Memory

The eye smile he had been holding just moments ago was nowhere to be found.

What I faced were emotionless black eyes that could see through everything and more.

At a point where I wasn’t allowed any excuses or justifications, the option to deflect the conversation had already disappeared.

Therefore, I needed to provide an answer that Tana could somehow accept.

But no matter how much I thought about it.

Despite racking my brain repeatedly, trying to find the best possible answer.

For some reason, my mind was filled with the ominous certainty that no matter what answer I gave, I wouldn’t be able to make Tana understand.

At the end of a hellish silence, what I reached was a question directed at myself: why did I risk getting caught to enter the dungeon?

Why was I so obsessed with ‘saving’ others?

Only then did the past, which I could barely remember anymore, gradually unfold like a panorama.

The first beginning of all misfortune… which I finally had to face after sinking deeper and deeper into memories I had countless times tried to forget.

“I’m afraid there’s a high possibility that it’s ■■■■.”

A rare disease that suddenly appeared one day, said to occur in one in a million.

Life could be prolonged, but fundamental treatment was impossible. At first, I declared that I would try to overcome such a terrifying disease.

But less than a month after treatment began.

Before showing even the slightest improvement in any small area.

–Screech… CRASH!

The car of people waiting for me in front of the hospital was hit by a blind truck and sent flying.

Not long after, flames began to rise.

“…■■… Quickly, get away…”

I tried to ignore the increasingly faint voice and struggled to pull ■■ out of the burning car.

Unlike ■■ and ■■ who had already stopped breathing, ■■ was still alive.

It wasn’t too late yet.

However, before I could open the car door that had become hot from the heat.

Just as I began to hear the siren of an ambulance in the distance.

–BOOM!!

I don’t remember much after that.

I opened my eyes a week later, completely wrapped in white bandages.

By the time I realized I had failed to save someone who had been within arm’s reach, too many things had already become irreversible.

Fortunately, I still had remaining relatives, so I could continue living without much difficulty.

However, everyone in the family pointed fingers at me as the monster who had devoured the family.

I was taken in by my relatively compassionate paternal grandmother, but even she didn’t care at all after entrusting everything about me to a nanny she had found somewhere.

So, I lived day by day, suffering in a reality more nightmarish than any nightmare.

By the time I was no longer a child, no one wanted to be by my side.

It hurt much less not to know people who would leave anyway from the beginning.

But in the end, I came to know that familiarity once again.

“Hello, Lua!”

I met people again who naturally recognized me and pulled me into their embrace.

“Look here, Lua. These are gifts from the Lunatic Guild brothers and sisters for you.”

“This is all… for me?”

Despite not having properly helped or done anything for me, they offered sincere congratulations simply because it was my birthday.

The new body, new life, new name, new… relationships that I unintentionally obtained were too much for me.

Since some point, the presence of things firmly grasped in my hands has been truly impossible to hide…

And so, in the end.

Even though I had once lost everything I believed would be mine forever in a single day.

Even though it might have been better to think I was having a long dream.

Even though it might have been wiser to consider all the things given to me now as mirages that would disappear if I got too close.

Once I had already known and had them, I didn’t want to lose them again.

Even if they were people I had met just once, I wanted them not to die.

I wanted to meet them again someday.

Because nothing remains after death.

Because you can never look into each other’s eyes again, nor even have conversations that are nothing more or less than ordinary small talk.

I hated the thought of remaining a powerless child who could only watch precious people dying before my eyes forever more than I hated dying myself.

I wanted to protect them.

No matter what it took.

“When you die… it’s over.”

At the end of the prolonged silence, what I faced were the eyes of someone I had already ‘lost’ once.

My voice, gradually becoming damp, continued to speak only the truth afterward…

“I’ve only just become able to protect, only just become able to save.”

Because the weight carried by words without lies was not something to be taken lightly.

Because the wish for even someone who was merely familiar to stay by my side for a long time finally fell with warmth and form.

“If I just do nothing and stay still… that’s not right…”

He could neither affirm nor deny it easily.

It wasn’t wrong, but he couldn’t tell me it was right either.

Nevertheless, the reason he moved his hand to wipe away the tears that had formed at the corners of my trembling eyes was…

“I never asked you to do nothing.”

Because he couldn’t leave alone a child who was asking if they should regret saving people.

Of course, it was extremely foolish for such a young child not to worry about their own safety at all.

No matter how much power beyond what anyone else could surpass the child possessed, they were still just a child after all.

What he eventually offered to my already sufficiently blurred gaze was, as always, logic and rationality.

“You simply chose the wrong thing to do.”

It is the way of the world that adults should see reality, and children should see the future.

What needs to be prepared for is the moment when the future becomes reality.

So that when the child is no longer a child, they can walk through the present with their own strength.

“As someone said, when you die, it’s over. Shouldn’t we avoid the risk of a valuable talent like Ms. Lua coming to an end as much as possible?”

She is a child with powerful abilities that no one, including Tana himself, has been able to penetrate until now.

However, if such outstanding power were to fade away because of youthful impetuousness without even being properly used.

That would truly be the height of inefficiency.

“I would like you to consider not just the lives you can save right now, but also the lives you could save in the future.”

He is not reprimanding.

He is not scolding.

Lecturing… maybe he is.

“If you rush out too hastily… you’ll collapse from exhaustion before reaching your destination.”

It’s all for a better outcome.

As the child herself said, to be able to save more people, to be able to live alongside more people.

To help make a wish that has not yet been promised to anyone take on reality.

“I believe you understand what I mean.”

If not, she would end up like a cat in a cage.

As an adult, he had given all the advice he could, so he couldn’t intervene any further.

The choice was entirely the child’s.

Still, it was fortunate that the child who slowly nodded didn’t seem like a troublemaker who would let his words go in one ear and out the other.

So, only after receiving a silent promise that she wouldn’t do anything reckless in the future did he bow and express his gratitude.

After all, what’s past is past.

Since time cannot be turned back, he decided to give at least some meaning to those perilous moments, albeit belatedly.

After all, from now on, those times whose true nature would be known only to Tana himself and the child.

“Risking your life for someone is not an easy thing to do.”

Especially for a young child who doesn’t fully understand the weight of sacrifice.

Without thinking about being praised by anyone, without thinking about being acknowledged.

To have walked into the heart of a den of vicious monsters simply to save.

And to have saved them without any notable harm in the end.

“Thanks to you, our guild members were able to remain safe. We were even able to achieve the great feat of retrieving the dungeon’s Source Stone.”

From a results perspective, it was something deserving of praise and recognition.

Even if it’s something that can’t be shared with others, the essence doesn’t change.

For some reason, as his voice continued, the fragile shoulders before him began to tremble slightly…

But in any case, she was still a child.

“The fact that Ms. Lua saved a total of seven lives today—at least I will remember that.”

To tear up just from the listing of simple facts…

It wasn’t such a strange thing.