PFC Chapter 228 : Chapter 228
Chapter 228 : Chapter 228
Chapter 228: Torch (6)
Mages do not dream.
There was a time when he disliked that.
Dreams are the only means by which the living can meet the dead.
He had heard such words before.
Who said it? He couldn't remember that far back. Something he heard when he was immature. When he was an idiot.
He forgot who the speaker was. Which meant the reason he disliked it no longer mattered.
Yet he still wanted to experience dreams because of that peculiar curiosity mages possess. Not because he wanted to meet the dead.
His memories were vivid anyway.
He didn't know if all mages were like this, but at least Harad was.
He could recall Iagar anytime.
If he wanted, he could even draw each member individually. He couldn't draw well, but still. It meant he remembered even the wrinkles on their faces.
However... there was a difference between recalling memories and seeing directly.
A larger difference than expected.
—Harad.
Count Iagar called.
It was a voice directed at young Harad, not the current Harad, but to anyone it was a father's voice.
—Harad!
His mother embraced young Harad and comforted him.
He couldn't feel the sensation, but the warmth existed in his memory.
—Young master?
Lily came.
Judging by her expression, this was before the time he shut himself in his room.
Young Harad wandered the Inner Fortress with Lily.
Those paths, that scenery, those people existed in his memory.
However... there was a large difference.
All Harad could do was watch, but that alone was enough.
Enough to make him hate being a mage all over again.
This was a dream, but not a dream.
It was magic and memories from a previous life. The Stone of Regression. He was merely peeking at the memories that stone extracted, at the dream Ellen must be having.
If even memories were like this, what would a real dream be like?
Harad suddenly wanted to know. He didn't want to just watch like this—he wanted to become that young Harad.
He wanted to meet them again somehow, to touch them.
An impossible thing.
The regressed Harad knew well that there were times when one had to settle for second best.
...That's why there was a difference he could feel.
The past was subtly different from the faces he remembered. There were fewer wrinkles. There were differences in speech and atmosphere too, the scenery was somewhat more beautiful, and people liked and worried about young Harad more than he knew.
—Harad.
Father.
—You are not a demon.
Mother.
—So live. No matter what happens, without fail.
You both.
Loved me as much as I remember.
Harad thought proving that alone was more than enough.
Such value, such reward existed.
In regression.
"I did well to return."
Harad grinned foolishly.
Mages do not dream. However, Harad was living a dream.
"Are you awake?"
The voice came from above.
The sensation he felt on the back of his head was firm yet soft.
A pillow with more addictiveness than predation.
Ellen was looking down at Harad.
"...?"
No, not Ellen.
"Fuck."
It was Elaine pretending to be Ellen.
"Why are you cursing?"
"You stole Torch."
Manifesting the Sun, Torch playing tricks, Elaine barging in.
Harad remembered every moment.
It was why he was fine now despite having had his heart pulled out.
Aten. That bastard's fire had completed the imperfect Manifestation. Not only that, but it even tempered Harad's body in its place.
"It wasn't me, that bitch stole it. And that bitch is gone. Like before."
Her brow furrowed slightly in a way that was clearly Ellen to anyone.
"Bullshit."
Not in Harad's eyes.
"How long are you going to keep this up?"
He could tell at a glance.
That was Elaine no matter how you looked at it.
"Act your age. You must be far older than me by now."
The previous life.
That ruined world—Elaine was still living in it.
"...Not far, you bastard."
"Yes."
If it was a mistake, it was a mistake.
He should have just pretended not to know and cursed more.
"Fucker."
"Why are you cursing?"
"I can see everything."
"Ah."
He could tell at a glance—the same went for Elaine.
***
"My body is in its prime for life. Every part."
Elaine still seemed bothered by age.
A worry only someone old could have.
"Fucker."
Elaine flicked Harad's forehead.
Harad winced but was also startled.
If she had failed to control her strength, his head would have burst right there.
"Like you're scared."
Elaine looked down and giggled.
"Are you better now? You seemed to be bawling."
Harad rubbed his face with his hand.
The blood had all disappeared when he burned earlier. He dreamed afterward, but didn't think he had shed tears. Nothing came off on his hand.
"Not you."
Elaine touched her own chest.
"Ellen seemed to be bawling."
"......"
"Not me, fucker."
"I know."
Harad had dreamed of his previous life.
Which meant Ellen had also dreamed. Apparently she had shed tears inside Elaine. Harad was embarrassed but also pleased.
"What memory was it?"
"Not quite a memory—I saw my childhood."
"When you were an idiot?"
"......"
"I'm joking."
Elaine laughed briefly.
"You dreamed a precious memory, as precious as memories with me."
"Yes."
Harad nodded readily.
No matter how vividly he remembered, if it only existed in his head, it was bound to deteriorate.
"Thanks to me."
"......"
Elaine nodded with a satisfied face.
It was annoying, but Harad couldn't deny it.
If he hadn't regressed, he wouldn't have known whether his memories remained the same or had changed.
"What do you have to say?"
"I'm displeased."
"Why?"
"Because you stole it."
Torch, his enemy.
He had lost the competition promised in his previous life.
"How did you know to come here?"
Harad only rolled his eyes to look around.
The Sanctuary of Fire wasn't too badly damaged.
As expected of the land of the Sun.
"You had to hide, but you're a moth blinded by the Sun. Where you'd go was obvious, wasn't it?"
She guessed the perimeter with the former, and narrowed it down to the Sanctuary of Fire with the latter.
If he was going to see the Sun anyway, it would be best to see it where the Sun rose largest.
It seemed an easy deduction for Elaine, if not for Ellen.
It meant that Elaine, who had to live alone, learned to use her head.
Because the Harad who used to think for her was gone.
'I made a mistake.'
Harad clicked his tongue openly.
He had fastened the first button wrong. Rather than pretending not to know, he should have kept hold of Elaine.
"But why did you make it so troublesome?"
"What?"
"Wouldn't it have been fine for Your Highness to just kill him from the start?"
If that had been the case, it wouldn't have been so futile already.
If revenge were compared to cooking, it was like having it stolen right before completion.
"He's your enemy."
"Isn't he Your Highness's grudge now?"
Torch is the grudge of whoever kills him first.
Elaine had decided so in the previous life.
"Wasn't it a competition?"
"What competition?"
"Who would kill Torch first."
That's why Harad had felt impatient.
Because if he didn't kill him first, Grand Duke Elaine would.
"It wasn't, you fucker."
Elaine, who had been listening quietly, burst out passionately.
"What do you take me for?"
"Aren't you Your Highness?"
Elaine was someone who wouldn't care at all even if she stole someone else's enemy.
This very incident was like that.
"Didn't you say not killing him was your grudge?"
"He's your enemy. How could I just show you his head? Where else is there a moment so futile and unwanted?"
But Elaine was kinder than he thought.
"I will do the killing. However, that death will be before your eyes. That's what I decided."
She would kill him, but wanted to give Harad an experience equal to that too.
"You killed him anyway."
Harad nodded slightly.
Even without Elaine's intervention, Aten would have died. That's what he wanted.
"So I killed him."
"Why does the conclusion turn out that way?"
"So the bed won't become rough."
By killing him this way, he wouldn't regret having taken revenge.
"That bastard's wish was to die to you. To your Sun."
Not just any Harad, not just any Sun.
Aten wanted to die to the King.
To a fully manifested Sun.
"Only after Manifestation would he consider you a king."
So Aten used his own torch to supplement the Sun's Manifestation.
And afterward tempered Harad's body to keep it whole.
"A mad retainer with an inflated ego who wanted to become special. He must have thought there was no greater glory than assisting the enthronement."
Elaine spoke mockingly.
"Completing the Sun, dying to the Sun, being engraved on the Sun, remaining in the King's memory for life. That bastard seemed to have lived for that."
The extinguished torch Aten helped complete the Manifestation, and wanted his fire to become part of the completed Sun.
And thus to remain in the King's memory for life.
"So you cut my Manifestation?"
"Since he was a bastard who only pursued the Sun."
Before his dearest wish, he died having lost his dearest wish.
That was the cruelest death in the world as Elaine saw it.
"How resentful he must have been, when the dearest wish he finally completed was cut before his eyes."
Only the magic called Manifestation was cut.
But to Aten, it would have felt different.
"In truth, I only gave him the Origin, not the reality."
The Origin called Torch had certainly made Harad stronger, but in the end, the reality called Aten couldn't die to the King.
"So you forget too. When you remember, recite memories instead. Of me, or of Iagar."
Elaine smiled while stroking Harad's head, which rested on her thigh.
"...The bed won't become rough."
Perhaps not because revenge was over, but because of her touch.
Elaine's touch was rougher than Ellen's, but that's why it was comfortable.
It wasn't familiar.
This was a moment he wouldn't have wanted to imagine in his previous life.
To Harad back then, Elaine had been a man.
"How did you know? Since when?"
"I can tell just by looking at your face."
After meeting Anton.
When he found Ellen in the alley, Harad noticed immediately.
That it was Elaine.
"You knew and pretended not to. Why?"
"I saw the fire."
It was clearly magic to anyone, but Elaine lied and said she was a beggar.
"I thought the only fire Your Highness would hide was Torch."
So Harad pretended not to know.
Because he considered revenge a competition.
"You're still only perceptive at useless times."
The stroking hand became rougher.
Elaine was proud yet found it exasperating.
"Your Highness hid it first."
She hid Torch while pretending to be Ellen.
For Harad, he couldn't help but recall the competition from his previous life.
"The place wasn't good, so I held back. If I'd told you, you would have exploded."
"Then you should have said so."
"......"
The hand that had been stroking his head stopped abruptly.
Strength entered it. Harad imagined his head bursting.
"...What should I do?"
"Rub your face. Right now."
Harad rubbed his face on her thigh.
"Good."
Then Elaine's hand stroked his head again.
After doing so for a while, the hand turned his face upward.
Elaine stared down at Harad intently. He could tell just by looking at her face. That woman liked those words.
"What do you see now?"
"......"
"What have you discerned from my face?"
Harad couldn't answer.
But it was answer enough for Elaine.
"This is why I can't let you go."
Harad wasn't the only one who knew just by looking at faces. They were such a relationship. Enough without words, just looking.
"Aren't you seducing me? You, every moment, me."
"......"
"How regrettable. I thought I'd play with you in this state."
How long had they gazed at each other?
Suddenly Elaine smiled bitterly.
"I've become curious. If this were me."
If she had met him not as Elaine but as Ellen.
She seemed to be thinking that. It seemed like the reason she had him lying with her thigh as his pillow.
"...Let's go play now."
"Why? Are you finally sorry?"
"That's part of it, but I also want to try playing with Your Highness."
"In bed?"
Elaine laughed.
"I'm joking."
"......"
"Really. Of course, I wouldn't mind a bed either. Anywhere."
"Let's go then."
"Regrettably, we can't. There's no time."
Elaine would disappear soon.
Or had to return. Harad hadn't yet figured out which expression was more appropriate.
"It may be your land, but a perimeter is a perimeter. Nothing good will come of staying long."
"......"
"Besides Ellen and Shadow. Isn't there one more person?"
"Ah."
Seria.
"Only now remembering? You didn't even care earlier."
"......"
"Go find her quickly."
If she had been nearby, she would be dead.
"She wasn't nearby. She must be hidden somewhere safe."
"Why didn't you look for her?"
Elaine had been watching Harad and Aten.
She had waited for Aten to complete his dearest wish.
In other words, it meant she had more than enough time to find Seria.
Because what was there was Elaine, not Ellen.
"Why would I look?"
Elaine snorted.
"She's Ellen's friend."
"......"
"Not mine."
It was technically correct.
But Harad felt something off.
"You know what?"
Then Elaine grinned.
"I'm watching."
While poking her own chest.
***
—Not mine.
Those words.
Ellen felt they were words she shouldn't have heard.
If that bitch truly had designs on taking over this body.
"Ellen?"
But that was that.
And this was this.
"Harad."
Harad was blinking below.
Ellen first grabbed his face with both hands and pulled him up. Then she pressed her lips against his without hesitation.
—Crazy bitch.
She felt like she could hear Elaine's voice.
Was it real or a hallucination?
Ellen thought it was the former. If not, she hoped it was. Harad's taste was crazy bitches.
'You're the one who picked the fight first.'
That bitch had provoked first.
She made Harad rest on her thigh.
Harad's first thigh had been Ellen's.
Elaine had overlaid that memory.
"Mmph."
Harad's lips closed. Ellen forced them open. Her tongue went wild. She dominated with her tongue.
As tongues mixed and saliva flowed, Harad's heart beat faster.
The constraint overlaid on it went even wilder.
"Mmph."
The more it did, the more Ellen indulged.
Perhaps even voraciously.
"Puha."
"......"
When their lips parted, Harad gasped for breath.
Unlike Ellen, Harad couldn't hold his breath for several minutes.
"How was it?"
Harad, having caught his breath, still had a dumbfounded face.
Saliva he couldn't quite swallow ran down his lips.
"What did it taste like?"
"...I'm not sure."
"It wasn't tobacco, was it?"
Harad nodded with a dazed face.
It was their second kiss but first with tongue, after all.
"Then that's enough."
Ellen grinned.