PMEVBO 99

Iser stood with his back against the closed iron door of Cell 1004.

He had been exempted from attending the meeting, and he had already submitted the documents he wrote in exchange while moving back and forth to prepare meals. He wondered how long he had been standing there. No presence could be felt from beyond the cold iron door.

──────【 Report 】─────

Skill ‘Guidance’ use complete

────────────────────

Only then did Iser open the door and enter Cell 1004. The cell was empty. A prisoner uniform were tied to the spot where the talicord was originally connected. Restraint devices hung from the ends of each scrap of fabric like a mobile.

‘As expected… if an item worn on the body is connected to a space, does it consider it part of that space?’

That’s why they aren’t moved along with Lucariel.

Lucariel had once come to find him using a skill called Guidance. Back then, only the restraint on his neck hadn’t Read on followed. The hypothesis he formed then was finally verified now.

However, it wasn’t worth Lucariel’s life just to verify it. That was why Iser had neutralized the restraints in advance.

After fiddling with the restraints for a moment, Iser walked to the corner of the wall. He then familiarly pulled out a single brick located at the bottom. He saw red letters stacked inside the wall space.

‘I knew you’d hide them here this time too.’

Unless he burned them away with divine power, this was the only place in Cell 1004 where someone could hide something.

He pulled out one envelope and opened it. Six years ago, the envelope the Cardinal sent to Duke Hayut’s castle contained the carcasses of butterflies. Now, it contained cigarettes.

He remembered something Lucariel once asked.

‘……If you use the Power of Life, how much can you find out?’

Iser smirked as he toyed with a pitch-black cigarette.

“……How much can I find out?”

Everything.

Not just the fact that Lucariel touched the cigarettes, but everything else, too.

Every single thing.

But since it would be too creepy if he said that, he lied.

‘I don’t know everything. Just vaguely.’

It was dangerous to mess with the cigarette supply route directly. There was no telling how the Cardinal would react. Iser subtly pushed Lucariel to quit smoking on his own.

He grabbed all the red letters. A blue energy flowing from his palm seeped into the stack of high-quality paper. The letters, frozen in an instant, shattered into small pieces and scattered into the air.

Lucariel always sat in the same spot inside this cell. Naturally, Iser came to sit in that same spot as well. The seat next to Lucariel. Actually, that spot had been his long before he became the one in charge of medicinal herbs.

Iser’s past six years were hell.

Iser was trapped in Hell until just before he came back to life. Like a ghost, he was in a state where he couldn’t be seen, heard, or touched.

At first, he really thought he had become a ghost. He woke up here the very moment he thought he died.

More importantly…….

Lucariel was in front of him. And as a prisoner locked in Cell 1004, no less.

But the person before his eyes wasn’t the kind Lucariel who had saved him. He was irritable, aggressive, and at the same time, listless…… a person broken beyond repair. Though his face was the same, he was too different from the man Iser knew.

Even so, he strangely couldn’t take his eyes off him. Before long, he realized it naturally. This was the Lucariel he had yearned for until he died…… no, the one he still yearned for even now as a ghost.

The way his back hunched when he sat. The slanted angle at which he looked at people. The way he had a bit of a bad habit of picking at things he didn’t like. And above all, his sleeping habits.

Iser knew exactly what Lucariel’s sleeping habits were. He always slept curled up like a shrimp, and he had a habit of pulling something nearby into his arms and hooking one leg over it. He often had nightmares too. He only slept well without groaning when Iser patted his shoulder or lower back.

The person before him also slept like a shrimp. In the desolate cell, there was no one to fill his arms or pat him through the visit our site night. Curled up on the freezing floor, he was always tormented by nightmares. During those times, the narrow cell was filled with his cries.

“Ugh…… I’m sorry. I…… I was wrong…….”

Each time, Iser patted his back as it grew thinner by the day. Even though he knew it wouldn’t reach him.

From a certain point, Lucariel escaped the cell whenever he had the chance.

Internal injuries always followed the process of destroying the neck restraint with divine power. But he still wandered the prison while vomiting blood. Even though he knew he’d eventually get caught and dragged back to the cell, he kept going. His body was slowly breaking down from the frequent internal injuries. There was nothing Iser could do except watch from the side.

It was around the time he was being worn down day by day by despair and frustration.

Isabelle came to find him as a guard.

Even when his sister’s blind revenge was aimed at the person he loved, there was nothing Iser could do.

On a day more bright than any other, with sunlight shattering over the snowy landscape of the Holy City Sarachephon, Lucariel took his own life. As soon as he escaped Hell while wearing the restraints, his body was torn to shreds. Bright red blood melted the pure white snow, and silver eyes reminiscent of dawn took in the blue sky for the last time.

The moment the light of life went out in those eyes reflecting the sky, something [unauthorized copy]snapped inside Iser. Like a dam bursting, blue energy overflowed. Between the sensations as sharp as a rushing blade and as cold as ice, a panel made of light appeared.

──────【 Report 】──────

Mission Performer ‘Lucariel Nebella Sarachephon’

Mission abandonment.

For a retry,

use of ability ‘Time’

Requesting approval.

Note: If disapproved,

the mission performer’s body and soul

will be bound to ‘ ████ ’.

────────────────

Iser didn’t know what ████ was. Nevertheless, he felt an inexplicable, strong hostility toward ████. But even if that wasn’t the case…… he didn’t want to give up Lucariel’s body and soul to something else.

──────【 Report 】──────

Approval complete

────────────────

When he came to his senses, Iser was standing in the annex of Duke Hayut’s castle.

A world where he met Lucariel before Isabelle did, and where he was still alive.

He could tell that this world was the one constructed for the ‘retry.’ Also, that the Lucariel he spent six years with in prison was the one from the previous life, before the ‘retry.’

Lucariel, who had given up on the mission in the previous life, was faithfully ​unauthorized copy​performing it for some reason in this life. He couldn’t know what his goal was, but Iser knew his own goal.

‘I don’t want you to die.’

Iser leaned his head against the cell wall, and closed his eyes. Soon, he heard a heartbeat that wasn’t his own.

‘……It feels like you’re right by my side.’

Six years ago. Whenever he left Iser alone to go out, Lucariel used to release his divine power in the room. He used that to sense any presence in the room from afar.

What Iser did was similar in principle. The only difference was…… what Iser wanted to sense through the blue energy was Lucariel’s body, and he hadn’t asked for permission.

‘Besides, mine isn’t the divine power of the Creator God Debiamas.’

It was probably an ability derived from what was being called the ‘Power of Life’ for convenience.

Actually, Iser had tried to do this creepy thing earlier. However, it only became possible to infuse the blue energy after the toxicity of the cigarettes accumulated in Lucariel’s body had disappeared.

Suddenly, he remembered what he heard from Lucariel this morning.

‘I just…… wanted to know. What you’re thinking, what’s in your heart, how you’re feeling, things like that.’

‘…….’

‘I thought if I became like you, I might understand a little bit.’

It was the loveliest thing he had ever heard in his life.

At first, he thought it was a delusion. But the time he spent enduring while looking only at Lucariel was too long. Iser couldn’t help but notice that Lucariel liked him.

The joy was brief, as a poison-like fear spread through his body.

‘You wasted six years trapped in a place like this because of me. Even if you find out that, will you still like me the same?’

He’d rather the brainwashing effect wasn’t dissipated…….

Iser bit his lip and leaned his head against the wall.

See. I quickly have such dirty thoughts again. And yet, you want to understand me…?