WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ The World After the Fall ◈
Chapter 173: Episode 23. Driver (7)
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To turn back the time of the 《Phantasmal Tree》 by seven hundred years. If such a thing truly happened, the entire 《Phantasmal Tree》 would be swallowed by a terrible disaster.
Yet there was no way that wish could come true. Even 〈Metaverse〉’s power to grant wishes had its limits.
A wish to make someone as strong as Jaehwan was impossible, so there was no way a wish to turn back the time of the entire world by seven hundred years could be granted.
Manri Shintong opened his mouth as if offering advice.
“Leader, there’s no way a wish like that can come true. You only get one wish, so make it count.”
Leader’s expression remained serious.
“Driver. I kept every promise I made to you. I have the right to get that time back.”
As though no attempt to dissuade him could reach him, Leader continued.
“I created the Alliance. I gathered trust and offered it to you. I even handled every damned task you should have handled as the ‘Driver.’ I lived that way for six hundred years.”
Leader pulled a miniature tower model from his robes and threw it to the ground. It did not break easily. The model rolled across the floor and bumped against Jaehwan’s feet.
“Are you saying my wish still cannot come true? You clearly promised me.”
The Allies looked at the Driver with hopeful eyes.
Even now, the Driver spun around with a smile, as if this amused him.
[Turn back time... Yes, I did promise to grant that wish. I have not forgotten.]
The Driver’s gaze turned toward the screens in the air. The screens his eyes passed over went dark one by one, like candles being snuffed out.
[I told you then as well, but it is impossible to grant that wish through the Driver’s power alone.]
Relief passed over the Allies’ faces.
Then the Driver’s tone changed.
[But things would be different if I stopped being the ‘Driver.’]
The Driver slowly raised his head.
Beyond the open ceiling of the penthouse stretched the sky of the 《Abyss》.
[I have gathered enough World Power at last.]
The condensed World Power looked ready to burst forth and raise the tower floor itself.
World Power gathered over a thousand years.
As if he had expected this, Leader asked, “You’re leaving this tower?”
[Yes. The time has come.]
Along with the Driver’s answer, a small spacecraft appeared at the center of the sky. Its pure white exterior resembled a star-shaped candy as it received World Power from the tower.
That must have been the vessel that would take the Driver to the First Nightmare.
[If I safely reach the ‘First Nightmare,’ I will grant your wish.]
The Allies were beginning to understand.
Perhaps the sight they were about to witness would surpass anything they could imagine.
The Driver swept his languid eyes over Jaehwan and the Allies, then asked,
[Who wants to become the next Driver? Raise your hand.]
No one raised a hand.
The Driver said,
[Then, as promised, you will become the Driver, Leader.]
“...”
[From the moment I leave, you will become the Driver of this tower. If you refuse... Vertus, you will become the next Driver.]
Vertus, who had been waiting for orders in the corner of the drawing room, trembled slightly. The Attendant Vertus looked up at the Driver as if asking whether he was truly leaving.
The Driver gave Vertus a small smile.
[You have worked hard all this time.]
A translucent spiral staircase descended from the spacecraft.
The Driver slowly began climbing it.
[Thanks to all of you, it was entertaining until the very end.]
None of the Allies tried to stop the Driver. More precisely, they could not.
Some journeys were like that. Adventures that inspired awe simply by beginning.
This path toward every ‘end of the world.’
Behind the Driver as he set out upon it hung the tragedies he had mass-produced, like trophies of war.
Yet no one pointed a finger at him.
Jaehwan watched the Driver walk toward the sky. He had already climbed more than half the stairs.
“Jaehwan-nim.”
Apparently realizing something was about to happen, Runald had come up beside him and grabbed his arm.
His only Follower was asking whether it was truly all right to let that person go.
Without answering, Jaehwan looked at the Driver.
The Driver looked down at Jaehwan as well.
The Driver’s eyes spoke.
「You understand, don’t you?」
Perhaps that was true.
Only Jaehwan here understood the Driver’s thousand years.
A being who had lived with one sole purpose, to reach the ‘end of the world.’
He had finally completed those thousand years. That was why he stood atop those stairs.
The Driver’s indifferent gaze fell upon the scene below.
Jaehwan imagined what the Driver saw.
It would be the same sight Jaehwan had witnessed during the Ninth Floor’s ‘Climbing the Branches.’ Gods trampling other Worldviews to have their own recognized. The screams of Followers who functioned as parts of those Worldviews.
Even in a utopia created to escape reality, the world’s essence did not change.
A world was a vast mosaic formed when fleeting lives came together by chance.
Those who sought to ascend to the end of the world had to affirm that world.
They had to gaze indifferently at the picture and arrive at their own interpretation.
And so, those who stood at the top of this tower would eventually come to think like the Driver.
「There is no meaning in this world.」
The ‘Driver’ who drove the world without guilt.
There was not a trace of emotion on the Driver’s face as he left the bus.
Then Jaehwan turned his head and saw Leader’s profile.
Joy. Ecstasy. Despair. Sorrow.
Leader’s past years were tangled together in that expression.
Jaehwan had not noticed it while they fought, but now that the fight was over, he could clearly see the emotions etched into every part of Leader’s face.
The Driver had said he was “twisted.”
“Leader.”
Eoduksi, God of Ashes.
For a long time, he had clung to one purpose alone.
Jaehwan had come here to save his Companions. Leader had come here to revive his dead Companions. To turn back time and make every tragedy that had happened disappear.
Yet everyone here except Leader knew.
Leader’s wish was impossible.
No matter how much World Power 〈Metaverse〉 had gathered, such a miracle could never happen.
Even a Cultivator from the outskirts knew it was impossible.
Still, Leader did not know.
He had spent too long thinking alone.
He had failed to think about what he needed to think about.
“Are you planning to become the Driver?”
“...”
“You’ve thought about this for so long. Don’t you understand by now?”
Leader slowly turned toward Jaehwan.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I saved you because you are a ‘twisted’ god.”
The Driver had said that ‘twisted gods’ spent too long thinking alone, and even after reaching the wrong answer, they could never admit it.
“You’re saying I’m wrong?”
[Some gods demand to know why they cannot see the broadcast screen!]
It seemed Rene had turned on the broadcast. The gods’ messages came from somewhere nearby.
Rene’s broken drone sparked in the air. With its camera damaged, the drone appeared unable to transmit any footage.
[Some gods threaten Rene, telling her to stop uploading clips and start broadcasting!]
[Multiple gods lose their tempers and demand to see the Tenth Floor already!]
Jaehwan slowly blinked as he listened to the gods’ messages.
There was a simple way to avoid being wrong in this world. Instead of dwelling on one’s own thoughts for a long time, one could entrust those thoughts to a vast current. One could become one of the ‘multiple gods.’
Then, even if one was wrong, no one would say so. Instead, one became someone who could tell others they were wrong.
Most already lived that way.
“I...”
Leader had not lived that way.
He had thought alone for a very long time, and that was how he had arrived at the absurd idea of “turning back seven hundred years.”
Jaehwan knew quite a few people who had thought for that long and reached the wrong answer.
In the tower, Yoonhwan and J had done so.
In Chaos, Chunghuh and Sa Myeonggaram had done so.
In the Abyss, Andersen had done so.
“The Driver will not keep his promise to you. He will become something completely ‘different’ from what he is now.”
Leader must have vaguely known as well.
What kind of being the Driver was. What transcendent being the Driver would become after leaving the 《Abyss》.
Still, Leader could not accept that fact because of a thread of hope. The delusion that the Driver might truly keep his promise.
“Your Companions are all dead, Leader.”
Leader’s shoulders shook as if he had been electrocuted. Silver blood dripped from his lips, which he had bitten until they bled.
“Are you still planning to become the Driver?”
“...”
“You have already lived six hundred years with the same thought. Will you live another thousand that way?”
In truth, Leader knew as well.
His wish could never be granted.
He was desperately accepting it. Trying to understand it.
“I know.”
Leader looked at Jaehwan, as if asking what he would have done in his place.
It was a meaningless question from the start. Leader had already seen Jaehwan’s Unique World.
Leader could only laugh hollowly.
“God Slayer, stop the Driver.”
“...”
“If you do not stop him, a thousand years’ worth of World Power will disappear.”
A thousand years’ worth of World Power.
An amount of trust that could change the fates of countless beings.
“It is enough World Power to revive every Doll and Vicegerent who died in the tower.”
An ash-gray spear was now in Leader’s hand.
Leader took a light breath, pulled back his arm until the muscles tightened, then hurled the spear toward the retreating Driver.
Only Jaehwan, standing nearby, could see the spear’s trajectory. It flew like a meteor, leaving a long tail behind it.
The path of that spear must have held more than Leader’s ash-gray World Power.
Crack.
Leader’s spear shattered in midair. From within the scattering ash, the Driver turned back toward them as if annoyed.
[Eoduksi. What do you think you are doing?]
The Driver, who had nearly reached the top of the stairs, was covered in white radiance.
At that moment, everyone on the Tenth Floor realized it.
No one on this Tenth Floor could stop the ‘Driver.’
Even so, the Allies stepped forward with weapons in hand.
Jaehwan stood at their center, needless to say.
Solitary Unbowed, gripped in Jaehwan’s right hand, poured out black World Power. The power of 「Destruction」, rippling as if it could devour anything, began consuming the entire penthouse.
For the first time, the Driver stopped walking.
[You know what it is you are trying to stop now, don’t you?]
Jaehwan nodded.
What they were trying to stop now was the history of the 《Abyss》.
The Driver looked at Jaehwan with disappointment.
[I thought you would understand me.]
Footnotes:
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