Black Badger

I had a dizzying dream.

So bad that I had to sprint straight to the bathroom and retch my guts out. I gagged until bile came up, and only after I’d caught my breath did it register that I’d been dreaming.

A dream as vivid as reality.

It was always like this.

Lately, I’d been having her dreams so often it was frightening.

Was her name Cecil?

Simon staggered to his feet, splashed water on his face, and thought of Hildebert.

The direct junior of his daughter—so precious he could put her in his eyes and it would still hurt less.

Hildebert Taleb, like Simon himself, had fallen out of a portal. But unlike Simon, he had lost all memories of the time he’d spent inside it.

That Badger had built a crazy amount of notoriety recently, and one day, out of the blue, he’d reached out through Simon’s daughter.

And asked him to let him know if he ever dreamed about a certain woman.

Said her name was definitely Cecil....

Simon cooled his face with cold water and leaned back against the bathroom wall.

Every time he dreamed of her, his body was left completely drained.

He had no idea why.

It was just a dream—so why did it leave him this exhausted?

What was more, Simon had actually felt a strange sense of happiness whenever he saw that woman with the vivid yellow eyes.

The woman called Cecil was his benefactor.

The only reason he’d been able to escape that ashen world was because of her.

Simon Diamond still remembered everything—from their first meeting to their last.

A woman standing emptily amid ruins.

A being that crawled up over debris and hurled herself again and again, failing to die each time.

Sometimes, as if tired of attempting suicide, she would approach him and stare at him intently, like someone observing an animal in a cage.

Simon had desperately searched for an exit inside the portal.

Because his wife and daughter were in Center Core.

If there was an entrance, then somewhere in that vast wasteland there had to be an exit too. Clinging to that thought, he kept walking. In a place where he never felt hungry or sleepy, he tore through wreckage until his hands split open, forcing himself forward.

It was a bleak, unsettling world.

Almost colorless, with nothing that seemed ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ alive—though sometimes, strange hallucinations appeared.

Fragments of visions that felt like peeking into someone else’s memories.

Those fragments were the only things with color, and Simon spent a long time wandering that world.

During all that time, Cecil existed for him like a moon.

No matter which direction he walked, no matter how far, she was always there.

A mysterious presence who would approach on a whim, heal his wounds, and leave.

Someone who showed him things that could only be called magic....

‘Hello.’

He had tried human interaction, of course.

‘H-Hello. I’m Simon.’

But it hadn’t worked well. To begin with, her mind was unstable. Even when she returned to a relatively stable mental state, she never tried to speak to him.

From start to finish, she communicated only through expressions and gestures.

She would make an annoyed face whenever he tried to stop her from killing herself.

She would wave him over when she was about to heal his injuries.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t speak. When her mind destabilized, she would mutter long strings of words—what sounded like a foreign language—under her breath. The sounds she poured out while curled up and staring blankly ahead clearly had a pattern to them.

So why did she never open her mouth when facing him?

That wasn’t the only thing unusual about her.

Facts Simon learned by carefully observing the only other human in that ashen world.

First. She seemed to be waiting for someone.

Second. When she felt that waiting was futile, she attempted suicide.

Third. Even so, she seemed to have made something she considered her home within the ruins.

Fourth. She absolutely hated it when he approached that area.

Fifth. She was kind.

Sixth. She seemed to be able to use magic.

Seventh. When her mind destabilized, she would curl up and shut herself inside the shadows....

And more observations like those.

Gathering these fragments while wandering the gray world, Simon finally found the exit.

The exit back to Earth looked like a save point from a game his daughter used to play.

There was a circular hole in the ground. The bottom couldn’t be seen, and the rim of the hole glowed with golden light.

Bright enough to be visible even from far away.

If he’d been alone, he would never have found it.

Because the exit was buried beneath the remains of a collapsed spire.

Under debris so massive that not a single ray of light could leak through.

The one who cleared the spire was, of course, Cecil.

One day, she had approached him with a resolute expression, then swept away the ashen tower in a way that could only be described as magic.

Then she stood before the exit and pointed at the golden hole with her finger.

Simon vividly remembered the woman’s expression as she pointed at the exit, then looked back at him.

Deep envy.

Joy at having found what the other person wanted.

And the sorrow of parting.

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t come back?”

Simon Diamond muttered to himself, recalling the woman who broke a little more every time he saw her in his dreams.

“The person you’re waiting for....”

The one who cast such heavy longing into her golden eyes.

“You never met them in the end?”

So you finally went mad?

Worn down by waiting. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Swallowed by a desolate world where the only color you could see came from peering into other people’s memories.

Was that why you screamed so desperately just now?

Simon remained blankly still until his strength returned, replaying Cecil’s scream in his mind.

A scream filled with boundless loneliness and despair.

Fingers clawing at beautiful silver hair.

Eyes widening as if they would devour their golden irises.

With trembling hands, Simon Diamond reached for his phone.

***

[Flowers?]

Yun asked in a voice that revealed no emotion.

[In Dayzillia Park?]

“Yes.”

Carl answered while running down the stairs.

The long cigarette he’d been holding in his mouth had already been shoved into his pocket.

His hesitation was brief. The moment he confirmed the flowers weren’t a hallucination, the blue-eyed Badger took the stairs four at a time. He reached the first floor in a single breath, then burst out of the building and sprinted toward the park.

He knew it was a fair distance away, and that there were Badgers assigned to cover that area.

But there were very few Badgers who had actually seen those flowers in person.

Carl called one of them—Yun.

The brilliant scientist was currently at the video center, which made it easy for him to report quickly to upper command and monitor things through drones.

Sure enough, after a brief silence, Yun responded.

The sociopathic senior who was relatively lenient toward him.

[Confirmed.]

The low voice was as flat as ever.

[But aren’t you on leave?]

“I found them while observing birds.”

[Birds?]

After Carl replied politely, there was no response for a while.

He was probably watching the footage, lost in thought.

Or reporting to upper command. Either way, Carl was certain Yun was handling things efficiently, so he didn’t say anything else.

Instead, he kept running without hanging up.

The current time was roughly 3 p.m.

Dayzillia Park, where the massive flower had appeared, was located in an awkward zone—not ideal for catching a subway or bus.

It was far from the nearest station, and with the surrounding roads undergoing major construction, approaching by car was difficult as well.

Running or taking public transportation would take about the same amount of time.

So he kept running, and eventually Yun spoke again.

[You’re heading there, right.]

“Yes.”

[Weapons?]

“I have a handgun.”

[Then don’t enter the park. Wait outside.]

The senior seemed to have finished reporting to upper command.

[Badgers covering the jurisdiction are on their way.]

Carl complied and waited at a suitable spot.

He went behind a building, stood in the shade, and skimmed news articles and real-time search trends.

As expected, eyewitness reports were pouring in everywhere. Warnings not to approach the park, stories about people contacting Badger HQ.

But perhaps because it was plant-shaped, the commotion wasn’t that big.

It wasn’t a grotesque-looking plant.

In fact, it was rather beautiful.

Just absurdly large.

Still, a flower blooming at this timing was never a good sign.

I should contact Hildebert too.

Carl heightened his hearing and opened the message window.

***

A space drenched entirely in pink.

A character with round ears sat inside a cup.

Pastel-toned, brightly colored cups.

Some characters were wedged into things that looked like tubes or donuts. I stared at the many uniquely shaped characters on display.

They said you could pick them up and look—samples.

When I lifted a mouse sealed inside a small plastic cup, Ricardo straightened up and looked at what I was holding.

We examined the figure—smaller than a fist—for a moment, then turned our gaze to Shu.

She was stuffing almost every single figure into a small metal shopping basket.

“What is this~?”

Ricardo asked me quietly.

“What do you even use it for....”

“Decoration, maybe?”

“Decoration...?”

“They’re cute, aren’t they?”

Shu answered after overhearing us.

Cute...?

The green-eyed senior and I fell into confusion.

Of course, we didn’t voice our doubts out loud in a space packed with people who’d clearly come here for this. Too many eyes were already flicking our way with curiosity or amusement.

But did everyone really come just to buy figures?

I didn’t see anything particularly practical.

“Don’t they have clothes or bags?”

“Not this season. It’d be nice if there were T-shirts.”

“So they really only sell this stuff~.”

Ricardo was indirectly expressing, And yet this many people?

I felt the same way.

I didn’t say it, though. After browsing characters in various designs, we headed to the counter once Shu said she’d grabbed everything she wanted.

It really did look like she’d swept the entire lineup.

I was staring down at her in disbelief when, all of a sudden, my senses vanished.

It wasn’t that the surroundings went quiet.

Kyle’s emotions were cut off—cleanly.

Huh?

My body snapped into full tension.

What?

...No presence had drawn closer.

It hadn’t disappeared either. He was still outside the Core. The distance hadn’t closed.

But if he used a teleportation array, he could close that distance at any time.

Was he trying to come in?

I flinched and sharpened all my senses.

Ricardo noticed my change immediately.

“What is it?”

He asked, raising the hand fitted with the newly purchased morphing weapon from yesterday.

“Why did you tense up all of a sudden?”

Something was wrong.

But others wouldn’t notice yet.

I was about to say we needed to contact Kairos.

At that moment, a deafening roar swallowed the surroundings.

***

The flower bloomed in a blinding flash—

and then exploded.

White light engulfed everything.

Where the park had been, nothing remained.