My Infinite Gacha In Another World: Surrounded By MILFs

Chapter 53: Chapter 53 — The Letter She Left Behind

We made camp in the shadow of the Rotteline Range.

The mountains rose above us like the spine of a dead god, black rock and ice against a sky that hadn’t shown stars in three days. The pillar was closer now—close enough that its light didn’t flicker anymore. It burned steady, a column of violet fire drilling into the clouds, and the hum of it vibrated through the rock under our boots.

We’d walked through the night to get here. The possessed blockade was still behind us, scattered and leaderless after Chimera devoured the subordinate herald. A few of them had wandered into the mountains after us, but most had simply stopped where they stood, staring at nothing, waiting for orders that would never come.

Samira had led us up a narrow goat trail to a ledge sheltered by an overhang of volcanic rock. The wind couldn’t reach us here. The cold still could. Frost crept across the stone in delicate spirals, and our breath misted in the air like ghosts.

Chimera collapsed against the rock face the moment we stopped moving. Her skin was pale, her breathing shallow. The mouth in her palm had gone dormant again, but the effort of consuming the herald had drained something from her. She hadn’t spoken since we left the clearing.

Odessa was already tracing warding circles around the ledge, her grimoire balanced on one knee. Her quill scratched against the parchment with quick, precise strokes. She’d been muttering about resonance frequencies and seal degradation for the past hour, but I’d stopped listening. My head was pounding from the dark mana pressing against my skull, and I didn’t have the energy for magical theory.

Samira stood at the edge of the ledge, looking down into the valley below. The rift was there. I couldn’t see it—not yet—but I could feel it. A wrongness in the air. A pressure that made my teeth ache and my vision blur at the edges. Like standing too close to a fire, except the fire was cold and ancient and hungry.

I walked over to her. The wind caught her hair and whipped it across her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on something in the valley. Something I couldn’t see.

"How close are we?" I asked.

"Half a mile. Maybe less." Her voice was distant. "The seal is still holding. I can feel it. But there’s a crack. A seam. Something’s pressing against it from the other side."

"The herald."

"Yes. And something else. Something older." She turned to look at me. Her violet eyes were tired in a way I’d never seen before. Not the exhaustion of a long march or a hard fight. Something deeper. Something that had been there long before I summoned her. "Almira is still in there. I can feel her, too."

"Can she feel you?"

Samira didn’t answer. She looked back at the valley.

---

I left her there and went to check on the others. Odessa had finished her wards and was brewing something over a small fire—a bitter-smelling tea that she claimed would help with the mana pressure. Chimera had fallen asleep against the rock wall, her chest rising and falling in slow, deep rhythms. I draped a blanket over her shoulders and she didn’t stir.

That was when I found the letter.

It was tucked into the side pocket of Samira’s pack, folded neatly and sealed with a drop of wax. The wax was still warm, which meant she’d written it recently—probably during the night march, while the rest of us were focused on the trail. My name was written on the front in her sharp, angular handwriting. Below it, in smaller letters: For Lia. If I don’t come back.

I stared at the envelope for a long time. The fire crackled. The wind howled against the overhang. Chimera breathed in, breathed out.

I opened it.

---

Harold,

If you’re reading this, I’m probably already gone. I’m sorry. I know you hate it when I apologize for things that aren’t my fault, but this one is. I’ve been keeping something from you since the day the pillars appeared. Maybe longer.

I knew this was coming. Not the exact day or the exact hour, but I knew. The moment Odessa explained what the pillars were—resonators, amplifiers—I recognized the pattern. The entities that destroyed my world used the same tactic. Open multiple rifts. Amplify the signal. Wake up the old ones. The ones we couldn’t kill, only seal.

The herald we’re hunting isn’t a new enemy. It’s an old one. Someone I knew. Someone I fought beside during the Rift Wars, before the Andawas took him. His name was Aelric. He was a spiritist, like me—one of Almira’s first students. We trained together in the Tower of Nava. We fought together in the first assault on the Rotteline Range. And when the rift cracked open, he threw himself in front of me to stop one of the Andawas from copying my magic.

He didn’t die. The Andawas took him. Hollowed him out. Wore his body like a coat and walked it back into the world to mock us. Almira was the one who sealed him away. She never forgave herself for not saving him.

I never forgave myself for being the reason he threw himself in front of me.

Now he’s back. The herald is using his body. His voice. His memories. The seal Almira created was designed to hold the Andawas, but Aelric was human before they took him. The seal doesn’t recognize him as an enemy. It’s letting him through.

I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to protect me. You’d throw yourself between me and the herald like Aelric threw himself between me and the Andawas. And I can’t watch that happen again. I can’t bury another person I love.

If this is the end—if the seal breaks and I don’t come back—tell Lia I loved her. Tell her I was proud to be her mother, even for a little while. Tell her the scar on my chest came from protecting people I cared about. Tell her that’s what scars mean.

And tell yourself the same thing.

You’re an idiot, Harold Pitt. You’re reckless and stubborn and you never think things through. But you’re also the best thing that’s happened to me in four thousand years. Don’t let my death be another weight you drag behind you. Almira told me to let go of my guilt, and I never did. Don’t make my mistakes.

Live. Fight. Win. And if you can’t win, make sure the bastards remember your name.

Yours,

Samira

---

I read the letter twice. Then I folded it carefully, tucked it back into the envelope, and walked over to where Samira was standing at the edge of the ledge.

She didn’t turn around when I approached. But her shoulders tensed. She knew.

"You went through my pack," she said.

"I wasn’t looking for this. I found it by accident."

"That’s what they all say."

I held up the envelope. "You wrote me a goodbye letter."

"You sealed it with wax."

She didn’t say anything.

"Aelric," I said. "That’s the herald’s host. Someone you knew. Someone you fought beside. You’ve been carrying his name this whole time, and you didn’t tell me."

"If I told you, you’d try to save him."

"Of course I’d try to save him. He threw himself in front of you. He’s the reason you’re still alive."

"He’s gone, Hal." Her voice cracked. "The Andawas hollowed him out four thousand years ago. There’s nothing left to save. The thing wearing his body is a puppet. A shell. Aelric died the moment the rift opened. I’ve had four thousand years to accept that."

"Then why didn’t you tell me?"

She turned around. Her eyes were wet, but her jaw was set. "Because I knew you’d try anyway. You’d find some way. Some gacha pull. Some artifact. Some miracle. You’d throw yourself at the herald thinking you could pull Aelric out of it, and you’d die trying."

"You don’t know that."

"I know you." She stepped closer. "You’re the man who ressurrected a giant’s children with a box a goddess gave you. You’re the man who died in a canyon and came back because you were too stubborn to stay dead. You don’t know when to give up on people. That’s what I love about you. It’s also what terrifies me."

I didn’t know what to say to that. I stood there with the letter in my hand and the wind howling against the overhang, and I couldn’t find the words.

"Almira gave her life to seal the rift," Samira said. "Aelric gave his life to save me. I gave four thousand years holding the seal shut. That’s three sacrifices. Three people who gave everything to stop this. If you die trying to save a ghost, that makes four. And I won’t allow it."

"It’s not your choice to make."

"It is if I make it. If I face the herald alone—"

"No." I grabbed her shoulders. "You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to write me a letter and walk into the rift by yourself. That’s not how this works."

"Then how does it work, Hal? Because I’ve been trying to figure that out for four thousand years, and I still don’t have an answer."

"We go together. All of us. You, me, Chimera, Odessa. We face the herald as a team. We close the rift as a team. And if Aelric is still in there—"

"He’s not."

"If there’s a fragment of him left—anything—we find it. We pull it out. And if we can’t, we give him the same mercy you gave that farmer in Oakvein. Clean. Fast. No hesitation." I looked her in the eyes. "But we do it together. You don’t get to carry this alone. Not anymore."

She stared at me. The wind whipped her hair across her face. The pillar’s light flickered in her violet eyes.

"You’re an idiot," she said.

"I know."

"You’re going to get yourself killed."

"I’ve already died once. It didn’t stick."

"That’s not a strategy."

"It’s worked so far."

She laughed. It was a small laugh, fragile and tired, but it was real. Then she stepped forward and kissed me. Hard. Desperate. Her fingers curled into the collar of my coat, and her lips tasted of cold air and the bitter tea Odessa had been brewing.

When she pulled back, her eyes were still wet. But her voice was steady.

"If we’re doing this together, you follow my lead. You don’t try to be a hero. You don’t throw yourself in front of me. If I tell you to run, you run."

"Agreed. Unless running means leaving you behind."

"Hal—"

"Then I don’t run. I’m not Aelric. I’m not Almira. I’m not going to die for you." I took her hand. Her fingers were cold. I held them tight. "I’m going to live for you. There’s a difference."

She looked at me for a long time. The pillar pulsed. The wind howled. Frost crept across the stone at our feet.

"Okay," she said finally. "Okay."

---

We woke Chimera and Odessa an hour before dawn.

The tea had helped—the pressure behind my eyes was still there, but it was manageable now. Chimera was still pale, but she could stand. She could fight. That was enough.

Odessa had finished her analysis of the seal. She’d drawn a diagram in her grimoire that looked like a spiral of overlapping circles, each one representing a layer of the ward Almira had created.

"The seal is degrading from the inside," she said. "The herald has been working on it for weeks, maybe longer. It’s using Aelric’s body as a key. The ward recognizes his magical signature as friendly, so it lets him through. Once he’s inside, he can weaken the other layers."

"Can we repair it?"

"From the outside, no. We’d need to get inside the rift. Find the anchor point. Reinforce it with fresh ether and mana." She looked at Samira. "That’s what you did, isn’t it? Four thousand years ago. You bound your own soul to the anchor to hold it shut."

"Yes."

"Then you know what we have to do."

"I know." Samira strapped her blade to her hip and pulled her hair back into a tight braid. "We go in. We find Aelric. We stop him. And then we find the anchor and pump every drop of ether we have into it until the seal holds."

"What about the rest of you?" I asked. "The piece of your soul that’s still in there."

"If the seal is reinforced, it stays. If the seal breaks, it dies." Her voice was steady. "I’ve made my peace with that."

"I haven’t."

"Then we’d better make sure the seal doesn’t break."

Chimera stood up. Her hand was flexing again, the mouth pressing against the skin. "I can feel it," she said. "The herald. It’s close. It’s waiting for us."

"How close?"

She pointed toward the valley. Toward the rift. Toward the place where Almira’s bones were buried.

"Right below us."

The pillar pulsed. The ground trembled. The snow at the edge of the ledge cracked and slid into the valley below, swallowed by the dark.

Samira drew her blade. "Then let’s not keep it waiting."