At the End of the Hidden Greenery - Chapter 299

A gentle whisper drifted down from above her head.

“I suspect Quilon told him about what happened to us long ago.”

His voice was low enough that only Jiwoo could hear.

“Something that happened long ago?”

“Yes.”

Jiwoo quickly understood what Lugarmel meant. She had been glancing back at Quilon throughout their walk, so he must have noticed what she was curious about and decided to answer before she even asked.

“We went through something similar once.”

“Similar to this?”

“Yes. Perhaps he told Shaen about it to reassure him, since we survived something much like this and are still perfectly alive.”

Something similar… Just how similar had it been?

Jiwoo did not know where to begin with her questions, but fortunately, Lugarmel continued explaining without needing to be prompted.

“To be precise, our roots once became tangled with those of another tree. The surrounding environment changed, and the crops started tasting rather unpleasant as well.”

Hadn’t he mentioned, when first explaining the tangled roots, that he had experienced something like it when he was very young? He had said it wasn’t entirely unheard of. Apparently, that incident had resembled what was happening now.

“It certainly sounds similar to this time, doesn’t it?”

“It was worse.”

Narkreed, walking directly ahead of them, clicked his tongue and added.

“All our crops rotted. The game died off too. There was literally nothing edible left.”

“Mm, hahaha. But what could we do? We still had to eat whatever there was.”

Lugarmel shrugged.

“And a void opened up then too… A void is an anomalous space that appears when time and space become distorted. Since only a particular area itself is altered, though, it’s less dangerous in the short term than suddenly being caught up in a dimensional distortion.”

Lanceil had already given her a similar explanation, but Lugarmel’s version was a little easier to understand.

Because it was a place where time and space had become twisted, one careless attempt to interact with it could leave someone trapped between dimensions. Yet for precisely that reason, there were tremendous benefits to be gained if one knew how to approach and retreat safely.

They might obtain information from the future, undo something from the past that should have been irreversible, or acquire something that could never be obtained with their current abilities.

Or, because it was a place where dimensions collided, they might even encounter the incarnation they had longed for all their lives.

But interacting with such an anomalous space was like trying to withstand a power that had never been meant for them.

Far more often, those who attempted it failed and suffered consequences that could never be undone.

It was much like the countless old stories in which humans, knowing full well that death could not be conquered, tried anyway and paid the price for their arrogance.

“Then… did you try to force your way into it too?”

“Not exactly…”

Lugarmel paused with a thoughtful hum before continuing in a slightly more subdued voice.

“You seem to be wondering how our brothers died.”

He had brought up the very question Jiwoo had been hesitating to ask.

“I’d like to tell you, but… mm, I don’t remember.”

“…What?”

“It would be more accurate to say that I can’t remember. It wasn’t only their bodies that disappeared. Every trace of their past vanished with them.”

Perhaps suffering something irreversible did not necessarily mean mere death.

“They were swallowed by the dimension, and their very existence disappeared. And when someone’s existence disappears, everything they left behind in the world during their lifetime disappears too. The things they used… the relationships they formed with others… things like that.”

There was a reason Jiwoo had lived among them for years without ever knowing.

There was not a single portrait of those lost brothers remaining in the village. No keepsakes, no graves, no anniversaries on which they were remembered.

That was despite the fact that some of them loved painting, others enjoyed crafting personal ornaments, and even portraits of their oldest brothers from centuries ago could still be found without much difficulty.

“It sounds sad… to lose someone and not even be able to remember them.”

“Mm, does it? I think I’d rather not remember. Wouldn’t it be sadder to remember exactly who died like that and spend the rest of your life mourning whatever traces they left behind?”

Yet Jiwoo felt a pang of sorrow simply from hearing that it had happened.

“I think it’s sad.”

“Oh dear… I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Then if you don’t remember the details, are you only guessing from the gaps they left behind?”

“No. Although you’re right that the unnatural gaps are one way of figuring it out. In our case… a small trace did remain. The damage we suffered was comparatively mild.”

That made sense. If even the smallest traces of the lost were supposed to disappear, there had to be some reason they still knew that those brothers had once existed at all.

“How did that happen?”

Until now, Lugarmel had maintained his usual gentle, cheerful tone even while speaking of something so grim. It was almost as if he were discussing some fanciful, far-fetched tale with no connection to reality.

Perhaps because he knew the facts but no longer possessed the emotions tied to them.

But when he answered this time, a faint trace of feeling entered his voice. Jiwoo could not quite tell whether it was something painful or something else.

Lugarmel glanced behind them. For an instant, the pink of his eyes showed beneath his smiling lids, flashing brightly in the darkness.

“Because someone made it back alive.”

Jiwoo wasn’t imagining it.

At the end of Lugarmel’s gaze was Quilon.