episode_0014

The first thing I saw was the night sky.

A beautiful night sky embroidered with stars spread out before my eyes.

And the soothing smell of trees that pierces your nose. The sound of insects chirping.

As I felt them, I realized that I was now lying in the forest.

‘You’ve regressed again······’

But it’s strange. Every time I died and regressed, I would wake up feeling strangely helpless, but this time I woke up feeling quite refreshed.

After thinking about it for a while, I concluded that it must have been because of the way the previous episode died, which was unusually painless. It seemed to be a system where the more comfortable a person was to die, the less the aftereffects of death would be.

It’s a bit unfair to realize it now, but for now, it’s not a bad thing for me. This episode might be the last one.

I got up and looked around.

The half-extinguished campfire caught my eye. But that wasn’t important. I had to check if the child was there or not. That was the real important thing.

I turned my head. And······

I found that kid.

A sigh escaped me.

‘Haa… I hoped it wouldn’t happen…’

A small child, seven years old, curled up in a corner, sleeping soundly.

Judging by the burn scars on her body, she appears to have regressed to the time she was purchased from the slave market.

It was a shame. It would have been neat if I had gone back just a little further······ As if it were a twist of fate, I ended up right before that moment.

I looked at the sleeping child.

The child, who was curled up like a maggot, was extremely skinny. His body was so emaciated that it was nothing but bones. There were colorful burn scars all over his face and body. He even had whip marks and bruises.

‘Why at this time of all times···’

Actually, I was thinking of running away.

I was thinking of abandoning her and running away, but seeing her pitiful appearance stopped me.

My heart just wouldn’t budge. My partner was telling me to run away quickly since we hadn’t developed a relationship yet…

Was it still affection? Or was it just simple compassion? Even though she was an ungrateful bitch who had killed me ten times, I couldn’t make a decision easily.

I even thought that if we leave it like this, isn’t it essentially murder?

‘shit···’

After much thought, I finally made a decision.

Let’s try one last time.

I really think I’ll try it one last time······

*******

Still, there was some hope for this episode.

First of all, the first basis is the last episode.

In the last episode, I sensed a change in her. I thought that human nature did not change, but in the last episode, she was clearly different from usual. In particular, her desperate attitude at the end was strange. If it had been her before, I would have immediately cut off her head. Didn’t she even stretch out her stomach like I was going to die? In fact, I deserved to die twice. However, she hesitated to kill me until the end. You can tell just by looking at the way she killed me. How passive she was.

Why was she so passive? I found the reason in her parenting style.

In the last episode, I made her do nothing. Whenever she tried to do laundry, I would rush over and stop her, and tell her to stay still. Every time I did that, I would find her depressed…

Looking back, I wonder if those processes may have made her timid.

They say that childhood education lasts a lifetime. The journey to the zodiac was quite long. Her experiences during that time must have had a great influence on her personality formation, making her a timid child. That’s why she hesitated to kill me until the very end.

Anyway, I saw hope there. That she had a chance to change… that with a little gaslighting, she could be made into a good girl!

The plan was roughly this. First, I would treat the burns, make him feel grateful to me, and teach him what ingratitude means (since he didn’t seem to know). Then, if I added the spirit of not harming others, it would be perfect. He just couldn’t seem to get the hang of dying.

It was the so-called North Wind and Sun strategy.

Since the North Wind strategy failed last time, I will try to be the warm sun this time.

Besides, even if you fail, you don’t really lose anything. You’ll just die one more time.

Honestly, if I run away like this, I’ll only feel anxious. I’ll have to live my whole life in fear that she might come back alive to kill me. Of course, since we’ve only seen each other for a few days, the possibility of that happening is slim.

Anyway, I made a plan and started putting it into action the next day.

******

“Come here.”

“······.”

She turned her head at the sound of her name being called. And her eyes that met mine showed no emotion at all. They were frighteningly empty. It was a passage that made me guess how much she had suffered.

‘Hey, tsk…’

I was really angry. Those damn slave traders. I really hated them. Those people who sold refugees from war like they were objects. They were trash who lived off of other people’s suffering.

If my family were alive, they might have been sold to them too.

Maybe that’s where my hatred for slave traders comes from. That’s why I was hanging around the slave market too…

After being lost in my old thoughts for a moment, I suddenly came to my senses and took something out of my pocket.

It was a burn treatment. To be exact, it was a high-end regenerative medicine for skin care, but it was also excellent for burn treatment. If she applied it consistently, she would be able to get her original skin back. It was a confirmed fact since she had already tried it once.

It’s quite an expensive item. The day the palace burned down. It’s one of the items I brought from the warehouse. I was in a hurry to escape, so I was in a panic, but this medicine is definitely memorable.

Because I kept them, thinking somewhere in my heart that someone might come out alive. Of course, I didn’t use any of them. Because not a single survivor came out. I didn’t use any of them, and then I thought I’d use them for the first time on the daughter of the man who burned down the palace. It’s an ironic reality.

By the way, I don’t know why I keep thinking about old times.

I tried to shake off my distracting thoughts and sat her down in front of me.

She still looks at me with dead eyes. I examine her face. I was planning to treat her face first. Her face was the most severe. I could gradually treat the other parts.

I dabbed some gel on her eyelids. She flinched as if it was a little cold. I said.

“Close your eyes.”

She closes her eyes. She spreads a thin layer of gel and gently rubs it onto her rough, bumpy skin.

“······.”

Now that I looked at her, I saw that her face was full of wounds, not just burn scars. Her skin was tattered from all the scratching. Her cheek was swollen from being beaten by a slave trader. All of that was packed into a face the size of a palm.

I remember it a little. I think I was shocked when I saw her face before. I remember crying a lot. I was very sensitive back then. But for me now, who has lived for decades and has dried up my emotions, it wasn’t that bad.

It was true that it was a little pitiful.

She said, adding a dab of gel to her cheekbone.

“This is expensive. You have to pay it back later. Got it?”

Why are you so skinny… Burn treatment is burn treatment, but I guess I should feed you something more first. That’s what I thought after seeing her sunken cheeks.

“It will feel itchy after you apply it all, so don’t scratch it.”

I was worried about how I should act like a good person in front of her, but all my worries disappeared. This was because I felt truly pitiful. I couldn’t help but feel pity for her, who looked like a corpse.

After applying it thoroughly, I told her to open her eyes.

“Haa··· You can open your eyes now.”

She opens her eyes.

Maybe it’s because of the treatment, but my eyes look a little more lively. Of course, there’s still a lot more work to be done.

I told her.

“The other treatment… Let’s do it after your face has fully recovered. If we do it now, I don’t think you can handle it. If you apply it consistently for about a month, your face will get better.”

“······.”

After all, since regeneration potions also use the body’s resources, it is dangerous to use them when your body is not in good condition. Even if your skin is healed, you can lose your life.

By the way, the more I look at it, the more pitiful it looks. Do those guys not have any concept of human rights?

“What is this body···I should eat something to live···”

I said something to her for no reason. I know it wasn’t her fault, but I felt bad for some reason. I don’t know if I felt bad for myself for feeling sorry for her.

She laughed bashfully when she heard me.

?

When I saw her smile, I thought, was this the time she smiled like this?