Black Badger - Chapter 409



Only Noblemtl

409. 50 years (2)

The last thing I saw was Kyle’s golden eyes, and they wouldn’t leave my mind.

Golden eyes filled with desperation.

I also remember holding hands. I also remember not being able to hold on to those hands until the end.

I tried to move my body.

Kyle would have died.

No, I would be dying.

‘Cecil, please.’

My body wouldn’t listen to me, so I cried and begged.

‘Both Kyle and Ray are dead.’

I looked up at the sky and shed tears, but Cecil pretended not to hear me.

Her unique bright healing spell that dazzled my eyes. I forgot the shock of meeting her here and the fact that I had to use honorifics towards her.

I pleaded again.

‘Let me finish everything cleanly with them.’

‘no.’

The cold answer rang in my ears.

‘I can save you. I will save you.’

‘You want me to survive alone?’

I realized that I had fallen into another world.

The aftereffects of inhaling until the point of going berserk were so intense that parts of the body were blackened, but the leaf veins were still intact. No one else felt it. In this world, there were only me and her as fellow species.

A quiet world where even demons cannot be detected.

I recalled the sound of Ray suddenly disappearing.

I couldn’t quite tell which was less hopeless.

Ray dying because he hesitated upon seeing my sword, and dying by a human weapon without recognizing my sword.

I didn’t want to know which one was real.

If I hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be in this much pain.

Were you lonely as you died?

Until Cecil finished his treatment for the day, I thought about Ray’s end.

I thought about my close friend who had turned to ashes.

***

We had similar conversations for a while.

A strange world where there is no physiological need. Cecil, who was there, declared a long-term war, saying that my wounds were too serious to be healed with a single treatment, and that my magical skills also seemed to have declined.

I preached the unnecessaryness of treatment, but she still pretended not to listen.

The time has passed where we only say what we want to say to each other.

I don’t know how long it was like that. In this world, I had no physiological needs at all. The sun hadn’t set yet, so I couldn’t tell the passage of time.

A black and white space where growth seems to have stopped.

At first, I seriously wondered if I had come to the afterlife and was unaware of it.

But no.

Cecil clearly explained that this was not the case.

During his time in the Empire, Cecil was known for being a man of few words.

There was even talk that there might be a problem with his language skills.

At some point, she started talking more and more.

He started throwing out random questions at me, asking if I had any intention of stopping the meaningless treatment.

It started with a story about the world we live in now.

Cecil said, looking down at me as I muttered to myself that this place seemed like the afterlife.

‘It’s not the afterlife. Sometimes, people who were residents come to visit.’

‘yes?’

‘I don’t know if I should call it a person.’

And she began to tell the story of the bizarre creatures she encountered there.

A being with whom I could strangely communicate.

The first living creature that appeared before my eyes about two months after falling through the dimensional portal.

It was said that the thing that was not known what to call often came here to see her and left. It appeared in a different form each time, but since it was the only one that appeared, there was no need to worry about confusing it with another being.

It is said that he was either born in the Ashen World or had been here for a very long time.

It is believed that he barely escaped from here… .

In fact, it recommended escape every time it came.

‘I told you the person you’re waiting for isn’t coming?’

‘They say this is a place where it’s easy to travel through dimensions.’

Cecil refused every time.

‘I told you it was easier to reach than other dimensions.’

‘That’s right. But the fact that he hasn’t come yet means that he can’t come!’

‘You might be preparing for it. We can’t easily move through dimensions like you can.’

‘Oh my. Me too. Who would be able to travel across dimensions so easily?’

It is said that the thing that came in the form of a woman answered by twisting its head with its fingers.

Looking at Cecil and smiling.

‘I just know how to get back here. What a hassle it is to go through every time I come back! Don’t you appreciate me taking the trouble to come see you often?’

‘Why are you coming to see me?’

When Cecil asked seriously, it laughed.

‘It’s so romantic!’

The creature loved drama.

‘A beautiful sorceress waiting for the prince in the ruins!’

‘Are you here to laugh at me?’

‘That’s too much. You know you haven’t gone crazy yet thanks to me.’

This is a world where memories from all dimensions are collected.

If you want to see color, you have to look into other people’s memories.

Cecil warned me not to try such a thing.

‘They say that if you miss color, you’ll go crazy.’

In some places in the space, which seemed to have been filtered through a black and white filter, there were unusually brightly shining crystals.

When I picked it up, bright memories appeared.

The scent, the sound, and the color are all so vivid.

He said that the stimulation of the senses was surprisingly strong. He tried it once, but he thought it would become addictive, so he doesn’t touch it anymore.

‘So don’t miss the colors.’

Cecil muttered.

‘Until the treatment is finished.’

‘Don’t worry.’

I smiled as I watched the wizard speak in a sad voice.

‘I’m sick of the dynamism of life now.’

It should have ended at that time on that day.

I thought as I watched my immobile body heal.

Of course, I missed those who believed in me. I felt suffocated whenever I thought about their safety. Before I faced Kyle, I could sense their presence, but since I started fighting while absorbing, I couldn’t pay attention to their presence.

I fell here without being able to confirm whether my subordinates were alive or dead.

But since both Kyle and Ray died, wouldn’t they have won in the end?

They were strong kids.

I always felt sorry for them. They were small in number and were criticized as cowards because they seemed to have made submissive choices.

Are you settled in well?

As I was worrying, my thoughts returned to Ray’s discontinued presence and Kyle’s fading presence.

The reality that I killed two of my comrades and survived.

It was hard to be sure if this could be considered a survival.

‘When the treatment is over, tell me what happened.’

Cecil made cruel demands of me.

‘I want to know what happened.’

I thought about running away.

I want to disappear and turn away from reality.

***

I was able to move my body.

You are now in a position where you can get up and run away.

But Cecil was not easy. She was very obsessive when it came to anything related to Kissis. She was the same in the Empire, and the long wait for Kissis only strengthened her obsession.

It means that she arbitrarily searched through my memories before I could wake up.

I realized it after suffering from a terrible fever.

She also knows now what happened.

‘Sorry.’

She apologized, saying she didn’t know what to do.

‘I’m sorry. I… .’

I had to say it was okay, but the answer didn’t come easily.

I just sat on the ruins for a while.

After wandering around in my own mind for a while, I came to my senses.

In this world, time has no meaning.

‘I’m sorry. I messed up.’

‘no!’

Cecil was strangely excited.

‘Not at all! There were few people who could do as well as you. You did your best. Kissis chose the right person.’

‘No. He should have come.’

Blood shed in vain.

At some point, I stopped watching works about time travel. Even though I knew they were just works. I was so envious of the main character who went back to the past and fixed his irreversible mistakes one by one. It was so refreshing.

I couldn’t access any games, books, movies, or songs that had a setting that took me back to the past.

I keep having dreams about the moment when I activate Dimensional Movement and a dragon swoops in.

How many times have I prayed to the World Tree?

Please let me go back to that time.

‘We have not confirmed whether Kisis is alive or dead.’

I looked into the eyes of the restless wizard.

‘Anyway, can I stop now?’

Cecil looked as if he was about to cry.

He looked at me for a long time with his reddened eyes and said.

‘Please wait with me a little longer.’

This time she begged me.

Tears fell from the golden eyes.

‘I’m sure you’re not curious at all, but… I’ll show you my memories too. Just stay a little longer. A month… No, even just a week, can’t you wait with me?’

Cecil knelt down in front of me and began to cry profusely.

As if all the tears that had been held back were being poured out.

‘I’m really sorry.’

After apologizing with his whole body, he held my hand while I was blinking and muttered.

‘I’m sorry for looking at it so presumptuously. I’m sorry for arrogantly searching for traces of him in my memories, turning them upside down without permission. Hilde, no one could have done it as well as you.’

Tears fell drop by drop onto the back of my hand.

‘You must have wanted to run away, so how did you hold out? If it were me, I would have turned away from reality and fought back to back with your friends.’

I also thought about it until the end.

I would have done that if I had not cared about my subordinates who believed in me and followed me.

If it weren’t for people like You, Igor, Rose, Yvonne, Nol, and Deltey, I would happily fool myself into thinking that false hope was true hope.

But it didn’t end up like that, so can’t we rest now?

I’m really sorry, You.

I felt guilty for making him carry such a heavy burden. But I still believed in the bookworm’s abilities.

Then you will do well.

Even if I’m not there… .

‘Memories must be painful to you.’

I remained silently silent and did not move for a long time.

***

I followed Cecil’s request.

In fact, it was she who had been waiting with him. The Sword Master of Ja-an.

To be exact, I just did nothing for a while. I was lucky that I didn’t feel any physiological needs or need to satisfy them. I didn’t get into any trouble or get dirty just by lying around.

You can think of it as being like a stone for a while.

Hildebert Taleb lived the life of a stone statue.

I wondered if it was okay to live like this.

Because I didn’t react. I didn’t respond to what Cecil said, and I ended up doing the same when I was treating him.

I just sat there in a world made up of only black and white.

Sometimes I lay down, sometimes I stood, but I didn’t do anything.

Until one day, when she, who had been casting healing spells periodically, opened her eyes wide.

When I got used to the colorless space.

It happened at a moment when I had lost track of time and was just floating like a jellyfish.

The Archmage looked down at me as if he had just realized something.

‘Kyle.’

It was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time.

‘I already transferred it to Kyle.’

There was no answer.

But Cecil didn’t care. No, even if I had answered, she wouldn’t have heard it anyway.

The wizard’s golden eyes widened as he became lost in thought.

‘That’s why it took twice as much magic to heal you.’

Until this point I had not reacted.

Only after Cecil, who was excited, said this clearly did I regain some sense of reality.

‘Kyle was still alive!’

Cecil shouted.

‘Kyle is alive!’

I sat up from my seat.

And then, for the first time in a long time, I met Cecil’s eyes.