Chapter 157
“Ah, what?!”
“What the hell…!”
The people who saw Yu-hyun’s sudden action didn’t know how to react for a moment.
That’s why Kwon Jia and Kang Hye-rim, who were close to him, couldn’t stop him.
“Yu-hyun!”
“Kang Yu-hyun! What are you doing!”
Yu-hyun didn’t answer.
He ran towards the gaping mouth of Moby Dick with a white lotus in one hand and a thousand-character gun in the other.
It looked like nothing but a suicidal act of giving up everything.
Moby Dick, whose mouth was burning, didn’t notice that Yu-hyun had approached him because of the pain.
‘Title activation!’
The title [Knight without Honor] was activated and wrapped around Yu-hyun’s body. Yu-hyun raised his power of story to the maximum to protect his body and engraved a seal on top of it.
He also turned the white lotus into a large round shield that covered his whole body and faced the front.
Whoosh!
The hot heat of the burning flames and the shock of Moby Dick’s roar shook Yu-hyun’s body.
It was as if the layers and layers of protection were nothing, and his muscles screamed as his whole body trembled.
His legs wobbled and seemed to collapse.
But still.
“…!”
Yu-hyun clenched his teeth and went inside Moby Dick’s throat.
Ignoring the voices that called him desperately from behind, Yu-hyun entered deep into the mouth of the giant beast.
***
‘Disgusting.’
The first sensation that Yu-hyun felt among the squirming masses of flesh was the stench that stung his nose.
It was a mixture of salt and rotten seafood.
The smell was more intense because it was dark.
As he passed through the throat that pressed hard on his body, he came to a wide open space and the smell got worse.
[Yu-hyun! Snap out of it!]
“I know.”
Yu-hyun answered like that and took out the water nature stone that he had used once before.
A blue light flowed out and softly lit up the surroundings.
Yu-hyun had arrived at Moby Dick’s stomach, which was made of wriggling chunks of flesh.
He changed the white lotus in his hand into a wide round shield shape and climbed on it.
“White Lotus. Can you hold on?”
[Do you think this kind of gastric acid can melt me?]
“That’s good.”
Yu-hyun rode on the white lotus and skimmed over the gastric acid.
There were decomposing fish everywhere.
It wasn’t just fish.
There were various kinds, from small fish to huge sharks that ate people.
All of them were melting together in one beast’s stomach.
“It’s like hell’s aquarium.”
Surprisingly, Yu-hyun managed to reach Moby Dick’s stomach without dying.
[The spirits are astonished by your survival.]
[The spirits are curious about what the hell is going on.]
“You’ll see.”
Yu-hyun casually replied to the spirits and rolled his eyes.
His busy gaze was looking for something desperately.
‘It must be here.’
If the last puzzle piece was what he thought it was.
Then surely, the answer would be inside here.
Yu-hyun carefully avoided the gastric acid that fell from the ceiling and slowly walked around the huge stomach.
After a few minutes, maybe?
‘Could it be that?’
Yu-hyun’s eyes lit up when he saw something faintly shaped by the blue light in the distance.
It was a small boat that had a blurry outline.
Yu-hyun immediately grabbed a plank that was floating on the gastric acid and used it as an oar to move.
‘I’m here.’
Yu-hyun stepped on a chunk of flesh that wasn’t covered by gastric acid.
In front of him was a small boat that was broken in half.
He wondered why such a boat was still intact in this place, but luckily it was in a spot where gastric acid didn’t touch it.
The boat had faded over time, as if it had been here for a very long time.
Yu-hyun found something in the center of the broken boat.
‘If my guess is right, this is definitely…’
Yu-hyun discovered ‘that thing’ that was placed in one corner of the half-broken boat.
It was made of wood, but it was the only thing that had a human shape.
A wooden puppet that was about the size of a child.
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Yu-hyun opened his mouth when he confirmed it.
“Pinocchio.”
As soon as he said that, the message window became noisy.
The messages quickly disappeared thanks to Celine’s intervention, but I was sure that the spirits’ reaction was explosive.
[The spirits are asking what is going on.]
“I think most of you here know about Pinocchio.”
Pinocchio is a fairy tale that is so famous that no one on Earth doesn’t know it.
Even though it is a simple and childish work, it is a ‘story’ that has spread worldwide, so there was no way the spirits didn’t know it.
“This is Pinocchio.”
A wooden puppet that had been neglected for a long time and turned black with weathering.
This wooden puppet, which was a miracle to maintain its shape, was the protagonist of the last third story.
“Pinocchio is the main character of a fairy tale by Carlo Collodi, an Italian playwright. As you all know, this puppet has a characteristic that his nose grows longer when he lies.”
Why was Pinocchio in the belly of Moby Dick?
That also appeared in Pinocchio’s story.
“Pinocchio is also swallowed by a shark in the story. But in modern times, the original shark changed into a whale at some point. Pinocchio is swallowed by the whale’s belly and escapes again.”
Moby Dick’s other name was Monstro. And that name was another alias for Moby Dick.
In the original story, Pinocchio escapes by meeting his family.
But Pinocchio here couldn’t do that.
“There was only one way to escape from the whale’s belly in Pinocchio’s story. That is, to light a fire in its belly.”
That was the third story I was looking for, the last puzzle.
The way to end this world, the way to kill Moby Dick for sure.
I brought the Thousand-Character Cannon for that reason.
[Laplace’s Demon Fragment activates.]
[Information gathering rate 100% achieved]
[Analyzing the world of ideas.]
I didn’t need to know with Laplace’s power.
I knew what I had to do now.
I fixed Baekryeon on my waist and picked up Pinocchio, who had fallen to the floor, with one hand.
“Let’s go, kid.”
The very light wooden puppet.
I gently held the remnants of the boy who had no life left, who was now dead.
“Let’s go see your grandfather.”
Kwang!
The Thousand-Character Cannon spewed fire.
***
“Look, look over there!”
The fire on Moby Dick’s mouth had almost subsided, and when he started to move slowly, a collector who felt something strange shouted and pointed at Moby Dick.
Everyone who found out why was also shocked and widened their eyes.
“Smoke?”
Moby Dick was spewing black smoke from his mouth.
The strange phenomenon did not stop there.
Pung! Bang!
Something exploded, something burst.
It sounded like an echo from far away at first, but when I listened carefully, it wasn’t.
The source of the sound was Moby Dick’s mouth, his belly.
Kwooooooo!!!
Moby Dick squinted his eyes and screamed in pain.
I had inflicted many wounds on him so far, but Moby Dick had never been in such pain except when Ahab stabbed his eye.
“What, what’s going on?”
In Park Cheol-oh’s empty murmur, everyone remembered one scene in their minds.
It was the sight of a teller jumping into Moby Dick’s mouth.
***
Kwang! Kwagwang!
The cannon spewed fire and flesh exploded with flames.
I didn’t stop.
I kept shooting whenever the Thousand-Character Cannon was ready to fire.
It was something I could shoot forever if I had the power of stories.
It took a long time to shoot once, but in a place like this without interference, that drawback became nothing.
Whooosh!
A hot heat brushed past my cheek.
Red blood poured out like a waterfall through the gaps of flesh that caught fire.
The stomach became a sea of fire.
I felt Moby Dick’s pain as if I were in his belly.
I suddenly remembered what Ahab said at the strategy meeting.
-Hey. The heart of a whale is here, so if you’re going to aim for it, it’s best to aim for this place.
What he told me was advice based on his experience of where and how to kill him for sure, along with a whale anatomy diagram.
-Well, honestly, you can’t usually aim for a whale’s heart. It’s in the sea. If you always harpoon it, you’d go for its back, right? But if you ever get a chance to attack it like this. Remember what I said.
And now, at this moment, I remembered.
-Don’t forget. This is where the heart is.
I didn’t forget that.
‘There, the heart.’
He saw the heart beating roughly between the torn flesh.
It was a disgusting lump of flesh that seemed to be made of all the evil in the world.
He remembered the words that Ahab, who was now dead, had told him until the end.
Yu-hyun lowered his rifle, which was aimed at his final target.
“No. The last one should be this.”
Yu-hyun threw away his rifle and grabbed Baekryeon.
The sword that was Baekryeon changed its shape.
It was a harpoon.
The thing that a man who had embraced the sea had never let go of until the end.
The symbol of vengeance that would never let go of its target once it pierced it.
Yu-hyun threw the harpoon at Moby Dick’s heart.
***
Moby Dick, who had been spewing fire and black smoke from his mouth, lifted his head toward the sky with one eye wide open as if to announce his demise.
Then he fell sideways without any strength.
The eye of Moby Dick, who had been closed, showed no sign of opening again.
“He’s dead.”
“Really? He’s really dead?”
They couldn’t believe it.
The white monster that wouldn’t die no matter what they did, the devil of the sea that they thought they could never defeat.
He was dead.
Splash. Thud.
The dark clouds cleared up.
The rain that had been pouring down as if the world was ending stopped.
The waves calmed down and the wind stopped.
Everyone felt like they were dreaming in the peace that came after defeating the devil.
“Look over there!”
Someone’s finger pointed at Moby Dick’s open mouth.
Yu-hyun was slowly walking out of there.
“He’s alive!”
“Did he go inside his belly and kill him?! How is that possible?!”
Everyone murmured in disbelief, but only Kang Hye-rim and Kwon Jia silently welcomed Yu-hyun.
“Yu-hyun. That is…”
Kang Hye-rim opened her mouth carefully as she saw the wooden doll in Yu-hyun’s arms.
Yu-hyun answered with a gesture instead of words.
He hugged Pinocchio and walked toward Nemo’s corpse.
Nemo’s corpse, who had a peaceful smile on his face, was accompanied by Ishmael who never left his side.
Ishmael looked up at Yu-hyun.
“Brother.”
“You did well. Ishmael.”
“I didn’t do anything…”
“You’re alive. That’s enough.”
Yu-hyun praised Ishmael, who was sobbing, and sat down next to Nemo’s corpse.
“Captain. You’ve worked hard until now. Thanks to you, I could come this far.”
Yu-hyun gently laid Pinocchio next to Nemo.
And he moved their hands to overlap each other.
Without any time to enjoy the joy of victory.
Everyone silently watched the sad scene.
“Please, go to a good place with your grandson.”
Yu-hyun stood up from his seat and bowed lightly.
“Nemo. No, Captain Geppetto.”
Ding!
[You have cleared the Thought World ‘The Giant Monster of the Ocean’!]
[You have acquired 100,000TP.]
[The Thought World you cleared was a place where three stories were mixed.]
[You have acquired an additional 50,000TP.]
He killed Moby Dick and saved the people who should have died.
The story of this world was over with this.
Swoosh
As if the waves that came in went back out.
The scenery of the Thought World scattered into pieces of white letters.
The graveyard of shipwrecks on Devil’s Island, the sailors who cried and rejoiced.
Ishmael, who waved his hand at him for the last time.
‘I did it.’
He ended the story that no one thought he could succeed in with his own hands.
But he felt nothing but a heavy feeling rather than joy.
There were too many sacrifices to reach this end.
Nemo and Ahab, and the sailors and collectors who followed them.
If they weren’t there, could he have come this far?
‘I’m still lacking.’
Yu-hyun felt his own weakness.
He had come back from the future and achieved many things, but he was still lacking.
‘I need to become stronger.’
So that he wouldn’t lose anyone.
So that he wouldn’t be crushed by any world.
Fwoosh!
Right before the world of thought completely scattered, Yu-hyun’s vision brightened and a scene appeared.
Swoosh!
It was a ship cutting through the sea.
The sailors were doing their roles on the deck, and the inexperienced ones were learning from their seniors.
A man appeared on the deck with a light step.
Everyone’s eyes turned to him, and they straightened their backs and saluted.
It was an action that came from their sincere respect for him.
“Everyone, salute to the captain!”
Someone shouted.
The man who was called the captain had a confident smile and eyes full of hope, as if they contained the bright starlight of the night sky.
He was the owner of the New Pequod, the ship that was sailing now, and the one who was called the romantic of the sea.
He explored the continent beyond the ocean, and left his mark on the world along with the unknown world.
Yu-hyun widened his eyes when he saw him.
“He’s not the captain.”
Shedding his immature appearance completely, and now becoming a man who could command a ship, he lowered his head and said that.𝔫𝙤𝑣ℯ𝙡𝗯Ꭵ𝙣.𝖓𝚎𝚝
“Everyone, call me Ishmael.”
The boy who longed for the sea and dreamed of the world.
He had grown up like that.
