From the subspace, Yukina’s corpse emerged, still pristine as if she were merely asleep.
It was only natural—her entire body had been frozen.
Sooah’s large eyes widened in shock.
“This… Master? Why do you have Master’s body, Oppa…?”
Taeseong had brought it with the intent of showing it to her, but now that he had actually done so, an overwhelming sense of worry crept in.
It was painful to admit, but to Sooah, Yukina was family—just as much as he was.
Perhaps even more.
After all, it wasn’t him but Yukina who had stood by her side through her hardest times.
And now, here he was, showing her the lifeless body of the person she cherished most.
He had no idea how she would react.
“What the hell… happened?”
With a calm expression, Taeseong began recounting everything he had been through.
How Yukina had been ambushed and killed by the yokai in Aokigahara Forest.
How she had been resurrected by the abilities of a yokai and had attacked the Japanese administrators.
And finally, how he had been the one to kill her.
In order to make Sooah understand at least the bare minimum, he also had to explain the abilities he possessed.
Taeseong told her about his innate power—his authority—called ‘Devour.’
He explained its mechanisms, the instincts that drove it, and the possible reasons why he had such an ability in the first place.
Of course, not everything was certain.
His understanding was merely a hypothesis pieced together from the fragments of memories he had recovered.
The conversation grew longer and longer.
Every explanation required another explanation.
Some things she might have already heard before, but he continued nonetheless.
Memories resurfaced.
Events from the hidden world he had experienced.
The moment he encountered the oldest wolf and became his apostle.
The countless humans he had slain to fulfill his duties as an apostle, devouring their strength.
He told her everything.
And yet, Taeseong knew that even this was just the tip of the iceberg.
The memories he had regained revealed that something significant had happened between him and Taegorang, The Primordial Wolf.
In those recollections, he had harboured immense hostility toward Taegorang.
He didn’t know why, but the sheer intensity of his hatred in that memory far surpassed any other emotion he had ever recalled.
The more memories he uncovered, the more questions arose.
The soldier named ‘Lee Taeseong’ before the dimensional shift was starting to take shape.
But the ‘Lee Taeseong’ who had been stranded in an isolated world?
That was still an mystery.
Through these memories, he also realized just how vast the world he had been in truly was—possibly even larger than Earth itself.
“…That’s how it happened.”
“……”
Throughout his long explanation, Sooah barely showed any change in expression.
She simply listened in silence, nodding occasionally.
She seemed deep in thought.
Of course she was.
This wasn’t something easy to accept.
Taeseong couldn’t shake the possibility that after hearing all this, she might come to despise and resent him even more.
He had struggled, clawing his way through life, just to survive.
Just to return to his family.
Just to achieve his own goals.
But no matter what excuse he made, in the end, he was a killer.
Every person had their own reasons for living.
But no reason could ever justify taking another’s life.
In his resurfaced memories, he had slaughtered countless strangers simply for the sake of his ‘purpose.’
At first, he had felt guilt.
But at some point, he had stopped feeling anything at all.
Perhaps he had suppressed those emotions to keep himself from breaking.
Or maybe…
He had simply become so accustomed to killing that he no longer felt anything.
So many unknowns still remained.
And even now, amid these thoughts, a deep hunger gnawed at him.
A part of him wondered—if he devoured the essence of an even stronger being, would he find the answers he sought?
Suddenly, he recalled Ryomen Sukuna’s final words.
—Why do you wear the skin of a human?
Wearing human skin.
That meant… he wasn’t human.
If even a being like Sukuna—worshipped as a king by yokai and infamous for devouring his own twin to become a calamity—had said such words…
Then what was he?
During his conversation with Oh Haeyoung, was it really just coincidence that Pinocchio’s nose had grown?
Maybe… he truly wasn’t human.
The silence grew heavier.
Lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed when Sooah finally spoke.
“So in the end… you’re saying you killed Master.”
Technically, he had only put down someone who had already died once.
But the words weren’t wrong.
He admitted it without hesitation.
“Yes. I killed her. And I devoured her power as well.”
“Can you show me Master’s ability?”
Taeseong nodded and conjured an ice crystal in the shape of a flower in midair.
Sooah stared at it in a daze, then murmured softly,
“…It’s beautiful.”
And then, the last thing he expected to hear—
“Thank you.”
Caught off guard, Taeseong couldn’t find the words to respond.
Sooah continued, her voice steady.
“……”
“You saved Master, Oppa. Master had always… wanted to return to the world she came from. That’s why she devoted herself to her work, even taking on the position of administrative director. But even with the power of the ‘Tree,’ sending her back wasn’t easy. According to the scientists, this universe contains countless other universes and dimensions.”
Taeseong nodded.
“Finding the coordinates of a specific world and initiating a transfer is nearly impossible. But now that I think about it… I can’t help but wonder if the Tree was using Master all along. I won’t deny that what they were attempting was difficult, but if it were the Tree, shouldn’t it have been possible?”
Taeseong agreed with Sooah’s words.
The Tree had countless entities under its domain.
Some were publicly known, but others were undoubtedly classified under the highest levels of security.
Even Beta-class entities had the power to influence entire nations, so it wouldn’t be surprising if higher-level entities could manipulate entire worlds or dimensions.
The mere fact that the Tree had managed to exist for so long was proof that it possessed the capability to control such entities.
“In any case, that’s what I think. I got a little side tracked, but to get back to the point—Master considered ‘death’ to be one of the possible ways to return to her original world.”
“Death?”
“Yes.
She believed she could only return if she died.
She even attempted to take her own life multiple times…”
“Why would she think that?
That doesn’t sound like the Yukina I knew.”
The Yukina Taeseong had seen, though only for a short time, was a highly rational and composed individual.
Suicide…
Even if she had been pushed to her limit, wasn’t that conclusion far too extreme?
“She may have seemed like an iron-willed person on the outside, but inside… she was already falling apart.
Master suspected that everything she had gone through was the result of some transcendent being’s ‘game’ or ‘entertainment.’
She was convinced that high-dimensional beings existed—ones who looked down on people like us as if we were mere ants.
And she believed the only way to escape their game was through ‘death.’”
Death…
Thinking back, when he had first fallen into the hidden world, he too had considered suicide as a means of returning.
Though he had quickly abandoned the thought.
“I know it’s strange for someone like me, who isn’t even really family, to say this… But Master must have felt disgusted by the life of a puppet. She once told me something—If she ever lost her sense of self against her will…”
Sooah continued speaking calmly, but her lips trembled slightly.
“She told me to kill her with my own hands. I couldn’t do it in the end…But I’m sure she would understand.”
“……”
“Thank you. You used your ability just to bring her body here for me to see, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Hah… I think I get what you were feeling when you did it, but…Your thought process is kind of psychopathic, don’t you think? Freezing a corpse solid and carrying it around in a subspace?”
Taeseong looked slightly dejected, prompting Sooah to flash him a playful smile.
“I’m just kidding. Seriously, though—how can someone who single-handedly wiped out all those monstrous yokai be sulking over something like this? I thought a lot while listening to you. I always complained about how hard things were for me, but…You must have had it so much worse, Oppa. I’m just glad you made it back, even if it was late. And thank you… for saving me when I lost control. For everything, really.”
“Sooah, you don’t have to thank me for any of that. We’re family. It’s only natural.”
“Ugh. How can you say something like that with such a straight face? I don’t know if you’re just shameless or if you really don’t think about things…By the way, can you store people in that subspace of yours?”
“People? Hmm… I’m not sure. Wanna try?”
Sooah shot him a look of pure disdain.
“…Don’t even joke about that.”
At that moment, something jumped out of Taeseong’s shadow.
It was Wairang, who had shrunk himself down and was now biting into one of the chicken legs Taeseong had set aside as a snack.
Normally, he would never have done something like this, but his hunger had gotten the better of him.
‘This little bastard…Wairang. Who told you that you could just appear and start eating my food? Should I take this as you getting cocky after eating those snake bastards?’
[Whimper… Whimper…]
As Taeseong glared at him with cold eyes, Wairang, sensing the danger, shrank himself even further and jumped onto Sooah’s lap.
It was an instinctual act of self-preservation.
Sooah cuddled the little wolf in her arms as he wagged his tail and acted as adorable as possible, then looked up at Taeseong.
“Oh my god! Is this the wolf everyone’s been talking about? He’s even cuter in person! What’s his name?”
“Wairang.”
“Wairang? What does that mean?”
“It means ‘wolf from the outside.’”
“…Wow. You really half-assed that name, didn’t you? Wait—why is he trembling so much? Is he sick?”
“…Probably just cold.”
Taeseong stared at Wairang for a moment before turning back to Sooah.
“Sooah. Do you want to go back to Korea?”
