Side Story 1. Private Rescue (10)

For Soram, who had no last memory left, the image drawn in the middle of the living room was blurry. But if Tae-un's lingering attachment was pooled in that place.

Soram opened his lips with a smile.

"We ended up meeting again."

And he added the words he couldn't say at the moment his memories were being erased.

"I love you."

I loved you with the same heart in my past life too.

You are my first and only. Nothing else can be like you.

He put those three words containing all that meaning in his mouth once more.

"I love you, Han Tae-un."

At the end of a very long time, I will settle with you.

And I will live this whole life.

Soram looked at the middle of the living room, brightened by the light coming in from outside. Soon he slowly closed his eyelids.

As a reward for the dozens of repeated shackles, if I may wish.

Even if very slowly, may complete peace come to Han Tae-un of this life.

If there are any lingering attachments left in the previous life, may they all be fulfilled in this life.

Soram held a very earnest prayer. Even when he was young, wishing to escape from the locked room, he probably wasn't as desperate as now.

When he tightly closed his eyes and opened them with as much earnestness, his vision was all white. What he thought was an afterimage from closing his eyes too tightly didn't disappear easily and remained for a long time.

After a while, Soram regained his vision. Without knowing when he had moved, he was sitting on the living room floor.

"..."

Soram placed both hands on the floor.

"...Uh..."

The white light pouring into this space was still shining down on him.

Soon, moisture welled up in his widely opened eyes. It gathered into round drops and fell to the floor. The hand touching his forehead trembled. The sound that had been ringing in his ears like tinnitus took shape. It was the sound of something huge that had cast a shadow in his mind for a very long time collapsing, along with a song he had heard hundreds, thousands of times.

This place, and its owner, were once his magic castle. The magic castle that had hidden the escaped regressor disappeared, but the two met again on the empty lot above it.

"Ah..."

Amidst a dizzying sense of falling, Soram smiled brightly. There was certainly pain from something that had been with him for a very long time falling away. But he was incomparably happier than that.

After wiping his tears with his sleeve, now laughter came out.

Soram kept sitting like that, looking out the window. Until a voice called him from behind.

"Jin Soram."

Tae-un walked into the living room, shaking the clothes left like a shed skin with an incredulous face.

"What's this?"

"So you wouldn't be surprised that I was gone."

"It woke me right up though."

Tae-un approached, brushing off his sleepiness. Then seeing Soram's tear-stained face, his expression hardened.

"Did something happen?"

"..."

Of course, there was no way he wouldn't know. Soram answered, smiling and looking straight into his eyes.

"My memories are being erased."

"What memories..., uh...?"

Tae-un quickly noticed the identity of the "memories" he was talking about with such a bright smile while being erased.

"Several memories from past rounds have disappeared."

"..., How..."

"I made a wish."

Tae-un hurriedly came in front of him with a dazed expression. He lowered his eye level and faced him up close. Soram took in the face with short hair sticking out sparsely, filling his eyes.

"It's not all of them yet. It started with rounds without any singularities, and I think more will gradually disappear."

Oblivion was slowly spreading along the chain of memories. Perhaps the extinction that should have already progressed across rounds had belatedly begun.

A few memories that he absolutely couldn't let go of might remain. Rounds inevitably connected to this life. Including the last life, maybe... three or four.

If memories are erased like this, there will never again be Great Rifts at the desperate level of the past 3rd and 4th. There will be trials, but only to the extent that can be endured, just that much.

"That's good."

Soram was pulled into Tae-un's arms. He heard his trembling laughter in his ear. With that, the wish was completed. Soram patted Tae-un's back and said.

"But I didn't wish to erase my memories, you know?"

"Then what was it?"

"..."

Though he had wished for Han Tae-un's complete peace, the result became his own salvation. It was a bit frustrating.

"Hey, now you can never save me again."

Soram separated his body and poked Tae-un's chest.

"Do you think I'd need your help in a world of this difficulty level?"

It was the same even if memories from other rounds were erased. Considering the experience points and combat power accumulated in his current body, he was invincible.

"I'm going to live for a very long time. So... Han Tae-un, you forget about what happened here too. Together with me."

Several emotions lingered in Tae-un's gaze. Among them, affection was the greatest. So much that the person receiving it fully couldn't possibly miss it.

Soram puffed up his upper body a bit more.

"This place, from now on, is where I shook off the memories of my past life."

After declaring proudly, he tilted his head.

"...Was it the same in the previous life? Since you erased it."

"No, no."

Han Tae-un smiled with a face so relaxed there was no trace of his usual stoic expression.

"I don't think I'll remember what happened that night anymore."

"...Then that's good."

Tae-un kissed his forehead. His face looked like it would express love, so Soram wasn't surprised. But then.

"Wait a moment."

Huh?

"What is it? Where are you going?"

Tae-un suddenly left Soram and went into the room.

What's going on?

As he waited wondering, Tae-un came out of the room again. However, instead of returning to Soram, he busily went back and forth between the bathroom and room. He brought the jacket that had been hung out to dry... but seeing Soram's bare legs, he covered them with it and went back.

What's he doing?

About 10 minutes later, Tae-un sat in front of Soram again. He seemed to have wet his hair a bit and washed his face. Earlier his expression had been slack, but now it seemed to have hardened again. What on earth did he do...

Uh...

Tae-un held out something small and navy blue between them. The velvet box looked even smaller in his large palm. It was a symbolic box whose contents couldn't be mistaken. Even Soram, who had never experienced such a thing before, knew.

Tae-un opened the box. Inside were a pair of rings inserted side by side. At first glance, they seemed to be different designs, but looking closely like the current Soram, one could see they were similar shapes.

"Cover everything with a new future."

"..."

A confession in the living room without properly dressing or any preparation around. Given Han Tae-un's personality, this probably wasn't the confession he had prepared. But he immediately changed his plans to fill this moment of Soram's with only completely happy memories.

Does he know that this moves the heart more than a confession made with all sorts of atmosphere and effort?

There were two rings, one with a slightly smaller diameter and one larger. The smaller one was a thick ring made of pure white platinum, while the larger one was thinner but had blue gems embedded around it like a wreath.

The resolve to reject at least ten times if Tae-un confessed was completely washed away. If he gave it like this, here, there was no way he couldn't accept it.

As if drawn, he placed his hand on the ring case, and Tae-un slipped the pure white ring onto his ring finger.

The metal sparkled in the sunlight that had risen to mid-sky. It was a perfect restraint that would erase any nightmares and anxieties and bind him to this life.