Chapter 274: Only One difference

Chapter 274: Only One difference

A doomed world.

There, under the red sky, Stardus stared with trembling eyes at a woman with blonde hair exactly like her own.

"Uh..."

That woman, with hair a little dirtier blonde than her own, looking much more mature was looking at her coldly...

Perhaps this was the future Stardus of this world.

...Much to her bewilderment, she never imagined that she would run into herself like this.

The woman, who had been silently looking in this direction, opened her mouth as if she wasn't too surprised.

"...Remnants of an illusory creature. I thought this area was cleared. Apparently not."

She muttered quietly, as if speaking to herself, and then her otherworldly self stretched out her arms and clenched her fists.

-Koooooooowwww.

Centering on her hands and arms, a tremendous energy, glowing with an intense yellow light, began to wrap around her arms like a gauntlet.

She was poised to attack at any moment and Stardus, stunned by her appearance, quickly spoke up.

"Now, wait a minute, I'm not a demon or anything."

"Hmph...?"

Her future self, still looking tired, looked up at her from a mountain of ruined buildings, his arms glowing with light.

Stardus, flying in the sky in front of her, quickly opened his mouth to speak before she suddenly attacked.

"I... I'm from another world, I don't want to fight, I just..."

As she began to explain, Stardus of this world stopped attacking for a moment and stood quietly, looking this way and listening to her.

...And so Stardus explained her current situation at length. Somehow, she fell through a portal or something, and landed in this world.

"..."

Stardus carefully looked at her reflection in this world, listening to her story.

She looked older, much more mature than she was now, and somehow tired, yet sharp.

Somewhat weary of life, yet...In this world, with its dangerous atmosphere, she felt like someone else, definitely older than her current self.

Perhaps that's why Stardus was explaining, using respectful language without realizing it.

"...So, when I opened my eyes, I was here."

That was the end of her explanation.

The Stardus of this future world, who had been quietly listening to her up to this point, looked at her with a dull gaze.

She didn't seem to pay much attention to what she was saying.

However

"...Haha, that's funny."

"You've totally stolen my old self, haven't you?"

She only said that with a bitter expression.

When Stardus was still confused after hearing that, she turns her head and speaks quietly.

"...Another dimension. Hmm. It can't be, because that's not possible."

"Still, I don't know what you are, but I'll accept you for now. There's nothing else to do in this place that's already finished anyway..."

Cause it doesn't seem to affect anything.

After muttering that, she turned her head again and stared off into the horizon as blankly as before.

Her demeanor was as if she couldn't care less about herself.

...Stardus wondered for a moment if she was still hallucinating, but decided it was a good thing she'd said she'd take her in and not attack her anymore anyway.

Under the red sky she had a bizarre moment, facing someone who looked exactly like her, but was clearly different.

She wasn't sure what the hell was going on, or if this was even real.

Stardus looked behind her and decided to ask the question he was most curious about.

"I..."

"Make it easy on yourself."

"Uh... Yeah. Okay. So here we are... What the hell is going on?"

Okay.

She asked the most curious thing first.

Why are there ruins everywhere, why are there no people in sight, why is everything around here falling apart.

And the answer came back, very grimly.

"It is destroyed."

"....."

As expected.

She expected it, but it was still a shock to hear it in person.

"...Why?"

She asked with trembling eyes, looking at the desolate scene around her, and her other self fell silent, then began to mumble wearily.

"....I won in the end, but I guess I didn't win because the world ended, so to answer your question...I don't know. Maybe it was always meant to be this way."

She continued in that tired voice, staring blankly into space.

"There were too many villains, just too many... the enemies were strong and numerous, and the heroes were woefully inadequate against them..."

She continued to mumble, as if recalling the past.

"In the end, we managed to balance things out, but when the HanEun Group invaded Seoul with their weapons and destroyed half of the capital, that was the beginning of our downfall..."

With that, the other Stardus wasn't sure if she was talking to her or just recalling her own memories.

How Seoul fell to an invasion of villains, and how they moved the capital to Busan. After that, they rebuilt the city center of Seoul, which collapsed again, and created New Seoul, but even that collapsed at the hands of villains.

And then she muttered about her future self. No, the story of this world as Stardus listened in silence. Busying herself with her suddenly slightly dizzy brain, comparing it to the path her world had taken.

'...The overall flow is similar to my past.'

The names of the villains, the terror they waged, the timing, almost everything was the same.

The only difference is that unlike her side, which managed to stop the attacks with as few casualties as possible, each one here was quite devastating.

The Moonlight Maiden, the HanEun Group, they were all stopped in her world but not here.

And even the villains that were easy to deal with in her world, in this world, they've become vicious.

...And all of these differences were tied to a single figure.

Stardus arch nemesis, a Class A villain and the leader of a group of villains, the one who always had a smile on his face, Egostic.

That he was nowhere to be seen was the biggest difference between this world and her own.

That was what Stardus was most curious about at the moment so she couldn't help but ask it first.

"...And then there was the terror unleashed by the Moonlight Church. The world's destruction accelerated. Gates opened all over the world, and the beasts continued to cross over for years. Cities were destroyed, people went underground, and not just our country, but almost every country..."

"Wait..."

"...?"

With her head in her hands, she interrupted her otherworldly self's rambling explanation.

...She had a strange, persistent headache and stomach churning since earlier, but she had to ask about something that seemed fundamentally connected to all of this, his presence.

With that, Stardus took a quiet breath, and then asked her.

"Do you happen to know Egostic?"

It wasn't in the records, but just in case, because the woman before her was her other self, she couldn't possibly not know him.

With a vague hope, she asked.

"...No? Who is that?"

She frowned, like she didn't know what she was talking about and with that answer Stardus finally realized the biggest difference between her world and this one.

It was that...there was no Egostic in this world.

"...Wait."

Feeling a little dizzy, she made that concession to her future self, then leaned her hand against a nearby rocky pile of bricks.

That's right.

There was no Egostic in this world, her other self confirmed it and perhaps, she guessed.

That one difference changed the course of the world.

...The HanEun Group's giant weapon, captured by the Egostic, destroyed nearly half of Seoul and was unstoppable in this world.

The Death Knight, which should have been by his side, fell into the wrong hands and was used to slaughter civilians.

And then there was the Terror of the Moonlight Maiden, a terror that was halted by Egostic, who intervened and welcomed her as an ally but was ultimately unstoppable in this world, destroying all of Seoul before the Shrine Maiden was finally killed by herself from this world.

As a result, the capital was changed to Busan, and New Seoul was created from the ruins.

Rhino, Weapon Master, Scream Maker, and others... Those he had privately sanctioned survived in this world and went on to become mass murderers, killing hundreds.

And the White Witch, whom he welcomed as an ally...South Silver, Atlas, and others were also people who, without him, would have led the country to near destruction.

In other words, there was only one reason why her world was so peaceful.

"...Because of Egostic?"

Stardust, still dizzy from earlier, grabbed the railing and staggered back.

"Hey... You, wait."

The Stardus of this world, who had been watching her silently, stiffened for a moment before asking.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Huh? Why is my body...?"

Stardus looked down, startled.

Her body looked like a noisy television screen was crackling in places and strangely refracted as if another dimension was pulling her in.

"What...what's going on?"

Stardus asked, realizing for the first time that this was the reason for her dizziness.

"...Wait. You're not... Ah. I guess that's what it is, haha."

The moment the otherworldly self said that, looking at her like that once again, her body was surrounded by white light, just like when she first stepped through the portal.

"...I don't know what it is, but... well... Maybe, I'll...give...you...what you say...to........"

And that was the last she saw of herself in this world, still grave, but with a slight smile on her face.

Stardus consciousness plunged back into the dizzying confines of space.

***

While Stardust was talking to her otherworldly self.

"Aaahhhhh."

I, who had chased after Stardus, who had disappeared into a strange dimensional gate created by the Moonlight Lord, was swimming in a strange space of consciousness, trying to stay alive.