I Start with 13 Hidden Traits Chapter-352

Ch-352. **The Architect**

—

“I will tell you everything I know—no, everything *I* know,”
Hypnos said.

His eyes were shining like stars.

I tilted my head.

“Didn’t you already tell me everything?”

That the Demon of Greed was me.

Honestly, it had shocked me, but the more I listened, the more it somehow made sense.

But Hypnos shook his head.

“There is something the End must absolutely know.”

“What is it?”

“The Architect.”

“The Architect?”

“Please listen. And answer my questions. If we connect all the fragments, there will surely be a picture that completes itself. …This is a story that can only be told here, where no one can hear or know.”

Hypnos’s expression grew solemn.

The World Tree’s dungeon—once outside his domain, it would be as if someone might be listening.

He spoke with extreme caution, and I had no choice but to nod.

“Very well. Go on.”

“First, I will introduce myself.”

Soon, Hypnos began a tale—long if one chose to see it that way, short if one did not.

*

Hypnos.

He is the god who governs dreams.

An observer who watched all things.

For dreams represent everything about an existence.

What one likes, what one hates, what one wants to become, what one never wants to be—everything one thinks and imagines appears in dreams.

Thus, by observing dreams, one can know the being.

Of course, he sometimes played pranks—causing nightmares or reviving painful memories—but at his core, Hypnos enjoyed observing others.

‘Gods do not dream.’

That was why the Temple of the Hundred Gods was a dull place to him.

Gods do not dream.

Dreaming is a privilege granted only to mortals.

That is an absolute truth.

One of the rules established by Truth itself.

But at some point—

Hypnos’s gaze began to linger on the two goddesses.

‘Leah, Pina… the two goddesses dream.’

He could not see it clearly, but—

Hypnos *felt* that the two goddesses were dreaming.

Not a power like foresight that gazes into the distant future, but pure, untainted *dreams*.

‘An immortal dreaming… that should be impossible.’

Hypnos was curious.

So curious he felt he might go mad.

If the two goddesses truly dreamed—

‘Then I… could dream as well?’

It would mean that he, too, could dream.

That was when it began.

Hypnos observed the two goddesses, and his curiosity gradually turned into something like compassion.

But at the time, Hypnos did not know what that emotion was.

He only knew *who* the two goddesses were dreaming of.

‘The Demon of Greed. They dream of him.’

Why would gods dream of a demon?

When other goddesses spoke of “cuteness,” it was in the sense of treating a pet.

They never placed demons on the same level as themselves.

But Leah and Pina were different.

They regarded the Demon of Greed as their equal.

They gazed upon him with admiration and tender affection.

Why?

Why would you dream of a mere demon and look at him with such eyes?

‘I’ll give you a nightmare.’

Hypnos inflicted relentless nightmares upon the Demon of Greed.

Finding him was easy.

The demon looked up at the sky every single day, of his own accord.

If gods cannot dream, then demons, too, should not be able to look upon the heavens—that is the rule, the truth of the world.

Then why did that demon violate the world’s truth?

Day after day, without exception, Greed dreamed nightmares.

When nightmares persist, one normally goes insane.

A demon that feeds on emotions should never be able to endure them.

But—

Greed endured.

No, not only did he endure—

“You think nightmares can break me?”

“Show up in my dreams again and I’ll smash you!”

…He *overcame* the nightmares.

Fighting them desperately again and again, he ultimately triumphed—and attained enlightenment.

‘A demon attaining enlightenment?’

Madness.

There had been rare cases where mythic beings overcame nightmares, gained enlightenment, and acquired divine status—but this was Greed.

A demon.

Enlightenment means sincerely acknowledging and repenting one’s own inadequacy.

And a demon can do that?

What demon in all creation could?

…Perhaps Greed truly was different from other demons.

But Hypnos could not accept it.

He could not understand the existence of a demon cherished by the two goddesses.

If goddesses were to dream, he believed they should dream of *him*, not a demon.

But the two goddesses never once looked at Hypnos.

That twisted interest soon curdled into hatred.

‘I… regret it.’

When Destruction appeared—

Hypnos betrayed the gods.

He became an evil god and took on the role of Destruction’s Eye.

Because of Hypnos’s betrayal, Destruction found what it sought far more quickly—and achieved it.

The primordial puppets hidden by the gods, the divine symbols, and every other supreme, unique thing—

Destruction expanded its power in an instant and armed its knights with divine equipment.

That was not all.

By constantly spreading nightmares, it made humans distrust one another.

Nightmares and delusions drove them to betrayal day after day.

Those who sought to oppose Destruction were discovered in advance and torn apart from within.

‘It was already too late.’

Hypnos regretted his actions—everything that had begun with misplaced anger.

As he watched Greed fight Destruction.

And finally, as he witnessed the goddess Leah die at Destruction’s hands.

Most of the world sank into the Abyss, and with Leah’s death, Destruction brought its punitive actions to an end.

Afterward, when Pina, the goddess of the firmament, lifted the remaining continent into the sky—

‘What I can still do is…’

Hypnos made a decision.

Though it was late, though it was pitiful—

There was still one thing he could do.

‘Prevent the evil gods from invading that land.’

A world where the gods had vanished.

Countless lesser gods and evil gods would covet that floating continent.

They would employ every trick to seize control.

Thus, within the limits of what he could do, Hypnos imprisoned all the evil gods within the World Tree and chose to be forgotten along with them.

The World Tree’s dungeon was a dream-world drawn by Hypnos.

His domain—a place to be forgotten together with dreams.

He believed this was the only way he could atone.

He was meant to fade away, forgotten alongside the evil gods.

But—

“O End…”

Like a cruel twist of fate,

A being bearing the soul of Greed appeared.

Together with the greatest blessings of the two goddesses.

Erasing all evil gods in his path.

And Hypnos realized—

‘Goddess Pina… you, too… you protected him.’

Goddess Leah.

She stopped Destruction and preserved Greed’s soul.

After that, Greed’s soul must have reincarnated.

But reincarnation is a principle that even the gods of creation dare not touch.

A law above Truth itself, untouchable by any being.

Thus, no one could know when or where Greed’s soul would reincarnate.

But Pina found him.

The man standing before them now.

‘The karma borne by the Demon of Greed should have been only death.’

Demons cannot reincarnate by nature.

Their fate is annihilation at the moment of death.

Yet the Demon of Greed reincarnated through the blessings of the two goddesses.

The problem was—

That karma itself cannot be erased.

He must have been fated to die without fail.

Countless times he must have stood at death’s door.

If one must die at least once, yet remains alive—

Then—

‘Pina disguised death through sacrifice.’

Pina must have offered her own soul as collateral to sever that karma.

No—*sever* is not quite right.

She *swapped* the karma.

Only then did Hypnos understand the identity of the immense soul cradled within the goddesses.

A being bearing karma nearly identical in magnitude to the mortal karma of the Demon of Greed.

That being died in Greed’s place, and the man before him—the End—took on that karma instead.

Such a thing was possible?

‘Who… who could have designed something like this?’

Everything was deceived.

There was no way the gentle Pina could have devised such a design.

Perhaps she herself did not fully understand it.

Even the Architect might not have been certain of the final outcome.

That was why Hypnos was curious.

The End—

The story of the very first time he died.

*

Just as Hypnos said, I had died once.

I was devoured by a Fragment of Destruction when fighting Baal.

And then I revived.

“That is not the moment,” Hypnos said. “Before that—when Pina expended her soul. That is when you truly died.”

…Was he talking about Wilhelm?

The end of the Grand Expedition.

Wilhelm killed the Demon King, but due to a bug, he instead received a game over.

The Demon King seized Wilhelm’s body but failed to take his soul.

“Ah! Wilhelm. That immense will I see over there—it belonged to someone called Wilhelm. Yes. At that moment, the End… and Park Hyun-myung as well… must have died.”

“I died back then? That’s impossible.”

At the time, it was only a game.

I watched Wilhelm’s death on a computer screen.

“Please tell me exactly what happened then. In detail.”

A direction I had never even considered.

So I recounted everything that had happened.

Hypnos stroked his chin.

“…I see. The Fragment of Destruction possessed by the Demon King is the closest thing to Destruction itself. If that fragment recognized Greed’s soul, then Wilhelm was not its true target.”

“It was after me?”

“Yes. It desired Greed’s soul and body—the vessel that could grow infinitely strong.”

“…But Pina stopped it.”

“Correct. The goddess of the firmament, Pina, would have wanted to avoid that outcome at all costs. But she could not stop it completely.”

“Wilhelm…”

Wilhelm died.

Because of a bug caused by the Fragment of Destruction.

But the one who was supposed to die was not Wilhelm—it was me.

“When Pina blocked it through sacrifice, the Fragment of Destruction targeted Wilhelm instead. The stature forged by Wilhelm’s body and soul was also not inferior to Greed’s.”

“So he died in my place?”

“…I cannot deny that. But do not worry. Wilhelm—his soul knows it as well. The fact that his will remains with you means he does not resent you.”

Wilhelm’s will is with me.

Together with the wills of the two goddesses.

Even knowing his death was caused by me.

“The problem… is the Demon King.”

“He must have grown stronger after taking Wilhelm’s body.”

“Yes. And after taking Wilhelm’s body, a full-scale invasion must have begun.”

“Right.”

“O End, you are his target.”

“…The reason for the invasion was me?”

That the Demon King suddenly invaded Earth because of me.

Thinking back, everything changed after Wilhelm’s death.

Not because Wilhelm died—but precisely because of *me*.

“Once he realized that the being connected to Wilhelm was Greed, he could not remain idle.”

“How does the Demon King even know Greed? Greed was a demon from the age of Destruction. The Demon King did not exist back then.”

The Demon King was born after the age of Destruction.

After Pangaenia was lifted into the sky.

Hypnos said,

“The Demon King is… a child of Destruction, a failed creation. But he will want to prove that he is not a failure by dominating Greed’s body and soul. And without a doubt… he wishes to surpass Destruction itself.”

Hypnos closed his eyes.

The Demon King who seized Wilhelm’s body must have grown strong.

Judging from Wilhelm’s remaining will, his body, too, must share a nature similar to Greed’s.

An infinite desire to grow stronger, expressed through the flesh.

Hypnos traced the sequence of events.

And noticed something strange.

“…Why did you instigate the Grand Expedition?”

“From the beginning, the game’s objective was to kill the Demon King.”

The game, Pangaenia, was designed so that the final boss was the Demon King.

It even advertised that killing the Demon King would grant any wish.

But something was off.

“Why did the Demon King have to be killed? Even if you kill him, it doesn’t end.”