98 – Returning Traveler

We said, Raiden.

You are like a ‘returning traveler’.

A boy whose whole body has been wrecked by a journey that has been going on for too long.

In the end, I forgot even the password to the front door of my house, a soul immersed in a daze.

that’s you

But don’t worry.

Because we will serve as the ‘key’ to enter the house right away.

Because I will fill all the empty spaces of memories and emotions that I lacked until now.

Of course, our role is just to open the door.

How you act after that is completely up to you.

Hesitating in front of the open door, you can eventually turn around and run away.

Or he could go inside, pull out the rope he had prepared, and hang himself again.

Or else… This time, you might be able to live the life you wished for in your home.

nothing forces you

So relax and do what you want to do.

We’ll be on your side no matter what you choose.

I told you, I truly understand you.

Alright, then, one last question before you return to consciousness.

Running away, and continuing to live.

The rest that can end all suffering, and the regret that will once again push you to hell.

If you had to choose between the two…

which one will you choose

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“Keahhhh…! Hhhh..!!”

When I woke up with a dry cough, I was lying on the bed.

What comes into the blurry flickering field of view is the scenery of a room that has become night and darkness has settled down.

I caught my breath and let out a shrill moan.

“Haa… ugh, ugh…”

When I hold my forehead for a while from the unpleasantly pulsing headache, the contents of the dream I just had just come to mind.

The voices in the dream that remain in my ears take away the vagueness that remained.

ㅡYes, you are probably right.

—-You are the reincarnation of Raiden who fell off the cliff and died…

A sense of heterogeneity, awkwardness, and a sense of deja vu passed through my cheeks.

I was soaked in those sensations for a while, and then I came to my senses by pinching my own thighs.

I catch my wandering gaze and look down at my fingertips, which still have a lukewarm feeling.

Obviously… I held ‘my’ hand with this hand.

The strange sense of reality that begins to creep up makes the hands hold a slight tremble.

“……”

It is felt.

very clearly.

I feel that something inside me has changed.

I clasped my fingers, which trembled little by little, and raised my lying body.

Beetle…..

The legs that came off the bed gently touched the ground.

Forced to keep my staggering body steady, I staggered forward.

I took a step that looked like it would collapse at any moment, and the place I headed towards was the corner of the room.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror that was placed there, and captured my own image reflected on it.

“……”

Dark hair that is so melancholy.

Black eyes that were terribly deep.

He’s not dead, but it’s a bit ambiguous to say he’s alive.

Looking at the boy standing in the mirror, I let out a blank word.

“…I guess I’m back.”

It was a murmur that was somewhat futile, yet heartbreaking.

It wasn’t something that came back, it was something that had already come back.

Thinking over the resonance of that subtle difference, I sat down.

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After that, another few days passed.

The dream I had that day… No, now I’m not sure if it was really just a dream.

Anyway, when I came to my senses, four days had passed.

Speaking of life in the meantime… Well, nothing has changed from before.

It was all about confining myself to a small room and spending meaningless days intoxicated with smoke and sleep.

When all the facts I’ve been missing have been revealed, why have I continued to lead such a life as a crippled person…

….Because I didn’t know how to react to the fact that I had returned.

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Judging by the time of this world, I was the worst scumbag in the empire until just two years ago.

Of course, it’s been more than 23 years, including the time I was a naru… but people don’t know about that.

I had already hurt countless people around me.

And after buying hatred and contempt from countless people.

Even if I knew by now that I was Raiden, it was too late to make things right.

There were so many things I messed up in the past,

Because the current me was too weak to deal with them all.

“…If I was going to come back, it would have been better if I had returned to the past even further.”

I was blowing out the smoke with the sage in my mouth, and suddenly I let out a complicated murmur and let out a complicated breath.

Cloudy-colored smoke spreads for a long time along with the slowing breath.

If only I could go back to the past… that is, before everything went wrong.

To a time when no one was hurt and no one ever left my side.

To a time when my heart wasn’t broken.

If only mother could return to the time when she was still alive…

“…..sh*t.”

At the thoughts wriggling and digging into my brain, I chewed a light curse.

Knowing that it was just a meaningless assumption, I still hoped that the word ‘if’ would save me.

“Yena and now… the asshole is still the same…”

With a slight bitter smile, I brushed off the miscellaneous thoughts that were filling my head.

In order to calm my complicated tangled mind, I fumbled around the bedside to find a simmachogap.

However, no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

When I tilt my head at him and raise my body buried under the blanket,

The image of the room floor full of empty Simmachogap comes into sight.

“ah…..”

It was only then that I belatedly remembered that the simmacho I smoked just before was the last simmacho.

I must have brought dozens of boxes into the room the other day, but that amount had melted in a matter of weeks.

“…Did I smoke too much?”

I let out a deep drool as I looked at the paper scraps rolling around on the floor.

Well, I lived with my mouth all day, but if I still have plenty of it, that would be even more strange.

I think I’ll have to contact Milliam to send him the next month’s supply.

“Haa… what should I do right now…”

A sigh escapes from between your lips.

It takes approximately three to four days to send a call and receive a new stock.

It meant that for the next three days at least, I had to go through my daily life without thinking about it.

I wonder if I can survive those 3 days…

“…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand it.”

When I frown for a while in my complex mind, forgotten memories quietly come to mind.

Come to think of it… While moving the luggage in the dormitory, I sent some of the luggage that was difficult to move at once to my parents’ home.

I also sent a few boxes of Simmacho with it.

“Gilbert said he had put the luggage that arrived earlier in the storage on the 3rd floor…”

I said I’d move you to the room later, but

As soon as I got home, I denied everyone entry and locked the door, so the luggage would still be in the storage room.

For a moment, I even thought about whether I should call someone to bring it to me.

Into my field of vision, where my sense of time has been messed up because I spent too long in bed, the image of the room immersed in darkness comes into view.

I slightly rolled my eyes at him and looked at the clock hanging on the wall in the center of the room.

Tick tock…

The time indicated by the hour and minute hands was exactly 2:30 in the morning.

It was time for everyone in the mansion to go to sleep.

It must be a little sorry to call someone at a time like this.

“……I’ll have to go there myself.”

I let out a small sob and got out of bed.

The feeling of gravity pressing down on the body after a long time was something strange.

Leading the limp body, it staggers forward.

Actually, it was just a matter of waiting for a few hours and calling someone when morning came.

My body, which had been pickled and melted over the past few weeks, was still craving greenish smoke even at this moment.

In response to the intense thirst, I quietly opened the door, holding my breath.

ㅡClack, kiik…

The sound of a locked door being opened followed by the sound of a small hinge echoing into the darkness.

It’s really funny… It was just an antidepressant that made me come out after being stuck in my room with no one for the past few weeks.

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I walked quietly through the darkness of the mansion.

Perhaps because it was late, few people seemed to be awake yet.

In order not to wake anyone up, I moved my body cautiously.

ㅡ turd turd turd…

The atmosphere in the mansion, surrounded by silence, had a gloomy corner somewhere.

As I passed by, I captured the sights of the mansion I hadn’t seen in a long time.

The corridor where I ran with short steps when I was a child.

A room where we laughed and chatted with friendly servants.

The stairs where I almost fell while playing with Ariel,

The workshop where I sometimes sneaked in to see my father who was working late at night.

“……”

It was a nostalgic landscape.

Places and traces of time that remind me of the happy days of the past.

I tried hard to shake off the complex emotions, but the more I tried, the more deeply the memories on one side of me entangled me.

ㅡTerbucking…..

My feet, which had been walking half-fazed, suddenly stopped at some point.

As if the body remembers, naturally.

When I turn my head while coming to my senses, I was greeted by a door with the following nameplate on it.

[Philli’s library]

(Phil’s study)

“ah…..”

I stood still for a moment, staring at the nameplate on the door with blurry eyes.

Inside the silver nameplate, the name ‘Philly’ painted in gold.

This room, this study…

In the past, this place where I used to come every night and mumble someone’s name with tears in my eyes…

“….mother.”

Philippa Lysitt… No, it was my ‘mother’s’ study.