Chapter 14

The Second World (2)

Jude, the peculiar skeleton friend with a tragic past, was a powerful necromancer.

After returning to the small world, Lee Shin told them about Jude, who could raise hundreds of undead with a single gesture.

“That… would be an enormous help.”

Santiago’s eyes widened in surprise.

“They burned every religious order that existed in the dwarves’ world, and Miss Eve here is the last priestess. Against enemies incapable of wielding divine power, undead would essentially be an immortal army. And if we armed them with all our weapons…”

『Then?』

“This…”

As Santiago spoke, the faces of Gepetto’s residents suddenly brightened.

They embraced one another, murmuring, “Maybe we really can survive…” when Lee Shin asked,

『You have no aversion to the undead?』

“Aversion?”

According to the warnings Lee Shin had seen in the status window, undead seemed to be regarded as ominous beings in many worlds.

Their appearances alone were certainly creepy enough.

“My God, how could we reject beings who would lend their strength for our sake? We would show them gratitude and respect. If they serve the same god we do, then whoever they are, we will accept them as our brothers.”

There was not the slightest trace of falsehood in Santiago’s words.

“What does it matter if they’re undead? We’ve already seen demons wearing human skin. We know now that appearances aren’t what matter.”

“Your servants love their brothers.”

“We’ll continue to do so until the very end.”

The other residents of the Red City, Gepetto, felt no differently from Santiago.

As everyone spoke sincerely, Eve scampered over.

“My God, my God! Don’t worry! If any believer ever harbors such irreverent thoughts, then I, lowly Eve, as the one and only saintess of the Church of Lee Shin, will punish them good and proper!”

Eve drew her thumb across her throat as she spoke.

It was a vicious gesture, but the residents of Gepetto merely burst into laughter.

Only Eve failed to understand why everyone was laughing.

‘I like you all because you’re like this.’

Looking at his friends smiling brightly in the small world, Lee Shin unconsciously smiled as well.

At some point, they too had become precious friends to him.

Friends he did not want to lose.

However, Lee Shin had failed to account for one thing.

“Th-That might be difficult, my God.”

Jude.

“I-I don’t… like fighting…”

***

After returning to Earth No. 1,004, [The Creepy but Lonely World], Lee Shin received an unexpected answer from Jude.

Jude, who had boasted that he could do anything, refused to participate in the war.

“Jude made a promise.”

『A promise…?』

“The gods who visited Jude before told Jude never to fight anyone again. They said that if Jude waited quietly like a good boy, then someday they would come back, hug Jude, and play with Jude.”

『……』

“Before Jude became a skeleton, Jude’s friends and parents said the same thing. ‘Be good, Jude. Don’t fight anyone, Jude. Troublesome Jude… Whenever you get involved, everything falls apart and everyone ends up hating you. So don’t do anything, little Jude.’”

Jude’s skeletal body trembled.

“Jude… doesn’t want to be hated.”

『Jude…』

“My God comes to see Jude now, but someday you might leave Jude too. If Jude ends up alone again, Jude has to keep the promise for all those who said they would come back someday.”

Lee Shin looked at the miserable skeleton and said,

『I will not abandon you, my Jude.』

But Jude shook his head.

“Everyone… said that.”

『……』

“Everyone said exactly the same thing.”

With his head lowered, Jude timidly kicked at the black mud.

「Jude’s faith has decreased slightly.」
「His trust is wavering.」

Jude stood there blankly for a while before carefully looking up at the sky.

“Will you… hate Jude?”

Ding.

A notification appeared.

「TIP: You are the master of this world.」
「TIP: If you give a firm command, this creepy but lonely skeleton will ultimately obey you. How about resolving the immediate crisis first, then slowly changing Jude’s heart afterward?」

Just as the status window said, Lee Shin was this world’s god.

As the sole master of this ruined world, if he issued an order, Jude would eventually have no choice but to obey.

But was that truly the right answer?

Was that what a proper god should do…?

“No.”

Lee Shin did not know how Jude appeared in the eyes of others, or in the eyes of gods.

Perhaps they saw nothing but a creepy, unpleasant, horrifying creature with no flesh on its bones.

But Lee Shin could see what others could not.

He could see this skeleton’s true form.

“Please don’t hate Jude, my God.”

In Lee Shin’s eyes, Jude was a small child.

A child abandoned by everyone, craving attention and affection, unable to grow and remaining forever young.

And no one had the right to force this pitiful child to fight.

No one could do that.

No one should do that.

Not even an absolute god was exempt.

『Do as you wish, my Jude.』

For the first time, Lee Shin ignored the status window’s advice.

But the status window showed no anger, nor did it rebuke Lee Shin for his foolishness.

『I would like to hear your stories again today.』

“…J-Jude has lots of stories to tell my God. Today, Jude will tell you about the southern island!”

Instead, the status window merely murmured quietly.

「TIP: If that is your path.」

***

“Then there’s nothing we can do.”

Santiago seemed to accept the news Lee Shin brought without complaint.

Their newfound hope had essentially vanished, yet none of Gepetto’s residents became angry.

“So that child has circumstances like that…”

“Right. This was our fate to begin with, wasn’t it? If we can survive only by borrowing the strength of some poor child, then we’re the ones in the wrong. The dwarves’ world should be protected by dwarves.”

“Let’s prepare even more thoroughly. So we won’t have any regrets.”

The people of Gepetto had spent their entire lives pushed to the edge of a cliff.

They had already made peace with their resolve in their own way.

They were not the sort to lose their will or resent their god simply because a hope that had briefly appeared before their eyes had vanished.

In the end, the situation returned to almost exactly what it had been before the second world was unlocked.

Then Eve came scampering over.

Her eyes sparkled.

“My God, my God.”

『What is it?』

“I want to meet that friend.”

Was she planning to persuade him as the saintess of the Church of Lee Shin?

Lee Shin did not think Eve would be particularly effective at persuasion.

But Eve was not trying to persuade Jude.

“He must have been lonely his whole life.”

『……』

“This lowly Eve understands that child’s heart very well. Being abandoned by the world, wandering for a lifetime, and yet still being unable to let go of hope… I understand that feeling better than anyone. My God, my God. Please send this lowly Eve there.”

Eve smiled brightly.

Lee Shin did not refuse the request of the small and adorable believer closest to him.

And so Eve was sent to the second world.

To the creepy but lonely world where only death prevailed.

“Uh…”

“Are you Jude?”

Mud stained Eve’s clean saintess robes, but she paid it no attention.

The brightest, whitest girl in the world met the boy who had lived in the blackest, darkest place in the world.

Without hesitation, Eve held out her hands.

“I want to hug you, but you’re too big. Hehe.”

At Eve’s words, Jude immediately began breaking apart his own body.

He removed his enormous skull, broke it into pieces, snapped his bones apart, and soon reduced himself to Eve’s size.

The tiny girl ran toward the tiny skeleton and wrapped him tightly in her arms.

“You must’ve been bored, huh?”

Ding.

A notification rang out.

「Your believer is under attack.」
「TIP: Because Jude is undead, merely coming into contact with Eve, a member of the clergy, causes him continuous damage. Jude is currently in tremendous pain!」

Sure enough, pale smoke hissed from Jude’s body where Eve embraced him.

His bones were practically cooking.

Yet rather than pushing Eve away, Jude carefully hugged her back.

Perhaps sensing Lee Shin’s concern, he shook his tiny skull from side to side and murmured,

“It’s okay, my God.”

『……』

“Even if Jude gets cooked like this… even if Jude melts away into mush and disappears from the world… if Jude can feel this moment just a little longer, then Jude is still okay…”

Jude seemed to mean it sincerely.

He showed no intention of letting Eve go.

After hugging him for a long, long time, Eve finally looked at Jude with an extraordinarily bright expression.

“Let’s play.”

And so, in that pitch-black dead world where nothing remained but ash in every direction, Jude and Eve ran around and played to their hearts’ content.

For some reason, Lee Shin felt that the world had grown just a little brighter.

“Eve, there’s a campsite at the highest point of that mountain behind us. There’s a chair with a cushion there, and sometimes, when the ash doesn’t cover the sky, you can see the stars.”

Eve continued visiting Jude even after that day.

“There’s a black sea on the western shore. It’s so, so dark that normally you can barely see it, but around dawn, sometimes the sky reflects on the water. Jude likes the sun when it rises then.”

“If you go east, there’s a tunnel Jude dug. If you ride the slide Jude built there, you can go really, really far. When it rains so hard it looks like there’s a hole in the sky, riding that slide is lots of fun.”

“And in the north…”

The next day.

And the day after that.

The girl continued coming to see the boy.

Jude no longer spent his time praying to Lee Shin.

Instead, he played with a friend his own age from another world.

He was no longer a tremendously powerful necromancer or the last undead.

He was simply a boy his age, happily enjoying himself.

Watching the two of them, Lee Shin remembered the happy time he himself had recently spent with Choi Bom.

Precious, joyful moments during which he had wished that today could last forever…

“You waited while looking at all these wonderful sights every day, huh? You waited for daylight. You waited for the stars to come out. You waited for rain. And you waited for your friend to come.”

“Yeah. Jude is good at waiting.”

Then, one evening as twilight settled between the black sky and black earth, Eve sat on a cushion chair at the ash-covered campsite and spoke quietly.

“Jude, when something is truly precious to you, when you really want it, waiting alone won’t always make it come to you. If there’s something that never comes no matter how long you wait, then someday you’ll have to fight to find it.”

“If daylight doesn’t come, you’ll have to fight to find daylight.”

“If the stars don’t rise, you’ll have to fight to find the stars.”

“If your friend doesn’t come, you’ll have to fight for your friend.”

“……”

“That’s how people live.”

Throughout the precious time they had spent together, Eve had never once told Jude that she was a dwarf from the small world or that she desperately needed his help.

She never revealed that she was an ascetic who had endured brutal trials until she had been driven to the very edge, all so that she could willingly reclaim her god.

Instead, Eve simply smiled as Eve always did.

“I’m going to fight for what’s precious to me.”

“……”

“If I don’t come back… then the next time another friend appears who cares about you… when the time comes, instead of just waiting, will you promise me you’ll fight for what’s precious to you?”

Jude could not answer even at the very end.

Eve silently hugged the skeleton whose mouth hung open, then returned to her own world.

Left behind in his lonely world, Jude did not know that another army of invaders had descended upon the small world.

He did not know that his friend had gone away to protect her city.

Even Lee Shin had left to help them.

And so Jude was left alone once again.

Just as he always had been.

It was the loneliness he had endured for hundreds of years.

A solitude he had thought himself far too accustomed to by now.

But suddenly, Jude realized something.

The starry night sky was no longer enjoyable.

The twilight he had always loved was no longer beautiful.

Even the slide that could carry him far, far away was no longer fun.