Chapter 623 Much Like a Fading Mirage

Chapter 623 Much Like a Fading Mirage

Joon-ho was floating in a warm darkness, his knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. ‘Is this what it feels like to be dead?’ he thought. ‘Just floating in... nothingness? Man, a whole lot of people are gonna be really disappointed when they die. No angels with trumpets, no pearly gates, no mythical beings or buddhas... and apparently no hot goddesses offering perks to be born on planets they’re responsible for.’ He sighed, or at least attempted to.

Suddenly he heard a muffled thud-THUD and two other noises that reminded him of conversation. One was a low-pitched murmur—a man, he thought—and there was another, higher-pitched sound. If the first was a man, then the second should be a woman.

‘Why does this seem so... familiar?’ he mused.

He drifted in the endless dark, listening to the murmuring and rhythmic thud-THUD. ‘Well, if this is what the afterlife is like, then I guess it could be worse,’ he thought as he floated in the warm, welcoming nothing that surrounded him in its embrace.

Time passed, as time always does, and a change came over his environment. The rhythmic pulsing thuds began speeding up.

Thud-THUD... thud-THUD... thud-THUD, thud-THUD, thud-THUD thudTHUD thudTHUD thudTHUDthudTHUDthudTHUD....

Soon, the “female” sound rose in pitch and volume and the warm darkness around him began pitching and tossing him to and fro, setting him spinning along three axes.

‘What the actual fuck!?’ he thought as he spun. With a concerted effort, he stopped spinning and reoriented himself, then the darkness squeezed him from all directions and he realized where he was.

‘Am I in a... womb?’ he mused. ‘Maybe I really am being reborn on a new world!’

The pressure increased and he was squeezed into what felt like an endless tunnel mixed with a toothpaste tube. Finally, he was ejected into a blinding brightness and blinked until his eyes adjusted to the light. He looked up, expecting to see his new mother and father, but then....

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?” he shouted at the top of his lungs—or tried to, anyway, as the only sound that escaped his lips was a high, warbling cry. What he had seen when he looked at who his “parents” were was two trees, a slender cypress tree with black bark and needles so deep purple they might as well have been black, and a tall, powerful oak tree, also with black bark and violet leaves so dark they, too, might as well have been black.

“We understand,” the birch said. “Who-what-when-where-why is this?”

The image Joon-ho had seen after pushing “Ayaka” away flashed through his mind. “That’s Hatsune Miku and Deedlit.”

“Who-what-when-where-why is Hatsune Miku and Deedlit?”

“They’re, umm... Hatsune Miku is an avatar, and Deedlit is a character from an anime.”

“Who-what-when-where-why is anime?” another “voice” interjected.

Joon-ho turned to the crabapple tree and said, “It’s a form of entertainment on my planet.”

“Who-what-when-where-why is entertainment?”

“Entertainment is....”

The question and answer session, or perhaps interrogation went on for a long time before the tree people seemed satisfied with what they had learned.

“Who-what-when-where-why is elves?” The birch had once again started asking questions.

“Well, elves are friends of nature and they live in trees, I guess,” Joon-ho answered, memories of all the media he had watched containing elves flashing through his head.

“We understand,” the birch said, then slowly vanished from the clearing much like a fading mirage.