“I know.”
I had to hold my breath at Father’s words.
To some extent, I had expected such an answer.
If Mother was alive, the person most likely to know where she was.
Naturally, I had thought that would be none other than Father. I looked into Father’s eyes and asked.
“…Where is she? Where is Mother?”
I had to know where Mother was.
Not for the common reason of simply missing her.
Because I had gradually begun to realize that Mother was involved in everything entangled with me.
From the beast said to be within my body to Mother’s identity as the one called the Second Calamity.
And even the name known as the Lord of the Myriad Realms.
And among them, the most important thing was:
‘The matter of the Divine Sword.’
Right before sending the Divine Sword away, the voice that had enveloped me and spoken was unmistakably Mother’s.
How could I forget?
It was a voice that had lingered, haunting me even when I wished to forget.
Mother had surely told me to harbor the Divine Sword within myself.
I had listened to those words and was currently keeping the energy of the Divine Sword contained in my body.
Perhaps Mother might also know the method to meet the Divine Sword again.
That is what I thought.
Therefore, to know the truth of all these matters, I ultimately had to meet Mother directly.
“If you know, I beg you to tell me.”
“...”
At my question, Father looked at me without showing any particular reaction.
I wondered how he could be so unresponsive, but when I looked closely at Father’s eyes, I understood.
‘It’s not that he has no reaction.’
His pupils were shaking ever so slightly.
Seeing that, I held back and waited until an answer came from Father.
After such a brief silence, Father finally opened his mouth to me.
“…Why do you wish to know that?”
At the response I heard, I had to frown before Father—something rarely done.
Why do I wish to know that?
At Father’s words, I felt something inside me flip over in an instant.
“Is it strange for a child to want to know where his mother is?”
“...”
“…It’s not that I simply wish to know. I wish to know, even if it is only now.”
How long had it been?
To think a day would come when I raised my voice before Father. It was the first time since my regression, and even in my previous life, it was a moment that could be counted on one hand.
It was a situation that warranted it.
It was something I had not known until the moment my heart burst and I died. If Mother was alive somewhere.
Moreover, if it was related to my current life. And even if it were not related to that, it was something I had to know by any means necessary.
“If you know, you can tell me.”
Despite my words, Father remained utterly immovable. That silence was incredibly suffocating.
“Lord Patriarch…”
“If you were to learn where your mother is, what do you intend to do?”
At Father’s question that cut in sharply, I paused for a moment, but I immediately spoke.
“I will go to her.”
“To where your mother is?”
“Yes.”
I did not utter a lie.
That was the purpose of my question, and Father must have already surmised as much.
“…That is not a place you can go simply because you wish to.”
“Why? Because it is the Demonic Realm?”
“...”
“If not that, is it because I must become the Young Patriarch? If not that either…”
Father’s eyes, which I had not been able to see clearly at times before, looked especially sharp today.
“Is it because Mother is a Calamity?”
“…!”
The instant the words left my mouth.
Gu-gu-gu-guk—!
Heat erupted from Father’s body as if exploding.
At that dense aura, I unconsciously almost took a step back, but I barely withstood it.
If it had been any other time, perhaps, but I did not wish to yield now.
Amidst the spreading heat, Father’s eyes looked incredibly sharp.
Was he frowning?
If not that, was he angry?
Because Father’s expressional changes were unfamiliar to me, I could not tell.
“…How do you know that?”
Was this a reaction to the statement that Mother was a Calamity?
If so, it meant that Father knew of the existence of the Calamity and that Mother was a Calamity.
“I heard it—”
Kuuuuu—!
The moment I tried to give my answer. A heavy presence surged from Father. At that aura, I felt my chest sink with a thud.
“From whom. Who dared tell you such a story?”
‘…Damn.’
Father seemed quite enraged; the heat gradually intensified.
It was at a level quite similar to the heat I had felt earlier.
What was he angry about?
Was the problem that I had heard of this?
“…That is not what is important right now.”
“No, it is important. So speak.”
“...”
It was a gaze that said he would not let this pass without an answer. Looking into those eyes, I spat out my words as if I had no choice.
“…I heard it from the World Tree, the one called the ‘Lord.’”
“...”
Father’s eyes trembled upon hearing my words.
The World Tree had said it.
That Father and Mother had come to meet it. If so, it must mean that Father also knew of the World Tree.
Father’s reaction was unusual, as if confirming that my words were true.
“That… how do you know of that? Could it be…”
Father’s large hand gripped my shoulder.
“Have you been to that place?”
“If you mean the place where the World Tree is, yes.”
The false world. It meant the place where the sealed World Tree had been.
The more I answered, the more Father’s expression distorted.
Why? Why was he making such an expression?
Just as that question arose in my mind, Father spoke to me.
“The reason you crossed the wall. Was that also the influence of that place?”
The reason I had reached Hwagyeong at a young age.
Father was asking if it was the influence of the Demonic Realm.
“It was not without influence.”
I had received help.
Thanks to the time spent there, I had been able to shorten the path to reaching Hwagyeong.
However, the more I spoke, the worse Father’s expression became.
“That is not a place one can go to carelessly. How in the world did you set foot there?”
“…It happened by chance.”
“How long, how long were you there?”
He seemed to know that time in that place flowed differently from here.
At Father’s question, I turned my thoughts.
How long had it been?
Since I had not passed the days counting them, I did not know exactly.
I think I had counted up to three or four years.
After that, I had not paid attention, deeming it unnecessary.
“It was not very long.”
Father did not look particularly convinced by my words.
What in the world was the problem that he was making such a fierce expression?
‘Anyway, it would have been the same upon returning.’
Even if it was a false world, hunger and thirst were felt.
If necessary, I simply killed demonic beasts to fill my stomach. If my throat was parched, I quenched my thirst with blood.
If I felt the unique poison of demonic beasts, I purified it with internal energy; if I could not purify it all, I simply moved while enduring the pain.
As long as I did not die, there was no problem.
As a result, I reached Hwagyeong.
Furthermore, with the enlightenment gained there, I was able to cross over to the present world.
What was the problem?
I could not understand Father’s reaction.
Though it bothered me, this was not what I had come to ask about now.
“Even you, Lord Patriarch, went there with Mother, or so I was told.”
“Did she say so?”
She? The term Father used for the World Tree subtly bothered me.
“Yes.”
“…It seems she spoke of unnecessary things carelessly.”
I flinched at the dense anger contained in his voice.
The World Tree was, after all, a being that had been the master of the Central Plains. Yet Father spoke brutally as if it were nothing.
“Is the reason you will not tell me because Mother truly is a Calamity brought upon the world?”
“If that were so, what would you do?”
“Even if that were the case, nothing would change. I must know.”
“...”
Having heard my answer, Father stared at me fixedly.
Just when I thought he might finally give me an answer.
“I forbid it.”
“…!”
At Father’s answer, I gritted my teeth with an audible click.
Was Father trying to refuse even now, after I had come this far?
“Why… I have come to know to some extent. I believe I am qualified to hear this much.”
I wondered if Father was acting this way because he too was bound by a prohibition, but I felt that was not the case.
It was merely a hunch. And my hunches at times like these were never wrong.
The moment my face was about to contort in a grimace.
“Throughout your life, how many regrets have you experienced?”
Father brought up something rather out of the blue.
“…Regrets?”
At the sudden words, I paused for a moment.
Regrets?
How many regrets had I had?
“I have had many.”
I spoke with a hollow laugh.
What was the use of saying so; regrets had been my life itself. I had experienced them to the point of sickness. Perhaps they were something I would have to continue experiencing to the point of sickness.
But why was Father asking such a thing?
“This Patriarch… no, I have not had many regrets in life.”
It was a random tale. A life without many regrets.
It was truly an enviable life.
Whether he knew my thoughts or not, Father continued speaking.
“I lived a life deliberately free of regrets. Because I thought excessive lingering affection was meaningless. Having lived thus… do you know what one of my few remaining regrets is?”
A regret belonging to Father.
“…I do not know.”
There was no way I could know.
When I answered carefully, Father spoke as if he had been waiting.
“That regret lies with you and your mother.”
“…!”
The words pierced my chest like a dagger.
I had never imagined he would say such a thing.
That I and my mother were his regrets? How could he utter such words to my face?
“What do you mean by that—!”
The moment I was about to lose my temper unable to hold back.
“That day. I should not have taken you to your mother.”
At Father’s words, my breath caught in my throat.
Because it was unexpected.
That day he spoke of now—
It meant the day Mother was swallowed by the Demonic Realm and disappeared.
“That is—”
“I should not have sent your mother off like that. I should not have heeded her request and made the young you face her. That is my regret.”
Just as I was about to say something, I was overwhelmed by a sense of alienation upon hearing Father’s words.
“…Because of Mother’s words?”
Moreover. That he should not have sent her off like that?
Did this not make it seem as if Mother had left willingly?
“...”
“That day. Are you saying the reason you took me was because of Mother’s words?”
Father did not answer my question, but I could tell those words meant yes.
‘What kind of damned nonsense is this?’
It was still vivid. The memory of that time still surfaced in my mind occasionally.
A midwinter night.
My hands and ears were red from the cold.
Just as my pale, frozen mind grew hazy, Mother’s hand touched my cheek. Before me, Father had been looking down at me.
I remembered without omission the unknowable Demonic Realm Gate that had opened behind her and Mother’s tears.
That very moment was the starting point when my life began to fall apart—how could I forget?
Until now, I had naturally thought Father had dragged me there.
‘So actually, it was Mother who wanted to see me?’
This was a story I had never known at all.
“I should not have granted her wish to see you one last time either.”
Because the moonlight cast shadows, Father’s expression was suddenly hard to see.
If Father’s words were truly true.
“Why are you telling me such a thing now?”
They were words far, far too late.
I had lived thinking Mother became such because of the karma of this damned household and Father’s choice.
I had feared Father, who had deliberately shown me Mother’s last moments then.
As if.
As if to say that if I refused the karma I was to shoulder, the same would happen to me.
But now, to say that was not the case.
“…It is far too late.”
It was already a story that had become far too late.
Whether those words were true or not. I had already come too far.
“Why did you not tell me? Even if nothing else, if only you had told me this much beforehand.”
“Even if I had, do you think anything would have changed?”
“...”
At the counter-question, I could not bring myself to say yes.
Because by now, I knew all too well that it would not have been so simple.
Even so.
“…Then did you wish for me to crumble into resentment toward you, Lord Patriarch?”
My previous life had been exactly so.
I had collapsed and crumbled, sinking into wretchedness.
Had Father truly not known I would crumble so?
At the words containing many emotions, Father exhaled several breaths.
Those breaths felt somehow heavy.
“People—no matter who they are. When a situation too arduous to endure befalls them.”
It flowed out together with his breath.
“They will invariably seek someone to resent.”
The fleetingly uttered words were enough to churn my mind.
“If such a figure is necessary, rather than resenting a world you cannot confront, would it not be better to resent a powerless father?”
“...”
It stung. It was truly stinging, somewhere deep inside.
This was not what I had wanted to hear.
I merely needed to know where Mother was.
I had not wanted to learn of such things only now.
“…It is a contradiction.”
“Yes.”
“Even if, by any chance, your consideration lay in that place, Lord Patriarch. It is not justified that you merely watched me fall apart.”
Though it was my fault for failing to endure and beginning to crumble. Nevertheless, it was Father who had not lifted me up and had simply left me to become so.
“Even that, you do not mean to say was because you wished for me to resent yourself?”
I am swept away by the wind.
It feels as if emotions accumulated over the past days are crashing down all at once.
Where had these emotions been buried, only to raise their heads now?
I had thought I had lived well without paying them any mind.
On one hand, such a thought arises.
If Father had tried to grab and raise me up as I crumbled.
Would I truly have changed?
It was something impossible to know, as it had never happened.
Even if it were something that could have changed, I wished it had not.
Because if it were so.
The me who had not experienced such things would feel too wretched.
So please.
“Yes.”
I wished Father would not look at me with such eyes.
“That is also my regret.”
I wished he would look upon me with the cold and chilly eyes he always had.
“It is my sin, knowing I should not have, yet being unable to reach out.”
I wished he would not look at me with such bitter pupils.
“I am sorry.”
“...”
“That is why, all the more, I cannot send you to your mother. For regrets, this much alone is enough.”
At the apology from Father that I had never thought I would hear.
Something that had been barely holding together inside shattered into pieces.
If only he had made excuses—saying it couldn’t be helped, that he had no time to care for me—it would have been better.
Father did not utter such words at all.
That was why it was all the more nauseating.
Immediately, I covered my face with trembling hands.
Not because tears were flowing wretchedly.
But because I could not bear to meet Father’s eyes.
It would have been easier if I had not heard the apology.
How had it come to this?
‘…Ah.’
I should not have received such an apology from Father.
Even if he was the Father I had so feared and resented.
He should not have apologized to me.
Because of the trouble I had caused until now? Because he was my father?
No.
It was not such a reason.
It was a more fundamental reason.
At least.
Truly, at the very least.
One must not apologize to the child who killed oneself.
Like the winter night when I sent Mother away, a memory I had been unable to forget and had pinned into a corner of my mind surfaced.
—Well done.
Father’s words praising me for having ascended to Hwagyeong.
They overlapped with the image of Father speaking to me in the final moment.
Yes, Father’s end.
In my previous life, Father was the only one aside from Wi Seola who had inflicted a wound upon the Cheonma.
Not long after, he met his death.
The Central Plains must have naturally thought that the Cheonma killed Father.
But the truth was different.
The Cheonma did not kill Father.
The one who killed Father was not the Cheonma.
It was me.