I arrived at the bottom.
Logically thinking, I should have fallen onto a water surface, but now I can see the completely destroyed main building of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
When I lift my head, I see a hole in the shoddy structure that stopped collapsing. I lower my head again and look around.
A place with cold air and a faint acrid smell of burnt material.
It's the place where Heavenly Demon died.
Maybe I might be able to see Heavenly Demon.
Since I can immediately recognize that place, I walked towards it.
But Heavenly Demon wasn't there. There's just a black horizontal line drawn on the ruins behind where the corpse was.
Looking around, there's nothing plausible.
There's a white castle visible far away, and if you go in the opposite direction, there's a house.
I moved my steps to go there since I've come to this strange place, but as if I can't go there, debris from buildings is blocking the way. When I tried to touch it to climb up, I couldn't grab the debris.
I just feel a wall.
In other words, it means I can't go.
Then I should head towards the tower.
I moved my steps. Maybe as I go forward, the house from the second world might appear once.
And I walk along the strangely organized place that looks like a path.
Trudge, trudge
Comparing the walking directly to the place in my memory, the difference is huge. It takes an incredibly long time in this form.
Feeling the difference from when I was Choseol anew, I moved my steps.
And again, there's one door standing alone. There's clearly a cliff behind the door. But when I open the door, a cylindrical space with a faint yellow light flowing appears inside the door.
It's the entrance to Kunlun.
A narrow passage floating in the middle. I was about to go inside following that, but I stopped once. And I looked back. I can see a door connected to another place far away. And everything is blocked on the side.
I suddenly realized that I wouldn't see Soo-oh here.
Indeed.
I see.
I move my steps again. If I pass through this door, Kunlun should normally appear, but this space has never been normal so far.
And instead of the interior space of Kunlun that should be there at the end of the passage, there's a small door.
When I open it and go in, an incredibly strange sight unfolds before my eyes.
Something in the shape of a heavily distorted sphere is in the air, and the sky is full of objects that were being sucked in there but stopped.
It's frozen as if a moment from the last moment with the Primordial Heavenly Lord has been cut out.
I look around wondering if someone will appear here too. Considering that Hyunkeshuni appeared twice, the Primordial Heavenly Lord might appear again.
But he didn't appear.
Instead, I found a girl sitting in a pavilion that stopped in the middle of collapsing, a little away from the sphere.
A tall woman with purple hair twice the size of my current appearance. It's a person I've never actually seen. Because I used that body until the last moment.
It's none other than Choseol.
I headed towards her.
"Hello."
"Yes, hello."
It's strangely similar to the way I speak. The rhythm is similar. Or is this one me instead of Choseol?
Thinking that while looking at her, she was also staring blankly at me, so realizing that if I stay silent like this, no answer will come out, I pointed to the castle visible far away.
"I'm trying to go there, do you know the way?"
Then she got up from her seat.
And she walks to the space where light is distorted. And she grabs the air and lifts it. As if a cloth with a picture drawn on it was covering it and was removed, a door with a lock inside appeared.
Choseol looks at me and puts her hand between her breasts and pulls it out. In the hand coming out from between her breasts is a key.
Choseol, holding the key, approached me, stretched out her arm to grab my arm and brought it in front of her, then placed that key on my palm and gently pushed my fingers to curl them.
I grasped the key in my hand.
Most of the people I meet here are strange. They act as if they're not the people I know. They have no light or warmth. This is likely to be a simple illusion.
The Great Kraken and Primordial Heavenly Lord are a bit uneasy, but they were such transcendent beings that they might be different somehow.
Maybe, the memories are too vast or.
While I was thinking that, Choseol suddenly embraced me with her wide bosom.
There's only coldness without any warmth, but the soft feeling of her chest touched me and then separated.
After that, Choseol patted my shoulder with her hand twice and passed by me without looking back again, disappearing somewhere.
As soon as she crossed over to where there's a wall I can't go, she disappeared as if she never existed in the first place.
When I examine the key, there are words engraved on it. The word written is "warmth".
Now I have 3 keys. One with the word erased. One is "anger". The other is "warmth".
Should we try inserting them in order first?
The key with the word erased doesn't go into the hole. Even though there's clearly space for it to go in, it seems like this key doesn't belong here.
So I inserted "anger".
Then with a click, it opens immediately. I can't pull the key out again. It's completely stuck to the lock as if it had been attached from the beginning.
Shouldn't you usually move on with the key you received here? And when I first received the key from Tis, I think he said it was needed to cross some wall, but the key with "despair" written on it was a key to start the train, not a wall.
Is it because it's an illusion that there are no rules, or did I do something wrong? I'm not sure, but I'll know if I walk as far as I can go.
I opened the door and went inside.
Inside is the platform I arrived at first.
But the direction of the railway is different. The tracks I passed through when coming here from the first world have disappeared, and tracks going into a tunnel in the cliff are laid.
I got on the steam locomotive again.
This time there's no one to greet me. It seems I need to go to the engine room and turn the key again this time too.
Come to think of it, what about the passenger car? Earlier, Eunjae was blocking it, so I didn't think of going.
I grabbed the door leading to the passenger car and turned it. But it doesn't move. I looked to see if it would turn if I inserted a key, but there's no keyhole here.
Is it just an object that can't be interacted with?
Unable to do anything else, I opened the door leading to the engine room.
Nothing has changed here. It's exactly the same as before.
The difference, if any, is that the key that should clearly have been inserted has disappeared, and the lock is locked again.
I insert the key without a name. But it's blocked. The "warmth" key went in.
There's a ridiculous sound like a car starting, and the train departs again.
I still don't feel any inertia at all. It enters a cave right away, and not long after, I can see light.
And the place where the locomotive stops is inside the collapsed temple.
It's the place where I was summoned.
The platform and steam locomotive are unnaturally placed in a place where there were only cylindrical walls originally. It looks like a steam locomotive because there's lots of coal inside. But it doesn't even make a sound, let alone emit steam, so I'm not sure if it's right to call it a steam locomotive.
Maybe none of the people whose memories I've obtained have ever ridden a steam locomotive. If it's a world like a dream, it can't output something unknown.
When the train comes to a complete stop, I enter the passenger car where there's a door leading down to the platform. Just in case, I tried grabbing and opening it, and the door opened.
I see an empty passenger car. There are just lots of chairs placed. I looked around wondering if there might be something, but there's nothing. And when I open the back door, I can see the railroad the train passed through.
There's nothing to see.
I got off the train. When I come out, sunlight shines through a round hole opened above the ceiling, and between that, I see a huge shadow.
A fishman about 7.5m tall is looking down at me. And it stretches out its hand and puts it down in front of me.
A face that doesn't think anything by fishman standards. But it seems to have the intention for me to ride. So when I got on the palm, the fishman lifted me up.
Come to think of it, Victoria lifted me up so I could get out here. When I get off its hand, the fishman, instead of looking at me, sits down and curls up holding its knees like a baby.
I leave it behind and walk forward.
Originally, after going down the hill, the port appeared only after walking along the coast for a while, but as soon as I go down the hill, I see the port. And it's a port compressed to an odd degree. There's only the place to board ships.
It probably means wait for a ship.
So I'm standing at the port waiting for a ship, and a ship approaches from ahead. And it's coming straight.
It originally came from the side, and while I'm watching thinking it's strange, the ship came straight here without reducing speed.
Am I going to be hit like this?
The bow of the ship rammed into the platform where I'm standing. But instead of me being hit by the ship, the ship just crumpled and crumpled, and a door inside the ship appeared in front of me.
Who's the director?
The door was also twisted as it crumpled, but when I pulled it, it opened without problem.
I thought I was going to Bern City like this, but surprisingly, the royal castle came out. And I can see the room where Aurora was lying.
And Aurora is actually lying on the wide bed inside.
Now Aurora will wake up and say something, right?
Thinking that, I approached her.
But Aurora doesn't wake up. Even when I shake her just in case, she doesn't wake up. She's breathing, but like all the others I've seen in here, she has no light or warmth.
I look around.
All doors so far were facing the castle. If I can't see the castle, it means this is the castle. So I looked outside the window.
I found a castle visible far away outside the window.
And according to the only rule that's been there so far, there's a door. I approached the door and opened it, and it opened easily.
I looked at Aurora once and went inside.
It's Victoria's bedroom. Victoria is sleeping soundly on the bed like Aurora. The blanket has flown far away, and the surroundings are messy.
I unconsciously tidied up the surroundings and covered her with the blanket.
The castle that's been visible so far can be seen beyond the window. Then I should go this way, right?
When I open the window and go out, instead of the interior of the Royal Academy that was visible until just now, I see high castle walls. It's not the castle walls of this country. Rather, it's a wall that's black to the point of being grotesque.
Like it's been painted with the blackest paint, castle walls with no sense of depth at all.
And beyond the castle walls, I can see a white castle.
In front of those castle walls.
A girl is standing. A girl holding a long skeleton staff, smiling as if making a crying face.
Hyunkeshuni.
She stands with the castle walls behind her and glares at me.