Chapter 819: The Encounter
“Who are you, and how did you get here?”
The moment I fell into this world, a being spoke to me.
I stared blankly at it.
I was not surprised simply by the fact that I had encountered {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} a living being here.
Even if this was another world, this place was still one world, so there was nothing strange about living creatures existing here.
If there was a problem.
‘Should I call this...... young?’
Among all the beings I had met until now, the one that had looked the youngest in appearance was Luca.
The one who had now become our unit’s military doctor.
Its homeland was a place ruled by a divinity related to healing, and because it was a place where there was no disease, no illness, not even death from aging, there had been no need to grow.
But even Luca, who had been born in a world where there was no need for growth, merely looked young.
Somewhere around the upper grades of elementary school to the lower grades of middle school, perhaps.
‘A newborn baby......?’
This one was different.
It had an appearance that anyone would call that of a newborn baby.
A two-head-tall baby wearing clothing of some unknown style stood on two feet and glared at me.
“A-are you ignoring me?”
At those words.
I came to my senses and opened my mouth.
“I wasn’t trying to ignore you, and I don’t intend to be hostile either.”
It was a somewhat grotesque-looking world.
But in any case, judging from that newborn baby...... or rather, the being that looked like one, this seemed to be a world where intelligent beings capable of communication existed.
And from this world’s perspective.
‘I’m in a position similar to the monsters that invaded our world.’
Seeing as I had been pulled in by the gravity of this world, perhaps this world too had a hole torn open to the outside and was under invasion from another world.
If my objective had been to farm experience points here, that would be one thing, but my objective was to obtain some clue here that would allow me to succeed in the challenge.
𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
I needed to establish as amicable a relationship as possible with the natives of this land.
“My name is Shin Youngjun. The reason I came here is...... a little complicated, but it is absolutely not for hostile reasons.”
There had been invaders in our world as well.
But some of those invaders had now become members of the Legion and were with us.
An otherworld whose location I did not even know.
The position I ought to take in that world was precisely that one.
“I want to establish a friendly relationship with you...... that is, with the living beings of this land. So if possible, I’d like you to tell me the name of this world. After that, I’ll slowly explain the reason I came here as well.......”
“W-wait.”
As I earnestly spoke with those thoughts in mind.
The baby waved its hands in bewilderment and said.
“S-slow down...... a little.”
“......Huh?”
“D-don’t speak so quickly.......”
Its face reddened as if embarrassed.
“If I suddenly hear too much at once, then, um...... it’s hard to understand.......”
“.......”
***
When I first heard that, I could not help but feel a little bewildered.
It was not as though I had said all that much, only enough to convey that I had no intention of being hostile toward it.
It did not seem to be a problem of language, since there was no great issue with communication.
Even though the power of the System was gone, my rank had already risen considerably.
Even without the System’s help, I could use things like communication through the mind, mental language, which even the Pope of Dasmur had been capable of.
“So.”
But.
After hearing the details, there were some circumstances behind it.
“It has been so long since you last had a conversation with someone else that the process of understanding speech feels awkward?”
“Mm, roughly speaking, yes.”
According to this one.
It said it had not had a conversation with anyone else for a very long time.
That was why conversation itself felt awkward.
I did wonder if that was really something to say after abruptly demanding to know who I was.
But after hearing the explanation, I had no choice but to understand.
Because.
‘It rambled so much that it took me quite a while to properly understand.’
It was not only that it had trouble understanding speech.
It seemed that speaking itself had also become awkward because it had not done it for too long.
Even explaining what it had just said, that it had not spoken with anyone for so long that conversation felt awkward, had taken quite some time.
It was enough to make me think it spoke worse than even creatures like the goblins among the monsters that had invaded us.
I had no choice but to believe the claim that it had not conversed with others for an extremely long time.
And.
If I believed those words...... there was one fact I would naturally come to understand.
“Does that mean there are no other intelligent beings in this world besides you?”
If it had been unable to talk with anyone for a long time.
That meant there was no being here with whom it could converse.
“......Well. I don’t really know either.”
“You don’t know?”
“My memories are pale...... no, blurry......? Faint...... I don’t remember very well.”
“Have you never seen any other living beings at all?”
“I don’t think...... that was the case. Still, it seems like it was quite a long time ago.......”
“So there are other living beings in this world?”
“That...... I think there were...... or maybe there weren’t.”
“.......”
Now that I looked at it, it was not merely the conversation that was incoherent.
Even its memories did not seem intact.
No, in the first place, it was a creature with the appearance of a baby.
Perhaps it was a case where it simply did not have much in the way of past memories to begin with.
“Then let’s leave the living beings aside. What is the name of this world?”
“The name of the world?”
“Right. You were probably born in this land too, so there must have been some name you used for your homeland.”
“Well...... I don’t know. Was there something like that......?”
“......If you don’t remember the name of the world, then at least some place name you remember.”
“Hmm.......”
What was this feeling?
We were communicating through mental language, so our words should clearly have been reaching each other properly.
And yet, no conversation was taking shape at all.
When I discovered an intelligent being speaking to me the moment I fell into this world.
I had been a little taken aback, but I had also thought that it was actually fortunate.
If I could somehow convince the local that I was harmless, it would be a good opportunity to learn information about the world I had fallen into through that native.
But after actually talking with it, that was not the case at all.
“Then what is your name?”
This one did not know a single thing.
Where this world was.
What kind of place this was.
Not only those.
“A name......? Hmm, I feel like there was some kind of name I was called.......”
It did not even know its own name!
‘Endure it, endure it.......’
I inwardly pounded on my chest as I thought.
Judging by the way it spoke, it did not know its own name.
It did not even properly remember whether it had ever had a name in the first place.
But anyway.
‘It understands the concept of a name itself.’
I had considered the possibility that this might be a world inhabited by only a single living being...... this one.
But that hypothesis had just been disproven.
‘Names exist so that different beings can refer to one another.’
Mental language was not an ability that made someone understand concepts they did not know.
It was closer to a function that translated each other’s language.
If I could use this mental language, then even if I fell into prehistoric times, I would be able to communicate with the people there.
But if I said words like gun or missile to them, they would ask what those were.
Because those would be concepts that did not exist for them in the first place.
This case was the same.
‘If this one had been the only living being in this land, there would be no way it could understand the concept of a name.’
If it had been alone forever, there would have been no need to refer to one another.
It would be normal for it not even to understand the concept of a name.
But it knew that concept and answered my words without any sense of incongruity.
That meant it had at least spoken with other beings who needed to refer to one another by name.
‘The problem is that even if that was true in the past, it has gone so long without speaking to anyone that it has half-lost even its language ability.’
Thinking that, I looked around.
A space filled with unpleasantly glistening lumps of flesh.
This place was full of matter that felt similar to the flesh of the old god that the ‘leech’ had manipulated when I fought it.
According to what I had experienced.
Every world appeared together with the birth of a divinity.
Like Morzan’s creation of heaven and earth that I had seen.
A divinity born together with the world would cultivate that world to match its own name.
‘......Well, maybe the owner of this world is something like a god of butcher shops.’
Seen from that perspective, the current scenery was a little...... no, very bizarre.
Of course, it would not be strange for there to be a world where this hideous appearance was considered normal.
But for that to be the case, the appearance of that newborn baby, a resident of this world, was quite ordinary.
‘If that isn’t it.’
If the divinity of this world was not something like a god of butcher shops.
There was one more possibility.
It was true that I had fallen into another world.
‘This space itself might be a special place even within this world.’
A space far too removed from ordinary sensibilities.
A living being with an ordinary appearance that did not fit that space.
For some reason, its memories were not intact.
It seemed to have interacted with others in the past, yet had not spoken with anyone for such a long time.
I closed my eyes and examined my surroundings.
My spirituality, my expanded perception, spread outward.
Back in my homeland, it was a field of vision that could take in the entire world at a glance.
And yet.
‘It feels strangely blocked.’
Even with my current perception, it was difficult to properly examine this space.
It might partly be because my connection to the System and the world had been severed.
But more than that, it seemed to be because of the peculiarity of this space itself.
The flesh itself seemed to make it difficult to see beyond it.
Even so, if there was something I could sense.
At least within several kilometers around here, there were no other living beings.
My home world had also been a world with holes torn in it.
But where the monsters that entered through those holes landed had been completely random, unrelated to their own intentions.
The ‘Swarm Mother,’ which had lived in an environment like a desert, and the ‘Dasmurians,’ which had lived in an environment like the sea, had fallen into a concrete world and therefore had no choice but to terraform the environment to suit themselves.
For all I knew, there had probably been many land creatures that fell into the sea and drowned.
‘And perhaps...... my case is the same.’
There was a high possibility that the place I had happened to fall into was a completely abnormal space even within this world.
Of course, that was only speculation.
It could actually be an entirely different case, so I should not jump to conclusions.
Even my foresight was not giving me a definite feeling of, this is it, right now.
“......Mm, I’m sorry.”
As I was lost in those thoughts.
It lowered its head in embarrassment and spoke.
“Sorry?”
“I want to give you some kind of answer...... but it feels like there is fog inside my head, and I have no memories.”
At those words, I blankly looked down at the little one with its head lowered.
Its head was as large as its torso, making it look almost precarious.
When I first fell into this land, I had felt that its attitude was quite hostile, demanding to know who I was and how I had come here.
But now that I thought about it, that had probably been closer to wariness and bewilderment than hostility.
And what I felt now was.......
‘A little embarrassment.’
And.......
‘A little happiness.’
It was rambling a little.
But it was answering my questions obediently.
“I don’t disbelieve you when you say you have no intention of being hostile. Rather, you’re someone I can finally talk to after such a long time. I would like to answer you properly. Hmm.”
The reason it answered that it did not know to all my questions was not because it was wary of me.
Rather, I was someone it could talk to after an extremely long time.
It might have been a little nervous because it had been so long since it last conversed, but there was joy in the conversation itself.
It simply truly could not remember, so it had no choice but to answer that it did not know.
“No.”
I looked at it for a moment, then soon gave a faint smile and said.
“I think my questions might have been a little poor.”
“What you asked was very basic, though?”
“That’s true, but if I think about it, the name of this land isn’t important at all. Hearing it wouldn’t change anything, and in a way, it was rude of me to ask while assuming you would definitely know. So...... let’s change the question a little.”
A world I had reached with Taejun’s help.
Naturally, there was a high possibility that I would not obtain any answer in this world either.
If that happened, I would somehow have to escape this world and return to Earth.
But since I would have to remain in this land for quite a while anyway just to find a way to escape.
All I had to do was search diligently until then, wondering whether there might be anything at all I could take away from this place.
And generally, things worth taking away were often found beginning with the smallest details.
“Tell me about yourself.”
At present, this one was the only source of information I could obtain.
If so.
“Even if it’s something trivial, tell me a little about yourself.”
The beginning of that search for information.
It would be right to start with this one’s story first.