In my dream last night, I became a butterfly.
Fluttering my wings, I joyfully flew among the flowers, feeling so blissful that I didn't even realize I was myself.
But when I woke up from the dream, I was not a butterfly but myself.
Did I dream of becoming a butterfly?
Or is a butterfly dreaming of being me?
...This is the famous Zhuangzi's butterfly dream.
...
I thought all this while, as RetroAddict, that I was dreaming of being Ash.
But it was the opposite.
In reality, I, as Ash, was dreaming of being RetroAddict.
***
"Lord Ash, you were chosen as the final player in this game waged against the Demon King."
Aider explained slowly.
"Because you inherited the 'Curse of Return' from your mother, Dustia, you were able to retain your memories throughout the repeated resets of this game. An ideal talent for a player."
"..."
"But within the endless cycle of return, your soul began to erode, unable to withstand living the same life over and over for too long."
I listened quietly. Aider continued.
"You tried to endure until the end, but eventually, you were so shattered that you couldn't even remember your purpose or the names of those around you. It was impossible to continue the game as a player. So..."
"So?"
"...We resorted to the last method."
The last method...?
"In the last moments when Lord Ash could maintain sanity after the reset... in the spring of your twenty-third year."
Aider looked at me intently.
"We brought in the mind of a player from another world and implanted it into you, Lord Ash."
"...!"
"Like wrapping a cracked pottery with cloth, we overlaid another personality over Lord Ash's. This was the last method."
Why did Ash... why did I?
Go to such lengths to keep fighting.
"Fortunately, our 'game' was quite popular among beings from other dimensions... We made contracts with players who had recorded decent clear data. We copied their consciousness and overlaid it on Lord Ash with each new cycle."
In short, that is.
Copy & Paste.
Copying and pasting the minds of other players into Ash.
"That's how we continued the game. You could try various new strategies that were never tried before. But even that had its limits."
"..."
"No matter how many times you wrap it with new cloth, the pottery was already deeply cracked... and it continued to crumble."
Aider said bitterly.
"Lord Ash's soul eventually shattered, and this is the last round."
"..."
"This is the final game your fragmented soul can withstand."
Silence followed.
I, standing still, abruptly asked.
"...What if I fail? What's next? Are there no more players?"
"There are none. The game ends."
Aider spread his arms slightly.
"Even I, in the role of the director, have reached my limit."
Maybe because this is the Spirit Realm.
Only then did I notice... the numerous cracks in Aider's spirit body.
It was baffling how he maintained his form, his soul on the verge of turning into dust.
"This is the last chance for both me and you."
"..."
"I'm sorry for hiding the truth, Lord Ash. But... I thought this reality would only confuse you."
I exhaled a long sigh.
"So... in the end, I am Ash, who has lost all original memories and has been overlaid with the copied memories of RetroAddict."
My head spun. It was hard to breathe.
...A ship that has had all its parts replaced.
Is it still the same ship?
I covered my face with my hands and staggered. Aider tried to approach me, but I waved him off with my hand.
"Just give me a moment."
"..."
Aider silently stepped back.
Staggering along the sandy beach, I finally collapsed atop a mound of high-piled sand.
Looking up at the sky still draped in auroras, I laughed hollowly.
"In the end, I am neither RetroAddict nor Ash, neither one nor the other."
I am not RetroAddict.
The real RetroAddict must be living somewhere on Earth.
I am just a fake, a copy of his memories pasted into me.
And I am not Ash either.
I have no memories left as Ash. They have all been overwritten.
Occasional residual memories that surface unconsciously feel foreign to me, like they belong to someone else.
Slowly bowing my head, I exhaled wearily.
"There is nothing real left in me."
Ultimately, I am neither RetroAddict nor Ash, just a shattered human being... entirely separate.
Merely a chimera created for use as a player.
'Nothing that makes me up is truly mine.'
Neither in body nor in soul. I have nothing that is truly mine.
I am a fake.
Covering my face with both hands, I bent over. I was short of breath, and my eyes burned.
The truth was cruel, and I was confused.
How long had I been like that?
Suddenly, my shoulder warmed. Perplexed, I slowly raised my head.
"...?"
The sunlight was touching my shoulder.
Looking up, I saw the sun rising from the end of the vast land on the opposite side of the coast.
Does the sun also rise in the Spirit Realm?
Squinting against the dazzling brilliance, I raised my hand to shield my eyes.
'Huh?'
Was it an illusion?
Under the glaring sun, something shimmered like a mirage.
I concentrated to see it more clearly.
It was...
- PRESS START
...a phrase from a classic game, imprinted in my childhood memories.
"Uh?"
I gasped for air.
Rubbing my eyes and looking again, the words were gone as if they were an illusion. But I had already sprung to my feet.
The sun was rising. Pushing away the night's curtain, the sunlight fiercely illuminated the day in the Spirit Realm.
In a world starting to blaze with brilliance, a voice echoed in my mind.
- What's important is not where you come from, but what you want to do going forward.
Words once spoken by the Goddess, and by me to my comrades.
I swallowed and looked down at my hands.
"..."
I am a fake.
My body, my soul, nothing is entirely mine. Everything about me is fake.
But even if my entire life is a lie...
'I still want to save.'
The child lying in the hospital bed.
This crumbling world.
Everyone within my reach...
'I want to save them.'
Clenching my fists.
Even if everything about me is a lie, this feeling is mine.
The banner I raised for him is undoubtedly, without a doubt, my genuine heart.
That's when it happened.
Whoosh!
The sunlight pouring from the sky converged, swirling into my hand.
"...Ah."
When I came to my senses, the flag of light I had seen in my mind was held in my right hand.
Hot, heavy.
A crudely repaired flagpole that had been broken once, and a flag that had been torn and burned, stitched back together grotesquely.
My flag.
My heart.
My shattered pieces.
"...Haha."
Looking at the tattered flag fluttering, I suddenly found myself laughing.
- If it gets torn to shreds, then live torn to shreds.
Right before I fell here.
Holding my hand, Serenade had said to me:
- If you're shattered into pieces, then live shattered.
I muttered blankly.
"Live shattered into pieces..."
Looking back.
I have always been broken.
'Even as RetroAddict.'
I couldn't become a poet because I couldn't write poems, and no matter how hard I studied, I couldn't get into a prestigious university.
I couldn't last in the only company I managed to join and had to flee.
'Even as Ash.'
After losing my mother, abusing myself, ruining those around me, I rushed towards my own destruction as a delinquent and a hooligan.
'It wouldn't have been strange if I had given up on everything a long time ago.'
Either way, my life was a series of breakages. I was always breaking, breaking, and breaking again.
741 failed strategies.
And the path to the true ending that I couldn't reach until my soul was shattered.
...
But though I may be broken, I haven't lost yet.
All those wounds haven't finished me. Even if I'm a crudely patched-up fake, I still stand here, looking up at the sky.
The game isn't over yet.
After hundreds of game overs, the RetroAddict fought on to deliver a word of encouragement to a child.
Even while bearing a shattered soul with someone else's consciousness, Ash didn't give up.
And I am something mixed from fragments of those two.
Clenching the flag in my hand.
I will continue to break.
Greater adversities will come, greater suffering, more loss, and more sorrow.
I will suffer greater wounds and shed more tears than ever before.
As long as I don't give up and keep fighting, it's a predetermined fate.
But what does it matter?
I'm already in pieces.
If I break, I'll just put myself back together and stand up again.
- If you don't lose your heart, even if you're split into a thousand, ten thousand pieces, you're still you.
Recalling Serenade's words, I closed my eyes.
"I am..."
I am not RetroAddict.
I am not Ash.
I am neither a player, nor a tyrant, nor a monster.
"I am..."
I am none of these, yet at the same time, I am all of them.
Facing the dazzling sunlight, clenching my fists, gritting my teeth.
Opening my eyes and looking up at the sky- I declared.
"...I am, shattered."
And so, at last.
"I am, me."
What defines me, what proves me, is my heart.
As long as this heart remains, no matter how much I break, I will piece myself back together and fight to the end.
Until this life ends.
"Phew..."
I exhaled a long sigh.
My heart felt incredibly light. There was nothing left to hesitate about.
I looked up at the sky again.
Whether it was an illusion, a mirage, the dot-matrix words were no longer visible.
But I reached out to the sky.
And pressed a non-existent button.
Then,
[Player Existence Verified.]
As if I had really pressed the start button, a familiar system interface appeared before my eyes.
[System All Green.]
[Welcome back, Player.]
I pressed the start key.
And then, my true life began.
As I began to descend the hill, holding the flag,
- I will support you too.
Finally, unexpectedly.
A greeting from a succubus echoed in my mind.
- Hang in there.
"..."
Thank you for supporting me, even though I'm shattered like this.
"I'll keep going."
As I went down the hill, I saw a startled Aider running towards me.
"Let's go back, Aider."
I casually grinned.
"Time to finish the game we started."
The Game Continues.
As long as a person doesn't give up, the game must go on.
"..."
Aider, looking alternately at me and the flag in my hand,
"...Yes!"
Took off his glasses, roughly wiped the tears from his ash-gray eyes, and smiled brightly.
"Let's return, to Crossroad!"