Ch.296296. Overlaid Truth (3)

# Dream.

It is truly a sweet fantasy, yet a terrible illusion.

In dreams, the unchangeable future might be different, and perhaps it could bring me the scenes I desire.

This unbearably painful reality becomes jumbled and transformed according to my thoughts, unfolding into another world. So while dreaming, I forgot the sewage pit of reality and spent incredibly happy moments.

But the sweetness is only temporary.

The moment I wake up, the sweet fantasy I wished was reality turns to ashes and disappears, and I face the harsh reality without even the slightest difference.

A body that cannot walk on two legs naturally makes my head hang low, and the world always commands me to live at an infinitely low height, confined to a wheelchair.

Under such circumstances, why would I want to open my eyes?

I painfully realize that with this broken body, there is no more hope. Resenting that this happened not by my own will but by external forces brings no change to my physical condition.

Rather, each time, I wished to never open my eyes and fall back into sleep.

Like in dreams. I wished for that dream where I could run around on two perfectly functioning legs to last forever. There were times when I secretly hid sleeping pills, wondering if I could sever my ties with reality.

But the greater the gap between dreams and reality grew, the more my suffering doubled.

No one came to visit me.

Therefore, all that remained was the time of solitude spent alone. And the only time of happiness that came with falling asleep.

What if this dream could be extended? What if it could never end? If there was a way to close my eyes and never open them again?

I thought there wasn’t one, but there was.

A sole paradise existed.

If I severed my ties with reality, I would fall into an infinite sleep.

Then I would dream an eternal dream. If I could just reach a state where I never had to open my eyes, there would be no greater paradise.

Life—that was the first time I gave up on it. Then, for reasons I couldn’t understand, I fell into this place: the Kempton Continent, the Ardelion Principality, Levrant Academy.

The location didn’t really matter.

Dejectedly, my future was predetermined. That was true in this life as well, and even after one regression.

No matter which path I take, this predetermined fate never offers me a different signpost.

Yes. If a different signpost were to be given, even momentarily, it would only be seen in dreams. Just like before I came here.

But the arms wrapped around my waist, arms that usually seemed so delicate without much strength in them.

They stopped me from heading back to that paradise of eternal dreams.

“As I thought… you were here again this time.”

Now they held me so tightly that it seemed impossible to break free.

Despite not being infused with magical power or any strength-enhancing force, they were that strong.

She embraced my body tightly and pleaded.

“Why do you go to such places…”

And.

“I’m afraid of heights. So please come down quickly. Okay?”

She said she was afraid of heights, so I should come down. That’s what she said.

Before me stretched a dizzying cliff.

Not just a steep slope, but a cliff where a person would be crushed, shattered, and have their breath cut off if they fell.

It was an environment where fear would come first if one lived with acrophobia.

But Renias is strangely perceptive at times like this.

There’s a reason she’s tightly holding my waist and not letting go.

Yes. She must have noticed my intentions.

But.

Does anything change just because she noticed?

“…Let go. Renias.”

Nothing changes.

My fate never changes.

My reality is never overturned.

Whether I die by a comrade’s knife, get torn apart by monsters as the principality falls, or die from falling before being summoned here.

No matter where I go, the fact that I die remains unchanged.

So I want to escape this hell called reality, even a little more comfortably, more quickly.

“No. I won’t let go.”

“…!”

Then Renias released the force pulling me back and instead clung tightly to my body.

With her body pressed against mine, it was obvious that the dizzying cliff would now be spread out right in front of her view.

Yet, despite this, Renias didn’t step back. Wasn’t she supposed to have acrophobia?

‘No, even setting that aside…’

The moment I step forward, she would fall with me.

She must clearly know that falling from here means death.

‘Is she not afraid?’

Until now, I thought Renias was just a person with great courage.

But this was completely wrong.

“If you don’t come down, I’ll have to go up with you…”

What could this mean?

When I quickly turned around to look at her, only my reflection was visible in her eyes.

I had a sinking feeling.

‘If I don’t come down… she’s going to jump with me…?’

Her arms, not pulling me back but tightly embracing my waist, ready to follow me, were proof that she was prepared even for a double suicide.

Yes. What she feared was.

“I can’t… live without you anymore…”

My death.

My life, which I thought no one would care about, which I thought people would even find satisfying or relieving to see end.

Renias was holding onto me, barely holding back tears that seemed about to burst at any moment.

While I was still in shock, she once again sharply pierced through my vulnerability.

“You know what? You… were the person I tried to call senior before, you know that?”

“What do you mean…”

“You asked me before. If I remembered anything about having been to that cave before.”

“…!!”

“I… remember everything now. Every single detail…”

That past was no longer mine alone.

***

The eyes that had been fixated only on a false paradise now focus on me.

Pure black pupils, neither purplish-black nor dark red, tremble slightly as they turn toward me.

“What… does that mean…”

He still seems confused.

“The wound on my knee. You treated it for me back then too. Don’t you remember?”

“…How do you… how could you possibly.”

I don’t know.

Even Renias herself wouldn’t know why she suddenly recalled that now.

But one thing is certain.

“This is the place. Where you properly treated the wound on my leg and used a mana injector to save my life.”

The fact that she remembers this place.

The fact that she accurately found this Shaking Rock, which might have only existed in Junon’s past.

That was clear evidence that the two had met here before.

Once again, his pupils shook violently.

It didn’t mean his will to jump from this spot had disappeared at all.

In other words, the next words would be the last chance to attempt a conversation, to try to change his mind. If this opportunity was missed, Junon would turn around and jump off the cliff.

But…

‘What should I say?’

What words could persuade someone who finds death more comfortable than living?

Should I tell the confused Junon that I too share those memories?

That’s nonsense. It would only remind him of painful memories and provoke him further.

Even if I’ve managed to catch his attention, it’s not enough to change his mind.

Even if I overlay the deep wounds of the past onto the present, those wounds will never disappear.

Then the ointment to heal those wounds must be found from the traces of a man who has lived two lifetimes.

‘No…!’

I searched all through Levrant Academy but couldn’t think of anything.

‘This isn’t it either…!’

I’ve never visited the Lantana mansion, nor have I enjoyed the Realwinter Parade.

‘No. All of it, all of it isn’t enough to change his mind…’

The training room. Position trouble. The Kuteli Count’s family. The mana stone hoarding incident. The research labs of the high nobles.

No matter what else I searched through, none of it had happened back then.

While I was pondering, Junon, who had firmly made up his mind again, asked Renias.

“That doesn’t matter anyway. But why are you telling me not to die?”

“Brother…”

“I’ve been treated as a useless human being. In reality, I was no help as a fighting force. That’s why I couldn’t trust anyone, right?”

“That’s not true. I, I’ve seen everything!”

“That’s because you, Renias… you’re too kind.”

The fuse has already been lit.

There isn’t much time before the rope burns through.

-Thud.

Renias completely let go of her hands and climbed onto the Shaking Rock.

Junon asked in alarm.

“What are you doing now?”

“I told you earlier. If you’re going to die, I’ll die with you.”

“Huh…”

He wore an expression of incomprehension.

Such a meticulous person. A meticulous person who handles everything without a single gap cannot be matched with a rational answer.

So Renias answers not with reason but with emotion.

Standing on tiptoe.

With the two arms that had tried to block him by wrapping around his waist, now embracing his neck.

Eyes closed, instead of stepping forward, she answered with a gentle kiss.

“…”

The lips of a man and woman, softly meeting and parting.

Opening her eyes, Renias simply conveys the budding emotion she had been harboring through the lips that had just delivered the kiss.

“I… like you too much. I don’t think I can live without you anymore.”

If he chooses death, she will die with him.

The reason is.

Because she loves this man too much.