Origin (31)

Space psychosis. It was a term coined after humanity left its cradle, Earth, and ventured into space. The word 'psychosis' itself had existed for a long time, but it was the first time 'space' was attached to it.

Originally, it referred to the homesickness subconsciously caused by a desire to return to Earth. Now, however, it had come to mean the delirium experienced by those exposed to the waves of blue crystal ore.

It wasn't just one symptom of confusion that was called space psychosis; the term encompassed all the negative effects the waves caused.

Don't stay too long in the dark, avoid being alone whenever possible, space psychosis begins with loneliness and solitude, and so on.

These were the phrases that played incessantly from the speaker attached to the supervisor's booth at the entrance to the tunnel, and I had grown so sick of hearing them.

As the pureblood supremacists on patrol said, people who endured for years at a time here in Titan, the blue crystal deposit, were rare—at least among the miners.

I had worked as a blue crystal miner for three years, and Nadia for two. Except for us, I couldn't recall anyone else who had worked as a miner for more than two years.

I'd occasionally seen some who lasted about a year. They always looked dangerous, so I'd never engaged in conversation with them.

Whenever we had even a moment, we would refresh ourselves to stabilize our bodies and minds from exposure to the waves, but since no one else had endured as long as us, I couldn't say for sure if refresh held any real effect.

I'd thought, until recently, that refresh was a cure-all. Even when my mind wavered, as long as I took a moment to clear my head, I would feel better soon enough.

But hadn't one of the pureblood supremacists said that performing refresh was meaningless in itself? I was a bit taken aback when I heard that it might only be a placebo effect.

'... Did they say I was already mad?'

It hadn't even been Carrot or Licorice who'd said it, but the pureblood supremacist, whom I'd love nothing more than to tear to pieces. Until just a while ago, I'd wanted to yell at them to stop talking nonsense.

But now that I thought it over, maybe there was some truth in those words. When someone shouted, 'You're insane!'

I couldn't deny it outright.

Subtle distortions like that are things you can't notice in yourself; you only realize them through the eyes of a third party.

After all, things abandoned in the back alleys of Titan's residential area couldn't possibly have a normal way of thinking. That thought crossed my mind, right as I acknowledged that I myself was probably off somehow.

I was abandoned in the back alleys with no memory of my past, and Nadia with a gaping hole in her chest. In my case, I didn't have any missing limbs, so it was manageable, but Nadia's condition had been dire.

If I hadn't tried to save her right then, she would have surely died.

I didn't know what Nadia had done in her past. But I knew at least this: to outsiders, Titan was called the prison of the abyss, an endless treadmill, or the graveyard of the living.

Once you ended up here, unless you had some special skill, there was no way to make a living except as a miner. After just a few mining shifts, you'd be lucky if your mind survived intact.

No matter how much someone wanted to get out of Titan, no matter how loudly they screamed that they had been dragged here by force and didn't want to stay, it was meaningless. There was no one to listen, and almost half of us were in the same situation. The other half were just social outcasts.

And yet, rebellion or riots were unthinkable because of the security robots constantly roaming the streets.

Unless people were from high-ranking families, or came here by their own choice, everyone had a story—family killed, suffocating debt, working to pay medical bills—that sort of thing was just ordinary and trivial.

If you'd been dumped here for a criminal record as serious as murder, it means you had an even more significant past. Being killed might have been kinder.

'We're the ones abandoned in this place.'

When I entered Production Sector 1, I glanced at Nadia while walking between the inactive production lines. Nadia moved cautiously, checking the detector frequently.

She even paid attention to the distance between Carry and Celestia from time to time. Every action was so considerate. On the surface, she seemed perfectly normal. No—she simply was normal.

But after spending so much time with Nadia, I knew she wasn't completely normal inside.

Everyone has a trigger—something that pulls at an exposed nerve, whether you're truly mad or not. For Celestia, it was the keyword 'brother'. For Nadia, it was the word 'injury'.

She hardly cared if she was injured, but if I got even a little hurt, she became extremely anxious.

Like that time when my forearm was pierced by a black spike shot by the monster Tram;or when I was fighting a group of ghouls, bleeding from several scratches;when Carrot asked if he could draw my blood;or when, after a desperate struggle with Blue Eye, I was left seriously wounded.

Her response was always the same. Nadia would lose her composure, suffer from severe anxiety, and react so sharply that she would cut off all further conversation, as if she wouldn't listen to anything I said.

It was as if a different person emerged. That moment when Nadia, who had acted as if she might die at any second, recovered from her mutism and called my name for the first time—that had never changed since.

Honestly, Nadia knew it wasn't my fault, that I couldn't help getting hurt in those situations, and that she should be thankful I survived.

She understood perfectly well that she always overreacted with those anxieties every time I was injured.

That's why Nadia always came to find me later and apologized, shivering with anxiety, unable to focus her gaze, still far from calm.

Unless I told her I was all right, Nadia would remain unsettled even as days passed. All I could do each time was gently pat her back and reassure her not to worry.

At first, I thought maybe she was just too dependent on me. There was a time when I really believed that. But as we spent more time together, I realized Nadia's severe anxiety was tied to her past.

Nadia was trapped in her past rather than in me. She saw me, but through me, she projected her past.

I hated seeing Nadia like that. I hated that behind her bright, strong behavior lay a past I didn't know about. I hated not knowing that past, and I hated the forced smile she put on as if everything was okay.

I felt sorry, but what I felt most was a sense of helplessness.

Maybe that's why I disliked it so much. Because I'd only received help from Nadia and had never truly helped her in return. Because I had accidentally become the person who triggered her trauma, making it worse.

That's why I always felt sorry. I regretted not forcing her to get off the satellite earlier—maybe that would have helped her.

Blue crystal ore intensified trauma. I hated to admit it, especially since it was something the pureblood supremacist had said, but it was true. What was so good about this place that we had stayed so long?

'... Someday.'

Someday, I hoped Nadia would tell her story herself, so I'd chosen to wait in silence. But now, after all this time, I realized maybe that wasn't the right kind of waiting.

It wasn't empathy—it was indifference. Waiting passively for her to come to me, for some decisive moment, instead of taking the initiative myself.

'After we finish this job...'

I made up my mind.

Nadia, let's return to being normal together...!

I did my best to shake off the complicated thoughts jamming up my mind and focus on the situation. Right now, we were standing at the passage leading from Production Sector 1 to Sector 2.

Inside the facility, aside from the dull, booming sound of our footsteps, there was no other noise. That echo in the cavern only served to agitate our nerves even more.

The detectors showed nothing moving beyond the thick wall separating the sectors.

Nadia muttered softly.

"... No patrols inside? But there are traces..."

"It could be because it's shift change and they're not visible. They did mention something like that earlier."

There were inevitably gaps when external and internal personnel rotated. Especially if there weren't enough people to cover every blind spot.

The facility itself was enormous, so the gap could be much bigger than we'd imagined. Celestia nodded at my words.

"Then, we should use this gap to move as far as we can."

"Let's not get greedy. We don't know the exact timing of the shift."

At Nadia's words, Carry waved its auxiliary arm, as if to say not to worry. That arm had a flamethrower attached to it. It gave the impression that Carry was all too ready to roast any pureblood supremacist who appeared.

Unfortunately, if Carry actually had to use that flamethrower, it wasn't time to fight—it was time to run, and fast, before bullets rained down on us.

If we had no choice but to fight, we'd have to target their guns. Ammo was a limited resource, but nothing else we had could match their firepower at range right now.

Just as with the previous gate, there was a control terminal installed at the Production Sector 2 gate. Celestia reached out and pressed Myosotis's seal onto the terminal that required authorization.

With a beep, several layers of procedure were instantly skipped, and the gate began to open, slowly.

The sudden rattling sound startled us, and we tensed up. Then, seeing the scene within Sector 2 that spread out before us, we held our breath.

Unlike the relatively intact Sector 1, the destruction here was on another level. Security robots were here and there—more precisely, their parts were scattered everywhere.

From the ruined ceiling, long wires dangled with robot limbs attached at the ends—so grotesque it felt as if we'd stumbled upon a horrific, sacrificial cult ritual.

"This place really is a total mess."

"Why is it only like this here? Sector 1 wasn't this bad."

"It looks like they were herded."

I followed the trail of robot debris with my eyes. Whatever force it was, it left streaks on the floor from shoving the robots.

The materials that made up the facility were extremely durable—they were built to last.

So the fact that these scratches were left behind meant the security robots had tried hard to resist—enough to risk twisting their frames.

I approached the closest piece of debris among the wreckage and brushed it with my hand. Had there been an internal explosion caused by a core overload?

But the cut surface was odd. There was no scorching, and the surface was rough and pitted, as though it had been picked at by something minute and many.

"Herded?"

"Just guessing. Look at the robots on the far left and far right—they're all facing the same direction. The marks on the floor are uniform, too."

Just then, as I started to reply, two pureblood supremacists appeared around the corner, presumably after a shift change. We quickly hid behind the production line. Most devices here were bigger than us, making them perfect cover.

This patrol was rather silent. Not a single word passed between them. Judging by the particles on their suits, they'd been outside—though those were already melting away.

'Just switched shifts. No way to get through unless we deal with them. No other teams nearby.'

Quickly assessing the situation, I traced a finger across my neck to signal Celestia to shoot. Anyone we ran into here needed to be killed, otherwise we couldn't pass safely. There was no point in leaving them merely unconscious.

Celestia nodded and drew her smart pistol. As she aimed, the integrated system activated, realigning the aim.

With a pew-pew sound, the two burly men stiffened and collapsed. The sound was barely audible.

Nadia and I approached with plasma cutters. Their bodies were paralyzed, but if they still had consciousness, their eyes were wildly shaking as they saw us. Definitely not the ones we had encountered at the entrance.

I leaned in and whispered softly.

"You're not going to tell us anything, or claim you're not real pureblood supremacists, are you."

"...!"

"Honestly, just thinking about what you've done makes me want to kill you on the spot."

How many people have died because of the terror these pureblood supremacists unleashed? It wasn't some saintly rage—it was the kind of anger any human would feel.

They ruined all my future plans. I'd nearly died to ghouls multiple times. Not to mention Blue Eye. Thinking about it all made me tremble with fury.

I swung the plasma cutter without hesitation. The high heat left no splash of blood. Chunks of flesh flew as the pureblood supremacists' lives flickered out.

Disgusting bastards. Not a word, even at the very end.

"What, treating us like we're the mad ones? Who are the real psychopaths here?"

As I forced myself to shake off the tingling in my fingers and muttered, Nadia whispered to me in a small, uneasy voice.

"Hyun-woo, even if you talk to them, they can't hear it. We're on a closed comm loop, remember?"

"... Ah. Y-yeah, I know."

But the truth is, I didn't. I just wanted to shout abuse at them before they died—but as it turned out, we were the only ones who heard it.

Suddenly, I felt embarrassed.

I suppose we really are the mad ones after all.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=Acceptance is one of the processes of healing.【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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