Chapter 183: Another “Me”

Chapter 183: Another “Me”

Without waiting for Klein to respond, Azik, who was gazing into the depths of the mausoleum, continued speaking on his own:

“I also remembered what happened when I first died and revived. I was lying amid a field of pale corpses, swaying as I stood up. My heart was filled with terror. I did not know what had happened, nor did I know where I was.

“Before the Church personnel could collect and purify the bodies, I staggered away from that place. Like a wandering soul, I drifted through wilderness, villages, and cities, unable to remember who I was or where I had come from.

“During that period, wherever I went, I could hear countless cries and see priests presiding over large numbers of burials. I only felt that sorrow permeated every corner.

“Later, by chance, I rescued a noble girl and entered her family’s manor. She was a sunny and cheerful girl, while I was like a beast that had walked out of the forest—sensitive, suspicious, self-abasing, frightened, and often revealing a cold, indifferent, cruel side that did not conform to human morality.

“She was very curious about me. No matter how I avoided her, no matter what bad things I did, she would approach me, infecting me with her smile, influencing me with interesting matters. Without realizing it, I grew accustomed to her mischief and accustomed to her presence.

“We quietly came together. She was very worried, afraid that her father would not agree to let her marry a former vagrant, now a servant.

“Seeing the sadness in her smile, I felt for the first time as though my blood were boiling. In a rush of impulse, I told her that I would leave this place, but I would return with a title and a bridal garland.

“I went to the army. I became a knight. Holding a three-meter-long lance, I charged at the enemy. Amid the remaining chaos of the Northern Continent at the end of the Fourth Epoch, I became a baron and gained my own fief.

“I fulfilled my promise. Bearing the king’s decree, my family crest, a knight’s sash, and a garland I had woven myself, I married my bride.”

At this point, Azik’s expression gradually softened, as if he were savoring and commemorating something. Even the corners of his mouth unknowingly lifted.

Listening, Klein’s heart stirred. It was as though he had once again seen the familiar Mr. Azik.

“What happened afterward?” he cautiously guided.

Azik looked ahead and said, “Afterward… afterward, we built a castle in our fief, and we had a child. He was a boy who grew very quickly. It was easy to foresee that he would become very tall and very sturdy.

“He liked fighting. He was always dragging a broadsword around, saying he wanted to become a knight.

“I thought it was only a temporary childhood interest, something he would find difficult to persist in. But even when he scraped his legs and bruised his head, he still did not give up practicing. He thought that by hiding in his room with his face twisted as he clutched his wound, I would be unable to see. Heh. He underestimated his father far too much. Every spirit in the entire fief secretly served me.

“Year after year passed. I recovered more and more memories. My wife constantly complained that the castle was too gloomy and wanted to go somewhere sunny and warm. I satisfied her request, but only much, much later did I realize that she did not dislike living in the castle. She was afraid of the changes happening to me bit by bit. She was afraid of the me who became increasingly cold and increasingly unfamiliar.

“She never told me any of this. She continued treating me as she always had. We had a wonderful period of life by the southern seaside, and even considered having another child, but sadly, we did not succeed.

“Only when I sensed that my next death was approaching did we return to the fief and to the castle.

“My eldest son—that boy—told me he wanted to go to Backlund and become an attendant to viscounts and earls, beginning his own path toward knighthood.

“I asked him why he had to make such a choice when he was barely in his teens. He answered that it was because I was his idol and his example. He wanted to become a knight and a noble through his own efforts, like me, instead of relying on his father and mother.

“At that time, I had already recovered most of my memories. When facing this child, I always felt somewhat awkward, distant, and uncomfortable. Yet when I heard his answer, my heart still filled with a happiness, satisfaction, and pride difficult to describe. This was my child, a child completely different from those blood descendants I had left behind in the Balam Empire.”

Klein knew that Mr. Azik was speaking of his identity as the first Baron Lamud. And that child who had made him proud and satisfied had, in his later years—or perhaps middle age—been poisoned and murdered, nailed inside a coffin, with even his skull cruelly taken by Ince Zangwill.

Azik’s eyes grew unfocused for a moment.

“I died again and woke in a daze. By instinct, I left the fief. Under arrangements prepared in advance, I wandered elsewhere. In the first part of every life and every reincarnation, I possessed a different life. Sometimes I would encounter sweet love. Sometimes I would gain a daughter so lovable that she made one dote on her. That fondness, helplessness, and satisfaction from the heart stunned, puzzled, and conflicted me again and again as my memories gradually recovered.

“Once, I was a filial son. I brought pride, a wonderful life, and adorable grandchildren to my parents. But when I ‘awoke’ and found myself again, I remembered that at the end of my previous life, I had looked on indifferently as their true son died on the battlefield, then occupied this identity. On one hand, I felt pain and guilt. On the other, I felt it was nothing, merely a small matter. My heart seemed to have split into two people.

“At that time, I had a mask that could make me become anyone. But after one awakening, it was lost. Perhaps I was the one who deliberately lost it…”

Klein remembered the daughter Mr. Azik had mentioned, the one who had liked asking him for candy. After weighing his words, he said, “I believe that your heart has not split. Rather, you are struggling against a mad will.

“After losing your past memories, the you who opened new lives again and again was kind, warm, and filled with rich emotion. The closer it is to your current life, the more clearly that should be reflected.

“Perhaps that is the real you, the essential you. During the time when you were the Death Consul, you were influenced by the tendency toward loss of control contained within your Beyonder characteristic. You were also influenced by that Death, transmitted from a higher position. I have heard that after the War of the Four Emperors, He had already gone mad.”

In truth, Klein’s words did not have much basis, because he only knew a few segments of Azik’s life: Baron Lamud, the father who had built a swing for his daughter, the filial child, and the gentle, friendly history teacher.

His purpose was to provide a guess, a possibility, to help Mr. Azik resist the Death Consul personality returning with his memories, to make him face the self contained within each life from the past and, through that, reconcile with himself in some way, becoming less cold.

As he spoke, Klein suddenly formed another idea. Without waiting for Azik to digest what he had said, he hurriedly asked, “Mr. Azik, do you know about anchors? The anchors that gods and angels use to stabilize themselves, preventing themselves from being dragged into depravity by the tendency toward loss of control and the madness inherent in Beyonder characteristics?”

“I know,” Azik said, withdrawing his gaze and nodding.

Klein was not especially certain, yet he spoke in an extremely confident tone.

“Perhaps the new lives you begin after losing your memories each time are your anchors against madness and loss of control!”

Do not abandon them. Do not forget them. They are you! After finishing, Klein silently added this sentence in his heart.

“Anchors…” Azik repeated the word, his expression contemplative and somewhat confused.

After an unknown length of time, he suddenly sighed.

“That may be an explanation. At the very least, it makes the split and conflict within my mind less intense.

“However, since we have already come here, I must still go into the depths of the mausoleum and see exactly what is hidden there, why it calls to me, and what causes me to die and revive again and again, to lose my memories and recover them each time…

“This has troubled me for more than a thousand years. It has troubled one life after another. I think I should be able to obtain an answer today.”

His gaze grew clearer bit by bit. His tone seemed gentle, yet it carried an indescribable firmness.

Klein wanted to stop him, but after opening his mouth, he pressed his lips together again.

Azik adjusted the half-height silk top hat on his head. Without turning to the side, he smiled gently.

“Remember to close your eyes.”

After saying this, he walked forward, following the layered stairs toward the depths of the gloomy mausoleum.

The black fog pervading that place no longer produced breathing sounds. It slowly scattered in every direction, gradually revealing the illusory thing coiled at the bottom.

It was a Feathered Serpent so enormous that it seemed capable of occupying an island!

It had gigantic scales of dark green so deep they approached black. In the gaps between them grew feathers stained with pale-yellow grease. From each feather, illusory black thin tubes extended outward.

This exaggerated Feathered Serpent was both illusory and real. Its more specific shape was difficult to describe, as if it were composed of elements humans could not understand.

Pale flames burned inside its eye sockets. Its face was a human face!

That face had bronze skin, gentle features, and a tiny black mole below the right ear. It was unmistakably another Azik Eggers!