I 12

“So well, that’s all I have to tell you about what I have been doing… with Regina,” Paul ends his storytelling with a sigh.

“You say Regina cursed you. What kind of curse is it?” Alina asks.

“…she must have applied it when she took me to her house… If I try to utter something about ‘that’, it feels like something is trying to pierce through my tongue, or throat.”

“Isn’t that too harsh? Maybe we should tell her to…” Alina stops short, reluctantly. “……so… what are we gonna do from now on?”

“You can go now, Paul,” I tell him. “Oh okay,” he responds.

“Like I said, we are not gonna take Artifacts owned by somebody already. So well, I guess, technically, this is the end of our journey.”

“Yeah…” Alina lets out a soft response.

“But still, the point of my journey hasn’t really been about the Artifacts in the first place. We can pretend we don’t know what Regina has been doing. We should just enjoy our time here.”

Alina’s lips faintly form a smile as she hears that.

“Although, it would just be pointless to only keep coming for things we already knew to be a sham. Maybe we should go somewhere while we are at it.”

“Yeah,” she replies, Paul nodding… hmm?

“Well, glad to have you with us, but… I didn’t know our conversation was interesting to you as well,” I look at Paul.

“I think you guys may still want some company here. Also, what do I tell Regina tomorrow, now that it’s been exposed?”

“Just keep pretending like we didn’t catch you at all. So well… I guess we are still having you follow after me now. I mean, if you could you would have stopped doing whatever you are doing now in the first place, no?”

“That’s true…” he responds. “Anyway, allow me to return now,” and so he makes his way to the inn.

“We can go now…” I look at Alina.

The sky is bright with stars.

“You know…” Alina says while moving, “before I died in my past world, I remember having read a novel about this world.”

…

“So did I. I forgot the content of the novel though. Do you still remember it?”

“Not much, it wasn’t a really cute story. Actually the beginning of it was sort of, but not so much as it progresses. The main character seemed pretty resentful by the end of it though. I didn’t read it closely. Although… if I knew the novel was about the world I’m gonna reincarnate into, I would have tried to remember every single page of it.”

“…”

“Also, I think the main character, Ryle, doesn’t resemble you, Ryle the uncle, at all. Although this isn’t saying much since you are not even from this world anyway.”

“I remember loving the novel a lot, if what we read are the same thing. Didn’t have a chance to reread it, wife nagged me too much so I stopped rereading at some point, ended up dying before I could last reread it.”

We almost reach the inn.

“This is just like traveling, our journey is,” Alina says softly.

“Yeah.”

“Come to think of which, I have never really known Regina.”

That makes me stop for a bit. She says that. This is even truer for me, who has always lived by Regina’s side.

“Me too.”

We quietly return to our rooms, so that Regina wouldn’t get woken up.

Next morning.

“Let’s go,” Regina wakes up pretty early this morning. “Yeah!” Alina and I exclaim.

…

“Shouldn’t we be going to the north first?” Regina asks.

“Ah, yeah, I thought about that, but decided maybe it would be nearer to cross to the kingdom of Mist.”

“…the kingdom of Darkness? Why do we go there?”

“Ah… erm… to look for some Artifacts?” Well, coming to another kingdom suddenly may make it hard for her to prepare to plant some of those around.

“I don’t see this map indicating any Artifact over there. There seem to be some in the kingdom of Tranquility though.”

“Well, it’s not like it should contain every single Artifact we could possibly find.”

“Ryle, you do realize that if they know we come from the kingdom of Maskiev, they are gonna kill us on sight, right?”

“It’s not like our kingdom has been in an actual state of war with them recently, no? Besides, we are crossing there from here, the kingdom of Hope – who is neutral towards us and them.”

“…” she says no more, but it feels like she’s mumbling something like ‘this is why I’m going with him.’

Paul keeps following us from afar, he seems really bored. I guess you can’t tell a disinterested company to enjoy what you do but they have no interest in.

“W- wait a minute!” Regina stops moving. “Can you guys stay here for a bit?”

“What is it?”

“I forgot some stuff,” Regina doesn’t finish her sentence, legs quickly sprint back back the way we came. Paul hides in a bush immediately, although just so she wouldn’t notice him not doing the job properly.

She returns, “Alright let’s go,” with a smiling face (or so she tries to make one).

As we turns to a bridge, it seems to have been destroyed.

“Oh,” Regina remarks, “I guess we can’t cross over there now.”

“This is one of the reasons why this kingdom can manage to stay neutral, or why nobody wants to borrow this place to station their troops,” Alina comments. “Although I think we can find some off the beaten path to go there.”

“We can?” Regina asks in an exclaimed voice.

“My gut tells me so,” Alina responds.

Some hours later, “…or… we can just follow this map and go find the Artifact in the north instead.” Regina seems to get tired of our attempt to prod whatever the hidden path we can find. If there was a path connecting this kingdom and the kingdom of Mist, then what Alina said would not be so true, but that’s how it is as far as I can judge – I see almost zero to none armed people in the entire kingdom, except for those around the areas with monsters, but then again the monsters here are also tame (it’s known as the go-to kingdom for combat training after all).

“Hey! There seems to be one!” Alina cries out in excitement.

“Huh? You sure it’s not a circular path?” Regina remains skeptical.

“We have to go to know.”

Regina seems anxious on the way. “Are you feeling unwell?” I ask. “Um no nothing,” she shakes her head.

But as we keep moving, a lightning strike hits the mountain. Boulders keep falling down, and block our path ultimately.

“Well, I guess that’s it for the kingdom of Mist,” Alina remarks.

“Y-yeah…” Regina makes a worried expression, but the corners of her mouth weirdly give me the impression she’s trying to suppress a smile.

“Can’t you just use something to get rid of them?” I look at Alina.

“Exploding them would send them flying all over the directions. There’s no place to hide, unless you wanna slide down the cliff,” she looks behind her, three steps back and she could fall off the edge.

“Alright then, so… how about breaking a path through the mountain?”

“If you want the kingdom of Hope’s royal court to arrest us, then go ahead,” she narrows her eyes.

“We have gone a really long way, I guess let’s just go back to the inn for today.” I sigh.

I turn behind, to my surprise, there’s another girl here too.

“What are you people doing here?” she asks in a not-so-friendly tone.

“Well, we are just…” I avoid mentioning the Artifacts just to reduce any potential issue, “traveling around here.”

“You think that’s enough to cut it? Travelers don’t usually go through this path.”

“That’s true, but…”

“Answer my question honestly, or you won’t be living,” she raises a… bow (?) toward me, the arrow seems to aim straight at me.

“Please stop that,” Regina stands before me, arms spread wide. “Can’t we please just talk? We don’t think we are doing anything that should raise hostility with you here. Yet here you are the one who is pointing a weapon toward us.”

The other girl releases the string, I quickly move forward and slash it before it could hit Regina. My instinct tells me to neutralize her before we can talk anything, as my body charges forward. She makes a high backflip and shoots a chain of 3 arrows. Then 5. I keep slashing them as my feet keep stepping backward. How can she be this fast? And how can she be using a bow?

‘My sword wielding capabilities would definitely fail me those exams soon. In the first place, why do we have to use swords and only swords anyway.’ For no reason, Alina’s words cross my mind. A while after her question, I did manage to read a line in some books that mentioned passingly: technically, weapons other than swords don’t tend to do much better with Defender and Enhancer magic. A bow and its arrows should be the last things that could make use of them.

And yet here we are, a girl who can nimbly use her bow at a very hyper speed, while moving around as if the air is something she can jump upon.

Not just that, her last move, after mumbling some chant, sends me off the cliff.

“…” my eyes widen, as the arrow piercing through my stomach, causing me a great deal of unbearable pain, as my body is sent flying, then eventually falling.

Regina looks at me with the most horrified look she has ever had, her arm reached out to my direction, she seems to have a lot of tears on her face, no?

…

..

.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Zillions after zillions animated beings have died, since the beginning of life itself, decayed into some alternate forms of matters. Then, those matters shall get absorbed by some other living beings, or transform into some other qualities, entities.

It’s just a very natural cycle, a normal part of life.

However, what if people, after their death, can ‘relive’ their own life? With their memories that constitute their identity, being the thing that gets carried over.

People tend to dismiss identity, as if that’s something not as vital as the materialistic parts of this world.

But for something called ‘human’ like us animals, it’s something absolutely important.

It defines who we are, toward every single thing in this world. It gives meanings to us.

Nobody can live without identity, as long as they want to be a ‘human’, the best, the primest one.

I wonder, after this, who I shall become? Maybe a bird, a tree, or even a monster, perhaps?

Do I have another chance of reincarnation?

Do my memories still carry over?