Ramu (1)
I knew at once.
I was dreaming.
“Seonghyeon! You need to start getting ready! Do you know what time it is? Why are you still not up?”
“Tsk, tsk. I told you to get up early today.”
“We’re going to miss the train! Get up, wash, and get ready!”
My mother’s voice calling for me and my father’s clicking tongue reached me faintly.
The two people I could no longer see.
I wanted to run to them right away and embrace them with all my strength, but my body would not move as I wished.
As though I had only been permitted to watch, I awkwardly rose from the bed and headed for the bathroom out of habit.
“Son, if you want to succeed in life, you have to experience the wider world. And there’s nothing better for that than traveling.”
“Oh, honestly. You should take us on an overseas trip before saying things like that.”
“What? You know it’s not that I don’t want to take you. It’s just that foreign countries aren’t as safe as Korea, and if something happens…”
“Oh, all right, all right. Good grief, you can’t say anything to you.”
And soon, I was able to tell what point in time this dream was showing me.
The family trips we took every year on our wedding anniversary, at my travel-loving father’s insistence.
“But is it because the two of them aren’t coming this year? It feels kind of empty, doesn’t it?”
“It can’t be helped. Grandmother’s getting on in years. And Taesan said he wanted to stay with her.”
“She feels so sorry, saying she’s only been a burden all this time, so we made plans for just the three of us, but… It still bothers me a little. Maybe we should have just skipped it this year.”
After learning about Taesan’s circumstances, we had always traveled together with the two of them. But somehow, that day, only the three of us set out for the first time in a long while.
And I knew very well what had happened after that.
‘No! Don’t go!’
But there was nothing I could do.
I screamed as I watched myself head toward Seoul Station with my parents, but my voice only echoed within me and never reached them.
‘No!!’
And then…
“Wow~ What a spectacular view. Son, coming here was a good idea, right?”
“Oh my, this is delicious! We should buy lots of it on the way back. We have to take some to Taesan’s family.”
The accident that had remained vivid in his memories never happened.
Not until we finished an utterly ordinary, if somewhat boring, trip and returned home.
‘…I see. So this is a dream after all.’
At that moment, I understood exactly what kind of dream it was.
A dream was nothing more than the brain stringing together the remnants of thoughts left behind in a plausible manner.
There was nothing strange about it showing me a situation I desperately wished for and imagined instead of the cold reality.
From then on, I was able to watch the events unfold with a much easier heart.
As dreams normally were, the flow of time was unclear and erratic, but it was not difficult to estimate roughly how much time had passed.
“He’s oversleeping again. Get up already!”
“Didn’t that boy say he had a lecture this morning?”
“Exactly. He’ll run out without even eating because he’s late again. Seonghyeon!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
I graduated from high school normally and entered a university in Seoul according to my grades.
I was a fairly decent student, so although I had barely made the cut, I managed to get into a fairly well-known school.
Of course, I couldn’t help being compared to that friend of mine who worked part-time and still received a full scholarship.
“Hey, Seonghyeon.”
“Uh…”
“What’s with you? Why are you already half-dead first thing in the morning? Did you stay up all night again?”
“Yaaawn… There was a promotion match.”
“Hah, you’re going to die young at this rate.”
I yawned lazily and chatted with Taesan.
The world was in an uproar over Awakened Ones and supernatural crimes, but they did not have much effect on my daily life.
Korea was relatively safe compared to other countries, and as was always the case, those who suffered tragedy were a small minority compared to those who did not.
Just as I had been in reality.
In this dream, I had simply become one of the majority.
—Next, the Global News. The villain ‘■■■,’ who infiltrated Zhongnanhai, the heart of China, has finally been arrested after a long period on the wanted list. He is said to have caused enormous damage during…
The ominous incidents and accidents being reported on television were also stories far removed from me.
How much time passed like that?
The repetitive passages of daily life flew by at a rapid pace.
Exams, birthdays, romance, travel, games, heartbreak, and so on.
I laughed and cried over the ordinary yet slightly special events experienced by most people, growing little by little.
‘Maybe living like this wouldn’t have been so bad.’
I had neither the power nor the authority to control the world, but I had a life filled with small happiness alongside the people precious to me.
It was a peaceful enough scene that I could accept it as the future I had wanted.
Yes.
At least until the atmosphere suddenly changed.
‘What is this?’
One day, the light vanished from the sky.
At first, I could not understand what was happening.
I was far too insignificant to recognize it right away.
Rumble—
But the moment I met the gaze of a gigantic eye that soon covered the sky, I could not help but understand instinctively.
Something so enormous that it could hold the sky—or no, the entire Earth—in one hand was looking down from above.
‘Is that really an eye?’
Perhaps it was not.
Maybe my brain, unable to comprehend what my eyes had seen, had simply associated it with the closest thing it could imagine.
But that was not what mattered now.
[■■■■■—!]
An incomprehensible message, one whose origin could not be identified, shook my mind.
Yet I, possessing no abilities whatsoever, could do nothing.
The same was true even of the highest Transcendents, who had wielded absolute power until then.
That thing was, quite literally, a ‘god’ beyond the reach of mortals.
And immediately afterward—
I, Han Seonghyeon—
“…”
—stared blankly at the familiar ceiling and fell into thought.
‘What kind of ridiculous dream was that?’
As dreams always did, the memories began to blur the instant I awoke, so I hurriedly recalled a few of the important things.
For example… my parents’ vivid faces, which I could now see only in photographs.
“Urgh. It was pretty nice until right before the end, though…”
A world where I had not lost my parents and had never awakened an ability.
While I had been in the dream, I had not noticed anything particularly strange, but looking back now, there were more than a few things that differed from reality enough to feel jarring.
No, in fact, I should say there were more differences than similarities.
‘Well, that’s how dreams are.’
I shrugged and rose from the bed.
Perhaps because the genre of the dream had suddenly shifted to horror, I wanted to wash up quickly after breaking into a cold sweat in my sleep.
‘Not just horror, but cosmic horror. Well, it would be funny if I were still scared of ghosts or monsters at this point.’
A hollow chuckle escaped me before I knew it.
The Immortal King, who commanded ghostly entities and other walking corpses; the Vampire King, who reigned at the pinnacle of all vampires; the Demon King, who stood above the heads of demons and ruled the demon realm; even bizarre monstrosities that devoured all manner of grotesque monsters like nutritious snacks.
Imagining those avatars, accustomed only to inflicting fear on others, trembling in terror was enough to make me laugh.
After taking a refreshing shower with a much lighter heart, the lingering unease I had felt upon waking from the dream vanished completely.
I reclined in an armchair with a cup of hot coffee and muttered quietly.
“So—what was the cause of me suddenly having a dream like that?”
I had no intention of dismissing it as nothing more than a dream.
If I were an ordinary person, perhaps that might have been enough. But could someone whose soul had grown vast enough to harbor the Seed of Divinity really have a meaningless dream?
At this level, even thoughts that surfaced without any context would sometimes touch upon the truth.
‘It seems related to the future Heinrich saw when he obtained the Fruit of Mythology… But it’s too different to call it a prophetic dream.’
Even so, I could not place too much faith in it.
I was not a precognitive ability user, and so long as I could not determine where the truth ended and illusion began, it remained uncertain information.
‘No, even precogs can’t guarantee a hundred-percent hit rate. There’s a reason they always speak so vaguely.’
After that, I spent a long while sipping coffee and organizing my thoughts.
Various hypotheses ran through my mind during the process, but one thing was important above all.
‘I have to prepare thoroughly so that I can respond with certainty no matter what happens in the future.’
Even if I had to face an extraterrestrial godhead that invaded Earth.
Dealing with the Lord of the Beoncheon Society was already difficult enough, and now I had to shoulder yet another concern. A sigh escaped me.
I wished there were someone—anyone—who could share this burden with me…
Just as I had that thought and took another sip of coffee—
“Pffft!”
I couldn’t swallow it and sprayed it out instead.
Then, after blinking in bewilderment, I hurriedly moved my avatars.
‘What is this? How did this happen?’
Hoon, the entity who had been living with Ramu, roughly flung open one of the doors.
It was rude and inconsiderate behavior for a girl’s room, but there was no helping it at the moment.
‘She’s not here.’
Though I had half expected it, the room was empty.
I had confirmed she was here just moments ago!
‘Could she have gone out through the window…? No, that can’t be.’
Ramu had shut herself away in the room of her own accord. I had never imprisoned her in the first place.
Nor had the barrier installed for security purposes left any trace behind.
The residence on this side might not have been as secure as the main mansion, but I had still equipped it with fairly thorough defenses.
“Whew. Could it really have been true?”
Hoon took a deep breath and steadied himself.
In truth, there had been no need to move so frantically.
I had merely reconfirmed the situation. I already knew where she was.
More precisely—
I had learned it through that place first.
He focused his mind on the avatar at the location where Ramu had been detected.
The Gold Dragon, Horus.
‘How did she even get there?’
Ramu, who had been on Earth only moments ago—
was now in the Ganghwan Realm.
***
The Dragon God Palace had fallen into chaos.
An outsider had intruded into a place boasting the most thorough security on Geumo Island, which was practically the headquarters of the monsters.
More specifically, into the residence of the infant Yellow Dragon, Hwiryeong, located at the very center of those excessively strict defenses.
The first to discover the intruder was the Black Dragon.
She had come to visit Hwiryeong, as usual carrying various snacks without the other Five Dragons knowing, and saw it.
A human girl who looked to be in her early teens, giggling and chatting with their precious treasure.
What happened immediately afterward hardly needed to be mentioned.
The commotion all around made it perfectly clear.
“How dare a human enter the Dragon God Palace…!”
The Black Dragon, a girl in her mid-teens with long black hair braided down her back, ground her teeth as jet-black energy billowed from her.
She already hated humans with a passion.
And now she had encountered one in the worst possible manner…
[Kyah! Kyaaaang—!]
If Hwiryeong had not wrapped its long body around the human girl and barked fiercely, something terrible would already have happened.
“She’s your friend? What are you talking about, Hwiryeong? How could a mere human be your friend? No, more importantly, there’s no way you could have another friend when you’ve been in here the whole time…”
[Gyururu! Kyang!]
“W-Who said you don’t have any friends?! There’s nothing you can’t say to your big sister! That’s it. Come here. I must have spoiled you far too much all this time…”
[Hing-hing~!]
“Grrr! You little…!”
Horus had received word of the intruder through the emergency contact network and rushed over. After surveying the situation, he let out a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, thanks to Hwiryeong’s active intervention, it seemed the situation had not escalated into the disaster they had feared.
Leaving the other Five Dragons, who arrived one after another, behind him, he slowly approached the center of the commotion.
More precisely, he approached Ramu, the girl protected by the golden energy flowing from Hwiryeong’s body.
[Kyuing!]
Upon seeing him, Hwiryeong brightened and wiggled its head.
It looked as though it wanted to wrap itself around him immediately, but it seemed to be forcing itself to hold back so it could protect Ramu.
“Horus! You came at just the right time! Talk some sense into her!”
The Black Dragon was also glad to see him.
She had been unable to do anything, afraid that using force might injure Hwiryeong. But if it was Horus, whom Hwiryeong followed so readily, he would surely be able to persuade it somehow.
“Ah…”
His appearance—he looked no older than five or six—also had the effect of easing the tension that had seized Ramu amid the sudden turn of events.
Encouraged by everyone’s response, Horus stepped forward and quickly brought the situation under control.
He calmed the furious Black Dragon and sent her away, gently soothing the highly sensitive Hwiryeong, and then questioned Ramu, who kept anxiously glancing around, about what had happened.
“…So you just thought that you wanted to meet it, and when you came to your senses, you were here?”
“Yes… No, I mean, yes.”
Horus wore a peculiar expression at her answer.
She had not even specified a particular world or set of coordinates. She had crossed the walls between dimensions simply by thinking that she wanted to see someone?
And she had arrived precisely at the target’s location without leaving behind a single trace?
“Then can you return to where you originally came from? Using the same method you used to get here.”
“Huh? Um… I’ll try. …I mean, yes.”
At that, Ramu squeezed her eyes shut and strained.
About a minute passed.
Just as it seemed that perhaps she could not do it immediately—
[Whine?]
Her figure vanished as though it had been washed away.
Hwiryeong wandered around the spot where Ramu had been moments earlier, as though fascinated, but no trace of her remained there.
And then—
“…Huh? There…”
Hoon met the gaze of Ramu, who had suddenly appeared in the empty room, and smiled helplessly.
‘If she can do this without even having mastered it yet, then the cooldown and delay must be practically nonexistent. What an absurdly overpowered ability.’
It seemed I had picked up a child far more extraordinary than I had expected.