Chapter 554: Jealousy is My Power (54)
Chapter 554: Jealousy is My Power (54)
Countless fragments of dreams were drifting through the air.
With every step I took, unfamiliar memories blocked my path. Some scenes were soaked in tears like an adolescent’s pillowcase; others were dry and gritty like desert sand.
Most of them were nightmares.
Blood, blades, and death.
It was rare to find a memory that didn't contain at least one of the three. I wandered through them in a daze, my mind processing thoughts through a brain where blood no longer circulated.
Perhaps it was because only the most striking sights remained.
Few experiences leave deeper scars on the unconscious than war. I was certainly no exception.
Is the space of my own unconscious like this as well?
Guildford, Mitram, Leoric, Yuren...
I walked for a while, whispering the names that surfaced one by one.
Suddenly, a single scene filled my vision.
It was the back of a man, weeping.
The woman's corpse held in his arms was cold. Her skin was pale, her lips no longer capable of exhaling a moist breath, and the rain falling from the sky soaked the half-destroyed forest.
The man must have been crying for a long time.
It took that much time for the warmth of a corpse to fade.
I watched him for a moment, then tried to take another step.
I had passed by every other memory like that, after all.
But a voice caught my ankle.
"Kid, it's time to go back."
It was a voice steeped in exhaustion.
I turned my gaze blankly behind me. There, a gloomy golden light floated in isolation.
It was the man.
He was now perched on a rock. The sword he had thrust into the ground supported his body like a cane.
My pupils darted between the two men.
The man weeping up ahead, and the man whose tear ducts had long since run dry.
After a long silence, my lips parted.
"…So, I guess you still knew how to cry back then?"
"I was still young."
The man spoke as he slowly stood up.
Even the sound of his footsteps, thudding against the ground, was profoundly lonely. He walked past me and stood still, like a nail driven into the earth.
Past scenes flickered across his golden retinas.
His dead Junior Sister, his dead Master, and finally, his younger self weeping before them.
"Every tragedy felt like the world was forcing itself upon me. It was like that every time I lost someone precious, one by one."
"Do you not feel that way anymore?"
"It was an era where tragedy was commonplace."
It was a heavy statement.
I saw a clue in those words—the reason why this man had bothered to travel to the past and struggle to protect a world that wasn't even his own.
"It wasn't just me. It was everyone… Losing a family member or a lover was nothing. Entire villages vanished, and there were many soldiers who limped along, clutching spears despite having lost limbs. And then there were those who suffered fates where death would have been a mercy."
His voice wasn't even tinged with a sigh, but that calm tone only amplified the truth of his testimony.
I had memories of my own.
The orphans who became material for the flesh seeds, and the elves who offered their souls to the Evil God.
They were living lives more painful than death.
And even that was likely only a fraction of the whole.
Only the Dark Cult knew what horrors they were committing across the Continent.
Except for the man standing before me.
"…If you don't protect it, this is the future that will surely come."
The man's golden eyes turned toward me again.
My own reflection, clouded with a faint anxiety, was mirrored in his retinas, which were as transparent as a frozen lake.
"So don't do anything stupid from now on. Prioritize your own well-being… The vampire's Five Elements Barrier is out of alignment with the balance of spacetime. If the barrier collapses, the entire area will—"
"…What about Senior Elsie?"
The face that suddenly flashed through my mind prompted me to cut him off with a question.
Instead of answering, the man chose to remain silent.
"What happened to the Great Witch? You said the whole area would collapse!"
"You don't need to worry about that."
It was an answer so indifferent it felt cold.
I felt a surge of absurdity at his words, which soon gave way to a strange realization.
I didn't know about the Great Witch, but Senior Elsie was my comrade. It was the same even if her body was currently occupied by a future personality.
Senior Elsie wouldn't be coming back to a dead body.
Yet the man had stated firmly.
That I didn't need to worry.
Then who else was there to worry about them besides me?
As far as I knew, there was only one person.
"…Are you worried, then?"
It wasn't a taunt.
In fact, I had chosen my words carefully before asking. I hoped to hear his honest feelings without wounding his pride.
The man didn't answer my question for a long time.
He simply stared silently at the back of his weeping past self.
Unable to bear the silence, another question leaked from my lips.
"She's your Master."
"She's not my Master. That person has already passed away."
"And she's your Junior Sister."
"That's…"
The man, who seemed about to offer a rebuttal, eventually let out a deep sigh.
There was nothing he could say.
He was showing a rare, overt display of emotion—wiping his face with both hands and taking a deep breath.
It was a habit I had whenever I felt troubled.
Looking at him like that, he really was me.
"…It's already a finished story."
"Why?"
"Even if I were to meet her now, what would change?"
It was a difficult question.
When I fell silent, momentarily at a loss for words, the man continued his sigh-laden murmur.
"What am I supposed to do now? Even if we meet again, nothing changes."
"So you don't want to?"
"Because it's inefficient."
It was a sharp declaration.
The man spoke again, as if there were no room for further discussion.
"I told you, kid. There's a limit to how much I can intervene in this timeline… And you want me to throw away that precious opportunity on something meaningless?"
"It wouldn't be meanin—"
"It's already over."
That was the second time.
A strange loneliness was etched onto the man's face as he spoke. Yet the reason his gaze didn't waver was likely because he held a certain conviction.
This suspicion was proven shortly after.
Without looking away from the fragment of the past where he was weeping, the man spoke with a bitter murmur.
"I've already cried enough, and I've regretted enough… The past cannot be undone. The only answer is to leave nothing more to regret."
There were no openings in that firm voice.
He wasn't dodging the subject. Those words were likely the man's unvarnished beliefs.
"…But you still want to undo it."
"I stood here by stepping over those regrets. At the end of countless tragedies…"
That was the end.
As always, the man reached his own conclusion and abruptly cut off the conversation.
His eyes, dim like dying embers, turned toward me.
"I'll handle the cleanup. I'm telling you again, don't act like an idiot next time. Value your life above all else."
With that, the man began to walk away again. Thinking that his back, heading toward some unknown destination, looked terribly lonely, I glanced at the memory of the weeping man.
A woman with striking black hair was held in his arms. Looking closely, her face did resemble the vampire.
So this is what the Great Witch's true body looks like.
Not even hatred could be seen on the face of the man who was weeping as if his breath would stop. He looked crushed by a sorrow so deep that not a single drop more could be contained.
Why is he so sad?
I reflexively reached out. It was an act committed with no particular intention.
But the moment my hand touched the image of the weeping man.
Whoosh.
The sensation of the floor opening up beneath me attacked.
At the end of a sudden fall, I was met by a tidal wave of countless memories. Laughter, crying, and numerous figures blended together like a waterside scene, bursting into multi-colored fireworks.
It was a familiar experience by now.
I wandered through the man's memories for a while. Feeling someone else's emotions while wearing their guise within their memories was an experience that was beyond unique—it was violent.
It was no different from having months or years of time shoved into me all at once.
How much time had passed?
Suddenly regaining consciousness, I groaned from intense dizziness. Despite the sound of me staggering backward, the man continued to walk away, unchanged.
As if he were about to disappear somewhere just like that.
So, even in my disoriented state, I squeezed my vocal cords.
"…Wait!"
The man's footsteps came to a halt.
I stumbled as I chased after him. I almost lost my balance and fell after only a few steps, though.
The man still wasn't looking back at me.
Not until I uttered one more sentence.
"No matter how much I think about it, you need to meet her."
At those words, exhaled through gasps, the man's gaze finally turned toward me.
There were few emotions that could be read in those parched eyes. No, it was rare for even a fragment of emotion to be revealed like this.
That was it.
The man was shaken.
I didn't miss the opening and drove the point home.
"Your Junior Sister."
The golden eyes staring deeply at me did not waver. Even so, I had no intention of avoiding that gaze.
A wind was blowing across the desolate plain.