Chapter 42: Chapter 42 — Regret
"Mom?" The whisper escaped my lips, trembling and laden with utter disbelief.
She paused her task, set the ceramic plate down on the wooden counter, and slowly turned on her heels. When her eyes met mine, an infinite warmth lit up her porcelain face, curving her lips into a welcoming smile.
"Yes, sweetheart," she answered with a sweetness that instantly shattered my defenses.
I jumped up from the chair. I ran to her desperately, closing the distance in a heartbeat. I threw myself into her arms, wrapping my hands around her waist and clinging to her clothes with the strength of someone trying to stop time.
The impact of her body gave me an astonishing solidity. Even though we were on a spiritual plane, the texture of her skin beneath my fingers was real, warm, and firm. Tears streamed from my eyes in an uncontrollable torrent. I buried my face in her shoulder, breathing in that scent of home I had missed so much. I felt the comforting pressure of her arms around me, keeping me safe from the storm in my head. Her fingers, soft and warm, began to stroke my hair with a slow rhythm, exactly like the days of my childhood when the world still felt safe.
She radiated a golden luminescence that drove away the shadows in the room. Her smile remained constant, full of peace and silent forgiveness. In the face of that purity, my own figure felt small, reduced to a frightened child weeping inconsolably, releasing all the guilt accumulated over years of feigned indifference.
"Mom, I... I’m so sorry," I managed between sobs, my chest tight. "I’m sorry I said all those horrible things to you... I... I..."
The knot in my throat closed completely, preventing me from stringing together the next sentence. Sobs shook my shoulders, forcing me to press my forehead even harder against her chest, seeking refuge in her steady heartbeat.
She kept gently massaging my head, soothing my torment with eternal patience.
"There, there, calm down, my little hero," she murmured in my ear in a singsong voice. "Everything is going to be all right."
The crying gradually subsided, replaced by a warm, comforting silence. I held onto her embrace for a few more seconds, aware that every invisible tick in this space consumed the little time Dakilla had granted me. Slowly, I pulled back just enough to look at her face. Her hands stayed on my shoulders, giving me the anchor I so desperately needed.
"Mom... I have so much to explain," I swallowed, feeling the words catch in my throat. "I died on Earth. But I showed up in a completely different place. A fantasy world, with magic, monsters... and..."
I stopped short. Shame rushed through my body like an icy current, staining my cheeks a burning red. Explaining to my mother that I now lived surrounded by beautiful women, that I had a system in my head, and that I acted arrogantly to imitate a fantasy character was incredibly difficult. I felt ridiculous, a pathetic fraud before the soul of the woman who had suffered so much because of me.
I lowered my eyes, unable to meet her gaze.
"I’ve been living in a very strange way," I muttered through gritted teeth. "Doing stupid things, relying on borrowed powers... acting with delusions of grandeur."
A soft, crystalline laugh, so deeply familiar, interrupted my lament. I raised my eyes and saw her shake her head, her expression filled with infinite tenderness.
"I know, my love. I’ve seen everything," she said, caressing my wet cheek with her thumb.
My heart flipped in my chest. Absolute panic hit me hard.
"You’ve seen it?" I stammered. "Everything? From the beginning? Even the summons?"
"Everything," she confirmed, her smile widening, though her eyes held deep understanding. "The goddess Dakilla allowed me to silently accompany you from the other side. At first, I was terribly worried seeing your recklessness and the way you tried to hide your pain behind those fantasy games."
She cupped my face in both hands, forcing me to look directly at her. The warmth of her touch dispelled the humiliation eating away at me.
"But then I saw that you had left behind that dark room you never came out of. I saw that you found people who care about you, who look after you, and whom you stubbornly try to protect with everything you have. I saw that you smiled again. And for a mother, the greatest miracle is to see her child truly live."
Tears welled up in my eyes again, this time born from an immense relief that lightened my soul. My mother looked at me with absolute acceptance; her happiness came simply from seeing that I was trying to move forward.
The golden glow of the kitchen began to flicker. The familiar tiled walls and the scent of lavender took on a translucent quality, revealing the shadows of the cosmic void waiting behind the illusion. Time was running out fast.
"Mom... the place is fading," I said, feeling a sudden panic constrict my chest. I squeezed her hands, afraid they’d slip away like water through my spiritual fingers.
She stepped forward and intertwined her fingers with mine, sending me one last flash of her warmth.
"It’s all right, Harold. My time here is over, but yours is just beginning," she murmured, looking at me with a depth that disarmed me. "Promise me something before you go. Stop carrying my absence like a sentence. Live, make mistakes, learn... but above all, allow yourself to be happy. Those women and the people waiting for you in that new world need their hero. The real one, the one who takes on his responsibilities."
"Do you really forgive me?" I asked in a thread of a voice, needing to hear that confirmation one last time.
"I always did, my love. From the very first second."
Her silhouette began to break apart into thousands of specks of golden light that rose gently before dissolving into nothingness. Her hands vanished from mine, leaving only a trace of warmth on my empty palms. I closed my eyes, swallowed the last sob, and accepted the silence reclaiming the space.
When I opened them, the kitchen of my childhood was gone. I was sitting before the imposing mahogany table. Dakilla was still in her place, holding her teacup with unshakable elegance. Her magnetic violet gaze settled on me; her usual acid mockery gave way to a glint of silent approval.
"Your soul weighs much less now," the goddess remarked, setting the porcelain down on the saucer with a clean clink. "Regret is a terrible burden to carry into battle in the world of the living. It’s time for you to return, Harold. You have a titan to defeat, people to protect, and a destiny to correct. Go back and fight."
The deity snapped her fingers.
The whitish space shattered into a thousand pieces, and darkness dragged me downward at a dizzying speed.
---
The return was a violent collision against the laws of physics and biology. Suddenly, pain struck me with the force of a sledgehammer. My spiritual consciousness was forcibly crammed into my shattered body, submerged in the cold, sticky mud of the canyon. I experienced every second of agony with absolute rawness as my flesh rebuilt itself.
Inside my chest, mud and stagnant blood were expelled from my collapsed lungs as they suddenly inflated, forcing a choked gasp from me. I could hear the wet sound of my internal organs, pulverized by the titan’s stomp, weaving themselves back together. My spleen and liver, reduced to pulp, regenerated from streams of silver light that flowed from my energy core. My splintered ribs straightened with sharp, dry cracks, forcing their way back through torn muscle to fit into my sternum with the precision of a macabre puzzle.
My spine, fractured in multiple places, aligned vertebra by vertebra in a rapid succession of pops that arched my back against the ground. Torn capillaries knitted together like invisible threads, pumping warm, oxygenated blood into my numb limbs. My lacerated dermis, covered in purple bruises, sealed itself, stretching over the new healthy flesh until the last crust of mud and dried blood fell to the ground. In a matter of seconds, I went from a crushed corpse to a fully restored man, every muscle thrumming with renewed, overflowing vitality.
I placed my palms on the damp ground and slowly rose. The canyon air felt cold in my healed lungs. A few meters away, the colossal figure of the giant loomed against the rock walls. He was walking away. The titan trudged heavily, dragging his monstrous bone weapon, his hunched shoulders weighed down with deep desolation. The giant ignored me completely, regarding me as an insect already exterminated and devoid of any food value.
"Hey!" I shouted. My voice, now clear and firm, echoed powerfully off the stone walls of the canyon.
The giant stopped dead. His enormous shoulders tensed. Slowly, he turned his gigantic head back. When his bloodshot eyes landed on me, disbelief twisted his brutish features. His jaws clenched, and a hoarse grunt of confusion escaped his throat. He couldn’t comprehend how the worm he had crushed under his heel was standing again, without a single scratch.
The titan’s confusion quickly morphed into blind fury. He let out a deafening roar that rattled the loose stones of the cliff and charged at me. He raised the colossal bone club with both hands, bringing it down in a sweeping arc with the clear intent of pulverizing me once and for all. The air whistled under the pressure of the imminent impact.
I stood my ground, awaiting the blow with complete serenity. I simply reached up with my bare right hand to meet the strike.
BOOM!
The collision raised a thick curtain of dust and mud around us. The shockwaves cracked the ground beneath my boots, but my arm held firm. I stopped the colossal bone club directly with the palm of my hand. The force of the impact dissipated through my reinforced body, keeping me steady as I stared him straight in the eye.
The giant’s eyes widened; he pushed with all his might, but my grip was absolute. I cast aside any intention of counterattacking or using destructive magic; I simply relaxed the tension in my body.
"System," I called in my mind, with complete seriousness. "I need the translation artifact to communicate with him. And bring the other thing too. What I stored in the divinity’s inventory."
[Understood, User Harold. Processing delivery of special items...]
A light flashed in my left hand. A rough but gleaming black iron collar appeared, engraved with mystical runes that flickered with a soft bluish glow. With a quick, precise movement, I leaped toward the giant’s chest, dodging his attempt to grab me, and clasped the collar around his colossal neck. The artifact magically expanded to fit his size and snapped shut with a metallic click in a matter of seconds.
I landed on my feet in the mud, at a safe distance, and lowered my arms.
The giant stumbled back a step, bringing his hands to his neck in desperation, trying to tear the object off. But when he opened his mouth to roar in rage, the sound that came out was instantly translated by the collar’s runes. His words took on human meaning, though laden with a monstrous, painful distortion.
"Damn you... damn you, you filthy parasite!" the giant bellowed, his voice broken by hatred and agony. "You killed my little ones! They were all I had left in this cursed land! You hunted them down like mere beasts! I curse your blood, I curse your existence! I’ll tear your head off and scatter your entrails across the valley!"
The giant’s curses drove straight into my chest, hurting far more than any physical wound. His words reflected an absolute, unquestionable truth. I had acted like an arrogant conqueror, an idiot playing at being the hero of a video game, stripping him of what he loved most without stopping to think about the consequences.
I felt hot tears slide down my cheeks. I dropped to my knees in the mud before the colossal monster. I bowed my head completely, pressing my forehead to the damp ground in a gesture of absolute submission and repentance.
"I’m sorry..." I sobbed, my voice choked with tears. "Truly... I’m so sorry. I was a fool. A selfish wretch who only thought about his own benefit, about showing off a power that wasn’t even mine... I was unable to see the pain I was causing. I regret killing your children. I regret taking your family from you. I have no justification whatsoever for what I did."
The giant halted, his club suspended in the air. His enormous eyes trembled at the bewildering sight of the human who had just easily blocked his strength, now humiliated and weeping in the mud, willingly offering his life.
"Your words will never bring my children back!" the titan roared, though this time his voice cracked, revealing the abyss of his loneliness. "The pain is too deep for your tears!"
"I know," I said, lifting my gaze with reddened, wet eyes but unwavering determination. "I know my regret is insufficient, but I want to give back what I took from you."
I slid my hand toward my inventory and materialized the second object. A dark wooden box, reinforced with celestial silver and engraved with the emblem of a tree of infinite roots: The Box of the Immortal God Muluk. The mystical artifact Dakilla had allowed me to keep after our encounter.
I held the box with both hands and pressed the runic lock.
The container opened with a sigh of fresh air that dispelled the stench of mire in the canyon. From inside it emerged two small spheres of pure, golden light. They floated into the air, dancing softly between us, emitting a peaceful melody that calmed the tension in the atmosphere. The giant dropped his club, which hit the ground with a dull boom. His enormous eyes widened with a mixture of terror and reverent hope as he beheld the lights.
The spheres began to expand rapidly, absorbing the energy around them. The light condensed, weaving first translucent skeletons on a smaller scale, then layers of muscle, and finally the grayish skin characteristic of their species. Before our eyes, the silhouettes solidified completely until they touched the ground gently.
It was them. Two small giants, their eyes bright and full of life, breathing the canyon air as if they had merely awakened from a long sleep.
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