The Nebula's Civilization

The star catcher blinked.

“Oh my.”

He thought he would be forever sleepy, but when he opened his eyes, he felt refreshed. Lying down, his arms, legs, and tail moved as he wished. He never thought that the pain in his joints would ever go away, even in a dream.

“...So it doesn’t seem like a dream.”

The star catcher sat up. Immediately, he was presented with an astonishing view.

“Huh…”

It was a green grassland. A gentle wind swept past, and the star catcher felt the humid but cool air on his nose. He thought his nose felt cold at first, but soon felt the warmth of the sun on his face. All was good.

The star catcher easily remembered the last conversation he had with Lakrak. The conversation seemed like it had been a dream, but at the same time so very real and vivid.

“Lakrak, you were right. This is the prairie we imagined… But there’s no stars, or houses made of stone.”

One couldn’t always get what they wished for. There was a chance that houses wouldn’t be needed at this place.

The star catcher wasn’t alone. There were other Lizardmen lying on the grass here and there, facing the sky with their eyes closed.

“Have they not woken up yet?”

The star catcher wandered around wondering whether he should wake the other Lizardmen or not. The Lizardmen looked like they were having a good sleep, so waking them up seemed rude. Among the other Lizardmen, the star catcher saw some familiar faces.

‘Oh, this kid…’

It was one of the warriors.

Once, the Black-Scaled Lizardmen had been attacked by a Goblin tribe four times bigger than Lakrak’s Clan. Two groups of Goblins cut off the formation of Lakrak’s Clan in two parts. Lakrak, who was in the front, and Yur, who was in the back, both got their men back into formation and began to fight back. However, the children and elderly that were in the middle of the Lizardmen group were in no place to do the same.

‘...Some of the warriors would go against the chief’s orders if they thought it was necessary.’

A small number of warriors made sure the formations wouldn’t be broken without them, apologized to their fellow warriors, and charged at the dozens of Goblins. Be it Goblins or Black-Scaled Lizardmen, everyone knew that their life was on the line. And through those heroic sacrifices that no one had wished for, the Lizardmen were able to defeat the Goblin tribe. Some of the Lizardmen survived their heroic act, and some didn’t.

The Lizardman warrior in front of the star catcher was one of those that hadn’t survived. Lakrak had gotten mad and yelled at those who survived and even at those who died at their funerals. He even yelled at the star catcher.

‘It’s all because of arithmetics. Didn’t you teach the warriors arithmetics?’

‘Did you just say it was because of arithmetics?’

‘Yes. All the ones who were smart and good at arithmetics went against my orders and charged at the Goblins. They were so stupid!’

‘Why is that because of arithmetics?’

‘Sacrificing one life saves two. They thought this was a good exchange,’ replied Lakrak.

‘...Oh.’

‘But the elders and the children can’t protect others. The warriors can.’

‘So…do you think that the warriors were wrong to run into the Goblins?’

Lakrak was silent for a while and replied, ‘No.’

‘Then why are you angry?’

‘That is why I am angry. Because they weren’t wrong. There’s nothing else I can do than be angry.’

However, what annoyed Lakrak the most was what happened after that. Someone seemed to have overheard the conversation between Lakrak and the star catcher, and all the other warriors who initially didn’t care about arithmetics went to the star catcher to learn afterwards. Since then, the warriors who were good at calculations always died first when there was a fight. And then others would go to the star catcher to learn how to do calculations. The star catcher taught them secretly, being careful not to annoy Lakrak even more.

The warrior sound asleep in front of the star catcher was the one who led many other warriors of the clan to learn calculations. Happy to see the warrior, the star catcher put his hand on the warrior's shoulder, but pulled back without shaking the warrior awake.

‘Yeah. Let’s wake him up later, after he’s had a good sleep. It doesn’t seem like there's anything to do in this place anyways.’

The star catcher assumed that he woke up quicker than the others because he had died recently, and that the others hadn’t escaped the lingering effects of death yet.

“Anyhow…is God not here?”

The star catcher spoke out loud, but his voice simply disappeared into the green field.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask…”

The star catcher trailed off. He wasn’t as bold as Lakrak and the other warriors, and he was a bit shy, thinking that God might be listening. Even when Lakrak pointed out that the star catcher was one of the chosen ones, he didn’t know what to do.

‘Why us?’

The star catcher couldn’t quite understand.

‘Why did the Blue Insect God save us, protect us, and help us with Miracles? Yur said it was because Lizardmen were better than the other species. But is that really true? The other species seemed to lose either because they didn’t have a god, or their gods weren’t as powerful as ours.’

The star catcher slowly descended into a dilemma.

‘Owen said it was because God is good. But what makes us better than the other species? Are the other species not as kind-hearted as we are?’

It seemed to be getting hot after being under the sun for a while, but there was a shade within a forest not too far away in the field. This place really had everything.

‘Zaol said God chose the Lizardmen because we would be useful. Then would it be right for us to rely on God? What if we were no longer useful one day?’

The star catcher thought that Lakrak’s answer was the best out of all the others. Even if it wasn’t the right answer, Lakrak always suggested answers that the star catcher liked.

‘Lakrak said it could have been a coincidence. That maybe there was no other choice, just like how we couldn’t be with better species on a better land. Maybe God did all that he could.’

In a way, it could sound disrespectful, but the star catcher thought it was okay.

‘Because it means we were the best outcome.’

The star catcher’s body slowly cooled down once he got under the shade. He leaned back against a tree and began to hum because he was in a good mood. It was the tune everyone sang after the Black-Scaled Lizardmen defeated the Frogmen and the villages were restored. It had a good rhythm, so everyone liked it, but the star catcher always hummed it because he wasn’t so good at singing. He was even shy about humming it as well, so he only did it when there was no one around.

Then he heard a rustling. The star catcher blushed and turned around. 𝒷𝓮𝒹𝓃ℴ𝓿𝓮𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂

“Who…who’s there?”

As the star catcher turned around, he saw a Lizardman tail sticking out from between the trees. Without giving an answer, the tail swayed back and forth before disappearing.

“So there was someone else who was awake! Who are you? Are you someone I know?”

The star catcher walked into the forest when there was no reply. And soon enough, he saw the tail again between the trees in the distance.

“Hey.”

The tail disappeared as the star catcher called out. The star catcher began to walk faster, thinking he might lose the Lizardman. Walking fast felt awkward as it was something he hadn’t been able to do until now. Then the star catcher broke into a jog and was soon running after the Lizardman, whose tail kept appearing and disappearing among the trees.

“Hey you!”

The star catcher remembered that he used to enjoy running like this when he was younger. When he was a child, he used to run with a friend that he couldn’t recall the face or name of anymore.

“Stop! Where are you going!”

The star catcher didn’t feel all that bad while calling after the Lizardman. The tail was leading him somewhere. Once he passed through some bushes, a small clearing appeared.

There was a stone building. One the star catcher had never seen before. The building was cylindrical, made of rectangular stones, and had a domed ceiling. The tail swayed back and forth at the entrance of the building and suddenly disappeared as if it had gotten sucked inside.

“They won’t be able to run away as long as they’re in there.”

The star catcher, whose body was hot from all the running, entered the building. There was a blue light at the end of the dark corridor. The light was familiar to the star catcher.

‘This light…’

The star catcher walked through the corridor and came face to face with a night sky. Projected to the ceiling was the same night sky of the world that he was familiar with. The stars weren’t drawn, but actual stars that shone on their own, and the depth of the dark sky was no different than the real one.

“Well…you were right, Lakrak. The stone house, and now the stars.”

The star catcher looked around to find the owner of the tail he had been chasing, but the building was empty.

“Huh, what’s going on here…”

However, the star catcher’s attention was already on the night sky and not the tail. He scanned from one end to the other and realized that the sky was even moving the way he had remembered.

“God moved the night sky exactly as it did.”

That wasn’t the end of it. In the middle of the room, there was a strange mechanical device that looked like it would be found in an Ancient Ruin. It was a long cylinder made with brass, and there was a round crystal glass embedded on both ends of the cylinder. It was set up on a platform with a chair to sit on, silently inviting one to look into the strange device.

For a moment, the star catcher simply stood there, wondering if it would be okay for him to touch the device. He decided it would be fine since there was no one around. After touching different parts of the device, he put his eye to the bottom crystal glass.

“Oh my, how could this be?”

The star catcher repeatedly moved away from the crystal glass to look at the night sky with his naked eyes and looked back into the glass again. He loosened and tightened the handle on the cylindrical shaped device.

“Is this what the stars truly looked like? So it is. This was what they looked like. That star would go that way, and this star would go this way… My calculations were right. But I should check again… And what is that?”

The star catcher continuously looked at the mechanical device without becoming bored of it when suddenly, a thought came to mind.

‘It would be amazing if I could pass this knowledge on to those still alive.’

In the star catcher’s opinion, knowledge about the stars was one of the ways to do calculations, and if one knew how to do calculations, they could figure out the size and location of everything in the world, which would allow them to predict what would happen in the future. But as far as the star catcher could remember, there had never been a time where someone from the dead had returned.

‘Then…if you can’t go back once you’re dead, why did God make a place like this? Just to see an old Lizardmen be happy?’

The star catcher knew that couldn’t be the case. He stroked the mechanical device.

‘God always does his best. He doesn’t do anything for no reason. This knowledge will certainly become useful in the future.’

The God that the star catcher wanted to meet all this time was right behind him.

‘You followed me well, star catcher.’

The star catcher's assumptions were right. Eventually, Afterlife would affect the view of life after death and the values of those who believed in God. If warriors went to an Afterlife, the species of the warriors would dream of Valhalla, and if immortals with special powers entered the Afterlife, their species would dream of a beautiful and peaceful place.

‘Then what if a scholar enters the Afterlife?’

The Afterlife would sometimes change and produce unintended results due to attacks from other players. But so far, the Afterlife Sung-Woon created was off to a perfect start.

Sung-Woon gave the star catcher’s back a final look before stepping down from the platform and exiting the first observatory.

The star catcher got lost in his thoughts.

‘I should wake all the other Lizardmen up and teach them how to look at the stars and do calculations. Lizardmen that have more knowledge and are smarter than I am might come to the Afterlife later. We’ll have to be taught by them too. But before that… Just a bit more…’

The star catcher then put his eye to the round glass again. The night sky was captured in the eye of the first astronomer.

***

Owen asked one of the Lizardmen passing by who it was that had died, and soon the answer was given to him.

“The star catcher has died.”

Then Hwee said, “I’ve heard about him before. I don’t think today is a good day, so I’ll just…”

Owen shook his head and replied, “It’s okay. We don’t think it’s bad for a traveler to come when we have funerals. We actually believe it's good luck.”

“How come?”

“It’s good to have one more person to share sadness with, isn’t it? We’ll talk about the star catcher all night today. Once the sun rises tomorrow, you’ll understand our sadness, so just come along.”

Hwee pondered for a moment and nodded.

Owen and Hwee passed through the tents and walked to the place where the funeral took place. All the Black-Scaled Lizardmen recognized Owen, so the two of them were able to get to the funeral without any problems. After seeing all the Lizardmen through the tents, Hwee saw a dead body wrapped in white silk laid on top of a platform. And in front of the body was a Lizardmen with a good physique and buffalo horns on his head. The Lizardman wasn’t wearing anything overly decorative or of a unique color, but it could be discerned from how the other Lizardmen treated him that he was someone of high stature.

Hwee guessed correctly.

“Is that Lakrak, the chief?” asked Hwee.

“Yes.”

“Hm, is it okay for a tribal chief…to shed tears?”

At those words, Owen’s eyes became large and round as if he couldn’t understand what Hwee meant.

“Are Humans not like that? You don’t cry when you’re sad?”

1. The original referred to Peach Blossom Spring ???, the fabled utopia where people lead an ideal life.