CH 34

Unswallowed sobs filled the room. There was no one to hear me and I threw up my tears at the top of my lungs. I laughed and then cried as if I were the victim of something I didn’t cause. My head was so full of sadness that I couldn’t understand even the simplest things.

The paper crumpled in my hands as I clutched my aching chest. The scent of the sea wafted through the paper. Soon, the empty room is surrounded by an endless horizon. My desperate cries are drowned out by the ferocity of the waves, my eyes are filled with blue water instead of tears, and the wind rushing past the window becomes waves.

I am still at sea. I’m trapped in the landscape of that day, when the sunset was so beautiful. But there is no one with me anymore. He is gone, reciting a prayer to save me. No, I struck him down.

So I have to stay awake.

“Hajae …I’m sorry.”

I tossed the note into the trash bag, reciting my mother’s last words, which I’d seen so many times I’d memorized.

“And if you ever truly love someone ……please don’t love them.”

My precious heart crumpled into a ball no bigger than my fist and became rubbish.

“As soon as you can… give it up.”

The wide ocean is trapped inside a black garbage bag.

“…That’s the last advice a mum can give…… that a mum can give.”

And so it ends.

Two months since I ran away from him. Time passed quickly, and soon spring had arrived. New buds sprouted on the sturdy branches, and the buds that had been swelling to bear fruit finally burst.

Cherry blossoms have also started to appear in the park behind my villa. It’s a great place to go out and it’s bustling with people day and night. Everyone was there with their significant other, family, or friends. I’m the only one making my way through the crowds.

Normally, I’d take the quieter route home, even if it meant taking 10 minutes longer, but by the time I got home, I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to walk anymore. Not surprising after a long day of carrying construction materials up and down stairs.

But there is a silver lining. When I’m tired, I don’t have time to think about anything else, and my guilt-ridden past has gradually faded. ‘He’ still haunts me in my dreams, but I can escape during the day when I’m working hard.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting back to my normal life.

“Maybe I’ll eat kimbap here tomorrow….”

I stopped and stared at the cherry blossoms in full bloom. The way they swayed in the breeze made me think of white waves. As I stared at the fleeting scenery, I bumped into a child who was running towards me.

I heard a loud thud and turned around to see a boy of about elementary school age falling backwards. Fearing that he was injured, I hurriedly squatted down in front of him and checked his condition.

“Are you okay?”

The child nodded silently and stood up. He brushed the dirt off his clothes and spoke softly to him.

“You have to be careful, you don’t want to run in a crowd.”

“But the petals keep running away.”

“…Huh?”

The child said this and ran off down the cherry tree again. He wanted to catch the falling petals, because he didn’t know what they meant. Every time the wind blew, the child croaked like a frog to catch the petals. Seeing his innocent backside brought back memories that I had buried deep down.

The mountain behind the church was famous for its beautiful autumn leaves. One day, the priest decided to take us up there to enjoy the autumn leaves, so we all climbed the mountain in broad daylight. We laid down on mats under the shade and ate our pre-packaged kimbap, enjoying a peaceful time.

Then I overheard the children talking to each other.

‘They say that if you catch a falling petal, your wish will come true.’

‘But this is a fallen leaf?’

‘That’s it!’

Before they could finish, the children were running around trying to catch the fallen leaves, and I thought to myself that there was no Heo-sang among their peers, and that he had gone for a walk somewhere alone. Afterwards, Heo-sang came back at the end of his outing. When I asked him where he had been, he didn’t answer, but held out something.

‘Here.’

I held out my hand and something flicked lightly against my palm. It was a reddish maple leaf, and I wondered if he’d overheard their conversation and gone off on his own to collect it. I thought it was cute that he was sneaking around, but I wondered why he gave it to me.

‘You should make a wish instead. Why are you giving this to me?’

Heo-sang scratched his head with one hand and smiled coolly.

‘You said you wanted to be happy.’

The wind blew, blowing away the day’s leaves and leaving a pink hue everywhere. The child was still flailing his hands in the air, unable to catch the petals, so I quietly stretched out my hand and waited. Soon the wind blew and the petals poured down like rain, but none of them fell into my palm.

“…What did you expect…….”

With a wry smile, I turned my back on the cherry blossoms and walked away.

Now I have 8 months and 20 days to live. This will be the last cherry blossom of my life.

Since then, I’ve gotten into the habit of opening the front door and saying.

“I’m home.”

I know there will be no answer, but the greeting makes me feel like I’m home.

I drag my tired body straight to the bathroom, where a warm shower seems to melt away all the tiredness. I dried my hair and was about to jump into bed when I suddenly remembered the laundry I had left out in the morning. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to start raining at dawn, so I need to get the laundry done.

I stumbled out onto the veranda and came back in with a load of dry laundry. The smell of the fluffy fabric made me feel better. Now all I had to do was fold them and put them away, but there was no room in the closet. My thick winter clothes were already taking up a lot of space.

“It’s already April….”

It was time to put my winter clothes away.

As I put away my outerwear one by one, I felt something in the pocket of my hoodie. My fingertips feel the texture of paper. I thought it was an emergency fund, so I took it out, but instead of money, I found a piece of dried parchment.

“This is…….”

It’s a lost page from the <Codex Gigas>. Of course, Simeon had given me ownership of the page, but I had completely forgotten about it since I left it in the room, and he must have slipped it into my pocket while carrying me unconscious to the car. I didn’t even bother to check my pockets, so I stuck it in my wardrobe and didn’t notice it until two months later.

As I stare at this, wondering what to do, words appear out of thin air.

[Activate Pioneer of the Unknown ( )]

[View the awakening conditions for the artifact ‘Fifth Page Lost in the Codex Gigas’]

Yeah. That’s what it was like back then. Raphael came in and I didn’t get to see the condition. I don’t think it would make any difference if I saw it now, but it was strangely exciting. I closed my eyes in affirmation, and when I opened them, a short sentence came to mind.

[Washing away the sins of bloodthirsty beasts].

It’s not even an exorcism, but to wash away sins…? There is no way I have the power to do that.

If I am to perform any ritual at all, I must call Fenex here. Not inside the gates, but in my house, where we have no ties. I might as well jump off the roof naked.

That’s it. It’s an artifact, and I don’t need it, so let’s just put it in the drawer.

I turn the page to put it away, but the paper is stiffer than I expected, and I cut my finger. The cut was quite deep, and drops of blood trickled down the tip of my index finger. I looked at my hand and sighed.

“Haa…. It doesn’t go away.”

I can’t be bothered to treat a wound like this anymore. Thinking that it would heal on its own, I finished rolling the paper with my bloodied hands. As I was about to tie the ribbon, I noticed a red stain on the back of the paper.

…No, it wasn’t a stain, it was a reversed letter.

I unfolded it again, doubting my eyes.

[The one who sings of eternal rest, his name is Fenex, permeate the moonlight and come to me]

Written in red blood, it was a spell to summon Fenex.

The first time I saw this sentence was inside a crack. When the nun told me that I could see the Fenex summoning spell if I dripped blood on the bookcase, I relentlessly slit my palm with a knife. Only after soaking the bookshelf in blood did the words appear. I thought the spirit would react to that much blood.

But I never thought that a summoning spell would appear in a drop or two of blood.

“Still… As long as I don’t read the spell, I should be fine….”

I tried to calm my frightened heart.

Blink, blink, blink.

The fluorescent lights switched off and on by themselves. A gust of cold wind blew in from nowhere. My hair whipped around, but the curtains didn’t budge. Before long, a chill ran down my spine, so I dropped the spirits as if throwing them away and stepped back.

The same situation is being reproduced one by one. There is only one reason for this strange phenomenon.

He’s coming.

“Wa, wa, wait a minute.”

I wondered why there was a summoning ritual when I hadn’t even recited the spell. What was this, a puppy that would come to you by scent even if you didn’t call for it? A sense of dread washed over me, lined with a terrible fire.