Mirror World: Destined Return

“What? You saw the Shadow Fairy Queen?” Gilder shouted, his face red with rage. “Where?! Where did you see her?”

“The forest, where else? The surroundings were like everywhere else. She almost killed me,” Seong-Hwi replied, hiding that he had discovered the Shadow Fairy Queen’s base.

“There’s... no way! She would never leave her cradles unattended... C-could they have been born already?” Dryas stuttered as she shook her head in panic.

Seong-Hwi’s eyes shone as he thought, I knew they were hiding things from me. They were already aware of the dry leaf cradles.

“Anyway, the Shadow Fairy Queen... looked exactly like you,” Seong-Hwi mentioned.

“Of course, she does. Natural Chaos don’t have a specific form. She imitated Dryas,” Gilder answered in Dryas’s place. He impatiently opened and closed his right hand and continued, “That aside, this is bad. She’s taken action much quicker than we expected. We expected to have a few years of leeway.”

“I’m gonna get some rest. Let me know if you come up with another plan,” Seong-Hwi remarked, leaving once he noticed Gilder and Dryas exchanging glances.

After all, I have preparations of my own to make.

***

Multicolored birds chirped as they flew around the trees of Larayu Cradle, filled with life. Seong-Hwi sat between the trees as he shuffled his Tarot Deck of Destiny as a habit.

There are several crucial factors in combat, but the environment, vigor, and personnel are head and shoulders above everything else, Seong-Hwi thought.

In terms of the environment, there were the Shadow Fairy Queen’s base and Larayu Cradle. Like home and away games in sports, the same applied to combat.

Luring the Shadow Fairy Queen here is best.

Next was vigor. Once one gained momentum in battle, it was difficult to flip the tables.

We need to shock the Shadow Fairy Queen and make her lose her composure somehow, Seong-Hwi said inwardly.

Lastly, the distribution of personnel. There was no need to explain how important powerful allies were and the ideal formation to bring out their full potential.

There’s me, Gilder Roy, and Dryas. I don’t know how useful Dryas will be, though.

On the other hand, the Shadow Fairy Queen had an army of thousands of Chaos. The Fairy Queen’s side was hilariously outnumbered.

To negate this factor, we have to make it possible to fight the Shadow Fairy Queen three-on-one.

Seong-Hwi shuffled the tarot deck faster, his thinking speed quickening with it. He stopped after a few minutes, indicating his calculations were complete.

“As I thought, I need to borrow a four-card destiny.”

***

Effective use of Borrowing Destiny required a perfect balance of Magic, Destiny Force, and D Weapon stats. However, Seong-Hwi’s status window was currently unbalanced.

[Cheon Seong-Hwi

Health: D(10+40) Strength: D(13+40)

Dexterity: E(99) Sense: E(99)

Magic: C(13) Destiny Force D(10)

Karma: 1,114

Destiny Weapon: Tarot Deck of Destiny D(13)

Skills (3) Traits (3) Items (6) Cubes (0)]

His Dexterity and Sense stats were E-rank, his Health, Strength, Destiny Force, and D Weapon stats were D-rank, and his Magic stat was the only C-rank. However, his Destiny Force was higher than its visible value because its caliber was drastically heightened after he defeated the Lapang-rank Demon Knight in the Dark Forest.

However, that did not change the imbalance between his Magic, Destiny Force, and D Weapon stats. His psyche would be at a higher risk of corruption if he borrowed a four-card destiny in this state.

I must still take the risk. Everything will fall apart if I stall any longer.

Seong-Hwi did not know the exact situation in the Tin Can, but the forces under the crippled Tutobure were likely planning a rebellion. Thumper’s escape plan would become much harder if the rebellion succeeded and Clan Trophy regained stability.

Seong-Hwi closed his eyes and stood before the Calasanz Home for Children in his memory palace, snowing in the dead of night.

Four cards came out of the Tarot Deck of Destiny with a golden sheen. One of the cards showed people rising from their graves, reaching for and looking up at the sky. An angel, enveloped in clouds, blew a trumpet, holding a white flag with a red cross on it. It was the card No.20 Judgment.

The card No.9 The Hermit showed an old man in a grey robe with golden earrings, holding a hexagram lantern in his right hand and a black staff in his left.

The card Seven of Cups showed the back of a man imagining seven cups filled with invaluable treasures.

The card Queen of Cups showed a queen sunken in grief on a throne with an arch and a baby mermaid engraving. She wore a golden crown, a white and blue cape resembling waves, a shell broach on her chest, and held extravagant cups in each hand.

[Activating Unique Skill: Borrowing Destiny.]

[Four-card Destiny.]

[Spread cards: No.20 Judgment, No.9 The Hermit, Seven of Cups, Queen of Cups]

[Destiny reading: A judging hermit under sensitive and melancholy delusions]

The four cards melted into the children’s home door, opening the door and filling the space with golden light.

[Unabomber]

***

There was a small cabin near the Blackfoot River in Lincoln, Montana. It was only 3.3 meters wide and three meters tall, with no water or electricity. A man who appeared homeless was inside. He had long hair, a bushy beard, and wore tattered jeans and a black hoodie. He was tightening the screws of a wooden box on a table.

“Theodore John Kaczynski. Or should I call you Unabomber?” Seong-Hwi called.

“Ted is fine,” the man answered, still focused on his wooden box. “I’m not a fan of that nickname, especially the bomber part. I don’t deny that I’m a serial bomber, but that nickname dilutes the essence of my ideas.”

He used a rusted nipper to remove the rubber on a jumper cable and continued, “Technology reduces man to a mere cog in a giant machine. I have freed myself from that technological system.”

Seong-Hwi stared at the man in silence. The man was an American mathematician, a terrorist, an anti-tech radical, and an ecocentrist. He was an infamous criminal who murdered three people and injured twenty-three through sixteen mail bombs.

He had an IQ of 167, entered Harvard University on a scholarship at age sixteen, earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics at the University of Michigan, and became the youngest assistant professor at UC Berkeley at age twenty-four.

He broke the convention that only those with low education, an unfortunate childhood, and from a low-income household became criminals. He also cost the FBI the most money for investigations in history, uncaught for seventeen years.

Ted closed the wooden box, tightened the screws, and stared at Seong-Hwi at last. He asked, “Do you know what this is?”

“A bomb,” Seong-Hwi answered.

“Yes, but that’s not what I call it. I call it nature’s judgment.”

Ted stood up from his chair and rummaged through a bookshelf containing a wilderness survival guide, a chemistry textbook, and a book by Jacques Ellul, a French anarchist and philosopher. He grabbed one of the books and handed it to Seong-Hwi.

Seong-Hwi read the title, “Industrial Society and Its Future.”

“I wrote the manifesto myself. Have you read it?”

“A little.”

Seong-Hwi recalled the contents of the book he had read while researching Ted in the library. The book discussed how technology had taken away people’s autonomy, making them incapable of anything. It predicted that technology would control humans rather than the other way around. Ted claimed the only way to solve this issue was to eradicate technology and return to a primitive lifestyle.

What was terrifying about Ted was that he put his claims into action. He mailed handmade bombs he had made himself to airlines and intellectuals, such as professors and scientists, who were strong advocates of technology. They called him the Unabomber because he mainly targeted universities and airlines.

“I was proven right, wasn’t I? What’s the state of Earth now? Huh?” Ted said proudly, “It’s a mess, isn’t it? Plagues, natural disasters, and even radiation leaks. Hah! Serves them right!”

Ted’s eyes filled with rage and madness. He shouted, “I wish I could’ve seen the faces of humanity as they received the true nature’s judgment! I was the vaccine—the inoculation! I warned them all! I was a prophet! The eyes for the blind!”

He panted heavily as he stared at Seong-Hwi. “Huff, huff. You’re here to borrow my destiny, right?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck off! It’s all over now! Humanity ignored my warnings! They got into a car without brakes and drove off a cliff!”

Ted had no intention of letting others borrow his destiny. However, Seong-Hwi smiled and shook his head. He had already thought of ways to persuade Ted as he researched him in the library.

“It’s not over yet. Humanity has already started anew,” Seong-Hwi remarked.

“What?”

“A new world has unfolded for humanity, Ted. This world resembles what you wished for—a primitive world without technology.”

Ted’s eyes shone slightly.

Seong-Hwi continued, “People decide how to survive, defend, and attack. It’s like we’ve returned to the Paleolithic Age.”

“There is... such a world?” Ted asked, smiling brightly.

“Even now, I’m sitting in peaceful nature, surrounded by tall trees and chirping birds.”

“I would love to go there!” Ted shouted.

However, Seong-Hwi shook his head and replied, “But it’s not like what you’re imagining, Ted. The environment has changed, but the fundamental system is the same. You’re all about freedom and autonomy, aren’t you? There is no such thing in this world. The world runs on the will of the few... Rankers, High Rankers, World Rankers, and the Ten Lords and Fiends.”

“The elite minority! They’re destroying yet another world?!” Ted shouted in rage.

He despised that the government, conglomerates, and the like controlled important decisions that steered one’s life.

“The bastards control and oppress the lives of others! They make the right to choose meaningless and break down one’s power over their lives!”

The enraged Ted repeatedly stabbed his table with a screwdriver.

“Technology is gone, but the system remains intact? Unforgivable!” He grabbed the wooden box bomb and shouted, “They must be judged! They must be punished!”

He turned to Seong-Hwi and said, “Take my destiny! Use it to destroy the system! Eliminate those who violate others’ autonomy!”

Ted handed Seong-Hwi the wooden box bomb created to judge technology. Although it looked like it was fully wood, inside it was a bomb, a form of technology. Seong-Hwi did not go out of his way to point out the contradiction and accepted the wooden box.

“I will,” he replied.

“Show the system an example! Humans should have control over the system, not vice versa!”

As Ted screamed, Seong-Hwi thought, A judging hermit under sensitive and melancholy delusions, huh? It describes him perfectly.

He recalled how the FBI caught Ted after he had been at large for seventeen years. His brother, with whom Ted had cut ties, turned Ted in after recognizing his writing style from the manifesto Industrial Society and Its Future in the newspaper. The end of the genius terrorist who took his claims to the extreme was due to a flaw in his character.

***

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

Theodore John Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

***

Seong-Hwi opened his eyes and was met with the chirping of birds. He immediately looked through the Tarot Deck of Destiny and pulled out a card. It showed Ted building a wooden box bomb in a small cabin. A skill was activated as the card shone with a golden light.

[Activating Unique Skill: Borrowing Destiny.]

[Unabomber]

Seong-Hwi was swept by powerful impulses once he activated Borrowing Destiny.

Goddamn system!

They must all be judged!

Deny the status quo!

Seong-Hwi felt nauseous and like the world was spinning.

“Urgh,” he groaned as he stopped himself from vomiting.

Now that I think about it... We’re quite similar, especially his anarchist beliefs.

Seong-Hwi recalled the tragedy that befell Dong-Hyun and So-Eun from the same children’s home, and the baby yet to be born. Society gave rise to the psychopath Kang Hyun-Tae, the law remitted his crimes, and money allowed a lawyer who was a former head judge to defend the murderer through custom. It was all orchestrated by the elites; to put it simply, it was the system’s fault.

Seong-Hwi’s eyes began to resemble Ted’s. Looking for things in common with the owner of the destiny he borrowed was a sign that his psyche was being corrupted.

“Huuu,” Seong-Hwi took deep breaths and calmed his mind. Further corruption was dangerous.

Just like he said, humans must control technology, not the other way around. I can’t let destiny control me.

Seong-Hwi organized his thoughts, picked up a leaf, a branch, and a flower petal from the ground, and activated a skill.

[Activating Exclusive Skill: Nature’s Judgment.]

A vibration traveled from Seong-Hwi’s hand to the leaf, branch, and a flower petal. He put them on the ground and quickly retreated. Just then, the three objects turned red and exploded simultaneously.