Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 78: Regretful Footprints
"Oh, so that's how it is." The troll witch doctor Old Carlson used his crutch to gently poke at the pile of charcoal that was projected into the room from somewhere, and nodded indifferently, as if the news he had just heard was completely irrelevant to him.
"Don't you understand yet?" I shouted anxiously, "This place, the entire fortress, will be replaced by something new! They said everything here will disappear! Do you understand..."
After hearing from my space-related friends the news that the continent was about to undergo tremendous changes, I immediately found an excuse to say goodbye to them and rushed into the Gravel Fortress without stopping in the shortest possible time to tell old Carlson the terrible news. However, his reaction was completely beyond my expectations - to be precise, I couldn't see any reaction from him at all - he looked the same as usual, still the calm and peaceful old troll who guarded an empty house all day and did nothing.
His calm attitude even made me a little angry, and I felt that I was wasting all my care and worry on something unnecessary. I had to emphasize again and again how important this matter was and how closely it concerned him:
"...You don't understand. They said that this time...this time...the version upgrade - God knows what this thing is - will bring about an unprecedented change! The power of the gods will descend directly, and the whole world...the whole world...including here...everything...do you know?!" I waved my hands and yelled at him incoherently, trying make him realize the danger of all this, but as I spoke, I felt a heart-wrenching fear - it was the panic and confusion of a person who is helpless in the face of irresistible power.
"Don't be so nervous, my friend..." Seeing how excited I was, Old Carlson slowly walked up to me and gently patted my shoulder, trying to calm me down. "...In fact, I already knew all this."
"...They said it would all start next week, which would take us about 20 days... What did you say?" I was rambling on about this when I suddenly realized what my troll friend had just said:
"...You already knew that?" I asked in surprise.
"Even so..." Old Carlson waved his hand and conjured up a blanket on the ground. He asked me to sit down, then sat down in front of me and said slowly:
"...Arthur? There is a small loophole on the top of the tower of that crazy woman Denggot. Of course you know this, and you even took advantage of it once, pushing her down the tower and causing her to fall to her death. Now this loophole has been repaired. It happened about a few months ago - not long before you were able to enter and exit the source world freely - at that time, several adventurers summoned a creature they called 'GM' and demonstrated the loophole to him on the spot. Just like the experience you told me before, the GM rewarded them. Interestingly, I noticed the source code of the GM, and I found that he only had amazingly higher attributes and equipment than other adventurers, but did not possess higher-level divine power - such as our power. In other words, they are not direct servants of God or some low-level gods as you imagined, but at most some high-level space travelers..."
"…At that time, those adventurers asked some questions about the changes in the world, and the GM gave limited answers. They mentioned the huge changes in the continental plates, and also said that some places would disappear one after another. At that time, they mentioned the Stone Fortress. I knew all this would happen, but I didn't know when. Since then, I have been ready to accept all this…"
"...At the beginning, I was very worried. I was worried that no one after me would have that special ability, no one would further observe and explore the origin of this world, and no one would use this method to understand this world... We will always stay in this stagnant and repetitive world, without progress, without change, in a muddle until the end. You know, for those lives born and raised in this world, there is nothing more desperate than this! At that time, I really felt desperate. But, thank God, just when I was at a loss, Jeff, you came, and told me that you successfully broke through the surface world and could freely enter the source world..."
"…This is simply a gift from the Most High God, my friend. You appeared at the right time. So during this period of time, I have tried my best to teach you everything I know as quickly as possible. These days I have been worried that we don't have enough time, that this day will come too early and you will learn too little. But now, I have nothing to worry about. I am fully confident that I can teach you everything I know."
I see!
I finally understood why this usually unhurried old troll often seemed so anxious and irritable recently, why he chose such a rough and direct way when teaching me the origin of this world, and why he was always eager to teach me everything he knew instead of letting me explore it slowly on my own.
And while he was fighting desperately for time against the catastrophic future that would come at any time, what was I doing?
I'm complaining that he's not a good teacher who guides students step by step...
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" I jumped up and yelled at him, "You should have told me all this earlier!"
"Tell you earlier? Why?" Old Carlson looked at me calmly, like an elder looking at a fussing child with tolerance, and his voice was as calm as a deep old well:
"What good would it have been if you had known all this earlier? Could you have prevented it from happening? Could you have delayed it? Could you have figured out a better way to learn everything I was going to teach you? No, you know very well that we can't. I'd rather you learn all this without realizing it, and then use it better than I did. I don't want you to be so upset by this news that you'll make mistakes while you're learning."
"But...but..." I really wanted to find something to refute him, but we all knew he was right.
"If all this happens, what will happen to you..." I took a deep breath and finally asked the question that I wanted to know the answer to the most but was most afraid to know the answer to, "...will you...will you die?"
Although I tried my best to make my voice sound calm, even I could hear the trembling in it when the words came out of my mouth.
"Die? No, I won't die..." Old Carlson shook his head and explained in a soft voice, but his eyes avoided my gaze, "...Jeff, it seems that you haven't fully understood what I taught you. I won't die, at least not in this fortress. We all know that death is just a state of existence of the soul. As long as our soul exists, there is not much difference between life and death. Within the scope of the rules that I can control, I can do it..."
"Don't play these lame and difficult word games with me, you know what I mean!" I shouted at him to stop trying to change the subject, and looked into his eyes.
He was stunned for a moment, then sighed and shook his head gently:
"I don't know, my friend. I don't know what will happen to me. To be optimistic, maybe this fortress disappears, but I am free from it and can walk freely on this land like you; or maybe this fortress has not disappeared, but has been placed in another time and space by those gods, and I will migrate with it; but..."
He paused, looked at me, and continued, "...But, the most likely scenario is that I disappeared along with this fortress, and was wiped out, leaving no trace in this world. It's as if my existence is an illusion, and everything I've experienced is a fictional story. When darkness falls, I disappear completely - you know, this is not death, it's a much more thorough elimination than death, with no corpse, no equipment, no soul, no resurrection..."
"No!" This is what I have known for a long time, and I have always refused to admit it. Compared with this most terrible outcome, the possibility of the first two situations happening is very small and can be ignored.
"You have a solution, right?" I asked anxiously, holding Carlson's right hand. I didn't know whether I was seeking comfort or relief, I just wanted to hear a positive answer - even if I knew that the answer was a lie, I would rather he lied to me at this time.
I just feel that I have never been as weak as I am now, so weak that I have to rely on lies to support my fragile will.
However, old Carlson stretched out his left hand, patted the back of my hand gently, then pulled his right hand out from between my fingers, smiled and shook his head at me!
"This is impossible!" I lowered my head and whispered. I couldn't even tell whether I was talking to him or myself. "You can't have no solution. Aren't you always very resourceful, old man? You can control this space, you can change the rules of the world, you... you can even deceive the eyes of the Supreme God. You are supreme in this fortress, no one can match you, you are the God of this space, how can you have no solution..."
"Perhaps it is because of this that I have lost my reverence for this world, for the rules that maintain this world, and for the gods who make all these rules. I once thought I had touched the highest throne, and this is probably a punishment, Jeff. The gods may be using this method to remind us not to lose our reverence for all this."
"Fuck the reverence!" Never before have I felt such hatred and hostility towards the gods far above the heavens. I really want to ask them on what basis they decide the operation of this world, on what basis they decide the life and death of countless creatures, and on what basis they cannot let us handle everything in this world by ourselves, but must use this method to demonstrate their irresistible power.
I gritted my teeth, suddenly stretched out my hand, and grabbed old Carlson's arm tightly. Using the ability that old Carlson taught me, I moved to the gate of the fortress in an instant, and dragged him out.
Inside the fortress gate, the magic vortex that symbolized the "copy" magic was spinning non-stop. Usually, as soon as I walked into the vortex, it would immediately wrap me up, and then push me out the other side in an instant, everything was simple and easy, as if the vortex did not exist.
I once imagined what would happen if I took old Carlson through this gate: would the magic power in the vortex cause old Carlson to pull people deeper and deeper, making it impossible to escape? Or would the place where this magic even the entire magic vortex would become drastic and dangerous, causing great harm to all living things that enter it.
However, the fact is that as long as I hold on to old Carlson's arm, I can't enter the vortex at all. It's like an invisible wall that completely blocks my way. No matter how hard I struggle, I can't let my body blend into it even a little bit. I tried to hit and tear it hard, and even drew my sword to swing and kill, but it was all in vain. The whole vortex was as empty as the clouds in the sky, without any force, as if it and the world outside it did not exist.
The complete blockage made it impossible to think or do anything. Old Carlson was locked in this fortress by this feeling and never saw the outside world.
"Give up, Jeff, this is useless." Old Carlson was dragged by me like this, standing quietly by the side, neither struggling nor helping, but still persuading me with his old voice, "I have tried many more tricks than you."
"Shut up!" I yelled at him angrily, my eyes fixed, and I entered the source world. Looking at the vast sea of digital symbols that symbolize the magic of the copy, I tried to find the field command that restricts the entry and exit of life inside the copy. I think I found it. It is a string of characters that may have tens of thousands of words, and it is embedded in a basic rule of space. This is an expression that is correct and perfect. I can't strip it out, and it is even more impossible to trick it. The only way I can think of is to cross it out and completely delete this rule.
I have never deleted such a long and critical field at one time, let alone violently deleted the rules that run the world without any disguise. I don't know what effect this will cause, but I want to try it!
Just as I was about to delete it, the entire source world space suddenly distorted, and everything around me was full of color. In just a moment, I returned to the concrete surface world again, back to the fortress gate that was shining with magical luster.
It was Carlson, who dragged me back here at the last moment before I could make a move.
"What the hell are you doing!" I was furious!
"What the hell are you doing!!" The old troll roared even louder than me. His expression was so serious that it seemed like a layer of metal could be condensed, and his mouth was wide open as if he wanted to bite me to death.
"I'm saving you!" I still roared loudly.
"You are killing me! And you are killing yourself at the same time! If you do this, we don't have to wait for twenty days. In the next moment, in the blink of an eye, the changes here will be known to the gods, and the punishment of heaven will come and flatten everything here. Then the whole fortress will be restarted and restored to its original state! There will be no you, no me, no damn troll old man, human warriors, only a group of mindless and soulless walking corpses! Do you understand!!!" I have never seen old Carlson so angry. He grabbed my collar desperately at this time, almost suffocating me, and a layer of emerald green bloodshot appeared in his two huge eyeballs:
"Don't risk your own soul! Don't face the threat of being obliterated! You idiot don't know how horrible this is!"
"I know..." I shouted loudly. I didn't know when my face had become wet, and a liquid called "tears" kept pouring out of my eye sockets, blocking my vision. In my eyes, the figure of old Carlson became vague, as if he was no longer there.
"...I know what will happen. That's what you will face. I can't just watch you disappear like this and do nothing...I can't do it..."
Old Carlson let go of my hands, and I sat down on the ground dejectedly, crying loudly, helpless like a child.
I could sense that not far from this instance, the young Baron Bink was shouting at a group of adventurers who had just killed Black Jazz: "Kill me, this is my last request... For the last dignity of a human being... Kill me!"
That was a life that we could not save, repeating its own fate of death for the umpteenth time. I once wanted to save him and bring the news of his survival to his sister who loved him deeply, but I failed.
Just like this time, I was unable to save old Carlson's life. Our power is so powerless in the face of the fate arranged by the gods that we can only succumb and leave behind countless regrets.
…
October 31, 1465, the Gregorian calendar of the mainland, is destined to be a day that will go down in history. After this day, the Falvi continental plate, which has been inseparable since the creation of the world by the gods, will be torn into two pieces of land in the north and south by the great rift valley on the Gem Flower Plain in the middle of the continent. The broken continental shelves are scattered on both sides of the Comet Sea like scattered pearl necklaces, forming four island chains guarding the two continents. The mountains were razed to the ground, the plains were cracked into hills, and the magma fire buried deep underground gushed out, burning the originally lush and rich Holy Fox Highlands into a dry wilderness.
This huge plate movement is destined to become a disaster memory buried deep in the abyss of the sea for the world of Falvi Continent: seven cities and nineteen castles of the Continental Alliance will be destroyed in an instant, the Doomsday Empire will also pay the price of five cities and twenty-seven outposts, and millions of native people of the continent will die in this spectacular and magnificent movement of the huge plate. A total of nine special areas that were once cast with copy spells will disappear.
And in it, there is an inconspicuous and dilapidated town called Gravel Fortress, where lives a tribe member with a different bloodline from me. His name is "Troll Witch Doctor Carlson".
The night before the inevitable disaster, old Carlson drove me out of the rubble fortress and sealed the castle gates with his power, throwing me out unceremoniously every time I tried to enter.
He was worried that I would disappear with him in this disaster, and that our existence would be exposed in this great change that attracted the attention of all the gods.
I didn't go far away, but stood on the hillside opposite the fortress and looked in from afar. Through the translucent distorted space formed by the magic of the copy, the tower where Black Sir Arthur Denggot was located was vaguely visible.
I knew I couldn't see old Carlson from here, but I still stood stiffly on the hillside, looking there stubbornly, as if every extra second I looked at him, I was staying with my friend for one more second.
Through the endless void and the vast sea of numbers, a message hidden deep in the world's code can be vaguely seen. This message exudes an incomparably sacred aura, indicating that it comes directly from the irresistible will of the Supreme God.
This message is constantly jumping around, telling us that there is still 1 minute and 15 seconds left before the world completely sinks into darkness again.
That old man with blue skin and fangs, are you also looking at this message now? Are you enjoying the last and most difficult moment of peace in your life? Or are you still interested in deciphering the secrets hidden by the gods in this world, busy with satisfaction and happiness, and not caring about where this huge pointer of history will go after it is finished?
...54 seconds, 53 seconds, 52 seconds...
You don't know how lucky I am to have a friend like you in my life. You taught me a lot, not just those magical abilities, but more of that wise calmness. You made me feel that I can face many things that I couldn't face before, and you made me stronger. More importantly, your existence makes me feel...
...I don’t feel lonely...
...27 seconds, 26 seconds, 25 seconds...
I also want to say sorry to you, not for any reason, but I suddenly feel that I should do so. I have always known that you envy me, envy that I seem to have a complete soul, can walk freely on this continent, and constantly satisfy and enrich my life. Sometimes I will use some of my experiences outside to arouse your interest, and then never talk about it again, pretending not to see the desire and eagerness in your eyes. I don't know if all this has caused you any harm, but I just feel very sorry.
...10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds...
Oh, I forgot to tell you, I left you a letter, it will be delivered to you at dawn tomorrow. You will see it, right? Promise me that you will see it, promise me that you will write back, okay?
...3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second...
The overwhelming darkness swept over, engulfing everything visible and invisible. In the fraction of a microsecond before I completely lost consciousness, I saw with my own eyes the long code that symbolized the Rubblestone Fortress fall apart and dissolve into nothingness bit by bit.
At this moment, I lost not only a friend, but also a teacher, a father, and a soul that could support me and help me walk through loneliness in this absurd world...
