CHAPTER 121: CHAPTER 121 - THE DRAGON’S REMAINS

Chapter 121 - The Dragon’s Remains

The dragon crashed to the ground with a tremendous roar.

"Hold on tight!"

KU-GU-GU-GUNG!!

After its desperate, wave-dodging acrobatic flight, Arman crashed onto solid ground the moment it passed through the portal.

Gripping Arman ’s mane tightly, Jhin finally managed to gather his senses once the violent shaking stopped.

Someone spoke.

"Did... did we make it out?"

He turned his head and scanned the area around them.

No more arrow storms falling from the sky. No more rogue scissors slicing the air.

No more black tides surging like tsunamis.

Only the collapsed cityscape remained.

They were on a road just outside BeyWorld.

Jhin looked over and saw a massive crater—like someone had punched a hole in the earth—where BeyWorld once stood.

And he knew instantly.

’We made it.’

Their gamble had paid off. They had escaped the system’s reset sequence.

And then, a flash of light shimmered above the crater. When Jhin opened his tightly shut eyes, BeyWorld stood there again—as if nothing had ever happened.

Rollback complete.

"...We’re alive!"

"WOOOOOO!!!"

Cheers broke out almost immediately.

People who had escaped death.

In that moment, there were no factions. No Company. No Ark. No enemies. Just survivors who had clawed their way back from the brink.

All that mattered was being alive.

But then someone shouted.

"W-Wait! What’s going on with this?!"

"Gasp...!"

The entire rear half of Arman ’s body was... gone.

Not "wounded" or "mutilated"—gone.

Hollowed out like someone had erased it with a pair of scissors. There wasn’t even blood at the cut.

How could this have happened?

The answer was obvious.

"Don’t tell me... the ones clinging to the tail..."

A shadow fell over the crowd’s expressions.

No one had to finish the sentence—everyone already understood.

Their eyes drifted toward the void left behind by Arman ’s severed body. It looked... like it had never been there in the first place.

Adonis stepped forward and spoke.

"Pull yourselves together. First things first—let’s regroup and recover."

That roused the others. They began checking themselves over.

Some had lost their weapons. Some were wounded. Others exhausted. A few opened their inventories to retrieve supplies.

People gathered in groups, sharing food, passing out water.

Watching them, Jhin swallowed hard.

Even after losing comrades just moments ago, they were already rebuilding.

And they looked used to it.

’Maybe this is just normal now.’

Since the world had been turned upside down by Exodia 2, how many people had been injured, lost, or killed?

Too many to count.

Yesterday’s survivors became today’s casualties. And tomorrow would be no different.

That was the reality of this world now.

People were living in a place where death had become routine.

’It’s a little sad, honestly.’

Perhaps it was the spiritual vision—his ability to see more than before—that made these thoughts linger longer than usual.

’The dead always leave behind souls.’

But the ones Jhin could see... were hollow.

Souls stripped of ego. Nothing more than fragmented memory.

’Just like Chance’s lingering thoughts.’

The soul’s form and behavior were dictated entirely by the memories left behind in life.

That’s why Pierrot had been so easy to manipulate—there had been no one at the wheel, just a hollow shell of memories.

And when even those memories faded, the soul vanished entirely—without leaving a trace.

’So what really happens when someone dies?’

There was no answer.

Do they move to an afterlife? Respawn at a save point like in a game?

All Jhin could say for sure was that... he didn’t know.

And not knowing meant there was no way to find out—no matter how hard he tried.

For all he knew, their data—like with a simple press of Backspace—had already been erased without fanfare.

"Alright then. We’ll be off now."

The Company wasted no time in saying goodbye. They didn’t even spare a moment to mourn their dead.

Even though their numbers had been halved since first contact, they quickly disappeared into the distance.

Not like Jhin could stop them anyway—they were bound by Oath.

He waved them off without complaint.

Next time they met, they’d be stabbing each other again anyway.

"Phew..."

Jhin looked back at the remaining survivors, shaking off the intrusive thoughts filling his mind.

Let’s settle this in our heads:

’The living must go on living. That’s all there is to it.’

As long as you have coins, you move forward.

If this were just a game, he would’ve moved on to the next stage without a second thought.

He’d have skipped this entire pointless melodrama, never even seen it.

[Skill: ’Composure (S)’ has been activated.]

Jhin’s gaze stopped in front of Arman ’s lifeless body—now left all alone.

There was no soul left to sense.

It had burned itself out to get them here... and drifted into the abyss beyond.

He quietly placed a hand on the dragon’s snout.

And then—something hit him.

"...Wait. This corpse—"

Arman ’s existence was... unique.

A dragon that wasn’t supposed to exist.

A form brought into being through the Goblin Orb and Pierrot’s power.

A monster formed by a soul imbued with the memory of fear.

Its durability and stats had been weak—barely level 100—but...

’Could this be useful?’

It was a dragon corpse, after all.

If the body retained any draconic traits, it could be huge.

He might even be able to forge dragon weapons from it.

Narrowing his eyes, Jhin focused on the material properties.

Corpse of Black Dragon Arman

As expected, the name was listed as "Black Dragon Arman "—but the item description was garbled. Severely corrupted, likely due to a bug.

He couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

And it probably wasn’t going to function properly either.

’So... is it useless?’

He hesitated.

’What if taking it with me triggers another Backspace...?’

But that was probably just paranoia.

It wasn’t the first time he’d encountered a bug.

Back then, it hadn’t been serious enough to isolate the space itself, and no scissors or arrows had shown up.

’In games, they don’t fix every little bug anyway.’

So maybe this corpse wouldn’t be included in the system’s cleanup. That was his guess, at least.

Jhin ran his eyes down Arman ’s body, estimating its condition.

Now came the second problem.

Would it even fit in his inventory?

He shook his head.