Chapter 229
Chapter 229
“■■.”
I couldn’t hear the voice.
It didn’t take long to realize this wasn’t reality.
The gray hoodie and jeans I was wearing were sensations that had become far too unfamiliar to me now.
At the same time, there was no way I could look at the smartphone in my hand, emitting cold blue light, and think this was reality.
This place was the Republic of Korea, inside my dream.
“Ugh, are you absorbed in that damn game again?”
Along with a familiar voice, a merciless blow landed on the back of my head, and I hurriedly turned around.
A man with a blurred face seemed to be glaring at me with pathetic eyes.
The playful smile at the corners of his mouth was clear, but strangely, I couldn’t see Sunbae’s face alone.
“Sunbae.”
He had been a close senior from university.
During my university days, he had been a hyung I was grateful to, the only one who kept me company.
I couldn’t see that Sunbae’s face.
Had even Sunbae’s face been erased as the price for obtaining information? Or had I now become unable to remember Sunbae’s face?
Whichever it was, it was not very welcome.
“Sunbae, what do you think it’d be like to enter a game?”
My body moved regardless of my will.
I turned on my phone and tapped the 「Lapis Academy」 app.
Lucian and Zephyros inside the screen felt especially unfamiliar today.
“What do you think? It’d be fucking awful.”
Sunbae answered indifferently.
“Why? Don’t you think it’d be kind of fun?”
Didn’t everyone imagine entering the game they played at least once?
Before even answering, Sunbae looked at me as if I were pathetic.
I’ll admit I was an otaku who lived obsessed with games.
Still, there were situations everyone dreamed of, weren’t there? Reality was no different from a test I had to endure with difficulty every single moment.
If that was the case, wouldn’t a world inside a game, where there was something like a System and the rewards were clear even if my life might be a little dangerous, be better?
Sunbae’s next words were fixed.
“Most people don’t even think about that, you know?”
But today, something was different.
“That’s because a game’s ■■■ is ■■, not ■■■.”
“Huh?”
It was a different answer from usual.
More than anything, I couldn’t hear Sunbae’s voice.
It was a voice mixed with crackling noise.
Before I could properly ask anything, I fell into a familiar void.
It was a sign I was about to wake from the dream.
In the collapsing space of the dream, I fell downward and shouted with all my might.
“Sunbae! I’m sorry!”
He must have been devastated by the sudden news of the death of a university junior he had been close to.
Even if it couldn’t reach the Sunbae in reality, I shouted my apology with all my heart.
“You looked after me so much, but I’m sorry!!”
He was someone I was grateful to, someone who willingly approached me even under the stinging gazes of others.
It was all thanks to Sunbae that I could endure those difficult moments.
Because of Sunbae, I wasn’t lonely for even a single moment.
That was why I could still be ‘me.’
That was why I could avoid breaking.
“I’m all right.”
For a moment, I felt as though I heard Sunbae’s voice, infinitely gentle.
Then darkness swallowed me completely, and when I opened my eyes again, I was in the Academy infirmary.
“Ah, this is reality.”
I had a strange dream.
It would have been better than anything if I could have recalled Sunbae’s face.
I forced down my gloomy heart and was about to get out of bed and call Professor Artemia when I confirmed the face of the person before my eyes.
“Father?”
Father lay on the bed, bound by Binding Magic.
…What the hell is this situation now?
---
“Evan, you’re still a patient. You do know that, right?”
At Artemia’s nagging that wasn’t quite nagging, Evan drank down the Elixir Lucian had given him and put the bottle in his pocket.
“Then I am no longer a patient.”
“Hey, that doesn’t solve everything.”
The Golden Elixir was, of course, an all-purpose potion, and it restored mana as well, but mental fatigue belonged to the realm of the soul, something even the Golden Elixir could not touch.
In other words, he still felt tired.
And what Evan needed most right now was to relieve that fatigue.
“You haven’t forgotten that you maintained the Sealing Array for 168 hours when Beatrice barely endured it for one hour, have you?”
“The Sealing Array Beatrice reconstructed was in a form that placed a far greater burden on the caster, so it was only natural she could not endure for long.”
“I hope you don’t think that means the overload placed on your mind was any lighter.”
Artemia, unable to watch any longer, finally cast Suppression Magic on Evan.
Evan, who had been watching the shape of the mana, naturally tried to dodge it, but unfortunately, he was caught faster than he could evade.
“See? You’re being suppressed even by my Suppression Magic.”
“That is not something I wish to hear from the foremost authority on Suppression Magic.”
Artemia did not particularly refute Evan’s point.
After all, patients who went wild while refusing treatment existed everywhere.
If one was a first-rate healing mage, then one’s Suppression Magic naturally had to be first-rate as well.
Especially if one wanted to be responsible for the Academy infirmary, which was full of mages who went wild thinking their bodies were made of steel, there were times when one had to be more skilled at Suppression Magic than Healing Magic.
Surely, it was all for moments like this.
When the previous healing professor had taught Artemia Healing Magic, he had not emphasized Suppression Magic for no reason.
“Are you going to keep being stubborn?”
“…….”
Evan remained silent without answering.
“As expected, this won’t do.”
When she finally followed up with Knockout Magic, Evan ultimately could not even resist and closed his eyes as he was.
Next time, should I tell him that Theo will see and learn from him if he pushes himself like that? Would this man push himself a little less then?
Ugh.
With a sigh, Artemia used wind magic to move Evan to the infirmary.
Since she was at it, she placed him on the bed beside Theo in particular, so that even after waking, he would not go wild trying to work for no reason.
“Next is Beatrice, then.”
She, too, was no different from a patient overexerting herself in real time.
Even though she had been in danger the entire time, she must have felt responsible for being an Academy professor and yet being helplessly beaten down.
“These hopeless people.”
Artemia swallowed a faint sigh and moved quickly.
She could have been overwhelmed by the sudden battle that had taken place in the middle of the semester, but Artemia decided to move diligently.
All of this was for her colleagues.
---
So the reason Father had been imprisoned here was that he refused to rest.
How should I describe this feeling I had right now?
It was an extremely irreverent emotion to harbor toward Father, but the words came out on their own.
“Father and son really are playing in pairs.”
At Professor Artemia’s cold words that followed, I considered protesting the unfairness of it, but I was certain it would not get through at all.
She’d only snort.
“What about Professor Beatrice?”
“She’s sleeping well beside your father.”
“Wow.”
For some reason, I had felt a strange presence from that side, and its owner was Professor Beatrice.
“Seriously, because of these bastards called professors….”
Professor Artemia, who had been muttering explicit curses, quickly shut her mouth.
Ah, that wasn’t something to say in front of the son of an Academy professor.
Even if the number-one culprit giving me headaches was Evan Lisitoel.
“Theo.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“You don’t need to forcibly suppress your emotions.”
At the professor’s words, I tilted my head.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it exactly as I said.”
Professor Artemia’s calm eyes felt as if they pierced through my lungs.
I tried somehow to hide it, but⋯ it seemed that was no good.
“Professor, I….”
“It’s all right. No one can blame you for the emotions and feelings you have.”
At her voice, as calm as her eyes, I felt my throat grow hot.
It made me wonder if psychology was also one of Professor Artemia’s specialties.
“I was happy for a moment.”
It felt as if I were a sinner making confession before a priest.
I tried to speak as calmly as possible, but I could not erase the trembling in my voice.
No matter how much I tried to act smug and pretend I had something, I was a human being without that much capacity, so it hurt in a way that was difficult to endure.
“I was happy at Father’s warmth touching my back. I thought it was a relief that the ones who died weren’t Father, but Iris and Mordin.”
An utterly selfish thought.
A human who originally should have died had lived.
A collaborator who should originally have lived, changed, become a good person, and helped the protagonist had died.
According to the Original Storyline, Lerwon and the professors should all have died, while Iris and Mordegar should have lived.
What on earth had I done?
“Theo.”
“They could have changed. Even if becoming good people would have been difficult, they could have become reasonably ordinary people. Iris and Mordin both had the chance to live slightly better lives stolen from them.”
Death was such a thing.
The end of everything.
Ah, but my death is not mine.
Even if the end came, if the System turned back the hands of the clock, I would ultimately return again. Unable to resist, powerless, like a dog wearing a leash.
I knew it all too well and had prepared myself for it, but today, that fact was so hard to bear that it hurt.
“Ah.”
This is my reality.
Right. Even if I possessed someone in a game, there was no way I could do everything according to my will.
Fantasy had become reality, and reality had become fantasy.
What on earth had I expected so much?
My fingertips trembled.
Breathing was so painful and agonizing that tears came.
“Theo.”
“I’m fine.”
I had to be fine.
Don’t you pity me like this? You’re feeling sympathy for me, aren’t you? Perhaps even suffering like this is just my struggle to justify myself.
What a shallow and laughable human being I was.
“I—”
Where, and from what point, had everything gone wrong?
In truth, hadn’t I been doing so many things wrong from the very beginning?
Should I reset the world again?
If I did, then this time, couldn’t I make a world where Iris, Mordin, Father, and everyone else could be happy without anyone being sacrificed?
Right, the number of Writer skills had increased too.
My stats or skills might reset as much as the world had reset, but at the very least, I would be able to do better than now.
“Theo Lisitoel.”
A voice like the world being opened reached me.
As if it made my retreat into my own world meaningless, the person who pulled me out of the well in an instant met my eyes.
“Father.”
He was looking at me with eyes that seemed ready to collapse at any moment.