282 – Eternal Story
After hearing my answer, the woman looked at me without saying a word for a while.
“Okay… “That’s your answer.”
Why did she suddenly ask such an unexpected question?
Even though I asked her questions, she didn’t provide much explanation, so the topic was ignored.
After that, no matter how hard she tried to talk, it felt like her nerves were already elsewhere.
Naturally, I felt helpless and lost all my strength.
It felt like I was sitting down with a doll and talking to it.
She was definitely different last night than she is now, but she listened much more closely to what I was saying and smiled brightly.
···No. Did I talk to her last night?
Didn’t she faint right away when she saw her? I felt like I had a vague memory of something, but I couldn’t recall what conversation we actually had.
The moment I met her for the first time, I felt a thrill that I had experienced for the first time in her life.
Even now, when she looks at the beauty of the woman sitting in front of her, her heart still races, but she cannot shake off the feeling of discomfort that something is different from last night.
What is the cause of this subtle emptiness?
After she hesitated for a while, I got up from her seat and made an offer to her.
“It’s boring to stay in the cabin. “Why don’t you go outside?”
She looked out her window for a moment with an expressionless face at my suggestion and muttered softly.
“I don’t think I’ll be caught even if I go out there because the trees are so dense…”
“There is a place I want to show you.”
She hesitated for a moment and then slowly nodded her head.
“Okay. “Let’s go.”
She rose her body gracefully and followed me out of the cabin.
And Hayang, who had been watching us, naturally joined the group.
While walking along a forest path in the quiet silence, I caught the moment in front of me when something small threw itself into the bushes and disappeared.
“···Huh?”
No matter how you look at it, it is a fox cub with a very familiar silhouette.
I hurriedly looked back to see if he had run ahead of us, but I saw White following behind us.
What happened? Did I see it wrong? Or Hayang’s brother?
“Why are you doing that?”
“Uh… “Did you just see something jumping into the bushes?”
“I didn’t see anything. “Maybe you saw it wrong.”
Seeing as she said that, it seems I was mistaken.
After struggling to understand it, I took the steps I had stopped and continued moving towards my destination.
We finally arrived at a small lake in the center of the forest.
No matter when I came here, it was always beautiful. Not only in the middle of the day like now, but also in the middle of the night when the dim moonlight provides illumination.
“I will watch from here. “I think the sun will be quite stinging.”
She did not get close to the lake shore, but stopped under the shade of a tree.
I flopped down on the lawn next to him and started talking while looking blankly at the sparkling lake.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Okay. “It’s a really beautiful scenery.”
“It’s so strange. “I’m sure it’s my first time coming here with you, but somehow I feel like I’ve just experienced this moment.”
There was no reply, but he continued talking regardless.
“When it was much darker than now, at a much closer distance, with our hearts connected.”
“You and I met for the first time yesterday. “Of course we’ve never been to this lake together.”
“That’s right. I know that’s true… I feel like my mind is a mess. “It feels like I changed into a different person overnight.”
After I met her, something about her became strange.
Moreover, from the first time I saw her, I felt an atmosphere that I had never felt from an ordinary person, something special and inhuman.
So I came to this lake. Because she was confident that she would be able to realize something if she came here.
“You asked me earlier. “What would you choose between a happy lie or a cruel truth?”
She was looking at me blankly. As if waiting for my words.
“I want the truth. If there is something I don’t know, if the truth is the reason why it disturbs me, if you are related to the truth… Please let me know.”
“You might regret it.”
“It’s okay.”
“The choice you make now could lead to destruction of your life.”
“I was prepared.”
She asked back as if she couldn’t understand my unwavering answer.
“Why? “If you just accept the lies given to you without questioning them, you will be able to live happily.”
I answered.
“Because I feel sorry for you.”
“···What?”
“I am sure I will be happy, but you will be forced to make up a lie even though you know the truth. “It’s like I’m still playing someone else.”
My answer was so unexpected that she was dumbfounded for a while and then burst into laughter.
“Ha. hahahaha···. That’s funny. “Never would have thought that I, the mother of lies, would hear such words.”
“No one tells lies because they like it. We have no choice but to do it to cover up our own mistakes or because we don’t want others to get hurt. “Sometimes a lie may be the best, but it is never the best.”
She spoke calmly while gazing at the calm waves of the lake.
“I always thought that all humans were foolish. But at least you don’t seem like that.”
As he said that, his gaze turned towards me and for the first time I could see true emotions.
“Let me ask you just one question. “If I treat you truthfully, will you accept me as I am, just as you treated my brother?”
Those eyes are filled with strong interest and curiosity.
And the pure desire towards me.
I don’t know who her brother she was referring to, but I nodded at her.
“No matter who you are, I will accept you as you are.”
“···Okay. “Then I’ll tell you the truth.”
As soon as a soft hand touched my forehead, I recalled all the memories I had forgotten.
***
“···Huh!”
I took a deep breath and suddenly came to my senses.
“I guess I’ve finally come to my senses.”
Franken, who was looking at me from the side, spoke with a mysterious expression.
This is a cabin… No, a clock tower in a gap of time.
We have been observing the story through the window.
A sky temple, a wide field, a deep forest, a cabin, even a beautiful lake.
I wasn’t actually there, it was just a story I observed through the window.
How immersed was I?
As soon as she realized that the boy who encountered Eterna was me, she completely assimilated into the boy and lost her self-consciousness.
But thanks to that, I realized something.
The truth that you would not have known if you had simply watched from the side, but can only be understood by reading the boy’s heart and thoughts.
The truth that the goddess revealed to me…
It was more cruel than I thought.
It wasn’t just the memories of Eterna that I had forgotten.
What fate awaits me after that, and why my life has no choice but to lead to destruction.
Past, present, and future.
In this gap where all time overlapped, I realized all the truth at that moment.
“I finally understand.”
Franken saw my expression and spoke as if he could read my inner thoughts.
Yes. I understood everything.
Why is Franken here?
Magic Engineering, Sharon and Juliet, and the identity of Hayang.
A story between an ancient boy and two goddesses.
And even what the cruel end of my fate is.
“What do you plan to do now?”
I thought about his question for a moment and answered calmly.
“I want to see you again.”
“Even though I already understood everything?”
“I was quite immersed in it. “I want to feel the ending of the story myself.”
Unlike when he first warned about immersion, Franken now nodded his head willingly.
“Okay. Enjoy it slowly. “The passage of time here is meaningless anyway.”
With those words, Franken’s appearance slowly became a halo of light and began to disappear.
But I wasn’t embarrassed at all.
At the point when I realized everything, I also realized the identity of Franken, who had been waiting for me for eternity in the gap.
That was me.
I am not the one who came from the future first. Another me came into existence at the same time as I followed Juliet into the gap.
This is a gap in time. Because the past and future are meaningless.
To make it easier for me, who has not fully accepted the concept yet, to understand, I deliberately took on the appearance of an old man and imitated everything as a senior who had experienced everything before me.
I was the only one in this clock tower.
From Noble mtl dot com
I have already been looking out the window for eons, and at the same time, I am a newbie who has just entered the gap.
Who can fully understand this strangeness?
Even I, who had spent eternity in the gap, could not accept that concept and had to separate my self into two.
Now it’s time to observe the story again.
A new story that I had never known before. Or an all-too-familiar story that I’ve read over and over again my whole life.
I became a boy again.