One Hundred and Twelve: You Are Not My Father

Darkness, darkness has surrounded me!

This darkness is so dense and heavy, much like the only recognized pure element allowed to exist in this world, completely sealing off my field of vision. It feels so baffling, appearing both like an endless, boundless expanse filling the entire world, yet simultaneously like a thin, light curtain—as if nothing is obscured except for my eyes. It is as though I am standing right at the center of an infinite, empty world, being heavily squeezed by a darkness that defies distance measurement; yet it also feels as though what surrounds me is nothing more than a simple color devoid of any thickness.

Darkness possesses precisely this power: it makes you feel as though you are worlds apart from reality, while simultaneously seeming as close as right before your eyes.

In all the legends, poems, and religious scriptures circulating across the continent of Falvi, death has seemingly always belonged to the realm of darkness. That awe-inspiring, eternal domain of the dead is precisely an unchanging, desolate abyss of darkness. There is a saying within the academic circles: the soul appears to be an entity closely akin to the attribute of light—and you know I am not referring to physical approximations like wave-particle duality, but rather to some... er... philosophical affinity. Therefore, when a soul loses its life, it is abandoned by all the brilliance cast down by the Supreme God, forced to descend into this nether kingdom rejected by light.

Viewed in this light, then, theoretically speaking, I must be dead.

Yet... something still feels rather amiss, doesn't it?

I have experienced death several times before. In my perception, death has always felt like nothing more than a fleeting instant. It seems to be the only formidable force in this world capable of severing the flow of time, tightly connecting the two moments of death and rebirth in the consciousness of the deceased without leaving the slightest gap.

The time spent passing through the process of death seems to be cleanly erased, leaving you entirely unaware of its existence.

So, what on earth is happening to me right now?

I should be dead, yet I am conscious of the fact that I am dead. But death ought to be devoid of consciousness; so is the death currently being perceived by my consciousness a true death at all?

I feel as though this tangled chain of paradoxes is starting to give me a headache, which in turn spawns an even more agonizing train of thought: Can a dead person feel a headache? And following that: Can a dead person think about whether a dead person can feel a headache? And then: Can a dead person think about whether a dead person can think about whether a dead person can feel a headache...

I am beginning to understand why people feel such terror toward death: no one can endure this hopeless darkness and silence. Mere minutes have passed, and I am already on the verge of madness. If this predicament were an endless eternity, the ultimate resting place of my soul... I shudder to imagine what kind of madness I would descend into.

Hm? Wait! Can a dead person go mad? Can a dead person even be aware that they are going mad...

The Supreme God above, I must not dwell on this question any longer. Some say that those who commit too many sins in life will ascend mountains of blades, plunge into cauldrons of boiling oil, or suffer a thousand cuts and have their hearts carved out upon death. But goodness knows, where on earth are your blade-mountains and oil-cauldron suites? Compared to this endless torment, those sound like luxury VIP custom suites.

"Am I... really dead?" Unable to bear this soul-crushing gloom any longer, I mustered every ounce of my "pre-mortem" consciousness, attempting to locate the physiological organ humans used to call a "mouth"—though that item should theoretically have been discarded along with my corpse—to produce the sensation of making sound.

In life, we called this action "speaking."

Huh? Strangely enough, I seemed to perceive the sound of my own voice through an action from life known as "hearing."

This is simply marvelous!

Just as I was marveling at my unexpected discovery and lamenting how wondrous death could be, an even more miraculous thing occurred:

A completely unfamiliar voice echoed:

"Of course you're not dead."

Is that so? Me? Not dead? I felt a sudden tightening in that place within me known in life as the "heart." A substance referred to in life as "blood" seemed to be flowing rapidly, causing the areas on my former corpse once known as skin and blood vessels to feel a hint of pleasant, surging warmth.

Yet I quickly reasoned it away: this was merely an illusion. No one wishes to be dead, and no one willingly accepts their own demise, even if they already know they have perished. Deep-seated subconsciousness can sometimes deceive oneself, creating hallucinations as though someone were speaking to one's very soul. Schizophrenia must surely originate in this manner.

It seems that being dead for too long really can drive a person mad.

However, once you are already dead, what is there left to fear about going mad?

"An illusion. It's all just an illusion," I told my soul.

"It is no illusion; it is truly I speaking to you," that hallucination stubbornly retorted.

Letting my thoughts wander further, if I am destined to remain dead for eternity, having a hallucination to converse with me wouldn't be a bad way to pass the time—no, it is quite literally the only and most precious method available. Awakening with a start, I realized I ought not to reject this hallucination; rather, I should embrace it, acknowledge it, and nurture it, allowing this precursor to schizophrenia to flourish and grow.

"Then who might you be? Are you the Grim Reaper?" Realizing that I might potentially have to endure this morbid voice in lonely companionship until the end of time, I spoke with trembling trepidation, terrified that I might accidentally regain my sanity and silence this hallucinatory voice, plunging me back into the agonizing, dead silence.

"No..." Hurrah, the hallucination was still there, "...I am neither dead nor a god."

Splendid. My hallucination evidently still believed itself to be alive. "Then where are you? Are you far from me? Perhaps we could be friends." If I still possessed a physical form, I would likely be offering a wry smile right now. Befriending one's own hallucination? This is a predicament I could never have imagined back in life.

"Well... I doubt it. Your wry smile doesn't look much like the expression of someone hoping to make friends..." The voice rang out once more, acting as the fractured persona deep within my soul. Of course he knew I intended a wry smile; look, his very next sentence gave him away: "...Besides, I am standing right in front of you."

"If you are standing right in front of me, how is it that I cannot see you?" I countered.

"Well... to see another person, wouldn't it help to open your eyes first?"

Recalling this slightly, I attempted to replicate the sensation from life of opening those two organs known as "eyes"—though whether this counts as "from life" remains debatable, as two intense beams of golden radiance surged from the depths of my eye sockets, plunging deep into the core of my soul and instantly awakening the vitality that had just fallen silent within my chest. After a brief bout of dizziness, my tightly sealed eyes finally began to distinguish colors and brilliance. Gradually, those blurred patches of color outlined crisp lines, growing clearer and sharper.

Then, I saw an elderly troll with protruding tusks and a ferocious expression standing menacingly right before me, gazing down at my prone form. From time to time, he smacked his somewhat withered lips, revealing an ugly smile as he stared with ill intent at my neck, as if studying precisely where to sink his teeth to sever it most efficiently.

"Troll Witch Doctor Carlson," was the name of the soul hovering above his head.

A blood-red name brimming with hatred and hostility!

For someone who had just "returned from the dead," this sudden turn of events genuinely gave me a fright. I sprang to my feet in a flash, frantically drawing my notched sword and carefully pointing its blade toward the troll's chest, my eyes locked on him in fierce vigilance.

My dramatic reaction was not lost on the elderly troll. He smiled down at me, showing no apparent aggressive intent.

"Hey, don't be so tense; I bear no hostility..." He waved both hands, speaking in the raspy, chilling tone that trolls mistakenly believe to be gentle and kind, "...lower that piece of junk you're holding; here it is no use to me..."

As he spoke, he slowly stepped toward me. This action severely triggered my over-wrought nerves. Without a moment's hesitation, the instincts honed from years of fighting invaders from the Doomsday Empire took over. I thrust forward with a fierce "Charge"...

A bright red "MISS" floated shakily above the Troll Witch Doctor's head.

"...is of no use at all." Troll Carlson looked up with a teasing glance, pointing at the lingering marker as he calmly finished his sentence.

In combat, the probability of missing a strike, though not high, is still a common occurrence. I immediately followed up with a "Slash" and a "Cleave," every blow directed at the troll's shoulder. Yet the accursed thing happened: my three consecutive full-power attacks produced zero effect. Two more "MISS" markers rose from the troll's body, drifting lazily as if mocking the futility of my efforts.

No matter how resilient and valiant a warrior I might be, it was difficult not to panic at this point. "Mortal Strike," "Headbutt," "Heavy Slash," "Flurry"... I exhausted every trick in the book, deploying nearly every combat skill I knew against the old troll before me. Yet the harvest was nothing but wave after wave of futile, missing attacks.

I even unleashed the "Blade Storm," a technique normally reserved for taking on multiple foes at once, whirling my longsword into a blurred, shimmering barrier of lethal steel to hack at the enemy before me with lightning speed. By the end, I had even despairingly abandoned any thought of slaying the troll, hoping merely that a single strike might connect—even if by sheer accident. Yet in the end, all my attacks failed to achieve their intended effect, resulting in absolute nothingness.

This was utterly bizarre. The blue-skinned, tusked, ugly old man was standing less than a step away from me, completely motionless. I could even smell the foul odor radiating from his mouth as he breathed. Yet he seemed as though he did not exist at all; no matter how fierce or swift my assaults were, they merely brushed past the hem of his garment and fell into the void, failing to graze so much as a hair on his skin. This petty, level-forty-seven alien geezer felt like the Goddess of Luck's sole favored emissary in this mortal realm. Among all the vocabulary I could muster, such incredible fortune could only be described as a "miracle."

This eerie reality chilled me to the bone. A fine layer of cold sweat coated my back, its despairing frost seeming to pierce straight through to my heart.

From start to finish, Troll Carlson wore a gentle smile. He gave no indication of feeling that his life was under threat—and indeed it was not—instead taking a keen interest in the game, watching as though appreciating a clumsy clown performance.

"What? Are you finally tired..." Seeing me let my longsword drop in defeat, abandoning all futile attempts to attack, Troll Carlson shrugged, "...then, I hope you can sit down quietly and have a proper talk with me. This is important to both of us—you and me."

He pointed to a flat rock by the wall, signaling me to take a seat, and then said: "First of all, I must welcome you here—to old Carlson's home. You should know, you are my very first guest, and for that, I feel both you and I should be honored."

I glanced around the surroundings. This appeared to be a sealed chamber somewhere within the castle; the surrounding masonry was etched with jagged cracks, and tufts of wild grass sprouted from the gaps between several stones. There were no windows, leaving me unable to see the outside scenery or deduce which part of the Gravel Fortress this belonged to. Strangest of all, there were no doors either; I had no inkling of how I had arrived here in the first place.

No windows, no doors, yet brilliantly illuminated. I attempted to locate the light source illuminating this chamber, but found nothing. Not a single object in the room emitted light; these luminous elements seemed to float suspended in mid-air, illuminating everything around them for no apparent reason.

"Does that mean I've been taken captive?" I steadied my racing mind, lowered my head in thought, and arrived at what seemed like the only logical conclusion.

"Captive?" Old Troll Carlson looked momentarily surprised, then burst into a hoarse, booming laugh. He waved his hands repeatedly: "No, no, no, my friend. Trust me, you are not a captive. Things are not as you imagine. Look, in this place, I am merely an old troll, not a soldier of the Doomsday Empire, and I have not the slightest connection to Dalenthil. Therefore, I hope you won't cast yourself in the role of some righteous freedom fighter resisting invaders. I am simply myself, and you are simply you; we are merely two independent lives in a very straightforward relationship. In fact, the reason I invited you here is because I discovered that you and I... well... are very similar!"

This was quite literally the most grievous insult I had ever suffered! I was such a dashing, handsome, tall, and robust young warrior—hey, stop looking at me with that disdainful gaze! When I claim I am more dashing than a gnome, more handsome than a half-orc, taller than a dwarf, and sturdier than an elf, can you honestly raise a single objection?—how on earth could I bear the slightest similarity to this blue-skinned hunchbacked uguro-goyle covered in bone spurs?

At that moment, I truly wished I could burst through a door and leave this idiot—who was completely oblivious to his own hideous visage—abandoned to himself... assuming I could find a door.

"Forget it. You're not my father," I retorted frostily.

"What?" Finally, Troll Carlson dropped his confident smile, staring at me in utter bewilderment—which, to my eyes, looked much more like anger at having his scheme exposed.

"If you intend to claim that you left behind a half-breed posthumous child on the continent in your early years who happens to be my exact age, and that you've found some token of father-son recognition on my person and now wish to turn me into a traitor against the Continental Alliance, I must ask you to spare me this cliché melodrama. To be completely honest with you, everything I'm wearing was looted; your dear bastard son was probably some chump I casually butchered along the way. If you want to avenge your son, please feel free to do so right now, since I already know I can't do a thing to stop you. But if you have no desire to kill me, then let me leave; there's a whole world out there waiting for me to save it, you know." I glared at him sideways with intense irritation, striving to channel those wise heroes of legend by "staring deeply into the depths of his heart."

Troll Carlson blinked in surprise, then threw his head back and laughed uproariously once more. His voice was hoarse and dry—partly due to his troll physiology, no doubt, but largely a dry chuckle meant to mask the failure of his scheme. By this point, I had steeled my resolve: no matter how earth-shattering or bizarre his words might be, I would treat them all as unsaid. Though I had no idea what he actually wanted or why he had singled me out, I could smell the distinct stench of a conspiracy beneath all the bizarre and mysterious events unfolding around me. If I simply remained steadfast in my conviction that everything he uttered was an impractical illusion, no trick he pulled could ever affect me.

Yet, once again, my calculations fell short.

The Troll Witch Doctor finally subdued his laughter and uttered a single, casual sentence. Yet those very few words rendered me powerless to refuse, unable to resist, compelling me to listen, to accept, to weigh, and to believe him!

He asked me:

"When did you acquire consciousness, Primordial?"

(This story still has thirty miles left to its conclusion.)