Chapter 171: Daydream (4)

When Estelle told me this was not a dream, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Not a dream?

If this was not a dream, then what was?

My eyes, which had been staring at Estelle, shifted to the lottery ticket on the floor.

It was the same ticket that I had cashed in a few days ago, and it was still rolling around on the ground.

“Is this all… not a dream?”

Estelle was still smiling at me, but I didn’t understand what she meant.

I asked her in a half-defeated voice, almost like a complaint.

“If this is not a dream, then what is…?”

“You already know, don’t you?”

Estelle’s gaze, holding an umbrella, moved to the smartphone that had fallen on the floor.

The smartphone that I had thrown away was still there, showing the game screen.

It was as if it was proving that the story I had experienced in the game was not a lie.

The game screen was still showing the story of Euteneia and the apostles.

As I watched it, a faint possibility crossed my mind.

A possibility that I didn’t want to believe.

I whispered it quietly.

“Could it be… that everything I’ve lived so far was a dream?”

“Did you enjoy the dream?”

Estelle nodded as if to agree.

It was an absurd story.

That my peaceful life until now was all a lie.

And that this broken world was the only truth given to me.

Who could do such a thing?

God? Devil?

Or was the whole world around me a play to mock me?

I couldn’t accept it. I denied Estelle’s words right away.

“Stop lying. This can’t be real.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“You… you’re just a figment of my imagination in the dream.”

“Hmm.”

She spun the umbrella in her hand.

She looked at me with her unfathomable eyes, wearing a meaningless umbrella in the darkness.

Her dark eyes, unlike a human’s, shone on me again.

Tap. Tap.

She tapped the handle of the umbrella with her finger and asked me a question.

“Do you remember? How did you start playing the game?”

Of course I remembered.

I couldn’t forget how I started playing this game.

Someone recommended this game to me.

She told me it was our secret and showed me this game——.

“Do you remember? Why were you having a hard time that day?”

Of course I remembered.

I had trouble with human relationships.

That’s why I drank too much.

Even though I knew I was far beyond my limit, I kept pouring alcohol into my empty stomach.

I felt like I couldn’t bear it otherwise.

I wanted to escape from the pain for a moment by borrowing the terrible drunkenness.

And in my drunken state, I started the game——.

“Why couldn’t you get out of the pain?”

Of course, I remembered.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t get out of the pain.

I got in touch with this game and interacted with the characters in it, and forgot about the wounds in my heart.

This game, which had penetrated deep into my life before I knew it, was——.

“Why were you always alone?”

Of course, I remembered.

Remember? What?

It was a strange question.

I was never alone.

I always went to work and came home,

And played the game alone in my room——.

“Why were you locked up alone in a small room?”

Of course, I remembered——.

Vaguely, I remembered.

I was alone.

I was always playing the game alone in my room.

I didn’t know why.

But I felt like I knew the reason.

“Why did you keep the TV on with the same broadcasts?”

That was because I was lonely.

To kill the silence of the room······.

Why was I lonely?

An unexpected question crossed my mind.

The moment I knew the answer, everything would change.

A question that dug into my heart.

“Why did you keep playing a game that you didn’t even know who made it?”

“That’s······.”

I didn’t know.

But I did know.

There was a memory that I didn’t want to know inside me.

The truth that I had buried deep in my heart for a long time, avoiding reality.

That comfort was trying to raise its head inside me.

“The reason is obvious, isn’t it? That was the only thing you could do after burying all your colleagues.”

“Stop it.”

I shouldn’t wake up.

This memory.

This emotion.

They had to stay asleep forever inside me.

It was a memory that had been buried deep for that purpose.

But Estelle’s words kept digging deep into my heart.

A truth that I shouldn’t know was trying to break through and rise up.

“The only thing you could do as someone who came back after burying all your colleagues was to play the game that I told you to, right?”

“Stop it! Estelle!”

A loud scream shook the narrow room.

Estelle didn’t stop telling her story.

She smiled even brighter, watching me suffer.

Thump.

My heart pounded painfully.

I couldn’t reveal my shame any longer.

But Estelle finally spoke the truth with her mouth.

“It wasn’t because of human relationships that you were struggling, but because there were no humans, right?”

A memory buried in the darkness came back to life.

The trigger was a mobile game.

I didn’t remember the exact genre, but I think it was introduced as an idle game.

The game itself was nothing special.

Small human figures walked around, and I just watched their movements.

“Stop it, please…”

The characters moved diligently and did their own tasks, as if the AI was finely crafted.

Sometimes they did something unusual out of the rules.

It felt like raising ants in a transparent gel.

I also remembered the tiny sea monkeys I raised in a fish tank.

“Stop it.”

I felt healed just by looking at the characters quietly.

I spent two or three hours a day watching them like that.

Until I came home drunk after a frustrating day.

“I don’t want to remember.”

No, it wasn’t a frustrating day.

It was a sad day.

I buried my colleagues with my own hands.

I couldn’t bear it sober, so I drank the alcohol that I had stashed in the corner.

And when I got drunk, the sadness inside me turned into another emotion.

“I don’t want to remember.”

I hated this world that had become like this.

I hated the horrible scene that the oil disaster that started in Africa had created.

I felt like I was alone after losing everything.

I felt like everyone in the world had left me behind and gone somewhere far away.

“…”

So.

So I moved my finger and killed the characters beyond the screen.

I needed something to vent my anger on.

I felt like venting my anger somewhere.

That’s how those things became a game, and a source of life for me.

“That was.”

That was a bitter and heartbreaking memory.

Heartbreaking.

A very heartbreaking memory.

A memory that I wanted to keep buried in my heart forever.

“I didn’t want to remember that.”

My head throbbed from the memories that came back.

The fragments of the hidden memories spilled out, shaking my thoughts and emotions violently.

I held my head in pain and glared at Estelle.

I gazed at her, demanding an answer, but she opened her mouth to me as our eyes met.

“I’m sorry for breaking our promise, but it’s time for you to know now.”

Promise?

Another incomprehensible story was added.

I doubted Estelle’s words.

What promise did we have between us?

The only promise we made was the rules of our conversation.

“If you want to stay a good kid forever, you can’t move forward anymore.”

But Estelle kept spouting meaningless stories.

I didn’t know.

I couldn’t guess her purpose, reason, or even identity.

Beyond the thick fog that obscured my sight, she was the only one facing the truth.

“Estelle, what do you want?”

I didn’t understand.

What did she want?

What did she want from me, who erased my memories, showed me a calm life, and locked myself in a room?

I couldn’t understand what Estelle wanted, not even a speck.

“Forgetting reality, forgetting the world where no one exists——.”

“Putting on the mask of the game and committing massacres… what did you want me to become after that?”

Tap. Tap.

Estelle’s finger tapped the handle of the umbrella again.

Hmm.

After a short time of thinking, she folded her finger.

And then she stepped forward and said to me.

“It seems like there’s a misunderstanding between us. Those things were what you wanted from the beginning, weren’t they?”

“I wanted this?”

It was impossible.

I never wanted those things.

I never wanted to kill people calmly and soberly, and pretend to live a normal life in a place where no one existed.

I was not that kind of person.

“Didn’t you want to forget everything in the broken world and just play the game in this room?”

Even if I wanted that, I wouldn’t have told it to someone I didn’t know in a dream.

But Estelle calmly affirmed it.

It was an incomprehensible attitude.

And an unacceptable answer.

“Why would I want that? Why would I want to kill people with this tiny smartphone in this room?”

“Do you remember? Who gave you the smartphone?”

I searched through the foggy memory.

Who gave me this thing?

It was the black-haired girl I met for the first time during the search operation.

I didn’t know her name, and only her face vaguely remained in my memory——.

Estelle.

The girl in front of me introduced me to this game.

She said it was our secret and recommended the game to me, who had nothing.

“…”

“You remembered, didn’t you?”

Estelle recommended the game to me.

In this room that only we knew, she handed me the smartphone, the only game left.

The smartphone that was still charged in the ruined world.

She gave it to me and urged me to play.

It was one of the few entertainments left in the broken world.

It would have been strange if I wasn’t interested.

I thought it was just a game and brought down divine punishment on countless lives.

“It seems like you finally understood the truth.”

Blink. Blink.

I looked at the smartphone that was shining brightly even without charging.

Even when everything collapsed, this smartphone kept working.

I finally realized what I had.

And who she was.

“…The Goddess of Harmony.”

“Yes.”

“I was your apostle?”

-<Causality Adjustment> occurred.

-Due to <Causality Adjustment>, [Divine Tool: Ascalon] was liberated by one level.

-Due to <Causality Adjustment>, [Divine Tool: Hieroglyph] was liberated by one level.

-Due to <Causality Adjustment>, [Divine Tool: Astra] was liberated by one level.

-Due to <Causality Adjustment>, [Divine Tool: Smartphone] was liberated by one level.

-Due to <Hero Selection>, [Divine Tool: Dainsleif] was liberated by one level.

Crackle. Crackle——.

The world began to regain its light.

The light bulb in my dark room shone brightly, and the broken TV played the faint news that remained in my old memory.

The world I longed for after losing everything.

In it, only Estelle and I faced each other.

“Welcome back to the divine realm. My little god.”

Beyond the small smartphone screen.

There was a world there.

And there, I was, who had watched over it.