I Was Confessed to by the Golden Sun

78 – 78. Going back

Everyone’s gaze is strongly fixed on me, making me feel exposed.

What should I say, they all look at me with an expectant sparkle in their eyes.

‘..I didn’t get a proper explanation either.’

I was forcibly given information by the suddenly appearing Grayson.

No, I don’t even know how to properly implement this ‘calming’!

If they’re looking at me with such penetrating gazes, what am I supposed to do!

‘Ugh, I need to try something.’

For now, Grayson is sitting quietly, clutching the Akashic Record.

Since he’s not moving, approaching him probably won’t cause a massive problem.

I slowly moved towards Grayson, and Lucia, who was beside me, followed my lead.

‘I guess, calming them down means separating the Akashic Record and Grayson.’

I didn’t exactly relay anything to Grayson, and in this situation, his ‘calming down’ seems to be.

The thought that perhaps the right answer is to separate him from the Akashic Record occurred to me.

“Jack, is this alright?”

Lucia, who had witnessed Grayson’s horrifying strength earlier, started looking apprehensive and shaking.

It wasn’t really my desire to go along with Grayson.

“You can wait here, Lucia. I’ll handle it myself…”

I hesitated as well, so I cautiously suggested to her to step back for a moment.

-Thud!

“..Ouch.”

I received a light punch on the head from Lucia, without any force behind it.

And then I heard Lucia’s worried words mixed with concern.

“You idiot! How can I let you go alone when it could be dangerous!”

As I lightly placed my hand on her waist and gently stroked her head, even emitting a short “hmpf,” we became even closer to Grayson.

He was quietly lying there, as if peacefully sleeping, catching my eye.

‘I guess I can’t touch the Akashic Records with my own hands.’

Judging from the Princess’s reaction, it seemed that touching the Akashic Records would not yield normal results.

Instead of touching the Akashic Records, I placed my hand on Grayson’s body.

“..Huh?”

The next moment, the surrounding space transformed.

“What’s going on..”

Startled by the sudden change without any warning, I looked around, but there was nothing in sight.

As if the concept of adaptation did not exist, the backgrounds were swallowed by darkness.

Lucia, who was next to me, and Grayson, who was in front of me, could not be seen.

‘..Could I have been wrong.’

Perhaps this wasn’t the method to calm Grayson down after all.

Could it have been a request to be roasted crispy with self-immolation?

If that’s really the case, I thought there was no crazier person than me and bit my tongue, moving forward.

‘The influence of the Akashic Records isn’t just limited to the person holding the book, but it can also capture the person holding the book.’

The report contained forbidden knowledge that presumably led to the downfall of the once flourishing nation.

So, if the above assumption holds true, it means that I’m currently inside that place.

‘How insane…’

When that thought came to mind, I suddenly felt a sense of weightlessness in my body and collapsed to the floor.

I would prefer if something else happened, but no matter how much I urged myself forward with various thoughts, the surroundings remained unchanged.

“..Ah.”

As I sat there, digging through my pocket, I suddenly pulled out a lemon candy from my back pocket.

I couldn’t recall putting it in the back pocket, so maybe Lucía did it for me.

“There’s quite a lot of them…”

After searching through my front pockets, I realized there were quite a few lemon candies gathered there.

I just sat there for a while, staring at those candies.

***

“…How long has it been?”

With no sunlight to guide me, I had no way of knowing the passage of time.

Subjectively, maybe a week? Or perhaps even a month.

“Maybe I should stay still today.”

The fact that today was particularly gloomy made me muster up some strength as I lay on the ground.

When I say “today” in this context, it meant thinking about all sorts of things until I fell asleep, exhausted.

“It’s getting harder.”

Surprisingly, during this long period, I hadn’t encountered anything.

I was starting to miss even pigeons on the street and saints.

So, I continued to play with the lemon candies for a while.

*Squelch…*

In the dark space, a sudden, violet rift appeared.

“…!”

For the first time in a long time, I widened my eyes at this appearance of change and immediately focused on it.

Without hesitation, I eagerly peered inside the rift, fearing it might vanish.

Inside was none other than…

“Mother?”

It was difficult to gauge when I had last seen her, but it was indeed my mother’s figure.

Well, it might seem like a good reunion with family up to this point, but the problem was…

“This is insane.”

My mother was hanging on a thin string just as she was when she took her own life.

I tried to somehow force my body into the rift, but it pushed me back as if it were a kind of barrier, denying my movement.

“Sigh…”

Emotions shook me a bit, but the damage wasn’t as severe as I had expected, given the recurring memories from the past.

However, the fact that I have to see this scene again makes me a little angry.

I continued to push my head into the crack, but eventually gave up and sat back in my place.

“Brings back old memories.”

Our home was a seemingly perfect home to anyone who saw it.

A harmonious place where we had frequent conversations, shared our daily routines, and dreamt of a happy future together.

It had an ordinary appearance that could be seen anywhere, but it was beautiful because of that.

And then, that harmonious home collapsed in an instant.

“..Why did our father do that?”

It was because of our father’s affair with a colleague from work.

I can’t understand why that person was so important to him, now that I think about it.

Thanks to that incident, it went to trial and ultimately led to a divorce.

Back then, I was too young to know why this happened, I just followed my mother after the separation.

“I didn’t know anything back then, was that the problem?”

My mother seemed fine.

Even though she stayed up nights drinking for many days, she always worked hard and made sacrifices for her children.

But was that calm appearance just an act? On the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary after the divorce, she made a drastic decision.

“It was a difficult period when I think about it again.”

Since I was the one who witnessed that scene first and reported it to the police, I still vividly remember that scene.

Afterwards, well, I moved from one relative’s house to another, living as a parasite, until I finally got into a decent university and achieved a decent life, and then I found myself here.

“Sigh, it feels better when I think about it like this.”

Honestly, even though I thought I had already sorted everything out, my head was starting to heat up and my chest was becoming stifling, but it seems like it has gotten a little better.

“Hmm?”

When I looked into the crack again, the scene had changed a bit from before.

Inside, there was a scene of Grayson touching the Akashic records.

“What is this?”

Compared to now, he looked much younger, and the surroundings were in ruins.

The background was undoubtedly the city where we stood, and Grayson in the crack, after touching the Akashic records, stared into the empty space for a moment with vacant eyes.

-Thunk!

Soon after coming to his senses, he left that place.

And at the same time, the background within the crack changed, showing the past me.

So, the room I lived in, the one in Orlante where Jack Orlante lived, was being revealed.

“That’s me.”

And in the crack, I saw my young self lying in bed, sleeping peacefully.

*Squeak!*

Looking at my face with a somewhat complex feeling that was hard to put into words, I turned my head at the sound of the door opening.

There, Grayson stood gracefully, holding an Akashic record.

“Uh, what’s that all about?”

And right away, he placed the Akashic record in my sleeping hand and looked into the air.

“If it’s you, you probably understand when you see this.”

“Are you talking to me?”

For some reason, it seemed like he was telling me to listen, so I focused my attention diagonally.

He, seemingly uninterested in making idle conversation, hardened his expression and spoke.

“Let me explain simply. I am what you saw, that place. I am the last survivor of the city that perished.”

“Huh?”

“And, I, after a lot of hardship, obtained the Akashic record and glimpsed the potential of the future.”

It felt like he was unraveling some clue about the possession.

Because the topic I had put away, thinking I would have no way of knowing, was coming out of his mouth.

“Now, that future is a somewhat ridiculous story, involving power struggles due to a girl named Heidi.”

Sure enough, it was Grayson himself who was starting to reveal his story.

“But I had no choice but to believe it. Because the Akashic record, which was ignored at the time, actually predicted that my hometown would be destroyed because of herself.”

Saying so, he took back the Akashic record in my hand, put it in a big pocket, and added.

“So, I chose you as the hero to prevent destruction. You were her childhood friend in the original work and, as mentioned in the ‘original,’ despite having less power compared to the other male protagonists, you tried to protect Heidi to the end.”

“But then, what about the possession?”

I understood his perspective, but I was still frustrated because there was no talk of possession.

“So, now, based on your past life, I manipulated your memories as if you had possessed them from another world. Making you a bit more rational and pragmatic, allowing you to act for survival.”

“Ah.”

His words were like scratching an itch.

So, in reality, I hadn’t possessed anyone; I had just been made to believe that I had, hadn’t I?

“The Arcasique Record contains the contents of multiple dimensions, including past lives to some extent.”

I don’t feel repulsed when it comes to my past life because it would be something I experienced, but my heart feels chaotic.

Then Grayson clapped his hands as if organizing my feelings.

“Well, if you’ve come this far, it means you’ve overcome all obstacles and cleared the dangerous factors in the world according to the plan I originally had in mind.”

Then he pointed his finger as if pointing to a rift in front of him.

“When this story broadcast is over, the rift will immediately change into a door leading out of the Arcasique Record. In fact, this space is closer to a space I slightly interfered with in the Arcasique Record to transmit messages.”

Grayson, inside the rift, walks steadily, opens the door to my room, and while leaving, he says a word.

“I will probably be a mess without any proper memories then, so take care of yourself!”

“..Ah!”

And at the same time, the video broadcast stops, emitting a strange energy from the rift.

Instinctively, I felt that if I go inside there, I can return to the original world again.

“Is this the end.”

I realized around that time.

That I really went through all the episodes and unraveled all the secrets tangled with me.

“Let’s go back.”

That’s why, for Lucia, who is waiting for me outside without any hesitation, I took a step forward.

-Whaaa!

The bright light entering my field of vision is annoying, so I closed my eyes, and a soft energy spread through my body.

Yeah, it’s like a hospital bed.. so soft..

“Uaaah!”

“…?”

While I was briefly immersed in such thoughts, a crying sound reached my ears.

“Lucia, Jack will be fine. There’s no harm to his life.”

“Then what should I do! He’s been lying here unable to wake up for a week!”

“..That’s true.”

“What should we do about poor Jack!”

As I listened carefully to the voice, it seemed that Heidi was trying to calm Lucia down.

I’m contemplating whether I should act as if I’m still unconscious, not sure why I should wake up right now.

“..Huh?”

Lucia questioned Heidi as she poked my forehead with a puzzled voice.

“Hey, Heidi, Jack’s expression seems a little different, doesn’t it?”

“It’s exactly the same as before.”

It seems like he’s caught on to something, as he’s starting to sweat.

“His eyebrows went up a bit, and the hands he had folded are now stretched out. I’ve been watching him for an hour without missing a beat, even though he’s been frozen for a week, so there’s no doubt..”

“Uh… Ugh..”

As Lucia’s chilling deduction reached my ears, I groaned and quietly sat up.

“Eek!”

Upon seeing me like that, Heidi was startled and Lucia’s tears started flowing.

“Jack!!!”

She immediately hugged me and burst into tears.

“I’ve been so worried for a week… sniff… and now you finally wake up..”

While saying that, she even mumbled words that I couldn’t understand.

Because I had missed Lucia so much during the time I was trapped there, I could understand her feelings, so I held her tightly.

“Euh… I like you..”

Listening to Lucia’s mixture of worry and complaints that continued for a few hours, I focused my slightly loosened mind again when she seemed like she was about to finish speaking.

“…Yeah.”

At the same time, she tilted her head toward me and whispered in my ear, aligning her mouth with my ear.

“You haven’t forgotten our promise, right..?”

“..What?”

I foolishly asked in response to her sudden and unexpected words.

Lucia hugged me tightly and smiled.

“..If you faint again, be prepared to break your back.”

..For some reason, that was the only part of her words that sank properly into my ears.