144 – Soldier (10)
“Are you talking about another world like mine?”
The old man nodded his head.
“What are you saying for granted?”
“But why don’t you know resonance…?”
Isn’t Jegal Gongmyeong a pretty famous person? Even if you don’t know the Three Kingdoms, you might have heard the name?
“Unfortunately, in the world before that, I had nothing to do with culture. Maybe it was the name of a great man? Or a famous wizard born in your era? I don’t know.”
The old man stroked his beard and muttered bitterly.
“I would have forgotten the name of the novel that invited me to this world if you had not just told me.
“The main character’s name is Lilia. The Flower Witch.”
“Ah… Yes… Yes… Yes. That was the name. Lilia. Lilia…”
The old man, who repeated Lilia’s name over and over again, burst into laughter.
“Khehehehe! Now I remember. I said I was so insincere in writing the name Lily Novel, but… You idiot, do you still have memories of the world from before? The culture and literature of that world .The various philosophies.”
I nodded.
“…I’m not envious of anything else. I’m really envious of that.”
Although he is an old man who does not know anything about his background, it is generally possible to predict what kind of life he would have lived. The reason why he lived an unhappy life is different, but the way he lived after becoming unhappy is largely the same.
In a world like an execution ground, where human lives are traded for less than a pound of flesh, a person who reads literature is rarer than a person who has wasted all his fortune in gambling.
Rather, s*x and drugs were treated as wholesome entertainment. Silent hobbies were nothing more than madness in a world where gunshots rang out as often as birds took off.
From nob le mt l dot com
Perhaps the person in front of me was also an ordinary person. A person who throws romance as dog food and culture is the belching sound of a person who is full, is in a hurry to live immediately, and is happy to forget the day.
I don’t know how such a person came to enjoy Lily novels, which are not just novels.
“Do you regret it?”
“That’s right. I kicked the opportunity to see the world from a different perspective. But I don’t want to go back. It’s much healthier to live with regrets than to live in a place like that.”
That’s right. I nodded. The old man laughed. I felt more alive than before. Was it a pleasure to meet someone in the same situation or was it a pleasure to have a good opportunity to reminisce about the past? An old man who was going to tell me good news was rather delighted with the story that arose from the news.
I don’t know who it was a good story for, but it was a good story anyway, so it doesn’t matter anyway. In no time, the story of this world has changed to the story of the whole world.
“What did you do in the world before?”
The world before.
For the old man in front of him, the world has already passed and nostalgia has faded even in his memory. For him, the only thing he left behind in the world from before was regret.
I was also the same. Unlike the old man, the world from before is as clear as yesterday, but all that remains is regret.
“I worked as a mercenary.”
“You did a mediocre job. I wasn’t going to tell anyone either.”
The old man’s yesterdays, which I may not have passed, have evoked the same feelings in me. The old man envied me, but I still regretted my life.
I have lived too much of my life at the expense of it. Even now. To fulfill my self-imposed responsibilities, I let others go.
“I used to collect money for a moneylender.”
The old man began to tell me about his life. It was like confession. He seemed to mumble while recalling the road he had passed on the last journey of his life. It was probably because the old man’s behavior seemed so far from life.
“I was a prodigal one who spent all his money in one day. Going to prostitutes was my pleasure, especially every night. I don’t have any other female acquaintances. You know what? But I wasn’t there. But it didn’t matter because there was a prostitute. Even if you don’t have affection for each other, it’s nice that you can achieve what you want as long as you pay.”
I felt a sense of urgency in the old man who seemed detached from life before I knew it. Perhaps he did not transcend life, but took his present form to escape from the past life. I thought so.
“But at one point, it seemed that lesbians rubbing against each other looked so good. I paid money and bought a prostitute. Then, I wasn’t satisfied, so I looked for it and found that book.”
The old man stopped talking and laughed again.
“Keuhehehe… It’s a pitiful reason. It’s a really pitiful reason. To think that a book I promised to read for the first time in my life was launched for such a pitiful reason.”
I didn’t feel pity. His appearance was the normal appearance of living in that world. Why should he have sympathy for a man who followed all-too-obvious common sense, who acted as he saw and learned? There was no reason for that.
“I lived like that, and one day I met a prostitute. She was a strange person who saved money from selling her body to study. I forgot her name, but I remember what she said. This world is not good, so I want to become a good person, so I study. There is…..'”
That’s a good word. But what use is all that? What’s the use of pretending to be virtuous by yourself in a world where everyone is dirty? It must be because it is my nature to feel empathy and displeasure at the same time. This goddamn inferiority complex, thinking that even that woman’s promise was pitiful and feeling envy for some reason.
“It sounded like an idiot. But for some reason, it was also something that stayed in my memory… When it was time to die, I don’t remember her body or name at all, but I remembered her words well. I wanted to be a good person too.”
After hearing his story, I thought that life in the world is all the same in the end. No matter how you live, you will regret it when the time comes. It must be living hard to make those regrets one less.
“So… I thought coming to this world was a blessing at first. Why, it’s usually like that. It’s my second life, so I have to live well! I have to live a little better in this world. I got good abilities and opportunities. .I had a talent for the magic of prophecy, and my teacher taught me many truths about the world. It was a blessed environment.”
The old man shook his head.
“And yet it didn’t work. In the end, garbage is garbage. The resolution of the first day fades the next day, and the next day it fades… It keeps fading, and now it comes back to me as the day of my death draws near.”
“Only then did I hurriedly begin to prepare to do good things. I recruited disciples and tried to use my power of prophecy in a better place. I blocked the world for the sake of the world that I had prevented from dying. That’s how it was for ten years. I sent over.”
I asked cautiously.
“Hey old man, how old are you?”
“I am 381 years old. In the forest of elves where time passes differently than outside, I am young at this level. However, the side effects of the prophecy are strong in many ways, so I am doing it today and tomorrow.”
The old man answered without hesitation. Looking closely, I saw some kind of scar on the old man’s ear, a scar that looked like it had been cut.
“Did you notice now? I’m an elf.”
Unfair from birth. Some are monsters and some are elves. I am so envious and jealous.
“As befits the name of an eternal devil, it’s as if the body doesn’t change inside the World Tree. I’m living here because I asked a disciple. I’m going to spend the rest of my life here.”
“Is there any reason to live so long as you are dying now?”
The old man answered dubiously.
“Then, what kind of idiot would want to die? Isn’t it human nature to want to live even if it hurts enough to die right away?”
That’s right. I nodded. Even if you regret your past life to the point of death, you are still afraid of dying. People want to live even if they are painful enough to die, foolish, and waste time meaninglessly.
The old man in front of me wanted to be a good person, but in the end, he became a selfish person who saved his life by asking a disciple.
The old man shook his head excitedly, as if he had noticed that the story had leaked somewhere while he was talking at length.
“Oh… The story leaked somewhere for a while. Yes, those who read books come to this world and wish to live. It is the sick who cannot live properly and want a chance to live again.”
Unexpectedly, those words stabbed him, and he frowned.
“That doesn’t mean this world is normal.”
The old man opened his eyes and preached strongly.
“This world is sick. The sick world calls the sick.”
He didn’t feel particularly inclined to refute. Compared to the world I lived in before, it’s like heaven, but this world is crazy enough. High-ranking positions are all women and lesbians, and the world is in danger of destruction every now and then, and people’s lives are dying like flies, although not as much as the world before.
“If the demon king scattered fragments of the demon king when he died, so did the hero. When the hero died, he scattered fragments. Not from this place, but toward the world he came from.”
The world you came from? Then the warrior too…
“The hero is the first person from another world called by the sage. After he died, he scattered books in the world we came from to summon another hero to respond to the demon king. A book that recorded the future of this world. It is called the Witch of Flowers. A record of a world about to perish, depicting the journey of the last sage’s legacy.
The old man laughed mischievously.
“Don’t you think it’s strange? How novels about lilies are published even in the countryside in a place where the publishing system is not properly established. And that at regular intervals.”
“…Thinking like that…”
After thinking for a while, I shook my head.
“Yeah. I’ve never tried it. I’d be happy if I could just read it.”
“hahahaha, I knew that.”
The old man spoke again.
“In other words, a book is an invitation to come here. It is a rope given to those who are desperate and desperate to continue their lives. But that is not their original purpose. It is a light that descends upon this world.”
“…What does that mean?”
“The book is an invitation to find someone who will change the world. These bottles are an invitation to heal the world.”
In other words, the reason I invited you to this world is not to give a second life to the sick…
“That book exists to bring demon kings and warriors back to this world. Beings who will change the laws of the world.”
It was to introduce a second revolution to this world. Ills to heal the world.
“But there is one thing that will never allow that.”
The old man raised his finger and pointed above him.
“…The world tree.”
“That’s right. An eternal demon, this one will never forgive change.”
Suddenly, I remembered my promise to the Prophet. For their own sisters.
“The seeds of two transformations have already invaded my body. It will be so unpleasant that I can’t stand it anymore.”
Ask for the World Tree to be burned.
“There will probably be chaos outside.”