Chapter 115

Chapter 115

I watched the child pick up his spoon and immediately reach for the food piled high on the table, then focus entirely on eating.

Was it because all the memories he had of the old days were of hunger and raggedness? Whenever the child ate, he never said a word and only concentrated on the food. Whether I should call that a blessing or a curse, at any rate, he never spent a long time eating.

Clink.

After putting the last spoonful into his mouth, chewing, and swallowing, the child set down his spoon. Then, as he swallowed everything in his mouth, he asked me a question.

“Hey, where do you go every afternoon? Are you catching that monster-like thing I saw last time?”

“That’s right. Though to be precise, it’s a little different.”

Taking care of what the child called ‘monsters’ — to be exact, the ‘Abandoned Ones’ — was something I did every time the child fell asleep. So what I did during the ‘afternoon when he was awake,’ as he put it, was still about dealing with the Abandoned Ones, but a slightly different kind of work.

‘That side is a bit more… complicated.’

Unlike the work of purely eliminating the Abandoned Ones to prevent them from harming the living, that side required a more complex and troublesome process. I thought of the task, whose progress had slowed considerably recently due to Eden’s interference, and inwardly sighed.

‘As always, in times like this, it’s best to drink something aromatic.’

Matching my own thoughts, I immediately summoned a cup of coffee in front of me. This was something the child who, despite his name, insisted on acting as my butler, had made to suit my taste. I grasped the handle of the coffee cup, thinking of the child who always made extra coffee so I could summon it whenever I wanted.

I held the coffee made by the child who bore the name of the Gardener in my mouth and waited for his next words.

“Can’t you take me with you? I’ll be quiet and not do anything.”

So this was the kind of thing he would say, after all. Then again, the curiosity of a human child was always this fatal. I set down the coffee cup I was drinking from and answered quietly.

“It’s not possible.”

If it were anything else, maybe, but the place I always visited for my ‘work’ was not a place for a young child. I opened my mouth again to add.

“It’s a dangerous place. Not the kind of place a young human child should go.”

“But you’ll protect me, right? So isn’t that fine?”

“Just being exposed to them is dangerous. If you were to be influenced by them, even a little, you might never be able to return.”

Contrary to what the child thought, what I did in the afternoon wasn’t directly confronting the Abandoned Ones. However, as the word ‘directly’ implies, it wasn’t as if there were no Abandoned Ones there at all.

‘The Forsaken One are inevitably bound to harm the living.’

Squinting my eyes, I began to explain about the ‘Abandoned Ones’ to the child.

“They are those who have lost the world they were meant to live in. But still unable to let go of life, or death, they seek a chance for revival in another world. …Of course, their efforts never see the light. Because they have already become a part of the abandoned world themselves, even if they head to another world, they would only bring their own shattered world into that one.”

The Abandoned Ones, the Forsaken, the Fragments, the Monsters, the Beasts, those who are neither dead nor alive.

There are many names for them. They are not alive, yet not dead. They are beings from worlds that have been shattered, collapsed, closed off, or completed by someone.

Because they mostly met an end that was not death but a completion while still alive, they crave life or death. And so, seeking a replacement for their world, which has already had all possibilities closed off and has ‘stopped,’ they set out for other worlds. Hoping that perhaps, in another world, they might be able to enjoy life or death once more.

Of course, it’s impossible.

They are already completed. Like a book that has already narrated and finished all its content, no more words can be added to their history. They are closed and completed.

They were pitiful beings.

Of course, even so, I couldn’t possibly accept them into this world. I sipped my coffee again, thinking of the intrusions by the Forsaken, which had become more frequent lately.

‘I really need to speed up the progress of the work I’m doing.’

Recently, Eden’s interference had been severe, forcing me to slow down the pace, but this couldn’t go on any longer. If things continued like this, I would surely end up seeing those pitiful things from outside destroy my garden.

“What, so that means no?”

The child asked with a face that looked quite disappointed. I spoke in an utterly firm tone, leaving no room for further argument.

“That’s right. I don’t have a hobby of pushing the little ones I need to protect into danger.”

Fortunately, the child wasn’t the type to throw a tantrum over something impossible with a clear reason behind it. In fact, it was only natural. How could a child, raised from infancy by parents who denied even his own existence, let alone his mistakes, ever dare to demand that his guardian grant whatever he wanted?

As I expected, the child made a somewhat disappointed expression, but nodded as if to say he understood.

Good child.

I stroked the child’s head and murmured softly.

“It won’t take long. The time we’ll be apart won’t exceed an hour at most.”

The child didn’t answer. But I knew that was his own way of agreeing. So I gently stroked his head again and said.

“Be good. Just wait a little while.”

Time flows quickly.

It’s an odd thing for me to say, since I’m free from the constraints of time and space, but that was how it was. Compared to the flow of time I had experienced, this time—mere dust in the wind—passed as swiftly as a shot arrow, and as time flew by, the child grew just as fast.

‘For those who live within a fixed flow of time, this must be only natural.’

The child, who had seemed barely five years old at most, grew into an adolescent in the blink of an eye, and not long after, approached the age of a young man. The child, who had once been so small he didn’t even reach my waist, had grown tall enough to tower over my head.

Was the growth of life always this hasty? I thought as I observed the child’s growth through the passing time.

And then one day, the child asked me.

“What do you think of me?”

It wasn’t the child’s characteristic chattering tone, but a voice that had grown deep like an adult man’s. I stopped spreading my magical power across the world to locate the ‘Abandoned Ones’ sent by Eden and glanced at the child.

“I’m not sure what intention lies behind that question.”

“Just as I said. What do you think of me?”

When he was young, he was quite an emotional child, but when had he become a young man with such rare emotional shifts? I quietly gazed at the expressionless ‘Jeong Seojin,’ now eighteen, and answered.

“A precious child.”

“…Is that so? Then let me ask differently. If there’s a child who committed robbery in front of you, and another child who died during that robbery, which one would you love more?”

It was truly a bizarre question. Instead of answering immediately, I quietly met the child’s gaze. The child stared back at me silently, as if urging me to answer.

‘Why would he ask such a question?’

There was nothing the child could gain from this question. I asked the child, my voice filled with pity.

“I really don’t know what you’re hoping for from me.”

“Just give me an answer. It’s because I want to know what kind of person you are.”

Wanting to know what kind of ‘person’ I am. I let out a faint sigh and gently shook my head. I thought I knew what the child wanted, and what answer he was hoping for. No, how could I not know from the start? I was a human who had repeated this process countless times.

So, with undisguised pity, a sigh, and an unavoidable weariness, I answered straight away.

“Of course, I love them both.”

‘Of course I love the little child more!’

With those words, I finally felt a sense of dissonance.

‘Huh?’

Shock and chaos, as if the world was spinning. I couldn’t even think of what to say, and just stared blankly at ‘Jeong Seojin.’ What had I just said? That I love ‘both’ of them?

‘What in the world…’

I had definitely experienced this situation before. No, I had heard about it. Mr. Jeong Seojin had once mentioned to me the existence of a ‘Savior’ who had saved him long ago. And he had also told me about the difference between that Savior and me. The Savior loves ‘all’ beings, and I love ‘lovable’ things.

Yes, the example he gave when saying that was exactly the same form as what young Jeong Seojin had just told me.

“They’re lovable humans, aren’t they? After all, all living things are inherently lovable in themselves. There’s no high or low, more or less, to that.”

Before I could sink into the chaos of my thoughts, “I” opened my mouth and continued the answer on my own. Thanks to that, I got to see firsthand the face of the high-school-aged Jeong Seojin standing across from me become smeared with an emotion that was impossible to describe.

Was it disappointment? Or perhaps resentment? Or maybe resignation, like “I knew it”?

I couldn’t tell what it was, but what Jeong Seojin was feeling right now was by no means a positive emotion. I wanted to protest right then and there, to tell him that it wasn’t like that, that even though I was someone who had been rejected after hearing things like “It seems you don’t treasure me,” I wasn’t this bad.

Of course, my attempt failed effortlessly.

“You seem disappointed, child.”