118: Eternal Waiting

After Baron Bink’s death, there was nothing left within the rubble fortress that could evoke any nostalgia from our group. We walked briskly toward the fortress exit. Before long, the dilapidated heavy gates came into view in the distance. The magical vortex inside the doorway, shimmering with otherworldly light, formed a powerful and miraculous barrier that divided the interior and exterior into two entirely different worlds.

Seeing that departure was imminent, I felt an indescribable trace of apology toward old Carlson, who was forever confined within the fortress. I was about to "step outside," but while this simple act of leaving meant nothing special to me, to him it was an unimaginable and eternal luxury. Actually, there was nothing I needed to apologize for; after all, the scales of the gods carrying the chips of fate were fair. I had gained a freedom vastly wider than his, while he had attained a power beyond my comprehension.

Yet, I still felt a pang of guilt. After all, it was now I who was actively leaving this newly acquainted friend behind, abandoning this free soul alone within a constrained space.

"Old man, I... am leaving," I said to him in a low voice.

"Shall we meet again?" The old troll’s voice sounded as calm as ever, but I could still detect a trace of well-hidden anticipation underlying his tone.

"I'm afraid not for a short while..." I considered for a moment before answering. "...The road leading here is quite perilous. If I were to come alone, I would need to reach at least level fifty-six or fifty-seven. That would take at least two or three months."

"Fortunately, that isn't too long..." Carlson’s state of mind was far more cheerful than I had imagined. "...I've been stuck here alone for almost a year. I certainly don't mind waiting a few more months."

"I will definitely come back as soon as possible!" I promised.

"Just make sure you don't forget this old blue-skinned codger when the time comes," Carlson chuckled. "...Truth be told, you are a very strange person. You give me the feeling of being more like a Void-Walker. If I didn't possess the power to peer into the origin of the world, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to see through your origins at all. In fact, I once devotedly studied trying to find the true data fields describing a soul within the primal world, yet souls somehow seem impossible to describe with simple zeros and ones. I simply have this gut feeling: you seem to possess a truly complete soul, while mine is fractured—that is probably the main reason why I cannot walk out of this fortress..."

"...I have a premonition. Kid, you're likely to turn into an extraordinary fellow in the future... So, make sure you don't die a pathetic death before then..."

"Stop talking nonsense!" Looking back one last time at the broken walls and ruins of the rubble fortress, I didn't share much of his profound and mysterious sentiment. I just spat forcefully onto the ground, then raised my head and walked out of the castle gates...

Returning along the way, those decayed ones and beasts whose souls had been corrupted by toxins still lingered all around, launching wave after wave of violent attacks against us. Yet for us, dealing with them was no longer as exhausting as it had been on our way here. Soon, we arrived once again at the manor that had belonged to the young Baron Bink.

The residents of the manor were still holding crude weapons, bravely fighting against the decayed ones converging from the wilderness. Just like when we first arrived, the battle here maintained a steady, stable equilibrium: for every soul-less rotting zombie that fell, another would run from goodness knows where to join the fray; meanwhile, Lady Remoir was always able to timely cast restorative divine magic, ensuring that not a single resident would perish in this defense battle.

This localized conflict of destruction and defense seemed to have never ceased since we left, and I strongly suspect that after we depart, it will continue just like this, until the next batch of people like us appears.

Everything happened as if predestined by the gods. We once again eliminated that horde of rotting invaders, were once again welcomed into the manor like sacrificial lambs by the enthusiastic residents, and once again had our damaged equipment repaired at prices that felt like highway robbery.

My friends did not forget the late Baron’s behest; they informed his sister of the Baron's death. For this, each of them received over twelve hundred points of soul power and a reward of three gold coins. I watched all of this happen from afar, choosing not to do the same as them. Unlike my Void-Walker friends, I do not possess the concise vocabulary to convey such cruel news, nor do I know how to face this poor young girl who had just lost her last remaining relative.

According to the laws of this world, every time someone returns from the rubble fortress, they bring news of the Baron's death once more, making this young girl endure this immense pain all over again. I do not know how this fragile girl can endure countless heavy blows to her heart, but driven by the tiniest bit of kindness in my soul, I thought that if such sorrow could be spared even once, it would be a good thing.

Since I cannot reverse the fate predetermined by the gods, then at least let me spare her from the grief of losing a loved one just once—such was my hope.

Moreover, deep within my heart, there always lingered this impractical fantasy: in this world, only when you collect your reward is a task truly considered completed; for you, the matter is irreversibly and permanently brought to a close.

Until then, it is not finished, and you might even consider that it has never begun, or...

...does not exist at all?

If I truly told Lady Remoir about the Baron's death, everything would be decided forever, unalterably fixed. But if I do not speak, and she does not hear, this piece of information already adjudicated by the gods is permanently interrupted between her and me, perhaps... I know this sounds silly, but I truly had this faint sensation... perhaps this matter would be submerged and covered up, becoming a fault line in the endless torrent of information, disappearing from then on and ceasing to exist. Baron Bink's life and death remain unjudged, and Lady Remoir's waiting still holds hope—at least between her and me, at least for the two of us, perhaps it is so.

Could everything truly be like this?

In this world piled high with simple digital code, did this thought of mine actually touch upon the hidden laws of this world?

Or was it merely the cowardly evasion of a timid person?

Ultimately, I did not complete this quest, choosing instead to leave it lingering in my quest log. For a long, long time thereafter, it remained the sole failed page left behind in my unfinished life's journey.

When we had been on the road for less than half a minute and looked back once more, the small manor was already surrounded once again by swarming walking corpses. The radiance of Lady Remoir’s holy magic flickered intermittently in the quiet evening air, resembling a white magnolia blossoming in a corner gradually encroached upon by darkness, sowing a seed called "hope" in this corrupted, desperate land.

There, a sister awaits the return of her expeditionary brother. She will continue to wait for a long time, yet never despairing. In this story, there is no death and no sorrow; there is only endless hope and longing. This is a happy story.

At least, to me, it was...

Returning to the gravel outpost once more, my Void-Walker friends were completely exhausted—in my impression, this was indeed the longest continuous adventure journey I had shared with them. In fact, before even stepping out of the swamp zone, they had already been drowsy and on the verge of collapsing. Compared to their listless appearances, even the corpse-transformed decayed ones along the way could be described as "full of vitality"—indeed, I had once suspected whether they had truly contracted a virulent corpse toxin and were quietly evolving in the direction of the walking dead, and I had even prepared to dismember all four of them at a moment's notice before making my escape.

Thank goodness that tragic scene did not ultimately befall us—they were truly just suffering from severe exhaustion. Finally, through united and affectionate mutual support, sustained by the honor of saving the world, guided by the fearless convictions of adventurers—and of course, driven perhaps more primarily by the greedy urge for adventure rewards—they finally made it back to the Gravel Outpost. Fatigued and sleepy, they collected their commission for this entrusted adventure from Major Gutierrez, and then contentedly "logged off" and departed.

The mountain wilderness at night was quiet and deep, and the campfires in the stockade spit and flickered restlessly, casting jittery shadows about. The outpost was dead silent; human and half-orc soldiers patrolled around the two-story-high wooden walls. Aside from me, there was not a single external traveler left here.

Sitting beside the campfire, I boredly flipped through my magic diary. Aside from the quest to deliver a message to Lady Remoir, there were six or seven other quests recorded here. Some of these quests could not be completed because my level was insufficient, while others required partying up with a team of companions to continue. The only one without any restrictive conditions was the Alchemist exclusive quest I had accidentally picked up in the rubble fortress: "Assembly of the Fusion Device."

However, unlike the descriptions of other quests, the description for this open-ended quest was far too brief, leaving one completely at a loss: gather the four "parts of the fusion device," assemble them together, explore its mysteries, and you will advance further on the path of seeking knowledge. Where to go? Who to find? How to assemble it? What is its purpose? The quest description didn't mention a word... there were no clues whatsoever.

Perplexed, I took the three parts I had already collected out of my backpack, hoping to discover something. They were a sealed container integrated inside and out, a double-helix tube, and a bizarrely shaped metal bracket. The bracket's design was eccentric yet very sturdy, presumably used to secure something heavy and potentially subject to violent vibration. Judging by my meager common sense in alchemy, an instrument suited to the size of this bracket was unlikely to undergo violent tremors; the only possibility was that it was a high-speed rotating spiral instrument...

For some reason, the image of an object suddenly popped into my mind. It was a lid-covered item roughly the size of a hand-grinder, featuring a cabin door on one side capable of accommodating a solid object about two fingers wide. Once activated, it would emit a faint blue light and produce some noise, sounding much like a box spinning at high speed inside.

I could even recall where I had seen this thing: right here, in this outpost. When we found a mutated zombie heart, we sought out Mr. Wagner, the outpost's apothecary. When he helped us analyze the composition of that heart, he had used an instrument of just this peculiar shape. Looking back, that instrument indeed seemed to retain some fixing screw-threads and connecting pipe interfaces, as if it weren't quite a finished product, though I hadn't paid attention at the time.

I suddenly felt that I should visit Mr. Wagner as soon as possible. Intuition told me that doing so would bring me unexpected gains.

The hour was late, but the lamp and candle in Mr. Wagner's tent were still lit. The battlefield apothecary, infatuated with research, was currently hunching over his experimental workbench, carefully pouring various chemical reagents into the crystal beaker before him, occasionally raising a flurry of bubbles or a puff of blue smoke. The bright lamplight cast his silhouette onto the tent canvas, stretching his already withered and lean figure into an even more jagged form; his slender fingers were elongated by the light into the shapes of withered branches, dancing chaotically on the tent wall and sending a creepy sensation straight from the bottom of one's heart.

I gently lifted the door curtain and was just about to greet him when suddenly, with a soft "pop," a puff of sickly green mist dispersed in front of Mr. Wagner. "Hahahaha..." A low, husky chuckle drifted from the apothecary's lips, piercing my eardrums like a sharp awl and sending an uncomfortable itch coursing through my entire body. He extended his right hand, gently picked up a small bottle of grey-blue viscous potion, and turned sideways while keeping his spine hunched. He turned his head halfway back and glanced at me with those grey eyes already covered in bloodshot veins.

"...You've come just in time, young man..." He narrowed his eyes and smiled, the fanaticism hidden within that smile making me slightly uneasy, "...You have witnessed a great moment. My experiment has just succeeded; the perfect life has been forged by my hands. From this moment on, history will be rewritten, and humble mankind will officially step into the domain of the gods. Starting today, all life on the continent of Falvey will master eternal power. The Doomsday Empire will ultimately prove vulnerable. The Savior is born! The Savior is born tonight..."

Wagner held the potion bottle high, his eyes staring proudly at it. At the bottom of his eyes, a layer of something seemed to be burning fiercely, the morbid fanaticism threatening to reduce him to ashes first.

The thing in his hands filled me with utter dismay. That evil hue and radiance had once been the stuff of my nightmare-like memories—at the top of the command tower in the rubble fortress, in the hands of the Fallen Witch, the Black Baroness Arthur Dengot—that was the raw stock of the completed undead toxin. My friends and I had gone through several brushes with death to destroy it, pouring away even the residual liquid without a single drop left behind. Yet I never expected that just four hours after returning to the safety of our own outpost, this dangerous substance capable of destroying the entire continent would appear in the hands of "one of our own."

"This... this is..."

"That's right..." Wagner looked at me and nodded, "...This is the toxin extracted from the infected heart you gave me. Ah, wonderful life forms! These invisible little things possess a majestic vitality you cannot imagine. The micro governs the macro, instinct controls intellect—how marvelous! They are the most powerful creatures in this world, and the magnificent beauty within cannot be described in words..."

"...However, I have no desire to use it to commit suicide. I have successfully modified them so that while they enhance the host's abilities, they do not destroy their brain. If thought remains unchanged and wisdom is not lost, we can retain our souls while our knowledge and power grow eternally. This will be the most perfect life in history, you know? In place of the gods, I have completed the evolution of life!"

"I declare that I will never monopolize this great achievement. I will let every life in this world benefit, and every soul will share the opportunity to touch eternity. The future, the endless future, awaits us. We are coming! It is coming soon!!!"

He cheered hysterically and loudly, with the joy and solemnity of chanting a hymn. The corners of his eyes were red and filled with tears, evidently deeply moved by his own crazy notion. Damn it, I swore this was the most genius yet most generous madman I had ever seen. He wanted to benefit humanity wholeheartedly and unreservedly, and the method he chose was... was to poison everyone to death?

"You've gone mad! Put that down right now! You'll ruin everything!" I drew my longsword and aimed it at his chest, my heart filled with anger and panic. This was not an instance zone controlled by old Carlson; I could not guarantee what consequences would follow if the toxin spread here. Even though I still doubted its eventual outcome, I dared not easily put the finale to the test.

"Pitiful life form, jealous of the wise, afraid of change. Weapons can only arm your flesh, but can never protect your fragile soul. Fortunately..." Wagner glanced at me contemptuously from the corner of his eye, bringing the potion-filled bottle closer and closer to his pale lips...

"Fortunately... this world... is not controlled in your hands..."

"No!" I shouted and rushed forward, wanting to stop his insane action. Yet, after all, it was still too late. Before my sword could cleave off his arm, he had already swallowed the fatal dose of poison.

"Ah..." Wagner shrieked, clutching his severed arm as bright red blood spurted from the stump. But a moment later, the blood turned yellowish and viscous, exuding a rotting stench. His skin grew even paler, all smooth and tender vitality gradually fading from his complexion, while dark purple veins faintly showed through, covering both of his cheeks. Every change made him increasingly resemble the walking corpses roaming the lowlands of Citvenia, with the only difference being that although his pupils had turned into a cruel dark red, they still retained a trace of rational luster, not entirely consumed by the walking dead's instinct to hate the living.

I was about to chase after him to deliver another strike when suddenly, the ground in front of the experimental workbench sank deeply, revealing a pitch-black tunnel. Wagner, already undergoing the process of decay, immediately rolled into the tunnel along with all his instruments, and then the entire tunnel began to collapse until the entrance was completely sealed shut.

"No one can stop the footsteps of intellectual evolution, no one..." Until he vanished, Wagner did not forget to shout loudly. His declaration was hoarse and shrill, lingering like an invisible grievance ghost wandering the human world, refusing to dissipate for a long time...

(Weekly update? Monthly update? Quarterly update?

No, it can only be updated whenever there is one.

The only certain thing is:

I am still writing.

And...

I am not done writing yet.)