Chapter 43: Runes and symbolism (I)
The air inside the cabin was thick with a strange sense of dread and anxiety as the remaining passengers tried to figure out how they should proceed. Everyone was grasping at any straws they could find, searching for a way out, with much of their resentment bottling up toward the woman with the tattoos. Yet none of them could afford to be impulsive. After all, they had just witnessed people burst like balloons simply for talking back to the woman.
Still, many believed the answers lay with her. They just didn’t know how to approach her, so they remained stuck in place, frustrated and helpless.
Some of them wanted to step forward and confess their sins, but the change of stations might have meant that part of the scenario was already over. Now they were heading to Surrender Station.
What were they supposed to do?
All they could do was look at her in resignation, fearing any retaliation.
That was until a man could be seen walking toward her.
The same man who had presented the solution of offering your heart to balance your scales.
The man walked over and took a seat beside the tattooed woman, who continued to look down upon everything around her with the same aloofness. A hint of arrogance and indifference was always reflected in her eyes even closed.
Would she really engage with the man?
The remaining twenty-five passengers could only hope. After all, he was the only hope in that hellish situation, and many of their lives now depended on him. Some had even decided they would simply follow whatever the man did. He seemed knowledgeable.
Others still had their reservations. They thought there was a possibility that the man and the woman were in cahoots, but no one dared voice such concerns openly. Otherwise, they might end up dead—or isolated.
So now, everyone watched the two.
Sang Hun Lee took a seat beside the meditating tattooed woman , dressed in black leather and cloaked in a wave of Meaning that seemed to wash over him and intertwine with his own, making him feel as though his abilities had fully unlocked. He could feel his ability to wield the Concept of Control once again, but he remained steady, wishing to fish out whatever answers he could from the woman before him.
He wasn’t sure how to begin a conversation with this woman, who seemed to regard all things beneath her as nothing more than ants. His mind played through countless possibilities, searching for something to say, before ultimately deciding to treat this as a conversation between a superior and her subordinate.
"Greetings to Lady Justice," he said in a respectful tone.
Yet the woman before him didn’t pay him any mind.
But Sang Hun Lee wasn’t disheartened. He continued.
"We must all have been selected here for a greater purpose. That is why we are going through this trial, isn’t it? May we know... for what purpose?"
Still, there was no response.
Sang Hun Lee searched for something he could use to connect with this figure who seemed to see everything else as ants.
Then the idea of simply channeling his Meaning came to him. Would that work? He could use it to pivot and ask if she was looking for champions, but then he hesitated. What if it backfired, marking her anger by trying to show off the small light of a firefly to compete with the sun?
Then another idea came to him.
He raised his right hand toward her as he channeled his Meaning, letting his spirituality settle upon the incomplete rune etched into his hand.
"Is this the answer to the trial?"
The moment he did, he felt something shift.
Finally, the woman looked his way.
He had finally caught her attention.
Her gaze lingered on the rune, studying it more intensely as that air of indifference around her finally cracked.
"Indeed," she finally uttered. "True names are the key."
After speaking, the woman returned to that same state of contemplation, closing her eyes once more.
Silence descended upon the area again.
Sang Hun Lee was left dumbfounded. He wanted to ask so much more, but the woman had already spoken and retreated back into her deep meditation. How could he dare disturb her again?
He could only turn his attention back to the sigil on his hand.
That was the key.
It was his true name, and it was the key to ending all this madness.
His gaze drifted back to Rule One of the instance.
Find your true self and discover your true name.
Maybe that discovery was the answer to the instance.
His objective now should be to find his complete true name and help others do the same. That was the only way he could think of saving any of the passengers involved.
Meanwhile, Cha Hwa Rim had been contemplating how she could find her sister while trapped here in this instance of her own making, unable to break free of its control.
Dan Woo thought that maybe by completing this instance he would be able to break free and perhaps find Cha Ha Rin. He was starting to believe that maybe the situation wasn’t an accident and that there was a conspiracy, especially with that note. Was this the doing of the Butterfly? So far, he could only continue to play here, but this sense of powerlessness didn’t sit right with him. He needed to find a way out.
That was when the agent whose memory Dan Woo had wiped approached.
Dan Woo, wearing the shell of Cha Hwa Rim, planned to ignore him as he already had a lot on his mind. He already knew the man wanted to convince Cha Hwa Rim to stop the trial, or at least give them answers on how they should break the instance. Unfortunately, she was under her own restrictions, unable to divulge anything even if she knew.
Dan Woo could only ignore the man and think back to how he could solve his own issue when, suddenly, the man beside her started to channel his Meaning toward his incomplete name.
An idea suddenly came to Dan Woo’s mind.
Cha Hwa Rim’s abilities were centered around symbolism, and as such, the True Names of these individuals were reflected to him and to them through symbols and runes that held countless secrets—fates, histories, and identities. Using this, one could glimpse into a person’s life.
Maybe he could use his Actualization to glimpse where Cha Ha Rin was. Something akin to divination.
"True Names were indeed the key," she couldn’t help but say.
She sank back into herself and tried to mobilize her Meaning and spirituality for the "divination," only to have it crumble.
Was there something she was doing wrong?
Cha Hwa Rim tried to compare what might be different from her Actualization back in Hanseoung. Was the Butterfly needed?
No... that couldn’t be it.
Could it?
Dan Woo thought it through, but he couldn’t see the difference.
Why was it different?
Then, suddenly, his system blinked to life.
[Ding]
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