Angel's Shelter - 3
The appearance of the Archangel Seraphim, my confession of love to Isabel, and at last the sight of Isabel accepting that love.
Every scene had felt like a midsummer night’s dream.
Perhaps even my transmigration into Ian’s body was nothing more than a dream?
Well, that hardly matters.
What of it if it is a dream?
No one in this world could deny the love I held in my heart.
“Ian, I can move. My body feels light, and it doesn’t hurt at all.”
The moment I saw Isabel step out of the lake, my breath caught hard in my throat.
I never imagined it would be this much.
Freed at last from Rose’s Punishment, Isabel’s beauty was nothing short of heavenly.
She might even rival the goddess Helia herself, whose loveliness was the stuff of legend.
My earlier guess that she would merely become as beautiful as Isolde had been left far behind.
“Ian?”
“Ah—forgive me. You are so beautiful I momentarily lost the power of speech.”
“E-euh… d-don’t stare so hard.”
“Why not? A husband is allowed to look at the face of the wife he loves, isn’t he?”
“Th-that’s true, but… I’m not used to being looked at like this…”
Watching Isabel flush with shy embarrassment, I found myself smiling without meaning to. Seeing that smile, she smiled back.
“Isabel, I’m sure you have many questions. But the night is already deep, and explanations can wait.”
I pointed toward the small cabin standing at the far edge of the lake.
“How about spending the night there?”
“All right.”
She might well have questioned the suggestion, yet Isabel simply took my hand without hesitation.
This cabin is almost identical to the one in the game.
The cabin by the lake was one of the hidden pieces in The Regressed Hero’s Circumstances, the only true safe zone on the entire Northern Mountain.
Thanks to that, we could rest for the night without posting any watch.
Found it. The diary.
I had analyzed every hidden piece the game offered, yet this place alone had always refused to yield its secrets.
There were simply too many oddities for it to be nothing more than a safe zone.
One of them was this diary.
In the game the text was written in unreadable characters.
I opened it.
I expected nothing special. Nothing inside the cabin could be taken outside, after all. I was merely satisfying idle curiosity.
I saw my wife’s adultery with my own eyes.
I fled from that unreal sight.
It must have been a dream. It cannot possibly be true.
The instant I read those lines, a chill ran down my spine.
This is Hangul.
The entire diary was written in Korean.
Worse, the contents felt unnervingly familiar.
The man who cuckolded my wife told me the truth.
The daughter I had loved and cherished more than anyone else was that bastard’s child.
This is a lie. No—tell me it’s a lie!
Every single person in the village already knew of my wife’s adultery.
No—every single one of them had been enjoying her as well.
Was this place nothing but a den of beasts?
Why in the world did I ever try to settle in a village like this?
Could the owner of this diary be Ian himself?
It was absurd. A diary written by a future Ian who had never been possessed by me existing here violated every law of cause and effect.
Yet the contents matched the events of Circumstances in a Country Village with perfect precision, making denial impossible.
Then only one final hypothesis remains.
I already knew the being capable of making the impossible possible.
Eos, Goddess of Dawn and Daybreak.
She was the one who had granted the power of regression to Wendy, the protagonist of The Regressed Hero’s Circumstances.
If the goddess who governs time herself intervened, it all makes sense.
Even so, one question still nagged at me.
How had Ian been able to write in Hangul?
Seeking the answer, I continued reading.
I ran.
I ran and ran from that village.
I decided to die.
But I could not die.
This damned cursed fate would not even let me die.
It has tormented me since the day I was born, and now it will not even grant me the freedom to end it!
Cursed fate?
I had never seen that phrase before.
Between the elven master and this, Ian’s hidden past runs deeper than I thought. He was never just a simple NTR protagonist, was he?
In Circumstances in a Country Village, Ian’s story ends with his final attempt at suicide. After that he simply vanishes from the narrative.
The diary, however, continued past that point.
Winter is approaching.
I wonder if they are all well.
No—don’t think about it. Don’t even remember that filthy bitch!
The villagers dumped something on the mountain.
How could they? What they abandoned was my sister-in-law, too sick to move.
I brought my sister-in-law to the cabin.
What have I done?
Trying to save the younger sister of the wife who betrayed me…
According to the diary, the Isabel abandoned on the mountain had not died either; she had been rescued by Ian.
Is this why I feel such an inexplicable pull toward Isabel?
My sister-in-law’s eyes were dead.
Eyes that had given up on everything. I know those eyes.
In her pupils I saw myself.
That day, for the first time, my sister-in-law spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
I could not answer her.
The weather grew steadily colder.
To survive the cold, my sister-in-law and I shared body heat.
Her body was terribly cold.
My sister-in-law’s body grew colder still.
I kept the fire alive for her sake.
Her coughing gradually quieted.
I tried to brew medicine for her, but nothing worked.
My sister-in-law apologized to me once more.
What in the world did you do wrong!
At my shout she fell silent and never spoke again.
That day she left me two final words.
“Thank you. And… I love you.”
My sister-in-law died. In my arms.
I could do nothing for her.
Once again I failed to save her.
Someone came looking for me.
She introduced herself as h.
Someone came to me while I still held the cold body of my dead sister-in-law.
That someone was a woman.
From a distance she looked beautiful, yet up close she was almost colorless.
She was clearly lovely, yet somehow difficult to perceive properly.
Even I found the description strange, but that was how alien the woman before me felt.
Could this be “that existence” my master spoke of?
It was possible. “That existence” was said to appear solely to mock human despair.
Yet I felt no fear.
I had already lost everything; there was nothing left that could hurt me.
“It’s nice to meet you. I’d like to introduce myself properly, but circumstances won’t allow it, so please just call me h.”
“Get out. I have no intention of seeing anyone right now.”
“I understand the grief of losing the one you love. You must resent the cursed fate that was decided for you from the moment of your birth.”
“How do you know that?”
The woman smiled with the pure, innocent smile of a child.
So she isn’t “that existence” my master described? Then what in the world is she?
“What matters to you right now isn’t my identity, but the cold corpse of your lover in your arms. You want to bring her back to life, don’t you?”
“What are you saying? Can you actually do it? Can you bring Isabel back?!”
“I might be able to. But I believe we should first solve the more fundamental problem.”
“Fundamental problem?”
“The fate that has tormented you until now. The fate that destroyed your house, killed your family, and took away everyone you loved. But that was never your original fate. ‘That existence’ forcibly thrust this twisted destiny upon you because you would become an obstacle.”
She pressed her hand firmly against my chest as she spoke.
“I want to restore your true fate. The fate in which you were meant to become a hero.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t need any of it. Just bring Isabel back!”
“Even if I grant your wish and revive your lover now, she will simply die again. That is your fate.”
“……”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“What do you want from me?”
At my answer the woman’s expression went completely blank.
“In the next cycle, I plan to possess one soul into your body.”
She now gave the impression of a doll, utterly devoid of emotion.
The sudden change sent a chill through me.
“Fight fire with fire. Evil must be met with evil. The power of a thoroughly wicked and ominous soul will return your twisted fate to its proper course.”
“Then what happens to my soul?”
“In the process, your soul will be absorbed.”
A hollow laugh escaped me at the outrageous demand, yet when I looked again at the dead Isabel in my arms, I reconsidered.
I had already lost everything.
If so, could I not at least offer up this worthless soul of mine?
“One last question. With your method, can Isabel be saved?”
At my question the woman smiled once more.
This time it was a mature, knowing smile.
Was it only my imagination? Her entire presence seemed to shift from moment to moment, as though I were speaking not to one person but to many.
“Although your consciousness will disappear, the love you feel for your lover will never vanish.”
“That’s enough.”
I had no idea what sort of being would possess my body, but it no longer mattered.
If even a fragment of my soul remained, I would surely come to love Isabel again.
Isabel, I’m coming for you.
This time I will make certain you receive my love.
This time I will make certain you are happy.
So please… smile for me.
The diary ended there.
I closed the book and murmured quietly to myself.
“This is harder than I thought.”