Reunion (1)
It felt like a dream.
Everyone was looking up at the sky.
They thought so as they watched the pillar of light that seemed to have descended from heaven.
However, among them, Jill was looking at the ground, not the sky.
She also felt like she was dreaming.
With her mouth agape.
“Ah······ aaah······?”
A stupid sound came out of Jill’s mouth.
The sound of the airship twisting and falling from above, tearing through the sky, was quickly buried.
Everyone’s eyes were on the sky, so no one noticed Jill crawling on the ground, dirtying her clothes.
Every time she put her hand down due to her mana exhaustion, her legs would tremble like a newborn calf.
But Jill didn’t stop.
No. She couldn’t stop.
The man in front of her, who seemed to be shimmering like a mirage.
The man holding the pillar of light in his hand.
The man she had so desperately called out to, searched for, and cried for in her dreams was there.
Is it another dream?
Didn’t she just have a vivid dream like this a moment ago?
And wasn’t she betrayed by hope again?
Then is this another belief to deceive her?
Will she struggle even though she knows it’s a dream, even though she knows she’ll eventually wake up?
No. This time is different.
Something is different.
Jill struggled to crawl on the ground with her limbs trembling from cramps and severe pain.
In her dreams, she always just waited for Eugene.
If she stayed still, Eugene would come to her.
But not this time.
She had to catch him right now.
She had a terrible, eerie feeling that if she didn’t catch him now, she would lose him forever.
She had to reach him.
She had to reach him.
She wished so desperately.
She reached out her hand, her tongue twisted in her mouth, unable to make out what she was saying.
“Ah······!”
At that moment.
Eugene, who had been standing firmly, collapsed.
The pale-faced girl vampire supported Eugene naturally and slowly laid him down.
She still had the same expressionless face, as if she didn’t know what she was thinking.
The girl vampire, who was supporting Eugene’s head with her knees, brushed his bangs aside.
A smile crossed her lips, which had not shown any emotion at all.
It wasn’t a smile of joy.
It was a smile with a gloomy corner somewhere.
“Hwa······. Just a little bit, just a little bit······. Can I sleep······.”
“······Koo, yes. I’ll be here, watching over you.”
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“Thank you. I’m so tired, really.”
Why? Why are you saying that?
Jill’s pupils shook violently.
Eugene, who seemed to be alone in the world, closed his eyes after meeting her eyes.
Her limbs grew weak.
Eugene’s lips curved into a smile.
It was a comfortable face that someone who had been freed from all the pain in the world would make.
“I’ll be back.”
“······Yes.”
What are you talking about?
Jill’s voice, which had been completely exhausted, came out of her mouth.
You’ll be back?
Do you really mean you’ll be back?
Jill’s eyes turned slightly blue.
Through her eyes, which had awakened long ago, things that ordinary people could not see came in.
What she used to see as a whitish fog now appeared more clearly.
Ghouls screaming grotesquely.
Ghosts who had long since lost their reason and were just wandering the abyss.
Among them, a dazzlingly bright spirit rose.
That too, from Eugene’s body.
“Ah! aaahhhhh!!!”
The remnants of what had become language burst out.
Even Jill herself didn’t know what she was trying to say.
She just babbled whatever came out.
She desperately reached out to grab the rising light, but it slipped out of Jill’s grasp and rose into the sky.
She turned her gaze away, wondering if she had seen it wrong.
Eugene’s body still looked relaxed.
His chest was heaving as he breathed properly, and he seemed to be in a sweet sleep.
But Jill could see it.
That the inside was empty.
It was obvious that what should have been there for a sentient being was empty.
“Ugh, ah! Blindfold······!”Ji-il crawled over, making a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a scream, and finally reached Eugene.
Covered in dirt, she touched Eugene’s cheek with her bloodied and mangled hand.
For a moment, the girl vampire’s face seemed to be filled with bewilderment, but Ji-il didn’t care.
“Don’t go. Don’t go, please… No… Ugh, uhh…”
When she looked up at the sky, the beautiful, pure white soul was already far away.
There was no way to catch it in the first place, and now it was too late.
It was said that among those who died after their life span was over, there were some who escaped the underworld’s sight and wandered the mortal world.
It seemed that Eugene was not one of those exceptions, as he was being dragged away.
“S-Saintess…?”
Julia’s eyes widened as she staggered over.
In an instant, all the alcohol fumes dissipated, and reality was thrust before her.
It was so sudden that she couldn’t laugh or cry, and could only stand there in a daze.
She had been ignoring the possibility, to some extent.
She had been telling herself that Eugene would never come back alive.
She felt that she could only live if she suppressed such hopes…
Even though she had been ignoring it, Julia’s eyes were filled with fear as the future she had never expected unfolded before her.
“aaa!!!”
Ji-il was wailing.
Her heart was breaking.
It was an even more desperate cry than the day Eugene disappeared.
That day, Eugene’s body was gone.
But now, Eugene was being held in Ji-il’s hands.
Ji-il caressed Eugene’s cheek, stroked it, and held his hand, trying to elicit a response, and finally, she rested her forehead on Eugene’s chest and burst into tears.
Julia stumbled over to Ji-il and collapsed beside her.
Then she took Eugene’s other hand and lifted it up.
It was warm.
There was a pulse.
It was clearly the hand of a living person.
Nevertheless, Julia could quickly understand why Ji-il was sobbing.
Eugene’s hand didn’t feel like Eugene’s hand.
The touch, the warmth, the smell were all Eugene’s, but strangely, the feeling of Eugene’s touch was different.
She had come to fear others.
Slowly, over a long period of time, Julia had come to accept Eugene’s touch.
But this hand felt more like an inanimate piece of wood than her only sanctuary.
Even though he was alive.
Even though his heart was clearly beating and he was breathing.
It felt like something invisible was missing.
Come to think of it, didn’t the Saintess say that she could see ghosts?
In that case, could it be that the Saintess had just looked up and suddenly started crying…?
Julia felt her heart sink.
“What? What is it? Why… Ah!”
Yerina, who had been struggling to keep her eyelids open, ran over and gasped.
She quickly grasped the situation.
Her erased memories had also returned.
She vividly recalled her encounter with Eugene in the world where her origin lay, and how she had brought Eugene back to life by creating the Frostflow heresy.
Her heart was pounding.
Seeing Ji-il and Julia shedding all their bodily fluids, she felt her own tears welling up, but she held them back for the moment.
It was more important to deal with this rationally.
“What is it! Talk, you frustrating girls!”
To Yerina, Ji-il and Julia, who were just crying and wailing, were nothing but frustrating.
Were their minds connected by telepathy?
It was a mystery how they could cry in sympathy with each other in this absurd situation without even making eye contact, as if they were copy-pasting each other’s emotions.
“Uhhh… Uhh! Uhh! Eugene…! Eugene!”
“Ah! Hurry! Isn’t this an emergency! Blow your nose!”
“Uhhh!”
“So what! Who’s going to solve this if you just keep crying?”
“E, Eugene… H, his soul… I, I can’t feel it…”
“Eugene…! Uhh, uhh! Eugene’s soul, uhhh…! To the sky… Uhhh!”
Yerina was about to go crazy.
But what good did it do to just cry?
She had to do something!
She didn’t know what she could or couldn’t do, but she had to move her body!
“You little bastard…! I saved your life, and now you’re going to die right before my eyes!”
Bam!
Yerina’s furious hand grabbed Eugene’s jaw.And then, they kissed him with a sound that was more like a “chuu” than a “smack.”
At this, Jill and Julia’s faces turned pale with shock.
“What are you doing! We have to do something to bring Eugene’s soul back!”
“What, what should we do…”
“How am I supposed to know! We’ve been crying and he still hasn’t come back, so that’s not it!”
“……!”
Jill and Julia started to move around in a panic.
They held Eugene’s hands and tried to instill their will into him.
They dripped their tears into Eugene’s mouth.
They took turns kissing Eugene’s lips.
Come back.
Don’t leave.
Please be with us. They pleaded with Eugene, their desire for him growing stronger.
Mijung, who had been watching them all this time, closed her eyes tightly and thought.
‘……Why are they like this?’
He had only gone out for a short break.
He had only gone to see the face of his future boss.
There had never been such a fuss.