CRT Ch 55 – END.

‘Are you really going to be okay? If something goes wrong, you could die.’

‘This is like creating a new life all over again, so it’s on a different level from the binding ritual which is just an imitation. The possibility of reviving him is extremely low, and even if you do, you might have to give up your own life.’

‘I need real bone and a large amount of blood. Then his breath will return.’

It felt like he had been submerged in disjointed darkness for a long time. When he opened his eyes a sliver, he was lying in a forest dense with trees. In truth, since his body was gone, he was not sure if he was really lying down, or if he had even opened his eyes.

He could not recall how he had ended up here. But memories from a much more distant past came back to him intermittently.

His father was a man who handled falcons well. The son, born and raised of the earth, also became a man who commanded a falcon, just like his father.

His father’s falcon followed the son more than its original master, the father. Unlike other birds of prey, his father’s falcon could not properly hunt even a single field mouse. Instead, it preferred to glide through the sky and observe what was happening on the earth. Its black eyes, which always seemed frightened, were closer to a sparrow’s than a bird of prey’s.

He thought that its defiance of its destiny resembled his own. If he had been born the son of a shepherd and lived in compliance with his fate, the tragedy would not have occurred.

He gained people’s trust with surprising ease. He knew this fact well himself, so he sometimes used it to his advantage. After becoming an adult, he met a lord who was in exile due to war and became his loyal subject. Using the falcon his father had left as a legacy, he took charge of communications with their allies and led them to victory in battles large and small.

One day, when the battlefield was stained with blood and screams, the falcon that had flown off with a message did not return. He thought it had died of exhaustion from the long flight or been injured by an enemy arrow.

But not long after, he met his falcon again in a wasteland where only ruins remained. ‘That man’ was holding the injured falcon.

Another long period of time passed, and he was reunited with him, who had been brought in as a prisoner of war. And less than half a year after that, his own head was cut off by his lord.

The man’s appearance and voice were vivid, but he could not remember his name. He tried to recall it somehow, but soon gave up. He was the type who easily got what he wanted, so he was more accustomed to giving up quickly than to clinging on tenaciously.

Even after his head was cut off, he felt as if he had walked across an immeasurable amount of time and experienced all sorts of hardships. But his heart felt hollow, as if those memories had been cut out entirely. Without knowing the reason for this emptiness, he walked aimlessly, pushed by the wind. Of course, since he had no legs, he was not certain if he had actually walked.

The place he arrived at after walking so aimlessly was a certain park, crowned with a blue sky. He decided to stay for a while where the winds crossed.

In the space full of blooming flowers, people with happy expressions and dogs were running and playing. For a moment, he thought he had finally been forgiven for his sins and had come to heaven. But seeing the dog droppings scattered on the grass and the squawking children, he immediately folded his expectations.

He saw a man sitting blankly on a bench under the shade of a tree. The man, with overgrown hair, had a piece of paper on his skinny thigh. On the fingers clutching a pencil, his fingernails had grown long like a falcon’s.

‘I’ve just woken up, so where on earth did you go? You don’t have to feel sorry for me about anything…….’

The man murmured quietly and looked gloomily at the unfinished letters on the paper. His eyes were black and innocent, like a sparrow’s. He sat on the bench until the sun set, not complaining at all, and did not check the time. He seemed to be waiting for someone who would probably not come. Even after that day, the man would come every day, sit vacantly on the park bench, and then leave.

Perhaps he, too, was searching for someone he could not meet. If he walked the same path every day like this man, would he remember the reason for this heart-wrenching pain? If he confirmed that he would ultimately never find the reason for the pain, would he be able to end this journey? The fear of not knowing when it would end made him breathless.

Just then, a strong wind blew and lifted him to his feet. It felt as if following this wind would guide him to a place where there was neither pain nor waiting. The moment he was about to surrender his consciousness to the gale, someone called out urgently.

Come back now. That person is waiting…….

They would be waving a delicious-looking bone, but the hand holding the leash would be hidden behind their back. In the distant past, when he was wandering in darkness, he had been led by that voice. He had thought that if he followed the only voice he could hear in the eons of time, a heaven pouring with light would be waiting. But far from heaven, there was only a world stained with desire. Rather than rolling in a field of filth again, it was better to be swept away by time and be extinguished forever. He crouched his consciousness as much as possible behind the shadow.

But the creepy voice relentlessly found his hidden consciousness and once again put a leash on him and dragged him away. His consciousness, sucked away in an instant, was forcibly shoved into a cold, hard space.

‘If this goes wrong, they could both die! Just bring him to the workshop and let’s do it here.’

‘You dare let that bastard take even one step inside. I’ll burn down the workshop and everything else.’

‘I only know this in theory, and it’s my first time attempting it, so I’m scared to death! Then at least do it in the cabin. If not, I’m going to follow Seok Ryu and die too.’

Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone murmuring strange words intermittently, and at some point, the thick smell of blood vibrated so intensely that his mind grew distant. He heard the auditory hallucination of someone tearing flesh and cutting out raw bone.

His consciousness, which had been whirling through a narrow, dark passage, was forcibly captured and felt as if it were being torn to shreds. The terrible burning sensation made it feel like even his soul would shatter into pieces. He begged and screamed for them to please stop, but the eerie incantation only grew louder. The suffocating feeling of being on the verge of asphyxiation made his vision go dark.

At that moment, a breath that felt like it had been drawn up to the very last drop flowed deep into his lungs. With the desperation of one who had wanted to give up on life, he inhaled that breath. Following that, a voice, murmuring thickly, spread out.

Just endure a little longer.

It was a voice that resembled the warmth of the sun. At the texture that gently enveloped his entire body, an unknown sorrow surged up.

By the time his fragmented mind returned, a bright light was shining through a transparent membrane. He stared blankly back at that light, which gave him a sense of déjà vu. Since he had no eyes, he was not certain if he had actually seen it.

Suddenly, a man was looking at him from beyond the glass membrane. The man with a white face was smiling a thread-like smile. And then, he immediately rolled his eyes back and fell over along with his chair.

Just then, the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs was heard. A man, who resembled the white-faced man yet did not, ran over nimbly. With a hardened face, he lifted the fainted man into his arms and immediately ran up the stairs.

After that, he drifted in and out of consciousness several times and gradually became aware of his own existence. Each time he regained consciousness, his memories from his current life also came back one by one. That he, who had sinned in a past life and died, had been restored by the hands of a jewel-smith, was a garnet called Seok Ryu, and had fallen into hell once again.

💎

Through the glass case, the back of Heewan, who was sitting at a desk, shimmered. On Heewan’s haggard-looking nape, reddish marks could be seen here and there. If the visible parts looked like that, he could imagine the state of the skin under his shirt.

Seok Ryu, who had been confined in the glass case for several days, felt like a lab rat. Heewan would place the stone in which Seok Ryu’s consciousness was confined onto a strange plate and mutter bizarre words. But as there seemed to be no particular progress, Heewan’s complexion was dark the entire time.

Heewan practically lived in the lab and took diligent care of Seok Ryu. But he would only avert his gaze from time to time with eyes stained with guilt, and in the end, never told Seok Ryu how he had become a source stone again. He did not particularly want to know, either.

He wanted to escape from this place, but in the state of a source stone without hands or feet, he could not even knock on the case. He thought it was strange that he could see and hear when, if he were a source stone, he should have no senses and feel no emotions. It seemed he was perceiving his surroundings with his consciousness.

Heewan, who had gotten up from his chair, sat on the stool placed next to the glass case. He placed a laptop on his thighs and said haltingly.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, so please answer as you remember. Do you remember who you are? What you did for a living……”

It seemed his memory had been deleted from a certain point as to how he had become a stone. Above all, Seok Ryu had no mouth, so he could not give any answer.

Heewan ran his hand through his brownish hair with irritation. He seemed at a loss as to where to begin his explanation.

“As your source stone was shattered, all of your consciousness was scattered. Fortunately, a very small fragment of the source stone remained, so I grafted it onto another source stone. It seems your memory has been partially reset because of that, but it’s my first time collecting a vanished consciousness entity, so…….”

The scene where his source stone was destroyed flashed before his eyes like a panorama. But he wondered who had brought the shattered pieces of the source stone.

Heewan placed his hand on the glass case with a sunken gaze. Heewan’s fingers, which had been straight and clean, were for some reason peeling and his joints were slightly bent. There were also knife cuts here and there.

“I called out to you continuously for two years. You’ve only just now finally responded to my voice……”

A long time must have passed, longer than he had realized. A period of two years was enough for someone’s existence to fade. It was more than enough time for a passionate vow to cool down.

💎

“What’s wrong with treating a son of a bitch like a son of a bitch?”

He awoke to the faint sound of an argument. At the entrance to the stairs connecting the basement and the first floor, Heewan and Superintendent Hyun were facing each other. Heewan shot back at Superintendent Hyun with a sharp glare.

“If you treat Seok Ryu like a dog one more time, I’m going to get really angry.”

“That pain-in-the-ass bastard keeps calling me a dog catcher, so I have to answer his call.”

“He called me a dog farm owner too, so don’t be childishly sulky. I’ll take care of this matter myself, so you can stay out of it now.”

“Then I’ll stay out of the audit from the association tomorrow too, so you can handle it well on your own.”

“……What?”

“Can’t you understand words? From now on, you handle everything yourself, whether it’s audits or experiments.”

Heewan, turning pale, snatched the cigarette that Superintendent Hyun had taken out. But Superintendent Hyun snatched the cigarette back from Heewan’s hand and lit it as if to make a point.

“You vile bastard! You’re the one who instigated me to experiment on Noeul, so don’t you dare try to back out of it now!”

Heewan beat Superintendent Hyun with his fists. Superintendent Hyun grabbed Heewan’s hands, twisted them, and threw him down on the stairs.

“I didn’t tell you to restore a son of a bitch who devoured his master. The sight of you stuck to that stone all day long is annoying too, so don’t get on my nerves.”

“He’s the one who scraped up the source stone fragments and threw away even his own life. How can I turn my back on a person like that?”

“It’s so tear-jerking I can’t listen. Do you think I don’t know that the reason you’re acting so fake and devoted is for the experiment?”

Heewan neither confirmed nor denied his younger brother’s thorny words. He seemed to have no concern for anything other than himself, who was in a crisis.

“I said just this once. You know you’re the only person I can rely on! Please…….”

The two’s argument was interrupted at an unexpected point. After a sudden silence, the sound of footsteps going up the stairs followed. That night, Heewan did not appear in the underground lab.

The next day, people from the Jewel-smith Association stormed in and turned the lab upside down. During that time, Seok Ryu was shoved into a pile of luggage in the underground storage. Thanks to Superintendent Hyun’s cooperation, the audit passed without any major issues.

Heewan, perhaps feeling sorry for having shoved Seok Ryu into the underground storage, let Seok Ryu sunbathe. Since he was already trapped in a hard space, it was not as if receiving sunlight would make a non-existent life force sprout. The days of being grateful for Heewan’s self-centered kindness were long gone.

While Heewan listened to music with earphones and reviewed data, Seok Ryu was placed on a bench. In the workshop, surrounded by undergrowth and a wire fence, there were three annex buildings. One was Heewan’s lab, and the other two were Superintendent Hyun’s classroom and the guardian stones’ dormitory.

Just then, a group of guardian stones was heading toward the classroom. They all wore chokers around their necks, which meant they were guardian stones with prospective masters.

“When are you bringing the next part of ‘Lake of the Gods’? It’s driving me crazy that it ended right at the scene where Munyul and Biryu meet!”

“Lee Taeon’s acting style had gotten stale lately, but he was at the top of his game in the role of Munyul. The actor for Biryu also looked like he walked right out of the book! When I get out this time, I’m going to ask my master to get their autographs.”

Upon discovering Seok Ryu, they glared with daggers in their eyes and whispered amongst themselves. At the center of the group stood a tall man with black hair. It was the diamond, ‘Emperor’s Insight’. Insight’s gaze towards Seok Ryu was cold.

“How can you shatter your own source stone when you know full well that your master will die?”

Perhaps because they were also guardian stones, they seemed to have recognized Seok Ryu in his stone state at a glance. A blue-haired sapphire chimed in with a snort.

“It would be one thing if the master broke it, but how do you shatter your own source stone? How vile!”

“Isn’t that even more serious? How threatening must the guardian stone have been for the master to give up their own life and destroy the source stone?”

“But why did Heewan bring something like that back to life? What did it do to make a living corpse look so good?”

“He’s obviously planning to experiment on it. Don’t you know from seeing what happened to Noeul?”

At the diamond’s words, the jewels shuddered and entered the annex building. He had been curious about the motive for bringing back a consciousness that had been arduously extinguished, and it was a plausible enough inference. But it was also ridiculous for a mere stone to get angry for being kicked around.

“I told you not to open the window because bugs will get in! Are you using the room by yourself?!”

An irritable voice echoed in the workshop yard. By the window on the second floor of the dormitory, an emerald was snapping at someone. That was the room for guardian stones without prospective masters.

In front of the emerald, a guardian stone with honey-colored hair was sitting absent-mindedly. Topaz, who had become noticeably gaunt, had an expression of having given up even the will to live. When the emerald slammed the window shut, Topaz’s figure also vanished from sight.

Just then, the bench where Seok Ryu was placed was covered by a black shadow. Four burly men were standing guard in front of Heewan. The men threw a black sack over Seok Ryu. Heewan shouted.

“What are you doing?!”

“Superintendent Hyun said to take him today.”

“I didn’t hear anything, how can you do this so suddenly!”

“We’re just doing as we’re told, so please step aside.”

Seok Ryu swayed in the darkness and was then thrown somewhere. Soon the door closed, and he heard the sound of a car engine starting. Outside, Heewan shrieked.

“What do you plan to do with a child who can’t even move properly?! He only looks fine on the outside, he needs time to recover mentally!”

“Our ever-so-devoted client says he can’t wait any longer, so what can I do? He says he’ll teach him to walk and even change his shitty diapers, so just hand him over roughly. We don’t know when those old geezers from the association will storm in again, so it’s best to get rid of him quickly.”

“Then at least take off that sack! If you say any nonsense to Seok Ryu on the way, I really won’t forgive you!”

As Heewan whimpered, Superintendent Hyun sneered with a satisfied tone.

“I’m going to sell the dog, so wait quietly.”

Seok Ryu, contained in the black cloth, could not move an inch. Superintendent Hyun, who had gotten into the car, spoke with a pronunciation as if he were chewing on a cigarette.

“Your new master has appeared, so we’re going to meet him now. He’s a sucker who bought a piece of waste like you for a high price, so live your life licking the soles of his feet.”

The car carrying Seok Ryu sped along a forest path for a long time. When the car stopped, Superintendent Hyun’s subordinate picked up the black sack containing Seok Ryu like a piece of luggage and threw it onto the floor. Outside, the grating sound of a lock being fastened was eerie. From the acrid metallic smell, he realized this was the large cage in the cabin.

After a long while, he heard the sound of people talking furtively from far beyond the bars. Trapped in the thick sack, it was muffled, like eavesdropping on noise from above the water’s surface while underwater.

“Where is he?”

It was a voice completely worn devoid of vitality. In contrast, Superintendent Hyun’s tone was one of undisguised delight.

“Before you meet him, let me give you some precautions. Human-form guardian stones are cumbersome to carry, but they have many advantages. They don’t eat, so they don’t excrete, and they don’t feel pain, so there’s no need to treat them even if a part is severed or broken. They don’t bark, so there’s no worry of being bothered by noise.”

The man asked in a dry voice.

“Is it possible for them to pretend to be in pain?”

“They will do whatever their master commands. But I’m curious as to why you ask such a thing.”

“To play hospital.”

The man continued.

“They can scream as much as they want. The louder, the better. If I ask them to call me master, will they?”

After a brief silence, Superintendent Hyun opened his mouth.

“If you wish, you may engage in acts even more bizarre and sadistic. Whether it’s feeding them urine or tearing and breaking their limbs. Of course, the guardian stone will be obedient to its master no matter what is done to it.”

“Fucking amazing.”

Superintendent Hyun gave no reply. It was unclear whether he was speechless with astonishment or contemplating more derisive words. The people who sought out the workshop were busy hiding their own shames or sordid tastes. Superintendent Hyun was the type who took pleasure in insulting such human specimens. But this client, far from hiding his secret nature, was taking it a step further.

Superintendent Hyun clicked his tongue as if fed up.

“In any case, your situation is special, so the workshop will continue to keep a close watch. Therefore, do not break the confidentiality agreement with some half-baked sense of morality. If you violate the warning, not only your ribs, but every single bone in your body will be acquainted with a piece of iron. The person who vouched for you will also have their fingers and ears crushed so they can never dream of music for the rest of their life.”

“I don’t know about things like abuse, or violation of life. Whatever treatment other guardian stones receive is none of my business.”

The man said abruptly.

“But if I feel lust for a stone and propose, it becomes my bride. If I learn order and patience from a plastic model toy, it becomes my teacher. Because I am the one who assigns value.”

At the answer, filled not just with conviction but also with arrogance, Superintendent Hyun snorted.

“Now, let’s have you meet him for real. He’s been waiting since a while ago.”

At this point, Superintendent Hyun would point a hand at the cage shrouded in darkness. As soon as Superintendent Hyun’s words fell, the client stood up so hastily that his chair leg scraped.

The sound of shoes approaching without hesitation froze in front of the iron cage. The large cage vibrated violently, as if the man had gripped the iron bars savagely. As the sound of grating iron subsided, the man muttered in a low voice.

“You were here, the whole time?”

An anger that had been dredged up from the bottom of his lungs was laced in his voice. Seok Ryu held his breath inside the black sack. He had heard that there were people who felt strange desires for stones or chunks of iron, but this was the first time he was encountering it in person. Whatever the man wanted, Seok Ryu had no will to satisfy any of it.

His voice, which had not come out even a single speck until now, for some reason flowed out smoothly.

“I have betrayed my master twice. I have no intention of serving anyone, and in the form of a stone, my abilities as a guardian stone have probably disappeared. So please, go back.”

There was no reply. An eerie silence, like the moment just before a blade falls on one’s neck, swept by. He was suddenly terrified. Could it be that he still had not escaped from the darkness? Was his beheaded ghost receiving an unending punishment within the wheel of endless eons?

At that moment, the sack covering Seok Ryu was whipped off in one go. In the spotlight, dust particles spewed out by the sack scattered. As a light brighter than he could handle poured in, Seok Ryu’s vision went white. When his focus returned, the interior of the cabin was visible behind the man’s shoulder. The secret room, splattered and stained with bloodstains in every corner of the floor and walls, looked like a long-abandoned torture chamber.

He moved his gaze and looked at the man standing beyond the bars. The man, with the light on his shoulders, was clutching the black sack so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand bulged. His eyes, as if just fished out of a volcano, bored down on Seok Ryu. His rough, dark blue eyes were so hot they seemed capable of melting even iron. The moment his clouded vision gradually cleared and the man’s facial features became distinct.

Seok Ryu’s lips trembled faintly. He had not been able to hear his voice clearly, muffled by the thick sack. No matter how much his senses had not returned, no matter how many times he died and was reborn, he was a person he could never forget.

Cha Yilhyun reached his hand through the bars and pulled Seok Ryu’s head toward him. His impatient lips covered Seok Ryu’s lips without a gap. Only then did Seok Ryu realize he had lips. He realized he had a head, and arms and legs attached. His heart was also beating. Like when he was restored and took his first steps, Seok Ryu cried out loud and let out his first breath. He who had pulled his lips away looked into Seok Ryu with eyes of disbelief. He bit Seok Ryu’s tear-soaked cheek, swallowed his lips, and buried his face in the nape of his neck. The hand that brushed through Seok Ryu’s hair was both violent and sorrowful. Wherever Cha Yilhyun’s breath touched, dead cells came alive and senses returned. He confirmed and touched Seok Ryu’s existence several times. Through the sensation given by Cha Yilhyun, Seok Ryu finally realized that his entire body had been restored.

Finally, Cha Yilhyun, with a slightly trembling hand, embraced even the cage that imprisoned Seok Ryu.

Cha Yilhyun lifted Seok Ryu into his arms and placed him in the back seat of the car. He dropped a back cushion onto the floor mat and then placed Seok Ryu’s legs on top of it. He pulled the seatbelt and fastened it for Seok Ryu, gazing at him with a profound look. He touched the bridge of Seok Ryu’s nose with his fingertips and fiddled with his dry fingers.

When he touched his own neck, which felt foreign, the source stone on the choker caught on his fingertip. It was an oval-shaped source stone.

Just then, Superintendent Hyun, who was standing at a distance, sneered at Cha Yilhyun.

“Why don’t you just load that useless stone into the trunk?”

Cha Yilhyun watched Seok Ryu with intense eyes.

“Where is there a stone here? There is only a pure and captivating person.”

Soon, he straightened his back and looked back at Superintendent Hyun.

“I received a lot of inspiration thanks to you. Let’s see each other again.”

At the ambiguous words, Superintendent Hyun furrowed his eyebrows with a dubious expression. Cha Yilhyun, who had loaded a wine-colored travel bag into the trunk, sat down next to Seok Ryu. He roughly shoved the instruction manual and quality assurance certificate he was holding into the seat-back pocket.

When Superintendent Hyun’s subordinate started the car, anesthetic gas began to flow inside the car a short while later. Cha Yilhyun’s eyelids soon grew languid. He dropped his head and rested it on Seok Ryu’s thigh. With his whole body sprawled on the seat, he raised one hand and cupped Seok Ryu’s cheek.

“You’ve finally become my very own jewel.”

It was a voice that resembled a long-condensed sigh. Cha Yilhyun gazed quietly at Seok Ryu until the very last moment he lost consciousness. His hand, which fell helplessly with the car’s vibration, was pitiful. Seok Ryu intertwined his own fingers with his and held them to his chest. He pushed back Cha Yilhyun’s fallen hair and caressed his noticeably sharper jawline. It seemed that while Seok Ryu was fighting in his isolated world, Cha Yilhyun had also been struggling fiercely. A soreness welled up in his throat.

The car that had departed from the cabin entered a dark forest path. The forest, surrounded by a wire fence with high-voltage current, exhaled a fog. The grim sky looked as if a typhoon was about to hit.

Before Superintendent Hyun’s subordinate instructed him, Seok Ryu familiarly put on a blindfold. He carefully held Cha Yilhyun’s head in his arms so that not a single strand of his hair would be harmed. With his other hand, he was holding his hand tightly.

For their own different reasons, they had come and gone this way countless times. Every time he left the cabin, he was anxious and afraid, as if being chased. Even after escaping from here, he was plagued by a vague fear. Now, even though he could not see an inch ahead, he was not scared. If he escaped from the fog-draped island of hell, a black sea with raging storms would be waiting. Even if he slipped on a rock and his whole body was shattered and he fell to the bottom of the deep sea, he would never let go of his hand.

—Epilogue—

The sound of Kyojun coming down the stairs of the underground lab was heard. Just from the sound of his footsteps, he could feel how displeased he was. Kyojun, who had come down to the lab, invariably perched on the edge of Heewan’s desk. The nagging rose to his throat, but he did not want to add fuel to the fire for Kyojun, who was already in a foul mood from meeting Cha Yilhyun.

As soon as he arrived, Kyojun ground his teeth.

“That absolute pain in the ass completely smashed the cage. I’m going to bill him properly, so he better be prepared.”

“Since it’s broken anyway, just get rid of that damn cage.”

“It’s my only pleasure, so don’t butt in.”

Kyojun, not satisfied, rained down curses on Seok Ryu and Cha Yilhyun’s future. In the first place, for Cha Yilhyun, who was not even a client, to call Kyojun directly was an extremely dangerous act. If Heewan had not stopped him, Cha Yilhyun would have disappeared without a trace. On top of that, since he had called Kyojun a dog catcher, Kyojun now had an allergic reaction at the mere mention of Cha Yilhyun’s name.

Heewan put down his pen and asked.

“Seok Ryu…… did he, by any chance, turn into a human?”

“Far from a human, he was still a half-dead corpse who couldn’t even walk properly. I guarantee you, that psycho bastard will be begging me to take the useless stone back within a month, unable to stand taking care of it.”

If Seok Ryu had not turned into a human, it was probably one of two things. Either the saying that one becomes a person upon meeting their master of fate was a lie, or Cha Yilhyun was not his master of fate.

Heewan looked at the colored gemstone stored in the glass cabinet.

“In any case, in Seok Ryu’s current physical state, he can’t withstand the binding ritual. If we force it, he might crack like Sanho, and since he was revived through an unproven experiment, there’s also the risk of fatal side effects like Noeul.”

Seok Ryu and Cha Yilhyun had not performed the binding ritual. Without the binding ritual with a master, a guardian stone cannot use its abilities. When he was told this fact, Cha Yilhyun seemed rather pleased. It meant that he wanted only Seok Ryu, not the guardian stone’s abilities. Seok Ryu had no idea that they had not performed the binding ritual.

Superintendent Hyun, perhaps tired from dealing with Cha Yilhyun, rubbed his neck and stood up.

“Anyway, you must be deeply moved to have succeeded in an experiment that will turn the jewel-smith academic world upside down.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Stop pretending. And you, if you pull any more stunts without my permission one more time, I’ll break your neck.”

He spoke like that, but Kyojun, as he always had, would continue to lose to him in the future. He had lost to Heewan in sword fights when they were young, and he had also lost in the dictation tests Seok Ryu gave him. And he knew Heewan better than anyone.

After Superintendent Hyun disappeared, Heewan also got up from his chair. He approached the glass case where Seok Ryu had been lying and stroked the empty space.

When Cha Yilhyun had brought the grains of Seok Ryu’s source stone, Heewan’s desire for the experiment had come before his earnest wish to save Seok Ryu. He had wanted to see for himself if the existence of a master of fate was real.

The track record of not only Seok Ryu but also Noeul failing at doping, and the hypothesis that only a master of fate could resurrect a dead guardian stone……. There was much evidence that Cha Yilhyun was Seok Ryu’s master of fate. Perhaps becoming a person was not necessarily confined to the physical body.

When he first met Cha Yilhyun, he was dumbfounded. At that time, Cha Yilhyun was no different from a ruined man. With eyes that were half out of his mind, he only asked him to save Seok Ryu. That he would do anything. He only came to his senses when Heewan found a way to resurrect the guardian stone.

Cha Yilhyun had readily accepted the price for Seok Ryu’s body that Kyojun had called out in a fit of anger. It was enough money to buy all the guardian stones in the workshop. When resurrecting Seok Ryu, Cha Yilhyun had also brought two of his own ribs. He was dumbfounded at the words that one was for emergencies. He heard that he had an artificial bone implanted in the place he had given up for Seok Ryu.

He grafted Seok Ryu’s source stone, which was practically powder, onto a healthy garnet source stone, and crystallized Seok Ryu’s scattered consciousness into the new source stone. He barely managed to restore Seok Ryu’s physical body in half a year, but his soul did not return. At first, they performed the resurrection ritual in their respective residences, but as dangerous situations were repeated, they decided to perform it at the cabin.

Cha Yilhyun regularly visited the cabin and injected his blood into Seok Ryu. If Heewan had not stopped him, he probably would have come every day to give him a transfusion. But despite his utmost devotion, Seok Ryu just lay there like a mannequin.

The reason Heewan had been so devoted to Seok Ryu was because he knew it would end someday. If the resurrection experiment had failed in the end, he had intended to give up on Seok Ryu. Knowing it was a path of endless penance, how could Cha Yilhyun have so readily given up his ribs and shared his blood? It was an emotion that he himself could not possibly fathom.

Heewan could not fully bless this moment, where misaligned time had repeated countless times, and miracle met miracle to finally bear fruit. It was because he felt like Seok Ryu had been stolen from him.

Seok Ryu, while suffering in a hideous world, had been in a pure white love, while he, stuck in a clean lab and hiding behind Kyojun, was just treading water. But he also felt a wish for Seok Ryu, who had finally met his fated person, to be well.

Heewan looked at the empty glass case and whispered as if chanting a spell.

“You have to be happy…….”