C524
"Are you done with the racket?"
Clang!
Pale tightened her grip on the sword. A blue aura began to bloom around her. Is she going to become the Blue Knight?
"You wouldn't think I'd accept such a proposal willingly, would you? You? Lucas. You're taking this too lightly."
"Of course not. You're not such a simple woman."
Without even rising, Lucas lazily opened his eyes.
"But wouldn't it be a more interesting development than killing me here?"
"Hmm. Well, I don't see it that way."
"My teleportation magic only works in places I've visited before. In the Void World, I mean."
"Stop talking nonsense."
Pale, who had been looking at him disdainfully for a moment, frowned.
"Isn't this your first time in Dump Site?"
"You brought me here."
"So what?"
"You should know better than I do. Why did the 'Pale back then' bring me here?"
"..."
The blue aura that was rising weakened slightly. Pale looked at Lucas with narrowed eyes, but she wasn't the first to speak.
Does she seem unwilling to say it herself?
Lucas decided to indulge her whim.
"You must have wanted us to share a similar original sin. So you made me devour the 'other Lucas'."
"..."
"And I faithfully followed your intentions. I endured for a long time in Dump Site and devoured all the 'failed Lucas'."
"What do you mean?"
Lucas smiled faintly.
"Do you realize, Pale? The man in front of you is someone who enjoys agony."
A dark form blossomed behind him. Pale's expression instantly froze. Such was the resentment emanating from Lucas's back.
... Fragments of the emotions possessed by the failed Lucas?
"You must know something about my life. You must also know that it has been far from tranquil. Here it was even more so. I have made countless difficult decisions in my life and I have also accepted all the 'failed Lucas'. Even their pain."
Therefore, agony was not a strange or terrifying concept for Lucas. Deep down, he somewhat agreed with the saying "life is suffering".
In retrospect, Lucas's life had been an endless succession of agony.
"Have you lived a more painful life than me? Is that what you're trying to say."
Pale said with a cold voice.
"I will compare it right now."
"What?"
"You've always said. That the pain you've experienced is unique and horrific, and that what others have experienced is nothing. You are free to think that, but whether it's really true is another matter. You've never felt another pain like hunger."
At some point, Pale's sword had extended towards the ground. She stared at his lips with expressionless eyes.
"I'm different. The life I've lived and the pain I've suffered are recognized even by the Rulers."
Lightning God: [Screw you, when did I say that?]
"In other words, if I experience hunger here as much as you... then comparison is possible. I can test if hunger is the worst of sufferings."
Lucas looked at Pale and continued.
"I'll try it. If hunger is so terrible that it doesn't compare to the pain I've experienced, I won't be able to endure it for long and I'll give up. At that moment, you can cut my throat. How about it? Isn't it simple?"
"Haha, hahahaha...!"
Pale burst into laughter. Her rough laughter echoed in Dump Site.
Soon, she plunged her sword into the ground.
Puff!
The blue sword was halfway stuck in the ground.
"How amusing!"
Pale sat on the ground with a radiant smile.
Acceptance.
Pale had finally accepted Lucas's proposal.
Time flows differently in Dump Site than outside.
And with Lucas's current power, he can even adjust the specific value of that flow.
In other words, it means he can set the time to pass hundreds of years in this place while only seconds pass outside. Of course, if he does it this way, the owner of this space, one of the Twelve Void Lords, will undoubtedly notice.
No matter.
First of all, when Lucas entered this space with Pale, that guy would have already noticed their existences. However, the fact that he has not yet intervened means one of two things.
Either he's watching us, or he's finished watching and has no intention of intervening hastily.
Considering Corpse Ghost's sly and cautious nature, the latter is most likely.
That's why Lucas even adjusted the flow of time. Now, no matter how much time they spend in Dump Site, not a moment will pass outside.
"You're a patient person, aren't you? Definitely."
Pale spoke.
She was kneeling, in an incongruously docile posture, looking at Lucas. She still had a smile on her lips.
"Did you say you devoured all the Lucas here? That's not possible in a few decades or even centuries. Even with very high mental strength, it would take at least thousands of years."
"……."
"Shall I make a prediction for you?"
Her voice gradually turned cold.
"This time won't take you that long."
"Do you think I'll give up before then?"
"Give up? Ha, that's a joke. For that, you'd have to maintain sanity, wouldn't you?"
Pale's lips moved and a whisper escaped them.
"You can't endure hunger for thousands of years. You said you knew everything about me, right? Then remember just two things."
And the whisper filtered into his ear.
"This pain doesn't become familiar. It just grows deeper. Like a nightmare."
Time.
Lucas thought again of that word and slowly went through his memory.
In the long time he had lived, how much time had he really spent hungry?
As mentioned earlier, Lucas's life was a succession of suffering, but hunger is a relatively unknown type of suffering for him.
First of all, he didn't spend much time with a complete body. Even when he was trapped in the Abyss, it was his mind that suffered, not his physical body. Of course, he didn't feel hunger.
After becoming an Absolute, he shed the burden of the physical body and acted as a Transcendent being. Sometimes he descended into the physical world with a body, but most of the time he existed in a transcendental state that didn't require the normal metabolism of a living creature.
Yes, I...
"I've never been hungry."
Among the countless sufferings Lucas had experienced, hunger was not one of them.
Of course, among the "failed Lucas" in his memory, there was also one who had died of hunger. He could know the bitterness, pain, and fear he had felt just before dying.
But even that wasn't something he had directly experienced. Although it is said that if one concentrates, one can feel memories as if they were real, it is not the same as experiencing them for real.
Therefore,
Lucas would directly experience hunger.
It was better to be precise at least with the passage of time.
Counting one by one, second by second.
Lucas operated his internal clock with the precision of a machine.
He didn't feel anything until a day passed. His stomach felt a little empty, but that was it. Anyway, Lucas had gone days and nights without eating when he was devoted to magical research in the past.
One day, and then another.
The presence of emptiness became evident. At least he had passed the point where he could ignore it. But it was still bearable.
Lucas didn't indulge in idle thoughts but focused on the pain. Then he felt time passing at an unbearably slow pace.
When another three days passed, something else became as present as hunger.
Thirst.
His esophagus felt like a scorching desert. Every time he swallowed saliva, his throat burned, and he felt tears welling up. He needed to swallow saliva, but the saliva production in his mouth was scarce. Yes. His mouth was pasty. The rough texture of his tongue felt like sand.
"..."
Lucas said nothing. His expression didn't change.
Most of the pains a human can experience are not a test for Lucas. This was no different. Lucas knew things much more horrible than physical pain.
However, at that moment, Lucas felt a strange gaze and opened his eyes.
Hiic─
She still had a smile on her face.
------------------------
His thought changed as a month passed.
"It's time..."
Lucas thought, facing the hunger he felt.
This is probably the point where normal people would die of starvation. There would be differences among individuals, but there's no human who can live more than a month without eating anything.
Dying here would be easier.
But the hunger Pale experienced was different.
Rather, this would only be the beginning.
The pain that will come,
A pain no living being has ever experienced,
A pain beyond death.
And it began.
“…!”
Lucas's eyebrows furrowed.
Suddenly, he felt like his throat was burning. His stomach contracted and expanded as if it were being crushed. In the center, it felt like there was a ball made of blades, and Lucas had to swallow saliva every time that happened.
He felt nauseous. Of course, there was nothing to vomit. Because there was nothing left inside him.
The world turned yellow. He felt like not enough oxygen was reaching his brain.
"It's terrible."
It's harsh.
Yet, Lucas remained relatively calm and thought.
What would a normal human think if faced with such pain?
…They would think about how to escape this pain.
You can't sleep. You can't faint.
Hunger doesn't let you.
So the only option left is...
"...I want to die."
─Ah.
At that moment, Lucas suddenly understood. The feelings the girl with blue hair had experienced, not as a memory seen, but as learning through identical experience.
Pale...
She had lived a long time.
She had seen many people.
She had seen heaps of people dying of hunger and emaciated corpses.
What feelings did it provoke in her to see that spectacle that anyone could feel pity or disgust for?
Envy...
Envy clouding her eyes...
Because she, try as she might, couldn't die.
-----------------------
The snowball of pain grew. It swelled.
Lucas's body, which had been sitting in meditation without moving, began to change. His expressions of pain, the movement of his eyebrows and lips, gradually weakened.
"Ugh, aaah..."
Lucas groaned, clutching his abdomen.
...What did he say? Worms, worms? He remembered the terrible pain they inflicted on him. The pain Lucas felt now was as intense as it was then. It was as if the scavengers that only existed in the Dump Site were moving inside his body, slowly devouring his internal organs.
"Ha, huh..."
No voice came out. Only a wheeze came from Lucas's voice.
That was painful.
The air grazed his dry throat, and every time it did, it felt like a sharp razor blade was cutting his throat mercilessly. Even breathing was painful.
He no longer had the strength to remain seated.
Lucas collapsed to the ground.
Sometimes he grabbed his throat or punched his abdomen with his fists. But he felt nothing, had no effect.
The pain of suffocation or the pain of the blows meant nothing in the face of hunger. When his body was already burning in the hottest flame, the touch of a match doesn't even feel like pain.
"Were you counting the time?"
He thought he heard a voice, but Lucas couldn't understand it well.
Pale smiled widely as she watched Lucas. She opened her mouth to the man crawling among the corpses as if wandering through hell.
"But halfway through, you couldn't do it anymore, could you? You wouldn't have had the energy to concentrate on that. Hahaha. How about it? It's not easy, is it?"
Pale laughed, but Lucas couldn't even hear her laughter correctly.
"I'll tell you. It's been 3 months already."
But those words he heard clearly.
─3 months.
Ah.
Has it already been so long?
Well...
"Compared to the time I've lived, that's just a morning dew, not even that. You could even call it a moment. However, you're already in this state, Tio. Crawling pathetically on the ground, even shedding tears... Haha."
She laughed as if she had heard a funny joke.
"...No matter how much you try to follow my pain, even if you artificially create that situation, you and I are fundamentally different. You can never be like me. Because you can give up at any moment."
The whisper was a temptation.
"Even right now, if you just say 'I give up,' everything will end. And then, well, you can fight me, can't you?"
“…”
"Isn't it more logical to just let go of all this, use your power and the power of the Ruler, and simply fight me to seek victory?"
Lucas looked dazedly at Pale.
Hungry,
With his throat burning,
At this moment,
Pale's proposition shook Lucas like the scent of a delicious meal after a long fast.
─A sweet temptation offered under impossible-to-refuse conditions.
But...
…….
…….
…….
─ How many times has this Lucas Traumen rejected that?
“…!”
Pale shuddered.
In the midst of hunger, writhing in pain, as if he were about to die at any moment,
Lucas was smiling.
Tags:
TGMRA (Novel)