Chapter 170. Only Now Am I Pulling My Own Weight
Clink.
I grabbed the chain connecting Pastien and Hayangi.
This chain belonged purely to me.
Only I could control and manipulate it.
Hayangi could only control the power of Madness contained inside it.
Back when Hayangi and I were still one body, we had researched the chain together.
At the time, I had confirmed for certain that Hayangi had no authority to control it.
“You must’ve had a pretty hard time because of this.”
She had been bound by a chain she couldn’t control.
And on top of that, the person bound to the other end was a Great Hero.
Even if she wanted to run away during those long twenty years...
She wouldn’t have been able to.
“Was it hard?”
Hayangi looked me up and down, then smirked.
“Harder than what you went through?”
She really felt familiar.
Yet the moment she entered me again, she would try to steal my place.
The relationship between this thing and me needed to be completely equal...
Or one where I stood above her.
Unfortunately, right now I was the one asking her for something.
That made things troublesome.
Flash!
I pulled out the section connected to Pastien and absorbed the chain just like that.
The sensation was completely different from every other time I had absorbed a chain.
Rather than feeling like I was growing stronger...
It felt like I was being dragged inward.
As though I wasn’t devouring the chain.
The chain was trying to devour me.
‘It’s already starting....’
Once Hayangi joined me, I should at least be able to put up some kind of fight against Pastien.
I could endure this much trouble for that.
“This place got pretty cozy.”
A beach.
A gentle breeze blew.
Warm sunlight poured down.
The pleasant sound of waves rolled across the shore.
The place where I had originally met Hayangi had become...
How should I put it?
Richer.
It looked much better.
...
If only Hayangi wasn’t constantly reaching toward me whenever she sensed an opening and trying to eat me, I could have looked around a little more comfortably!
“This reminds me of back then.”
Hayangi smiled.
“Twenty years ago.”
Her smile widened.
“I should’ve taken your body back then....”
“Hey, hey! That’s creepy!”
I recoiled.
“Don’t say stuff like that!”
“Just in case you don’t know...”
Hayangi gestured around us.
“This isn’t a world I created.”
“This is your mental world.”
I blinked.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your heart has become this~ much richer.”
She stretched out her arms.
“Lucky you.”
Then she narrowed her eyes.
“Meanwhile, somebody else spent twenty years tied to some weird tree, talking nonstop just to avoid dying.”
“You two looked pretty close.”
“Did we?”
If this was my mental world...
Then my heart had changed from that empty place with absolutely nothing in it...
Into this place, with grass, waves, and all kinds of other things.
Compared to reality back then, when there had been nothing around me...
Now I had a new family.
I had small pieces of happiness too.
So yeah.
It had become richer.
I was just a little bothered that it happened to look like this.
“...Want to talk?”
Hayangi stared at me.
“Last time I chatted with you for a little while, Pie nearly died.”
“Is now the same as back then?”
I pointed at her.
“You came back as a completely different person.”
We leaned against separate trees and quietly stared at the sea for a while.
The fact that we were deliberately sitting far apart because we were afraid the other might eat us was pretty funny.
This really did remind me of back then.
My head felt dizzy.
And having the past version of myself sitting beside me made it even worse.
“Think carefully.”
“About what?”
“If you accept me here, it’ll affect reality too.”
I turned.
“...Really?”
“That’s how your situation works.”
Hayangi pointed out the obvious problem.
“But I don’t exist in reality.”
“There isn’t even any space for me to enter.”
“Why wouldn’t there be?”
I frowned.
“Because of Modak?”
“...Haa....”
What was with this girl?
Even now, the moment she saw an opening, she tried to steal my body.
Yet she was pretending to worry about me.
Pretending to care.
I can see your Flow, you know?
I’m not the old Kim Ingwang anymore.
In reality, I’m completely overpowered now!
RUMBLE!!!
Dark energy suddenly surged toward me!
Damn it!
Her worried expression made me lower my guard for a second!
I’d been acting so confident too!
I shook my hand as though dusting something off.
Even though my fingers had been strengthened by the summoned old man, they still tingled as the black energy fell away.
“Damn, you really locked yourself up tight.”
Hayangi clicked her tongue.
“So meticulous~ Hmm?”
“My mom is Game-Dori.”
I counted on my fingers.
“My girlfriend is Pie.”
“I’ve got two kids following me around in reality, and in the game I’ve got... how many?”
“One, two...”
I gave up.
“Anyway, a lot.”
“You think I’d walk around with my guard full of holes?”
Hayangi grinned.
“If I steal your body, all of them become mine.”
“Hey, I was thinking something similar about you.”
I pointed at her.
“Like, ‘If I completely subdue Hayangi, will Pastien start helping me?’”
Hayangi leaned forward.
“You think she’d only help?”
Then she smacked her own chest.
“Honestly! Be honest!”
“At this point, I’m basically Pastien’s boyfriend.”
“Even you said we looked close!”
Her expression turned serious.
