Chapter 423: 423

Side Story Chapter 43 – Kirikiri (11)

‘No.’

What Kirikiri spat out was a clear refusal.

The price came quickly.

Kirikiri’s ego, which had already become a soul and was being absorbed by the Tribal God, was feeling excruciating pain.

Having lost her body, she lost her sense of physical pain.

So instead, the Tribal God reassembled Kirikiri’s memories during her lifetime, allowing her to experience mental pain.

Kirikiri felt the feelings of the Tribal God in her pain.

Unacceptance.

Bother.

Petulance.

Hassle.

That was the feeling the Tribal God was feeling.

To the Tribal God, Kirikiri was a worm that had to die when she was crushed.

He was doing the same when watching Kirikiri trying to maintain her ego to survive.

In the pain, Kirikiri endured a mixture of all her painful memories and experiences without breaking down.

She didn’t want to just disappear, as the Tribal God intended.

But she was fleeting.

She would only prolong her time of suffering pointlessly, but Kirikiri was holding out.

[You’re bothering me.]

The Tribal God was annoyed.

He was annoyed, and at the same time impatient.

One mixed breed, who has already been eaten and may have her ego clouded, is interfering with the absorption.

It would have been better if she was human, but she apparently also had rabbit blood.

It was really annoying.

Normally, it would have been rather interesting to torment that stupid soul.

But not now.

The Tribal God shook his head.

The bright yellow eyes turned forward again.

There was a man who set the world on fire.

The fire that burns the plateau makes even the sky dyed red.

It couldn’t even be called a plateau anymore.

The blue mountains were burning like a burning wreath.

The fire flew like waves.

Flames wriggling unnaturally like a living snake surrounded the man.

It was a sight that clearly showed that the flames and heat filled here were moving according to the will of that person.

It was truly a marvelous sight.

Is that a human or the one who rules the spirits of the world?

He couldn’t tell if it was the Spirit King or not.

But that wasn’t the problem.

Humans who freely handle flames and heat, and their destructive power, were not a problem.

The real problem is that the Tribal God is being damaged by that fire.

The Tribal God swept and touched his face.

He forcibly ripped off his beard and fur that had been burned by the fire.

The body of the god was burned with firepower.

It’s impossible.

Divine power exists above all powers.

No physical force can exceed the position of divine power.

In front of divine power, it was no different than a pebble thrown by a child towards either a stream or a meteorite falling from the sky.

Only the same divine power could harm divine power.

Does that man have a god on his back?

If not,

Was he stepping into the realm of God himself?

He didn’t know. It could be both.

Given that crazy sight, it was most likely both.

He was taken aback by the sudden attack.

He was startled by the pain that he had forgotten even existed.

However, once the embarrassment passed, the Tribal God was able to examine the situation calmly.

Greed aroused within him.

That’s it.

He has to eat that.

That human was a different kind of food from raising rabbits and eating them.

A human with divine powers.

It wasn’t an easy match.

In order to eat it, the chaos that existed within the Tribal God himself had to be put to rest.

‘I’m Kirikiri!’

Kirikiri, who persisted in asserting herself, was like a thorn in his mouth.

How could it be that he couldn’t absorb that tiny being?

If that little being is part of god, the story is different.

All rabbits were part of the Tribal God.

That hybrid rabbit was also part of the Tribal God.

It was not good for a part of the Tribal God, no matter how small it might be, to keep saying things that denied his will.

His divinity responds sensitively.

[You are not a rabbit!]

The Tribal God made a quick rebuttal.

He denied her identity as a rabbit in Kirikiri.

If only the human, not rabbit, were left, then Kirikiri could not do anything but argue within the Tribal God.

[I am a rabbit!]

However, Kirikiri did not give in despite the constant pain.

She did not abandon her identity even before the god who created the race.

The impatient Tribal God summoned all the memories he knew.

In the memory of the Tribal God, which had been built up for aeons of time, the times of suffering that were like all kinds of disaster were recorded.

[You are not me!]

Kirikiri persevered.

The Tribal God, whose eyes had turned to the High Seeker in front of him, came up with a special measure.

He completely gave up on absorbing Kirikiri.

He denied part of himself.

Immediately after the Tribal God’s declaration, a small piece of flesh fell from the Tribal God’s body.

It was as if an eyeball had been pulled out of the eye.

The flesh was connected by a thin thread and hung on the body of the Tribal God.

The Tribal God exclaimed as if he was relieved.

[Finally dropped!]

The High Seeker, who was swinging his sword towards the Tribal God, while raging in flames, stopped.

That bizarre piece of flesh that suddenly appeared was in the shape of a rabbit.

And the shape looked like the Kirikiri the High Seeker had seen every day for the past year.

[Haha.]

The Tribal God looked at it and laughed.

He remembered that the hybrid rabbit and that man had climbed the plateau together.

It was not difficult to guess the relationship between the two.

The Tribal God threatened the High Seeker by putting forward the flesh on which Kirikiri was hung.

The High Seeker took a step back.

[You are a man of great skill in handling fire. I’ll show you I can do that too!]

The Tribal God shouted.

The High Seeker was controlling the fire everywhere.

However, the Tribal Gods knew.

That man is not resistant to fire.

He actually knew that if he was set on fire, he would die as shabby as a fly in a campfire.

The transcendent divine power that that man was showing was only because he was surrounded by flames he had created himself.

A strong vibration was felt from the ground.

There was a sound like thunder.

It was all coming out of the ground on which he was standing.

The Tribal God that existed since ancient times remembered that the mountain they were standing on was originally a volcano that spews out lava.

The Tribal God laughed with satisfaction.

He wanted to see if that human would be able to stand aloof even if the blue mountain range was submerged in lava.

[Let’s see where you can withstand lava.]

* * *

[You are not a rabbit.]

[You are not me]

The Tribal God said

In the past, she might have agreed.

She was immersed in a feeling of inferiority and was always anxious and passive in everything.

If she hadn’t ventured with the High Seeker for a year, she probably would have stayed the way she was.

It was an eventful journey for her.

It was not that there was a moment of great change within her in that adventure.

But she gained experience.

She went around with the High Seeker and she got to know the world.

The vague appearance of the world became concrete.

She came to understand society.

She learned about people’s relationships and communication again.

The more she broadened her knowledge, the more she came to know herself in front of the world.

In a huge and mysterious world, Kirikiri was a very small existence.

Just like all other beings.

She became aware of her own smallness.

She was able to correct her self-consciousness that way.

She wasn’t perfect.

But she was her.

In front of the Tribal God’s will, which is the answer to her world, Kirikiri was able to speak of her own existence.

‘I’m a rabbit.’

‘I’m Kirikiri.’

It was a rebuttal of the divine will that created her race, that was her source, and that was the answer.

God said she was not a rabbit.

God said she wasn’t ‘her’.

Kirikiri returned her own answer to the Tribal God.

‘You are not my god.’

Kirikiri, who existed as part of a Tribal God, denied the Tribal God himself.

The Tribal God couldn’t handle it.

* * *

The vibration of the earth, which seemed to split a huge mountain range in two, subsided.

Instead, the body of the Tribal God was collapsing.

As if there had been an earthquake, the skin was cracking and falling to the ground.

[This crazy thing… ]

The Tribal God looked at the flesh that had fallen from him with hateful eyes.

The flesh, whose shape was somewhat unclear, had the appearance of a complete Kirikiri.

‘You are not my god.’

Ungrateful thing.

You wouldn’t be able to repay the kindness I’ve created for you, but how dare you say that.

He was offended.

But it was even more disconcerting.

The Tribal God never imagined that a single word from Kirikiri would shake up his divinity.

To him, rabbits have always been subject to his will, so he never thought about what would happen if they didn’t.

[You are not my God.]

The problem was getting even worse.

Things that had been sleeping inside were awakening.

The shape of Kirikiri, connected with the Tribal God by a thread, was distorted.

Kirikiri’s neck split in two, and a new head appeared.

It was the face of another rabbit.

The rabbit’s face said.

[You are not my god.]

The Tribal God felt terrified.

The faces of rabbits appeared from Kirikiri’s back, neck, stomach, and arms.

[You are not my god.]

These little things.

They were leaving him and moving to that mixed breed rabbit.

Each of those souls was his own strength, and they were a part of it.

It had nothing to do with the rabbits’ souls leaving.

Each time, his power disappeared in a mass.

His divinity was shaking precariously.

The Tribal God hastily found a way.

The last strand that connects him and Kirikiri.

A thin thread caught his eye

The Tribal God tried to cut it off.

He grabbed it with his hand and bit it with his teeth.

There was no divine dignity to be found in that action.

It was nothing more than a dog devouring tough meat.

[No… No!]

In the meantime, all the souls of the countless rabbits that have existed have gone out.

The huge body of the Tribal God began to collapse.

Abandoned by his worshipers, the god gradually turned into a shabby and small figure.

The appearance of the rabbits, which had been divided into hundreds or thousands, was soon arranged into a single individual.

In the place where the flesh had been, all that was left was Kirikiri’s figure again.

Representing all the rabbits, Kirikiri said.

[You are not our God.]

At the same time as her words, the thread that connected the Tribal God and Kirikiri was cut.

No matter how hard the Tribal God tried, the thread that could not be cut was cut too easily in front of the will of the rabbits.

[No! This can’t be!]

The Tribal God screamed, but no one listened to it.

His divinity chose the rabbits.

[What are you doing? Smash it now!]

Cried the sword.

The High Seeker was hesitant.

The sword looked at the High Seeker and shouted.

[This crazy bastard. Are you going to leave him alone until he dies because you don’t want to kill her with your own hands?]

The sword was strongly criticizing him, but the High Seeker did not move.

Eventually, the thread that connected the Tribal God and Kirikiri was cut.

As soon as he saw that, the High Seeker did not hesitate any longer and swung his sword.

* * *

What happened that day became a myth.

As a result, the two who survived there became gods, so it could be said that the myth was correct.

The rabbits freed from the Tribal God became gods themselves.

Kirikiri, who contained all the rabbits in one body, and at the same time was also Kirikiri.

The High Seeker also became a god.

All the people of the eastern continent watched the gigantic blue mountain range on fire.

That achievement was added to the phenomenal feat.

The High Seeker, who was already a superhuman close to God, began to show off his truly divine abilities.

People worshiped him as an apostle of the god of light.

The people of the kingdom where he was king began to worship him most fervently.

He was worshiped by all people and became a god.

A long time has passed.

Many things happened.

The relationship between High Seeker and Kirikiri continued even after becoming a god.

They shared the same purpose.

They followed a similar path and continued the conversation.

Kirikiri remembered all the many conversations she had with the High Seeker.

“You have to stop the gods.”

The power of God was the power of miracles, but it was also the power of disaster.

As gods, they wanted to stop the evils of other gods.

Humans had morals and laws.

But there was no such thing with the gods, and they were committed regardless of merciless slaughter or cruel play.

The High Seeker and Kirikiri agreed that even the gods needed a minimum of rules and order.

“Have you heard of the God of Origins?”

They found out about something.

About a certain god that was born at the same time as the beginning of all universes.

One day there was a rumor that the god would come to the world and everything would go back to him.

It wasn’t a rumor.

It was a story circulating among the gods.

The gods were repeating the saying that before the world came, they had to obtain even a little more divinity so that they could be together with their father who was to return.

It was as if the size of their divinity would guarantee that they would maintain their egos when everything was devoured by the Primordial God.

This was the reason why spirit creatures struggle to become gods, and why the gods riot to gain greater power.

“Come with us.”

Since it was impossible to face all the gods alone, the High Seeker and Kirikiri set out to find beings with whom they would share their will.

‘Get lost, you newcomers. I am training to become an apostle of the God of Devotion.’

‘It’s impossible. If that really comes to an end, all I have to do is prove myself.’

There were times when they succeeded and times when they failed.

A long time passed again.

The gods started a war.

To prevent greater power, to prevent more sacrifices.

The wars of the gods were huge and cruel.

The gods, who seemed to be immortal, disappeared one by one.

There was no sacrifice in that war.

“…the sword is broken. Can you fix it?”

The High Seeker didn’t answer.

“Let’s find another sword.”

“I’ll use the spear.”

“Spear?”

“I have only ever used one sword in my life. Rather than finding another sword, I will use a spear.”

The High Seeker said.

“I was originally from a who used to hold a spear. If become a god and hold a spear again, it will fit my ideology.”

There was a god who talked about himself before becoming a god.

Even in his most humble time.

The High Seeker forgot his sword and again he concentrated on what he had to do.

It was unfortunate.

The High Seeker has set his own justice to the absolute banner.

In front of that banner, the personal loss of each individual had no value.

The same was true in the face of his own loss.

It wasn’t that he didn’t express his sadness.

He could no longer feel sorrow.

Time has passed again.

The war was running towards its end.

The appearance of the God of Origins who was said to be the origin of the universe, which everyone had only guessed about its existence, began to appear.

The end was soon.

“Kirikiri. What are you doing!”

The God of Sky shouted.

There were two options.

The world is preyed upon, and everything stops forever.

Or, to destroy the world first.

After that, sealing the God of Origins and restoring the world again.

Looking at the spear thrown at her, Kirikiri thought.

The God of Sky is a god who can’t choose either of the two options.

But Kirikiri had a choice.

Kirikiri acted again.

* * *

Kirikiri lay flat on the floor.

The fields that Yong-yong had dug up could not be restored.

Maybe she won’t be able to tell if she tries hard alone.

It will take time.

A new sprout grows in the place where the grass had been pulled.

Time to fill in the dugs of wind-swept soil.

If she uses her divine power, it will be restored in an instant.

Kirikiri didn’t want to do that.

Her time was a time of continuous choices.

At the crossroads of her choices, Kirikiri always pushed her own choices without hesitation.

But she’s always wondered what she would be like if she had made a different choice.

She even had regrets.

As the years passed, she even thought that the choice she regretted was actually the right one.

There were many adventures.

There have been many successes and failures.

Is it good?

Is it wrong?

She couldn’t figure it out.

It was a pointless question.

Until now.

The result of her choice can only be known at the end of every fork in the road, only when the adventure is over.

Because her adventure is not over yet.

She could not yet decide whether the choices she had made were right or wrong.

She turned her head.

The remnants of the pearls reflected in the corners of her eyes.

She remembered the day when she was called by Hara the priest and went to the village above.

She thought that maybe it wasn’t about Lee Ho-jae’s victory or defeat.

Kirikiri had a gut feeling that the end was coming.

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