SOG Ch 195 END

*

In the spring of 588, Gyeong Hye-in’s first trial opened at the Central District Court in District 1.

A professor of Guide phenomenology who took the witness stand expressed the view that the guiding machine named ‘Chimera’, which enabled Angel’s miraculous guiding ability, unlike the early models, did not cause significant physical or mental damage to the host. In other words, Gyeong Hye-in had committed all those acts in her right mind.

“Why did I do it, you ask?”

Gyeong Hye-in, standing in court wearing prison clothes and ankle shackles, spoke informally towards the questioning prosecutor, despite repeated warnings from the court about contempt. Her eyes, brimming with madness, curved gently.

“I don’t know either. There was just anger inside me since I was young. But I didn’t know whether to release it or hold it in. And when I release it-“

“…”

“It felt good, ‘sir’?”

With a final mocking honorific, she broke into hysterical laughter, her Adam’s apple visible. Naturally, Gyeong Hye-in received death sentences from the first trial to the final appeal. Just like the Technician Go Young-woon, who had gone insane after being killed hundreds of times right before being caught.

After the two core executives of Black Swan and their members died by lethal injection accompanied by medical professionals—a far more humane method than what they had inflicted upon tens of thousands of victims.

Go Woo-jin seized military power with all his might and also took control of J Corporation. All to continue research on the Windless Zone.

For the next decade or so, Woo-jin’s life was unbearably tedious. He forcibly took over J Corporation by ousting Yoon Seo-mi and Go Young-chang, helped Kwon A-ryang seize military power, played the hero as demanded by the newly established civilian government, and rose to the rank of marshal, one of only two in the history of the Union for his merit in eliminating Black Swan. Yet, Woo-jin felt like a machine—running solely on the responsibility and duty programmed into him, moving across the ruins of his burned-out soul.

He felt he could turn off the power at any time, but he was still moving because of the last driving force burning deep in his heart.

The Windless Zone research was not over. ‘If only we could go back to the past…’ The voice of Esper Gu Ji-eun, who had passed away a few years ago unable to overcome her illness, seemed to guide him.

And finally.

“The miracle is complete.”

Go Woo-jin had obtained the miracle of the Windless Zone.

As soon as he heard the news, Go Woo-jin immediately headed to the research center set up in the J Corporation headquarters building. There was no need to hesitate anymore. Many things had happened in the meantime. He recalled the arduous processes of having to constantly deal with and expel those who coveted this research, domestic parties, the American Union, and even researchers within the company.

Before any other variables could interfere, he wanted to celebrate this victory, even if only briefly.

Inside the research lab occupying an entire floor of the skyscraper, under dimmed lights, mysterious silvery light particles floated in the darkness. It was the trace of concentrated energy scattering. The stardust-like light particles gently pushed away and returned with each step Go Woo-jin took on the linoleum floor, as if synchronizing with the Esper wavelength.

Go Woo-jin quietly dismissed the researchers. Alone, he turned his back completely on the dazzling metropolis visible through the full-length windows he had protected until now, and activated the machine device named the ‘Miracle System’.

And all he wished for was…

For that moment that had briefly shone in his mechanical life to return. To turn back time, just as Noah Airy had foreseen in her writings.

So that ‘that person’ could safely return,

And live on for a long time.

Woo-jin earnestly prayed towards the energy that began to amplify enormously, befitting the word ‘miracle’.

And if there was anything more he wished for,

He hoped that he himself would remember nothing. 

He was already worn out beyond measure. To the point where the mere thought of repeating his tasteless life again made him sick to his stomach. Woo-jin had completely forgotten how to live a normal life. He only knew how to live like a machine.

Even if he were to live the same gray life again, wouldn’t he be less unhappy if he had no memories, like other people?

Facing the scattering white light, Go Woo-jin closed his eyes. Imagining himself becoming part of the world where the person he had longed for so much would live. Thinking that he wouldn’t mind at all even if he was used and discarded by that person.

Finally, the wave of light surged in.

As he had wished, the entire world began to rewind.

And in the next moment, Go Woo-jin opened his eyes as a 21-year-old without any memories. He found himself aboard a pirate ship in the waters near Mentosa Island in District 4.

*

A momentary miracle that no one knew about. Although Go Woo-jin himself didn’t realize it, he overwhelmed his enemies with even more refined movements than before. A week later, after eradicating the pirates and even responding to the industrial complex fire in District 1, Go Woo-jin was transferred to the emergency guiding center. There, he found Seon Jae-chan on emergency duty during a Tempo Red situation.

Normally, Jae-chan would guide from a distance using radiation guiding. But for some reason, he had been grabbed by a particularly aggressive Esper. Woo-jin practically forcibly stripped the guy’s arm off to free Jae-chan.

The moment he looked at Jae-chan’s youthful and unblemished face, now freed from scar—

“…”

Go Woo-jin unknowingly pulled him into an embrace. His soul, which had been longing and aching for a long time, let out a deep sigh of relief. However, Woo-jin remained unaware of this subconscious act. Holding Jae-chan tightly as if he would never let go, he suddenly became flustered and pushed him away.

“…Are you okay?”

Was this happening because he hadn’t received guiding for too long? His fingertips, which had flinched even at Jae-chan’s trivial question, soon calmed as if it had been an illusion.

Go Woo-jin followed Seon Jae-chan, who was leading the way to the guiding room. At that moment, he had no idea how beautifully his life, now suddenly taking a different path in an instant, would transform. He merely pressed his hand against his still-dry, steady-beating heart. 

It was on a summer night when a typhoon was quietly moving north.

RESULT: Akashic records

Noah Airy, the 68-year-old guardian of the American Union, the undefeated goddess, and the public captain of the Esper guild ‘Bronze Eagle’, called the ability she miraculously gained in the Windless Zone ‘Akashic records’. She named it so because her ability, commonly known as prophecy, closely resembled the nature of the Akashic records described in Sanskrit mythology.

The ability Noah Airy gained in the windless zone wasn’t simple precognition. It was closer to omniscience. Believing that her ability would cause imbalance in the world, she had been using it minimally, making it appear as mere prophecy.

However, even this godlike ability couldn’t fulfill what she truly desired.

One Tuesday late evening, after returning home from her office, Noah Airy suddenly felt like ‘meeting’ her ability. She immediately sat in the comfortable armchair by the window, closed her eyes, and entered the mysterious space in her mind that she could reach instantly just by imagining it.

As if she had actually teleported, a more magnificent scene than reality unfolded before Noah Airy’s eyes. It was a space like a universe trapped in a room. All events from the past to the future were recorded without exception in thousands and billions of starlight.

Noah Airy briefly looked around this space she loved most with affectionate eyes, then clearly wished as if speaking. It was to meet the ‘Akashic records’.

The thought she had just recalled was a question she had once been terribly obsessed with.

‘Tell me how to bring the dead back to life.’

As always, the Akashic records gathered countless tiny lights like starlight and showed her the answer.

-Similar ability will manifest in 32 years.

With each new year she asked, the Akashic records always reduced the number of years. By exactly the number of years she had aged.

Seeing the expected answer, Noah Airy gently asked,

‘Is it impossible now?’

-Impossible.

Noah Airy let out a brief sigh. She was already in her 60s. She couldn’t be absolutely certain she would survive until the ability user manifested the miracle.

Although she had finally accepted a few years ago that it was an unattainable dream, Noah Airy habitually continued to converse with the Akashic records on this topic and read information about the Esper with this ability. First name is Woo-jin. The person with the ability she desperately wished for was from the Eastern Union.

‘A regression ability, huh.’

As the Akashic records had described it as a similar ability, ‘Woo-jin’s’ ability wasn’t simply the power to revive people. In a way, it was even more remarkable. It was the ability to go back to the past.

According to the Akashic records, which knew about both past and future, 32 years later, Woo-jin was planning to regress one person he wanted to bring back to life.

“It’s as if everyone but the subject of regression suffers from collective amnesia.”

Noah Airy, who had once been very interested in this ability and had asked the Akashic records various questions, knew a few things about the characteristics of this mysterious ability called ‘regression’. In the world reversed by regression, people who had already died or suffered serious injuries would experience symptoms similar to PTSD. They would unconsciously find their eyes drawn again to people they once loved.

But these were just temporary symptoms that might be mistaken for déjà vu. It was an arrangement made by the windless zone to allow only the person who had regressed to fully enjoy the miracle.

‘It would have been better if I had that ability.’

Noah Airy smiled, immersed in regret. It seems that meeting again with the family she lost when very young was only possible through death after all.

I’ll come see you later. As always, she lightly resigned herself and left the room of the Akashic records simply by opening her eyes.

And after Noah Airy left.

The Akashic records, left alone in the space in her mind, emitted light like a living being with will. All thoughts and facts of past, present, and future were manifested in brilliant letters. Like a magnificent cosmic show, thousands and tens of thousands of mysterious pieces of information playfully spread out in the air and then disappeared repeatedly.

Among them were rampant information that Noah Airy would find trivial if she read it. After trivial information such as “Indoor slippers with seagull patterns are produced up to 300mm” and “Kim Geun-won shaved his beard because Gyeong Hye-in criticized him for looking like a bandit” were exchanged, a sentence that Noah Airy might find slightly interesting appeared very briefly.

It was a sentence that contained a slight hint about Noah Airy’s life endpoint, revealing the Akashic records’ small affection for its owner.

-The lives of Go Woo-jin and Seon Jae-chan, whom he brought back, have a happy ending like Noah Airy’s life.

-The End-