Chapter 86: Doesn’t It Feel Familiar?
“Why?”
Riche blinked as she lay on the floor, her head turned to the side.
She had passed out from unbearable pain after purifying Blake’s curse and experiencing side effects.
“I’m not in pain.”
But now, she felt no pain, as though the purification’s side effects had never occurred.
“Is this a dream?”
Was the side effect just a vivid nightmare caused by seeing her past life through the shards of glass?
If so, where was she now? What she saw before her was a stone wall, strangely familiar.
“What about Pythons?”
Though her body was intact, the memory of the pain still lingered vividly.
I want to ask Pythons about what I went through.
As she was about to move, a hand came into view, resting on the floor.
Riche turned her head forward.
“How long do you plan on lying around and sleeping?”
A stunning man with golden hair swept back and golden eyes that shone like stars was looking down at her. His presence was dangerous.
The man trapped Riche’s head between his hands, which were pressed against the floor, and slowly lowered his face.
His red lips approached her ear, whispering:
“It’s already midday.”
Riche frowned at the whisper, not because of the breath that brushed against her cheek but because something about his demeanor and gaze felt familiar—like someone she knew.
“…Hikenka?”
Seeing his twisted smile, she became even more certain.
It was Hikenka.
“You figured it out quickly. How dull.”
Hikenka straightened himself. Riche, following suit, sat up and asked:
“Is this your true form?”
“My true form?”
“Pythons once transformed into a human form. He called it his true form.”
Hikenka chuckled lightly and replied:
“It’s the form I had when I was a god.”
Riche used her ability to detect stars to find Pythons.
But something strange happened—she couldn’t sense anything, not even Hikenka, who stood before her.
“I can’t use Pythons’ powers… Could it be?”
Then Riche realized she had misunderstood something.
The purification’s side effects—it wasn’t a dream. The side effects occurred because Pythons wasn’t in the human realm.
Was the light from the lake another great star, not Pythons?
“Hikenka is here, and Kai Shan in Zeke’s body was just a fragment of thought. The two stars were likely trapped in glass bottles. That leaves only one option…”
Just one.
“Did Tita bring me here?”
“Smart,” Hikenka smirked.
As Riche examined herself, she said, “I experienced side effects during purification before coming here, but now there’s no pain at all.”
“Tita must have reversed the time on your body. That’s their unique trait.”
“…Where is this place?”
“Don’t you know? Look around.”
“Look around?”
Riche looked around her surroundings.
“Doesn’t it feel familiar?”
As Hikenka said, everything in sight felt strangely familiar. Moldy stone walls, a cold floor, iron bars, a low staircase, and a door…
“…The basement of the Gerwer Mansion.”
The words she uttered sent chills down her spine.
“To be exact, it’s a reproduction of the place in your past life’s memory.”
“A reproduction?”
Riche ran her hand over the wall. The cold, rough texture felt real.
“Then where exactly is this?”
“It’s a rift in time. Just as only I can interfere with the world in my glass bottle, this is a world only Tita can interfere with.”
“Did Tita imprison me?”
“Yes.”
“Hikenka, are you trapped too?”
“Who knows?”
Hikenka opened the iron bars of the cell and stepped outside.
Beyond the cell was a chair, the same one the Duke of Gerwer sat in as he watched Agnes, who was trapped.
Riche’s eyes followed Hikenka as he moved to sit on that chair.
I need to ask Hikenka about the mirror shards.
There were countless questions in her mind, but one question took precedence when she met Hikenka.
“In the mirror shard Ian had, my past self was inside.”
“…Did you meet Ian de Wain? How did you know about the mirror shard?”
Hikenka, reclining lazily against the chair’s backrest, rolled his eyes to look at Riche behind the iron bars.
The Rithiom he had seen in the mirror shard looked like she was on the verge of death.
But this Rithiom seemed to have definitely turned her fate around. Just look at how radiant she is now.
“I want her.”
This was Tita’s world. That bothersome Pythons was absent, and even Tita had disappeared, leaving Rithiom behind.
It was just him and Rithiom here.
He could even forcibly break her contract with Pythons and have her form one with him instead.
“Claiming Rithiom for myself could be entertaining.”
Unaware of Hikenka’s sinister thoughts, Riche opened her mouth to speak.
“I stumbled upon the mirror shard by chance. Ian is still Morgan. …Why has Ian’s fate become entangled with mine? Why couldn’t my death ever fully be my own?”
“That’s because you were both offerings dedicated to Tita.”
Riche couldn’t understand Hikenka’s words.
“Offerings? Who offered us to Tita?”
“The Duke of Gerwer.”
The mention of the Duke of Gerwer instinctively filled her with repulsion. Instead of giving in to her emotions, Riche waited for Hikenka’s explanation.
“Do you think only those three stars awakened in your past life?”
Hikenka was referring to the great stars who had granted powers to Kaishan, Lodwick, and Hivets.
In her past life, Riche had recklessly wielded their powers, using the bodies of Deon, Rovenhalf, and Zikbert as vessels, even as side effects ravaged their bodies.
“Tita and I also awakened. I used 11-year-old Ian de Wain as my vessel, and Tita entered your 10-year-old body. The Duke of Gerwer begged Tita, who was within your body, to return Rithiom.”
“Tita was inside me? But if that were the case—”
Riche couldn’t finish her sentence as a sudden headache brought forth a memory.
“My dear Agnes, I made a deal with a thief. I gave that thief what should have been mine from another time. But look—I never truly lost you.”
A day in her past life when she was ten years old.
After purifying the Duke of Gerwer’s side effects and losing consciousness, she had awakened to hear those words from him.
The incomprehensible words were horrifying. The memory of running away, only to be caught again, surfaced.
Hikenka provided the reason behind her recollection.
“It seems the Duke of Gerwer had a dream of the future. He knew that Tita would reverse time once. So, he made an offering to Tita—the you and Ian de Wain of this life. In exchange, he asked Tita not to take Rithiom until the moment of his death. That deal with the Duke of Gerwer is what intertwined your fates.”
Riche bit her lower lip.
Because of the Duke of Gerwer, she and Ian, who knew nothing, had been offered as sacrifices.
The feeling of injustice overwhelmed her, but it could not provide a solution.
Riche racked her brain once again, searching for a clue.
In the meantime, Hikenka opened his mouth to speak.
“Ah, do you know why you ended up living two lives? It’s because Tita entered your body once. That’s why you inherited the memories.”
Tita woke up later than she did in your previous life because she rewound time. You should consider that fortunate.
“Thanks to that, you got to live comfortably in Rodwick for a few years, didn’t you?”
Hikenka said teasingly.
“Why did you lock me up here?”
“I told you, you’re a sacrifice. There’s nothing more effective for a star striving to become a god than to accept sacrifices.”
Hikenka’s golden eyes turned to Riche, who stared directly at him.
Her beautiful silver eyes, which were tempting enough to desire, showed no trace of goodwill toward him.
“Don’t glare at me like that. The ‘me’ from your previous life and the ‘me’ now are entirely different stars. What I just told you is part of Tita’s memory, transferred into my eyes—”
“What about Pythons?”
Hikenka, who had been speaking slyly, fell silent at Riche’s question.
“Why wasn’t Pythons mentioned even once in the story of my previous life that you told me?”
Now that she thought about it, it was an obvious question she should have asked.
Pythons was the one who had waged wars to prevent stars from crossing into the human world hundreds of years ago.
Would such a Pythons have simply watched silently back then, even as Tita crossed over?
Hikenka let out a twisted smile.
“She fell asleep a long time ago.”
Evening.
“Hey, that’s dangerous. The bridge is broken,” a villager called out to a man standing near a rickety suspension bridge.
The man, wearing a hooded robe with a bag slung over one shoulder, seemed like an outsider.
“Ah, thank you. I almost crossed without realizing,” the man turned to thank the villager.
He had a pleasing voice. Though his face was hidden by the hood, one could imagine he’d be handsome if his appearance matched his voice.
“You must have come from far away. Your accent sounds like it’s from Pan Continent.”
“Does it?”
“A little. But my ears are sharp, so others might think you’re from the Roksha Empire. Oh, by the way, you know to be careful around nobles in Roksha, right? Get caught in the wrong way, and it’s off to prison for you.”
The villager gave a lighthearted warning, almost as if joking.
Judging by the man’s attire, he seemed like a commoner. It was better to share such tidbits of wisdom quickly.
“If you were about to cross the bridge, you must have business in the village on the other side?”
“I’m looking for someone. Do you know a man named Tambor?”
“Ah, that drunkard.”
The villager frowned.
“Of course, I know him. A few years ago, he was seriously ill, but his awful temper never improved. He has a nephew at home, and every time I passed by their house, I could hear the kid getting beaten up. The poor child never even dared to rebel—it was heartbreaking…”
Startled, the villager shivered and turned his head.
The man who had been quietly listening was nowhere to be seen.
The villager rubbed the back of his neck, muttering in confusion.
“Did I imagine things and talk to myself…?”
“Aaah!”
Tambor’s wife, Nora, bolted out of the house, her body covered in bruises.
She was fleeing, unable to bear living with her violent husband any longer.
Tambor, who had followed her, soon stopped running, gasping for breath.
“I…huff…need to…huff…catch her…and…huff…teach her a lesson—”
His breath reeked of alcohol. With a flushed face, he turned around. His limping leg was a result of a carriage accident years ago.
Having sobered up from running, he decided to return home and drink more.
“Do I even have any booze left at home?”
He remembered finishing his last bottle. Tambor rummaged through his pockets. No money. Not just in his pockets, but at home—there was nothing but debt.
Come to think of it, didn’t he have a nephew who had been sold to a wealthy family?
“What was his name again? Did I even name him? That can’t be… I cared so much for that kid.”
Though he couldn’t remember the name, the nephew had been sold to a ducal household. Surely, he must have saved a fortune by now. If not, making the kid steal wouldn’t be a bad idea. That house must be brimming with riches.
The front door, left ajar by Nora, creaked as Tambor stepped into the house.
Yes, he thought, I’ll take care of him. I’ll take my poor nephew in myself.
“Where else could you find such a kind uncle who thinks of his nephew this much!”
Creak.
The door shut behind him.
Then came a man’s voice.
“Are you Tambor?”
Who—?
Tambor turned, only to be blinded by a flash of light that seemed to pierce his vision.
