Eliya had been curious all along.
What kind of world does Judas live in?
There was no magic, no miracles, and no monsters.
While social status had existed in the past, it had become a concept that no longer applied as time progressed.
Large buildings like magic towers were everywhere, and silent carriages were packed on every road.
But not every location in this world was like that.
The technological development gap between nations was extreme.
It was puzzling how such a disparity could exist within a single world.
Though Eliya was absorbing these experiences through Judas’s perspective, it felt strange, almost surreal.
And then, the answer appeared right before her eyes.
[Eliya de Bevel]
A video image displayed on the monitor.
The figure reflected in it was undeniably her.
Judas spoke with annoyance.
“Why is this Eliya character just an NPC? What is the point of her…?”
A game.
A form of entertainment enjoyed virtually.
NPC.
Non-Playable Character.
Characters that players cannot choose, but can interact with nonetheless, having no independent will of their own.
They act and react strictly according to predefined scripts.
Eliya confirmed this information through Judas’s memories.
An overwhelming amount of hard-to-accept information was pouring in.
The character named Eliya de Bevel.
She uses a magical power referred to as ‘crazy fire.’
Also, the virtual world in which she existed was astonishingly similar to the world she lived in.
Levant continent.
Bevel Principality. Helios Empire.
Sun Church. Molsin Church. And other currently nonexistent religions.
Sealed Evil God, and so forth.
It couldn’t simply be dismissed as coincidence.
‘…….’
Eliya had to recall a very old question.
‘Who am I?’
It was a topic that had been endlessly debated in philosophy for a long time.
Who am I?
No scholar had ever been able to provide a clear answer to that question.
Eliya had little interest in that query.
It wasn’t that she found it uninteresting.
She simply realized.
That a single individual could never arrive at a definitive answer to the transcendental question of ‘who I am.’
She devoted her time pondering more practical matters.
And now, in this moment.
Eliya had to confront that difficult question once again.
Her mind was in complete turmoil.
Who am I, and is this ‘I’ that I’m thinking about real?
What even is the ‘real me’?
All the worlds she had lived in and experienced until now were all fake.
Then what about her experiences?
What about the feelings, thoughts, and memories of actions she had taken?
‘I don’t know….’
Eliya suffered from a mental shock similar to a headache.
But she couldn’t keep dwelling on it.
Even at this moment, time outside would flow.
How long had passed, she couldn’t tell from within.
Therefore, she had to confirm the necessary information as quickly as possible and return.
‘For now… let’s keep watching.’
In the midst of the confusion, memories of Judas flowed back again.
He was a traveler from this world, the world Eliya herself belonged to.
Through the means of a character, he experienced this world in numerous forms.
Assassin, wizard, knight.
Sometimes he was just an ordinary farmer or blacksmith, or even a wandering mercenary.
Or he had been the master of the Assassin Guild, or the new emperor of the Helios Empire.
All those experiences were from slightly different timelines, altered completely by Judas’s influence.
However, there was one unchanging aspect.
That was the existence of Eliya de Bevel.
She was always sharp and unapproachable, effortlessly killing off Judas’s characters without a second thought.
She killed for merely making eye contact.
And pretended to befriend before killing.
She was someone that he wouldn’t dare approach.
As she saw her repeated appearances, Eliya felt even greater confusion.
‘Who am I really…?’
The countless other versions of herself.
Should she see them all as the same person?
Or were they all distinct individuals?
Black hair. Red eyes. The magic known as crazy fire.
Unique traits that she recognized.
Thus, countless versions of herself could indeed be labeled as herself.
If that Eliya is fake, and I am also a fake,
Then it became questionable whether a ‘real’ could even exist in this world.
So what constitutes the person known as ‘Eliya’?
Eliya couldn’t say.
Only that there was one notable difference between them.
‘The scar on the face.’
Her current face was smooth.
In contrast, the Eliya that Judas encountered had a scar running diagonally across her face.
Every single one of them.
‘Why…?’
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t recall any reason for the scar.
The memories flowed once more.
Judas, while cursing Eliya, inevitably sought her out.
At some point in the game, pursuing Eliya became the inevitable conclusion.
After he mastered the game, he focused exclusively on Eliya from the start.
Although they were always slightly different timelines, there was a commonality.
All were set in the time after Eliya became an adult.
Eliya further deduced some commonalities relating to herself.
‘By the time of adulthood, the Bevel family was practically non-existent. I am the only one left. And I’m a madman who casually indulges in murder and arson….’
She was far from what one would call a ‘good person.’
She knew that herself.
However, she could at least assert that she wasn’t some crazy monster.
‘Judas’s encounters with me continue to unfold like this.’
Far from the relatively stable version of herself now, there were many instances of her having gone completely mad.
What differentiated her self from those others?
Who am I really?
The questions deepened.
‘What does Judas think of me?’
Eliya accepted Judas’s perspective.
Naturally, during the game, he never regarded her as a real person.
A fictional character crafted from virtual materials.
A fake person.
And somehow, she encountered that Judas, though she didn’t know how.
Through everything she had experienced until now, she was curious how Judas defined his existence.
It was frightening.
His words of affection.
Was that emotion?
Were his expressions and actions genuine?
Is he real or fake now that he has entered this counterfeit world?
A torrent of questions surged, leaving her disoriented.
Months spent immersed in the game, Judas began to work.
He secured a position as an instructor at a nearby judo gym.
There, he met many people, worked in line with his profession, and occasionally encountered the Eliya from the game, gradually stabilizing his life.
The title of righteous physical education student faded away.
The deep-rooted corruption and ugliness of the sports world scattered with the passage of time.
One day, Judas succeeded in obtaining the ‘Sun Symbol’ within the game.
He snatched it away from the emperor of that world.
After almost dying while getting close to the scarred adult Eliya, he hid and seized it away.
Thus, it was a world distinctly separated from the one he inhabited.
As soon as he got it, he used it.
What he solely wanted to accomplish within the game was just one thing.
On the screen where he could input his wish, he pondered.
What did he want to achieve in this game?
‘Eliya.’
He was curious about why it had to turn out this way.
Whether she had to be such a human.
If there was a past that twisted her into a maniac…
[Eliya, I want to save you.]
It wasn’t a grave intention, just a pure wish.
He wanted to know whether there was a possibility for her to grow into someone else.
And also whether he could oversee or implement that change.
Of course, he initially desired it as a gaming experience.
After entering it and hitting enter, the screen disappeared and so did the sun symbol.
And nothing happened.
“…What the hell, where did my item go? Do you know how hard I worked for that!”
He waited to see if anything would change, even exploring, but nothing shifted.
At that time, that was it.
Judas muttered with disappointment.
“If it couldn’t be implemented, just say so…. Ah, small to medium-sized garbage game.”
After that, he left a negative review on the gaming platform.
[A garbage game. Even if they pay me, I wouldn’t play it. I’m curious what’s going on in the developers’ heads.]
…It was the beginning of a rather lengthy tirade of criticism.
After writing it all, there was still no change.
He was still perfectly fine.
That moment was Christmas.
A few days after posting that negative review.
A PD from a broadcasting station contacted Judas.
He was the director of an investigative program, planning to expose the corruption within the sports world.
He chose Judas as his aide.
It wasn’t that his previous accusations had gone unaddressed.
A key member of the association was removed from their position, and the faculty at Yongho University was reshuffled too.
On the surface, this was indeed the case.
However, the executives resumed similar roles elsewhere, and their previous spots were filled by their connections.
The faculty of Yongho University was no different.
Ultimately, Judas hadn’t changed anything at all.
The PD suggested that they help each other, and after thinking it over, he agreed.
He quit being an instructor so as not to be a burden on the gym.
He thought of it as something he had to do.
On the day he received contact, he immediately responded to the interviews.
As the conversation dragged on, it wasn’t until late into the night that the interview finally wrapped up.
And as he walked back through a dark alleyway.
“…….”
Judas lay stabbed in an alley.
The cartel of the sports world, including the association, was alive and well.
However, those who had clung to it and wagged their tails found their standings shattered.
They couldn’t even lift their heads anymore.
Those who turned a blind eye, even knowingly.
Or those who stealthily filled their appetites for profit and desires while ogling from the sidelines.
At the same time, they were ordinary humans, just like Judas, who won’t be granted the power to join the cartel.
They directed their misplaced rage at Judas, stabbing him with a knife.
As he saw the blood seeping from his side, Judas chuckled softly.
“Dumbass…”
It was a self-deprecating laugh.
The knife was embedded quite deeply.
His phone slipped from his hand.
He had no strength left to hold it.
A myriad of memories flickered by.
They weren’t particularly pleasant experiences.
A life spent being ignored.
Though he had fought to avoid the depths, that was all.
In the end, he achieved nothing.
Perhaps if he’d stayed quiet.
Like most people, if he had just turned a blind eye,
He wouldn’t have met such an empty death.
Such thoughts arose, yet he had never once regretted his actions.
What was wrong was wrong.
As his consciousness faded away, he found himself thinking a rather absurd thought.
As it was when falling asleep, a disjointed stream of consciousness.
‘Eliya… so what about that girl’s backstory…’
He muttered to himself internally.
Finally, his consciousness went dark.
When he opened his eyes again.
‘…I messed up.’
He had found himself inhabiting the very game he’d enjoyed.
In other words, he had come to this world where Eliya existed as the character known as ‘Judas.’
‘Which character did I inhabit?’
At that time, Judas didn’t know the answer.
He was a character he had never heard of or known.
He rummaged through his pockets for information.
In his hand, something hard and sharp was caught.
‘What is this?’
It was a shard of broken glass.
‘Oh, crap. That scared me.’
He tossed it immediately to the ground, covering it with dirt.
Along with the glass shard, a crumpled piece of paper also fell out.
‘What kind of trash is this person carrying in their pocket?’
Judas thought to himself.
However, before he became Judas, Eliya, having read the original Judas’s memories, was able to connect the dots that Judas knew nothing about.
The glass shard.
It was an object intended for killing Eliya.
The crumpled paper.
It was a magical instruction sheet that had planted the suggestion to kill Eliya.
Having been raised and trained as an excellent assassin, Judas sought her out.
And through the timeline that Judas knew, Eliya had always had a scar on her face.
‘That scar was originally made by the character known as Judas….’
However, after Judas’s character took hold, everything had flipped.
At first, he attempted to escape from her.
Using the information he knew, he gradually carried out his plan.
But he couldn’t resist his nature and unintentionally caught Eliya’s attention.
Inexplicably drawn close, he became curious about Eliya, feeling both fear and sympathy for her.
She had saved him, wiped away his tears when he cried, embraced him, and while afraid, she cared for him enough to be near.
Memories of a day spent together.
Eliya saw it.
‘…Huh! What the hell are you doing?!’
The sight of her younger self kissing the sleeping Judas on the cheek.
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