Chapter 69

Chapter 69 : Recruiting Party Members to Grab the Past by the Collar (1)

I admit it.

That Sek is me.

That I am Sek.

I also admit that “the me from that period, which I did not particularly want to mention,” and “the me from that time, who possessed no will at all,” both referred to the current me.

As Retu saw me off, I stroked Fluffnix’s head.

‘Dead? I even revived?’

She said my current previous life had most likely become tangled with part of my soul when I was revived, causing memories of the past to seep in. She also said she had once heard the name Iwon mentioned by Sek a very long time ago.

‘Previous life? Why not just say this place is inside a novel while you are at it?’

Just what had the past me muttered to Retu in such trivial detail?

I glanced at the first Epic Quest I had received, still shining as a […] icon in the corner of my vision, then lowered my gaze.

Had that system existed for Sek back then too? Was that why he had seen the future Original Work and tried to prepare for something?

Behind my calmly sunken thoughts, a prickling unease kept weighing down my shoulders.

“I am grateful you accepted my sudden invitation.”

“I received what I came for, so it is fine.”

“Hoot, when you say it that way, I feel as though I can see Sek in you.”

“I do not find that very welcome, not when that version of me was going on about how stupid I am. Just send me back.”

Ignoring Murel, whose eyes were sparkling beside me, I waved a hand.

It would be better to return before Karon heard that I had been here and did something.

Since I had been passed out for three days and delayed, the minion he had planted in the Mist would obviously have contacted him. It was difficult to predict what Karon, whose nearly completed plan had been overturned at the very end, might do in his fury.

If he shook the traitors he had planted and caused an incident, it would become a headache in all sorts of ways.

Most of all, I needed to keep Pering, the one easiest for Karon to touch, right in front of me. He had been quiet until now, but circumstances existed to change.

I peeled Murel off as he kept clinging to me and pressed Retu.

“Just send me already. Why are you looking at me like that?”

It was about time for Pan to return, an Underfolk would be arriving, Pan would face Karon after his plan collapsed, Ariti would have to deal with him, and so on. Since all sorts of situations were overlapping, I had to stay alert for where things might burst out.

“You may come to visit whenever you wish.”

“I have no intention of dying and coming back, so stop testing me.”

“Haha, stop by once more before you inherit the succession. I have something to discuss with you after you recover your memories.”

“You should find the Underfolk spy properly. I hear you still have not found them.”

In the end, they had not found the person who had scattered Black Mist into the clocktower.

Because the time itself was a year ago, the detailed records of that day required the Archivist’s access.

Retu looked as though she intended to wait for that time rather leisurely.

“When they die, they all return. After that, it will be easy.”

Spirits could not lie to the Ruler of the Mist. In other words, killing them first and interrogating them afterward was a simple and certain method that guaranteed a 100% success rate.

Of course, she would not go out of her way to kill them, so it was a method she only used when one happened to be caught, but…….

“Mm, Kuis is nowhere to be seen.”

Seeing Retu casually lift the corner of her mouth, I shook my head. None of my business.

“Go back. Give Pan my regards.”

Soon, thick mist covered my vision, and the place that appeared again was the office from before we left.

Even though I had been away for a week, the office was unchanged.

Still, the fact that it felt as though I had gone on a journey for a somewhat long time was probably because of the memories.

Leaving Murel beside me to suffer from motion sickness and retch, I checked Fluffnix’s condition first.

After flapping his wings greatly once and grooming his feathers, the creature flew to his home, where a branch of an old tree had been stuck in place as-is, and nodded off to sleep.

“Clean up what you vomited yourself.”

“I did not actually vomit!”

“Hmm…….”

When I stared fixedly at the floor near Murel, he quietly covered it and looked away, so I waved a hand.

For a moment, coffee came to mind, but I stopped myself. Sorting through my memories came first.

I pressed hard against my temple and entered the inner room.

Because I had not used it for several days, the smell of dry dust mingled with that of dried plants.

A hollow laugh escaped me at that familiar smell, and only then did I feel the tension loosen.

First, I watered the plants that had grown wilted because I had paid them no attention, then sat roughly on the bed and thought.

Aside from the Soul Fragment Retu had given me, the Sek data forcibly shared as a penalty was currently confusing my memories.

There was not much content itself.

But it felt like me, and yet not me.

It felt as though I had been forced to watch a few edited highlight clips from a video of my childhood antics, even though I had no memory of filming them.

They were not memories, but I could not deny that they were me.

And as I turned them over, I realized faintly that such memories did remain.

Why he had known the clock would break and gone there in advance, why he had asked Retu about death, what he had felt as he traveled the Surface World, and what he had prepared for.

The sensation of such disturbing information flooding in as “me” was rather—

“—filthy.”

One thing was certain.

The truth that the me from back then had known the current me.

The reason he had scattered the name Iwon here and there, the reason he had left traces of himself while calling them gifts, and the reason he, an Underfolk, had won over the Surface Folk.

It had all not been for some detestable goal like world peace or whatever, but to prepare for “me.”

“Hey.”

I called the system.

After cursing the system, which showed no reaction aside from the Epic Quest in the corner of my vision, I called it again.

“Hey, are you not coming out?”

Ding!

[We aim for enjoyable Original Work appreciation and immersive experiences (oﾟvﾟ)ノ]

“Immersive experieeences?”

This bastard.

I exerted patience toward the shameless thing that openly changed the subject.

Right now, I had a lot to ask.

I drew in a deep breath, let it out, and tried to keep my reason as I opened my mouth.

“What is lost data? Is it memory that was forcibly deleted from me, or is it literally data lost during the synchronization process?”

I clenched my jaw and asked each word clearly, but the system bastard was silent.

It would not answer even if I asked why I had lost my memories or why I had been Sek.

“Is this a reset after an ending, by any chance?”

The fact that Sek from two hundred years ago knew me made me think of only two possibilities: either he was a regressor, or someone who saw the future.

If he had read the Original Work, then there could also be cases where the starting point after reset differed each time.

Whatever it was, did this damned system not have an obligation to tell me?

“How many times am I? You said choices cannot be reversed. Was that wordplay?”

Ding!

[Once a choice is made, it cannot be reversed.]

I braced my hands behind me and tilted my head back to look at the ceiling, where the grain of the wood remained alive.

The distinct, heavy scent of dried wood grated on my nerves.

“Duplicate ending after ending.”

So was it not a reset, but another ending route?

That was the only way to explain why the data had been lost.

Then was Sek, who had died, a Bad Ending or a Sad Ending?

“Hey.”

Ding!

[sh-sh-shaking (⊙_⊙;)]

As though it still had not grown tired of it, the text changing expressions with special characters had not even vanished before I asked what I had been wondering all along.

“What do you want to do with the Original Work?”

Now that I had come this far, the exact meaning of the phrase “destroy the Original Work” felt even vaguer.

Because even if I reached an ending without knowing the Original Work, I would not be able to distinguish whether it was a changed ending or an ending that followed the existing one.

“You are not answering?”

I called out into empty air several times, but the system did not appear, as if it had hidden itself.

I lay completely down on the bed and said,

“If you are going to shut your mouth now, then from now on, do not interfere with anything I do either.”

You lost your chance.

---

CRASH, BANG.

Pan appeared with a great deal of noise, looked awkwardly at the hinges of the ragged door, then came straight toward me.

I had been sprawled on the sofa with my legs hooked over the armrest, and I looked up at Pan as he frowned.

“What?”

“……Who are you?”

Pan’s face as he opened his mouth one beat late was the same as when I first met him after coming here.

I had been lying down then too. Thinking the same meaningless thought, I shook my head.

“If you wanted the answer Sek, then no.”

Pan’s brow, which had narrowed, slowly relaxed. Then, wearing an empty expression, he pushed aside my legs draped over the sofa and sat on the armrest himself.

“What is this? What happened?”

“You know at least that you lied and said I was a slave sold off in place of a debt.”

“…….”

Pan’s shoulder twitched, and he quietly turned his head to the side.

There, on the terrace, Murel was sprawled out with Fluffnix, grinning loosely as he enjoyed sunbathing.

I had worried about the hostility Murel had shown toward Pan, but fortunately, Pan showed no particular reaction.

“Ah, he is an Underfolk I picked up when I went to the sky last time. You heard from Pering…… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

With one eye distorted, the corner of his mouth twitching, and his gaze blazing, he looked enough like a madman that it would not be strange if he killed someone.

I quietly folded in the leg I still had stretched out and sat up properly.

“Um…….”

Pan scratched the back of his head, nervously raked through his hair, then stared hard at me again with a complicated and difficult expression before continuing.

“……Are you Sek?”

“I told you I am not.”

Not yet.

Even if I admitted it, accepting it myself was a separate matter that required adjustment.

Perhaps it was a matter of ratio after all. If 100 was the whole, it felt as though about…… 5 percent of the memories had seeped in.

“Did your trip to the Underworld go well?”

“Ah, well—not well.”

“Did you cause an incident?”

At my question, Pan drooped his shoulders and leaned his head against the wall.

“I did not. Did I? There was a small quarrel because I said I needed to check the place where Ariti was staying……?”

If the words a small quarrel came out of Pan’s mouth, it was the same as saying he had caused a landmark incident.

Without Pering there to hold the reins, who knew how far he had run wild?

“It was one month, right?”

“Seems that way. If a ruler leaves their domain empty, the energy becomes disturbed, and small incidents increase.”

“You know that, and yet you left your domain empty while traveling from the Spring all the way to the Underworld?”

“It did not go over a month.”

“Did you calculate the dates before going? How meticulous.”

“……Are you being sarcastic?”

I looked pitifully at Pan, who had gone and faithfully carried out the role of “second male lead” without knowing how the forest was running, then shrugged.

Because yes, I was being sarcastic.

Not long after I returned from the Mist, Pering took a bewildering course of action.

He stopped all the work he had been handling in Pan’s place.

Pan returned three days later, but because of all the work that had piled up in the meantime, he had to bury himself in a mountain of documents before anything else.

During that time, Pering sent another messenger.

Since I had openly mentioned last time that the immigration hall records were being monitored, Pering could only send a messenger or check the messenger that returned.

“Did you hear that the investigation of the dead Elder was finished?”

“No. The investigation is finished? Did Retu come by?”

“Is thaaat so?”

Retu had personally entrusted the dead Elder’s soul to Pering. Naturally, Pering, as the aide, should have told Pan that first thing when he returned.

“Retu told me to pass this along. Your aide is in danger.”

“…….”

“Yesterday, the spirit Pering sent crossed the White Sea.”

At my words, Pan’s face openly twisted.

Living creatures in the forest could not escape Pan’s sight. And yet the fact that the messenger had reached the White Sea while avoiding that surveillance meant a method had been used to hide it openly.