Chapter 1055 – #251_Tales from Afterlife – DeepL
#1049
1.
Yeah.
This is what it feels like.
It’s like swallowing a fistful of painkillers first, then a thousand rusty nails.
I’ve felt this before.
It’s how I felt when I found out my parents had died in a car accident.
Like a cog in a wheel, the accident spins out of control, and only empty regret echoes in my empty heart.
The Seoul branch of WitchPoint was attacked by unidentified assailants.
A raid consisting of dozens and dozens of elite witches.
Dorothy and Linnaeus.
Both formidable opponents, but unable to overcome the power disparity.
After only five minutes of combat, Linnaeus was gravely wounded and Dorothy was dead.
The lack of other WitchPoint casualties suggests that the two were the target of the raid in the first place.
The sudden raid drew a crowd to Gehenna.
After a 30-minute wait, we were able to reach Gwanghwamun through the ‘gate’.
In the meantime, Xiu was greeted by the normalcy of Seoul.
People going about their daily routines, unaware of the behind-the-scenes plotting and attack.
Maybe the call from earlier was just a bad joke?
Perhaps Sister Dorothy was being mischievous and wanted to surprise them?
Maybe Linnaeus has some kind of weakness, and Linnaeus has gone along with it.
If so, I’d be really, really upset, but I’d laugh and forgive her.
“…….”
The desire to deny reality.
The same thought process I went through when my parents died is creepily relevant now.
Xiu knows where this futile delusion ends.
The stares as soon as she steps into the Witch Point.
The clutter.
The stifling stillness and silence that descended upon him as soon as he walked in, reeking of unspoken tragedy.
“Mr. Xiu, you’re a disgrace.”
Ms. Sua’s eyelids fluttered and she bowed her head.
The collar of her usually immaculate hanfu was tattered, and her cheek bore a long cut.
Probably from a desperate fight.
“No. It wasn’t your fault.”
I bowed and looked around to see the others.
Master, Sharon, and Leroux.
They must have heard the news and rushed over.
I am suddenly concerned.
Dorothy was like an aunt to Leroux.
The loss would not be ordinary.
Leroux, who still has a bit of a childish side to him, might be halfway to losing his mind.
Xiu’s heart is broken, but Leroux’s is even more so.
Therefore, Xiu reaches out to Leroux for comfort.
But as expected, Leroux is surprisingly calm, leaning back with his arms crossed.
Leroux opened his mouth.
“For now, I need time alone with my luggage, and I am relieved to know that you have not been attacked.”
Lerouet’s eyes widened.
“Humans die someday. So do witches. For Dorothy, today must have been that day.”
But she bit her lip so hard that not a single tear could be seen.
For all her faults, Leroux was a descendant of the old witch.
She seemed to know that the pain of loss lurked in every corner of this world.
“But I will not forgive you, Jim.”
I nodded and looked around again.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she approached Sharon, who hugged Siu and sobbed into his arms.
“Where’s Linnaeus?”
“Over there….”
Sewing until she was having trouble breathing, Sharon’s hand led her to another room.
The recovery room.
Linnaeus had also sustained some injuries in the raid.
There she is, struggling to breathe, relying on a respirator that Sua has given her as a makeshift treatment.
Dampness filled his mask.
“Ms. Linnaeus, are you okay?”
“…….?”
I asked, taking her hand.
Linnaeus didn’t answer.
Or rather, she couldn’t.
She just nodded quietly, her eyes blurry with effort.
Her forearms bear the marks of jagged scars, as if outlined by a blurry brush.
They are the marks of two arms that were blown off.
Like Xiu, the very foundations of his spirit body were not blown away, so he could regenerate with restorative magic, but the sprouting of his new body left some marks.
“You’ve been through a lot, get some rest. I’m going to go see Ms. Dorothy.”
“…….”
I calmed Linnaeus, who stubbornly tried to push himself up, and left the treatment room.
“Where is Ms. Dorothy?”
That was a strange thing to say.
It’s a casual, everyday conversation.
That’s why it felt so bizarre to say it in this moment, when it meant something else entirely.
I feel like Dorothy would greet me if I asked this question, heard the answer, and headed there.
“Darling – did I miss you that much?
In her characteristic languid manner, she smiles from the corner of her eyes.
She’ll hug you with a dirty joke.
The odds were slim, down to one in ten thousand, down to hundreds of millions, down to trillions.
But even as he walked away, Xiu continued his fleeting fantasies.
The sharp fissure between reality and delusion interlocked with each step, spitting out a strange cacophony.
“Xiu, I know how you feel. But it would be better if you didn’t look now.”
In the doorway, Eloa grabs his sleeve.
I understand.
I understand how she feels about stopping Xiu.
I don’t make the mistake of looking for the wrong place to be angry like an idiot here.
I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but somehow I manage to smile and reassure her.
“It’s okay, you’re calmer than I expected. You shouldn’t be so worried, Mr. Leroux is just as reserved.”
But he insists.
“I need to see.”
Eloa closed her eyes tightly.
She swallows a sigh and quietly steps aside for her apprentice, who smiles despite wanting to sulk more than anyone else.
-Dulcimer
The layout of the first room she saw during her stay at Witchpoint was simple.
A morgue.
That’s the only word to describe it.
It’s a place where outcasts often gather, and some of them are hunted for their accomplishments, so it’s probably where they keep their corpses.
It seems to have been immobilized, one of the alchemicals, to prevent decay or dissipation.
In addition, the air in the room is chilly enough to be winter, and it smells of blood.
In the center is an iron table.
On it was a body wrapped in a white cloth.
It was a generous cloth, covering her from head to toe, but only the outline of her face was recognizable.
It was Dorothy.
“…….”
Xiu silently picked up the cloth.
His lips trembled.
He knew it.
Like the moment you see the last hand, you can’t change the outcome of the game.
This would cut off the hopeful delusions that had been pulsating like arrhythmias since earlier.
But it will only become less frequent, popping up in my life like a dustbin.
“…….”
I lifted the cloth, looked at Dorothy, and quietly covered her.
I stepped outside.
The onlookers who had gathered, whether out of disgusted curiosity or to pay their respects, backed away as if to avoid Xiu.
“Xiu.”
I ask quietly as he pushes his way through the crowd.
“I need to be alone for a moment, me too.”
2.
Dorothy’s room at Witchpoint was neat and tidy.
As I’ve stayed here before, I can’t say that I’m impressed with the facilities.
It was more like a spacious business hotel.
But unlike the rooms I’ve stayed in before, which are cleaned up after one night, Dorothy’s room had a lot of life to it.
There’s a framed photo of Leroy, Xiu, and Dorothy that I don’t know when it was taken.
There’s a box of Dorothy’s favorite liquor and cigars.
An unfinished letter, apparently intended for Xiu, lies at an angle on the neatly set table.
There’s a necklace that Xiu gave her.
In the table drawer, you find an unexpected document.
Apparently, when you asked him what he was going to do after he beat up the arms dealer, he wasn’t just joking when he said, “I don’t know – maybe a toy factory?
There was a lot of material in there that seemed to relate to that.
I flipped through the papers and found Myoan stone in a table drawer.
It’s a memorial stone from the time I met Happy Pig and recorded “Ideal World.
Inside were Xiu and Dorothy.
It was a simple love story of two people with a very ordinary family.
If I had known, I would have made fun of them.
Dorothy was….
“Stop.”
She said to herself, breaking the reverie.
Sitting on Dorothy’s bed, she puffed on her favorite cigar and silently pondered.
Would this tragedy have been avoided if Siu had left a little later?
Probably not.
As it turned out, it was probably a good thing.
If I’d been fighting to protect Amelia instead of myself, I’d be at less than ten percent of my strength.
I would have felt even more helpless, and the number of victims would have increased.
Now, let’s talk about something else.
What if the Hessian Society had found an excuse to bring Dorothy and Linnaeus into Gehenna sooner.
If they had been raised in time to do so, there would have been no tragedy.
The beast remains unidentified.
But only Hexenacht would do such a thing.
The raid, which focused solely on Linnaeus and Dorothy for countless loots, was a raid with a political message.
They would not have come this far into Gehenna.
“Enough.”
I know this “what if” game leads to endless regret and self-disillusionment.
I consciously change my train of thought.
I’ve been through a lot.
I’ve seen good.
I’ve seen evil.
But the good and evil in the world are like tangled threads, and Xiu hasn’t found his way through them yet.
She was a muddle that belonged nowhere.
“Good” was the flimsy definition of inexperience and indecision.
Evil was a vague impersonation of evil, even when necessary, because he couldn’t shake off the shackles of his own humanity.
Even now, it was not easy to determine what was right and what was wrong.
Hadn’t the Master said so himself?
Hesitate, agonize.
Don’t judge right from wrong, just get lost.
If you do, you will one day find a more right path in the ambiguity of the silk worm’s colors.
“I don’t know, Master.”
In the darkness, with a despair that is surprisingly grave for such a muttering.
I can see a path to walk.
A path that must be traveled, even if this body crumbles like dried clay.
