“Why are you so late- fishy smell!”
As soon as we arrive home, Soo-oh grabs her nose.
Ah, does it smell that bad?
“I ended up like this after meeting some sea creatures.”
The Great Kraken is a sea creature since he lives in the sea.
Though his origins aren’t from this world’s sea but a different sea. He was born in another world, became the highest monster of that world, and went around invading other worlds until his own world burned down.
So he came to this world where his species grows best among the worlds he invaded. And he failed while trying to rise again.
So he hid in the sea, waited for a second chance, and met me.
There are an enormous number of various types of techniques. Though I’m not sure where to start cutting from, there are also techniques for summoning me.
However, it’s so fragmented that I don’t know which parts should be put into humans. It would be good if there was someone who could interpret and organize it.
The feeling is like this:
There’s a lithium mine in front of me, but we’re in the Bronze Age. And if I put memories into people, they grow old and die while putting them in.
We really need a summarized version that people can handle. Yin Simwon knows it, but even he doesn’t know all the content.
Originally it wasn’t a technique humans could use, and one person can’t use it alone.
The Great Kraken used his head.
He made people memorize parts of the summoning technique, then had them focus only on their parts.
It’s easier to understand using a piano as an example. Assign one person per key to either press it or not press it. He only gave them these 2 options.
Even if they can’t read music or lack quick fingers, he designed it so they only need to play their part.
That’s because there are parts that require impossible techniques for a single person, like pressing 25 keys far apart simultaneously.
He had many trials and errors too.
The problem is the Great Kraken only knows the original.
To solve the problem, the Great Kraken ordered his subordinates, and the subordinates came up with answers. So only the subordinates know the separated parts.
The sad thing is that neither the Great Kraken nor the citizens of the city he killed had those divided parts. It’s really unfortunate that they already died of old age long ago. Though there were documents they organized, those evaporated along with the city.
If they were alive, I could have extracted the memories somehow.
Still, let’s say it’s good since I gained a lot. If nothing else works, we can just force it in accepting that some people might go mad.
More importantly, the smell must be really terrible since Soo-oh keeps trying to come closer but backs away repeatedly. Is it that bad? I can’t smell it?
Or maybe my nose has already adapted so it seems fine. What should I do?
“Is the smell that bad?”
“The bathroom smell and fish smell are mixed together, it stinks too much!”
I should wash up.
If it smells that bad, I probably picked up a lot of bacteria and such too.
Though to wash up, I need to go quite far north to get to the lake.
“I’ll go wash up.”
“Come back quickly!”
Seeing Soo-oh pointing behind the house, it must really be an unbearable smell.
I can’t climb up and down the cliff behind the house like Soo-oh. So I have to walk.
The house is quite high up. To get water, you need to go far north downhill. Then you can meet the lake below the cliff.
I arrived at the lake.
It’s already dark so I couldn’t see well, but there’s a problem.
Hmm.
No. What should I do?
The lakeshore is full of beasts right now. Because there are lots of dead aquatic creature corpses floating by the water’s edge.
Come to think of it, the shockwave spread better in water than air. They must have died then and washed up on shore.
So this predator party has started. Maybe because there’s so much food in front, even medium-sized carnivores eat alongside large carnivores without being chased away.
Many of the large carnivores are even sleeping with their hugely bloated bellies exposed.
So it’s not dangerous, but the problem is the water is dirty with corpses everywhere. Plus, the boundary between water and land has moved far away.
The water level has dropped a lot.
Can’t be helped. Let’s go back up.
Of course, I could reverse reality, but honestly I’m cautious about using such power right now.
The area where I fought with the Great Kraken is already full of cracks, so if I’m not careful, it could cause the second world to break again.
Let’s be careful unless absolutely necessary.
I started walking back home. No, I was about to.
Something from the forest watches my side profile. When I turn my gaze that way, I see something like a moving rotting chunk of meat at the forest’s edge.
Oh, it’s that large beast that bit my neck before.
The world looks like a mosaic as if eye-like organs are attached all around, and there are no properly functioning organs.
Plus, human weapons stuck in its body catch on things, making nerves spasm with even slight movements.
The monster that often sends me warmth by attacking small villages or charging into beasts’ dens has appeared.
This is the first time I’m seeing a creature that survived long after having its warmth stolen.
Seeing it directly rather than through its own eyes, it’s different from what I felt before.
Its entire body is white.
Rather than just pure white, it’s more like all its fur is a lusterless white, as if extremely aged.
And its body is dried up like an old tree. The muscles attached to bizarrely protruding bones and flesh are rotting. Maybe that’s why it’s covered in insects.
It looks like decay and aging arrived simultaneously.
It moves seventeen legs to approach where I am.
It must have originally been a four-legged feline beast, but now it looks like a crab. It looks down at me with the eyes embedded in its body.
And it opened its mouth.
“Ke.He.He.”
But not to eat. It laughed as if mocking.
And it starts doing something strange.
It used its legs to tear itself apart in front of me. Blood and flesh spray out along with completely rotted innards and corpses contained inside.
After thus tearing itself to pieces, it died. The blackened, crusted light scatters like powder and disappears into dust.
Ah, I see.
It came to mock me.
What a tragic ridicule. It must have realized somewhere that I cannot die. That’s right.
When they become harvesters, their intelligence increases. Then, it’s not strange that intelligence increases when becoming a monster too.
It understood that I would be cold forever and laughed at that while taking its own life.
Without being told, I just knew.
Though I shouldn’t be able to understand such a monster’s emotions, I knew it came to die after giving me the finger.
I swallowed the words “You were the one who attacked me first.”
Since it wouldn’t hear them anyway.
I learned another thing.
What creatures become after I steal their warmth.
If possible, I don’t want to make any more in the future.
Feels bad.
I returned home with my body sticky with blood and flesh.
“Kyaaak!”
Soo-oh screamed, but today I was in such a bad mood I was about to get angry…
I failed.
No. Anger isn’t what I should show.
“I got vented on while coming back. Let’s sleep separately today. Don’t forget to cover yourself with a blanket when sleeping on the porch.”
We decided to sleep separately for the first time in a while. By the way, the room isn’t suitable for sleeping in summer. It gets quite hot. I went to the kitchen and sat in front of the fire.
A lot happened today. I gained many things. There were only gains.
But why do I feel so bad?
I curl up in the middle of the kitchen and wait for time to pass.
The fire crackles in front of me.
I sit blankly staring at the fire. They call this fire gazing?
Come to think of it, there’s something strange here.
There are no insects. Earlier when coming up to the house there were lots of insects swarming, but there’s nothing here. It’s strange for there to be no insects in a space where one whole wall is missing, right?
The cause is likely this fire.
A fire that keeps burning without any fuel.
Just until yesterday I thought it was better to leave well enough alone, but after everything that happened today, this is strange too.
Originally, I forcefully overlay what I want onto the world.
What I want is important.
In other words, things I haven’t thought about shouldn’t appear.
Then, what is this hearth’s fire? There’s nothing inside. In a physical sense there’s heat, but it’s just fire without light or warmth.
Should I perhaps use this to play priest rather than god under the name of Fire Worshipping Religion.
Heavenly Demon is on my side too. It might be fun to gradually make believers and create the Fire Worshipping Religion instead of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Hmm…
I thought faded memories would pop up like usual, but strangely it’s quiet. It’s almost as if it has a personality.
But there is no personality. Memories are just memories.
I watched the fire that keeps burning on the sand.
Until the moon waned and the sky turned blue again with dawn.
Being midsummer, the sun rises early.
Having rested my body enough, I got up. And shook off the crusted traces all over my body.
And immediately coming out of the kitchen, I looked far into the forest.
Just now, Gu Milmil suggested to Oh Myeongseong that they head to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and Oh Myeongseong agreed.
I search through memories to find a map and calculate the approximate distance from where they are to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
They’ll arrive at the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult by tonight.
Of course, if I were to walk it would take three days and nights without rest, but Oh Myeongseong and Gu Milmil are both martial artists with special abilities.
Using what they call movement techniques, they can really cross long distances in an instant. Unless they’re just wandering around being chased, if they’re moving with a destination in mind, it’s quick.
They’re coming to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult to find out about the Heavenly Demon Divine Technique.
To ask if the transformed appearances can be reversed.
But there’s no such thing.
He was suddenly branded as an evil leader, and according to people’s opinions, he fell to become an evil leader.
Already realizing they probably can’t go back, Oh Myeongseong comes here with Gu Milmil.
When the two arrive, there will be big changes at the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
As always, I contemplate how to complete the automatic warmth harvesting system.
Because the cold is more severe than sentiment, and to escape it, I must constantly strive.
“Choseol?”
Soo-oh rubs her sleepy eyes and calls my name as she sees me at the courtyard entrance.
“Are you up? Then let’s wash up and prepare breakfast. Soo-oh. And remember there might be some events by evening.”
“Huh? Mmm, okay.”
I went into the kitchen, leaving Soo-oh stretching lazily. And as usual, I tidy myself up and prepare breakfast.
Whether this will be the last ordinary day, or if it’s a return to ordinary days.
We’ll find out when those two arrive.