Childhood Friend of the Zenith

‘Apostle’, the tree said.

I instinctively frowned at its words…

Apostle?

What did it mean by that?

Was it referring to me?

“What do you mean by that?”

[ I am glad we got to meet like this. ]

The sad and empty tone of World Tree’s voice now held a flicker of hope.

The World Tree was speaking to me as if it was happy.

Why is it like this with everyone?

But the frown on my face didn’t go away.

Every single one of them reacted this way.

Everyone who met me spoke as if they were amused or entertained.

It felt as though my very existence brought them some strange joy.

Damn it all.

To me, it felt anything but welcoming.

The fact that these mysterious existences gained amusement from me, meant that there was something special in me in the end.

Shaking these thoughts aside, I asked the World Tree.

“Do you know who I am?”

Judging by the bastard’s reaction, I wondered if it knew about my regression.

The World Tree fell silent at my question.

Craaack-

Its massive branches began to stir slowly.

[ Apostle. ]

“Why do you keep calling me that? What even is it?”

[ I don’t know who you are, but it seems you know who I am. ]

I started to wonder after hearing the bastard’s response.

The tree claimed I knew it, yet it had no idea who I was.

I understood the former but not the latter.

How could it be unaware of me when I knew it so well?

“What do you mean by that?”

[ It seems like you’ve traversed through time, Apostle. ]

“…!”

I gasped at hearing it.

How did it know?

Was it lying when it claimed it wouldn’t remember me?

The tree said those words like nothing.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

My pupils trembled nervously.

I wondered if the tree remembered who I was. Does this tree have a memory of its own?

[ Are you curious as to how I know that? ]

“…”

[ Don’t be that shocked. I do not know what kind of life you lived in the past. ]

“Then how do you know about it?”

Crack.

A tree root emerged from the ground, slowly stretching toward me.

More accurately, it was pointing toward my chest.

[ I sense the trace that I left within you. ]

I felt like I sort of understood how the tree recognized me after hearing its response.

A trace from my past life, huh?

I rubbed my chest, as I thought about my past.

The trace the tree had left on me.

[ I don’t recall giving it to you, but that’s undoubtedly my mark. ]

I remembered.

I’d had no choice but to accept it to survive.

And…

-That’s a strange thing you carry.

The Heavenly Demon mentioned it when we met, and I thought he had erased it from me.

Did it fail to?

[ Even if you try to erase it, you won’t be able to erase it completely as it is engraved in your soul. ]

“…Can you read my mind or something?”

[ Of course not. How could a mere tree like me do such a thing? ]

Despite the tree saying those words, it felt as if the tree was reading my mind.

The sensation was unsettling.

Engraved in my soul, huh.

How lovely.

It meant that my soul didn’t change even through my regression.

“…I came here to ask you something.”

I pushed those thoughts aside and focused on my questions.

There was so much to ask, so much I needed to know.

The reason I came here was to ask the tree the countless questions weighing on me.

I wondered if the tree could answer them all.

[ Question you say? So, what are you curious about? ]

Its voice echoed.

I felt this same sensation when we first met, but I still wasn’t used to it.

While enduring the pain, I asked the tree.

“Were you the one who sent me back to the past?”

Time traveling to the past was a miracle, and I knew miracles didn’t happen without reason.

Yeon Il-Cheon said that there was definitely a reason for my regression, and the first existence I could think of regarding that, was this tree.

“I’m asking… did you bring me back to life and send me into the past.”

Traveling through time was illogical and impossible, but if there really was an existence that was capable of doing such a thing, it had to be someone abnormal.

With that said, this tree in front of me definitely wasn’t normal, which was why I was suspecting the tree first.

[ Apostle, that was not my doing. ]

The tree answered no to my words.

[ The process of traveling through time brings an unimaginable amount of burden into one’s soul. That is out of my strength, as I am just a mere normal tree. ]

“A normal tree can’t talk. Nor can it be that big like you.”

[ Whichever your response may be, I’m saying that I am not the one who brought you such a miracle. ]

As I was about to ask how I could believe its words, I shut my mouth since I knew that it was pointless of me to ask.

“So you aren’t the one… who brought me back, huh.”

[ Unfortunately. I no longer possess the strength for such a feat. It is beyond me. ]

Does that mean the tree once had the power to do it, judging by its words?

[ Apostle. ]

Wind suddenly blew.

[ I do not know what happened to you. ]

The sadness in its voice grated on me. I didn’t like how it sounded as though it pitied me.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘apostle’? Just what is an apostle?”

[ You carry my mark, which means that the past version of you was chosen by the future version of me. That makes you my apostle. ]

“How do you know that I met you in the future?”

[ You came here earlier than you were supposed to, am I correct? ]

“…”

[ I am happy. I’ve waited so long, and I finally met someone who would take my mark. ]

A long time, huh?

It said the same thing that time as well.

“What… is your identity?”

[ Did I not tell you already? ]

I didn’t get to hear much from the tree. I only heard how I returned to the normal world and how this false world differed from it.

That was about it.

You rotted and disappeared away after telling me those things, so of course I didn’t get to hear much from you.

In my past life, just like Jang Seonyeon’s body earlier, the World Tree had crumbled into ash and vanished.

I will never be able to forget the sight of such a giant tree turning into dust and being blown away by the wind.

[ I am Muah. ]

“I already know that much.”

[ I am the Fifth World Tree, and the ruler of this world. ]

“Ruler, huh…”

No matter how I looked at it, this world was ruined and decayed.

“Are you the God of this world?”

[ Well, in the past, some did indeed call me that. Judging by your question, it seems I didn’t tell you much before. ]

“You didn’t even have the time to, since you disappeared right away.”

[ …Disappeared you say… I see. ]

The World Tree turned gloomy after hearing my response.

The sound of its voice sent a chill through me, as if ice were spreading through my veins.

[ It seems like I don’t have much time left. ]

“…It’s not that short, considering how time flows here.”

If I thought about how a few years was only a day in the normal world, and the fact that I was around the age of twenty when I fell here in the past, it meant that the World Tree still had a very long time left.

However,

[ For me, human time passes in an instant. What feels long to you is nothing to me. ]

The World Tree didn’t sound too happy about it.

[ That’s why I’m grateful. My apostle looked for me. ]

“Your damned apostle this and apostle that. You are so annoying. I asked you why I’m your apostle, didn’t I?”

I didn’t believe in God.

It had already been too long for me to believe in such a thing.

“You once told me something.”

I wanted to burn away the world’s burdens.

I didn’t understand this world, but I knew the world I came from was filled with twisted, tangled truths.

“I don’t know much.”

It was embarrassing how, even after regression, there were still more things I didn’t understand than those I did.

I thought about pretending to not know anything and sleep, but it made me feel disgusted since I felt like I was involved with those damned things.

Even if I wasn’t involved directly, innocent people were, and that left me uneasy.

“So tell me where I need to start first. What is it that you know?”

[ … ]

The World Tree remained silent after my question.

It was a rather uncomfortable silence.

After a long pause,

Craaack-

A thick root rose from the ground, curling behind me.

It seemed to offer me a seat.

[ Sit. ]

I carefully sat down on it after hearing the tree.

[ Apostle. Do you know about the existence of a ruler? ]

“Ruler?”

The tree had already called itself the ruler of this world once before.

[ Yes, ruler. A ruler is both the essence of a world and the world itself. ]

“Make it easy for me to understand.”

[ It’s exactly as it sounds. A ruler exists because the world exists, and the world exists because the ruler exists. ]

“What…”

[ However, there is one difference: if a world disappears, its ruler vanishes with it. But if a ruler disappears, the world does not collapse. ]

I couldn’t quite grasp what the tree was saying.

Not only did I struggle to understand its meaning, but I also couldn’t figure out why the tree brought it up.

“…And why are you telling me this?”

My regression, the Blood and Heavenly Demon, the calamity that Yeon Il-Cheon mentioned, and the red marble that was also called a seed back in Gu Clan’s territory in the frontlines.

I had countless questions, yet the tree rambled on about this strange concept.

[ The ruler of this world isn’t truly its ruler. ]

“Is there more to it than that?”

[ More precisely, it is the ruler of life. ]

“Life?”

[ That’s right. All life in this land combined makes the ruler of this world. A world exists, and life exists within it, which is why this world can be maintained. ]

“And what does that have to do with what I’m asking?”

[ What do you think would happen if the ruler of a world disappears? ]

The World Tree’s words sparked a sudden realization.

[ When a ruler disappears, it means the death of all life in the world. ]

“What…?”

The tree’s words left me stunned.

“What do you mean by all life disappearing with it?”

Be it the world, the ruler, or the destined fate, none of it made sense to me.

The World Tree that was currently in front of me, disappeared in my past life after leaving me with a mark and a few words.

And yet, even after the tree vanished, the demons in this world remained.

If what the World Tree said was true, then all life in this world should’ve disappeared along with it.

Moreover…

…There isn’t a ruler in this world to begin wi-!

I was reminded of something midway of my thought.

The World Tree seemed to respond to my shocked expression.

[ Life doesn’t vanish immediately when a ruler is lost. But without a ruler, no new life can be born, and eventually, all life fades into extinction. ]

“No new lives can be born you say?”

[ That would be the case normally. ]

Ruler.

A world’s ruler.

It was strange.

If a ruler was needed in the world for new lives to be born into it,

“…There is no ruler in the world I live in, so how can you explain that?”

I have never heard anything about a ruler existing in the world I lived in.

Without a ruler, no new life should be possible.

And yet, my world seemed to be functioning just fine.

Was there a ruler I didn’t know about?

When I had that thought,

[ We call that a crack. ]

The World Tree spoke to me.

“Crack?”

[ Your world has broken away from its own principles, drawing power from that crack. ]

A world without a ruler was still sustaining life.

Then does that mean that the world I lived in broke out of the world’s principles?

“Does that become a problem?”

[ A world without a ruler defies the principles of existence. A new ruler must be created. ]

“Create a ruler?”

[ That is also why I am called the Fifth World Tree of this world. ]

This tree was the fifth ruler of this world, which was why it was calling itself by such a name.

“…So, as long as a new ruler is established, there’s no problem?”

Wouldn’t it be fine since a new ruler will appear in the future anyway?

When I asked that question,

[ Apostle, as I mentioned, all life born in a world belongs to its ruler. ]

The World Tree gave a different answer.

“And?”

[ With life existing in a world without a ruler, do you know what must be done to restore the cycle? ]

“What must be done… in order to bring a new ruler into the world?”

Right as I frowned in confusion,

[ The answer is- ]

The tree answered.

[ All existing life must be erased. Only then can a new ruler emerge. ]

It was a rather sickening answer.