Chapter 136

It was a blue light that seemed to spread out like a star cluster.

I felt as if I were blinded by the feast of stars, which twinkled distantly yet brilliantly.

When the light finally faded…

I was on a beach where dark blue waves crashed.

The dazzling emerald water was nowhere to be seen, and dark, heavy waves filled my vision.

The sky was full of storm clouds, looking as if rain would fall at any moment, and the beach was made up of sharp rocks and pebbles.

Instead of soft, warm white sand, the hard texture piercing my feet woke me up.

It was an unfamiliar space, completely different from the peaceful place where I had been just moments ago.

Yet, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu. As if I had been here in a dream.

A man stood on the beach.

His towering stature, visible at a glance even from a great distance, made him look inhuman.

He was gazing at the sea.

Even though he couldn’t see anything except the fierce waves, he seemed to see something clearly.

His blue eyes scattered a brilliant radiance.

He slowly raised his hand.

Then the sea parted.

Something. Huge. Appeared. Overwhelming. Terrifying.

Huh?

I flinched in surprise and closed my eyes.

The moment my vision was blocked, a belated terror washed over me. It was the terror of having seen something a human should not have seen.

In the pitch-black darkness, I heard the grim scream it let out.

It was a language I could not understand at all.

However, for some reason, I thought it sounded as if it were pleading.

It sounded like a voice confessing its sins and begging for its life.

I impulsively opened my eyes.

I thought it would be okay to see this much.

And I witnessed…

The moment a distant being was annihilated by an even more terrible catastrophe.

A cosmic nebula covered the dark blue sea. The being with an impure form desperately resisted the starlight engulfing it.

Its final struggle shook the sea, but it was futile.

Before that being, even the sea was nothing more than a single drop of water.

Its movements, stained with blue starlight, subsided.

Then, it was sucked into the black void that appeared in the air.

I gazed at the black space.

It contained a universe filled with beautiful stars.

However, looking into its essence, it was ultimately a void where nothing existed.

The sea, which had split apart, tangled back together as one, and soon the waves surged as if nothing had happened.

I looked at the being that had accomplished all of this.

“…….”

I tried to call its name, but I could not.

It was because I could not tell if it was the being I knew.

I felt no fear or terror. It was because it had transcended the realm of perception.

I stared at it motionless, as if my brain were paralyzed. He slowly turned toward me.

Our eyes met.

A voice resembling a well-tuned double bass called out to me.

“Roasted Chestnut.”

Just as the rabbit butler and the cat butler would call out to me…

As I stood there motionless, he quietly watched me.

He let out a faint sigh and spoke sternly, as if addressing a misbehaving child.

“Come here.”

I had no choice but to approach him.

It was not by my own will.

My body moved forcibly, even though I did not want to. It was akin to a survival instinct.

I staggered toward him. And I lifted my head.

The moment our eyes met was also not something I had wanted.

“Were you surprised?”

His tone was affectionate.

He soothed me as if he were still the person I knew and secretly relied on.

“I am sorry. If I had known you would be this surprised, I wouldn’t have given you the order.”

I opened my lips very slowly.

“Dominic-ssi…”

I thought there might not be a reply.

But he answered.

“Yes, Roasted Chestnut.”

The way he addressed me had changed slightly from before.¹

He quietly looked down at me.

He was waiting for me to speak, but I… didn’t know what to say.

There were countless questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to blurt anything out.

As our gazes met, I felt as if I were being slowly strangled.

The moment I thought I was suffocating from the gradually tightening sensation,

I managed to speak.

“Has your memory… returned?”

“Ah, memory.”

A smile flickered in his eyes, as if he found my question amusing.

He bowed his head toward me.

A vast, blue cosmos filled my field of vision.

“Not yet. Look, isn’t it Dominic?”

He was right.

It was Dominic, for now.

Dominic gave me a gentle smile.

“Now that Roasted Chestnut has grown a bit, I suppose you can understand. Although I called it ‘memory’ according to human standards, it is closer to something else.”

He explained it to me step by step.

“It is about reclaiming one’s existence. Because I lost a part of myself when Roasted Chestnut called me.”

It was a statement I would never have understood in the past.

But now, I felt I understood what it meant.

Back when I was playing the game, I summoned him, and he responded to my call and came to CallOVo.

However, he was an existence that could not be contained by mere trials.

By being forcibly fitted into it, he lost his memory—a part of his existence.

I parted my lips.

“I… am sorry… because of me….”

“What?”

“This, what you lost… If I hadn’t summoned you…”

Dominic let out a low laugh as I stammered my apology. Although warnings of danger filled my mind, I was unable to do anything.

I could only stare at Dominic as if I were possessed.

“Actually, I’m curious, too.”

Dominic leaned toward me.

Due to the difference in our physiques, even though he had only leaned his upper body slightly, it created the illusion that he was about to topple into me.

“No being would dare summon me…”

A voice so affectionate it was almost deceptive asked me.

“How did Roasted Chestnut summon me?”

I blinked blankly. My tongue moved on its own to answer him.

“I… don’t really know either…”

If I knew anything, I would surely have confessed every detail to Dominic.

But truly, I have no idea.

To think that such a formidable being was summoned and trapped in a trial by a mere game playthrough.

I was the one who wanted to know how such a thing could have happened.

Dominic looked into me.

I found myself staring directly into his eyes.

Blue eyes where stars floated.

His pupils, resembling the universe, were so incredibly deep that the longer I gazed, the more I could not escape.

I felt suffocated by the infinite emptiness…

After a very long time, Dominic averted his gaze.

Dominic looked at me with amusement as I gasped for breath, like someone who had been submerged in deep water and barely pulled out.

"Fascinating, it is certainly curious."

"……."

"We might find out the reason once you grow a little more, Roasted Chestnut."

He brushed back my sweat-soaked hair.

He reassured me that there was no need to worry about that, as regaining his existence was something that would eventually happen.

Then, he spoke of something else.

"Now, Roasted Chestnut. There is a more important matter than such trivialities right now."

Dominic asked with a subtle smile on his lips.

“Was ■■■ okay to play with? I couldn’t stay by your side because I was cutting it into tiny pieces to make it easier for you to handle.”

You mean that was just ’a tiny piece’?

The thing that turned the world upside down, melted and swallowed every being, and plunged them into illusion?

“Ah, what I just dealt with was the rest of ■■■. Thanks to you, I, too, have regained a little of what I lost.”

He continued by saying that while he would have regained more if he had come into contact with a larger entity, but this wasn’t bad.

He also didn’t forget to praise me, a young novice, for having dealt with ■■■—even if it was just a tiny fraction—a great feat.

His explanation, tailored to my level, was kind.

When I failed to react, he lightly placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Roasted Chestnut.”

I flinched and shook his hand off.

Stepping back, I looked at Dominic with eyes full of wariness.

“What did you just do?”

I felt the exact same sensation that I had when ■■■ tried to infiltrate my mind.

Dominic replied softly, as if to signal that I was not in danger.

“I was just trying to ease your tension, Roasted Chestnut.”

“I’m fine, so I’d like to just talk right now.”

Only after saying it did I feel belatedly scared.

I wondered if I had been too arrogant, but strangely, Dominic seemed amused.

“Understood, Roasted Chestnut. I won’t lay a hand on you.”

He smiled as he readily promised me. His blue gaze met mine.

It was a silent command to come closer.

I wanted to run far away, but there was nowhere to escape.

I also knew that running away wouldn’t solve the problem.

I gritted my teeth and approached Dominic with cautious steps.

He knelt down. He kept his gaze slightly apart and held something out to me.

The orb, about the size of a candy, looked terribly harmless. However, the moment I saw that neon green thing, it reminded me of an eyeball.

“You had trouble eating it before, so I made it a little differently this time.”

Staring at the round orb for a long time, I finally realized.

“…Dominic-ssi.”

And I asked him.

“Did I eat the heart and eyeball of Infernum?”

“Yes.”

I felt deflated by his quick answer, without even a single word of denial.

Since Sla2Plate, I had been tormented by heat.

I had always felt heat whenever my eye color changed.

But this time was completely different. It was a flame that burned me from the very core.

Caught up in the heat, I committed violent thoughts and actions.

I recalled the time when I was a young god, engulfed in intense heat.

Filled only with the thought of burning my opponent to ashes, I created abilities akin to punishment.

I paid no heed to the warnings the system window gave me. I was in an extremely irrational state.

I concluded that the cause of the flaming heat, which I could not handle, was because I ate Infernum.

What would happen if I ate this thing Dominic is handing me right now—presumably made of ■■■?

It didn’t seem like anything good would happen.

At the same time, a fundamental question arose.

What was Dominic trying to do?

He had fed me Infernum, and this time, he was going to the trouble of preparing ■■■ for me.

I could clearly feel the goodwill Dominic had for me.

He wanted to help me grow as a god.

But why?

Because I was a young god and his contractor? Or to satisfy his curiosity?

Various thoughts crossed my mind, but none seemed to be the right answer.

I chose my words very carefully, selecting the ones that would least not offend Dominic.

“Dominic-ssi… Thank you for your concern, but I am fine this time.”

I had almost lost my reason to the flames of Infernum, and I felt I shouldn’t accept something new here.

At my refusal, Dominic opened his eyes slightly, looking surprised.

“It won’t hurt. Didn’t I promise?”

I had no memory of him making a promise to me.

I answered him, explaining that I wasn’t refusing because of the pain.

“I’m afraid consuming it might make me… strange.”

“I see.”

Dominic lowered his gaze for a moment and rolled the orb back and forth in his hand.

The orb in his large hand looked incredibly small.

“Roasted Chestnut.”

“…Yes.”

“You are badly hurt.”

“…….”

At his reproachful words, I bit my lip.

I had felt it to some extent, too. The pain was still rising.

When I didn’t answer, Dominic slowly blinked.

He took my hand and placed the orb on my palm.

Then, clasping my hand over the orb, he spoke.

“Look. You’ll be able to see it now, Roasted Chestnut.”

Confused and not understanding what he meant, I felt a shock that sent shivers down my spine.

It was because I had looked into myself.

A bewildered voice stammered out.

“What, what is this….”

Golden lines were haphazardly etched all over my body.

The irregular lines looked precarious, as if my body had been shattered into pieces and barely pieced back together.

It seemed as though the slightest touch would send me scattering back into fragments.

“It has been like this since the first time I looked into Roasted Chestnut. It’s getting worse and worse. You must have sustained serious internal injuries while using your powers this time… Let me just check for a moment.”

“…!”

He reached out his other hand. I screamed.

No! It hurts!

The hand that had dug into my chest caressed my heart. The touch, as if checking something, was rather rough.

I struggled, trying to break free somehow, but I couldn’t escape because his hand was gripping me tightly.

Dominic frowned as he watched me in pain.

But he did not stop his hand.

“As expected… to think you’re this broken.”

He rummaged through me with a look of blatant displeasure.

Stop it!

A low voice fell repeatedly into my ears.

"You have done something truly foolish. Why did you choose Resurrection? You are now in a more dangerous state."

A large hand clutched my heart.

Thump, thump—I could feel my heartbeat trapped in his grip.

Dominic spoke as if delivering a stern sentence.

"If things continue like this, Roasted Chestnut will cease to exist."

¹Dominic has always referred to Goyo as “군밤 씨” with the -ssi at the end. I’ve always just cut it out, because on an name like “Roasted Chestnut,” it really sounds strange, and it denotes equal standing, so there’s not really a need to keep it in this instance. Here he refers to Goyo as just “군밤” dropping the -ssi. In this case, he’s probably exerting his seniority/higher authority over Goyo as an older & more powerful god.

scary…in other news it seems my novelupdates group has finally been approved! not sure what the process is exactly but i’ll be linking the chapters over there. also, i’m not sure how many of you there are, but there’s 50 subscribed to the newsletter, so thank you so much for the support!

also, last night i had a dream i found a han goyo nendroid at target, so i’m really disappointed it wasn’t real :(