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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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Side Story 35
'We've... returned.'
Seong Jihan looked around.
The floor of the Abyss.
The Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams that supposedly needed Lee Hayeon and Lim Gayeong had disappeared.
He looked at his status window.
The Blue stat had grown a bit more, reaching 23.
It had definitely grown more than in other Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams.
Meanwhile.
"What on earth..."
Lim Gayeong, who had come out of the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams unscathed, muttered that, still not fully recovered.
"Are you alright?"
"...My body is fine. But the situation just now..."
"Well... I haven't fully grasped that formation either."
Lim Gayeong closed her mouth after hearing Seong Jihan's answer.
It didn't seem like he would give a detailed answer even if she asked more.
"Let's go back for now. Only Lee Hayeon would have returned."
"Ah... Yes. Understood."
Zzzzing...!
Seong Jihan opened a portal and led the group through it.
And then.
"Gayeong!"
Lee Hayeon, who had been pacing anxiously waiting for them in the VIP room.
Hugged Lim Gayeong.
"How are you? Are you okay? What on earth happened?"
"...I'm fine as you can see."
As she said this, she looked towards Seong Jihan.
"Martial God. May I tell Miss about what happened inside?"
"Hmm... Go ahead. But make it clear that it has nothing to do with reality."
The world inside the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams was different from reality.
When Seong Jihan said this, Yoon Seah flinched, but.
"Yes. I understand. Thank you."
Lim Gayeong nodded at that answer and took Lee Hayeon outside.
This left only Seong Jihan and Yoon Seah in the VIP room.
She swallowed hard and then.
"Martial God... I heard it."
"Heard what?"
"That you have to cut me down..."
She brought up what Dongbang Sak had said to Seong Jihan.
"He said you have to cut me down to complete... Infinite?"
"That's..."
So she heard that.
Seong Jihan felt perplexed.
He hadn't fully grasped why Dongbang Sak said that yet.
But Yoon Seah had already realized that she needed to be killed to complete Infinite.
"Infinite is a realm I never wanted in the first place. I won't cut you down."
Seong Jihan answered like that, but Yoon Seah's questions didn't stop.
"Ah... I see. Um, but is our world perhaps... similar to the one inside that formation?"
"What do you mean?"
"The sense of reality I felt while interacting with Hyunwoo inside the formation felt real. So I suddenly wondered if here might be the same..."
Until now, the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams they had entered quickly perished as the Taiji appeared soon.
But this time they stayed for quite a while, and maybe because she got close to Seong Jihan's son during that time.
Yoon Seah seemed to feel a stronger sense of reality than usual when entering the formation.
'Did her thoughts expand like that because of what Dongbang Sak said on top of that?'
Seong Jihan couldn't even imagine that Yoon Seah might have followed him to the real world.
So he thought this was why she said that.
"The Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams and here are not the same. You don't need to worry about that."
"...Is that so?"
"Yes. If they were the same, wouldn't this place have perished long ago too?"
At those words, Yoon Seah seemed to understand, but.
"Then is this reality?"
She asked Seong Jihan like that.
-Oh... that's...
-Huh, did Yoon Seah take the red pill?
-For real, doesn't she seem to know something?
-No way...
-Isn't it a bit strange that she's questioning if her world is real because of what Dongbang Sak said earlier?
-Come on; She's been in and out of the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams, she could just be confused.
The viewers who knew this was the world inside the Martial God's Tower mission were shocked by Yoon Seah's reaction, but.
"This is indeed reality."
Seong Jihan hid his inner perplexity and calmly gave a definitive answer.
"...I see. Maybe I'm having unnecessary thoughts because I suddenly parted from Hyunwoo."
"The child really liked you."
Seong Jihan said that he recalled the child who clung to his sister much more than his father.
"Don't you... miss Hyunwoo, Martial God?"
Yoon Seah asked while staring at Seong Jihan.
"He was your son there."
As she looked up at him quietly.
Seong Jihan recalled the child.
Maybe because he was older than the daughter he saw before.
Although the son clung more to his sister than to Seong Jihan.
Unlike connections in other Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams, the child's face and body warmth remained vividly in his memory.
'Is that why Dongbang Sak said he personally steps in for worlds where there are children...'
Dongbang Sak said one must be heartless for Infinite.
He said his direct intervention was limited to Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams where Seong Jihan had formed a family.
Indeed, unlike other Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams, the two children kept lingering in his memory.
Still.
"He's not my son. He's 'Seong Jihan's' son."
In front of Yoon Seah, he was acting as the 'Martial God'.
Seong Jihan strictly adhered to his role.
"...Right. You're the Martial God... not uncle."
But actually.
Yoon Seah was looking at him with strange eyes after hearing that answer.
-Wait, doesn't Yoon Seah really know something?
-Her gaze is meaningful. lol lol lol
-Doesn't it seem like she's testing him?
-Looks like he needs to come out and explain himself. lol
-I don't know either... Why am I scared;;
-Whoa, is it for real?
-It's real. lol
The viewers speculated that Yoon Seah might know something, seeing her like that.
"I'm sorry for keeping you so long. You must have a lot on your mind too, Martial God..."
"It's fine."
"Then I'll go to my room."
Yoon Seah bowed to Seong Jihan and went to her room in the VIP suite.
'...Her reactions are definitely quite different from before.'
It seems like a lot of changes had progressed since she became the Martial God's servant and entered the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams together.
Should he not have done that?
'But if I had left her here, I wouldn't have known when sis would taint her with void... It was the best choice at the time.'
Seong Jihan thought that and recalled Dongbang Sak's words again.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Join our Discord for release updates!w
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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* * *
-The you from before was not like that.
-Are you saying I wanted it...? Infinite?
-Yes. The blue administrator who became the sole manager of this world... has a duty to understand Infinite.
Dongbang Sak who asserted that if Seong Jihan became the sole administrator of BattleNet.
He would have a duty to understand Infinite.
And he.
-You must cut her down.
-Even if not now, you must do it eventually.
-That's how... Infinite will be completed.
Said that Infinite would be completed by cutting down Yoon Seah.
And if Dongbang Sak's words were true for now.
'I had a reason for wanting Infinite... not just to defeat Mitra.'
What could it be?
Seong Jihan focused on the statement that he had a duty to understand Infinite.
'Infinite... The power Dongbang Sak showed when he harmed himself at the end was also similar to Infinite.'
Infinite, which was a transparent sword when Jiang Shang used it.
He said he realized this when his world was completely destroyed.
'When the Infinite that Dongbang Sak imitated started exerting its power in earnest. The world inside the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams was instantly annihilated.'
In fact, the destruction of the world inside the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams had happened countless times.
But the world instantly gathering into Infinite while Seong Jihan was blocking with Nothingness was definitely a different level of power.
If even Dongbang Sak's imitation of Infinite was that powerful.
What would happen if Jiang Shang used Infinite in earnest?
No.
'What if a situation arises where Jiang Shang can't fully control Infinite...?'
Like how the whole world was instantly sucked into Infinite just now.
If Jiang Shang's Infinite exerted such power, could it be stopped?
Of course, Jiang Shang wouldn't let his Infinite run wild, but.
There was always a one-in-a-million chance in the world...
'Was that what he meant by the administrator's duty...?'
If so, he might have felt the need to understand Infinite.
Seong Jihan speculated like that for now and recalled the next part.
'Infinite is completed by cutting down Yoon Seah.'
To obtain Infinite, one must become heartless.
So one must watch their children die in the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams.
And finally.
'The culmination of heartlessness is completed with Yoon Seah's death...'
Was this what Dongbang Sak meant?
Seong Jihan's expression twisted.
Did he really think this?
'...There's no way.'
From the start, right.
The Yoon Seah of this world was, after all... just a being inside the mission, wasn't she?
Did cutting her down complete heartlessness?
'...'
Thinking that, Seong Jihan recalled this world's Yoon Seah again.
When he was lost in gambling, turning his eyes away from harsh reality.
His niece who tried her best to live on her own somehow but eventually met her death.
Here, he used 'Eternity' to resurrect her.
And tried to pave a way for her independence by gathering Blue stat through various sub-quests.
Right.
She was a character in the mission world.
She might disappear after clearing the Martial God's Tower's problem.
Or even if this world was maintained, she was someone he wouldn't see anyway.
Like the family members he saw in the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams.
In the end, unrelated to the current Seong Jihan...
'...Is that really true?'
Thud.
Seong Jihan sat in a chair and rubbed his eyes.
Was she really meaningless?
That child who seemed to have noticed something, sending strange glances.
Was she just an NPC in the Martial God's Tower to him?
Really?
'It seems that's not the case.'
Was it because this was the world where he regained his lost senses?
Or was it because it was a chance to redo the moment he regretted most in life?
The first round of the past?
To him, this mission world and Yoon Seah didn't feel like mere existences in a game.
This was probably.
'...I need to hear the full story from Jiang Shang first. That's the priority.'
Forget sub-quests or whatever.
For now, going out to meet Jiang Shang comes first.
What exactly happened regarding Infinite in the Ark?
He needed to clearly investigate.
Seong Jihan bit his lip and proceeded to log out.
[Initiating temporary logout.]
[The mission world is paused.]
[If you don't log in for 24 hours, the mission will be reset.]
He intended to make good use of the 24-hour time limit after logging out.
"Where is the Emperor now?"
"We still haven't heard from him..."
"Please tell me even his approximate location."
"He only told me the direction of contact... We might have to search the entire universe at this rate."
"Let's look."
For now, to directly find Jiang Shang who still couldn't be contacted.
He headed to the space sector following the route Kang Seol-young provided.
'If I detect a strong power, I should get a direction...'
While fully utilizing his own power.
He started searching for him from the point where Jiang Shang last contacted Kang Seol-young.
Of course, since the universe was so vast and there were no traces of Jiang Shang.
Even with Seong Jihan giving it his all, finding him was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But.
'If I can't find him within 24 hours, I'll log in again and come back out to search.'
Seong Jihan, who was determined to meet Jiang Shang and resolve his doubts for sure.
Put all his effort into finding him.
Like that, how much time had passed?
'There.'
As Seong Jihan approached a point in the light-filled universe with certainty.
Flash...!
There.
"Hmm? Son-in-law..."
Jiang Shang revealed himself.
"What brings you to this far place?"
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Join our Discord for release updates!w
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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