It wasn’t a difficult turn of events to guess.

 

   Although I might not know the average of this world, I could tell that my achievements were absolutely not normal. Because of that, I’d easily predicted from the start that Asileye would notice the moment I merely mentioned Ekav. But even so, when the time actually came, I couldn’t look straight into her eyes.

 

   Not because I did anything wrong, but I was afraid of simply checking her reaction to my words. I didn’t want to see her not being disappointed about us parting ways, and I didn’t want to see her being disappointed and sad about us parting ways, either.

 

   “Yeah. He said he can’t help me become untouchable, but can help with catching that Demon King Army commander.”

 

   And so, I knew more than anyone else that even when Lagnis had requested my company to the capital with teaching as a pretext, I’d made up an excuse by bringing up the King’s 10 Swords that I’d thought to be improbable.

 

   But this time again, the fantasy world that always exceeded my imagination did its fantasy world act.

 

   The anger inside me, that I’d covered up as a mere creed while pretending to be half joking and half sincere, shouted at me, telling me to accept Ekav’s offer as it shook and flared, saying not to cling myself to a thing that ultimately was a mere limited-time happiness. 

 

   “I can’t even help you with that.”

 

   That was natural. After all, she was merely an elven adventurer who was just a little apart from the norms. Even though she was the savior of my life, that fact was unalterable.

 

   “And that will also be the same even if the remaining 2 years pass. If you want to achieve your goal, then just like the day you first saw me, you can’t ignore this chance.”

 

   Even as she was softly explaining with an emotionless and calm voice, it felt as if it was constricting my entire body. Even as I wished to raise my eyes and look back at her each time she took a step forward, I couldn’t do it.

 

   Excluding the times I was moved by my rage at unfairness, I was just an ordinary guy. A simply unimportant guy constantly worried and scared that his relationships with the people he liked might go wrong.

 

   “…even so, I see Eldi is thinking twice about that offer.”

 

   Asileye slowly walked close and gently pulled me into a hug. Only her hair covered my eyes that had already grown taller than her, but even without looking back at her face, Asileye’s trembling as she hugged me told me of her feelings.

 

   “Elves don’t have the concept of time passing by quickly.”

 

   Putting more strength into her arms hugging me, Asileye whispered.

 

      “Not just elves, but most long-lived races are like that. We always have time at hand. So to us, time is something that’s always plentiful. It’s the reason why there are more elves who return themselves to the World Tree out of having no regret in life than those who die by old age.”

 

   That whisper was far too fragile for me to ignore that it was pretending to be calm.

 

   “But the moment we start getting tied to humans, we get swept up by them who instantly flow by. Because their desperately and feverishly running appearances, running to live a life even a little more satisfying in their short lives, before the time that chases right behind them unlike us throws the net called death and drag them away, look to us like a gem made out of a wavering flame, we end up watching up close as if enchanted.”

 

   I couldn’t help but raise my arms and hug her back. Her gradually worsening trembling, her sobbing voice, told me that she too came to not want to part ways like me. But my own silence, that I maintained even so instead of simply saying that I’d refuse, spoke for my inner feelings that I’d turned my eyes away from and hadn’t properly faced.

 

   “Even while knowing that what’s waiting at the end of that brief moment of happiness could be hundreds of years of searing pain and sadness, we get drawn in and… most of us despair. Because of that, elves who have those kinds of experience always warn young elves. That we should always be wary when facing humans, and to constantly prepare our hearts. That even then it’s hopelessly not enough.”

 

   8 years.

 

   The time I’d proposed thinking that it was long for me but like an instant to her who was an elf, became not something that was insignificant from passing by fast, but a thing horrifyingly painful from being far, far too fast.

 

   “I, I of course knew that too. It’s an advice I’ve always remembered in the 60 years I traveled after leaving the forest. I’ve reminded myself of it whenever my curiosity of Eldi turned into love. 1 year, 2 year, and at every moment that passed by, I’ve been preparing like that so that I can calmly say goodbye.”

 

   If it was a simple problem of me leaving for a moment and coming back stronger, she would have smiled and sent me off.

 

   We would have confirmed with a talk that both of us were saddened to part, and I would ultimately have come back and reunited with her while smiling together. 

 

   “Because of that, I thought I would be able to smile even if Eldi were to think that there wasn’t anything more to learn from me and end our contract early, but…”

 

   Even if we couldn’t confirm each other’s feelings, we could have made a deal that slyly pushed back the remaining 2 years and intentionally left behind a chance to meet again. Even while smiling and saying that it’s unfair, she would have casually pretended to be fooled and accepted it. 

 

   “But… even while being happy from knowing that Eldi actually doesn’t want to part with me either, I can’t stop crying because I know I can’t stop you…Even more so, that the moment like this actually came 2 years early makes me so sad that it feels like I’m going to die.”

 

   But she knew what I strived for.

 

   Because she had watched from the side every moment that young Eldmia of back then, who had thought that his relationship with her would lightly end, had spoken of and actualized, she knew better than anyone else. Because she knew, even while I chattered and smiled along like it was nothing, that the force that made me continue my life right this moment was my anger towards that day 6 years ago, she couldn’t even mouth the words asking me to not go.

 

   If I had met an ordinary death in my last life. If I hadn’t died the very moment I’d resolved to unwaveringly live on while believing, even while failing to even attempt at properly become independent within a life that was continuously withering away and becoming desperate, that a better day would come if I didn’t lose my dreams and live diligently with hope.

 

   Or at the least if that death wasn’t at the knife swung and stabbed by the robber that had killed my parents. At the very least if my parents and the villagers hadn’t died while I was living with the same resolve after reincarnating into this foreign world. Of course, I couldn’t have met Asileye either if that had happened, but if. If I could have met Asileye even then, and if a relationship like now had formed between us.

 

   Only after imagining such ifs, the Eldmia within my imagination and suppositions paused and remained next to Asileye. In other words, unless I supposed that many ifs, my anger towards the unfairness repeated since my last life incited my obsession and I couldn’t stop myself.

 

      It was an undeniable trauma. That the defining resolve of my life, to live upright, had collapsed twice without a single resistance at a simple, unfair, and utterly unjust violence.

 

However much it was diluted thanks to Asileye, it was an unhealed wound that instantly cracked and leaked blood whenever I experienced a similar event.

 

   “Thanks, Asileye.”

 

   I didn’t apologize. Because it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t like I got burnt while fooling around by myself but instead got struck while staying still, so it would be ridiculous to apologize to Asileye for the trauma that resulted from it. Apology was something the bastards that made me like this should do.

 

   And so I thanked her. For she supported and watched over me who was living on with the single thought of overcoming that trauma.

 

   That was the only thing I could do right now.

 

   🔷

 

   Asileye’s crying continued a while even after that.

 

   Even while saying she was calming down, she repeatedly bursted into tears whenever she saw my face, and it became evening before we knew it.

 

   “Do you feel better now?”

   “Of course not…”

 

   In her eyes, forget calming down, it probably felt like watching at best a goldfish that could die at any moment it slipped out of her sight. It was a really shameless question even if I did ask it, but it wasn’t as if I could not ask it, either.

 

   In the end, Asileye could only stop crying around the time I finished the stew I’d begun making after she got worn out and famished from crying her eyes out. Asileye, who maintained her silence with a lowered head and powerlessly drooped ears even as I cautiously watched her while I set up the table and sat her down at it, only opened her mouth after I sat down opposite her.

 

   “Go.”

   “Eh?”

 

   With a haggard face that I hadn’t seen at all in recent years, Asileye spoke.

 

   “I’m worried and scared, but it’s also true that Eldi isn’t ordinary. And you actually use magic power, too.”

   “……”

   “If it’s a goal you can’t give up either way, then properly learning from the best instead will increase your chance of survival in the long term. So go.”

 

   Asileye’s eyes as she slowly raised her head and looked at me were reddened like a rabbit’s eyes, but her gaze at least was clear.

 

   “I’ll wait for you here until you kill him and come back.”

   “…okay.”

   “But in return, let’s go on a trip together when you come back.”

   “…okay.”

   “However many months it takes, or however many years it takes, Eldi will surely work really hard and go through a lot of hard times. And since you’ll become incredibly strong that most won’t be able to even touch you if you can kill a guy like that.”

 

   Slowly raising her spoon and spooning up her stew, Asileye frailly smiled.”

 

   “It should be okay to enjoy a little luxury like traveling with me and having fun.”

 

   Those words were so warm that, in the end, I cried, too.

 

---

Translator: CSV

TL note: 1/3

---

 

Ch.26

Chapter List

Ch.28