Chapter 213: There She Lurks The Background
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   Snow fell on every wooden tile of the houses. He walked covered in snow, knocking on the door. His knuckles wiping the snow that tainted the wooden door. There are footsteps behind the door.

“Coming,” a weary voice said, the door opened, and the dwarf’s heavy eye bags, and beard that curved around his stomach. His eyes widened and mouth half-open. “Lad, you are alive?”

“I am, Old Tarsus,” he said.

“We thought you were dead!”

“Does everyone think that too?” Einar walked inside, passing Old Tarsus whose eyes still rounded.

“Almost! A soldier saw you face that Astral Monster! Tell me, lad. Did you defeat that monster?”

“Monster? No, no, did anyone die?”

“Beaten, but they never died. I think the monster was playing with everyone!”

“No, why is mercy sadism now? She was confused, try fighting the monsters below the abyss of the tower, you’d be confused and deranged as well. Well, she did obliterate my soul, and I got turned into a speck of dust.”

“You what!?”

“Things that happened already. Done, and done, so, moving on.”

“Moving on?”

“Yes, moving on, we need to stay to the present, and when I say present, the now, the current, do you understand Old Tarsus?”

“You are acting strange!”

“I am!” Einar craned his neck to the side. “It bothers me that I have no voices in my head and being alone inside one body is scary. How in the heavens do normal people do it? It’s odd and strange at the same time. So, I might need a jacket and a brigantine, with body armor, do you still have that enchanted one? I like to take that now.”

“You never wanted that!”

“I don’t! But I lost some of my abilities. Can cast runic spells but that’s all to it. I think I can emulate the same abilities but I don’t want my newly healed soul destroyed, so I rather not do it. What’s the situation?”

“Explain some things to me lad!” Tarsus demanded. “You’ve been gone for months and we thought you were dead! Now, you are acting like loony! It’s winter and you were gone at the ends of summer! We mourned for you! We cried for you!”

Einar blinked. “I was sure that I left nobody, didn’t I? Why? Why pronounced me dead when I could be just missing?” He squared his shoulders and sharpened his back. “Why?”

“That monster broke the backs of the favored children. They think that the heir of Elior won’t survive.”

Einar clapped once. “I see, they don’t want to lose face so they thought of me as dead. Wait, does that mean I am famous?”

“You’re the son of the smiling swordsman and the madame for heaven’s sake! Do you know how many letters are waiting for you? Waiting for the hand of the son of Elior?”

“I was popular! Then aren’t there any girls that wanted me? It’s odd isn’t it?”

“You are a strange young man. And you know how the noble girls are obstinate about the customs. Wait for three years and you’ll have girls flocking. But you are a dead man!”

“Deadman, so does that mean I can scare others?” He asked.

Tarsus stomped his leg and folded his arms. “Lad, you have no right to make a lonesome little girl cry. Imagine, being a lonely little girl who was treated badly, insulted, cursed for things she had no power over. Found a big brother she could rely on, gave her a chair that moves in hopes she could move around. That big brother dies then and she’s alone again. The wail of that little girl breaks my heart. Not even the war could silence me the way she did. So no!” He raised a finger. Einar Elior, I want you to return home and play no heartless tricks. I want you to dress up, go back home, and tell your family that you survived against the Astral Cloak Monster.”

“Enough with the monster,” Einar said sternly. “I’ll go home. But never call her a monster for I have defeated the monster. She will not come to this world that I assure you. Never as long as her children are not bothered.”

“What do you mean?”

Einar kept his silence for a second. “When I wanted to die alone I meant it. Tell me, Old Tarsus, what do you do when you want to die alone but you can’t because you have someone stuck inside you?”

“Just go home lad,” he said tiredly. “I’ll get you dressed.”

Einar smiled at that. He thought. “You try to rid that other person. So when you find a chance to you do it knowing that it might lead to your death. What do you do? Do you follow with it expecting change? I did and I won that gamble. I have memories of the Old Man and I know what he has been through. He’s influenced my soul and indeed my soul regenerated at the cost of my powers. The result of the gamble is my freedom. The freedom to die alone. Sorry, Old Man, had to take the gamble, don’t like sad endings, never does, and really, how can the person who saw the memories of his Old Man not realize who your beloved woman? No matter what dress she wears you’d realize it faster than I do. Quick thinking on my part, isn’t it Old Man? I learned it better than being seen dying breaks peoples heart. And I don’t want to see my old man become a monster. After all, you’d hate that, don’t you, Matriarch Cheery, House of Cheery, the woman from the Empire of Salviticia, the Matriarch who wanted to marry Cero Cheery to the House of Alician. I always thought that it was odd that the Old Man didn’t react to that name. The last name of the girl who he mingled with. The girl who waited for her crush, hoping, that she could tell him. He never returned and she was lost.”

Einar went out of the shop and said. “Old Man, why do you have only crazy women? And why is The Cheery's Matriarch, the girl who should never be here, here, in this world? Where are you, Traveler of Time and Space? Oh, is it too early?”


 

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