〈Chapter 332〉Apostle. (2)
My apostle.
At those words from the World Tree, I couldn't help but frown.
'Apostle?'
What did that mean? Apostle.
Was it really talking to me?
"What do you mean?"
[I am glad to meet you like this.]
A strand of hope laced its hollow, empty voice.
The World Tree spoke to me as though it were delighted.
'Why is everyone...'
Even hearing that, my frown showed no sign of easing.
Everyone was like that.
Those who met me all put emotions of joy into their voices, as if they were pleased.
As if intrigued, or—
As if they welcomed the change brought about by a being like me.
'Damn it.'
None of those things were pleasant for me.
The fact that beings I didn't know welcomed me—
In the end, it meant there was something about me.
I cast aside such thoughts.
And asked the World Tree.
"Do you know who I am?"
Judging by its reaction, I wondered if it knew I had regressed.
The World Tree fell silent at my words, but—
Creeeak.
Its branches moved slowly, showing a reaction.
[Apostle.]
"Why do you keep calling me apostle? What is that?"
[I do not know you. Yet you know me.]
I harbored doubts at its words.
The World Tree does not know me.
But I know the World Tree.
I could understand the latter.
But I didn't understand the former at all.
Even though it knows I know the World Tree.
....
....
！..
.
The being itself doesn't know me?
"What does that mean?"
[It seems you have gone against the flow of time. Apostle.]
"...!"
I gasped at the World Tree's words.
How had it noticed?
'Was the claim that it couldn't remember a lie?'
It spoke so nonchalantly.
My pupils shook.
I had wondered if perhaps it remembered. Really, did this tree even possess memories?
[Are you curious how I know?]
"..."
[Do not be so surprised, for I do not know how you have lived in the time that has passed.]
"Then how do you know?"
Thud.
A tree root burst through the ground and pointed straight at me.
To be precise, it was pointing at my chest.
[Because I can feel the trace I bestowed upon you.]
Only after hearing the World Tree's words did I vaguely understand how the tree had recognized me.
'A trace from my previous life.'
I lightly brushed my chest as the memory surfaced.
It meant the traces that tree had planted in me.
[I have no memory of giving it. But that is undoubtedly the stigma I passed on to you.]
Memories surfaced.
I had accepted it back then simply to survive.
And—
-You're wrapped in all sorts of things.
The Heavenly Demon I encountered later had said that upon seeing me.
Moreover, I had thought the Heavenly Demon erased it.
Had it been something he couldn't erase?
[He seems to have tried to erase it, but he could not remove everything that had been overlaid upon your soul.]
"...Are you reading my mind?"
[How could that be? How could I, a mere giant old tree, do such a thing?]
For all that, it felt like it was reading my inner thoughts one after another.
It was a rather unpleasant feeling.
Overlaid upon the soul.
That was utter bullshit.
Even if I had gone against the flow of time.
Because it meant the soul was inescapable.
"...I came because I have something to ask."
Setting that aside, I had to ask.
There was so much I wanted to ask.
And too much I needed to know.
The reason I had to come to this world somehow, in the end—
Was because there was a mountain of things I needed to ask this tree after meeting it.
Could this old tree really tell me about those things?
[A question, is it? What curiosity brought you to seek me?]
The voice resounded.
It had been the same when I first met it.
A resonance I could not get used to.
Enduring it with effort, I spoke to it.
"Was it you who made me regress?"
Coming to the past against the flow of time was like a miracle.
I knew such a miracle would not come easily to me.
Leaving aside Yeon Il-cheon's words that there must be a reason for the regression I had experienced.
If someone had interfered in such a matter.
This tree was the first being that came to mind.
"I mean... did you save me and send me back to the past?"
Turning back time was, by common sense, close to absolutely impossible.
But if someone else had used such power on me.
They would absolutely not be an ordinary being.
When I thought that far.
The tree before me was absolutely not an ordinary being.
It was the first being I should suspect.
However.
[Apostle. That was not my doing.]
The World Tree stated that it had not done it.
[To go against time is to accumulate unimaginable karma upon the soul.
It is beyond the power of one such as I, a mere old tree.]
"A mere old tree can't talk. And it can't grow as huge as you either, for that matter."
[Whatever the case, the miracle you experienced was not wrought by me.]
I was about to ask how I could believe that.
Knowing it would become a meaningless argument, I closed my mouth.
"So... you're saying it wasn't you who made me regress."
[Unfortunately, I no longer have such power. It is an impossible tale.]
Did saying it was impossible because that power no longer remained mean that it had been possible originally?
[Apostle.]
Wind blew for a moment.
[I do not know what has happened to you.]
The voice filled with sadness grated on my ears. A voice that seemed to grieve for me.
I didn't like it one bit.
"Why do you keep calling me apostle? What the hell is an apostle?"
[You have received my stigma. For you, it is the past, but for me of the future, it means I have chosen you. If so, then you are my apostle.]
"How do you know meeting me is the future?"
[Did you not come now to meet me at an earlier time?]
"..."
[I am glad. I have endured for so very long, for I have finally met one to whom I can bestow the stigma.]
So long.
It had said so then, too.
"What... exactly are you?"
[Did I not tell you?]
I hadn't heard many words from it. Only about how to return to the original world, and how this world was different from the outside.
That was all.
'Not long after speaking, it rotted away and disappeared on its own, so what more could I have heard?'
After conveying a few words to me, just as Jang Seon-yeon's flesh body had done earlier.
It disappeared, turning to dust.
I would never forget the sight of that giant old tree slowly scattering in the wind and disappearing for the rest of my life.
[I am called Mua.]
"I already know that."
[I am the fifth World Tree to descend upon the world.]
[And the Master of this world.]
"Master..."
No matter how I looked at it, this was a world already ruined and rotted away.
"Are you saying you're the god of this world?"
[There was a time I was called such. Seeing you ask that, it seems I did not tell you anything at all.]
"I probably didn't have the time to. You disappeared right away."
[...Disappeared... Yes.]
The World Tree's answer upon hearing my words was gloomy.
It was a voice that made ice form in the listener's stomach.
[It seems I do not have much time left.]
"...By that standard, it shouldn't be that short, should it?"
A few years here.
When I recalled that it was one day in the outside world.
In my previous life, I had fallen here in my late teens.
If we went by that calculation.
The World Tree should have countless years remaining.
But.
[The time humans experience is but an instant. Therefore, though it may be long for you, it is not so long for me.]
The World Tree didn't seem to find that a pleasant story.
[Then it is even more fortunate. For my apostle has come to find me directly.]
"That damn 'apostle' this, 'apostle' that. It's driving me crazy. Why would I be your apostle?"
I don't even believe in gods.
The time to believe in such things had passed.
"You told me."
That I was the flame that would burn the karma accumulated in the world.
I didn't know about this world.
But I knew the place I lived was tangled with many things.
"There's a lot I don't know."
It was shameful that there were more truths I didn't know even after regressing.
I had just wanted to pretend not to know and sleep with my legs stretched out.
But I felt dirty because I seemed to be entangled somewhere with those damned truths.
Even if I wasn't entangled.
It felt unpleasant that those who shouldn't be unhappy seemed to be entangled.
"So tell me where to start untangling this. What is it that you know?"
[...]
The World Tree said nothing upon hearing my words.
A truly uncomfortable silence.
After a moment of this—
Creeeak.
A root burst out of the ground and bent behind me.
As if telling me to sit on it.
[Sit.]
Hearing the words, I carefully sat upon it.
[Apostle. Do you know what a Master is?]
"Master?"
It was among the words the World Tree itself had spoken.
That it was the master of this world.
[Yes, Master. A Master is the essence of the world. The world itself.]
"Explain it in a way that's easy to understand."
[It means exactly that. Because there is a world, there is a Master. And because there is a Master, the world can exist.]
"What..."
[If there is one difference, it is that if the world disappears, the Master also disappears, but if the Master disappears, the world does not collapse.]
I could not understand the story the World Tree was bringing up.
Leaving aside what it meant.
I couldn't understand why it was telling me this now.
"...Why are you talking about that now?"
About the regression. The Blood Demon and Heavenly Demon.
And.
The calamity Yeon Il-cheon spoke of, along with—
The identity of the red sphere called a seed, located in the domain of Guga hidden deep in the front lines.
I had a mountain of things to ask.
I didn't know why it was suddenly talking about such out-of-nowhere things.
[The words "Master of this world"... Well, to be precise, they are not "Master of the world."]
"Then. Does it have another meaning?"
[Precisely... the Master of life.]
"Life?"
[Yes. The master of all life dwelling upon this land is called the Master of the World. It means that because the world exists and there is a Master there, life can live and breathe.]
"So. What does that have to do with what we're talking about now?"
[If the Master of the world were to disappear. What do you think would happen?]
At the World Tree's words.
I had a fleeting illusion that something hazy was becoming clear for a moment.
[The disappearance of the Master means all life meets death.]
"What...?"
I gasped at the World Tree's words.
"What does that mean? All life disappearing?"
World and Master.
Leaving aside whether it was predetermined fate.
It was an incomprehensible story.
Clearly, the World Tree before me now had passed on the stigma or whatever to me in my previous life and disappeared after leaving a few words.
Yet the demonic creatures in this world had not disappeared.
If life had to disappear as the World Tree said, it was already a contradictory story.
Moreover.
'...In the first place, this world doesn't have a Master or anything...!'
Something came to me in the midst of turning my thoughts.
I looked at the World Tree with slightly startled eyes.
As if reacting to this, the World Tree spoke.
[Even if the Master dies, the life forms dwelling upon that land do not suddenly disappear. Normally, other life simply cannot be born. Gradually, the life forms would reach destruction.]
"Life can't be born?"
[That should be the case, originally.]
Master.
Master of the world.
Strange words.
If a Master of the world was needed for life to be born and live.
"...But our world has no Master. How is that possible?"
In the world I lived in, I had never once heard of a being called a Master.
If a Master did not exist.
It meant life shouldn't be able to be born in the first place.
Yet the present world was functioning just fine.
Could there be a Master I didn't know of?
As that doubt flashed by—
[We call that a rift.]
The World Tree told me.
"A rift?,,
[It has departed from the principles set by the world, so calling it a rift is appropriate.]
In a world where no Master exists.
Life forms are breathing and being born.
Then was the world I was living in now operating contrary to the principles of the world?
"Is that a problem?"
[If the world has no Master, it is a situation that departs from principles. So to correct it, a Master must be created.]
"Create a Master."
[That is why I am called the fifth World Tree.]
Because I am the fifth Master to descend upon this land.
That is what it meant by calling itself the fifth World Tree.
"...Then doesn't that mean there's no problem as long as we just wait for a Master to be born?"
Since a Master would appear anyway.
Wouldn't it mean there was no big problem as long as we waited until then?
As I gave such an answer—
[Apostle. I said it, but life born upon the land belongs to the Master.]
The World Tree brought up a different story as if correcting me.
'So.
[If life forms dwell upon a land without a Master, and if new life is to be born upon that land. Do you know what must be done first?]
"To establish a new Master... what must be done?"
The moment I expressed doubt and frowned.
The World Tree said.
[That is.]
[First, all life breathing upon that land must be erased. Only then can a new Master be sown.]
It was a truly terrible story.