Chapter 295: Chulsoo88 (3)

Wang Cheolsoo had a dream.

It was both a dream and the story of his entire life.

The faces of the demons who had tormented him during his youth.

The image of his parents, the only ones who had ever truly understood him, fading into the distance.

The contemptuous gazes of his relatives.

As everyone turned their backs on him, Wang Cheolsoo, in turn, turned his back on the world.

Day after day drifted by in a haze of powerlessness and meaninglessness.

Then, one day, a brilliant light pierced through the gray monotony of his existence.

It all began with a single dream.

Vast lands blessed with heavenly natural beauty.

Elves, dwarves, the Sea People, and more.

Swords and magic.

A dream world utterly unlike reality.

At first, he dismissed it as trivial, but the dream continued to unfold, revealing diverse and captivating stories night after night.

Love, adventure, friendship—everything unattainable in reality was contained within that dream world.

For Wang Cheolsoo, this dream world became both his reality and his ideal paradise.

Moreover, it ignited a goal for the future, something he had never thought possible: to share the dream world he had witnessed with others, to have his idealized paradise recognized by others.

Driven by this newfound ambition, Wang Cheolsoo began creating a webtoon, despite his crude drawing skills.

At first, it was difficult and frustrating.

Trying to capture the perfect paradise he had seen in his dreams with his clumsy art was no easy task.

But for the first time in his life, Wang Cheolsoo poured genuine effort into achieving a goal he had set for himself.

Then, somewhere along the way, drawing became enjoyable.

It was tough, but rewarding. When I uploaded my finished webtoon to my personal blog, I felt a thrill as the views slowly climbed.

Day after day, I worked toward realizing my dream, my ideal, my goal. Then, one day, something unbelievable happened.

A drawing file appeared that I had never created before.

At first, I was terrified. I tried to delete the mysterious file, but for some reason, it wouldn’t budge. I shut down my computer, unplugged the power cord—nothing worked.

It was like something out of a ghost story.

Shaking with fear, unable to understand what was happening, I closed my personal blog and took down all the webtoons I had ever created.

But as time passed, curiosity began to surface beneath the fear.

Why is this happening to me?

He desperately needed to know.

Overcoming his fear, he opened the newly created, mysterious image files.

A wordless webtoon, consisting solely of illustrations.

At first, he didn’t understand its meaning.

But as he continued to study the images, it dawned on him.

The man smiling warmly in the pictures was Genelocer.

And the tiny dragon was the one making him smile.

Wang Cheolsoo couldn’t comprehend it.

His character, Genelocer, was the embodiment of pure evil.

The ultimate Mad Dragon, destined to destroy everything and stain the world with blood in his rage.

How could such a character smile so contentedly?

Wang Cheolsoo found it utterly unacceptable.

After that, Wang Cheolsoo continued to monitor the newly generated image files.

Then, it fully dawned on him.

A tiny hatchling.

He understood that this single creature would change everything.

The utopia he had envisioned, his own unique creation, would be utterly ruined by this one being.

The only purpose he had found in life, just when he thought it was all over.

But now, faced with the prospect of losing it all, his fear and curiosity vanished, replaced by a searing rage that engulfed him completely.

Fueled by this fury, Wang Cheolsoo picked up his pen once more.

And in the newly generated chapter file, he began drawing images depicting the hatchling’s death.

Kill it… kill it!

The moment Wang Cheolsoo began drawing on the file, his pen felt inexplicably heavy, like a ten-kilogram dumbbell.

Fueled by anger, he forced his hand through the weight and finished the drawing. Collapsing into exhaustion, he witnessed an astonishing sight.

“Oh my god!”

The drawing he had just created was exerting a tangible influence within the artwork itself.

Staring in rapturous disbelief at his hand, the hand that had accomplished this impossible feat, he felt a surge of exhilaration.

“I can kill it… I can eradicate that cancerous entity!”

Realizing this, Wang Cheolsoo continued drawing relentlessly, determined to eliminate the Hatchling. Through this process, he discovered several crucial truths:

First, he couldn’t directly harm living beings within the artwork by simply drawing on the file.

Secondly, Wang Cheolsoo realized that after each drawing, he was overwhelmed by a profound sense of exhaustion. He noticed that the more intricate and impactful the drawing, the more intense this exhaustion became.

To uncover this truth, Wang Cheolsoo had tirelessly sketched countless images. Yet, each time, the Hatchling he desperately sought to kill stubbornly survived.

“That cockroach-like bastard!”

Abandoning his normal life, he threw himself into the task of eliminating the creature. But with each brush with death, the Hatchling only grew stronger. This infuriated Wang Cheolsoo even more.

He had surrendered to the bleakness of reality, crawling into the darkness. So why did that wretched thing shine so brightly?

The more Wang Cheolsoo suffered and grew, the more alien and repulsive his radiant appearance became.

I have to erase it… I have to erase that thing!

Wang Cheolsoo’s twisted obsession intensified after his meticulously crafted Monarch of the Abyss failed to kill the Hatchling.

I need something stronger… something even stronger!

Forsaking food and sleep, Wang Cheolsoo threw himself into his art.

By the time he had lost nearly ten kilograms of his plump flesh, a masterpiece worthy of a lifetime’s dedication had taken shape.

And then, Wang Cheolsoo experienced another miracle.

W-what is this?!

The moment his magnum opus—another Mad Dragon—was completed, his consciousness was sucked into the artwork.

Hahaha! Hahahahaha!

He was ecstatic.

This was the world he had only ever glimpsed in his dreams.

The realization that he could finally experience his ideal world firsthand sent him into a frenzy of exhilaration.

And there was something else.

I can finally wipe out that cockroach-like bastard with my own hands!

That day, Wang Cheolsoo finally came face to face with his nemesis.

Seeing the enemy shine brighter than anyone he had ever known, he reaffirmed his resolve:

That bastard must be eliminated at all costs.

But Wang Cheolsoo’s decisive strike proved futile.

Driven by an even greater thirst for power, he pushed himself to the brink, only to realize the truth:

Everything had been manipulated.

He wasn’t a protagonist, not even a supporting character—merely a nameless extra, destined to fade into obscurity.

Wang Cheolsoo watched the scenes of his life flash before his eyes, each moment passing like a fleeting memory.

Is this… what they call a life flashing before your eyes?

As he reflected on his life, resignation washed over him.

So this is how it ends…

Though the ending wasn’t ideal, he figured dying like this might be better than enduring more pain.

Just as Wang Cheolsoo was slowly accepting his impending death, a thunderous voice shattered the dreamlike world, dragging him back to reality:

Cut the bullshit and get up!

“Ugh?!”

His vision cleared, and Wang Cheolsoo jolted upright. At the same time, excruciating pain surged through his entire body, confirming he was still alive.

“W-where am I…?”

He frantically scanned his surroundings, recognizing his own home. Relief washed over him.

Then, a voice startled him.

“What are you staring at?”

Wang Cheolsoo’s neck snapped around at the voice behind him.

Only then did he recognize the figure:

The one who had dunked him in the Samdocheon and dragged him back out.

The being who had shown him the extraordinary kindness of allowing him to high-five an Underworld Messenger.

“Y-y-you!”

“Me?”

Louis’s eyebrow twitched at the accusatory finger pointed at him.

At the same moment, a fist shot out like lightning.

Thud. Thud.

Under the barrage of punches, Wang Cheolsoo collapsed unconscious again, plunging back into his nightmare to relive his life flashing before his eyes.

And so it went, over and over again.

A precarious dance on the edge of death, each strike bringing him closer to the brink.

“W-why…?”

“Why? This little shit still hasn’t learned his lesson.”

Thud.

“Gah!”

Repeatedly knocked unconscious and revived, Wang Cheolsoo endured roughly seven more life-flashing-before-his-eyes episodes.

His eyes were swollen shut, his lips puffed up like a duck’s bill, and his entire body felt like finely minced meat, limp and broken. The pain was unbearable, enough to make him wish he could die, but he couldn’t. Or rather, he didn’t want to.

Wang Cheolsoo clung to Louis’s pant leg, begging, “P-please… spare me…”

“I won’t kill you.”

“S-stop… it hurts… I’ll do anything… just stop hitting me…”

“Why would I?”

“Why are you doing this to me?! What did I ever do to you?!”

“You really don’t know?”

“B-but it’s over! It happened over a year ago! Why are you bringing this up now?! What do you want from me?!”

”…What?”

Louis’s expression hardened at Wang Cheolsoo’s words.

“What did you just say?”

“Huh?”

“How many years?”

“Huh?”

“How many years did you say?!” Louis’s booming voice made Wang Cheolsoo’s shoulders hunch.

”…One year?”

“Tell me more about that.”

“There’s not much more to tell, really. It just…”

Wang Cheolsoo began to recount the events that had befallen him a year ago.

A moment later, Louis’s expression had grown even sterner after hearing Wang Cheolsoo’s story.

“So, you obtained Lotberia’s heart in Maha, but you were expelled? And now you can no longer interfere with that world?”

“Yes… I don’t know what to believe anymore. Whether that was truly Lotberia’s heart, or what exactly expelled me…”

“It wasn’t Lotberia who expelled you. It was Kaiders.”

“Huh?!”

Wang Cheolsoo startled and repeated the question, but Louis was already lost in thought.

The Heart of Lotberia this guy mentioned… could it actually be Kaiders’ heart?

Judging by the story, Wang Cheolsoo was nothing more than a puppet of Kaiders. There was no way Kaiders would have revealed everything to such a pawn. Why bother telling someone who firmly believed it was the Heart of Lotberia that the heart actually belonged to him?

Moreover, if Kaiders was the one who breached the Mahyeol and erected the barrier nearby…

There couldn’t have been a better place to hide a heart than within the Maha.

It was the most logical and rational conclusion.

Anyway…

Louis didn’t care that Kaiders had taken his heart. It was already irreversible. What truly disturbed him was the passage of time.

One year, he said.

Judging by Wang Cheolsoo’s words, it was clear that the timing of Kaiders taking his heart aligned with their battle. But it had apparently been a full year ago on Earth, while for Louis, it felt like only a few days had passed.

It seems the time axes of Earth and Evan aren’t synchronized.

This realization only deepened his anxiety. Louis pulled out his smartphone again, but the device that had transported him to Earth still refused to power on.

“Damn it!”

“Ah! I’m sorry!”

Wang Cheolsoo flinched and raised his hands to shield his face, bracing for another blow after Louis spat out a curse.

A peculiar glint flickered in Louis’s eyes as he stared intently at Wang Cheolsoo.

Wait a minute… I was definitely told to find him, right?

The message that had appeared when the smartphone first turned on.

What if the “him” I was supposed to find is this guy?

Then he might hold the key to solving these issues.

With that thought, Louis thrust his old smartphone into Wang Cheolsoo’s hands.

Wang Cheolsoo stared blankly at the phone, suddenly thrust in front of him.

“W-why are you giving me this?”

“Take it.”

“Huh?”

“Tch!”

Louis glared, and Wang Cheolsoo hastily snatched the phone.

“Turn it on.”

“Huh?”

“Do I have to repeat myself? Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” Louis snapped.

“Ah, no! That’s not it at all!” Wang Cheolsoo stammered.

He reached for the power button on the phone.

And then…

“Ah… it won’t turn on?”

Nothing happened.

Louis frowned.

Is this the wrong one? Did I miscalculate?

Just then, Louis noticed a device sprawled in the corner of the room.

He pointed at it. “Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Did you usually draw with that thing?”

Wang Cheolsoo’s gaze followed Louis’s.

There, gathering dust after being abandoned for over a year, lay an LCD tablet.

“Y-yes… that’s right,” Wang Cheolsoo stammered.

“Bring it here.”

“Huh?”

“Tch!” Louis clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“I-I’ll get it,” Wang Cheolsoo stammered, hurrying to retrieve the LCD tablet.

Louis gestured with his chin. “Turn it on.”

“Um… I need to plug in the power cord and connect it to the computer to use it…”

“Tsk!” Louis clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“I-I’ll do it!” Wang Cheolsoo exclaimed.

He had no idea why Louis was acting this way, but if he wanted to avoid a beating, he had to follow orders.

He pressed the power button.

”…Huh?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “W-Why is it on?”

The tablet had lit up even though it wasn’t plugged in.

Louis’s eyes curved into a satisfied smile.

Bingo!

The answer had been right here all along.

And now, it was certain.

He’s the one.

As Louis and Wang Cheolsoo watched, the LCD tablet fully powered on.

There, prominently displayed on the screen, was an unnamed icon shaped like a door.

“Press it,” Louis commanded.

Reluctantly, Wang Cheolsoo tapped the door-shaped icon.

The screen began to darken, filling with black.

Then…

*Tsu tsu tsu-. *

A thin line appeared in the center of the screen, slowly widening horizontally. A blinding white light streamed from the widening gap.

“W-wait, what’s happening?!” Wang Cheolsoo exclaimed in a panic, about to throw the tablet aside.

Thud.

A hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to turn his head.

There stood Louis, beaming.

“Hey, let’s go clean up the mess you made.”

With those words, a blinding light engulfed them both.