Chapter 78

Chapter 78 : Forgotten Being (5)

The whole time I dragged Hwipone out of the Immigration Hall, past the busy district, and into a street that had roughly grown quiet, he offered no particular resistance.

Of course he did.

The most likely person Etel had ordered to catch me and drag me over was Hwipone. He had no reason to stop me when I was walking on my own two feet toward somewhere convenient for him to take me.

After dragging him to the mouth of an alley where there were roughly no passersby, I let go of the collar I had been gripping.

“What an intense reaction. I am startled.”

“The timing is intentional.”

“Ah, you noticed?”

“I have no business with you.”

“I agree with that opinion. But I belong to the sky.”

At Hwipone’s words, I spent about 0.1 seconds wondering whether to resist or obediently follow him.

“I-I’ll go.”

My objective was Gorong in the Second Domain.

In other words, this was a summons I had no choice but to accept in the first place. Etel had control over the Gates.

It was right to match the situation as obediently as possible and then slip past it later.

“Did that redhead not come?”

“Why? Do you miss him?”

“Why are you saying that so sternly? I am just curious. He seemed to follow you rather fanat—rather well.”

He was about to say fanatically, wasn’t he? I lost my words at the word choice, which I could not exactly deny.

“I gave that one a separate task.”

“He is Underfolk, right?”

“……?”

Why was he only asking that now?

I was Underfolk. Then did he think Murel, who clung to an Underfolk and obeyed blindly, was Surface Folk?

“I wondered whether the Surface World would get dragged into an Underfolk hierarchy fight.”

“Hierarchy?”

“That Underworld Lord from then. The look in his eyes when he stared at you was no joke.”

Had Hwipone been there then too? The negotiation room had been under control.

The question that briefly arose passed without much concern. Even if he wandered around like a fool, he was still an aide of the sky. That meant he was second only to Etel.

Something like eavesdropping in secret would be easy enough.

“If we do, we will do it in the Underworld, so relax.”

“Oh…… so you are saying you will? That Riwin, who was so weeeak back then, will challenge the lord……!”

Leaving the fussing Hwipone alone, I turned toward the ruler’s castle.

Fluffnix, who had shrunk and gone into my pocket, shook a few times and then quieted down.

For the past few days, he had been showing strange behavior and acting as though he was ill. After confirming that he could not actually be sick, I had stopped worrying about it.

[“The digestion process is rough, that is all.”]

After leaving those words behind, he seemed to be hibernating, so I did not particularly wake him. From the crow-tit days until now, he had picked up and eaten many things, so even if he digested them little by little, he would still need time to organize them.

“What about you? You are somehow still in the sky?”

“Timing. I returned yesterday.”

“Now that the cause of the curse is gone, is there still something left to examine?”

“We cannot live on a Phantasmal Species’s back forever.”

Hwipone shrugged and spoke of recent events as though it were nothing.

He said the blizzards in the former Sky’s Domain had weakened greatly, making entry fairly manageable. They were taking this chance to consider migration back there and testing various things.

It was not a bad choice.

How long could a Gigantic Phantasmal Species keep holding out? At the very least, it must have flown through the sky for over two hundred years.

---

I quietly rolled my eyes and checked my reflection on the floor.

I had been guided not to the office, but to a small terrace-like private space. When I faced Etel, who was drinking tea, I swallowed for no reason.

Even if she was not as overwhelming as Blue, this Etel’s pressure was also exceptional.

On top of that, I had committed a sin, so I could not help lowering myself.

“You handed over a fake ember. Was it deliberate?”

Cold blue eyes looked straight at me. Cold sweat slid down my back.

Should I deny it? Admit it? Strictly speaking, I had plucked it from the Blue Flower, so was it not fake? It was only not the main body; functionally, it was still an ember.

After much hesitation, I sat across from Etel in the seat she offered.

“It was not fake―.”

“―The ember went out.”

At Etel’s words, which cut me off, I closed my mouth. So it had gone out after all.

Since I had taken away the ember from a story passed down from the distant past, I had nothing to say. It was also true that I had shoved it onto them out of a flimsy hope that perhaps it would be fine.

I did my best to ignore the discomfort of the chair without a backrest, folded my arms, and rolled my eyes.

“When?”

“The day after you gave me the ember and returned.”

By timing, that seemed to be when Fluffnix swallowed the production method. Since the main body had been eaten, the things separated from it must have become meaningless.

I admitted that I had handed over a fake that was not quite a fake.

“I can explain why that happened.”

“It was deliberate, then.”

“It was not.”

I took Fluffnix out of my pocket as he wriggled and poked his head out.

“That is not the red bird I saw then.”

“It is the same bird you saw then. They are the same creature.”

One of Etel’s eyebrows twitched.

Considering the image of him as a red bird smaller than a palm, she would not be able to imagine his somewhat splendid feathers now.

Besides, the flame blooming from his head-feather looked extremely suspicious, since we happened to be discussing the ember.

“Fluffnix swallowed the original ember.”

Etel’s gaze touched Fluffnix, who tilted his head. More precisely, it went toward the flame swaying on his head.

I watched Etel’s mood for no reason and waited for her words. If one thought about it, the ember was an object of the sky, so if she claimed ownership, things would become troublesome.

The flame could not be spat out again, and even if it could, its master was someone else.

As I pretended to be distracted, bringing my finger to Fluffnix’s beak and fiddling with it, I heard Etel laugh softly.

“You do not have to watch my mood.”

“Ahaha…… was it obvious?”

Fluffnix flapped his wings once, groomed his feathers, then flew lightly and landed on my shoulder.

“You have no reason to watch my mood. I heard that the cause of the curse was that ember.”

“From whom?”

Etel set down her cold tea and lifted her head to look straight at me. Was the reason she had called me here not to question me about the fake?

Etel spoke the name I had encountered so much lately with a gaze that seemed to pull out memories from the distant past.

“From you, Sek.”

I could not easily continue, and only smiled awkwardly.

It had been Sek who moved the entire former Sky’s Domain onto the Phantasmal Species. He must have told her more than that too.

I placed Fluffnix, who had begun nodding off again, back into my pocket, then lifted my head and smiled calmly.

“When did you notice I was Sek?”

“From the beginning. Since the moment you were trapped in the forest’s cage.”

What?

“And yet you said we should kill me?”

Etel stared at my shocked face, then slowly rubbed the cold teacup as she answered.

“At the time, I did not fully believe you were Sek, and if you truly were Sek, you would not die.”

My mouth only opened and closed at Etel’s shameless words.

Only now did I understand the inside story of the execution that day.

“You were not trying to kill me because I was Underfolk.”

“Correct. Did Pan not tell you?”

As if he would have told me. That bastard enjoyed watching me suffer.

I let out a hollow laugh and rubbed my face.

Back then, I had been dropped into a strange world alone and had missed things I had not had the presence of mind to think about. Now they came back to me one by one.

“You said we should kill me to check whether I was Sek.”

“To say it properly, you were the one who asked us to kill you.”

“That was because Pan told me to……!”

I closed my mouth before curses could burst out.

It had been strange from the start that all five rulers gathered for a provisional meeting just because one Underfolk had entered.

It meant they had already known I was Sek. Pan, who had told me the method, Retu, who had received help two hundred years ago, and Etel before me too.

“Do all the rulers know?”

“No.”

“Other than Pan, Retu, and you, who else knows?”

“Frui.”

―which meant the Ruler of the Desert.

“What about the Ruler of the Spring?”

“Reda does not know.”

I calmed my excitement and breathed steadily.

Was this not strange?

Four of the five rulers had suspected me of being Sek. Even if Sek’s appearance from two hundred years ago differed from mine now, it meant they had grasped enough characteristics to be suspicious.

But Ariti, the heroine of the Original Work, had failed to recognize that I was Sek. Was that not a little strange to dismiss as simple coincidence?

Was it connected to the fact that I had been Minor Role F despite being Sek?

I set aside the unpleasant feeling and decided not to ask more. This issue seemed better to ask Pan again once I returned to the forest.

“Are you going straight to the Second Domain?”

At Etel’s question, I scratched the back of my neck. So she already knew everything.

“I would like that. Are you going to be considerate?”

“I will instruct Hwipone.”

Seeing Etel’s faint, satisfied smile, I chewed over the situation where I had been hit once.

How should I repay this later?

---

The cold Ice Castle was the same as ever.

I had wondered whether the scenery here would calm down a little now that the flame had been taken, but the Ice Castle I reached after pushing through the rough blizzard was still so cold and bleak that the chill froze my breath.

Then again, the cause here had been the Phantasmal Species’s whim rather than the curse.

Looking once more over the desolate interior of the castle, where everything was made of ice, I asked Blue, who was sitting beside me,

“The cause of the curse was the ember, right?”

Blue, who had been sitting beside me on the path to the second floor of the central staircase, staring at the blizzard beyond the open window, tilted her head at my words.

“Are you asking about the cause of the curse, or are you asking why I am like this?”

At her eerie voice, I moved away for no reason and pretended to look elsewhere.

“I am asking about the cause of the curse.”

“Before I speak of the cause, I shall tell you of that day.”

Oh, this is an unexpected harvest.

I propped my chin and listened closely.

“Sky’s Domain was a peaceful and beautiful place. The sky was reflected on the frozen lake, making it seem as though we were floating in the sky. That was why it was named the sky.”

So that was why Konu’s parents had smiled when they spoke of Sky’s Domain. Even though I had been to the former Sky’s Domain, it was an appearance I could not have imagined at all.

‘An Ice Castle reflected by the sky.’

When I looked outside at the blizzard, bitterness rose for no reason.

Had Blue been looking at that and remembering the scenes from that day?

“The abnormality slowly spread from me, who had swallowed the flame. The wrath of the Forgotten Being struck the sky and the earth, and the lightning that fell all day never ceased.”

“You swallowed the flame? It was still there, though.”

“That is…… listen first.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The one who came then was you.”

“Sek?”

“Yes. He saved the members of the sky. He created a place for them to stay and suggested a solution that would allow them to escape the curse. I had no choice.”

“So you migrated here.”

Blue frowned around one eye, struggling as though recalling a painful past.

I thought this much was enough, so I changed the topic.

“Do you not want to go back?”

“……?”

Had Blue not heard about the change in the former site?

“I took the ember. The curse over the former Sky’s Domain has lifted.”

“You lifted the curse?”

“It is not like before, but I heard the blizzards have settled and the weather has calmed. It will slowly recover its old appearance.”

“Ha…… haha.”

Blue buried her face in one hand and laughed. She must have wanted to go back after all, right?

But it did not take long to realize that laugh was not one of joy, but a hollow laugh of disbelief.

Blue looked at me, her eyes drooping, and made a pitiful expression.

I was puzzled by Blue’s unfamiliar expression, and at her following words, I had to close my mouth.

“Ghost of Sek, you know nothing.”

Blue was grieving.