Chapter 5 : Hope

“********...”

Incomprehensible words... that was what Vain heard in the last split second before his death.

Smiling on the frozen ground, Vain died peacefully after surrendering to his inevitable fate.

…

A voice.

He heard a voice he knew all too well... It was the entity residing in his eye, the ancient soul "Zeel".

"Boy, what do you think you're doing?"

Vain froze stiffly in his place, his hand outstretched toward the door of the ominous room, trying to escape from one hell to an even worse one.

He stopped suddenly…

A severe dizziness hit him, and he vomited the bile of his empty stomach until his breathing stopped for a moment.

His eye bulged and began twitching left and right frantically; his mind incapable of comprehending what had happened, and his body shocked by the sudden warmth and the stench of blood that assaulted his nose once again.

Vain raised his gaze toward the light glowing from behind the door.

His eye ached from the intense brightness, but unlike the previous time, he didn't close it. It began to redden and tear up from the pain as he watched his own hand reaching for the door, trying to get out.

Subconsciously, he grabbed his hand tightly with his other hand, as if stopping someone else from fleeing.

His breathing accelerated, then he screamed with all his might, backing away quickly from the door until his head slammed against the opposite wall; the side where he had been chained.

Vain clutched his head from the force of the impact, blood trickling from the back of it. He sat amidst the red stains scattered across the room, his back glued to the wall, while his eye remained fixated on the light lurking behind the door.

Zeel interrupted his daze, saying: "You're going to drive me mad, boy. What just happened?"

Vain didn't hear him.

Even though the voice echoed with absolute clarity in this empty room, his mind was entirely blurred.

Zeel fell silent, waiting for his host to calm down so he could answer, while Vain drowned in his shock, an endless barrage of questions racing through his mind:

"What? What just happened? Did I die? Or was it a dream? An illusion? What in the Creator's name happened?!"

He couldn't believe he had died and come back to life; rather, he leaned toward the belief that what occurred was merely an "illusion", for this possibility was closer to logic than the idea of death and resurrection.

Minutes passed as he sat in silence, until he decided to ask the ancient soul, hoping that he might have experienced the same scenario. With a terrified voice, he asked: "Z-Zeel... did y-you die too?"

Zeel replied in his usual mocking tone: "Die? If you're joking, it's not a good joke, boy."

From Zeel's tone, Vain immediately knew he wasn't lying. He decided to tell him what had happened, hoping to get an explanation. He pointed his trembling finger at the door and said: "I-I died—"

Vain couldn't finish his sentence, as a voice echoed in his head.

A girl's voice... a voice that sounded familiar, as if he knew its owner. A voice that instilled in his heart a strange mixture of comfort and longing.

"Breach of the First Covenant of the Oath. Penalty: Death."

Vain's eye exploded in its socket, splattering blood all around.

He began screaming with a hoarse voice, clutching his eye socket, writhing on the ground over the dried blood. And without warning, the hand covering his face exploded.

Amidst his screams, Zeel swiftly exited the eye socket, trying to distance himself from Vain, deeming his condition incomprehensible.

Seeing the human in front of him having his organs explode one after another, he yelled in his face, ordering him to cancel his contract with him immediately: "Boy!! Cancel my contract! Cancel my contract quick—"

And before he could finish his words, the eye in which Zeel was embodied exploded while floating in mid-air.

Vain remained lying on the floor, his internal organs exploding sequentially.

He lost his ability to see, and lost the ability to scream. He vomited blood while lying down, which choked him and prevented him from breathing.

His lung exploded, leaving a massive hole in his chest, and then his brain exploded.

Vain died for the second time.

"********..."

"Boy, what do you think you're doing?"

For the third time, Vain received this question from the ancient soul Zeel.

In the exact same stance, Vain was pointing his hand toward the door, trying to exit the room once again.

With a desperate, lifeless face, he didn't utter a single word.

He collapsed on his side, losing consciousness; his brain couldn't handle all these rapid, maddening events.

From the room, to the ice, to dying twice in a row... his mind and soul lost the capacity to endure, and he fainted.

Hours passed with Vain unconscious in that room reeking of death. The freezing cold slowly invaded the space through the open door, making his body shiver.

He opened his eye and sat up slowly, trying to process what had happened, until he remembered he had died twice.

He clutched his head in utter bewilderment, thinking about what he should do this time. He was absolutely certain that what happened was not a fleeting illusion but a stark reality; it was impossible for that excruciating pain to be merely imagination or a dream.

Holding his head, he felt something missing.

He felt his left eye socket empty. He raised his hand to check, and found that the eye in which Zeel resided had vanished.

He raised his head, inspecting the surroundings left and right, and turned around to look behind him but found nothing.

He approached the door with extreme caution, hoping Zeel might be outside. He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed his name with all his might, but received no answer.

Right after that, doubts began creeping into his heart; perhaps the soul had abandoned him and left. He began to tremble at the thought of having to survive alone in this vast, frozen void.

He took a few steps backward, distancing himself from the threshold. He remembered that once even a small part of his body passed through the door, the room would vanish from existence entirely.

He sat in a corner of the room, trying to gather his thoughts about what had transpired. He concluded that leaving was hopeless; he had already walked for hours and seen nothing but ice, which ultimately led to his death.

He decided to stop thinking about the matter of his return from death, as getting answers was impossible in his current situation.

While harnessing all his mental power to come up with a solution, despair pierced him. No matter how much he thought, he couldn't find an immediate way out of this dilemma.

He didn't want to leave unless he was guaranteed he wouldn't freeze to death like before.

He remained there for a while, thinking, as hunger slowly gnawed at his insides, until his thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the direction of the door: "So, you're awake, boy."

He flinched in his place and quickly turned his face to see the source of the voice; an eye floating in mid-air, slowly heading toward him.

"Z-Zeel?!?"

Vain couldn't believe the amount of relief he felt at the entity's return, so he tried to hide this feeling with a sharp question: "Where the hell did you go?!"

Zeel replied coldly: "I am not your wife, boy. Even though we have a contract, I can leave whenever I please."

Vain gave a small smile, which filled Zeel with a sense of disgust.

The ancient entity sighed as he drifted toward Vain's left eye socket, justifying that he found the place there more comfortable than floating in the air.

Once settled, he echoed mockingly: "Fainting just because a little of the outside air brushed against you? How pathetic..."

Vain swallowed his lump. He knew he couldn't tell him the truth, or he would explode again. He ignored the soul's insult and replied with a tired, cold voice: "How did you go out without the room disappear—"

Zeel made a small questioning sound, then followed it with: "Oh, how did you know? Anyway, for the room not to disappear, one of us must remain inside it."

He then added a sentence that increased Vain's bewilderment: "Well, that doesn't matter right now, because we are leaving."

Vain shuddered in his place, remembering how painful it was to freeze to death. He asked in a panic: "L-leave? Why? There is nothing outside, we will only die from the cold."

Zeel noticed the boy's terror; his teeth were chattering against each other, making an audible noise. He said: "Boy, calm down and listen. You're making this difficult for me. I didn't go out to play."

Vain took a deep breath to calm down, gathered himself, and focused on what his companion was about to say.

"First, we are in the Kingdom of Lyth, the Kingdom of Ice. And as is obvious, we are in its northern part where everything freezes. I don't know any other place with these characteristics."

Vain was terrified by this information, not because it made him feel isolated from the rest of the world, but because he was hearing this sentence for the second time.

While he was thinking, Zeel interrupted him: "Second, I sensed a massive amount of mana to the south..."

Vain was surprised; he remembered that Zeel didn't mention this information in the previous death loop. He wanted to ask him, but Zeel continued: "But I am not fond of the idea of going there."

Vain asked out of sheer curiosity: "Why? Do we have another option?"

Zeel answered with his rough voice: "Boy, that amount is not trivial. There are two possibilities for the source of that mana; it's either a Kohler mine, or a dragon's lair... and I heavily lean toward the latter."

Vain broke into a cold sweat upon hearing the word "dragon", instantly realizing the matter was far more dangerous than he thought. He asked: "Why is it the biggest probabili—"

Zeel interrupted him again, which sparked his irritation: "Third and finally, I caught a glimpse of a dragon flying south."

Vain reacted subconsciously: "Huh?!?"

Zeel continued: "Just as you heard, boy. Now we have two choices: either head north into the unknown, or head south toward the source of the mana."

Vain bowed his head, pondering the situation, and asked: "Why only north and south? Isn't there anything in the other directions?"

Zeel sighed as if explaining something to a toddler: "During the hours you were sleeping like a corpse, I observed the sun's trajectory. We are in the far north of the continent. To the east and west, there is nothing but the frozen ocean, and walking there means becoming food for the ice fish."

He fell silent for a moment, then continued with strict seriousness: "As for the north, that's where the main capital of the Kingdom of Lyth is located, Lythgard. Going there in your torn clothes means your death before you cross a tenth of the distance.

Our only option for survival and finding warmth is the south, toward the borders of the neighboring kingdom... even if there's a possibility that a dragon stands in our way."

Vain focused on the available choices after hearing Zeel's summary.

He saw that the only option right now was heading south; he knew for certain that heading north was a hopeless endeavor, and the east and west were bounded by the deadly ocean.

Only a sliver of hope remained in crossing the ice southward to reach the land borders.

Vain stood up on his feet, prompting Zeel to ask: "Have you decided, boy?"

And with a resolute look and an eye burning with determination, Vain replied:

"Yes, we will head south.”