Chapter 47: New Life
The Thousand Deaths of Tomorrow was the kind of novel that had an explanation for almost everything that happened within its story, even if those explanations weren’t always provided right away.
Now whether they were good or even satisfactory explanations for the readers or not... well, that was honestly completely up for debate.
However, because of that, Eric knew how and why Aurora had been able to regress in the first place.
That being said though...
’How am I able to regress as well?’
Because if Eric tried to apply the same logic behind Aurora’s regression to himself, it just wouldn’t work at all.
Eric couldn’t help but went to go sit down on his luxurious white couch and stared at his reflection on the glass table in front of him as he thought about it.
His previous life had already been very strange to begin with, there was no doubt about that.
From being able to suddenly remember his past lives again, to not being able to feel pain like he used to not be able to back on Earth, to somehow even being able to heal fully back to normal health after being in critical condition for a period of time, there were plenty of unexplainable things that had happened in that life already.
But while they were all very strange to begin with and Eric had seen nothing like it back when he was still reading the novel back on Earth, they at least felt like things that could eventually be explained by the rules of this world.
Regression however...
He just couldn’t see it.
Additionally, he never actually even died when he was regressed back.
It was Aurora who did.
"..."
"Damn it."
Eric didn’t know how, nor could he explain why, but he just knew that there had to be some kind of connection between his regression and Aurora’s.
And that thought alone frustrated him greatly.
After all, if he regresses back every time Aurora dies and regresses back as well now, wouldn’t that mean that he was practically also trapped in the same near-endless time cycle as her, forced to repeat everything over again until either he dies or she finally becomes strong enough to defeat everyone coming after her?
Seriously, was that really what his fate had boiled down to now?
"Even in this damn world, I still can’t catch a break..."
Well, regardless of what the case was, Eric knew that complaining and dwelling on it now wasn’t going to do him any good.
As such, after letting out his first sigh ever in this life, the one of many he knew would soon follow in the future, Eric decided to leave it be for now and got up from his couch.
Afterwards, he grabbed his winter coat from the coat rack, exited his penthouse, and then made his way towards his parked Lamborghini before slipping inside and driving off towards a certain college that was located somewhere within this city.
More specifically, he was headed to Asterwell Technical College, which Aurora and Aria both currently attended at, and where Aurora’s apartment was supposedly located.
***
Once Eric had arrived at the college’s campus grounds after driving for about 30 minutes, he parked his car at a nearby paid parking lot, got out, and began looking around.
Even though the college campus was by no means big since it was a community college, and the area seriously looked like it could use some renovations with how old and run down the surrounding buildings were, the campus was still brimming with plenty of people walking around and having fun with one another.
Some were gathered in groups, others wandered around alone, and a few were even holding some kind of massive celebration for something in the middle of the campus.
And although this place wasn’t anything special at all, not in the slightest compared to all of the fancy colleges and universities that he had seen before back on Earth and in this world, Eric couldn’t help but admire the atmosphere here.
Even if he couldn’t help but also feel uncomfortable in being such a rundown place.
In the end though, the reason why Eric was even here right now was not to appreciate the scenery or anything like that, and thus, without any further delay, he began walking around the campus grounds trying to find out where the apartment complexes are located at.
Thankfully, it didn’t take him very long to find the apartments, and once he had arrived there, he was met by the sight of 10 different apartment buildings all lined up next to each other.
They were all identical in terms of appearances, had the same number of floors, and differed only by the numbers displayed outside of it, which represented each building’s number.
Eric had no plans of going inside of any of them though, and instead remained on the campus some distance away so that nobody would find his presence suspicious, but still close enough to observe everyone coming in and going out of the apartments.
After all, while he had came here to find out exactly which apartment building Aurora lived in just in case he needed that information later, the real reason he had rushed over here immediately after regressing back was for one thing and one thing only.
And that was...
’To find out if Aurora regressed properly or not.’
Because as dumb as that sounded, there was genuinely a chance that she might not have.
Especially considering all of the anomalies that had surrounded him in his previous life and continued to follow him now.
And he needed to know for certain before he begins doing anything else.
As such, Eric waited.
For nearly 2 hours straight in fact.
He had even kept his eyes on the black van carrying Aurora’s first ever kidnappers the entire time as they surveyed the area and tried to determine how they were going to abduct her.
But for some reason, not once did he see any signs of Aurora anywhere whatsoever.
And that was incredibly strange, considering that sometime after her 15th regression, Aurora would always deal with these kidnappers within the first two hours of regressing back.
Eric didn’t think much of it though and continued waiting for Aurora to eventually come on out and deal with these kidnappers so that he could take a good look at the way she handled things and see if she was any different in this regression than she was from the rest.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long after that, and as soon as a few more minutes had passed by, and the 3 kidnappers in the van had stepped their foot out of their vehicle with a cigarette in hand and started smoking away, the door of the apartment building that they were keeping a close eye on suddenly swung wide open.
And there she was, walking out of the 3rd apartment building from the left...
Was Aurora herself, looking exactly the same as she always did.
Eric didn’t think that anything was wrong at first and just simply watched silently from afar, expecting the kidnappers to notice her and then make their move.
However, when the kidnappers had noticed her and quickly put their cigarettes out in order to rush towards her at her apartment building, instead of Aurora quickly running back into her apartment room while pretending to forget to close and lock her doors so that the kidnappers could easily enter her apartment and deal with them there like she had always done in the early Chapters of the novel, Aurora did something so unexpected that Eric couldn’t help but rub his eyes in disbelief with what he was witnessing.
Because instead of trying to play it smart like she always had, and was supposed to continue doing for many regressions to come, Aurora leaped over the railing of her second floor apartment without the slightest hesitation whatsoever and landed directly on one of the kidnappers below, killing him instantly on impact.
Then, before the other two kidnappers even had a chance to react, Aurora quickly rose from the corpse beneath her and slashed the throat of the one closest to her with a kitchen knife she had been hiding behind her back, causing him to immediately collapse to the ground and clutch his throat as blood gushed between his fingers and splattered all over her.
As for the last kidnapper, he was smart enough to try and run away from Aurora after seeing his two friends literally get murdered in front of him, but...
WHOOSH!
Before he could even make it back to the van, get inside, and drive off in order to call for some backup, Aurora had already thrown her kitchen knife right at the back of his head and plunged it deeply into the middle of his skull, effectively killing the final kidnapper right on the spot.
All of this happened within a span of 20 seconds, and Eric was left flabbergasted by it.
After all, not only was her style of dealing with her first ever kidnappers again in this world so absolutely reckless and brutal compared to what he had remembered reading about in the novel, but also...
’She killed them out in the open like this.’
Eric quickly scanned around his surroundings for a bit to see if anyone else around him had also seen what had just occurred before turning back to Aurora again with a frown on his face when he saw that nobody else was around his vicinity.
But the moment he had Aurora back in his sights again however, Eric’s eyes also couldn’t help but widen up in shock.
Why?
Because...
’Why is she lying on the ground ontop of the pool of blood like that now?’
Not only that, but she was just mindlessly staring up at the cloudy skies from above as though she were in a trance and didn’t seem to mind at all the fact that there were dead bodies lying right next to her whatsoever.
Really, Eric couldn’t help but feel extremely disturbed by her behavior.
It was just so unlike her, and so creepy.
But at the same time...
"..."
"Sigh, how annoying."
Eric didn’t know why, but he knew that he just had to go down there and talk to her.
There was no way around it.
Even if he knew that Aurora might just try to kill him the moment she saw him again.
Because, at the end of the day, whether he liked it or not, if he was going to also be sent back every time Aurora regressed from now on, then...
That was practically worse than death for him.
And there was no point in trying to avoid that if he wanted to live to see another day.