Chapter 44 · A Chance Encounter (3)

The life after my fifth death, when I was killed by Tanian.

I avoided freezing to death in the mountains, avoided being mauled by beasts, and even escaped the slave hunters by fleeing to another village, but there was nothing a four-year-old child could do.

I joined a gang of beggar children and barely scraped by, but I went hungry almost every day and had to sneak into other people’s barns to sleep. When the owner caught me, I was beaten and chased off, and the children of other gangs bullied me at every turn. After a few years, I finally managed to sell flowers, but before long I starved to death on the cold street.

In the next life, I gave up on running away before I turned four. I let myself be dragged quietly to the royal palace and lived in fear until I was eight. And on the day I finally escaped the palace, I was assassinated by a mysterious assailant. Even as I begged, saying I would live as if dead if only they would let me go, it was no use.

In my eighth life, I realized that I could never survive on my own. Extreme despair and depression swallowed even the faintest will to live, and I threw myself toward death with my own hands. The doctrine said that Lord Lux does not forgive suicide, but what did that matter in my situation? Perhaps this was the only way to break the cycle of regression.

But as if to shatter that brief hope, I woke in Princess Beatrice’s arms with a splitting headache.

Thus began my ninth life. I tried my best to look good in the eyes of the temple. It seemed the temple was the only thing that could protect me.

I shut myself in my room all day reciting scripture, secretly consuming mana in the background to prevent mana runaway, and lived truly as if I were dead. This method seemed fairly effective. Of course, I didn’t know what happened afterward, but in any case, I had survived the longest.

But in the year I turned twelve, I met a mysterious death. I still couldn’t remember why I had died—until this very moment, when all the memories came rushing back.

“What’s wrong? Do you have some kind of illness?”

The boy before me was looking at me with eyes full of fear. Unaware of the fate that would befall him years later.

“Uuu…”

When I groaned and clutched my throbbing head without answering, he hurriedly got up and brought over an old blanket that was little more than a rag.

“Lie down here for a moment.”

I swallowed a hollow laugh. Weren’t you just about to kill me? What use is a blanket to someone you’re going to kill anyway? If you’re so out of it right now, you should just throw me out the window.

‘He really is just a child. There’s no way he could kill me.’

He spread the blanket clumsily and lifted me onto it. Then he knelt in front of me and anxiously looked around. But there was nothing more that could possibly help.

I slightly opened my tightly shut eyes and looked at him. When our eyes met—those mysterious-colored eyes—he hastily turned his head away.

‘I used to avoid people’s eyes like that too.’

I truly wondered whether this boy could even kill a single ant.

That day, too, he hadn’t killed me on purpose. It was eight years after he had been imprisoned, so he must have been barely able to hold onto his sanity. His thirst for the outside world would have grown worse and worse.

So he would have used portal magic to escape and spent more and more time outside. Who would want to return to that lonely prison?

But one day he was caught. When I saw him, he was being chased by countless royal knights. His face was filled with fear and despair.

He fired off attacks and curses indiscriminately. Buildings collapsed from blast magic, and outdoor ornaments toppled. Unluckily, I was nearby, and of course I fled in a panic along with the other people running away…

And I was hit by one of his spells. It was mental binding. That’s why, when I was caught by Freesia’s mental binding, I woke up before Ark and Rizen. I had some degree of immunity compared to them.

Anyway, after being struck by that spell and collapsing, I was unable to move and was crushed by a collapsing building. And so my ninth life ended meaninglessly.

‘So he reached the level of casting mental magic without a medium, all on his own, at that age?’

As I lay there staring blankly at his handsome face, he blushed slightly.

“What… Are you feeling a little better?”

“Yeah. I think it’s a wittle bettew now that I’m wying down.”

“Why on earth did you suddenly get like that? You look scrawny, but…”

“I’m not scwanny!”

It hurts because I recovered the memories I’d lost because of you! Ugh.

A heavy silence settled. It was a terribly awkward situation.

“When awe you going to kill me?”

When I asked, blinking, he flinched.

“…Wh-what?”

“You said you wewe going to kill me eawwiew.”

“…”

The boy’s eyes shook wildly.

“What kind of child are you…”

“Awen’t you going to kill me?”

“No, I am going to kill you!”

He sprang to his feet and huffed, glaring at me.

“I’m going to kill you. If I don’t kill you…”

“Weo can’t kill me.”

“Wh-what…?”

He looked as if he doubted his own ears.

“Weo can’t kill me.”

“D-don’t call me that! Who’s Leo?!”

“I call weally close fwiends by pet names.”

“I said who’s your friend! You really are a strange child!”

“Weo can call me Asha too!”

When I smiled brightly and kept saying only what I wanted to say, the boy’s face turned bright red. He flared up.

“Stop talking nonsense. I will never call you that.”

“Then you can stawt with ‘Anastasia’ fow now. I don’t weally wike my name because it’s too wong.”

“You, you…!”

Leo couldn’t retort and just gasped for breath for a long while. Seeing him at a loss reminded me of when I first called Paeon by a pet name. He had been flustered like this too.

In many ways, this child reminded me of Paeon. Especially that cheeky attitude. Well, of course. Having been locked up alone for years without anyone to care for him, his hostile attitude was understandable.

I slowly got up. And grunting, I opened the heavy window. With a creak, the old worn window slowly moved. Wind rushed in strongly. My white hair fluttered softly toward him.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

Leo cried out in alarm.

“Weo, wift the mana block. Then I’ll use powtal magic again and get out of hewe. And I will nevew, evew tell anyone what happened hewe.”

“…”

He looked confused.

“Weally. I’ll sweaw on Wux.”

“I don’t believe in things like that. It’s not as if God punishes you for breaking a vow to Him.”

This guy really knows how to hit where it hurts. In any case, Kalisa also had the Logos faith, which worships Lord Lux, as its state religion, but he seemed quite skeptical about God.

“That’s not twue. Sometimes you weally awe punished.”

I said gloomily. There’s this man called Paeon, and because of him, I’m receiving divine punishment in his stead.

“…That’s just a coincidence! Anyway, I can’t trust you. If I let you go like this, I’m finished.”

“If you can’t twust me, then there’s nothing I can do. Push me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. As if to say, do as you like.

“…What kind of child are you? Do you not know what it means to die?”

“No one in the wowwd knows bettew than me what it means to die.”

“What? What does that mean? No… Do you have no attachment to life?”

“I’m fwoowing with attachment. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“…”

Leo gritted his teeth, clenching and unclenching his hands. After hesitating for a long while, he finally seemed to make up his mind, squared his shoulders, and came toward me. His face drew closer and closer. He was trembling.

‘Kid, your eyelashes are really long.’

When the distance between us was less than five as (fifteen centimeters), he grabbed my arm. My long hair tickled his face for quite a while. He seemed barely able to breathe.

I felt the cool air behind my back and just stood there. With the slightest push, I would fall out there and my whole body would shatter. No self-propelled levitation magic had been discovered yet, after all.

But he couldn’t do that easy thing. Even the hand lightly holding me was trembling like mad. Compassion for him welled up in me. Compassion for someone trying to kill me—no, someone who had already killed me once.

How much time passed?

“…Fine. You win.”

He bowed his head deeply and squeezed out in a grinding whisper. His hand slowly fell away from me.

“I’ll lift the block.”

“Thank you, Weo!”

I grabbed his hand tightly and smiled brightly. He flinched, then violently shook me off.

“Stop putting on an act. You’re laughing at me inside, aren’t you? Saying I couldn’t even do that but still put on a bluff.”

“I’m not waughing.”

I answered seriously.

“Why would I waugh at you fow not being able to kill someone?”

“…You really are a strange child. You don’t seem like a child at all.”

Hearing that from a true little old man was funny. I may have regressed, but what on earth are you?

Leo quietly went to one corner and took a piece of white chalk from a crack in the stone floor. Then he began quickly drawing a complex magic formula combining runes on the floor.

“Irritatĭo præclúsĭo.”

When he recited the activation word, a bluish light circled through the formula.

“Did you weawn this on youw own too? Weo, you’we a weaw genius…”

As a magic student, a sound of pure admiration escaped me.

“…Don’t say things you don’t mean. It doesn’t make me happy at all.”

He didn’t seem used to being praised.

‘His ears are turning red… It’s somehow refreshing. He’s so bad at being honest, and it shows so obviously.’

The mana block was lifted. The stifling feeling of being walled in disappeared, and it felt refreshing. I calmly recited the portal spell again. An enormous amount of mana was consumed. It seemed I had only enough mana left to get out of this place.

“…Are you sure you know how to do this properly? You said you fell here by mistake too.”

“Awe you wowwied about me?”

When I spoke playfully, he flared up again.

“I don’t care whether you live or die! No, it’d be better if you died!”

“I’ll keep my pwomise.”

I said as I approached the dizzyingly swirling black vortex. Just before I stepped into it.

“…And, I’ll come again.”

That one sentence slipped out without my meaning it to. I don’t know what kind of expression the boy made. Because I entered the portal the moment I said it. The unpleasant pressure came again, but I focused on my destination with all my might.

Crash, tumble!

Fortunately, I rolled out onto flat ground. I gasped for the breath I had been holding. This really wasn’t something I could do multiple times. The place I arrived at was the greenhouse garden. To make an excuse for not having returned for so long, I hurriedly stuck leaves and twigs all over my body.

And when I had walked about a minute out of the garden, I heard someone’s scream and turned around. Paeon was standing there with a terrifying face.