The Returner

I couldn't find a place for the snow to go.

The gaze that stares into the air slowly sweeps around you.

It looks like it will collapse soon.

But it's not just what it looks like.

Just like that, Lee Hyuk can destroy the world. And now there is no will, no reason. All that remains of him is instinct.

It's just instinct to destroy the world.

‘Common sense would be that……. ’

Choi Jung-hoon scratched as he tried to put his hand in his pocket.

‘Oh, no. ’

No arms.

Seo Ah-young's hand comes into his pocket, trying to move behind his regrets.

“Oh?”

Seo Ah-young, who looked frustrated, handed the cigarette out of her pocket to Jung-hoon's mouth and lit the fire.

“ ……. ”

“Do you have something to say to him? ”

“Hmm."

“I always started asking one question when they were talking. I thought you'd find it. ”

“Thank you.”

Choi Jung-hoon asked for a cigarette and laughed.

Seeing that smile, Seo Ah Young sighed.

“I just choose not to... really be a man. ”

“I can't. ”

“... There's no soup next time. ”

If there's a next time.

Choi Jung-hoon smiled bitterly.

Even though it looks hollow, Lee Hyuk is in a state where he doesn't know when to start with just a little stimulus. It was no different than a grenade with a safety pin pulled.

“There's nothing left in him. ”

“Yes.”

“But I don't think so. ”

“Yes?”

The eyes of the appendage shake.

“Coincidences may overlap, but I think he saved my life at the end. Maybe he's still in there. ”

“You want to bet on that? ”

“Reckless?”

“It's not worth answering. ”

Choi Jung-hoon smiled lightly and emitted smoke.

Yeah, it would be reckless.

But…….

“Better than stopping the unstoppable. ”

“ ……. ”

Apeldice did not speak Katabuta. How many times has this man done the impossible, thinking rationally? If I had to gamble, I should have listened to him.

And she wanted to believe it.

Lee Hyuk is still in there. Even if it's a wind that's pointless.

“Let's go.”

“ ……. ”

Choi Jung-hoon spit out a cigarette on the floor, and slowly walked forward.

Walk in.

Into the storm.

I know it's reckless. Maybe what he's doing now is based on emotion rather than reason.

Jung-hoon Choi came at the end to insist on staying cool, even though he was angry, angry, and sad.

Yeah, maybe it's just a struggle.

I don't want to admit it.

I don't want to admit that you disappeared like that.

“This is exciting.”

Choi Jung-hoon smiled low.

Suicide.

Something that chokes on a falling guillotine.

Stupid. Stupid.

However, Choi Jung-hoon felt strangely calm.

If you don't succeed, you die. And if he dies, it would be better for him to die than for him to die at his hands.

That's how tragedy is done.

“Walk.”

At the words of Choi Jung-hoon, the appendage began to walk.

“Without any action? ”

“I've already had enough of the measures. ”

“... in his memory? ”

“Yes, it's simple. ”

Choi Jung-hoon laughed.

“If there's anything left in that man's memory that we shouldn't kill, we can succeed. But if you don't, you die. It's a real test to be judged for what you've done so far, isn't it? ”

“You have a strange personality. ”

“I admit it, and I admit it's crazy. But I think it would be wiser to do all this nonsense about tying his feet with power that's no longer available. ”

Appeldrich shakes his head.

This is really stupid shit.

It was unacceptable as a dragon, a creature of reason.

But…….

‘Cause I'm not a dragon anymore. ’

“Stop.”

“Yes?”

“I'll go alone. ”

Choi Jung-hoon glances at the appendage as if to ask what that means. Then the appendage calmed down.

“If you're right, you'd better go it alone. You don't have to go around and provoke him. ”

“But!”

“You tried. ”

The appendage smiles.

“So take a break. I'll do the rest. ”

“Appledrice……. ”

“Throw away the compulsion to do something until the end. Now all you have to do is watch. Everything."

“ ……. ”

Choi Jung-hoon nodded quietly.

She's right.

He's already done everything he can. All that remains is to watch. Either way, the last moment.

“Go.”

“Yes. Then…. ”

The appendage smiles.

“Farewell, little but brave man. ”

Choi Jung-hoon calmly closed her eyes as she listened to her final goodbye.

An appendage that slowly walks to Lee Hyuk.

Seeing her actions, Seo Ah Young approached Choi Jung-hoon and grabbed his clothes.

“What are you doing? ”

“It's a story. ”

Choi Jung-hoon confidently said.

“A conversation.”

“Conversation?”

“Yes, conversations. The only way to communicate each other's minds. Something that is flat but not flat. ”

“Against Lee Ji-hyuk? ”

“Yes.”

Choi Jung-hoon said in a confident tone.

“After all, the best thing a human can do is talk. ”

“ ……. ”

“It's the best way to choose, and it's the only way to do it. ”

Seo Ah-young looks at the appendage with anxious eyes.

Conversation?

She couldn't understand Choi Jung-hoon's words.

Why does the word "conversation" come out here?

“I'm not just saying that. Passing on the mind, understanding each other. That's all talk. The most powerful force human beings have is conversation. This may not be the end of the world for violence, but in the end, it's the last thing a human being can choose to do. ”

I smiled brightly at Seo Ah-young who said she didn't know English.

“It's a little ironic that someone who carries on humanity's last hope isn't human... but it'll be okay. She's not human, but she's more human than anyone. ”

‘It feels strange. ’

The appendage presses into your chest with a raised hand.

Are you saying this is tension? ’

Dragons do not panic at their deaths. Death is the result of time or the extinction of life by force of inevitability. Eventually, I was able to explain.

There is no embarrassment in a world with a cause.

For her, a dragon, the world was a giant wheelbarrow that moved by the laws of causality. I'll never get out.

And one day, a foreign object got into her wheelbarrow.

That's where it all started.

“What are you talking about, you damn lizard? ”

Presence that cannot be explained by cause.

A being that ignores all the laws of the world.

Everything that exists is directly against the mortal law that eventually disappears.

Stronger than ever, but also weaker...

A creature filled with contradictions.

Yes, it was Lee Hyuk.

A person who suffers from the harsh fate given to him and never runs away from it.

A person who did not want to feel at all comfortable even if he changed his mind a little.

A person who was so strange... and hard to watch.

In the eyes of the appendage, he was like an irrational incarnation.

Those who resist God, resist fate, and even deny themselves.

And one day, we will destroy the world.

The result is now in front of her eyes.

Lee Ji-hyuk.

He turns his head slowly, dazed, to and fro, perhaps calling himself the Destroyer now.

Ununderstandable behavior.

But Appledrice knew what Lee Hyuk's actions meant.

I'm looking for it.

Do what you have to do and where you have to go.

Appeldrich thought it looked like a child.

Lost child.

And a child with nowhere to go.

I don't know where to go, just wandering around, like that kid.

I have to know.

His body was covered in wounds.

The last battle with Barbacee was inevitable. His flesh was torn, split, and bleeding. One arm that had been regenerated was torn again, revealing a white bone.

None of them were healthy. I want to see him raging in the ongoing battles and battles, but something keeps coming up.

When was this?

To see him so comfortable.

Maybe never. Lee Hyuk, whom she remembered, was always struggling to handle the burden given to her.

Even though he looks fine on the outside, his insides are always stained.

‘Maybe you've been watching all this way. ’

Lee Hyuk may have anticipated this moment since he realized that masturbation was done in exchange for using Black Magic Power.

The more power you use, the more you lose yourself.

How did it feel to have to live with that?

What does it feel like to take one step at a time towards the worst possible outcome?

You know all that and you can't stop it?

“I'm a little... sorry. ”

You don't understand.

I didn't understand.

She can't understand him because she's not human, and she can't understand him because she's not human. That's why Lee Hyuk always had to handle everything by himself with that little body.

It's the same now.

Parallel lines.

I don't understand.

But she could only realize one thing.

‘It's not a difference between the factions. ’

No one understands each other. That's just how I believe.

No one can look into another's heart. It's just a guess and I believe it will be.

Believing in things you cannot be sure of.

What do they call that?

Yeah, it is.

Trust.

You should have said so.

It's not that I don't understand you, it's that I don't understand you, but I believe you.

That…….

I realized it too late.

Too late.

The appendage sighs low.

Then I looked up at Lee Hyuk.

‘It's stupid. ’

Pupils that are open.

An eye that can't find a place to go pierces her heart.

It hurts... so much.

What broke her most was neither the eyes of Lee Ji-hyuk who was released, nor his wounded body.

That he's standing there all alone.

Even now, he was still alone, saving the world by sacrificing everything he had. Still.

It made her intolerable.

So let's go.

That's why you have to go.

so that he will no longer be lonely.

“At least……. ”

The appendage smiles brightly.

“We'll be together at the end. ”

For a single moment that was more meaningful than thousands of years, the appendage slowly walked towards Lee Yi Hyuk.

With a face that doesn't hesitate a bit.