Above Your Head

Chapter 67: Rescue Operation Part Two (6)

Chapter 67: Rescue Operation Part Two (6)

*

I had a dream. It was set in a faraway world.

"Who are you?" She was a lovely lady, more beautiful and more lovely than anything in the world.

Splat. Blood splattered.

"Hey~ Don't you need a guard or something?" He was a man with a refreshing smile that suited him to a T; a man who gave generously but didn't want anything in return; a bright soul that was oppressed by all but never lost his smile.

Splat. Blood splattered.

"Keke. Are you the one with the Great Wisdom? This is a good fortune! I thought it was just a false rumor!" A tough-looking guy was laughing in front of hundreds of his subordinates. They were the garbage of society. Those who cast themselves into their own desires.

Splat. Blood splattered.

"Ah ah now now, isn't this good? A duel under the plains of a full moon." He was a beautiful man. His voice was as kind and full of confidence as ever. He was a man of the purest soul, more noble than anyone else in the world.

"Then let's get this fight started, Boundless Slayer."

Splat. Blood splattered.

"Why are you taking the sides of those monsters! Aren't you human too!"

"Save him, save him please! Save my brother!!!"

"We will bring judgement upon you in the name of justice."

"Why. Why would you, something like this...!"

"Spare me. I-, I'm begging your forgiveness…"

"Wait… in... hell…"

The images of countless people passed by my mind at a terrifying speed. There was a man sobbing with tears of blood, a woman swinging a sword while burning in hatred, an army raging like a tidal wave and old men with white hair.

"Die."

"Just die."

"I'm going to kill you!"

"Nice to meet you."

"I love you."

"Fucking piece...of shit."

"I shouldn't have met you..."

Blood splattered everywhere; everything was red. Countless people died. The wheels of blood began to roll with greed and desire, misunderstanding and resentment; it continued to spin without knowing how to stop.

And one day…

"This is..."

At last, he came to resent Father.

"Is this what you wanted?"

*

"Oh! Sunbae is awake!"

"Dae-ha! Are you all right?"

As soon as I came to my senses, two people's voices rang in my head. It wasn't like I groaned or opened my eyes wide, but they were quick to notice that I was awake.

"Aghh… My head hurts. Quiet down."

I sat up with one hand pressing on my forehead. I was so dizzy to the point that my head was buzzing. However, I couldn't tell if it was because I used the key against an enemy on the level of a transcendent, or because of the dream that I just had.

'Pathetic.'

The guy in the dream was the Administrator of the world. He knew everything there was to know in the world. So, he believed everything in the world was under his control. Perhaps he wasn't so wrong because he was actually a God.

But... By the will of the superior existence whom he called Father, he entered the body of a human being and it proved his beliefs wrong. Although he had fallen from the position of God, he possessed knowledge and ability beyond the understanding of humans, but he did not make good use of his own abilities. No, rather, his ability had caused destruction. He hastily revealed his abilities. As such, it led to people of high positions coveting his abilities.

'He said he knew everything, but he was so ignorant of the desire of humans.'

And that was why he had to fight over and over again. He had to protect himself from those who coveted his powers, and he had to kill his enemies to protect those he held dear.

And in the process... He was ruined.

"By the way, what's the situation? How long has it been?"

"About half an hour has passed. We came back inside the hall and we're hiding... The war situation is progressing very well. If the situation persists, not only would we be able to escape, it may even be possible for us to win the war."

"What? How?"

The Tekea Federation and the Leonhardt Empire was known to be on par in terms of military strength. However, our battle strength in the Seppard Star System was overwhelmingly inferior as compared to the Tekea Federation. Basically, it wasn't easy to overcome the gap between Albatross, a Terra-class battleship, and Great Sky, an Exa-class Space Carrier. The battle had only continued to this point because Albatross had been hiding well on Planet Ella-3 and detected them posed a difficult problem for Great Sky. If Albatross had gone face-to-face with Great Sky, they would never be able to win. But Celestia was saying that the battle situation had changed.

"Thanks to you, Great Sky is in a total mess. The maneuver mechanisms completely stopped, so Great Sky is getting beaten up one-sidedly by Albatross. Moreover, the outer shields were deactivated and all the exits were opened, so all the demi-humans in the corridors were blown into space."

"In other words, I caused a huge massacre just by uttering a few words huh."

I couldn't even begin to guess how many people were killed. Albatross, a Terra-class battleship, already had more than 10,000 crew members. So it was a given that there must have been more people in Great Sky, a ship much larger than Albatross.

"...You dumbass." said Celestia as she stared at me with a pathetic gaze.

"Hmm?"

I was surprised. Come to think of it, Bo-ram was squinting her eyes next to me too.

"Get your act together please, Sunbae! Do you want to be taken captive again after pulling off a great escape?"

"Eh? What do you mean? Taken captive again?"

I was puzzled because I thought she would say something comforting like 'Don't blame yourself for something like that'.

Celestia continued, "Don't say words with such nuances again. Can't you make a guess on what would happen if that power of yours became known?"

"Seriously! You've seen how everyone freaks out every time when it comes to the Legion, so why did you act so rashly? Do you want to be taken away by the aliens and be subjected to human experiments? I mean, a human with the powers of a Legion?"

"Thank you for saving me, but don't ever do that again! If you do that again, you'll be dissected not by the demi-humans, but by the Leonhardt Empire."

"Anyways, that's too careless of you!"

After receiving a series of lectures by the two girls, I looked at them with a dumbfounded expression. But soon I laughed because I realized that they meant good, and they were actually worried about me.

"Thank you."

"...What are you saying, you dumbass?"

"In any case, please be careful. Until a few months ago, you were just an ordinary person."

They were worried about me. It's also a concern, as I said, about my dangerous power being known, but... At the same time, they were also worried about the aftereffects of the murder I just did. Even if a person driving late at night hit an animal on the road, it was hard to forget the creepy feeling. The reality was that even the executioners who legally serve as the country's swords would suffer from massive aftereffects after executing death row convicts. There were even some executioners who went weak at their knees after learning the fact that their names were on the list for participating executioners.

'But it's okay.'

I was smiling on the inside. That's right, I was fine. I wasn't pretending to be strong, but it really didn't bother me. As Bo-ram said, I was a normal person a few months ago, but… Even so, I was never an ordinary human being.

Besides, after I came into the Universe, I gradually awakened more powers… Even the nightmares I was trying to forget became clearer and more vivid. At first, I was even worried that the memories might be slowly eating me up.

'Well, I don't think that's the case though.'

Even if I shared the memory, I didn't feel that it was my memory. It was as if I was watching the main character on TV or a movie in a first-person perspective. And most of all, the memories I had were not the memories of that Administrator's whole life. I had almost no memories of him managing the Universe as an omnipotent being. Most of the memories were about the things he went through after descending into an unknown planet.

'Maybe that period of time was…'

"Hey Dae-ha."

"Around 300 years ago?"

"...What?"

"Oh, the words just came out on their own. By the way, where did Dong-min go?"

I changed the topic around by clicking my tongue at the mistake -- an action that was unlike me. But after asking the question, I realized that it was certainly strange. Celestia and Bo-ram are here so where did the unconscious Dong-min go?

"If you're asking about Dong-min, he woke up and went to lead the rescue team. Oh, and I'm asking you just in case, what exactly did you do to Morne?"

"Yeah. I was so surprised when he suddenly disappeared…"

I hesitated for a moment at their words. Would it be alright to tell them? But come to think of it, it was all meaningless now that I had already used my commanding authority in front of them.

"You can probably already guess, but it's the power of the key. It wasn't his real body that attacked us, it was his clone… I locked that away."

"...You can even lock and release intangible abilities? Even against a living transcendent?"

"I wasn't sure about it too, but since it was a crisis, I just did it." I nonchalantly answered and grabbed the key that was hanging around my neck.

'Come to think of it, this key hasn't appeared in my memory before.'

I saw all kinds of Godly Artifacts in my memory. From a wand that could emit lightning, to a flute that could summon a nimbus and even a sword made of flames… But I couldn't recall this key anywhere in my memory.

'Was it something he got before he entered a human body? Or was it after that? No, before all of that… Is the memory I have really my biological father's memory?'

It was always just guesswork. There was nothing definite and I had to take a guess.

'Or maybe it's just something normal like a memory of a previous life.'

In fact, before I heard about my biological father from my father, I thought those memories were just of my previous life. If you suddenly remembered something you didn't know, it would be normal to think so. By that hypothesis, wouldn't it be like having the memories from playing in another game coupled with the ability to see titles? It was based on the theory that my life might be some sort of online life game. [1] I had been holding to such a hypothesis for a long while.

Pat!

Suddenly, the space shook and Dong-min fell from the air.

"Oh, he's awake."

"Yeah. By the way, are you okay? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?"

Dong-min sneaked a smile at my question. It was unusual considering it was coming from a man with little expression.

"On the contrary, I feel refreshed. To tell you the truth, it feels like I made an advancement in my abilities."

"...By how much?"

"With this alone, it makes coming to the Universe worth it."

Dong-min sounded like just by sleeping for a while, he had achieved the results that needed about 10 years of isolated training.

"And that's why, it's also possible for me to do this," Dong-min lightly drew his hand.

Krieekkkkk-!

The space was split. I stared at the amazing scene for a moment; I could see battle-ready soldiers and Gigas guarding the perimeter in that cracked space.

"Ehh?! Sunbae, you can open the dimension portal now?"

"Please cross over, Imperial Princess-nim!"

Before Dong-min had the time to answer Bo-ram's questions, a woman's voice sounded from the other side of the split space. Dressed in a leather suit that fitted nicely on her body but a stark contrast from the surrounding Universe, she was Captain Shin Mi-young, Squadron Leader of the Infantry Corps.

"There's no need to waste time, right?"

Celestia quickly grasped the situation, grabbed my arm and crossed the dimensional rift. As soon as I came to my senses, Bo-ram and Dong-min also crossed over, and the rift between the two dimensions disappeared like it was never there.

Krooooom!!!

There was a great deal of confusion outside. Due to the disappearance of the outer barrier, the air in the residential area was being sucked out of the ship and there were all kinds of objects flying around. However, the atmosphere was quite calm for the pursuit team as they were protected by a shield enveloping them.

"They're alright even when the outer barrier has disappeared?"

"What a stupid thing to say. For us to infiltrate the enemy camp, the enemy's control persona is definitely regarded as an enemy. It's only natural to be prepared for that kind of attack."

I nodded my head in agreement at Celestia's words. But then again, the demi-humans were betrayed by their ally, Athen. So naturally, the rescue team, which was originally regarded as an enemy, was now in a different position from before.

"Come on now, get on the transport ship quickly! We're escaping!" The soldiers moved in perfect order at Mi-young's command. But it was then…

Command… Not feasible... I'm sorry...

I froze at the voice I heard. I looked around and it seemed like no one else had heard it.

Boom! Boom! Kaboom-!

The things that were flying around in the sky lost their movement and began to fall onto the floor. When I looked up, the outer barrier was being restored before I knew it.

"What? What the hell just happened?"

"Is the system restored?"

I realized at the sight of people panicking. 'He died.'

Yes. That was what happened.

'Morne killed the control persona of Great Sky.'

1. Dae-ha is basically saying that his life may actually just be a game he's in, like the Sims.