Chapter 118 Volume III - Chapter 39: Revealing Some Truths
I heard a stirring from the other side of the door. Celine approached me slowly, but she didn't open the door like last time. Quietly, softly, she too leaned against the door.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come yesterday, I was a bit... confused, I had to pull myself together."
I didn't get an answer, but I continued anyway.
"You know, I realized something important about myself recently."
I took a deep breath and smiled.
"I am weak, powerless. I don't mean in terms of fighting strength. I am... a coward, and what I am afraid of is me."
I closed my eyes and let my body relax. I had thought a lot since the last time about what I could talk to her, but nothing came to mind. I didn't want to tell her things like 'you'll be fine', I didn't want to emphasize her condition every time. I wanted to talk to her like a normal person.
So I decided to open myself up to her. I thought that as a friend I could tell her some of my secrets. I also wanted her to see that I was imperfect too. Of course, there was also a desire to talk about it and get it off my chest, but I didn't really care.
"About three weeks, a month ago, I had a near-death experience. I went to kill the ringleader of a group who had threatened me and my sister to eliminate Adrian in the preliminaries of the competitions in the Kingdom, and I did it. Although I didn't personally kill the person who threatened me, I was the one who made sure he died, but things didn't go as easily as I thought. A creature attacked me. It infiltrated my body as if it were a virus, it changed my body. And not only that, it left me a skill."
I kept talking. I told her about the Absolute Mind, how much I hated it but how dependent I was on it. I told her about the bond between me and that... man. I told her what a wiera is, what caora is. I told her about the other personality inside me, that I was crazy. I told her what I did to those three students the other day, how I lost myself.
Every word that came out of my mouth made me speak more freely, made me feel better. Time flew by and Celine didn't say a word during the whole session. I talked and she listened. I spoke for so long, without expecting anything in return, that at some point my throat started to hurt and my voice became hoarse.
When I realized this, I stopped talking and sighed deeply.
"I'm sorry... I babbled a lot."
I felt Celine move again and I was silent for a while, feeling like she was going to say something. But after that slight stirring, nothing happened. So, I smiled again.
"It doesn't matter that you don't speak, that you don't answer, Celine. It's enough for me that you don't kick me out of the room, that you listen to my nonsense. Thank you. Thank you for not rejecting me despite my stupidity, despite my mistake, and for listening to my flaws."
I stood up from where I was leaning but paused before heading for the exit of the room.
"I'll come back tomorrow, but I have to go now. Take care, okay?"
After making sure I didn't and wouldn't get an answer, I took a deep breath and slowly walked toward the exit of the room, clenching my fist.
Then... something unexpected happened.
"Aiden."
My next step was interrupted, and I paused.
"Yes, Celine?"
"Give me... give me some time..."
A question appeared in my mind.
"For what?"
She was silent for a while, and then she said a single sentence.
"J- just give..."
I narrowed my eyes, looked at the door, and as I continued to look at the door, an involuntary smile appeared on my face. I understood what she meant.
"Sure, I'll wait as long as you want."
Celine didn't say another word after that. So I stayed in the room for a while longer and then went to the control room. When I looked at the clock... I realized that I had been there for almost two hours.
A smile appeared on my face again, I started to think about what I should tell her when I come back here again, but then the doctor suddenly appeared in front of me.
His movements were a bit excited, just like the last time. It made me a little nervous, but I gave him all the information I had seen, or rather noticed, about Celine, her tone of voice, her movements, and her behavior.
The doctor wrote it all down and told me I could leave. He didn't even look at me, as if I was no longer important after receiving this information.
Sighing, I slowly made my way to my room, and it occurred to me that I had never seen Ronald Potenbea in the room.
Although I was surprised not to see him, I didn't dwell on it too much, I understood the situation. He was an extremely busy man and had already been watching Celine every hour of every day since I first stepped in here. He had already neglected his work too much, so much so that he had to come back even if he didn't want to anymore. Otherwise, things would have gotten worse than they already were. As doting as he had become for his daughter, he was a man with responsibilities.
He was not a 'normal' person, even though he seemed like a normal person, a suffering father these days. Even though his guild had fallen many times in the past, he had always ensured that the Potenbea Family was one of the pillars of the kingdom.
To the people, he was like a legend, towering above the top of a mountain they could never climb. Anyone who saw him on the road would not even believe they had met him. They would ignore it, thinking they had seen someone like him.
In short, he was not as ordinary as he appeared to me in his last days. He was really busy.
Of course, I'm sure he came here every evening, but it's a bit difficult for our hours to coincide from now on...
In the midst of these thoughts, I realized that I had reached my room. I pushed all these thoughts out of my mind and just let myself go to bed.
From then on, my day was quite calm compared to what it has been lately. Sith and I watched movies, TV series, etc. from my room, I met Adrian for a short walk, I read a book... In short, I did all kinds of activities to keep me busy, except 'training' of course.
Yet, interestingly, on the night of the same day, I encountered something unexpected.
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Congratulations! As a result of your hardships, your Vitality stat has increased to E!
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When I saw the system notification, I had a grin on my face, but I was not that happy. Because the reason I received this notification was that I was still alive and recovering despite the many severe injuries my body had sustained.
In short, I had screwed up my body so badly that the 'vitality' statistic had jumped up a notch even though I hadn't tried to improve it.
"Haa... Everyone was rubbing it in my face, and now the system itself is rubbing it in my nose..."
'Then how about taking a little more care of your body?'
"You think I don't? Just so you know, I'm not trying to get myself killed."
'It doesn't look that way to me.'
"Tch, just because I do what I have to do doesn't mean I enjoy hurting myself."
Sith smirked slightly at this. He didn't seem to care what I said, so it annoyed me a little, and I said a few more things. But then I paused, realizing that I was basically having a child fight with him, and a grin appeared on my face as well.
"Okay, fine, I'm a masochist who enjoys suffering, that's your defense, isn't it?"
'Of course.'
"Well, think what you like."
Sith looked up at me with a victorious look of triumph. He looked proud. The smile on my face widened even wider and then I let out a laugh.
I let myself fall back on my bed, sighed deeply, and looked up at the ceiling of my room.
Sith... he has become a closer 'friend' to me than I thought, hasn't he?
"Sith."
'What?.'
"I'm not really Aiden Tenebra."
There was silence between us.
'I know.'
I smiled slightly.
"I don't belong in this world either."
'Well, I didn't know that.'
I let out a laugh and turned my eyes to Sith, who had a slight smile on his face. He was softening the atmosphere.
"Like you, I come from another world, after dying in my previous body, I found myself in this body that committed suicide."
'Is that why you had a problem with your sister?'
"Yes, I told her the truth. And then things went bad between us, but we seem to be okay now, don't you think?"
'You have an eleven out of ten brother-sister relationship.'
I laughed again, looked at Sith, who was floating in the air, smiling just like me, and then I closed my eyes. I didn't lower my smile again.
"I used to be alone, a child abandoned by my parents. I wasn't happy, I had accomplished a lot, but none of it satisfied me. When I woke up here... the first thing I thought was that I could start over. I thought I could start a whole new life as Aiden Tenebra, running away from my old self. And then the incident where I became a wiera happened, and now I'm starting to doubt whether my thoughts are even my own."
Sith started to say something, but I didn't let him, I continued.
"I wanted to thank you. I know I keep saying thank you for nothing, but this time I mean it. Thank you for being there for me, for trying to keep me cheerful without once arguing with me."
I opened my eyes and looked back at the hovering Sith, his green eyes tilted a little. The smile he had just shown me had shrunk a little, but it was still there.
I smiled, opened my hand, and held it out to him. Sith turned his eyes to my hand.
"Let's not give up. If I ever stray from my goal, if I ever feel like giving up, slap me and bring me back to myself. I was unhappy in my previous life and you were unhappy in your world. So let us both live this life to the fullest."
Sith's smile, which had fallen a little, widened after these words. He flew quickly to my hand and gave me a high five with his tiny hand.
'Got it.'
And just like that, I had ended the day without a hitch. From today onward, the next two weeks or so would be all about rest, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about what was to come.
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