444 His Wound Never Healed
And then I turned to face him, as I added:
“Running away might seem an easy, easy solution for you to follow. You kept saying you wanted to rescue him, but why didn’t you ever stay long enough to meet him before?”
“Stop! Stop! Just stop it!” he roared again, and his yellings and pathetic powerless punches didn’t manage to stop me from continuing.
“If you really wanted to save him, at least you’d have waited for a stage before jumping. You know you can see him before quest fifteen, and yet you chose to not do so.”
“Stop! Stop!”
“Do you know… Why?” I kept talking, “do you know why you didn’t even think about staying long enough for one apocalypse, or work so damn hard to just see him once? Do you even want to see him?”
“No… No… I can’t! I can’t!” Instead of punching me, he just shouted at the world, as a beast who was roaring at the unfairness of this world in its last breaths.
“Why? Why didn’t you do that?”
“Stop it!”
“Don’t you want to save him? How do you want to do so and you never planned to even see his face once more?”
“No! No… I can’t see him… No way… I can’t… Sob!”
He returned to cry, and this time his crying was so loud to make anyone break from hearing and seeing him in such a state.
“Tell me! Why?! Why goddammit!” I didn’t feel myself shouting at him. If he kept enclosing himself like this, not willing to take that last step towards freeing his soul from this burden, then I’d force him to do so.
“Hye!” Hilary couldn’t tolerate this again, but before she would add anything else I shouted:
“Tell me why!!!”
“Because I won’t be able to save him!” he turned to face me, blurted it out at last. “I… I tried… Tried to save him many times but failed… I can’t… I’m not doing this to save him… I’m trying to just run away, run as far away as possible from even meeting him again… Sob… Sob…”
By just saying it out loud, he finally relieved himself from such a burden. I always suspected it. Why did he never live through any quest past ten?
He once stayed at fifteen before he finally got this cursed ability. Since then he kept leaping through apocalypses, doing everything till quest ten before jumping over again.
At first I thought he was facing great trouble in keeping up, or the apocalypse was just too much. But just when I met Hilary I knew it. This dude… He wasn’t even trying!
He was just wasting his time, jumping from one apocalypse to another until he would die in the end under unforeseen circumstances.
He didn’t plan to save that friend of his. He never intended to do so. He was just living through that deep trauma of his, and all this was just a perfect façade for him to escape.
So when he was relieved through what caused all this to him, he fell to such a rock bottom state. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
And that wasn’t without a proper reason. He never lived past that moment, not even for a single moment.
Also knowing about the opportunity to meet his friend when using the golden quests at quest five and ten made it more obvious… He was well aware of it yet he never took advantage of this chance not even once.
He wouldn’t even dream about meeting up with his friend once again, or else everything he lived in, the fake life he weaved around his soul like it was his coffin would shatter.
And that exactly was what happened when he lived through that memory over and over again.
“Dude…” As I left him crying for ten minutes, and endured the blaming burning gazes from Hilary while she only got warning gazes back from mine, I finally said, “I know all that, and I thank gods for giving me the chance to bind you here since the two of us met.”
“Sob… So you can just… Sob… Kill me? Or enjoy… Sob… My pain and torture?” his voice was weak, but when he said the last phrase, it seemed it got more strength as he added in a fierce way:
“Yes, yes… You are just like those god bastards! You enjoy watching me in pain, ain’t you? You are no better than them!”
“Sigh, you got it all wrong again, buddie.”
“Then what?” he shouted, and I knew it was time to give him something to live for.
“I want to help you, help you to truly go and save your friend, for real and not just dreaming about it.”
“You…” I was so close to him that I could feel his body trembling.
“You started all this by running away, but deep down your soul you wanted to save him. You really want that, right pal?”
“…”
“To save him, you have to stop running. Our contract between the two of us does that.”
“Yes, turning me into a slave of yours…”
I didn’t give him time to speak this time. There was something else wrong with his head. Every time I tried to help, he would find a wrong conclusion and throw everything at it.
And weirdly enough, each time I’d end up the villain, the one to be blamed, the evil man in his life.
Weird, right?
“That contract is your protection shield from your damaged soul,” I interrupted him by adding, “you didn’t get over your past pain yet. Even after all this time, all you saw is just darkness, pain, and loss. You never saw the glimpse of hope in any of this.”
“…”
“Let me tell you this… that moment when the two of us met for the first time, I promised you to help you save your friend. And now I’m repeating the same promise… I’ll do whatever I can and make you save his life from getting killed.”
“S…Stop…”
“I’ll help you go through everything, even start a war against his race’s enemies. No matter what is required, I pledge I’ll do it. And I will do it with all my power. Just… stand up and be on my side while doing all this.”
“… Sob… Sob…”
And in return for my words, he finally nodded, and exploded again into crying once more.