Chapter 25 – Between Work (5)

Minjun understood how cruel love that had touched madness could be. He couldn’t blame it. However, if you truly loved someone, the direction should converge toward saving the other person, not killing them.

This was the reason why he had killed Dell.

---

Minjun couldn’t remember exactly when the relationship between the two began to deteriorate. It was because we he didn’t know when exactly Dell’s mind began to get twisted. In the early days of marriage, Minjun had had a vague premonition. If he spent his life with Dell, he thought it would be more than tolerable. He hoped that they would be able to live with each other and depend on each other.

“Sadly, of course, that feeling was also wrong.”

Minjun accelerated the memories he didn’t want to recall in his head.

“It all started with a creepy look.”

Whenever he was eating, getting dressed, drowsy, reading, washing his hands… In the ordinary moments of everyday life, he would turn his head to find Dell staring at him. She looked completely different from what he had seen in the past 80 years when she was calm. Minjun knew her eyes well.

Eventually, the day he became convinced that she was plotting a long-term plan to kill him was the day their marriage ended. It was quite a terrible day.

“Even now, when I think of that day, I can smell blood.”

Minjun didn’t know why her mind had broken so quickly. From what he confirmed, Dell had been taking all of her prescription drugs. There was even a blue pill given by a doctor who traversed the dimension and interviewed prisoners.

Still, Dell went crazy. The day their relationship ended, Minjun persistently questioned her. Dell avoided answering for sure, but she directly affirmed some of the questions. As a result of a terrible query, Minjun was able to derive three lines of sentences.

“One, Dell wants to kill me.”

This could have already been said a few times, but it didn’t matter.

“Two, the reason is because you love me so much . . . you think that only then will you set yourself free.”

Crazy, crazy, and seriously crazy.

“Three, but with both of us being prisoners, Dell cannot kill me. Because killing a prisoner, that is, damaging the assets of the Commission, is a crime of property damage.”

When a prisoner committed such a serious crime, he would face the next level of amnestic punishment.

Soul extinction. That wasn’t what Dell wanted. This was because she believed in the superstition that the kite of her present life continued into her next life. She received aggravated punishment and she could not be reincarnated once her soul was erased.

“Oh my God,” Bradley said in a tired voice. “The idea that you must die to be free is that the possibility that you will eventually be released after earning your talents is zero.”

“You know what’s even more amazing?”

She had a delusion that she would be discharged first, become a free man, and then kill Minjun. Then, even if she were to be caught and punished, she would be spared soul-extinguishing and she has to go to prison once again.

“I still can’t forget the last time I saw you.” When the mission in that dimension was over and the two were torn apart into another world, Minjun thought he would never encounter Dell again. Her severance pay of 500,000 talents was also not a small amount.

After her release, the fact that she planned to kill Minjun had also been reported to the committee, so the future was even darker. Even if one were to think positively, it would definitely take thousands of years.

“Her mind had already begun to disintegrate, and I thought by then that it wouldn’t be able to serve as a living creature at all.”

At the moment when the prisoners finally gathered and greeted each other and set out on their way, Minjun inadvertently made eye contact with Dell. It had been a long time since they had not spoken to each other, so he tried to turn away again as usual.

However, the opponent did not avert their gaze. Dell smiled shyly, as she had been accustomed to before, and began to move the shape of her mouth. At that time, the sentences she had dismissed as mere nonsense of a delusional disorder patient. ‘

‘It won’t take as long as you think.’

---

There was a moment of silence between the two.

It was Minjun who opened his mouth again first. “Anyway, some of the plans have already been successful, because I was released first.”

Minjun’s prediction was wrong, and now the rest of the steps were obvious. However, Bradley brought out certain possibilities, almost as if not to lose his hope.

“Ooh, let’s see the positive side of us…”

He shook his head, looking for words to comfort him. “As a criminal, getting your memory back doesn’t necessarily make it more horribly and violently crazy.”

“If a crazy person goes crazy again, will he turn around and become normal? Or can the memories of a half-million-talent crime make people feel calmer?”

“It is impossible. This is Dell we’re talking about, after all. That’s not what I mean…”

After hesitating, he brought out the name again. “You could be like Telesia.” “ “…” “…”

This silence lasted a little longer. Bradley realized he had made a mistake and his face clouded over.

Minjun kept silent words in his mouth and eventually changed the topic direction. “What worries me more now is that we don’t know what the woman’s race is.”

The other day, during a conversation in the office, Bradley had briefly mistaken Dell for a dragon. Minjun was thinking that it would be better if she was really one.

“I only found out about it during Telesia, but the order of discharge is divided into two stages, right? First the memory, then the original body.”

Indigenous peoples of the previous dimension were also human races, and Minjun was active at the time with the same body he was now. Dell also looked like a human at the time, but he didn’t know what kind of being she really was.

“If it were a race with terrible abilities that I couldn’t touch…”

After being able to unleash 100% of the sealed power, Dell would return as a more powerful madman. However, Bradley shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that.

“Ah, maybe.”

The two talked about Dell for a while, and eventually changed the direction of the story. It was because of Minjun’s thought that it would be useless to bundle up his worries and lament over this even more.

“By the way, how long do you have left?”

At this, Bradley laughed. “Ten thousand talents ahead.”

The topic quickly passed. The atmosphere also changes. Hearing his answer, Minjun applauded slowly.

“How much was your severance pay?”

“70,000 talents.”

“Didn’t you ever throw away your talents for something in the middle?” “Of course. What do you think?”

“Then, if we do well… can we fill the rest of the earth?”

“I think so. As you may feel, there are strangely many smugglers in this dimension. Even if you stand still, your talents will walk into your pocket.”

Minjun also agreed with this. That was one of the reasons he stayed in this dimension longer than he initially thought.

After that, the two got up from their seats after continuing to chat. The two prisoners then greeted each other briefly in front of the bar entrance.

As Minjun was about to turn his back, Bradley suddenly asked, “Hey, I was talking about Telesia earlier. I don’t know if I’d feel bad if I said something like this…”

“Then don’t do it.”

He grinned as he spoke. “I just wanted to say that you can’t.”

Minjun snorted right nose. “Huh. That’s fine.”

“Freedom.” “Freedom.”

Like a long-standing habit among prisoners, they parted ways after sharing good wishes.

Minjun didn’t know when the next day they would meet would be. Minjun began walking a short distance to the shopping mall. And instead of thinking about Dell, he remembered Bradley’s last words.

The meaning of that short sentence was simple.

‘Minjun, even if you pay your severance pay and get released, you won’t become like Telesia.’

A man who had lost his memories of the distant past began to walk down a road covered in cold air and recalled the relatively close past.

---

The dimension in which they worked together was called ‘Ashtal,’ and the republic, with 36 planets and 145 space bases inhabited by intelligent bodies, was ruled for a long time by a single dictator.

The dictator was so cruel that he gained notoriety with other dimensions. The people were oppressed with a thorough government of terror, and those who rebelled were horribly ravaged and killed. The number of those who were tragically killed during his tenure in power was yet to be counted. There was only a lot of speculation that there were at least billions of people.

One of the most famous and horrific examples of the tyranny of that time was the tragedy of the pioneer planet XE-21. Recalling that memory, Minjun frowned without realizing it.

‘I only heard about the records… but it was absolutely ridiculous.’

The dictator, who received information that the citizens were plotting a conspiracy, halted all food trucks heading there without notice. XE-21 was originally designed as an industrial planet and was an environment that relied on outside sources for 99% of its food.

The people of the planet were exhausted from hunger and tried to escape into space, but were shot down by the satellites that surrounded the planet. There was no data on how to properly dig up the image of hell that unfolded thereafter consuming all the emergency food. It was only estimated that they did not go to hell for more than three years, where parents eat their children and humans hunt humans.

‘That case was decisive. In the end, even his aides turned their backs.’

A coup had taken place then. Fearing treason, the dictator was building a defense system that even his closest subordinates were unaware of. The war lasted longer than expected, but after the cost of many sacrifices, victory eventually fell into the hands of the revolutionary army. The dictator on the verge of a purge is said to have pushed one of his switches with a quiet smile, rather than terrified or begging.

‘No one knew. How far did that madness reach?’

At that moment, more than 90% of the power generation facilities, collective farms, communication bases, and stations in the republic self-destructed and disappeared into space dust. And even then, the shield that had stopped the space bugs that attacked and devoured everything while flying between planets got broken. Only then did the revolutionary army confront the ugliness of the long-held dictator’s plan. If such preparations were made, it would have been possible to plant a self-destruct device in the core of a planet without anyone knowing.

However, the dictator did not do that. He prayed for the people who rebelled against him to return to the primitive age, tormented by barbarism and hunger for a long time, and to continue the painful life of being hunted down by space bugs. It was all utter malice. In the meantime, not even a small fragment of the dictator’s body remained. Rumor had it that it was torn to pieces by an angry revolutionary army and destroyed.

In the end, they won the war, but what was left was a devastated land where almost everything necessary to survive was destroyed, and tens of billions of people were exhausted and wounded by the long war.

“It was then that the commission began to intervene.”

Instead of sending migrants there, the commission formed and dispatched a task to rebuild the broken social and economic system. Of course, they were all amnestic prisoners, and Telesia was one of them.

During the reconstruction project that has been going on for over 300 years, the staff were replenished several times, and Minjun also participated in the latter half and met Dell there. And it was Telesia who made the most outstanding achievements in all this process.

‘Mother of all.’

It was her nickname, given by the natives of Ashtal. She did her best for Ashtal, as she remained as long as she was when the other prisoners rotated. Her natives didn’t know she was her inmate, but it didn’t seem like she would have changed anything if she did.

‘Because they all loved Telesia.’

Her strengths were in her administrative ability and political sense.

On behalf of the Revolutionary Army, which was on the verge of disintegration in the civil war, Telesia directly negotiated with the committee, increased the amount of aid, and led several reinforcements. It was also her achievement to quickly restore Ashtal’s economy, which had been shattered after the war.

Her ability to rebuild Ashtal was overwhelming, and her attitude to all of her dimensional peoples as if they were her family impressed many of her. They sent Telesia her heartfelt affection and respect.

‘Telesia loved them all.’

That was the dimension where Telesia started her prison life and was first dispatched, and since she had lived there for more than three hundred years, she must have loved it. As time passed and her work was recognized, Telesia was selected for a special pardon. Simply put, it meant that the chosen one would be released immediately, no matter how many talents you have accumulated.

‘Thank you, it’s all thanks to you guys!’

She rejoiced and shared her plans for the future with her colleagues. Even after she became free, she said that she would return to Ashtal and spend the rest of her life with them. On the day of her Telesia’s discharge, all her inmates who had suffered with her gathered together to congratulate her.

The sound of everyone’s excitement and chatter was good in my ears.

‘I knew the concept of a special amnesty existed, but this is the first time I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’

‘Can we ever be like that?’

‘Thank you Telesia. You gave hope not only to these dimensional people but also to all of our prisoners who were with you.’

The moment finally came in an atmosphere of excitement. Before recovering the original body, the order was to return the memory first. The moment Telesia took a breath in the tension, something within her began.

Looking back now, Minjun felt nothing at that time. Whether it was magic, technology, or something else beyond his cognition. Telesia’s stiff body was the only clue that could tell them something was going on. A few seconds passed with everyone holding their breath.

Then, something no one expected happened.

‘········Telesia?’ The moment someone called out your name softly. Telesia looked down at her hands in disbelief.

And then, she saw her colleagues. Next, she saw countless stars spread out in the night sky. The people of Ashtal would be scattered throughout the universe, where they lived. She saw the vast world she reconstructed. And then her face contorted.

Everyone felt embarrassed. Whispers circulated that something was wrong. Telesia then collapsed. She knelt down on her knees and shook her body.

In a panic, she shook her head and let out a wild cry. Mixed with the creaking sound, he mumbled something nonstop. These were the words that Minjun could barely understand.

‘Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.’

After constantly muttering only those words, she cried out to the committee. I want you to get me out of here right now. The committee responded to her request and opened the door, and she ran away without looking back. All those left behind were just staring blankly. That was the last appearance of a prisoner who had dedicated herself to Ashtal for three hundred years.

And shortly after Minjun left Ashtal, he heard the news that Telesia had taken her own life.

---

Minjun walked for a while longer on the street filled with loud noises. recurring thoughts.

‘I won’t be like that.’

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It was more of a determination and a determination than a foreboding. Minjun thought again. After he regained any of the memories he lost, he wouldn’t let them gnaw at him. He and other prisoners could easily deduce from the circumstances at the time.

It was a very terrible assumption, but he could not find a reasonable explanation for it. What would be the memories that Telesia had recovered, and what crimes she had committed and started her prison life? The committee didn’t make an official announcement, and no one put in an inquiry, but everyone had a gut feeling.

And the memory of Telesia’s last remained stronger for Minjun than anyone else. He had no choice but to do so. Minjun had read a language that only his own eyes can see. – The severance pay (immediate release bail) allocated to ‘Prisoner Identification Number: Asif-666’ was 5,124,990 talents. Minjun could still remember it clearly.

The severance pay set for Telesia was 1.2 million talents.