~Chapter 134~
I’ve heard this before.
The moment the thought crossed my mind, I unintentionally opened my mouth.
“Do you really… want that?”
It wasn’t my will. The words came out naturally, slipping between my lips.
I was surprised, but the person who was even more shaken than I was, was her.
“What are you talking about?”
“I… I’m not sure myself…”
I couldn’t hide my confusion. But before I could even realize it, my body had moved toward her.
“Isn’t there something else you truly want?”
I spoke words I couldn’t even understand myself.
Then, a smile crept through the woman’s teeth.
“…You think I look pathetic like this, don’t you? But I can easily kill someone like you.”
A cold voice carried a warning, and once again, a sharp wind blew.
“Do you even understand why I’m like this?”
Her words made my mind spin. It felt like I could see something trapped in the fog, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach it.
“You want something else? What do you even know about me?”
Her voice turned sharp, like a blade.
“Revenge is my reason for existing. Without that, I’m nothing!”
“Why… why are you nothing?”
I stumbled over the words, unable to understand, and the woman fell silent.
“Even if I get revenge, my existence will still remain, right?”
“…You don’t understand me at all.”
She spat the word “understand” as if it were meaningless, and her face twisted with rage.
“I’ve thought about it hundreds, no, thousands of times. Who should I hate? Should I despise myself for making the wrong choice, or how should I release this anger…?”
“….”
“I’ve been lost so many times in my painful loneliness. Hatred and suffering chase after me, trying to kill me. What do you want me to do?!”
She poured out all the anger she had been silently holding back.
“I regret wishing to become a hollow hero. If I had been ordinary like you, none of this tragedy would have happened.”
“…Ordinary?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live under a false sense of security! To protect your peaceful life, someone has to sacrifice themselves…”
As she vented her frustration, pieces of forgotten memories began to stir in the fog.
I saw unfamiliar scenes flash through my mind, yet they felt so familiar.
As the scattered fragments of memory came together, they slowly began to form a clear picture.
“…Ailins.”
The moment I spoke her name, Ailins’s eyes wavered.
I let out a shaky breath.
‘…This was it.’
The moment I had promised her in the past.
The person who had been by my side when I had forgotten everything.
The shadow hidden in the darkness.
The feel of his shoulder, the gentle hand that had comforted me.
…And his voice.
All of it connected, and it overlapped with the image of Ricardo I remembered.
At the end of that memory, young Ricardo stood there.
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
‘You kept your promise.’
Hearing my laughter, Ricardo hesitated.
‘…The person who showed me this world.’
The small room had been my entire world.
How far I had traveled.
Now, it was my turn to keep my promise to Ailins.
“What you really want is to live like an ordinary person, right?”
I grabbed Ailins’s cold shoulder.
“Not to live alone, in pain, and suffering here…”
Her eyes shook.
“…Or do you truly want revenge?”
I already knew her answer, but I asked anyway.
“If you take revenge, what comes after?”
Instead of an answer, a question came back at me.
Her eyes were filled with exhaustion. After so many years of suffering, her face held emptiness and loneliness.
Unable to speak, she stared into the distance, as if searching through distant memories.
The silence swallowed even the sound of the wind, and the air felt heavy with loneliness.
“What happens to me, the one who wanted to be a hero?”
Finally, her stiff lips slowly parted, and a rough breath came out, like words that had been forgotten.
“If I kill everyone to protect Carpea, is that who I am?”
She paused in her words.
“…Ah, so you wanted to be the hero of Orphen.”
I silently listened to Ailins’s voice, spreading bitterly through the air.
“But I don’t know what I’d become after that…”
***
[Carpea Year 932, January 3rd
Ailins’s clan mage ‘Unnamed’ has passed away peacefully.]
***
Did future Ailins get her revenge on the royal family?
Did she die after that?
“She didn’t die.”
At that moment, Ricardo answered, as if he had read my thoughts.
Surprised, I looked at him, and Ricardo added without hesitation.
“…She’s waiting.”
I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
‘If Ailins is alive and still waiting for me…’
Now I understood what Seiren had been waiting for.
Why he had been so desperate to send me back to my original world.
‘If I revive Ailins’s name, I can fulfill that man’s goal.’
But I’ll stop Seiren no matter what.
He said my fate was hidden from me. If that’s the case, he would have chosen to get rid of my existence altogether.
‘The past he showed me…’
If Ricardo hadn’t stopped me, I would have ended up in the past Seiren mentioned.
Maybe Bianca was destined to die there, which is why I couldn’t see my future.
Then, Ailins had asked me:
“What would you do if you were me?”
“…I’m not you. So, I can’t give you the right answer.”
I couldn’t begin to understand the pain she had endured while sleeping in the Dremokan for so long.
‘…I’m not sure I even deserve to understand.’
So, I followed her question.
“Do you see yourself living after this?”
“No.”
“….”
“I don’t want to be anything.”
It was a simple and ordinary wish.
Not special, but that made it feel more special.
I finally spoke.
“I swear to you.”
“….”
“I’ll give you what you truly wish for.”
A small gasp escaped from her lips.
“…When?”
I didn’t have much time left, but for Ailins, it would take years.
“Probably when I become an adult.”
“….”
“But no matter what happens, I’ll keep my promise to you.”
“…I don’t believe you.”
In response to her words, I smiled.
The Ailins I had known was thinking about the promise, despite her words.
At that moment, the white path that had guided me to Seiren began to climb the World Tree.
As if trying to create a hole that would allow me to peek into the past memories.
A crack appeared, and a black hand stretched out from the hole without mercy.
“…!”
Soon, countless hands coiled around my body like an unstoppable force.
Sensing the end, I quickly spoke to Ailins.
“When you meet me again later, I won’t remember anything about you.”
“…!”
“But if we meet again, tell me your story so I can remember you.”
There was no answer. She only stared at me with eyes full of intense emotion.
The strength in Ricardo’s hand holding me tightened.
When I barely looked at him, Ricardo seemed to say something.
No matter where our end was, we would face it together.
His presence gave me a little courage.
And that small courage slowly began to push away the darkness in my heart.
