Chapter 68

It had been three days since I drank from the Lake of Gouphus and descended into the Imagery.

Since capturing the lion, fake-Shia and fake-Bel had continued taking me along, hunting(?) in various locations.

Sometimes it was at a school whose name I didn’t know, sometimes at a park I felt like I had seen before, sometimes along the riverside trail in a nearby neighborhood, and sometimes in an old apartment complex.

The monsters we encountered there took on truly diverse forms.

Some were what one might commonly imagine as monsters, while others were far more grotesque, and…

“Good grief… what on earth is that?”

…Occasionally, there were even forms I could never have imagined.

.
.
.

“Hehe, Aniki~”

“Ahh~ Aniki~~”

“Wait, what the hell…?!”

Daegu, Dalseong District, Mashin Park.

Next to a reservoir called Mashin Pond—an oddly suggestive name, as if a giant robot were hiding beneath the water—a park had been built, beloved by local residents as a walking spot. I’d even visited it a few times in the real world.

But… in the Imagery version of that place, instead of locals, it was overflowing with other, far more terrifying beings.

“Opaaa!!”

“No, I’m not your Aniki! Don’t come! I said don’t!!”

Truthfully, I’m not someone who feels fear easily. You need something scary to actually feel fear, right?

But at this moment, my heart was truly being squeezed by terror.

And it was no wonder—dozens of 2.5-meter-tall, insanely muscular bald men, wearing only speedos, were running toward me in grappling stances, shouting “Aniki~!”

How could anyone not feel fear at a sight like that?!

“Get off me! Don’t shove those sweaty, grotesque muscles at me!”

Bang! Crash!! Bam! Boom!!

I kicked them with all my might as they came at me. Fortunately, none of them were particularly strong, so each kick sent their chests and faces caving in like bowling pins.

But then…

Suddenly!!

“Hehe… Aniki~”

The monsters sprang back up as if the wounds didn’t matter at all, letting out a “Hup!” as they resumed the grappling stance and came crashing toward me.

“No! Why are these trash mobs so damn resilient!?”

Without thinking, I stepped back and drew a decorative dagger I’d scavenged from a nearby house.

“Alright. Let’s see what you bastards can do.”

“““Aniki~!”””

I took a steady breath and assumed a knife-fighting stance. Then I set up a virtual combat zone and began cutting down anything that crossed its boundary.

Slicck! Clang! Skaka-gak!

Every time the decorative dagger sliced through the air, arms flew off, legs were severed, heads toppled—and bald skulls went flying.

Apart from their traumatizing appearance, these guys weren’t particularly difficult to handle. They were humanoid, and although their defense made them a bit tough, they weren’t strong enough to withstand my dagger.

“Ugh… and why is the blood white? It’s not even sap. Disgusting…”

Only after slicing up all the incoming monsters did I finally step back, panting, to inspect the fallen.

And then, I realized something important.

“Wait… aren’t these Super Aniki Demons?”

Super Aniki Demons.

The term refers to the bald, muscular characters from the notorious shooting game made by Mesa×Uhga, famous for the Lang×Sa series.

Thanks to their surreal design, they had gained cult popularity at the time and are still occasionally used as memes… and judging by their grotesque muscles, toothy grins, and the hole at the crown of their heads (where bullets come out in the game), there was no doubt these were Super Aniki Demons.

Wow. They looked funny in illustrations, but seeing them materialized like this… terrifying.

“…But why is a character like this even showing up here?”

At that moment, I heard the spiritual presence of the others, who were busy taking out the remaining Super Aniki Demons farther away.

‘Be careful.’

‘No letting your guard down.’

“Huh? Guard down…?”

Wait a second. These guys—when they die, they should emit some sort of light particle, big or small. Why haven’t they… could it be?

Snap!

As expected, a severed muscular arm that had been rolling near my feet suddenly jerked like a freshly caught fish and clamped onto my ankle.

“…!!!!!!”

Immediately, from the white blood, a fist-sized bald head began to squirm, and then it grinned, showing its teeth.

“Hehe… Aniki~”

I clenched my teeth in mounting terror and disgust.

“…Ah, hell. I’m gonna lose my mind.”

After using even a spell I rarely employed to incinerate the neatly chopped monsters in a blazing sweep, I strode toward the two who were wiping sweat from their foreheads, having taken out the remaining Super Aniki Demons.

“Hey! You two!!”

“……?”

“……??”

“Today, you’re finally going to tell me the full story. What’s going on? Why have you been putting off explaining all this!?”

Yeah. It was about time I demanded answers.

All I’d learned in the past three days was that while I was gone, the two of them had managed to kill quite a few monsters, and any mid-boss-level creatures—like that blue lion—were too strong for them to defeat, so they left them as my prey.

Fine. This time, I’ll get the truth out.

I’d been indulging them for being “cute” all this time… now that the master is asking, they have the audacity to keep teasing me?

Seeing how furious I was, fake-Shia flinched and tapped fake-Bel’s arm. With a nod, fake-Bel stepped forward.

“Really? So you’re going to explain it, fake-Bel, not fake-Shia?”

She nodded.

“Then explain it here, clearly and accurately. The lame excuse of ‘you’ll understand while hunting’ won’t work anymore.”

At my words, she dropped to her knees.

Thud.

“…Huh?”

I half-expected a grand salute or some punishment, but instead, fake-Bel, with a sly smile, lifted the hem of her peplos slightly to cover her thighs, then tapped her own thigh while sending a gentle spiritual message:

‘Please don’t be angry. Calm down.’

“No, I told you to explain, so what the hell is—”

Tap, tap.

‘Here. Lie down. I’ll give you a pillow.’

“No, I said explain—”

Tap, tap.

‘You like this, right?’

“…….”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

‘Here you go~’

“…Yes.”

Squish.

And just like that—I surrendered.

…This damn woman. A genius, maybe.

With a warm, soft pillow under my head and a wriggly affection doll placed on my stomach, the passing breeze brushed over me… and a verse of poetry just slipped out on its own.

What does it matter if it’s this or that?

Even if the wild vines of Mansusan tangle and knot (old Korean poem imagery), what does it matter?

Let us, too, be tangled like this and enjoy it for a thousand, ten thousand years.

Seriously.

Who cares about mobs?

Who cares about “the truth”?

I had a fluffy thigh-pillow beneath my head and the cutest affection doll in the world sitting on my stomach.

I put a little strength into the back of my head, and that soft cushiony feeling exploded into dopamine in my brain.

Squish~

God. This infuriatingly perfect onomatopoeia.

“…Yeah. This is heaven. This is the far shore of enlightenment.”

Anger? Who’s angry? Me? No way.

As if I’d ever get mad at these adorable little friends.

And while I quietly enjoyed this stolen moment of peace…

A calm spiritual intent drifted in from beyond the enormous mountain blocking my vision.

‘Shall I explain?’

“Explain? Explain what? Did something happen?”

‘…….’

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Yeah. Tell me.”

There was a brief hesitation—

Then a mental intent far more tangled and complex than usual began pouring into my mind.

‘The truth is….’

To be honest, trying to extract solid information from vague mental intent and half-useful gestures was exhausting.

And after repeating that exhausting process many times over a long stretch… What I finally pieced together from fake-Bel’s explanation was downright baffling.

“…My Spiritual Power?”

Nod.

“So… that lion I beat up, and those eyeball monsters too—those were all distorted forms of my Spiritual Power?”

Nod, nod.

For reference: [Spiritual Power] meant all soul-based forces—magic, aura, elemental force.

[Spiritual Arts] referred to the disciplines and techniques that used that power—magic, divine roles, spiritcraft.

Sometimes the terms overlapped.

“No, but that doesn’t even make—”

Summarizing what she told me, it went something like this:

1. They only began existing in my Imagery after we crossing into this dimension, Kion.
2. Those mobs had already been nesting in my Imagery long before fake-Shia and fake-Bel appeared.
3. They only recently discovered that killing those things strengthened my physical body.

Those were the facts.

And the rest was fake-Bel’s theory.

4. Those monsters were distorted manifestations of my Spiritual Power. When they died and turned into light, that was the warped energy returning to its original form.

5. Someone—someone they didn’t know—had twisted the Spiritual Power I was originally meant to have and turned it into those things.

6. Judging by the timing, that distortion most likely happened not in Kion, but in the previous world—Earth.

“Stop.”

“……?”

“This is strange. I only heard the term Spiritual Power after coming here. I only awakened magic after arriving. And it’s all been used to seal Shia, right? So how could someone on Earth have distorted my Spiritual Power? What kind of absurd nonsense is that?”

‘Distorted Spiritual Power isn’t magic. It’s a different force.’

Hand gestures and mental intent came again in response to my question. Apparently, the deeper your connection with them, the more accurate the intent becomes… Judging by this, we still had a long way to go.

Setting that aside…

“A different force? Not magic… are you talking about aura, the kind a divine role uses?”

‘No. That’s not a derivative Spiritual Power like magic or aura, which are designed to be usable by intelligent beings. It’s the original form. We also call it Pure Spiritual Power.’

Again, I’m not quoting them directly; this is my own summary of their gestures and intent.

“So, you’re saying… even before I got magic here… back on Earth, I could use Spiritual Power, something like magic? But why didn’t I know about it?”

‘Pure Spiritual Power is harder to sense and use than derivative powers like magic. That’s the primary reason.’

“Hmm…”

‘But you would have noticed its existence eventually. And figured out how to use it. But you couldn’t.’

“Because someone distorted it to stop me?”

‘Yes. Deliberately, with clear intent. With restrictions this strong and complex, it’s basically a curse.’

“Who, then?”

‘Obviously, a transcendent being on Earth.’

“A transcendent being on Earth…?”

As far as I know, in a world still with only one civilization, there’s basically only one kind of entity that could be called transcendent.

“…A god of Earth?”

‘Yes. Probably.’

I felt my head spin at the appearance of a being I’d neither heard of nor seen. Well, of course they must exist. Yuribel mentioned the gods of Earth several times. And isn’t it true that curing cancer requires some kind of agreement with the gods of Earth?

“Why on Earth would they…? What grudge could they have to curse me like this?”

‘I don’t know. Perhaps because Earth hasn’t entered the Spiritual Arts stage as a civilization. But that’s not certain. For someone to independently discover and wield a spiritual art that hasn’t even been unlocked is a talent that might exist once in a civilization. Usually, such talent is blessed, not blocked.’

“This… what kind of nonsense is that?”

‘Well, dogs do graze on grass, though.’

“Quiet.”

‘…Yes.’