chapter 8
8 – Sosa (8)
I can understand Innis’ feelings to some extent. It would be sad He must be ashamed of himself. The result of having the courage to solve the problem is misunderstanding, misunderstanding, being kidnapped, and being treated as a burden. He is even a person who has trauma in his past. I can’t help it even if my mentality is shaken.
“If only I had done it right then… ….”
“Wait a minute! Dude do it! Pop!”
But at this rate, it seemed that Innis’ lengthy past would be described in about 5700 words, so I raised my fever to stop her tears and mouth. Past history is not to be solved at this time. When the past is difficult, solving it makes it even more difficult.
“Drop!”
I couldn’t hit her butt because she was sitting, so I slapped her thigh instead.
-Slap!
“My hometown is… Hey!”
The thigh is a sensitive area because all kinds of nerves are concentrated. It would be quite painful to hit such a place with a light and quick snap. Innis was startled by the sudden pain, and she let out a scream she didn’t know what. It was quite effective, seeing as her tears also stopped briefly.
As expected, shock therapy works well for both machines and people. Innis’s dimmed eyes came alive for a moment, and she began to listen to me.
“Zainis. Calm down and let’s talk. Huh?”
“… Heeep.”
“Take a slow, deep breath. Manage your emotions don’t look at me If you keep thinking bad thoughts, those thoughts will eat you up.”
I covered Innis’ eyes with my hand. Until now, she had been staring only at me. I don’t know what kind of guilt and debt I have, but because of that unique sense of responsibility, I couldn’t even allow myself to look away from me.
Looking at it roughly, I don’t think I knew that my identity was Experimental Unit 86, whom I had previously defeated.
“Sup- hoo-“
The body has a great influence on the mind. The melancholy that comes to mind when the body is distressed and the melancholy that comes to mind when the body is a little healthy are on a different level. Right now, Innis’ physical condition is unstable breathing, his body tired from moving for a long time, on an empty stomach, and he can’t sleep. Something didn’t go right
“Sup- hoo-“
Inis was admirably obedient to my words. She took a slow, deep breath to stabilize her breathing. When the shaking of my body stopped a little, I slowly removed my hand from covering my eyes. Her ruby red eyes and eyes met.
The flames that turned me to ashes flickered in my eyes. The burning pain at that time, the heat that did not match the dying chill. Her nausea rose, but her barely real wife responded to her with her laugh.
“Because I will always listen. Tell me when you’re ready got it?”
“… Yes.”
Innis sniffed at her and nodded her head. It reminded me of the children in the orphanage I took care of in the past, so it was very funny. Would the child be like this when he was all grown up? I tried imagining it, but I shook my head and tried to capture my thoughts because it was a story from my previous life that I had to stop lingering on.
Innis still continued to breathe while caressing her wrist, as if her mind was still restless. I left her out of her sight for a moment and thought about what to do now. After all, is it a meal?
You need to fill your stomach to become flexible in your thinking. What’s the use if you don’t eat at the resting place you’ve found? I thought I should fill my empty stomach first, so I went through Lilia’s bag I had stolen. As expected, emergency food was included.
I took out some of her wheat bread or beef jerky and her water bottle from her bag and handed it to her. Thinking is the law to move around flexibly when you fill your stomach. Of course, there is a problem that the source of the food is all someone else’s.
Ah, I will pay you back when I earn money later.
Innis stared at the jerky or wheat bread in his hand. What are you doing without eating? I moved my hand back and forth and told him to quickly lift it.
“You… ?”
Innis held out two-thirds of what was in his hand to me.
“Why are you giving me all the hardships you went through?”
“… Thanks.”
I accepted the food she gave me because I had no reason to refuse her offer. The sodium and carbohydrates that had been permeating the body for the first time in a long time were so sweet. Although the amount was not so small, the bread and beef jerky I received quickly sold out.
Innis laughed and he broke off half of the bread he was eating.
“Eat more.”
I had a sense of resistance to taking food from a sick person, but it was true that I was hungry, so I accepted it without hesitation. I don’t know who takes care of whom. What was so fun about Innis, he laughed at me even though there were tears in his eyes.
The light, shameful, and happy meal was over. Innis had the habit of eating just like the description in the book.
Maybe it’s been a while since we’ve been running, but the sun has already set. Even in the fog, the lights were assertive and there was a risk of being discovered by the enemy, so we couldn’t light a bonfire. As the fog finally pulled down the day, darkness hung over the cave and the sky.
But there were stars and moon.
The fog couldn’t even cover the sky, so even the stars and the moon were able to look down on the lowly lives in this cave. Stars that looked like jewels scattered here and there on a black cloth. The stars, which are not regular but not beautiful, welcomed us after the crisis of death. The galaxy lightly filled the space between them, giving the sky rich colors like stained glass.
The moonlight scattered as it met the fog contained a faint blue light. The fog that caused the wandering was also just a gathering of small water droplets.
When I read the night in a cave that is darker than the night, the world seemed a little brighter.
“How long has it been since I’ve seen the stars so leisurely….”
Innis also murmured softly, as if in awe of his natural beauty.
I glanced at her and she turned her eyes back towards the outside of her cave. The smell of blood and the faint sounds of fighting could be heard in the distance, but they couldn’t fill the place.
“My hometown was also a place where the stars were so pretty.”
It was Ennis’ voice that filled the cave. Just as her jade ball rolls to Toro and strikes her again, the cave expands and echoes her voice. As promised, I listened to her story.
“The stars were pretty, but the sunrise was the most beautiful. How pretty was the sun coming up, dyeing the rye field golden. Every year, many tourists come to our hometown to see the sunrise.”
This time, without any crying, her simple storytelling began. Calmly, she opened her memory box and opened its contents.
“There were especially many artists among them. A violinist came, a painter came, a singer came, sometimes a sommelier or a cook, and a witch.”
Innis spat out her words slowly, as if peeling off one grain of wheat from her.
“I still remember his appearance. He was the one with the long blue hair in pigtails, and he made me a flower out of ice that I begged him to do with his magic. It was really pretty.”
She said, caressing the flower-shaped crystal brooch on her chest. It must have been the brooch mentioned in the original story that Lilia gave her as a gift when she first met Innis.
“That was the first magic I ever saw. And it was the prettiest magic. I declared to my parents that night that I would become a wizard. As you can see by looking at me now, I ended up becoming a wizard. That flower quickly melted away, but I was determined by that flower for the rest of my life. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?”
Innis laughed heartily, and he carefully put the story of the happy past into his mouth and rolled it, as if taking candy out of a candy box.
“Not to brag, but I was called a genius. After one year of learning magic, I can surpass the magical abilities of the teacher who taught me. He was the only one in town who could use magic, but it was a big deal anyway. After I ran out of things to learn from the teacher, I bought magic books and taught myself.”
‘Is it deception?’
I wanted to cover my ears for a while. Every time I hear the martial arts of such geniuses, I feel like the judges are twisted and the five organs are twisted.
Somebody struggled for two years with just one magic book, how could he beat a teacher, teach himself magic, and eventually become a police officer? I don’t mean to brag, do you have a conscience or not? Do you know that a word from an upper class person like you makes the life of a pathetic person like me even more miserable….
I almost thought of it, but I’m not in that situation right now, so I pressed it into a corner of my heart.
“At that time, the most difficult magic written in a book was a wide-area magic named 【Sunset】.”
Why did that name appear all of a sudden? I got goosebumps when the name of the magic that melted the flesh, which gave me a unique experience that most people would never experience in their lifetime, came up. The fear of fire that had been dormant in my memory seemed to creep up. But I pressed it because the time was right.
No f*ck why do I have to press the trauma attack button while comforting him? I tried to cheat, but I endured it because the other person didn’t know anything. Since ancient times, it has been said not to mess around with public authorities.
“Hasn’t there been a single person who can speak it perfectly in the past 5 years? I forgot the year of publication, so I don’t know if it’s different now, but what kind of magic is so great that you even say that? I have come Should I say that I was stimulated by the spirit of challenge? I think I learned only that magic for half a year.”
I see… I must have been beaten by half a year of magic. I didn’t know about such a magic study behind the scenes, but most of the contents were the same as what we read in the original book.
“One day after living such a daily life.”
This is a story I know well from now on.
“The devil has descended on the village.”
Devils, beings from another world called hell. Wastes dominated by hedonism. An absolute enemy of those who ate ethics, courtesy, and fraternity. Beings who can destroy the world just for the sake of interest. The devil in [Butterflies Live in Her Eyes] Is portrayed as such a being.
At such a young age, Innis saw a friend who was like a malignant surprise that created a lifetime of trauma just by meeting him once.
“Since we are such a small village, the number of military police deployed is small, and the priests and nuns of the cathedral can only use simple holy magic.”
I still looked up at the stars and listened to her in silence.
“The village was destroyed in an instant. Needless to say, news was slow because we built a house far away from the village.”
Inis felt distressed as she gripped the sleeves of her clothes.
“We realized that the demon had descended only after it was so close that we could see the demon even at home.”
She lowered her starry head a little and looked down at the dark cave floor.
“My parents were away at work, so there was only me and my younger sister, who was still a baby, and I should have looked after her…” I should have….”
The tears I had forced back began to leak out a little. But it wasn’t as intense as before. Like after reading a sad novel, it was the discharge of emotions soaked in afterglow.
“The most powerful magic I know is 【Sunset】, which I practiced for half a year. There was no room for hesitation. I prepared the food as I have always done. For the first time in my life, I fired wide-area magic.”
It is standard practice for wide-area magic to consist mainly of ceremony. It is because the practice place is not suitable because of the vast range of damage. This doesn’t seem to make much of a difference between my past life and this side. However, because of this practice method, when using wide-area magic for the first time in real combat, there are frequent cases in which the range of one’s magic is misjudged.
“The magic itself was successful. But because the range was so powerful….”
She was like that too. If you underestimate my magic and talent and use magic.
“My house was caught up in that range too.”
The sound of the water gradually got louder, but I didn’t pay attention as if the misty droplets were washing my body with the moonlight.
“And in that house is my brother….”
She paused and wiped away her tears.
“I had a younger brother. Fortunately, she wasn’t dead, but she had already inhaled a lot of smoke and had several burns on her body. She ran out with the child and found her therapist.”
According to the description in the book, the appearance of Inis screaming for treatment while holding her baby was more terrifying than her ghost and looked more sorrowful than the woman who lost her child in the war.
“The streets were also on fire from the magic I fired. It was the road to hell where I couldn’t tell whether it was the devil or me. The corpses whose bereaved families hadn’t welcomed them yet started cremating because of me.”
Innis closed her eyes tightly. She seemed to recall the scenery at that time. Even though she must be suffering, why does she think of it again? It must be because it is a sin that I want to forget, and that I must never forget.
Innis exhaled painfully as if she had completed her reminiscence and resolution, and chewed the rest of the story.
“With the help of the Tsushima special police officers who arrived just in time, the recovery itself was possible. I watched in a daze as they treated my brother and cleared the town of corpses and piles of buildings. I didn’t dare intervene. It’s like it’s all my fault….”
In that way, Innis left a scar on her hometown and her brother with her magic, which was her own dream, goal, and beauty. And so.
“After that, I couldn’t use AoE magic.”
The rest of the story was simple.
Innis was scouted by the Tsushima Special Police, who recognized her talent for eradicating demons at a young age. At the training center, she was ostracized as a disastrous wizard who burned down the village.
She also met Lilia, a witch who was assigned to the 13th division and was recently assigned as a temporary police officer. That’s how she communicates with several monsters and ends.
“I met a fleshy monster whose entire body stretches.”
Meet me.
“It must have been ugly and hideous from the outside, but it must have been a human being inside. Told me save me… As.”
I met a monster that I possessed, originally supposed to solve the trauma of wide-area magic and raise my self-esteem.
“The courage Lillia gave me has been scattered. I can’t leave the thought that my magic only hurts someone. I have to atone, so I have to use magic to get revenge. I need to live more. But at the same time, the fear that someone else will get hurt never goes away.”
Magic is basically a skill that is greatly influenced by emotions. There are times when useless thoughts enter while forming a ceremony, changing the direction, power, and even the final attributes. It’s such a delicate technique, but if hesitation arises from using magic like that, it’s over. Even if I can’t use it, I can’t help it.
“So far… I am unable to use magic.”
After her epic story, I suddenly had a question and asked her.
“By the way, Innis.”
“Yes?”
“Why did the special police enter? If you met the devil when you were young, it would be scary.”
Innis looked at me and said. It was natural, as if answering the question of why you are breathing.
“Before it’s scary, the devil can kill innocent people, right? I learned a magic that can kill demons, but I have to use it and protect it.”
“You are right.”
I inadvertently laughed out loud because it was so true.
“And of course Innis.”
“Yes?”
“How many demons have you defeated so far?”
“Um… I don’t know because I haven’t counted each one… Probably over a hundred?”
“What is it? Then you saved more people than you hurt.”
I was still staring at the stars, the fog, and the moon. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a brightly lit night sky, and I’ve been immersed in it. He focused on the stars, but was indifferent to people. So I spit it out.
“What a wonderful wizard.”
“…… Yes. Yes.”
“Just blow away those who call themselves disaster wizards. You are a magic genius It should be simple.”
“I will. Simple.”
A sound that I don’t know if it’s a whooping or sniffling sound came from the side. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or swallowing tears. Based on previous experience, they were more likely to be crying.
“Right… nice wizard… I’ve been dreaming of….”
Innis muttered over and over again what I said. I turned around and saw that tears were pouring out of my eyes that were the color of embers, so I was right to be crying.
In this way, Innis shed tears four times in front of me, whom I had just met. Was there more? I do not know. I cried a lot anyway. But I never cried. I won.
“Whoops… That’s right. It’s that simple….”
Like that, Innis cried and laughed several times before slowly closing his eyes.
I thought I was going to lean against the cave wall, but I went to sleep on my shoulders and back. It was uncomfortable because it was heavy, but I was sorry that I woke up the child who started sleeping after all this hard work, so I just let it go.
The relationship between Innis and I is very shallow. His first meeting was accidental, and the second was also accidental. He hasn’t been around long enough to build a deep relationship.
Nevertheless, Ennis told me about her past. I was chosen as someone to take out the accumulated pus.
Someone has a day like that. There are days when I shed tears several times a day. The days when you are really tired and exhausted and frantically looking for something to rely on. For Innis, today was just such a day by chance.
The reason why she passed on candy from her past to me could be Lilia’s substitute, or it could be that she was just looking for someone to tell her story about and accidentally picked me nearby.
But even if all this was a coincidence, Innis would have eased her mind a little bit of her and I would have gotten to know her better. We have become a little closer, and things that happen in the future will be a little bit more inevitable than coincidence.
The expression of Innis, who was soundly asleep, looked much more comfortable than before. But the tears hadn’t dried yet. The wounds in her heart don’t heal overnight. That’s why I should hope that tomorrow will be more comfortable than today’s morning.
A body that couldn’t fall asleep anyway. Instead of falling into a dream, I prayed that the girl would be refreshed tomorrow morning.
So, I couldn’t sleep today either.