Chapter 49 Volume II – Chapter 15: Unremembered Self

“He- he broke it! He did it, I tell you!”

I found myself in a very nostalgic hallway. In front of me was a child who couldn’t have been more than nine years old, his eyes red from crying.

This place…

“￡$?#>&… Did you do this?”

I froze in place after what I heard.

I was having the usual dreams, they were normal for me, but…

“I’m asking you ?￡#’^%! Did you do it?”

Why can’t I… remember my name?

“He did it! He can’t say it! He’s guilty! I’m not!”

“You bastard! Not only are you guilty, but you won’t admit it!”

I felt a sharp pain in my cheek and my head turned to the side from the slap.

The woman had hit me so hard that my cheek was on fire. Still, I had no right to argue with her.

“Yes, I did it. It was a mistake, but I apologize.”

I admitted my ‘guilt’ and the boy who had been crying until just a moment ago smiled dirty. Then the image in front of me blurred and suddenly I found myself somewhere else.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see your parents? I thought you would at least want to look at their faces.”

The person speaking was the same woman who had hit me in the previous image. The intervening years had aged her, but she was much more respectful now than before.

Because I had gotten one of the top grades in the whole country in the academy exam I took, and they were scared of what I could achieve in the future.

“They abandoned me and didn’t even come to see how I was doing. So they completely ignore me. I’m probably a ‘mistake’ and they’ve probably already left. I…”

I paused, took a deep breath, and continued.

“In short, no, I don’t want to see them, and they probably don’t want to see me too.”

After what I said, a look of pity appeared on the old woman’s face. She opened her mouth, and she was saying something again, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying because the image was changing again.

This time I found myself on a rainy day.

There were a lot of people around me. Couples under one umbrella, parents holding their children’s hands and running to escape the rain, and so on…

“Come on son, hurry up or we’ll get wet!”

A mother walked past me, tugging on the arm of her son, who could have been no more than five years old.

The boy was smiling, not paying any attention to her. Getting wet in the rain was fun for him, so much so that even though his mother scolded him, he was totally focused on his own fun.

I closed my umbrella and let the rain soak me. I stood there for a few seconds and then a bitter smile appeared on my face.

I got under my umbrella again and looked at my phone. There was a new message.

<<——————————

Congratulations #$#$￡?! You have been successfully admitted to our university!

——————————>>

The message was clear, except for one word.

I looked where my name should be, even though it was strangely censored.

Why… can’t I remember my name? Everything is clear… My experiences, every single day I spent in that world. It’s all clear in my mind, but…

Suddenly my eyes widened.

No…

I… I can’t remember my face either.

Who… Who am I?

Ignoring my surroundings, I threw the umbrella aside and lifted my hands, looking at my palms. I had the hands of a skinny teenager, with gray pencil marks on them from working too much, but they were normal hands.

The question was, whose hand was this?

“He’s waking up!”

I heard a voice that shook the whole world, and everything came crashing down.

Suddenly my head throbbed. The world turned strangely upside down and so I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again, I realized that my vision was blurred.

Which memory will I go to this time?

Is that thing in front of me… the ceiling or is it just me?

“He’s awake.”

I turned in the direction of the voice, and with my slowly clearing vision, I could see a woman in her forties in a white coat.

“Aiden? Are you okay?”

The throbbing in my head intensified when I saw Adrian next to the woman who was obviously a doctor.

Right… I’m on Lunerra, probably in the hospital inside the academy, but ‘Aiden’?

No… That’s not my name. That name belongs to some poor guy who committed suicide whose body I took over.

What was my… real name?

“My head’s throbbing a little bit, but I’m okay, yeah.”

I have so many things on my mind… I can’t think straight.

I put myself on the bed and closed my eyes again. I tried to remember my name or at least my face, but then I thought of something else.

There are still things I still have to do.

I had made all my plans for now, after the preliminary.

Now, I can’t throw away everything I’ve prepared, important or not, just because I can’t remember my name.

I won’t.

Reluctantly, I pushed my thoughts aside for now and curiously looked around the room for the time. It was a little after noon.

“How long have I been unconscious?”

The doctor answered my question.

“Four hours.”

“When can I be discharged?”

“Well… All your hospital expenses have been paid through the ‘special treatment’ option. So you can be discharged immediately.”

Now that’s interesting…

“Who paid?”

“Anonymous.”

Anonymous huh… I guess I have very secret fans.

I slowly sat up and realized that there was nothing wrong with me except a numbness I could feel all over my body and extremely minor pain.

I used something I shouldn’t have used before my general level was at least D- but I can be in this state with ‘special treatment’…

“Okay.”

With that, I got out of bed and stretched. The doctor had already given me the okay, I could leave the hospital as I wanted.

“Aiden… are you sure you’re okay? I think you should get some more rest.”

I looked at Adrian’s worried face and sighed. The fact that he could still be worried about me after what I had done to him… This boy was hungry for happiness, even worse than the old me.

“I have some really important things to take care of.”

At first, it looked like he was going to disagree with me again, but then he sighed as I did.

He understood what I meant.

“Well… okay. Take care of yourself, though.”

That’s how I managed to convince him and finally, I took him outside to change.

The hospital had directly arranged for me to wear an extremely plain black sweater and jeans. They don’t look great, but they don’t look bad either.

Once I was changed, I drew the curtains in the room and put on the watch they had taken off my wrist.

I opened the contacts directory and sent a message to ‘J1’, changed my tracking location on the AI on my watch, whose functions had already been adjusted thanks to the black market so that I would appear in my room. So, I was ready.

A slight smile appeared on my face as I thought about what I was going to do and walked out of the room, but then I unexpectedly saw Adrian waiting outside.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with? Whatever it is you have to do, two of us can handle it more easily.”

Ah… So that was it.

I actually wished he could help me… if he really could.

“I’m sorry, Adrian, this is something I have to handle alone.”

If I have someone else with me, especially someone like Adrian, it’s going to get harder rather than easier. I have to do this alone, I’m not going to involve my friends.

“Then I can’t say anything.”

His face fell a little, but then he smiled slightly.

Is it me or is this boy smiling better and better by the day?

“You can still call me if you need me. I will try to come as much as I can. Be careful, goodbye.”

“Bye…”

Adrian took one last look at me, turned around, and headed for the dormitories. Looking at his back, all I could do was sigh.

He has grown so much in personality in the last few months that I marvel at him. As a perfect example, his smile just now was so bright that I almost gaped in amazement.

I let out a deep sigh and cleared my mind, and then I went on my way.

The first thing I noticed as I passed through the corridors of the hospital was that there were students and parents everywhere. The sudden appearance of the creatures injured many students and even killed some of them…

At least the attack started when there were two hundred people left and I was able to handle the situation quickly, so there were not too many casualties. I mean… I think so.

“Ah!”

Hmm?

I turned my gaze from where I had been staring at the sound of a voice I had heard. Interestingly, Lucia and Celine were next to each other. And they seemed quite surprised to see me.

“Can I have a second?”

Lucia looked me straight in the eyes, but I didn’t focus on her too much, not wanting to get drawn into them like last time in the library.

“Yes?”

Lucia noticed that I was trying not to make eye contact with her, but she knew why. So she let it go and went on with whatever she was going to say.

“I wanted to thank you. If you hadn’t led the students through that mess, we would have lost a lot. Maybe… we might not even be standing here right now, so I want to thank you especially.”

She bowed her head a little and showed her gratitude in the most sincere way she could.

“You’re welcome, I just did what I thought I had to do.”

Well… It’s not a lie. After all, they are characters in the story that I can’t let die. So I had to take charge.

Following Lucia, Celine also bowed her head.

“Thank you… too.”

The daughters of two of the most powerful families in the kingdom bowing their heads in front of me… I never thought I would experience something like this.

Of course, I guess the other people didn’t either… because the whole corridor has either surprise or jealousy on their faces.

“You’re welcome again, but I have some really important things to do and I need to be quick.”

I don’t want to bear the heavy gaze any longer and I’m really in a hurry.

I give Lucia and Celine a brief smile and then walk past them toward the exit.

I heard someone swearing in a whisper behind me for leaving the girls like that, but I ignored him and kept walking and finally made it outside.

First, I took a deep breath and inhaled the refreshing, fresh air. Then, determined and fast, I started running toward the west gate of the academy.

Since the whole school was on vacation for a short time because of the attack, it was not difficult for me to get permission to leave.

I quickly went to the station, bought a ticket to a place only twenty minutes away, and threw myself onto the train. A few minutes later, the train started moving and I just stared outside, dreaming and waiting for what I was going to do.

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