A bird shining with rainbow colors flashed before my eyes.
A bird that had devoured a talisman, something an ordinary animal would shy away from.
There could only be one culprit.
The Gaming Owl.
The very bird that Anastasia brought from her dream and gifted to Ella.
“It’s outrageous. To think an animal would eat a talisman…”
Lee Yang-hoon chuckled at the memory, his expression clearly conveying the absurdity of it all.
“But what can I do? It’s an animal that ate it…”
He explained, amidst the disbelief, why he had no choice but to let it go. Although he felt a bit angry that a precious talisman was consumed, he couldn’t do anything since it was just an animal that couldn’t even talk.
Moreover, he had briefly considered making it vomit, but he had to abandon that thought due to the unique nature of the Gaming Owl.
“That bird isn’t just any bird; it doesn’t have a normal digestive system… right. They say it’s similar to a summoned creature summoned by a summoner. Instead of going through the regular digestive process and absorbing nutrients while excreting waste, that bird just absorbs everything it puts in its mouth right away. Just like that.”
The Gaming Owl can be seen, can be touched.
If it weren’t for its excessively large body and its shining rainbow colors, it would appear quite normal among other animals.
But that was just the appearance.
Its insides were hardly something you could call a living being.
Food?
It eats.
But the ‘food’ it eats isn’t normal either.
Insects, fruits, snacks, alcohol, stones, furniture, even metal scraps.
It devours everything as if it were some kind of slime.
And the moment the food enters its throat, it disappears without a trace.
Just like how a slime dissolves what it has swallowed, it breaks it down in an instant.
And the broken down stuff transforms into the energy the Gaming Owl needs to maintain its existence.
No…
It’s more accurate to call it energy rather than nutrients.
Because the Gaming Owl wasn’t a living creature.
A peculiar thing brought from a dream.
The Gaming Owl could influence the real world due to Anastasia’s witchcraft, but it was not of this world. Though Anastasia used life force to create it, it couldn’t be considered alive.
It undoubtedly exists, but because it originates from a dream, it could vanish like a phantom at any moment.
If Anastasia were to retrieve her life force, it could scatter like a shadow at any time.
A dream entity moved by Anastasia’s witchcraft.
A phantom anchored to the real world by the name of life force.
That was the Gaming Owl.
Perhaps it resembled the nature of a nightmare as well.
A horrific nightmare that feels too vivid and closely resembles reality.
So much so that it instills a fear that makes your heart stop, making you flounder in awful terror. It makes your heart race as if it will burst, pressing down on your mind like a hammer. Cold sweat flows freely, and painful moans escape your lips involuntarily. Your body, paralyzed as if pressed down by an unseen force, shivers uncontrollably, while your barely moving arms thrash about in search of nonexistent help.
But even amidst all that pain, horror, and disgust, the nightmare fades away.
The moment you wake up, the vivid nightmare is dismissed as just ‘bad luck,’ and the desperate pain experienced in the dream transforms into a trivial trial that can be shrugged off. And after a little time passes, that memory evaporates in an instant, leaving only the smallest fragments behind.
Thus, the nightmare disappears.
As if it never happened… so perfectly cleanly.
And what was created by Anastasia’s witchcraft was incredibly similar to this nightmare.
Though it was crafted with life force, it was a fleeting dream that would vanish if the anchor were to disappear, akin to a sculpture that can captivate you for a while but cannot remain in the world eternally.
“Yeah. That’s why Danbi couldn’t have a familiar spirit…”
Having a familiar spirit holds great significance for witches.
To them, a familiar spirit is a pet, a subordinate, family, servant, part of their body, and a companion for life. Moreover, it is significantly more reliable than a mediocre bodyguard, and at times, it also serves as a lifeline, a friend that saves their life.
But before the rewind, Anastasia had no familiar spirit.
Not even until the moment she met her end, melting away in the collective unconscious.
A bizarre birth.
A twisted mind.
Her playground and her shackle, and eventually, the collective unconsciousness that swallowed her whole.
All of that prevented Anastasia from having a familiar spirit.
No.
Perhaps that’s not the reason.
Perhaps it’s something simpler than such complex reasons.
Maybe it was simply because she could handle special witchcraft that prevented her from creating a familiar spirit…
“Jinseong! Aren’t you curious? About the secret of my cryptid?!”
“What if this cryptid has an amazing secret hidden within it! The collective unconscious and dreams, and the human psyche… and life force too! Isn’t this secret just spectacular?!”
“Not too long ago, I killed some guys researching the cyber afterlife, right? Maybe my dream could also feel something like that! Data— Wait, that sounds too scientific! I feel like I should wear checkered clothing! No data! I’ll call it the psyche!”
“Ego, Jinseong! Listen up! I might be able to embed a person’s mind into the collective unconscious and make that my main body! If I can just inject life force, I can be resurrected anytime!”
“Doesn’t that sound fun just thinking about it? I’d have unlimited coins while everyone else would have zero! As long as I have a life force factory, I can live forever!”
“Of course, living alone would be so lonely, so I can grant Jinseong a body capable of resurrection too! I’ll just create one for you. It might not be true for anyone else, but since it’s Jinseong, I can offer that as a special service!”
“Hehe. Once you experience resurrection, you might end up in a body you can never return from~?”
Jinseong recalled the Danbi of the past.
When they were mercenaries together, she was full of curiosity.
She had experimented to see if a tank mine would actually explode by jumping on it, detonating it; she wanted to verify if white phosphorus would really not extinguish even in water by burning down a looter with it and throwing them into the water; she melted down a precious Damascus sword to make bullets, believing it could pierce through anything.
She modified an RPG-7 to launch a spear, claiming she wanted to experiment if a spear could really kill someone in one shot, and sent off a bundle of fireworks strapped to a cryptid’s body into the sky out of curiosity.
She had indeed carried out so many wild antics.
All to satisfy her overflowing curiosity.
Additionally, many of her antics would raise eyebrows from the average person. This was likely due to her mercenary life being filled with gore and all sorts of filthy sights.
But having an overflowing curiosity and engaging in reckless behavior wasn’t solely a disadvantage.
Thanks to her insatiable curiosity, she could advance at a rate incomparable to others.
Moreover, her unique witchcraft and her personality matched well, and as a result, she became incredibly strong day by day. Perhaps due to her curiosity, she could think fresh and creatively, using her cunning to turn dangerous situations into opportunities.
But could it be because her life was intertwined with curiosity?
There was a reason she was nicknamed ‘Danbi’ as asserted.
Just like how a curious cat meets its demise.
Anastasia died because of her curiosity.
“The body became fertilizer for the mind, and the spirit and soul melted away into the collective unconscious.”
She even failed to preserve her own body.
The witchcraft that had always saved her squeezed out every drop of life force from her body, allowing her spirit and soul to explore the collective unconscious, and in the process, her body turned to dust.
Mind and soul?
From the moment her body vanished, Anastasia lost the qualification to explore the collective unconscious.
The collective unconscious is something that only humans can explore.
Body, mind, soul. Only those who are whole may belong to the collective unconscious.
And at that moment of losing her body, Anastasia was no longer ‘human.’
Only possessing a soul and a mind.
Yes.
The moment her body disappeared, Anastasia became a ghost.
And the collective unconscious likely treated Anastasia, no longer human, the same way it treated other ghosts who dared to approach it.
Tearing, breaking, grinding, scattering, melting, absorbing…
And so, the pre-rewind Anastasia perished.
Fleetingly.
