Chapter 233


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    The One Who Ignites II


    "Call me N."


    "I''m Undertaker. A pleasure to meet you."


    "Undertaker (Гробовщик)? Unless you''re a wrestler, that can’t be your real name. What a grim nickname."


    The man who introduced himself as N lived in a shabby tent whose walls were reinforced with reindeer hide to improve instion. It was far too crude a structure to survive the apocalypse.


    Probably not his main base, I decided, but rather a temporary shelter.‘He doesn’t trust me enough to reveal his real home.’


    The man was cautious. I had sensed it ever since reading his post.


    "Your name is just as unique as mine. N means ''person'' in the Nnguage, doesn’t it?"


    "...You know about the Ns?" He looked surprised, almost as shocked as when I had split the cier with my Aura.


    Though most Koreans wouldn’t recognize the Ns, they’d feel a sense of familiarity if you mentioned their traditional clothing. The parka we wear in winteres from the Ns culture. The man in front of me was also wearing a parka made of reindeer fur.


    "Of course. They’ve lived around here for a long time, a minority group known for their nomadic lifestyle, right?"


    "That’s right. I am a N."


    At that moment, he became much more weing. He brought in firewood and lit the stove, then personally brewed tea and served it to me. He even brought out biscuits to go with the tea, along with pieces of Hershey''s chocte. It was probably the finest hospitality one could offer a stranger in the middle of an apocalypse.


    I couldn’t be outdone, so I pulled four bottles of distilled liquor from my backpack and offered them as gifts.


    The man immediately began treating me like a long-lost rtive.


    "I have another name." His face flushed red from the alcohol as he spoke. "But after the city was destroyed and I was the only one left alive, I changed my name to N. I didn’t think anyone would ever call me by that name again... Who would have thought that website was real?"


    "Was there a particr reason you chose the name N?"


    "Like I said, I was thest one left." A sigh escaped him, causing his beard to quiver. "I used to be just a regr person. Or at least, that’s how I saw myself. My parents were Ns, but I never thought of myself as having any special connection to their bloodline."


    But when the Void descended and wiped out the people of his city, one of his surviving rtives said this:


    <em>“Hey. We might be thest remaining Ns on Earth. If we die, who will know that we ever existed?”</em>


    The man took another swig of liquor.


    "That was my uncle. He was always a bit entric. He worked at a bank, but he also ran a small reindeer farm and always wore traditional N clothing... Oh, did you see the reindeer outside? They originally belonged to him."


    "I see."


    "He was always serious about preserving native culture, but after the world went to hell, he became even more obsessed with tradition. It was kind of ironic—he didn’t even speak N as well as I did."


    Amusingly, both the man in front of me and his uncle were ordinary city dwellers. Their attempt to live like nomads after all this time was inevitably bumbling.


    "And your uncle...?"


    "He died two years ago. One of the reindeer he raised turned into a monster. It grew to nearly 10 meters in size, with massive antlers that were absolutely majestic." The man’s mouth opened slightly, his gaze distant as he recalled the memory. "Those antlers were magnificent. My uncle was skewered by one of them."


    "What happened to the reindeer?"


    "I don’t know. I couldn’t defeat it. I just hid until it wandered off into the snow. Then I rushed over to my uncle, but he was already dead."


    "My condolences."


    "Don’t be. He was killed by the animal he loved so much—it’s almost a good death. He was a troublesome guy."


    N set the bottle down.


    "That’s why I’m clumsily trying to preserve the N traditions. Raising reindeer. Living in a tent..."


    "I think it’s admirable."


    "Not really. I’m not proud of my bloodline. But like my uncle said, if I die, the Ns will be extinct. No one will be left to speak ournguage..."


    "......"


    "It’s just something I’m doing."


    We spent the rest of the night warming the air near the stove with our breath, drinking liquor, nibbling on biscuits, and munching on cheap chocte.


    The next day, after only a few hours of sleep, N guided me to another location.


    "Sorry to have kept you in the cold all night. Follow me."


    I instinctively sensed that N was finally inviting me to his real home, not just a temporary shelter.


    The city once known as the Red City had turnedpletely white. Even the tops of four- and five-story concrete buildings were mostly buried in snow.


    "Looks like the White Army won the second civil war."


    "Hm? Ha! Undertaker, your Russian is good, and you know my people well."


    N seemed pleased with my dark humor.


    The ce he led me to was the regional hospital. It used to be a five-story building, but now only the top floor remained above the snow.


    N climbed adder to the roof of the hospital. A few corpses were frozen there, their foreheads pierced by crossbow bolts, but he paid them no mind.


    "Take a look at this," he said, pointing to a structure in the corner of the roof. It looked like a chimney, or maybe a small lighthouse, constantly emitting smoke.


    It was the source of the “smoke pir” I had spotted 1,000 kilometers away.


    "This is the ‘long-distancemunication method’ I discovered."


    "It’s... a beacon?"


    "That’s right."


    A beacon. An ancient long-distancemunication method used by humans for centuries. Though criticized during the Imjin War for its limitations, it had always been useful. Most modern people probably recognized it from the movie <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>.


    The earliest recorded use of beacons in literature dates back to 458 BCE, in the prologue of <em>Agamemnon </em>by Aeschylus. In the y, the guards spot a beacon and raise an rm. The scene likely served as inspiration for the <em>LOTR</em> beacon sequence.


    In any case―


    "Do you mean to say that this primitive method can work for long-distancemunication? Wouldn’t the Void distort perception across thend?"


    "Void? You mean that hell where monsters roam?"


    "Exactly."


    "Don’t worry. The beacon I’ve lit crosses over that hell without issue. You saw the smoke pir from a great distance away, didn’t you?"


    I had.


    "It may look like fire, but it’s something else." N tossed firewood into the furnace beneath the brick structure. "Take a look inside. You can see the firewood is still intact, can’t you?"


    "Oh."


    "You need to add firewood to make the me rise, but it doesn’t actually burn the wood. Just the act of adding wood is enough to light the fire."


    "Even if it snows or rains?"


    "It still burns just fine."


    My eyes widened. "Wait. I saw the smoke pir from 1,000 kilometers away. Does that mean that no matter the weather, this beacon can be seen from 1,000 kilometers away?"


    "Hm. That’s right. Though I’m not sure of the exact distance, it’s visible from very far away."


    This was incredible!


    I excitedly circled the beacon. It looked like an ordinary brick structure, nothing remarkable at first nce. "This is fascinating—truly fascinating, N. What are the specific conditions for your ability to work?"


    "First, you need to build a proper beacon. I experimented with torches, but you can’t carry the fire while moving. It has to be a stationary structure that anyone would recognize as a beacon. You could stack firewood, but the effect would be weaker."


    "Is that all?"


    N shook his head. "No, here’s the crucial part. Just lighting an ordinary fire won’t work. The beacon me muste from a fire I’ve lit. Only then does this strange, magical fire appear."


    I quickly pieced it together. "So if I were to take a me from this beacon and use it to light a fire elsewhere..."


    "Another pir of smoke would rise, just like this one. As long as you build the beacon properly."


    "Ah."


    I immediately put it to the test. I left Naryan-Mar, built a makeshift beacon, and transferred a me from N’s beacon using a torch.


    <em>Whoosh...</em>


    After adding firewood to the furnace and lighting the me, it didn’t take long for the fire to bloom like a flower. Soon, smoke was rising through the chimney.


    "Oh!"


    The smoke shot straight up, rising into the sky as if there were no wind at all, stretching endlessly upward like a space elevator.


    ‘...This might be a small revolution for my regressor project.’


    A simple ability.


    ‘Light a beacon, and it will be visible from afar.’


    It didn’t directly aid in survival or enhancebat capabilities.


    But this ability carried potential. I felt the same excitement I had when I first discovered Seo Gyu’s Ubiquitous.


    ‘If I could build beacons like this every 1,000 kilometers across the world...’


    We wouldn’t be able to exchange detailed information like we did on themunity.


    ‘But at the very least, we’d know instantly which regions are in danger.’


    I stayed with N for a few more days, testing the beacons. Just as he had promised, the beacons remained lit even in blizzards.


    It was an extraordinary discovery.


    "N, I think Sacred Fire would be a fitting name for this ability."


    "Sacred Fire? Like the Olympic me?"


    "Exactly."


    Legend has it that in ancient Greece, the fire from the temple at Delphi was carried to other city-states.


    To the Greeks, Delphi was the center of the world. The fire, which originated from the heart of the earth, was passed from city to city and eventually found its way into the hearths of ordinary citizens’ homes. Thus, the fire in each household was linked to every other household, and as the world breathed, so too did the fire in the heart of the earth.


    The world was made of fire. Sacred Fire was, in essence, the reality of Ubiquitous—‘existing everywhere at once’.


    "That name seems a bit grandiose..."


    "Not at all. N, I will carry your me and spread it across the world."


    N scratched his cheek. He hadn’t expected me to be this enthusiastic.


    "Well, if you say so. Make good use of it."


    There’s a short epilogue.


    When it was time for us to part, I asked N, "Would you consider moving to Busan?"


    "Busan?"


    "Yes. I wouldn’t call it a great ce to live, but it functions well enough as a city."


    N pondered for a moment. "No, I think I’ll stay. I don’t want to leave my homnd at this point."


    "I understand."


    "I don’t have much attachment to life. Posting that message on SG Net was more for fun. Meeting someone like you at the end feels like a blessing."


    N stroked the neck of a nearby reindeer.


    "I can’t abandon the reindeer my uncle left behind... If you’re really grateful, why don’t you teach me some of that Aura or whatever?"


    "Sure. I’ll give you a crash course."


    In the end, N chose to live out his days in the White City.


    During my 669th cycle, I was extremely busy traveling the world, testing the effectiveness of the Sacred Fire. Perhaps someday I’ll get a chance to talk about the global beacon-building project.


    After several years, when all the work was done, I returned to Naryan-Mar with a bottle of the finest liquor.


    "N?"


    But N was nowhere to be found.


    He wasn’t in the tent where he had served me biscuits and chocte, nor was he at his hideout on the hospital roof.


    Only the ever-burning beacon remained.


    I eventually found N’s body far away in the snow.


    Thest N had died, impaled by the antlers of a reindeer that had grown to 15 meters in size. It was a mutual kill.


    "......"


    The reindeer had grown so enormous that neither N’s body nor the reindeer’s corpse was fully submerged in the snow.


    As I buried the man who had clung to the traditions of his ancestors, even though they were no longer relevant, I had a thought:


    It’s said that people begin to reflect on their past as death approaches. If so, might something simr happen when an entire race faces extinction?


    Perhaps the fires and smoke rising gently across the world were N’s final legacy.


    Footnotes:


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