Ch#119
You were the one who had to live.
I was the one who had to die.
But now, all those propositions had been overturned.
Rudville froze in place as if turned to ice.
As if a puzzle he had barely pieced together had been ruthlessly scattered by someone's hand.
"Ru, what are you doing just standing there?"
Lifting his head, thirteen-year-old Odellie was smiling under the sunlight.
That fleeting image was as vividly clear as a meticulously completed masterpiece, dazzling to the eyes.
Rudville pressed his lips tightly together, staring confusedly at the reality that felt decisively wrong.
Yet amid the sense of dissonance, she simply smiled peacefully.
Her skirt hem fluttered in the wind, her sky-blue eyes sparkling like the surface of a lake.
Odellie dangled the ring she had taken from him playfully and said,
"You have a lot to answer for, don't you? Like... how long you've known me, when you started liking me."
"......"
"Pretending not to know won't work, idiot. I won't let you go until you tell me everything."
The girl's voice was bright and innocent.
But Rudville heard another voice behind that smile.
"Now it's my turn to protect you. So... come back to me so I can protect you. Please."
That single sentence stabbed into his mind like a dagger.
His breath caught, his heart screaming in agony as if being torn apart.
Protecting her.
That had always been Rudville's role.
He had lived thousands of times that way, died thousands of times that way.
And in the end, he had saved her.
'......Saved her?'
A flash of realization.
Yes.
I finally saved you.
After thousands of regressions, I somehow saved you.
The ecstasy and madness, relief, overwhelming fullness, and perhaps even liberation from that moment...
All those emotions were as vivid now as if engraved deep into his soul.
Death and eternal rest were the price he had paid.
Then why......
'Why am I here?'
The moment he realized that fact.
The girl before his eyes began to blur slowly.
The world that made him seemed to crack like fractured glass.
Crack—
Shattered into thousands of pieces, the scenes scattered, each illuminating different times.
And there he was, rampaging: turning intact cities to ruins, destroying temples, making the entire empire his enemy.
"......"
It was already a finished story.
A past that had passed.
A completed memory he could no longer touch.
He was a dead man who had finished all his tasks.
Where he belonged was the end of life, inside a coffin buried in cold soil.
But......
'Is this hell?'
Being punished by endlessly reliving thousands of failures and regrets?
'It feels like heaven because Odellie is here, though......'
No, regrettably, it was neither.
The moisture that had soaked his hand like a burn.
That had clearly been a vivid sensation of life.
Rudville finally realized.
Until now, he had been peering into past memories while alive.
Overwhelmed by their sheer vividness and endless quantity, he had even forgotten why he had come here.
'......To reclaim my memories.'
He had thrown himself into this place willingly.
Recalling that purpose, Rudville stared at the thousands of shattered memory fragments.
In each piece, she was there, her blue eyes sparkling.
Yes.
'The blue-eyed woman.'
Of course it was you.
It was always you.
Was there ever even once when it wasn't you?
In the black void, Rudville pushed through the glass shards blocking his way with his hands.
Each brush made the fragments sparkle, forgotten memories lingering like afterimages.
As he viewed the memories, the hollow void in his heart like a hole began to fill.
Even the slight changes in speech, gaze, and habits depending on the life were all good.
They felt like the unique light possessed only by that life's Odellie.
It didn't matter if she sometimes warily guarded him, even hated him.
As long as she was alive, any form was fine.
All lives' Odellie.
All times' her.
He loved her without exception.
There was no reason not to.
But......
"Damn it."
Rudville gritted his teeth and clutched a fragment.
The moment the piece in his hand shattered mercilessly into powder and scattered.
Another forgotten memory branded itself into his brain like a stigma.
'......Is this happening right now?'
Even though he was already mad enough, his mind felt like it would snap.
"Odellie, can you hear me?"
He muttered alone into the void like a fool.
Of course, no answer came.
"What does it mean that you're protecting me."
"......"
"What does it mean that you came back to save me!"
"......"
"Damn it, answer me!"
His chest heaved violently.
What the hell was happening?
How was he supposed to escape this damn swamp of memories?
Suddenly, the very first memory flashed through his mind.
"Keep going that way, and you can escape. ...So you live."
"Live. That's my final request."
Odellie had exhausted herself purifying his wounds and quietly breathed her last.
Was she, like back then, choosing death for him once more?
Rudville was seized by anxiety.
Why did his chest tear with such impatience, his vision turn white with ominous dread?
Right now, in this moment.
What was this absurd sensation that she was dying for him somewhere?
"......No."
Despair.
A single clear emotion stabbed his heart.
Reclaiming memories no longer mattered.
Not memories—he had to save her right now.
But at the same time, he realized.
Without memories, he couldn't reach her.
With these incomplete memories, a strange conviction gripped him: he might repeat the same mistake, missing the most important thing.
'How did I save you?'
He had to remember that, no matter what.
That memory, above all.
Rudville gritted his teeth.
Until now, the memories had revived gradually, as if experiencing them directly, perhaps a defense mechanism to prevent mental collapse.
But such luxury was no longer allowed.
Time was still flowing now.
"......Give it all to me."
He said in a cracked voice.
"The memories...... all of them."
At that instant, the space fell into heavy silence.
The glass-like sparkling memory fragments subtly turned direction.
The sharp edges of the shards pointed in one direction.
"Now. Right now. All of it."
The moment Rudville's words ended, all the fragments flew at him simultaneously, engulfing his mind.
Sharp memories tore flesh, split bones, ravaging his mind.
Thousands of times, thousands of deaths, and one love.
Everything swallowed his consciousness at once.
And from the deepest place, finally, the last life resurfaced.
In truth, completing the application of the Life Transfer Reversal Spell wasn't the immediate previous life for the first time.
He had first perfected that ritual when hundreds of regression opportunities still remained.
"......Ah, finally."
After countless experiments, failures, and attempts, he finally grasped that possibility.
This time, he was certain he could truly save her.
The first emotion Rudville felt then...... was liberation.
"Ahh, finally...... I can save you."
"Now I can die. I can die....... Haha!"
He burst into mad laughter.
This wretched life......
This endless regression......
This chain of pain, loss, and despair......
Now he could finally end it.
Burn his body, offer even a handful of ashes as fertilizer for her.
He would gladly give everything.
Finally save her, and die.
If that wasn't eternal rest, what was?
......But.
From that regression onward until the very last life, he did not activate that ritual.
No, he could not.
"......I want to celebrate your thirtieth birthday, together."
He wanted to live.
With you.
Have the child you wanted.
One son, one daughter.
Until the day those children grew, played, laughed, fought, became adults, and they grew old together......
......It took hundreds more deaths to fully abandon that lingering attachment.
In the end, Rudville activated the ritual only in the immediate previous life, when no regression opportunities remained.
He took her death upon himself, saved her, and died.
The emotions from that final moment revived chillingly.
The fullness of salvation.
The life gladly offered.
And the truth he could never convey until the end.
All those memories surged like waves.
So quickly it choked him, relentlessly.
That was when.
Crack—
The world making him collapsed before his eyes, shattering the wall of consciousness.
Reality poured in through the cracks.
His breath burst roughly.
His heart pounded as if to burst, light flooding his vision burned his eyes.
Cold sweat trickled down his back, the throbbing in his ears gripped his consciousness.
All sensations exploded at once.
And Rudville opened his eyes.
