The Shaman Desires Transcendence

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Ashtosh Singh’s body flickered between transparency and clarity, as though trying to distinguish between the dream’s master and the uninvited guest. The monitor positioned near his head cracked, as if someone had struck it with a hammer, then repaired itself, repeating this cycle.

The noise emanating from the monitor might signal that Ashtosh Singh’s connection was unstable.

“Grandfather. There’s noise in my body,” Anastasia spoke, observing Ashtosh Singh’s condition.

It was as if she were casually declaring that a single hair had fallen, dismissing the spreading noise on Ashtosh Singh’s body as nothing significant.

『It’s nothing to worry about.』

Ashtosh Singh likewise agreed nonchalantly with the words of the white girl, as if sincerely trying to convey that it was truly inconsequential.

Yet both were aware.

That noise was a kind of cost; the cost of magic that Ashtosh Singh was paying.

The longer he connected to the dream, the greater the cost would inevitably become.

The noise represented information contamination.

And that ‘information contamination’, performed as the cost of magic, could not be dismissed as trivial.

The reason was that the contamination of information itself could be fatal, but that was secondary.

“Hmm~ It seems like information is being deleted, are you really okay?”

What mattered more was why the information was becoming contaminated.

What the white girl saw was the contamination of information due to the degradation of the body.
The problem originating in reality was visibly seeping into the dream.

『Perhaps the rotator cuff is burned, and some leg bones are fused due to heat, resulting in an ugly mess.』

However, Ashtosh Singh merely enumerated the state of his body calmly.

『Looking at the noise, which appears as if something is melting and falling, it seems that my skin is all blistered from burns. Perhaps oozing fluids are dripping—』

—That oozing fluid must be evaporating in flames and heat continuously.

No matter how accustomed a shaman might be to pain, it was not something one could bear lightly.
Burns rank among the topmost agonies humans can endure, and their aftereffects couldn’t be brushed off either.
The pain stemming from flames could not easily be described as ‘becoming accustomed’ to it.

『But spring’s girl, how can one hope to remain unscathed under the scorching and hot sun of midsummer? Skin gets charred, reddened by burns, and eventually sheds its color to become something else; that is only natural.』

Ashtosh Singh communicated his thoughts to Anastasia by displaying the words on the monitor.
And Anastasia, climbing the stairs without pause, managed to read that text and communicate smoothly.
Even without turning her head, sneaking a glance, or directly facing the monitor.

The first-person and third-person perspectives mingled ambiguously, conveying surrounding information, while sentences and speech blended into a single meaning. The form of the environment remained, but it resonated with them as information rather than sensation. Their movements up the stairs transformed from mere action into directionality, guiding them to a single place.

Was it because it was a dream?
Or because it was slightly different from a dream?

Thus, Anastasia and Ashtosh Singh ascended the stairs for quite a while.

How much had they ascended?

From the high point, something was visible between the gaps of the handrails.

“….”

Dressed in pure black.
A woman stood silently at the landing of the high stairs, clad in a gown adorned with many black frills and holding a black umbrella.

Visually, she merely appeared to be standing still.
Yet somehow, Anastasia felt that her gaze had crossed paths with the woman.

Logically, it should have been impossible; for their eyes to meet, the apartment’s stairs would have had to be replaced with transparent glass, yet she felt that way nonetheless.

Anastasia instinctively reached into her pocket and grasped the key.
As if to hide away in a room, just as she had earlier.

If she were to enter the room and take a rest, her fear of the woman would fade, and the sight of her would vanish. Just like how she had come to recognize the woman’s existence only after climbing for so long.

『Do you know the story of lucid dreams?』

『The master of dreams can manipulate everything within a lucid dream. However, it is said that there is only one thing that cannot be done.』

『This is treated merely as a somewhat eerie story, a religious lesson, symbolizing the uncontrollable unconscious.』

『But, child of spring, you who hold special powers likely know well. That the story contains truths, yet those are not the only truths. Like how what people say can be part of the whole but not the entirety.』

『If one were to compare an elephant’s leg to a log, that is correct. Similarly, to compare an elephant’s trunk to a snake is right too. But just as that cannot encompass the entirety of the elephant, neither can this.』

Anastasia held the key tightly as she stood frozen.
Ashtosh Singh ascended above her.

Step, step, step.

Having risen three steps above Anastasia, Ashtosh Singh positioned himself in the middle of the stairs as if to block her path, and focused on the flickering monitor screen as their gazes confronted each other.

Then he began to display a video on the monitor, seemingly wanting to stop Anastasia, who wished to hurry into the ‘home.’

『What resides at the top of the tower that seems to pierce the sky? What is there where people are, but no presence can be felt?』

『What is there at that vast peak where only those with wings can travel? To access where one must forsake humanity to obtain wings, what is there upon that height, where one must grapple between being human and beast?』

『To feel pain from weaving nettles into a garment.』

『We seek salvation amid the void.』

The monitor displayed a vision from reality.
The scenery of a city engulfed in flames.

『Look, girl.』

『There is one who has given you a name.』

『Just as death gazes upon the candle aflame, she seeks to revive your spark.』

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When Park Jinseong opened his eyes, he was greeted by flames soaring as if determined to scorch the world.

A toxic dragon, formed from a mix of poisonous gas and black smoke, trembled the air as it flew through the sky, raining black ashes like snow that endeavored to envelop the entire city in darkness.

A blizzard, seemingly born of human sins, swept into the city, aiming to take lives.

“I am a sinner deserving of death and thus shall throw my body into the fire and become firewood.”

“I am a sinner deserving of death and thus shall fall from above and bear that sin.”

“I am a sinner deserving of death and shall wrap a rope around my neck and become fruit.”

What sprawled across the city were people whose minds had been tainted.
Desperately, they moved to end their own lives.
As if that was their only mission bestowed upon them.

“Soul burn isn’t an easy trick to pull off. Is it a curse?”

Observing the people’s actions, Park Jinseong instinctively discerned.
That was a curse magic.
Not just a singular spell, but a combination of various spells leading to such an outcome.

“Did they curse to burn the mind and cause self-destructive behavior? While the acts of taking one’s own life vary, it appears to tie into the death drive—Todestrieb.”

Amid the inhumane tragedy, Park Jinseong analyzed calmly.
Searching for similarities in the actions of the dying and hints of the magic in the phrases they uttered before death. Also, deducing from the echoes of the energy they emitted, he began to speculate what costs the sorcerer who caused their demise might have paid…

“I can see some resisting too. Hmmm.”

Half-destroyed rooftop.
The rooftop, marred as if struck by shells, now sported rebar jutting out.
As if returning to the time of its construction.

Park Jinseong sat on the skeletal framework of a building that exposed itself outside as he gazed over the city.

“Some are hesitating even as they contemplate leaping into burning buildings. Some turn away when about to hang themselves, while others pick up guns fallen on the roadside to shoot themselves… Is it a method to continuously trigger the death drive?”

Even as people died right before his eyes, there was no sympathy in Park Jinseong’s gaze.
It was simply an ordinary scene to him, akin to watching a fish devour an insect or a bird snatch a fish and fly off into the distance.
Perhaps even reminiscent of a landscape that evoked nostalgia.
Reminding him of pre-reversion times when looting was commonplace…

Whoosh—
As if displeased by such a sight, the wind laden with the smell of burnt flesh and blood washed over Park Jinseong.
At this very moment, much like the people falling from building rooftops, Park Jinseong too was to be turned into blood.

Yet, despite the wind shaking him violently, he did not fall.
His body, made of insects, was firmly affixed to the rebar.

While his body swayed in the breeze, it had no intention of collapsing.
In a way, it resembled a flag.
A flag fluttering from a horizontal pole.

Park Jinseong sat there, waiting earnestly for someone to notice him, like a flag beseeching attention from passersby.
As he awaited the arrival of those he desired.

Kugugugu—
“They’ve arrived.”

A massive sound reverberated through the sky.
The thunderous noise of military helicopters and transport planes filled the air.

Park Jinseong smiled and looked up.

Kugugugu-!
From the sky, hundreds of warriors were falling without parachutes.

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