Chapter 44 - Am I alive now?

I’m out of breath. Subconsciously, I took in numerous sharp inhales. This feeling was similar to thirst. I was thirsty even if I drank, and I was suffocating even if I had breathed and breathed again. As I opened my eyes for what seemed like a long time, gasping for air, the dark surroundings welcomed me.

Is this hell?

As I hurriedly got up, a cool breeze brushed past me. Reflexively, I touched my forehead. Sweat had caused my flowing hair to cling to my wet face. When I swept it up, a wind that blew from an unknown direction cooled my face.

I looked around me. It was pitch-black, though I could see glimpses of something from time to time. If I were to borrow from the words of the young warrior, they were stars. It felt like an empty night sky. But if you look closely, there are stars casting shy lights into the absolute darkness of the night. They were a phenomenon that would have been there from the beginning.

It was not until I came to my senses that I could recollect traces and memories of my life with the young warrior. This was the tower of the witch.

I wiped the dampness off my face, not knowing whether I was wiping sweat or tears with the palm of my hand. Tears were still running nonstop. I eventually grabbed my chest. It hurt. It hurt so much that I felt like I was going to die right at this moment. It was painful and excruciating, more so than the poisons I had taken before, or the swords that I had stabbed myself with.

The place where his sword had cut through to my heart was burning in pain, but was otherwise remained intact. I couldn’t breathe properly through the pain and crying, so I gasped and sobbed for a long time.

Am I alive now?

Then what is it? What are all those last wishes and endings that I’ve always dreamed of so vividly, desperately, and anxiously? Was it just a dream? Am I back in the past? Or am I really alive and trapped in the tower?

I didn’t know the time, so I couldn’t tell where today was situated—past, present, or future. I’ve been in a situation that seemed too real to be a dream; I don’t understand it now, more than before. It was the same as when the young warrior became a young man and died.

But then the young warrior came back and found a new beginning. But now? How can I tell when it is and what it was about?

I looked around calmly, leaving behind droplets of tears. The objects in the tower were nothing different from when the young warrior had left the witch’s arms. The young warrior had never touched these things since his youth, so it was difficult to figure out the timeline.

But there was one thing I could know. It was clear that if I had really gone to the palace to be killed by a warrior, this tower would have been neatly arranged. I had to be prepared for anything that might happen because they were going to come here to make sure that the witch was really dead. I couldn’t leave a trace of someone else besides the witch. The hard-won crown of the warrior should not have become a crown of thorns.

So it meant that this was at least before I went to the palace. Was that a dream, a return to the past, or a precognitive dream? I don’t know why this happened again. It was so vivid. I finally thought it was over.

But why? Why? Why have I gone back to the past again?

“Does this mean that it can’t end this easily?”

The tears that had barely stopped began streaming down all over again. I cried, tearing out at my burning heart. But I still laughed. Laughter came out through with my sobs. The joy of seeing the warrior again swept over my heart. It was a rising emotion of relief, knowing that I could still have the future I wanted.

I’m going to die. I can die. I don’t have to live while missing the warrior forever. So it’s okay to let him go now. Until the very last moment, I can keep a close eye on the warrior whom I was trying to capture in my view before closing my eyes. There is an end. And because of that, I can have as much greed as I want. I can hope and enjoy to my heart’s content. I have nothing to miss.

But laughter turned again into howling.

My heart ached. I didn’t know why it hurt so much. No, I think I know. The warrior who would have felt betrayed and hurt, his crumpling face, the pitch-black darkness and shattered childhood feelings raging behind his brilliant eyes, and the warrior who eventually put a sword into the witch’s chest, the warrior who cut the past with his own hands.

I was both sad and happy, and my heart ached as my laughter crackled.

I both laughed and cried on my knees for a long time. And then I got up. Realizing that it wasn’t real, I remembered what happened before I fell asleep. It felt like I had gone far away deep into the past, but in reality, it had only been a few hours back.

I closed my eyes and called for a shadow. And what it was looking at unfolded.

Young men in matching clothes swung their swords. They all had a strong look in their eyes, but they also had a serious and somehow innocent and playful air to them. Their faces and bodies were drenched with sweat. The wind was cool and fast enough to sway their hair this way and that, but that alone was not enough to cool off their sweat.

Evan was among them.

His hair, brighter than anyone else’s, fluttered actively. His bright eyes glistened continuously to reveal his joyous and overwhelming inner thoughts. His innocent and pure face had turned quite serious and sharp, but when his eyes bent and smiled, he was as lovely as when he was young.

He grew up to be the most reliable and beautiful young man in the vast world, as he stands alone. His arms and shoulders wielding the sword were harder than the young man who remained only in memory. And his face was full of light and hope, shining under the blessing of the sun.

The young man in my memory was a boy who couldn’t smile brightly because of his painful wounds. He gradually grew up into losing his light and ended up as if he had killed himself. So the witch claimed herself to be his fence. Inside of which, Evan, who grew up with protection and education, learned hope and hardened his will. The minor change eventually created the current Evan, which was very much different from the youth in my memory.

Evan, the boy who was about to change, left the witch’s arms and now belonged to a new fence called the Knights’ Commander. When the group formed, he met his peers, went through the same things with them, healed their wounds, and began looking at humans differently. He continued on to absorb many things that he could not learn from a witch.

With the help of Yohan, the Commander of the Knights, he trained his body by learning swordsmanship and chess. He also trained his mind by laughing and chatting with many people. His natural agility and sensitivity had improved his skills to an unrivaled extent, making him the subject of envy and jealousy to those who, at first, fought similarly to him at equal grounds.

“Oh, I can’t stand it.”

“He’s a real monster.”

Evan’s face was visibly hardened by what others said. Even though he knew that the “monster” they meant was something different from the “monster” he heard as a child, he still reacted unconsciously. But soon, he quickly hid it behind a thin smile. He had grown so much in comparison to the past, but that doesn’t mean he can just throw away all his past wounds. I felt sorry for that. Still, it was fortunate that he became so easygoing that he could laugh his sorrows away.

“Don’t talk nonsense and just practice more.”

“I’m sick of it, really.”

Evan and his colleague’s laughter resounded. He bore a smile that had the power to open my heart, like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day.

In addition to training, Evan sometimes chased after Yohan to slaughter monsters. But he still stayed behind. It was because Yohan put his safety first. Nothing was as good as actual battles to train him, so he took him along whenever possible. But he didn’t risk his life. Evan was a valuable being to Yohan.

Having always been alone and neglected, once he met Yohan, he knew his family and colleagues.

At the same time, he forgot the witch.

As he went through what all ordinary boys experienced, Evan grew up. His memories of witches were buried deep like the fairy tales he read as a child. Perhaps the pity and friendliness he had for the witch at the time disappeared, too. As if the child had become an adult and lost his innocence.

Evan, a boy who was acting as if he would not forget me, stopped looking for or thinking about the witch as he became a young man. Even if he heard the story of the witch’s forest, the witch’s tower, and the witch, he only looked for a moment and quickly turned his head as if it had nothing to do with him.

Yeah, that was obvious. It should have been like this from the beginning. To the warrior, the witch’s tower was nothing more than a fairy tale. It’s so distant and insignificant. As if only the memory of the faint smell of books remained. That was the right thing.

Only then could the witch be the source of all evil, not the person to sympathize with and understand. He was right to forget the witch’s forest and grow up inside the fence of his family and companions. Only then would he realize what was more precious.

When Evan stayed alone in the training camp where he wielded his sword, I thought it was peaceful. Although it was a grey world because I was using the eyes of a Shadow, I could still feel the clear sky and vast fields. Like a flock of sheep, clouds were playing in a mellow, relaxed manner, a bird freely crossing between them, with the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.

The place where Evan stayed was so beautiful. My heart ached. The world shouldn’t be this nice. It makes me want to learn happiness by living in this world. I was so afraid to covet that. I kept myself in the tower, turning away from the outside, and keeping to my old memories.

But I also knew that it was because Evan was so good to be around. Without him, all this beauty will turn into pain. To tear me apart as a cruel and fresh weapon of a memory that can never be erased. So I had to be in the God of Death’s arms before I could taste more pain. Definitely.

Still, I was relieved to think that death was not too far away. I looked at the world endlessly and rejoiced at the fact that I could die.

Although Evan forgot the witch, he did not forget the sorcery he had learned from the witch. He practiced steadily. He tried to feel the light and control it. Of course, there was a limit to the power he could use. Even if he were born in the light, it would certainly take a long time to realize that for himself.

Thus, Evan was joined by the sorcerer Neriano.

“The light is always here. I can feel it. I can make it shine on my own. But that’s it. The light doesn’t lend me strength.”

He used to indicate frustration with his unrelenting skills. Whenever that happened, Neriano and Yohan comforted him.

“Don’t be impatient.”

“Yes, it’s not easy to feel nature. Some people take decades to get to that stage. You are very quick, sensitive, and smart, so you can get what you want.”

Evan was despondent, but he was no longer irritated with himself. How fortunate for there to be someone who said what I wanted to say.

Neriano and Yohan carefully walked out of the room so Evan could train alone. They talked with a slightly excited look as soon as they got out of the room.

“I can feel his light getting stronger day by day.”

“Evan would be the only hope to light up this world.”

“Oh, of course.”

They already knew. The fact that Evan is a warrior who was to save this world. That means they also knew that until the time came, they had to keep well-protected. They were only waiting for that day.

I was also eager for that day. I was preparing hard for it so that we all got what we wanted.

I looked at Evan, buried in the light, closing his eyes with a peaceful face resembling that of a baby, peacefully sleeping in his mother’s womb. I then turned the Shadow away and moved to another place. To the only place in the dark where it was bright, colorful, and full of laughter. A world full of cries of pain. It was the Imperial Palace.

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