TNAAS Ch 15

Episode 15

Oh. Gyeongi was speaking properly and calmly for the first time. It was a rare sight, but Yeonwoo couldn’t afford to be merely surprised. As he listened to Gyeongi and looked down closely, he realized the fog was moving little by little.

It had been too dark to notice before, but now he could see it writhing like a living creature, struggling to pierce through the yellow mana barrier. Judging by the faintly opened parts, the tapping from earlier must have come from that fog as well.

A chill ran down Yeonwoo’s spine. He hurriedly tried to summon the spirits to hear more from them, but for some reason, he couldn’t summon them at all.

[Master, you don’t have enough mana left to call us out!]

[That’s right! Even though we each have our own mana, summoning us can only be done with the Master’s mana!]

What a disaster. If he didn’t even have enough mana to summon them, a task as natural as breathing, then escaping from here was out of the question.

“If this is my mindscape, wouldn’t it be enough for me to just wake up or for my real self to regain consciousness?”

It sounded like a clever idea when he said it, but apparently, that didn’t work either. The youngest-looking spirit, Uwi, spoke in a voice thick with sobs.

[Hic... That passage is already completely blocked by the fog… Hic… We can’t get out…]

“Then what am I supposed to do?!”

As he floundered in the swamp of despair, a low chuckle echoed from somewhere. It was the kind of laugh one would make when watching something amusing. The sound drew closer and closer until a figure emerged from the fog.

“Is this supposed to be a comedy play? You look cuter up close than from afar.”

The man who emerged from the fog was incredibly handsome, but something about his appearance sent a chill down Yeonwoo’s back. Black hair, black eyes, and even the shape of his eyes resembled someone he knew all too well.

Black eyes and black hair. As Yeonwoo studied his face closely, he gasped in realization. They matched the features of the man he had last seen before losing consciousness from that blinding headache.

“You! You’re the one who broke into my room without permission before, aren’t you?!”

At Yeonwoo’s outburst, the man frowned deeply, as if recalling something unpleasant. Whatever Yeonwoo had said seemed to have struck a nerve, for an intense, murderous aura unlike anything Yeonwoo had felt before began to emanate from him.

“If you compare me to that thing one more time, I’ll kill you right here, Spirit Master or not.”

Who on earth had that man been to make this man so furious? And who was this man, standing so confidently as if he owned someone else’s mindscape?

Even amid his fear, or perhaps because of a faint hope that this man might be related to his transmigration into the game, Yeonwoo felt cold sweat run down his back as he replied, his voice trembling.

“Th-then who are you? Why did you enter someone else’s mindscape and block the way out?”

The man still hadn’t calmed down. He roughly ran his hand through his hair and, in an instant, closed the distance between them until he was right in front of Yeonwoo. The yellow barrier that had surrounded him earlier had already vanished without a trace.

Even with Yeonwoo’s depleted mana, the fact that the man had broken through the barrier so effortlessly, without even a gesture, meant he was no ordinary person. Yeonwoo instinctively stepped back, staying alert as he met the man’s gaze head-on.

“Why don’t you recognize me? You were so desperate to find me. And in the real world, you were so eager to tear me apart, weren’t you?”

“What…?”

The real world? How did this man know about that? And what did he mean by desperately searching for him and being eager to tear him apart? As Yeonwoo grasped the meaning behind the man’s cryptic words, he could only stare in shock.

“You’re not saying that you’re…”

“Finally figured it out? How do you plan to survive in this harsh world if you’re that slow?”

The man chuckled lowly, amused by something only he understood, then suddenly stopped laughing. He lifted his hand and roughly grabbed Yeonwoo’s cheek. The sudden pain made Yeonwoo let out a short groan, but the intense force pressing down on him kept him from shaking the man off.

“You said you wanted to catch me yourself, with your own hands^[1]. Go on, try it. Hm?”

“How do you… That wasn’t your face.”

This man was Helleo. The final boss of the game. In the game, he had always appeared wearing black armor and a black cloak, so Yeonwoo had never seen his bare face before. It made sense that he hadn’t recognized him.

To think that he had lost consciousness after depleting all his mana, become trapped in his own mindscape, and now the one blocking his way out was the final boss. If that wasn’t the game forcing him toward death, then what was? His luck couldn’t possibly be this rotten.

What on earth did Helleo want from him to go this far? From the way he mentioned Spirit Masters, it seemed to hold some importance for him, but Yeonwoo had no way of knowing why.

“Why did you trap me here? And how do you even know about the real world?”

It was a desperate struggle. The faint hope he’d held of finding a way out crumbled miserably. Even if the man before him had been a good person, escaping would have been uncertain. But since he was the final boss, there was no chance at all. After all, the man’s nature was far from kind.   

According to the game’s story, Helleo was a ruthless, deranged man who had killed his entire family, sought to devour the world, and turn it into his personal livestock pen. Begging such a man to let him go would be utterly meaningless.

“Because I’m the one who brought you here.”

Releasing Yeonwoo’s cheek, Helleo casually picked at his ear as he spoke, his tone indifferent. It was unbelievable. How could a mere game character possibly drag Yeonwoo from the outside world into this place?

Convinced that Helleo was mocking him, Yeonwoo shouted in fury.

“Stop talking nonsense! You’re just an NPC! What could you possibly do?!”

“Hey, wasn’t there something like this in the game’s story you know so well? ‘The final boss, Helleo, ascended into a godlike being capable of shaking all of creation.’”

It was unmistakable mockery. The cruel, amused ridicule of a hungry predator toying with a helpless animal trapped in a cage.

That was how Helleo had been described in the game. But that was in the game. Even if he had divine power there, how could he possibly summon someone from another world into this one? It was impossible. And yet…

“This world isn’t the game world you think it is. I merely built the game based on the real world that already existed.”

“Why would you do something like that…? Even if that’s true, why me of all people? What did I ever do wrong?!”

“Oh, come on. Calm down. I did help you out a few times when you were in danger, didn’t I?”

In danger? For a moment, Yeonwoo recalled the system voice he had heard not long ago. As the realization dawned on him, his face grew pale and his lips trembled.

“That’s right. That was me. And if we’re talking about wrongdoing, I’d say your only crime was taking the game too seriously. If raising a Spirit Master to such a high level all on your own, something no one else ever did, was a mistake, then that’s your mistake.” 

Letting out a sneer, Helleo moved behind Yeonwoo’s back, bent down, and whispered into his ear. The aura was so terrifying that Yeonwoo’s hair stood on end, and he felt as if he might collapse at any moment, but he gritted his teeth and held on. He had a feeling that if he fell here, he would become nothing more than Helleo’s toy.

“I needed a Spirit Master. In this world, the lineage of Spirit Masters has been severed, so they can no longer be found. With those crude buffs, I couldn’t kill that bastard, and I can’t make something that doesn’t exist out of nowhere, either.”   

“So…?”

Yeonwoo barely managed to swallow the lump in his throat and cautiously turned to meet the man’s abyssal eyes. Seeing Yeonwoo tense his jaw, Helleo let out a short, amused laugh, then gripped Yeonwoo’s chin tightly in one hand, forcing him to stay still.

“So I brought one from another world. Someone suitable to be a Spirit Master. And by chance, it was you. So if you give me your power so that I can kill that bastard, and I’ll let you leave this world.”

“Ha, this is insane. So you’re telling me I went out of my way to play a character no one else touched, raised it better than anyone else, and that’s why you brought me here?  What a crazy bastard.”

Fear aside, Yeonwoo was genuinely furious. Who could have imagined that something like this would happen over playing a game? The terror that had kept him trembling began to harden into anger. He wanted to grab Helleo by the collar and demand answers, but because of who his opponent was, he forced himself to lower his head and calm down.

As he repeated Helleo’s words in his mind, something suddenly flashed through Yeonwoo’s head.

“Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Suddenly bursting into laughter like a madman, Yeonwoo startled Helleo so much that he released his hold and took a step back. Ignoring Helleo’s reaction, Yeonwoo clutched his stomach and laughed until his cheeks ached.

“W-what? The crazy one isn’t me, it’s you!”

Tears gathered in Yeonwoo’s eyes from laughing so much. He straightened, turned, and faced Helleo directly. The height difference was considerable, but he didn’t care; he grabbed Helleo by the collar and forced him to be eye level.

“Hey, you can’t kill me. Right? And why the hell would I help you, you idiot?”

Whether it was the right answer or not, Helleo’s hand, which had been trying to roughly shake Yeonwoo’s grip free, came to an abrupt halt.

Got you, you bastard.

That explained why the NPCs had behaved slightly differently until now. Since this was a world where the game system didn’t apply, it was only natural for beings with egos^[2] to act according to circumstances. And Yeonwoo was certain Helleo hadn’t revealed all the information yet.

Now that he knew the truth, there was nothing left to fear or hesitate over. Why trust a final boss? Helleo was a thorough villain. Rather than aid him and soil his own hands, Yeonwoo would stick to his original goal.

“If you’re the one who did this, wouldn’t killing you send me back?”

“Do you think if you kill me, you’ll be able to return to your original world?”

When Helleo gave a hollow laugh, Yeonwoo, pretending to ponder, curled the corner of his mouth in a mocking sneer, just as Helleo had done moments ago.

“I’ll think about that once I’ve killed you.”