Chapter 443 – #93_Your Memory
#442
1.
I have a memory of watching a shocking video when I was young.
It was a time when proper regulations weren’t in place on the internet, and you could Google all sorts of things. A friend, whose name I’ve forgotten, showed me the video.
It was a recording, taken from a distance, of a person caught in an EF5-level tornado that connected the sky and the earth over a wide expanse of land.
In the video, the tornado was tossing around not only building debris and vehicles but also people, like weeds being plucked from the ground.
What happened to the person caught in it?
If they fainted from low-pressure hypoxia, that would be fortunate.
If they were crushed like a tomato in a blender with gravel, or thrown from hundreds of meters in the air to become a stain on the ground, that would be the worst of misfortunes.
Anyway, I remember having trouble sleeping for days because of this disturbing imagination and the helplessness of humans in the face of nature’s power.
I was able to find out that there are no geographical features in Korea that would form such a massive tornado, so I was able to feel relieved.
There’s no particular reason why I suddenly thought of this.
“……!”
A sudden explosion of particles and a tilted world.
The feeling of being caught in it, like a poor ant in an antlion’s pit, was exactly like that of the person swept up in the tornado.
There’s no time to scream.
Particles engulf the body from all directions, without regard for up, down, left, or right.
The distortion field was shattered in less than 0.2 seconds.
The armor barely lasted 10 seconds?
In the darkness of falling to the bottomless pit of hell.
The boundary between space and body seems to blur.
The particles freely rummaged through Siwoo’s body, which had lost all defenses, and soaked into him like a permeating poison.
His vision had long since turned pitch black, and even the strange sound of bubbles popping seemed to fade away.
With all other senses, including smell and touch, completely gone, what Siwoo felt as he sank endlessly was not fear.
It was a chilling loneliness that gripped his heart.
-Whoosh!
Finally, with the last thread of consciousness severed.
Siwoo was swallowed by the sea of particles.
2.
The commotion from before felt like a lie.
Where did the bubbling sound that seemed to tear at the ears go? Now, there was only a suffocating silence.
As if everything had been a dream, Siwoo was standing unharmed in the dark space.
“What the….”
He was feeling a bit bitter that his last words were, ‘Oh, for f***’s sake.’
No matter how much he risked his life to come here, if he died without even seeing their face, what kind of dog’s death would that be?
However, the feeling of falling endlessly, the particle storm that shattered the distortion field in two seconds, and the sensation of the magic circuit rupturing from the feedback of the broken magic, all remained vivid.
“Where is this?”
That’s right.
It’s darkness.
At first, he thought that ‘Autonomous Defense’ had been activated, as before.
Like when he was deeply submerged in Ain and handed over control of his body to another consciousness.
But that wasn’t it either.
Because Siwoo was clearly stepping on solid ground, and there were no large magical structures in this darkness.
“…….”
Ignorance makes humans fearful.
A randomized space is like a black box where anything can happen.
Unless he knows the purpose and intent of this pitch-black space….
Then, a girl ran past Siwoo.
Siwoo quickly recognized her.
She wasn’t emitting a golden glow like the girl he had seen earlier, but her build, height, and silhouette overlapped like a decalcomania.
“Little one! It’s dangerous here!”
Rather than wondering how she got here, who she was, or where this place was, he was horrified that there might be another victim caught up in this unidentified place.
He tried to call out her name and put his hand on her shoulder, but….
-Thump thump thump!
With her hand outstretched, she moved away with the momentum and speed of an Olympic sprinter.
She was so fast that he could only see her profile.
Even so, she looked somehow familiar.
“Hey!”
Siwoo stared blankly at the girl, who was moving away like a runaway train.
What on earth was going on?
Then, he noticed something.
There were footprints left on the path the girl had run on.
It was a path that had been trodden down by feet, with weeds and wildflowers crushed, like a trail in the woods, but it was not a path that had been tamed at all.
Siwoo grabbed a red branch and cautiously followed the girl.
As he took each step, following the girl’s footprints.
Something amazing happened.
A forest blooming in the darkness.
As if the primordial god had created the heavens and the earth from the void, a dazzling light bloomed, clearing away the darkness like dawn.
“Ugh…!”
Excessive light.
Like scraping away a black crayon that had covered a colorful landscape painting, the light emitted by the girl brightly illuminated this world.
Looking around, he saw a forest that looked somehow familiar.
It was a forest densely packed with cork trees, their pointed leaves fluttering in the breeze like a lady waving a handkerchief.
It was a summer day when the refreshing scent of deep green filled his nasal passages pleasantly, and the chirping of songbirds echoed in his ears.
“Huff… huff… huff….”
In the midst of all that.
He saw the girl crouching between the tree trunks, her eyes gleaming like a wild animal as she surveyed her surroundings.
“Calm down, I’m not trying to….”
Siwoo, who was trying to calm the girl down and ask about the situation, felt a shock as if he had been hit in the head with a hammer.
Blonde hair twisted like a rope on one side of her head.
Sky-blue eyes that shone more beautifully than a clear summer sky.
Even the witch’s hat that seemed too big for her small frame.
“Amel…ia…?”
Her delicate nose and lips that were trembling like a horse’s due to tension and heavy breathing.
It was Amelia’s beauty, which was impossible to forget once you had seen it, but pulled back to her childhood.
“…….”
His thoughts became jumbled again.
Why was Amelia here, in this young form?
And why was she so wary of him?
Among the thoughts that followed one after another, Siwoo soon realized that the last paragraph was wrong.
“Amelia! Where are you!”
A refined voice from the forest path the girl had passed through added an undeniable certainty to Siwoo’s guess.
At the same time, mini-Amelia hid like a mole under a large tree trunk.
Even though she couldn’t hide completely because of her large hat, she was trying her best to hide.
“Oh, Amelia. When are you going to stop playing hide-and-seek? You’re not feeling well.”
The person who had brushed past Siwoo and found the hidden Amelia was a witch.
She had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as Amelia.
However, while Amelia’s beauty was so exquisitely crafted that it was difficult to approach her, this person had a more approachable and comforting aura.
Moreover, the cloak draped over her shoulders was so familiar that Siwoo could easily guess her identity.
The previous Merigold.
He didn’t know her name, but she was Amelia’s teacher.
The previous Merigold, who had passed by Siwoo as if he were invisible, stood in front of Amelia, who curled up and mumbled in a dejected voice.
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to study.”
“You’ve been doing so well so far. Come here, if you finish studying today, I’ll make you some delicious cocoa.”
“…I don’t want to.”
“I’ll put marshmallows in it too?”
If he were to recall the deepest impression of Amelia in Siwoo’s memory, she was a very cold and picky person.
She wouldn’t be someone who could be swayed by mere cocoa.
“…Five.”
It seemed that she hadn’t been like that since childhood.
Amelia poked her head out from behind the tree trunk.
Her lips were watering, and her eyes were already shining with joy.
“Then, five marshmallows and two ginger cookies. How about that?”
“Gi… ginger cookies too?”
“Of course~ When have you ever seen me lie?”
“Ahem, okay! Actually, I think I really like studying.”
“Yes, yes, come here, my baby.”
Amelia, with her cheeks flushed, toddled into her teacher’s arms.
Siwoo realized that this scene, flickering like fireflies in the darkness, was a segment of Amelia’s memories.
“Our Amelia, how can you run so fast? You’re faster than a squirrel, you know?”
Siwoo quietly followed the teacher and student as they disappeared along the forest path, the teacher stroking Amelia’s head lovingly.
3.
Siwoo had no way of explaining why he was able to enter Amelia’s memories.
He could only guess that the particles entangled with Amelia’s magic and Siwoo’s magnetic magic, the Palace of Memories, had interacted with each other, granting him an invitation.
It was an urgent situation.
Outside, his body might be getting torn to shreds, and he didn’t know what was at the end of this.
Perhaps it was meaningless.
Perhaps he was just wasting time.
But he had a vague conviction.
The scene before his eyes now.
The series of scenes that Amelia cherished as ‘memories’ were important.
The overflowing memories of the past were inconsistent.
Like playing a badly stored videotape, there were parts that were cut off without context, and sometimes it only showed unkind videos like jumbled pictures.
But in every scene, Amelia shone like a star.
Sometimes in her teacher’s arms, sometimes cooking together, playing the violin for the animals in the forest, picking pretty flowers and putting them in her hair, tearing her hair out and throwing her homework into the fireplace, even when she was running away from the pursuing previous Merigold.
Amelia was shining.
The light that illuminated the darkness cleared away the desolate darkness like the flames of a warm fireplace, and filled the empty darkness with shining memories.
“…….”
Siwoo stood still and watched them.
The previous Merigold was a good teacher.
In the endless screening of memories, it was clear that she cherished Amelia like a mother.
When she kissed Amelia’s round forehead, Amelia snuggled into her teacher’s arms with a blooming smile.
Come to think of it, when they first met, Amelia had a very distant appearance.
Amelia, who had an enormous amount of energy like an energizer that never ran out.
Amelia, who was bad at magic and ran away because she hated it.
Amelia, who spent half the day with a smiling face.
How could anyone imagine that?
The smile that had naturally spread across Siwoo’s face began to twist at some point.
It was because he felt a strong sense of déjà vu in every moment that Amelia and the previous Merigold spent together.
They would wake up and eat breakfast together.
After breakfast, they would pack a lunch before noon and go out for a picnic somewhere.
As if they were building a memory every day.
As if they were trying to put one more precious photo in the album before their close relationship full of love and bond ended.
On some days, they would bring an easel, canvas, and pencils, and sit on a hill of barley that had grown crookedly because it was not maintained, and draw together.
On some days, she would play the violin and hold a concert just for her teacher.
And on other days, they would go fishing or swimming together in a nearby lake.
They would lie side by side on the roof and look at the stars together,
or they would stomp on bed sheets in a tub full of bubbles to wash them,
and sometimes they would buy ingredients and bake apple pies together in the oven in the annex.
“…….”
It was only natural.
The moments when Amelia, who shone like a fairy, was at her brightest were all moments that Siwoo also had.
Because it was what Amelia had done for the younger Siwoo.
Suddenly, a short exchange with Takasho came to mind.
That love is about wanting to share your joy with the other person.
The warm days that he had felt were a deception due to a moment of anger and betrayal were, for Amelia, a way of sharing her most precious memories.
She just wanted to spend the scenes in the album, carefully selected one by one with clumsy hands, with Siwoo.
Siwoo was speechless.
His breath was caught in his throat as if he had swallowed something hot.
The moment when he couldn’t control his emotions and uttered harsh words flashed through his mind.
In front of Siwoo, who was expressing his intense emotions.
What did Amelia want to say?
What words did they fail to exchange?
Siwoo, who had been standing there blankly, realized that he was feeling a terrible sense of incongruity.
Something was missing from the cozy life that he would want to keep even if he had to draw hundreds of pictures.
Amelia was lying in bed.
She was always lively and healthy, but there were times when she would lie in bed with violent coughing fits and be unable to move a finger.
The previous Merigold would sit by Amelia’s bedside and wipe her body, which was covered in sweat, with a handkerchief.
Looking at Amelia’s haggard face with worried eyes, her teacher stroked her forehead.
Amelia coughed a few times and asked.
“Teacher, when will I be able to become a witch?”
“Hmm~ I wonder? Maybe a year or two after the coming-of-age ceremony?”
“I want to receive the inheritance quickly. Then I won’t be sick like this, and I can be happy with you forever.”
“…Then. You need to get up and study quickly, right?”
“Hing…. I don’t like studying….”
The tragedy that all witches accept as common sense.
The previous Merigold hid the truth from Amelia.
Spoiled beatch