VIP Chapter 301: You Are the End of This Feeling (4k)
“Even though good people around her repeatedly told her that she was truly human, that she bore the mark of a God-Attuned, and that she should just live her life in this world…”
“When she closed her eyes, she would recall the ground covered in blood and the tip of a knife aimed at her throat.”
“Thinking of this scene, she would tremble uncontrollably, instinctively fearing death.”
Shuna looked towards the dark corner of the room.
She remembered the nights in the orphanage in Polol, just after she was adopted. Closing her eyes, she would tremble in nightmares, unable to suppress the urge to kill herself from the moment she was born.
“But this is precisely what was imprinted on her instincts…”
“Even though she was afraid, even though she was confused, it was like a curse nailed into her brain, pushing her to create ‘death in the dungeon’ and ‘her own death’…”
Shuna remembered that even when she was taken to a school that taught how to explore dungeons, she couldn’t learn anything.
Because she couldn’t “understand” bright “lifestyles” like that of a school.
The further she was from the dungeons, the more afraid she became.
The more she feared the first memory of a knife piercing her, the more she became convinced it was her own end.
Although it was very rare in this world, it was like… a “divine sound” resonating in her soul, controlling and ravaging a girl born into the world with a blank slate, hinting at her life towards the pursuit of death in the dungeon.
She was obsessed with wanting to open the gray-black door leading to the dungeon.
Going down layer by layer.
The further she went, the closer she got… to death.
“Looking back at the reason now, it was probably simply because… that young girl was born in the dungeon, perhaps… she was a ‘monster’ of the dungeon—at least by definition, yet… she carried the ‘blessing’ bestowed by the Goddess Reviers.”
“The blessing of a God-Attuned is to dedicate one’s entire life to the dungeon.”
“Yes. This blessing… compels me to tear, to destroy, to kill everything in the dungeon.”
“Including… herself too.”
“And so it became a curse that made me unable to understand the meaning of life and survival, only… like that first memory…”
Shuna’s words didn’t finish, but Will interjected:
“Death in the dungeon was the only thing she could understand.”
“Yes, that’s right. As expected, Will, you are the one who understands me the most. To be able to describe it word for word.”
Will didn’t speak.
Of course, it was word for word. Because he had seen this psychological process again and again in Xiu’s memories from his past life—though he now understood, the entire story that happened to Shuna was like a bug.
It turned Shuna into a string of code that, from birth, was running with errors and destined for self-destruction.
Although in a sense, this was indeed the treatment of a “protagonist”—carrying the bloodlines of both enemy and ally, contradictory yet unified, appearing as the “key” to solving the world’s greatest contradiction and most difficult problem.
“She must have been terrifying back then. Babies know nothing, but she would only think of death with a frantic and pathological mind.”
Hearing this, Will felt…
He might have misunderstood something.
He looked up at Shuna from her feet. She spoke about this period with unusual calmness, a state of mind that no normal person would have.
In Xiu’s story, he hadn’t felt it then. After all, Xiu was more like a “monster,” but hearing Shuna say these words herself…
Will felt he was wrong.
The seemingly most normal, most calm, and most mentally sound Shuna…
Was the one who, from the very beginning, was fundamentally sick. Whether it was towards death or life, whether it was towards the outside world or that dungeon, she had a different understanding than ordinary people.
Even…
She might be…
From the beginning, she was someone who could easily descend into darkness from heart to soul, because for her, killing someone and killing herself was never difficult.
Even at that time, she was probably terrifyingly dark.
But now she seemed different, normal, optimistic, cheerful, and energetic.
As for why…
He knew the “future” of this story, or rather, it was easy to guess.
It was probably related to his unintentional act.
“Then… she skipped school, and with both ‘confusion’ and ‘clear purpose,’ she went to the Adventurer’s Guild, wanting to enter the dungeon…”
“At that age, wanting to enter the dungeon, even if her strength was already considerable, must have been difficult.”
“Yes. But she was very clever and realized a way to deceive those adults—by saying it was a homework assignment and a task she had to complete.”
When Shuna said this, she looked at the candlelight beside her and gave Will, who was across from the candlelight, a smile of slight relief.
She thought, it seemed he hadn’t noticed, otherwise, this smile, which she always carried when writing him letters afterward, would have erased his impression of her being cool, dashing, and powerful.
“So, what kind of task would be most suitable? She saw a commission that had been transferred from who knows where, about something as basic as what they learned in class a few days ago.”
“So she accepted that problem—to be honest, she didn’t care at the time, but thinking about it now, it was indeed an interesting problem.”
“How should Ice Armor Infusion resist steam at 200 degrees Celsius? Something like that?”
“She, who was only thirteen, walked into the dungeon. She was really terrible back then, only knowing some innate close-combat skills and the most basic Ice Armor Infusion. Of course, the enemy she faced wasn’t much either, a rather weak-looking inflated lava monster. Hmm… could be called a noob fight?”
Just two minutes ago, she had been very “angry,” and when she started telling this story, she had been a little “low,” but when she spoke of this experience, she became full of joy.
This was something she had waited for for a very long time—to tell this story that only she had experienced.
The reply she calmly wrote in the letter was precisely the blessing within the entire event.
“That fight wasn’t interesting. Compared to the more spectacular battles that followed, it’s not worth mentioning.”
Shuna wanted to recall the specific scenes of this, her first battle in life, and describe them with magnificent words, but then she realized that these memories and fragments had become too blurry.
Indeed.
With her mind only focused on “giving death” and “seeking death,” let alone combat, it would be difficult for her to retain anything else in her memory.
“But… the young girl discovered…”
Shuna looked at her arm, on her right arm, there were faint scars that were already mostly invisible.
She remembered it was a burn.
“She was injured. It was a burn, not a severe injury, but not fatal; she could feel the pain, but it wasn’t unbearable.”
“Seeing the wound, she thought… such a burn apparently doesn’t kill me? But… my move just now did kill that lava monster, it disappeared. So, is this not enough? Then she headed for the next ten floors…”
“But like a flash of lightning, she looked at her arm and found…”
“The burn wasn’t uniform. Even though the steam had engulfed everything, some skin wasn’t burned. This means that the answer to that problem created a solution here.”
“……”
She waited for Will’s evaluation. Although she used the tone of “a certain young girl,” it was likely that the intelligent Will had already realized this was a “I have a friend” story, and the person she had been talking about from beginning to end was herself.
Will remained silent, listening attentively, but he didn’t urge her to continue.
A storyteller casually narrating, and a listener casually listening, waiting for the continuation that both of them knew.
“She should have continued in the dungeon, but it seemed that letter showed her another answer in this world. She felt she should write that reply, she should consult various books—the books her teacher gave her must contain relevant results.”
“She studied her wound, consulted all sorts of information, and even went back to the dungeon to face that lava monster many times.”
“Then… racking her brains, using the most earnest and sincere handwriting, she wrote that letter.”
“It’s strange. At least… during the time spent trying to figure out how Ice Armor Infusion could block steam burns, it seemed like… there was more than just ‘death’ in her brain.”
It had been years, but Shuna remembered this first letter.
She wrote it word by word, using the newly learned most polite phrasing, but her mood was as if she were sharing a great discovery with a very, very good friend through a letter.
What kind of person was he?
What would he think upon receiving the letter?
Why did he ask that question?
Would he reply to thank her for the answer?
—These questions were answered one by one in the days to come. For her at that time, they were unexpectedly fresh expectations.
“Even if it was just that letter, it was like a lifeline. As long as she grasped it, she wouldn’t sink any further.”
“Of course, a lone straw can break, but…”
“The person who asked the question didn’t stop. He raised one question after another, one strange question after another that required not only knowledge but also practice, right?”
“Mhm!” Shuna nodded and smiled. “If there were no follow-ups, I think she would have still succumbed to the mire of preferring death one day, but now it’s different. Someone expanded that blank page of death and suddenly filled it with so much content.”
“In fact, even now, she can’t analyze, as she analyzes how to avoid steam burns, why she was able to escape the mental trap of being filled with death and explore the dungeon freely, and live so healthily…”
“She merely numbly craved each letter he wrote her; she merely mechanically completed each task he gave her; she merely repeatedly answered each question he posed…”
“Even though they were all dungeon adventure problems, she always found unexpected answers. Even about monsters and plants, it made her re-examine the world. And the life he described in this world, both school and daily life, was so interesting it made her cheer.”
“His letters would praise without reservation—the things she did well, the items she hard-won, and the answers that were beautiful and perfect.”
How should she recall these past four years of her life with memories?
Shuna could only remember thick envelopes.
Every letter Will sent her, she kept carefully in a box, stored at the Adventurer’s Guild’s deposit point.
Her memory was good, but she wouldn’t remember every question and answer in each letter. However, once she entered the dungeon, every question she had answered transformed into her experience.
“When she came to her senses, she found that when she closed her eyes, it was still that nightmare, but she no longer feared death.”
“This wasn’t a sudden change, nor was it an act of removing the command ‘er zhōu lóng, wǔ shān bā, qī, yī cūng’ imprinted on her soul, but rather…”
“Through her reliance on each letter she wrote and each dungeon exploration, she finally understood the meaning of ‘survival’.”
“—Perhaps one day, like every God-Attuned, I will be buried in the depths of the dungeon, but every floor I have walked, every point I have accumulated, every place I have seen, is the meaning of my survival.”
That straw, in the end, saved her, and then became a thread tied to her little finger that she couldn’t let go of.
“She thought that in the rest of her life, she must find the person who wrote the letter. Whether it was to invite him, to beg him, or to kidnap him, she would definitely walk the path of survival that he had pointed out for her, together with him.”
“The story ends here.”
“……”
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Will didn’t speak. Shuna turned slightly. After finishing the story in the third person, she seemed to have emerged and stood before Will again.
“The young girl is me.”
“I know.”
“The one who wrote the letters is you.”
“I know.”
“You are the end of this feeling.”
“I… know.”
“So, you understand, because I like you, I am selfish, and that is the future with you.”
“I… I understand.”
Shuna frowned.
She was very annoyed…
These were completely perfunctory, low, and numb answers.
And that attitude of completely giving up and just wanting to lie there.
She grabbed Will’s collar and, as before, easily lifted him with one hand.
“Pfft…”
She took a deep breath.
“I just want to team up with you for adventures, do I need to explain it clearly—you are the one who made me understand survival, the one who taught me the meaning of survival, and the meaning that keeps me going!”
“I like the you who moves forward no matter what.”
“I like the you who knows there are problems and will solve them.”
“I like the you who will constantly trust me and enjoy the dungeon with me!”
“Hold onto your own ideas, solve problems when you have them, and fight back if you’re not satisfied with their affection.”
“Rather than passively accepting, actively change this world, change your own fate—”
“Even knowing a future where you will die, you would… would write so many plans instead of just passively obeying it…”
“You have always been this kind of person, cheer up—if they treat you like this, you should fight back! Do you think they and I would like a person who has given up on themselves and is being slaughtered here?”
In the narrow basement, after saying these words that could no longer be called subtle “confessions,” Shuna waited for Will’s reply.
His hand rested on the hand Shuna was using to hold him.
Then, using that strength, he leaned in and lifted Shuna’s chin.
He left a kiss on her lips.
Author’s Note: I felt halfway through yesterday that it would be better to write to an important part and update on Saturday, but it ended up being longer, so I’ll release this 4000-character part first.
