Chapter 242 - GUARDIANS OF THE HOLY CROSS (2)

Jude rarely had dreams.

In particular, the frequency of his dreams that was already low decreased even further when his sleeping time was extremely shortened after his metamorphosis.

But that didn’t mean that he never had dreams at all.

It was just extremely rare. However, Jude’s intuition was telling him something now.

That he was currently dreaming.

“As I thought.”

It wasn’t a lucid dream.

Even if he was Jude, it was impossible to be completely rational in a dream, and even if it was possible, the laws of the world itself changed in dreams.

In the world of dreams, one would think, ‘Oh, this is how it should be. This is natural.’, even if they saw pigs flying in the sky or cats dancing.

Jude looked around.

He was in the room of Outboxer009 – Kang Jin-ho.

His past life.

His life before he reincarnated and lived in Pleiades for 17 years.

His room was very spacious.

The room was big in the first place, but it felt even more spacious because there was little furniture in the room.

One bed, one desk, one bookshelf, and one chest of drawers.

Jude looked at the top of the chest of drawers.

There were a lot of pictures displayed on top that Cordelia would be surprised if she saw it.

Jude glanced at the picture on the far left.

Around 20 years ago.

There stood a rather good-looking child with fierce eyes among a group of rough-looking foreigners.

In fact, Jude wasn’t fond of this picture.

Because the people around him weren’t decent colleagues.

They were just humans who only thought of themselves and were willing to abandon Jude after using him.

There was no special reason on why they took a picture together. It was just one of their whims.

Jude saw the picture right next to it.

The little boy with fierce eyes grew up.

In the picture, all of them were foreigners except for the boy, but unlike before, there were several children in the same age group as him.

Jude continued to look at the photos.

The boy grew up and became a young man.

And in the last picture was a young man getting drunk and doing things drunk people do.

“My day of retirement.”

Around 5 years ago before he reincarnated.

Jude did not like to tell his past to other people.

It wasn’t that he denied it or that there weren’t any good things that happened to him at that time. Rather, he just didn’t want to talk about it.

Because even people in the same industry as him, often did not believe in his story.

“Because I was too young.”

To have gone through such things.

Jude laughed at the picture 5 years ago were he was dancing half-naked.

If Jude had been born in South Korea and not in a foreign country, he would have lived a normal life then, and that photo of himself dancing half-naked would not be from a retirement party but something different like a university end-of-semester party or membership training… ?Or a company outing with his work colleagues if he didn’t went to university.

‘Now that I think of it, I haven’t taken a single picture ever since I retired.’

Jude stroked his chin before turning his gaze towards the bookshelf.

Books related to Legend of Heroes were placed there.

It was rare for game strategy books to receive paperback editions these days, so most of the books were old ones.

‘When Legend of Heroes 2 was first released, several strategy books were published in paperback editions.’

Therefore, it was possible for him to find strategy books at used bookstores even though he had started playing Legend of Heroes 2 late.

‘Of course, even at the time of the game’s first release, paperback editions were becoming obsolete.’

So most of the books related to Legend of Heroes on his bookshelf were books dealing with the early days of the first and second episodes of the game series.

Jude stretched out his hand towards the books.

He pulled out a book, turned it around, and then looked at his desk.

Just like his entire room, his desk was also simple-looking.

Three large monitors, one pull-out tissue, a blue keyboard and a gaming mouse.

And a VR device with its exclusive controller that he only used for battles.

Jude did not sit like Cordelia.

Instead of turning on the computer, he looked at the strategy book again.

And he thought.

Since this was a dream, he naturally thought of things that he didn’t try to remember in reality.

“It’s strange.”

He wasn’t talking about reincarnating into the world of Legend of Heroes 2.

Because even if he denied the theory of reincarnation, there was one impossible fact that existed in the game.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. It’s too detailed.”

Jude spoke out loud and turned over the strategy book again.

He had been studying Legend of Heroes to the point of obsession, just because of his desire to crush Yellow Storm.

That was why he was able to affirm.

“It’s strange.”

Legend of Heroes was too detailed.

Ancient dwarf letters.

The language of the high elves.

Magic circles that were so complex that one would suspect that they were real magic circles.

Of course, Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, created several languages for his novels, so there was no rule that the game developers of Legend of Heroes should not do something similar, but even so, there was still a sense of incongruity.

“But there’s something even stranger.”

Jude spoke once again with his voice.

As if he was talking to himself.

“I lost my memory.”

He was reincarnated as Jude Bayer in Pleiades.

Then one day, at the age of 17, he remembered his memories of Kang Jin-ho, his previous life.

But there was something strange about this.

He wasn’t talking about the fact that his past life memories returned after his reincarnation.

“I can’t remember.”

After the monthly ranking announcement.

Right after he teased Cordelia, his memories stopped.

He no longer had any memories after that point.

The memories of Kang Jin-ho, which Jude remembered, were cut off at that point.

“Why?”

For what reason?

Everything in this world had its reason.

Therefore, there must be some reason on why his memories were cut off.

What is it?

Is it just a coincidence?

It’s impossible to completely remember your entire past life, so I can only think of parts of it, and it just so happens to be cut off at that point… is that it?

“Because in the theory of reincarnation, I cannot completely deny that possibility. But there are too many coincidences here for me to believe that.”

Cordelia also didn’t have any memories after that point.

So Jude came up with two hypotheses.

“One – it’s not necessary.”

They didn’t need their memories after that point.

All that they needed to remember was on how to prevent the upcoming destruction of Pleiades. They didn’t need any other memories besides that.

“Two – something happened to us at that point.”

Kang Jin-ho and Hong Yoo Hee might have died almost at the same time in an accident without even realizing that they had died.

Jude focused on the first hypothesis.

It was not necessary.

It was not needed.

Then, who was the one who judged the need?

In order for the first hypothesis to be proven, someone who judged that need was necessary.

Someone who reincarnated Kang Jin-ho and Hong Yoo Hee in Pleaides.

“Let’s stop here for now.”

Instead of digging deeper, Jude turned his consciousness to another question.

Either of the two hypotheses were strange, but if he was to consider on which one was stranger, Jude would choose the second one.

“It will eventually be resolved.”

Jude and Cordelia had memories of playing the entire Legend of Heroes series.

And this world basically followed the storyline of the Legend of Heroes series, which they had already confirmed several times.

The attempt of the Devil’s Hand to kidnap the children from the 12 northern families.

The Devil’s Eye who were corrupting the northern barbarians.

The Lord Protector who betrayed the royal family because of his destined fate.

And Black Dragon Malekith who would wake up in the near future and destroy the southern region.

Just what in the world is happening?

Does that mean that the Legend of Heroes series were actually prophecies?

If it wasn’t… If the Legend of Heroes series was not about the future events of Pleiades… If it was only a record of what had already happened…

“The past and the future are not connected.”

Because it was the result of reversing the flow of time.

It was impossible for time to flow in one direction only because he couldn’t ignore the involvement of another world too.

“Is it a time slip?”

In the process of crossing worlds, did we come to the past of Pleiades and not its present time?

“Assuming that the timeline of Kang Jin-ho and the timeline of Jude flowed parallel to each other.”

If we didn’t cross horizontally… If we crossed diagonally… and if we also went backwards in time…

Then perhaps it’s the reason on why we came to the past.

“My knowledge is still lacking.”

Cordelia might be disappointed to hear that, but JudeWiki didn’t really contain all the knowledge in the world.

Jude didn’t have much knowledge of the physics related to time.

So he didn’t dig deeper this time either.

Kang Jin-ho had spent most of his life on the battlefield, so he tended to focus on the situation in front of him.

And figuring out the big picture was not something he could do today, so he’d pass on it for now.

Jude returned the strategy book to the bookshelf.

And this time, he turned to the door instead of sitting down.

Because he felt the presence of someone beyond the door.

‘Who is it?’

This was Kang Jin-ho’s home.

Jude habitually pulled out a pistol hidden in a drawer and opened the door carefully.

There was no one in the living room that only had a large TV and a sofa, but he heard the sound of someone humming from the kitchen.

And Jude was stunned as he blinked his eyes.

“Cordelia?”

“Ramyeon~ Ramyeon~ Delicious ramyeon~ ”

Cordelia was cooking noodles as she wiggled her hips.

She even had an apron while she was cooking. Cordelia then turned to him and smiled.

“I told you that I can cook ramyeon very well, right?”

Now that I think of it, this is a dream.

This is a dream, so it’s not strange if Cordelia appears and cooks noodles.

Therefore, Jude sat down at the table and watched Cordelia cooked ramyeon.

When he saw Cordelia’s back as she stood in front of the induction stove, his heart pounded loudly without him realizing it.

“It’s done. But there’s something that you must do before eating ramyeon.”

Cordelia put down the chopsticks she had used while cooking the noodles, and turned around as she headed to Jude.

She touched Jude’s cheek and brought her face closer.

Then she whispered with a completely bewitching smile.

“Because this is a dirty dream.”

“Eh?”

“A dirty dream. Dir. ty. Dream.”

Cordelia lightly bit Jude’s ear and then let her hot breaths touch his ear.

Jude’s body trembled for a moment because his weakness had been attacked, and Cordelia kissed him on his cheek as if finding him cute, before she sat down on Jude’s thigh and smiled.

“Jude, the ramyeon will get soggy, right? You’ll make me soggy too, right?”

(T/N: Uh…this is a pun. A naughty pun. The Korean word used here can mean soggy when paired with noodles, but when used on a person, it can have a sexual meaning, like thrusting sounds, erection, etc. Fortunately, the pun works in English too, because ‘wet’ is a synonym of ‘soggy,’ right?)

Cordelia giggled and hugged Jude’s neck as she drew her face closer.

And that was it.

It did not continue any longer.

Because dreams were meant to be always cut off at the best part.

“F*ck.”

“Jude?”

“No, it’s nothing. I just remembered something.”

Jude awkwardly smiled at Cordelia who tilted her head, and he turned to reality again instead of trying to recall his dream.

Jude and Cordelia had arrived at St. Crute.

The trading city was bustling with people.

It was located between the southern and central regions, but because of the Forest of Eternity that was almost the size of a country, southerners had to choose one of two routes in order to get to the central region.

One was through Geppert, a trading city located in the west of the southern region, and the other was through the trading city of St. Crute, which was right in front of them now.

“Jude, Jude. What should we eat for lunch? Are we going to eat here?”

Cordelia was very excited to be in a busy city after a long time.

She was busy thinking about food that she wanted to eat.

“I want to eat something sweet. Something sweet. Something very sweet.”

Cordelia stomped her feet in her excitement as she imagined it, and she sniffed with her nose as if she was tracking the scent of food.

“That way!”

It smells sweet over there!

As expected of a beast.

A girl from the wild.

Unfortunately, Jude had no choice but to grab the hand of Cordelia who was about to run.

“Eh? You want to escort me?”

“No, that’s not it… I think that we should put it off for now.”

Cordelia blinked her eyes at Jude’s words, but it was only for a moment.

Because she noticed things that she couldn’t detect earlier due to being distracted by the sweets.

“What? Did you contact them in advance?”

“Yes, somehow.”

To be exact, it was when Cordelia was wandering around dreamland earlier in the day.

Jude sent a signal using the method he learned from the Guardians of the Holy Cross members whom he met near Frost Anvil.

A simple signal telling the other that they would be meeting them.

And the result of that was right in front of them.

“The Guardians of the Holy Cross welcomes Count August Bayer and Countess August Chase.”

Nine monks appeared and were dressed in black and white clothes that was symbolic of the Guardians of the Holy Cross.

The excited Cordelia drooped her shoulders when they showed up and greeted the two, and Jude tried to hold back his laughter before greeting back the Guardians of the Holy Cross people.

“Jude August Bayer greets the Guardians of the Holy Cross.”

“Cordelia August Chase greets the Guardians of the Holy Cross.”

Cordelia tried to hide her disappointment and greeted them politely, and the man at the front who had greeted them then said with a bright smile.

“I am Manuel from the Guardians of the Holy Cross. I am very glad to meet the two heroes of us Guardians. Please allow me to guide you to our base.”

It seemed like the other members in the back, and not just Manuel, were looking at the two in a very friendly manner.

“Thank you for your consideration.”

“Well, doing something like this is just natural, of course.”

Manuel brightly smiled again and began to guide the two without hiding his excitement.