Chapter 16 - Finding Hope

'I still don't know.'

There were things Limon did know. The shadows attached to Kang Jeong-su, including the one-eyed old woman, were avatars of constellations—mere afterimages of starlight, vanishingly faint compared with the constellations themselves. Even though he had cut them down, the damage to each constellation amounted to no more than losing a fingernail or a finger.

Before his regression, when the constellations had screamed, his sword had met a heavy resistance. This time it had felt far too light. That told him as much.

What Limon couldn't understand was something else: the naked mockery and murderous intent in the constellations' eyes.

'Did they want to kill me because Jeong-su and the others did...?'

It wouldn't be strange. According to the common sense of this age, constellations granted their protection to players. Naturally, they would be hostile to someone their contracted players opposed.

But was that really all there was to it?

Plenty of owners adored their pets. Few got angry and happy on their pets' behalf, let alone fought their battles for them. Would constellations, beings said to transcend humanity, waste their emotions like that on mere contractors? Hundreds of them, all in the same way?

Limon couldn't believe it. Instead, he found himself entertaining the opposite suspicion.

'... Or did the constellations use those kids because they wanted me dead?'

It was a baseless fantasy, the sort of nonsense anyone else would call crazy. While killing the roughly two hundred players, he had deliberately cut down the constellations first several times, but nothing in particular had changed.

Even so, Limon couldn't shake his doubts.

The image of the snake mocking Yu Na-gyeong's death. The players who had rushed at him until they died, as though bewitched, apart from the two archdukes who had managed to flee. All of it left him with questions he couldn't resolve.

And if his suspicion was right? Perhaps he simply hadn't been able to see them before. When he had fallen into the trap in his previous life, had the constellations been laughing at him then, too? And perhaps the trap itself had been...

'Well, it doesn't matter either way.'

He looked down for a while at Yu Na-gyeong's face, one of the few peaceful faces amid the horrific corpses covering the place. Then he took off his coat, draped it over her body, and shook his head slightly.

'It won't change anything.'

Whether they had acted of their own free will or had merely been used, two things remained true: this country had decided it no longer needed Limon, helped Kang Jeong-su betray him, and driven Yu Na-gyeong to her death; and the constellations had lent them their power.

"Let's see. Is it time to clean up the mess?"

Once hailed as a hero. Then cast aside by his country as the times changed. Now branded a traitor as well.

Humanity's last Sword Master, with nothing left to bind him, smiled coldly.

The world would soon learn that he had stepped down from his place as an absolute power not because he lacked strength, but because he had yielded to the changing times. He had simply never needed to do more. Now they would see what he could do if he had to—and what kind of being he could become.

The first to learn would be the one who had moved Kang Jeong-su and, in doing so, set him free.

A soft rustle.

Just then, a faintly glowing orb rose above the coat he had placed over Yu Na-gyeong. It was the orb of light the snake had pulled from her as she died—the one Limon had seized and put back inside her.

The moment it shone brightly, something strange happened. The shadows melting away around them—nearly two hundred fragments of starlight—began to seep into the orb. As it drew in the remnants, its faint glow grew clearer. The orb gradually thinned and took the shape of a feather.

When the last of the starlight had seeped in and its transformation was complete, the feather, white as an angel's wing, flew to the far reaches of the night sky. There it vanished in a brilliant burst of light, like a firework.

Limon stared blankly at the utterly unexpected sight for a long time before letting out a hollow laugh.

"That girl. Making a spectacle of herself right to the end."

He didn't know what the orb was, why it had turned into a white feather, or what had just happened. He was a Sword Master, not a shaman or a mage.

Still, he had a vague sense that, like the eyes that now let him see constellations, the feather was something he had gained by cutting down a constellation and absorbing its fragments before his regression. And the power that constellation had said it would give him back then was probably...

'... I need to hurry and finish what I have to do.'

He gazed at Yu Na-gyeong beneath his coat for a moment, then shook off the thought, turned, and left.

* * *

"Sniff... Hic."

If Sia was honest, Hanbit Orphanage wasn't anything special. Its facilities were run-down, and support or donations rarely came in.

But it wasn't a bad place. The unmarried director was stingy and nagged a lot, but she never picked on the children for no reason, and she made sure they were fed and clothed. A few years ago, a famous guild had begun sponsoring the orphanage, and gifts had started arriving. Things had gradually improved.

A washing machine made laundry easier. They received pretty new clothes instead of used ones. There were more side dishes at meals and plenty of school supplies.

Others might have found such things ordinary, even taken them for granted. But Sia had lived in the struggling orphanage since she was a baby, and even those small changes made her happier than she could say.

More than the gifts themselves, though, Sia loved the young woman who brought them.

"Shh. Don't cry."

Sia looked up to her. It wasn't just because she was the most successful person to come out of Hanbit Orphanage.

She came to volunteer every weekend. At Christmas, she would appear by Teleportation in a Santa costume, shower the children with presents, and get scolded by the director. She would confidently offer to make them a fancy meal, burn the food to a crisp, and come back with armfuls of hamburgers. No matter how busy she was, she always brought a cake and threw a party on each child's birthday.

Simply being around her made people happy. To Sia, she seemed to shine.

That was why Sia had decided to become a PAB agent when she grew up. She would become someone who shone just like her.

"But Sia... The director, she..."

"She'll be all right."

"Really...?"

"Yes, really. Just hold on a little longer."

That was why the children clung to Sia, sniffling. There were older children at the orphanage, but Sia was the only one who could still smile kindly in a situation like this.

'That's a lie.'

What the children didn't know was that the only one smiling had the dullest eyes of them all.

'The director is already dead.'

Sia knew what had happened after the bad adults came to Hanbit Orphanage. The strict director had resisted to the very end to protect them, and they had killed her. The other adults who had tried to flee or hide were all dead, too.

Only the children were still alive.

'We'll end up like them.'

Even after the bad adults killed the director and abducted the children, Sia had held on to hope. They hadn't killed the children. That meant they had a reason to keep them alive. Whatever that reason was, Sia had thought everything would be all right as long as they stayed alive.

She had believed that the young woman from the PAB would somehow rescue them. She hadn't known how fragile that hope was.

'... Because Na-gyeong is dead, too.'

Maybe the bad adults had been planning to dispose of the children anyway. They hadn't bothered to keep their mouths shut, and Sia had learned everything.

They were hostages. Bait to make Yu Na-gyeong do as she was told. And the woman who had tried to save them had died doing what the bad adults demanded.

That was when Sia gave up hope. Wearing a smile that was nothing but an empty shell, she asked herself:

'Why did this happen to us?'

What had they done wrong? Why had good people like the director and Na-gyeong had to die because of bad adults?

She asked and thought, asked and thought, asked and thought, until at last she understood.

'... Oh. That's right.'

'There didn't need to be a reason.'

The world had always been this way. Did parents need a reason to abandon their children? Did children need a reason to lose their parents? Sins committed in a past life? Fate?

None of those were reasons.

Sia knew that well. She had seen and lived alongside countless children abandoned simply because they had been born, or left without parents through sheer bad luck.

There wasn't always a cause. It was a fantasy to believe the world was fair or reasonable. Reality was senselessly unfair, and that was what made the world cruel.

Na-gyeong had merely helped her forget it for a while. Now, remembering that truth, Sia waited for the death she knew was coming, her eyes dull and lifeless.

BOOM!

Without warning, the building shook.

"H-how did you get here...?!"

"How, you bastard? You plastered Na-gyeong with bugs and tracking devices and thought I couldn't trace them back to you?"

"Impossible! Those devices can't be traced back!"

"The only thing that's impossible is you staying alive."

"Aaaagh!"

Cries of disbelieving shock and uninhibited swearing gave way to one scream after another.

"Eek!"

"Waaaaah!"

The sounds outside frightened the children into clinging to Sia and crying. She remained still until the tightly shut iron door flew open. Only then did she raise her eyes.

BANG!

"Hah. These little rat-balled bastards. It's a sewer, not a dungeon, but they've smeared every damn thing they could find all over it."

One kick. That was all it took for the man to smash the iron door like a cardboard box and stride inside.

With his scarred eye and blood-soaked appearance, the white-haired man looked even scarier than the bad adults. The children shrieked that they were in terrible trouble, that the bad adults had sold them to him.

He paid them no mind. As if he were used to that reaction, he simply looked them over calmly.

"Let's see. All twenty-three are here, so none of you are dead. Anyone hurt...? Hm?"

He counted them like a human trafficker checking his merchandise, then made an odd face. Striding past the noisy children, he stopped in front of Sia, who alone sat quietly, and peered into her eyes.

"Why's a little kid like you got eyes like a rotten fish?"

"... Am I not allowed to?"

"I came all this way to save you, and looking at those eyes makes me feel lousy."

"You came to save us?"

"Yeah."

She should have been happy to hear that. But Sia didn't smile. She only met his gaze with eyes as dull as a corpse's and asked quietly, "Why?"

Why would a complete stranger come to save them? She wasn't challenging him, or asking out of curiosity, and she certainly wasn't thanking him. She simply seemed to find it strange.

The man didn't think her quiet question odd. He gave her a matter-of-fact answer.

"Because it was Na-gyeong's last request."

"Na-gyeong's..."

For an instant, Sia's eyes wavered. But it lasted no longer than a moment. Like a pebble tossed into a swamp, it stirred the surface briefly before sinking; the light vanished from her eyes again.

The man didn't seem disappointed. Instead, he laid his bloodstained hand on her head.

"Yeah. So don't give up anymore."

The girl had despaired again and again, until she had given up everything so she would never have to feel despair again. Limon stroked her head and went on softly.

"As long as you're with me, no one will hurt any of you."

* * *

"'No one will hurt you,' my ass."

Maybe it was because the tension had finally left them. Maybe it was because they hadn't eaten a decent meal in so long. Either way, the children had wolfed down their food, huddled together, and fallen fast asleep. Watching them, Limon heaved a sigh deep enough to shake the earth.

Of course, he had meant every word. Whether it was those government bastards who didn't know how to run a country or some Monarch who didn't know his place, Limon was confident he could protect the children from whatever they tried.

The problem was that protecting them was, quite literally, all he could do.

'Big words from a man who has to search corpses just to feed them.'

Had they frozen his account already? Limon clicked his tongue as he remembered the red screen that had appeared on the ATM the moment he tried his card. Pay cuts had left the account nearly empty, but losing even that little money still stung.

He hadn't had enough to buy the children boxed meals without dipping into the kidnappers' loot drops—their wallets.

*'I need to find somewhere for the kids to sleep first...'

Lodging made things look bleaker still. He had rented a nearby guesthouse for the moment, but they couldn't stay there forever.

Hanbit Orphanage? It was already on TV. The news was making a fuss about the horrific incident. By tomorrow, murder and human trafficking would probably be added to Limon's list of crimes.

His own home was out of the question, of course. Now that he had been branded a traitor, he had no one he could impose on. Nor could he leave the children at a police station. The people who had used them as hostages once could easily do it again.

'Not that I ever intended to do something so irresponsible.'

For Yu Na-gyeong's sake, or for the girl with the dead eyes, he had meant to take responsibility for these children from the start. The problem was that it was proving harder than he'd expected.