episode_0072

Upon hearing that Revo had come through the roof, I was so flustered my jaw dropped. Akada, seeing my reaction, tried to hold back her laughter and spoke to me.

“Heh heh… Yes.”

“But how…? Did the Village Elder-nim cast a shrinking magic circle back then too?”

“No~ Revo-ssi made his body small to match our fairy size. That’s how he broke through the roof and fell… But… my house back then had four rooms. However, the rooms were so small it felt like a house with just one room. If he broke through the roof of a house like that… can you imagine what it felt like? Ha ha ha~”

“Hm… I don’t even want to think about it anymore. If it were truly a situation like that, I would have been too flustered to say anything.”

“Right? Ha ha ha~ But I was also in a very dilapidated state of mind back then, so I couldn’t possibly listen to his words. It seemed like he was worrying about me, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. I was frustrated by the reality that all the fairies I was close with had died, and I was forced to become an immortal, living alone. And for various other reasons, I was stuck inside the house like a shut-in, so naturally, I had forgotten all ways to converse pleasantly with others.”

Certainly… if one suddenly became an immortal without any mental preparation, and even against their will, such a shock would have been inflicted upon their mind. On top of that, if all the surrounding fairies had died, like Aria, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to get back up…

“Zeke-nim~ I’ve brought more tea~”

“Thank y—”

“Oh my~”

As Aria called out that she had brought tea, Akada and I turned our heads to Aria and saw steam rising from ten teacups behind her. I was flustered by the sight, and Akada covered her mouth with her hand in surprise.

“Oh my~ How did you know where the teacups were~”

“….What are those teacups behind you, Aria….”

“Heh heh heh…. It’s tea for Zeke-nim! They’re all good for your health, so please enjoy them without worry!!”

….So you mean you’ll bring out absolutely everything that’s good for my health? I looked at the enormous number of teacups behind Aria again and thought that I’d be visiting the bathroom frequently today. At that moment, Akada saw the situation and started to laugh softly.

“Heh heh heh….”

“Why are you suddenly laughing, Village Elder-nim? Haaah…. I’m greatly worried about how I’m supposed to drink all of that…”

“Ah~ This situation…. I’ve experienced it before, you see~ It really is a worrying situation, isn’t it? But really, Zeke-nim. Thanks to experiencing similar situations like this, I’m alive.”

“Pardon?”

“After Revo-ssi worried about me, this is what happened~”

The human who had suddenly fallen from the sky worriedly shook me, then suddenly ran to the kitchen. Then, he suddenly covered his nose, ran back to me, and asked.

“Agh?! How many days… no, how many months has it been since you cleaned?! Ah… no, that’s not right! You can’t clean because you’re like this now! Where… something useful… something useful…!!”

The strange human who had fallen from the sky suddenly began to point out the cleanliness of my house, then realizing my condition, took out a strange chunk of scrap metal from his pants pocket. He then pressed a finger firmly on the scrap metal, and an astonishing sight unfolded. As a faint blue light emitted upwards from the chunk of scrap metal, my eyes involuntarily widened.

“Now… what did I bring with me…. Ah! Th-that’s right! If it’s this!!”

The strange human continued to look at the light, then widened his eyes as if he had found something. The human immediately stretched out his hand towards the light, and that small light began to swallow his hand. I was so flustered my jaw dropped at the sight.

‘What… is that…? His hand… disappeared…’

“This one… and this one… Right! This one too!!”

‘…?!’

I couldn’t close my mouth at yet another astonishing sight. The light had clearly swallowed the human’s hand… but when the human pulled his arm back, his hand began to emerge from the light again, and an item was clutched in the human’s hand. The human, who had pulled out a strange paper bag, put his hand into the light again and continued to pull out things. They were items I didn’t know.

“Ugh, seriously… I wish our technology had developed further!! Then we could have saved many more people… no, many more lives… Now… I need to mix this powder in water… Since there’s nothing hygienic in this house right now… I’ll use this for now…”

Water came out of the transparent bottle the human had taken out and was transferred to the bowl the human had produced. The human then put the strange powder from the paper bag into it and began stirring the water with a spoon. Then, holding the bowl in his hand, he slowly approached me.

“You can hear me right?! Can you nod to answer me?!”

As the human urgently shouted at me, my head involuntarily nodded up and down. The human then let out a deep sigh of relief. Why was this human worrying about me? I had never met this human before. Since humans had never come to the fairy village in the Criton region in the first place, I couldn’t tell where this human had come from. Furthermore, I couldn’t understand why this human was similar in size to a fairy. The moment various questions began to swirl in my mind, the man, who was slumped against the wall, began to bend down to meet my eye level.

“Can you possibly swallow anything?”

“…..”

“Ah! This is an energy restorer made only with ingredients good for your health! If you drink this, your energy will… immediately…”

When the human introduced the contents of the bowl he was holding as an energy restorer, I instinctively shook my head. Why was this human… doing this to me, who was starving myself to death…? This human, whom I’d never seen before and who couldn’t possibly know my situation, why were they worrying about me and trying to treat me? Keeping that question in my mind, I shook my head, and the human’s eyes widened for a moment before he made a pitiful expression and asked me.

“….You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Surely… you’re trying to give up your life…?”

As if reading my mind, the human asked if I was doing nothing to give up on life. I nodded. At that moment, the human put the bowl on the floor and grabbed my chin with his left hand. I was greatly startled when the human suddenly grabbed my chin, and in that startled moment, the human pulled down my chin, forcing my mouth open, and put a spoonful of the restorative into my mouth. I desperately tried to push the contents out with my tongue to prevent it from going down my throat, but my body, having eaten nothing for a long time, was no match.

“Cough… cough… cough…”

“No, you can’t do that. To try to give up your life yourself… I absolutely cannot just stand by and watch.”

As the human before me forcibly put the restorative into my mouth, trying to treat me, who had given up on life, I began to cough. And when the coughing stopped, I began to feel anger towards the human in front of me who had suddenly appeared and was interfering with me. And whether it was because of the restorative or not, as strength began to return to my body, I shouted at the human before me.

“Wh-what are you… what are you doing interfering with me!!! I want to die!! I want to die now, so why are you bothering me!!”

“I absolutely will not watch anyone before me try to take their own life.”

“Why are you deciding what happens to my life?! I am the owner of this life!! You just suddenly fell from the sky and now you’re saying you won’t let me die?! Who are you?! Have you even spent a year with me?! You know nothing….”

“Yes, I don’t know!! Not even 1%!! I met you for the first time today, I caused trouble by breaking the ceiling of your house, and even though I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived, I am preventing you from dying!!”

As the human before me rose forcefully from his spot and instead shouted at me, my rage began to surge. Then, with a distorted face, I screamed at the human.

“How can someone be so shameless?! Don’t meddle in other people’s affairs, just get lost!! Just let me die!!”

“As you say, that life is yours, not mine! And it’s true that I’m shameless, just as you say! But if I didn’t act like this, I wouldn’t be able to help someone who says they want to die right before me!! If I don’t go this far, it means I’ll have to let a life pass by without being able to help at all!!”

“So that’s your situation, not mi—”

“But it’s also your situation, one where you have such deep emotional pain that you’d abandon your own life, so how can I pretend not to know!! So, pour out your grievances to me!”

“Why should I, when you won’t even understand anyway!?”

“If you don’t even try, you can’t know whether I can understand or not, so why do you speak as if you have the ability to see the future!! You’re most concerned about what others think, aren’t you?!”

I couldn’t say anything to the human’s words. That was because, as the human said, I was currently highly sensitive to others’ gazes. If other residents found out that I was an immortal… if other living beings found out, I was afraid of what might happen. I was afraid everyone would see me as a monster, one who doesn’t age or die….

“Even I, who know nothing about you, wouldn’t I encourage you as I get to know you?! Just as a renowned sword isn’t forged with a single quench, getting to know others isn’t perfectly achieved with a single conversation. If I fail to understand, I will continue to try to understand, even if I have to pull out my brain, so I hope you will trust me.”

“….You’ll understand me…?”

“Yes. So please trust me. And tell me. Why you are trying to give up your life… To do that… you’ll have to finish all the medicine first, though… You aren’t fully healed yet, are you?”

The human scooped a spoonful of the restorative from the bowl and slowly began to extend his arm towards me. What was this feeling…? A human I’d never seen before… a species I’d encountered for the first time in my life, had suddenly appeared and interfered with my affairs, and even though I kept batting away the hand he offered, he didn’t give up and continued to extend his hand to me. No… the human… no… as he said he would try to understand me, tears began to fall from my eyes. I slowly began to make a tearful face, and as his spoon neared my nose, I slowly opened my mouth. The human then showed a small smile and began to feed me the restorative little by little.

“Ugh… Ughhh….”

“…Thank you so much for trusting me.”

After saying that, he continued to offer me spoonfuls as I cried, and I opened my mouth each time he offered the spoon. Once all the restorative in the bowl was gone, my energy had recovered enough for me to move my body, and I slowly moved my arms to wipe away my tears. But perhaps because someone had appeared after a long time and said they would try to understand me, my tears wouldn’t stop flowing. And so, he waited for me until I calmed down.

“Huuu… Huuuuh….”

“Are you alright now?”

“Yeah…. But… who are you…? Who are you to be…?”

“Ah… Oops! I forgot to introduce myself! Ahem…! I destroyed your house like this, yet I committed the rudeness of not even introducing myself! I apologize.”

“….It’s alright. Thanks to you, I’ve regained my energy. So, who are you…?”

“Well… since I’ve caused such a nuisance, I’ll tell you everything without hiding anything. My name is Revo. I got information that there were fairies here, so I made my body small and teleported to this location… but wouldn’t you know it, I was teleported right into the sky! I couldn’t even react and just fell… and now, this is the situation.”

I could understand why this human named Revo had fallen from the sky. But there was still something I didn’t understand.

“….How did a human know there were fairies here?”

“Ah~ Well, you see…. I’m not an ordinary human. I am, in fact. Not a living being of this world.”

When Revo said he was not a living being of this world, a chill instantly ran down my spine, and I trembled with an unknown fear as I spoke to Revo.

“….? Th-then a spirit…?”

“No no no!! That’s not what I mean! Ahem… There aren’t just worlds like this one. There are other worlds… other dimensions, you see! I am Revo, an otherworldly person from another dimension. There’s a lot more I can explain, but… how about we tell each other our stories?”

Although I clearly couldn’t believe in other dimensions… perhaps because I was filled with trust for him, I came to believe his words. And as Revo sat before me, smiling gently, and urged me to tell my story, perhaps due to my feelings for him, I couldn’t refuse his suggestion. I nodded in agreement, and we began to share our stories. First, when I told him that I had been forcibly made an immortal, Revo nodded and said.

“Hmm… I see. So that was your situation. Without mental preparation… no. You had no intention of it in the first place, but you were suddenly forced to become an immortal… You certainly had reason to be afraid.”

“…You don’t see me as a monster…? Even though I don’t die or age…?”

“Hmmmm…. I’ve seen many such beings already, so I don’t feel anything particular about it. Furthermore, even when I first encountered such beings, I never thought they were scary. That’s because, whether immortal or anything else, they are living beings just like me. Isn’t that right? If you’re immortal, do you become some kind of machine device?”

“….Machine device?”

“Ah… Oops! The concept of a ‘machine device’ doesn’t exist here yet, does it! Hmmm… Th-then, should I say ‘tool’? No no… Hmmm… I guess I’m still inexperienced. I end up thinking so hard about things like this.”

Revo began to ponder what analogy to use for me, and seeing his reaction, I involuntarily started to laugh. How many years had it been…? Since I could laugh so carelessly… I, who had been afraid of being branded a monster by others… had begun to enjoy talking with others again…

“Anyway, you’re saying they’re living beings, right?”

“Wh-what… Ah, yes. That’s right.”

“….All the same living beings…. Even if their lifespans are different…”

“By the way… I never expected to meet an ordinary living being who ended up with super-longevity in this world. Because I’m also of the same kind!”

“….Huh? What did you just say…?”

My jaw dropped when Revo said he was also a being with super-longevity. Revo then scratched his head and spoke to me.

“Well, I’m… not an ordinary person either. Originally, a human lifespan is usually around sixty or ninety years. But I’ve already lived for over a thousand years! And actually, I also ended up with super-longevity unwillingly!”

“….A th-thousand years?!”

I couldn’t help but be astonished when Revo said he had lived for a thousand years. The human who had suddenly appeared before me… was a being similar to myself, someone who had unwillingly gained eternal life… and the fact that he had already lived for a time far exceeding my age was incredibly perplexing. When I became so flustered, Revo noticed something and spoke to me with a flustered expression.

“Ah! You haven’t lived that long yet, have you?!”

“….I’ll use polite language….”

“Pardon? S-suddenly…?”

As I learned Revo’s… no, Revo-ssi’s age, the atmosphere between Revo-ssi and me instantly became awkward.