A New Myth

Seven years had passed, and the hellish genesis was finally over.

Yuria escaped from the group she had been protecting and soared high into the sky. During the genesis period, dimensional storms had covered the entire sky, so this was Yuria’s first high-altitude flight in seven years.

A time when survival had been their only priority. Now Yuria could leisurely observe how the world had changed during that time.

“Huh…? The world is round… and vast?”

The higher she flew, the darker the sky became. It was even hard to breathe. The distant horizon curved gently, becoming more and more round.

The continents that had been shattered into pieces seemed to have clumped together like clay dough, forming a massive sphere. It was so enormous that no matter how high she flew, she couldn’t take in its entire shape at a glance.

“It’s just like… the Earth that Jun-woo talked about.”

Yuria slightly parted her lips and looked around in all directions. Her blue-black hair was dark as night, reflecting a mysterious blue light only when it caught the light.

After looking around for a while, tension crept into Yuria’s expression.

“It’s unfamiliar. It’s a completely different world, isn’t it? Is this… a new beginning now?”

Even the world viewed through her [Magic Eye] was different from before.

The foundation of the world—the strings of characters made of gray mana—writhed like living creatures.

It hadn’t been like this before.

The records defined on the 100th floor of the Tower of Covenant had derived records on the 99th floor, which in turn derived records on the 98th floor…

Like that, beyond the 1st floor to the continent where nomads lived, the records had been connected from top to bottom in a pyramid structure.

Small changes that occurred in the upper floors of the Tower of Covenant would often affect all the way down below, greatly shaking the continent, but conversely, changes that occurred in the lower floors of the tower or on the continent were quickly corrected or ignored.

But now it was different. There was no distinction between high records and low records. All records were equal. They allied with and conflicted with each other, changing. They adapted to the world and became more sophisticated.

They evolved.

That’s why Yuria felt uneasy.

“If Jun-woo were here, I wouldn’t feel this anxious…”

She knew well that evolution was a useful concept. Jun-woo had taught her that.

But her heart couldn’t accept it.

A world that changed as it pleased?

Just hearing about it made the back of her neck feel chillingly anxious. Would they be able to handle such a constantly changing world?

Without Jun-woo… not a single day in the past seven years had been peaceful. Wouldn’t it continue to be like that?

“Hey, Baek Jun-woo! You’re alive, right? Genesis is over now! Isn’t it time for you to hear my voice? Answer me. Where are you right now?”

Yuria’s voice scattered dully in the rarified air at high altitude.

Yuria shouted again.

“Hey, Samantha? You’re there at least, right? Please answer me. Tell me what’s going on. Is Jun-woo… doing well?”

Her voice scattered dully once more.

Why wasn’t anyone answering?

‘I thought if I came up high in the sky, maybe my voice would reach them…’

Yuria looked around the dark sky.

It was just black and vast.

The stars were shining from much farther away than before… from an unimaginably distant place.

Looking at it, there seemed to be no up, down, left, or right.

‘Is this really a high place?’

A round world. When Jun-woo had told her about it, she had just accepted it, but now that she faced it directly, it felt too awkward and dizzying.

If this land had really curved into a round shape like Earth… perhaps the high place wasn’t this side but the opposite side of the sphere.

No… was there even such a thing as a high place to begin with?

Samantha and Jun-woo had been in the highest place, the 100th floor of the Tower of Covenant… but now where should she go to find that place? The tower to climb had disappeared… so which direction should she go now? How could she find them?

Back when the entire world orbited around the Tower of Covenant, that had been frightening too.

Looking up at that high and empty space where all the stars orbited, she would tremble at the dizzying authority and invasion of the unknown that came from that infinitely high place.

Worried that calamities might descend from the tower.

Worried that she might fall away from the tower.

Worried that the tower might collapse and the world would end.

But now she realized that had been better. If there was a tower to climb, she could just climb the tower.

But a round world? No tower to climb? What should she look toward to live now?

The more she stared at the directionless universe, the more that dark and flat universe poured down as endless terror.

Yuria slowly lowered her gaze.

She could see the ochre-colored earth. There weren’t many surviving plants, and the water streams had all been shattered into pieces, showing only scattered puddles and endlessly damp marshlands.

Rivers or seas were beyond even her wildest dreams.

It was absurd. It seemed like a miracle that they had survived for seven years in such conditions.

But somehow they had survived, and now they had to start everything over again.

‘But… is everyone still alive?’

It had been five years since Floating Island Sion was destroyed and her companions scattered in all directions. She was curious about her companions’ well-being.

At the same time, she wasn’t curious. She didn’t want to know.

‘I don’t want to hear any more news about who died… but still, I have to be brave.’

Yuria shook her head vigorously. She took several deep breaths.

“Deliver my voice.”

Golden doves burst forth from her hands. For the first time in seven years, Yuria sent message magic to the entire world.

“This is Yuria, Mage of Penetration. Can you hear me? Are you all alive? Please respond.”

Flutter—

The golden birds scattered to the whole world.

* * *

Flicker.

A woman appears.

A woman with brown hair.

Her skin is fair. She’s about as tall as me. She’s slender and incredibly beautiful.

No matter how I look at her, she’s worlds apart from the white-haired kid I used to know.

But strangely enough.

I recognized her at first glance.

“Tris…?”

Beatrice’s shoulders twitched.

“Ah, you recognize me? I must have changed quite a bit…”

The girl twirling her brown hair.

She had changed tremendously.

But… her characteristic delicate and cute features were still intact.

The arrogant look in her eyes that suggested even a dead lover coming back to life three times wouldn’t make her bat an eye, and yet the restless pupils that showed she was actually fidgeting—this was definitely Beatrice.

“Ah…”

What should I say?

According to Samantha, seven years had passed, but I felt like I had just closed my eyes for a moment… There was bound to be quite a distance between the emotions Tris felt and the emotions I felt.

What should I say in greeting?

“Um… good work.”

After thinking for a long time, at that one phrase I finally managed, Beatrice’s eyes shook greatly.

Her body leaned toward me. Small, soft hands grabbed my hands. She hesitated for a moment, then pressed firmly on the hands she held.

Thunk—

Beatrice’s forehead touched mine. She held both my hands and pressed her forehead against mine as she spoke.

“You… came back well. You came back… well. You’re, you’re alive. sniff Thank goodness… sob…”

Thunk. Thunk. Since I was sitting on the bed, her tears fell onto my lap.

That’s when I truly realized it.

More than Beatrice’s mature appearance, it was because of those tears.

‘Ah… seven whole years really did pass.’

I slowly reached out and hugged Beatrice’s shoulders. She was bigger than before, but still seemed so small.

Pat. Pat.

After patting her exactly twice, Beatrice’s trembling knees gave way. She leaned against me and cried like a child.

“Waaaah—! sob sob sob sob…”

I kept patting her.

She must have had such a hard time.

Many people must have died. Perhaps more than I could even imagine.

That’s why she was crying so heartbrokenly.

I wanted to cry with her. But tears wouldn’t come. It felt like one corner of my heart had broken and all the tears were draining out through that.

I just patted Beatrice’s back while looking around blankly.

Compared to the houses I’d seen in the tower, it was crude, but compared to the houses nomads lived in, it was refined.

It was built with bricks and had a fireplace.

The ceiling was high, and the floor was finished with soft mats woven from split wind grass.

There was a large, airy window, and outside that window sat a golden bird.

Tap, tap, tap tap.

The bird flew to the windowsill and pecked at the window with its beak.

I stared blankly at the scene before belatedly realizing.

‘Message magic? Who sent it?’

I moved my finger slightly. To lift the window with telekinesis.

But am I too sensitive right now?

Even in that small movement, somehow sad thoughts bloomed.

‘Hwarin’s gift used to be [Telekinesis]. Right. Hwarin died too.’

Back then, it was just the emotion of ‘resentment’ because someone I saw often had died.

But now, looking back… I felt sorry, regretful, and sad. Now I could see it again.

‘Thinking about it… Hwarin liked me quite a bit…’

Why didn’t I notice that then?

Just a few words of thanks, just some casual conversation while passing by, occasional consultations about worries—if I had approached her just a little more, Hwarin would have been happy.

Even if I couldn’t change her death, she would have had more good memories to think back on in her final moments.

No. At the very least, when she was lying sick at the end, I would have stayed by her side more often and longer…

‘I should have been warmer to her… when we weren’t going to be together forever anyway.’

The reason I was stupidly having such belated regrets, the reason I couldn’t help thinking this way, was entirely because of Samantha.

‘I should have… called her “daughter” just once. What was so difficult about that?’

Back then, I was too young… too foolish, so I never responded warmly to her words when she kept calling me [Father] until the very end.

I shouldn’t have let Samantha go like that when she was even younger than me… but I just kept stumbling.

Once again, it felt like something was flowing out with a whooshing sound.

It was so sad, but tears kept draining out through the broken corner of my heart. Because there was nothing I could do about it.

My fingertips lost strength. I felt powerless. I just blinked my eyes repeatedly.

“Sniff What are you doing?”

Beatrice separated from me and asked.

Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. A child honest with her emotions.

I should have been like that too. But wasn’t it already too late… Once again, whoosh—

“Ah, I think message magic came. I was trying to open the window.”

I looked back at the window. The window was still closed.

Tap, tap tap.

The golden bird was still pecking at the window.

‘Huh? Didn’t I just use [Telekinesis] to open the window?’

Puzzled, I moved my finger again. I tried to produce the mana pattern that would create [Telekinesis] by slightly resonating my Circle.

Stagger—

It was a miss. No, a whiff, no… anyway, it was empty.

“Huh?”

There was no Circle where there should have been a Circle. There was no Ki-blood where there should have been Ki-blood. I didn’t have a single speck of magical power left.

“Huh huh?”

At my confusion, Beatrice grinned.

“What? Even the great Divine Wizard sometimes has trouble with spells? It’s okay. Everyone experiences this. When genesis happened, the Akashic Records changed completely, so magic doesn’t manifest the same way as before. They say that except for spells you had to keep using for survival and spells related to your gift, you can’t use them well. Huh… but message magic? Who could that be? That’s a spell I haven’t been able to restore yet either.”

Beatrice approached the window. She spoke as if what happened to me was natural, but it really wasn’t at all.

Anyway, she had Circle and Ki-blood. I could see that.

But not me. There was almost no magical power left in my body.

“It’s different.”

“Hm?”

“I lost most of my soul during genesis.”

My soul was will. Most of the personal will of ‘human Baek Jun-woo’ remained. But the enormous will I had possessed as ‘mage Baek Jun-woo,’ enough to move the world, had all disappeared.

The immense karma I had built up under the name of Divine Wizard had also vanished.

What this meant was clear. ‘Human Baek Jun-woo’ lived and ‘mage Baek Jun-woo’ died. I couldn’t use magical power.

Startled, Beatrice gaped. She opened and closed her mouth, not knowing what to say. She fidgeted with her hands busily before suddenly shouting.

“It’s okay! Totally okay! I will! Saint of Ending Times Beatrice will become your hands and feet! No, wait. All the mages in the world will use magic for you! Whether you have magic or not, what does it matter?”

Beatrice comforted me exaggeratedly. Saying there was no problem at all. But… for the greatest wizard to lose magic, that comfort was completely inadequate, wasn’t it?

Chuckle. Chuckle chuckle.

But strangely enough.

I felt oddly happy.

Thump.

My dry heart beat.

‘Ah… is it now?’

Those moments I had passed by indifferently in the name of saving the world. The regret I couldn’t grasp, because of which one corner of my heart seemed broken.

Suddenly, it felt like I could grasp it now. Like I could fill in the broken pieces.

Like magic.

With just one word.

“Thank you, you fool.”

Thunk.

I patted the head of Tris, who was desperately comforting me.

She was startled.

She blinked her eyes and touched my hand that was patting her head.

A strange sense of fulfillment.

How peaceful.

Right. I should have done this long ago. This is what we fought so exhaustingly for, after all.

A smile slowly formed. I think I finally understand why Samantha saved me.

‘She told me to live happily now, didn’t she?’

The chance to express gratitude and show kindness, to go out and have fun together, to live like those Earth people I always envied… Samantha gave me that gift.

In exchange, she died and I lost my magic, but I gained the opportunity to say some warm words, even if late.

I could newly form a family, make friends, and build a tribe.

Thinking that way, even if it seemed a bit random, I really wanted to say this right now.

“Thank you, Samantha.”

At my words as I looked out the window, Beatrice’s eyes widened.

“Samantha? Ah… your magical exoskeleton? No, wait. She’s a creation god now, right?”

Right, a creation god who died. But now that didn’t matter. She was just my…

“No. My daughter. My sorry and precious daughter. I don’t have enough magic left to lift even a window… but thanks to her, I got this chance.”

Wow!

Wow! Wow!

I said it! Such an embarrassing thing! So naturally without even realizing it! Ugh! Wow! Damn!

But it wasn’t just me who was surprised.

Rumble rumble CRASH!

Suddenly, lightning struck from the clear sky.

CRACK!

Flower trees grew from the muddy, desolate ground and scattered cherry blossoms.

Whoooooosh~

A storm-like wind swept through,

Clank!

Opening the closed window and carrying in the flower petals. The golden bird fluttered in behind them.

Both Tris and I looked at each other simultaneously.

Tris was deeply flustered.

This incredible phenomenon wasn’t caused by Tris.

Then?

I muttered stupidly.

“Samantha?”