ATTNH - Chapter 21

- Episode 21

'I'll do anything. Please save me, please save me, please, I'll do anything...'

'What if I spare your life?'

'Please... ugh... Really, anything, just... Ugh.'

'Then who will pay for your life?'

The man grinned, finding the situation amusing.

After that, familiar conversations were exchanged. Conversations that had been repeated time and time and time and time again.

A moment later, the woman received the sword from the man. Then she stabbed the headless corpse of her brother. Her vision flickered.

Still, Adelheid kept walking. She didn't stop.

A woman pacing inside Mont Palace was anxious. She opened her mouth hesitantly in the middle of the day.

'Your Majesty, by any chance... do you have separate orders for the ladies-in-waiting?'

'Why is that?'

'Because they ignored me.'

'Haha, Adele, I'm here for you.'

'...Please come more often, my King. I feel lonely.'

Adelheid saw countless lives that had passed. Living, dying, living, dying, living, dying...

She saw that wretched life. A filthy life. 

She witnessed a wretched life. A life like that of an animal, confined in a cage and surviving on its master's mercy. A life lived merely because it cannot die.

Adelheid's hair began to turn white.

A few wrinkles formed on her smooth face, her limbs lost strength, and a chill ran through her whole body.

Adelheid trembled and hugged her arms.

The lost years slowly made her swallow hard.

'Your Majesty, what is wrong? Why, why are you doing this? Did I do something wrong...!'

'Come here.'

'P-please put the sword down. I'm scared. I'm scared, Your Majesty.'

'If you don't come, I have to go, you know.'

'Please tell me, at least, what wrong I did. I, I did nothing...'

'Hmm. It's because you haven't been doing anything. I'm bored, Adele, come here.'

Her whole body gradually stiffened like a block of wood, and her steps slowed.

Every time she gasped for breath, it felt as if she had swallowed a lot of ice.

Blue veins hung down on the back of the hand that was struggling to grip the tree.

'Sir Walter's face always softens whenever he sees you.'

'Oh my, are you jealous?'

'This is amusing. Indeed, should I just sit idly by while the one who dared to give his heart to my consort does so?'

'...Do as the King wills.'

'As I please? Haha, my wife is truly a stingy woman.'

Still, Adelheid kept walking. She didn't stop.

'Adelheid, I'm in a really bad mood today.'

'...'

'That bastard, fuck, ah, fuck...'

'...'

'Damn prophecy. Do you think I'd be swayed by something like that?'

'...'

'Adele, my wife, come here. Right now.'

She kept walking.

It didn't stop.

She kept walking.

It didn't stop.

She had seen countless lives. Living, dying, living, dying, living, dying...

Wretched. Dirty. Squalid. Beast-like. Countless lives.

Still, Adelheid kept walking. She didn't stop.

And she saw this life.

'I am Adelheid. My last name is a thing of the past. I really wanted to meet Captain Legenon.'

Adelheid stopped walking.

'I choose humiliation because I want to walk a more comfortable and better path.'

'Even in a life-or-death situation?"

'There are many in the world who possess values more precious than life itself. For the thinking human being described in this book willingly walks the difficult path.'

'I always contemplate.'

The one who will continue to watch terrible lives. Having no god, she walked without stopping. So that she might pass on to the next life quickly.

Pass and pass until it comes to an end.

And for the first time, she saw something that wasn't terrible.

'I cannot go with you.'

'...'

'However, there is a reliable knight.'

Adelheid leaned her aging body, swaying precariously against a tree. She rubbed her dim eyes and tried to see clearly.

She wanted to see it. The things that were good for the first time in her repetitive life. The best things she had. Every single one of those moments knocked on her heart.

Her beautiful blonde hair had turned completely white before she knew it.

'There will be things for Your Highness that I would not dare choose with my own logic and reason.'

The mountain of time is truly a dragon's mountain; even after witnessing this entire long life, she could not gauge how much time had passed. On the contrary, it felt short.

'About the things I don't know...'

Adelheid clutched her heavy heart and listened intently to his voice.

However, it felt like being separated by a layer of glass, so she couldn't hear well.

'...Since you have come this far, please do not ask such things anymore. Go without looking back.'

Hearing the faint, fading voice, Adelheid smiled softly with eyes filled with tears.

She wished all her memories would disappear. She wished everything were a memory of nothing having happened.

She wanted to live every day as if it were the first. She hated every life and cursed every life.

However, even if she lived all her life, and even if she lost all her life and died.

If there is only one memory of life that she can take with her.

'I hope we never meet again, Adelheid. Everything, even the things I won't remember.'

She wished that were in this life.

It flickers again. Heather, on horseback, was watching her in the fog.

Adelheid started walking again. Tears kept welling up. Her heart ached so much she could not bear it.

Her heart, which did not harden even after going through countless lives, always brought her down.

She fell over and over again, and made it this far covered in wounds.

Adelheid collapsed as if she were being strangled to death.

Gasping for breath, she placed her wrinkled hands on the floor. However, she could not muster any strength in her body.

I've come this far. I've come this far. She tried to mumble it out loud, but all that came out of her mouth was an unpleasant metallic sound.

Adelheid thought of death.

Even if I die, I will start over. I will take everything with me. But he will lose this life that I remember.

As if everything never happened, as if nothing happened, just like that...

Tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes. Once they started, the tears did not stop flowing.

Adelheid sobbed, shuddering at the thought.

'So, Captain, Dominic Legenon.'

'...'

'Don't do that in this life.'

She doesn't have the confidence to endure it again.

There is something she has been ignoring.

She had hoped that Dominic would not do so in this life. And Dominic did not do so in this life.

In that case, should we view the Dominic of the past life and the Dominic of this life as different people?

Should I separate my thoughts and share my emotions? Should I live as if it were a different life?

Adelheid always hated the things that didn't happen.

However, now nothing can be known.

She hated the Dominic of her previous life, but she wanted to remember the Dominic of this life.

No matter how much she thought about it, it was an emotion that could not possibly be defined by reason.

How could I... that man, such a man, the one who had such indifferent eyes in front of her.

When she thought of those eyes, she felt as if a part of her heart had been ripped out.

Adelheid clutched the hand that had fallen to the floor as if she had lost her will.

Tears streamed incessantly down her cheeks. If the things she had hated since her previous life have not happened in this life, is that hatred justified?

Does the hatred from a previous life all become a non-existent emotion? Is it because it never happened?

Even if it is something that does not exist for anyone else in the world, it is something that exists only for her.

Even if she appealed earnestly for a long time with eloquent speech, and filled countless stacks of paper with ink, she would not be able to contain this story completely.

Others will not be able to fully understand this story. Because it is not their own life. Because it is not their own world.

Therefore, this was a feeling known only to Adelheid. That is why she had been lonely for a long time.

Adelheid slowly blinked jer heavy eyes. A faint halo of light flickered before her eyes.

And the next moment, her vision suddenly became clear. Adelheid opened her eyes wide in surprise.

The years had vanished from the hand that was placed there.

The wrinkles that had been thick were gone, replaced by the familiar hands of a young woman. Her gray hair had turned blonde again.

Her body, which had been creaking heavily as if weighed down by lead, also became much lighter.

And again, Adelheid slowly grew old.

She stared blankly at the scene for a moment, then suddenly sat up.

She snapped awake as if she had been doused with cold water. This was not the time to just sit around. She rubbed her tear-stained face vigorously, gritted her teeth, and stood up. She walked.

This place is the mountain of time. If her hunch is correct, it must be getting back exactly the amount of time lost in a repetitive life.

How many times had I died? Thirty times? Forty times? This was the first time she had wished for many repetitions of life.

And Adelheid saw her past lives again. It was a terrible repetition.

Adelheid, my wife, Adele, Adele, my wife, my wife. 

My King.

Her mind went blank, and her body trembled. It felt as if someone had put a leash on jer, suffocating her.

She walked. She ran. Her body continued to age, and when it reached its limit, she collapsed.

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