibly voracious being."
"A deficit of desire, then," Ruber said, nodding. "Except for an enormous shock, perceiving life itself is impossible. So he wanders battlefields, searching—sensing them with a nervousness no human can imagine."
Almost like a creature seeking a mate.
"He never fails. That's why he can perfectly scent a battlefield. And that is precisely... why Tamo is the leader."
A subordinate asked, "When you say 'beautiful,' who are you talking about?"
Tamo's gaze lingered on Miro.
"Well."
He looked again at Shirone, then returned to his position and began gearing up.
"Everyone out."
"Huh?"
"I'll take this. Go out and fight. Looks like the Merchant Union is coming."
There was reason to believe that, but outside the window the subordinate could see only darkness.
"How do you know? They might've given up."
Tamo tapped his temple. "Sensation."
Miro stopped her avatar technique.
"Huh?"
Suddenly the gunfire ceased and the org members were pouring out of the building.
"Planning to surround us?"
Contrary to expectations, they left the premises and even pulled troops from the harbor.
Miro suddenly realized. "Shoot! Dad!"
She'd noticed the enemy's ruse and spun around, but a gunshot rang from the fourth floor.
Shirone defended, but the point of impact was much farther away than expected.
Miro ground her teeth. "Tamo."
Tamo sat on the window ledge holding a pair of machine guns, peering down.
"What are you freaking out for? You came to kill me, didn't you?"
Miro shouted, "You bastard! If you so much as touch my dad or Aunt Kangnan, I'll really kill you!"
"Heh heh, such sweet words."
Tamo swung his hips off the fourth-floor ledge and dropped more than ten meters, landing on his feet.
Shirone's group went blank.
"You..."
A normal person would have rolled and broken a leg.
"So—now you're ready to fight properly?"
He raised his machine guns. "Let's have some real fun."
As the trigger clicked, Miro split time into a thousand slivers in her mind.
'Hmph! Big whoop — you just shoot guns!'
A phantom hand sent the rounds careening, and Tamo, who'd rolled on the ground, thudded as his limbs took the hits.
"Huh?"
They realized from how he moved, without any sign of shock.
"That man... can't feel pain."
"Puhahaha! Yes, this is it! This is exactly it!"
Had Shirone been a fraction slower, his head would have been pierced—and that would have been proof he was alive.
"I'll catch him."
Shirone activated a mental technique, picturing grabbing Tamo's right arm.
"Huh?"
Sensing his speed slow, Tamo turned—and his right shoulder was gone.
Even seeing the rubbery, stretched arm, his face didn't change as he advanced.
"Ugh!"
The mental technique broke.
Tamo rolled twice and curled on the ground, then stood with a serious expression.
Shirone shoved with all his strength on the stretched shoulder; a sickening crack echoed.
"Hmm."
Tamo rotated the shoulder and reached out; the machine gun on the floor flew into his hand as if on its own.
"How...?"
"Aha, so that's it."
Tamo's mouth curved wickedly. "So this far is acceptable, is it?"
As much as the 1.5th-floor members had compromised, his fight program had upgraded accordingly.
"Shall we play again?"
The machine guns spat fire, and before the shots could arrive Miro's Thousand-Armed Kannon deflected them.
"Argh!"
The force—on another level—made Miro flinch a step or two. It felt like being struck with a hammer.
"Danger!"
Shirone shoved Miro aside; as she fell, Tamo sprayed bullets.
"Khahaha! This will kill!"
The trajectories bent wildly and bullets struck Shirone from all sides at once.
'This is??????'
It was the same realm.
A skirmish broke out a kilometer from Tamo's base.
"Shoot! Don't fall back!"
The Merchant Union and seventy org members clashed.
Bright points darted like sparks over a mere seventy meters.
"Damn! Those bastards!"
A gun doesn't care who fires it, but experience made a huge difference.
Kangnan shouted, "What do we do? The entrance is too narrow! Should we go around another way—?"
At that moment Gaold leapt.
'I can do this.'
The horrific memory of pain was carved into his brain, but he didn't hesitate.
'To hell with pain...!'
He clenched his teeth and awakened again; once more Ultima's pupils appeared in the night sky.
"UAAAAH!"
Screaming, he unleashed the air gun; enemy cover was shredded.
"Crazy! What kind of weapon is that?"
"Ugh... it hurts."
Even a one-second awakening left Gaold doubled over in shock.
"Gaold!"
Sein grabbed Kangnan as he tried to bolt and shouted to the Merchant Union, "Cover him!"
Bullets rained down. Sein gritted his teeth as he hurled himself to retrieve Gaold.
'Damn it! Why can't Kangnan and I...'
"You don't want to break the compromise," Ruber said.
"It's not a lack of courage. The point is, if a compromise could be broken that easily, the 1.5th floor wouldn't exist like this to begin with."
"But Gaold—" Monga began, and Ruber cut in.
"Some things change with time; others only harden. Faith, obsession, desire. Gaold isn't like Lord Odaeseong or Miro. He didn't understand this world—he wants to smash it."
To get what he wants.
"But that must be immense pain. No one would choose that."
"Of course. For Gaold to willingly accept that pain again is inconceivable. But perhaps we underestimated his desire."
"Miro's right."
"You can't define it. A heart that amplifies itself, a desire to see that through. We can't imagine how vast the Miro inside him is."
Formidable.
"Truly formidable... a human obsession, isn't it."
"Gaold! Move!" Sein grabbed Gaold's collar as covering fire weakened.
"Ugh!"
Gaold's veins writhed—his condition was beyond words.
"UAAAAH!"
Gaold pushed off Sein's hand and lunged toward the enemy muzzles.
"That idiot!" In his blurred consciousness Gaold thought, 'Why should I care?'
He didn't summon up the intensely vivid memory of pain.
'Nothing happened.'
It didn't hurt, he told himself.
'It'll hurt again, of course...'
His body emitted a scream forecasting the future, but Gaold stepped forward.
Into the realm of abominable pain.
'I'll save you.'
Sein's voice calling him faded into the distance as dozens of muzzles came into view.
Gaold grinned wide. "Wow. Pain."
Air Press.
The scenery vibrated; every Tamo org member was slammed to the ground.
Miro, who'd driven her double palms into Tamo's chest, grimaced.
'That's really solid.'
It felt like hitting steel. Tamo was shoved several meters, looped the machine gun over his finger, and rose.
"Good, good. So this far is acceptable?"
"You've gotten stronger..."
Tamo's tongue lolled out. "You don't even feel it. You really thought something like that could kill me?"
"Guaaah!"
Gaold lay on the ground, limbs twisted, weeping blood from his eyes.
"Gaold! Snap out of it! Gaold!" Sein shouted, but the look on Gaold's face made it clear he couldn't hear.
There was only pain.
"Uaaah! Uaaaaah!"
Countless eyes watched Gaold.