EP.91 26-2. Christmas Carols Resounded.
***
A boy in a wheelchair wearing a red beanie. I remember this kid.
“It’s Soo-hyun hyung! I heard you’re being discharged tomorrow! Congratulations!”
It hadn’t been long since we had been in the same hospital room, but as most boys of that age do.
“One more round! That was invalid!”
If there were only common interests such as games, you could easily become friends.
“Ugh.. As expected, Soo-hyun hyung is really good at games.”
Around the time when portable game consoles were popular and it was common to have one in each household.
We became friends with a game that featured a character wearing a red hat that resembled the boy Youngmin.
“Hey hyung! Aren’t you going too easy on me?! Don’t do that!”
Besides, he was a famous person in the hospital with his bright and hopeful personality. So much so that even the nurses and doctors.
“Youngmin, did you do well with your physical therapy today? Here’s a chocolate!”
“Wow! Thank you!”
There were many people who showed goodwill like this.
“So, Soo-hyun hyung. I’m going to eat a lot of hamburgers when I get discharged!”
“I hope you do. Youngmin.”
The words that came out automatically as if winding a tape had a bitter iron taste because my mouth was dry.
“I can’t eat it here because it’s bad for my health..! The bread they give out at the hospital doesn’t taste good either….”
The words to run away or that there would be a fire soon were caught in my throat and blocked.
I wanted to spit out the truth. I wanted to protect the boy in front of me.
‘Is there a way to save this kid.’
When the fire broke out, I was led by the hospital staff and quickly left the building.
“Looks like we’re having curry for dinner because it’s Christmas today. Hyung! Aren’t you excited!”
“I am excited. But I don’t like broccoli.”
I couldn’t do that because I don’t know where the boy named Youngmin was.
A children’s ward where pungent black smoke was pouring out.
I felt a sense of incongruity that someone was missing and hurriedly looked around, but the child in a wheelchair wearing a red beanie wasn’t visible.
Before the firefighters or anyone else arrived, I heard screams and ran back into the burning building alone.
“Hyung. You look a little mature today!”
“...”
I couldn’t save this boy. I found him while gritting my teeth even though his face was badly burned.
There was a limit to what I could do with a child’s body. I didn’t even know where he was in the end.
If I had my sword now and my original adult body, wouldn’t I have been able to change something?
‘..It’s a cowardly excuse. Lee Soo-hyun.’
I thought I didn’t regret it now. Because I did the best I could in the end.
I tried hard even while having a trauma, but I self-rationalized that I was blocked by the wall of reality.
The end of a cowardly runaway. In the end, the burn scars became a brand and were pointed at by people, and ate away at my own heart.
“The snow has piled up a lot. I want to go outside and make a big snowman!”
I had to experience that scene again. Cold sweat was running down my body. The blood in my head was spinning to come up with a solution as much as possible.
‘Where did the fire start.’
I looked through newspapers and news for decades, but the cause of the fire didn’t come out exactly. This hospital didn’t have sprinklers either.
“Oh, Soo-hyun hyung. Are you crying..? Santa Claus won’t come if you cry! What to do!”
I wiped my eyes. I could feel the smooth surface of my face because there was no helmet. This is possible. How about telling them the information using sign language, braille, or a pen?
‘Damn it, my body won’t move as I want.’
It all failed. I also tried to blink and say SOS in Morse code, but
‘This isn’t working either.’
It was impossible. In the end, I can’t do things that I wouldn’t have done in the past?
‘A past that can’t be changed.. Then….’
I had to follow the traces of the past as much as possible, but find a variable there. Even if it’s trauma, hope will definitely exist.
“..Youngmin, are you going to watch the Christmas event today?”
“Yes! Of course!”
A Christmas event held in the hospital in the evening the day before.
An adult dressed as Santa Claus appeared and took out packaged toys or sketchbooks and other things from a bundle of presents.
The last memory before the moment when our two people’s fates would change into a terrible moment.
“Let’s go see it together.”
If I can’t change the past, I made the judgment that I might be able to do something here at least.
***
A place that Phine Gransia jumped into in order to save Licht, who couldn’t come to his senses due to the Apostle of Gluttony’s attack.
The trauma of Licht that she thought of at first was that he was fighting some great enemy.
That’s because as a result of fighting him directly, he was an irregular strongman.
But what is this place now.
“Where is this..?”
Phine Gransia couldn’t hide her bewilderment as she looked at the scenery around her.
Her white hair that fell to her waist, the golden iris, and the characteristics of the pure white wolf ears didn’t fit the place and were too heterogeneous.
Most of the people around had black hair and brown eyes like Licht, and
“Mom! I want to eat pork cutlet!”
“Okay, let’s eat after taking that X-ray there. Okay?”
“Hehe, you have to keep your promise!”
They were all humans. She couldn’t see anyone with the characteristics of other races like the people of the Gransia Empire even if she washed her eyes and looked.
“When is the next surgery schedule? Doctor?”
“Our hospital is closed on Christmas…. How about the end of January?”
“That’s good. Please make a reservation.”
However, no one recognized her or cared about her. A building with many children in white clothes and men and women who appeared to be parents.
‘Is this a treatment center….’
When she looked with her good eyes, all the people had somewhere they were hurt.
Phine thought that Licht was probably here when he was injured.
‘Winter. It’s completely winter outside.’
Snow had piled up outside the window, similar to her white hair, the opposite of the academy, which had been a sultry early summer until just now.
“..He really was a hero. Licht.”
She had been roughly guessing that the man wearing the black knight helmet was a hero summoned from another world, but she didn’t know that he was an existence that came from such a different place.
It was a world that had nothing to do with herself. Even the tree with the stars twinkling there was amazing, and the letters that were visible around her had a shape that she couldn’t recognize.
‘Voice amplification magic doesn’t come out either.’
Magic didn’t come out either. She didn’t know if it was because there was no mana in the air, or because it was a nightmare.
Things she had never seen before, clothes she had never seen before, and people she had never seen before.
Everything was full of strange and amazing things.
In fact, she was a princess who could feel fear. Didn’t people feel lost when they suddenly dropped into a place they had never seen before?
“Licht! Where are you!!”
But without even having time to think about such things, Phine immediately looked around and began to look for Licht.
She kept worrying that there would be an incident here that would make the man have trauma.
Perhaps because it was in his memory, there was no helmet or glass armor surrounding her.
“Licht..!”
Phine moved confidently. The shell that was covering her, the Masterpiece, was no longer needed.
The hero who had come from a world so far and different from herself, fought Magic Hat while risking his life for her.
He had saved valuable people from Head’s tricks together with Charitines and Nex, and
She had been saved by the man wearing the black knight helmet and was gradually assimilating with him.
The wounded wolf had shared her pain and comforted her by hugging her.
‘Trauma can be overcome together. So please show up.’
She felt anxious. Her heart was tightening madly and it was uncomfortable. She hated the worry that something might happen here, the fear that the man named Licht would feel.
“Ugh..!”
Because she couldn’t operate mana, she tripped and fell while running in a hurry. Her face was slightly scratched.
The glass knight who had lived her whole life with a body full of mana. This kind of restriction was the first time.
‘..Licht also tried like this. Phine.’
Determination was dwelling in Phine’s eyes as she grabbed the floor and immediately got up. Before entering the academy, she had been someone who was like empty glass.
She thought that emotions were unnecessary because the cold world was transparent like what was reflected in the glass.
‘I have to find Licht quickly, or he’ll be in more pain.’
When Magic Hat broke into the imperial palace in her childhood, she was sorry that she hadn’t been able to do anything when he took her mother and killed the maids.
She had always lived with a crushing sense of guilt. She judged incorrectly that it was meaningless if she didn’t get stronger.
‘I would have been affected too if Licht hadn’t told me to hold my breath..’
She could have been trapped in trauma and tasted a terrible sight. He could have only held his breath, but he was always a Black Knight who cared for others more than himself.
‘He helped Nex oppa and Char unni, and came to protect us.’
Now that she was barely able to breathe thanks to Licht’s help. She didn’t know how much his comfort that it wasn’t her fault made her feel grateful.
Once she had fallen and regained her composure, the image of the Black Knight, who had burns and was afraid of fire, was vivid in her eyes.
‘Fire, the problem is fire….’
What he had told her before at the festival booth, the story that he had heard screams and went back in and got hurt when he was young, quickly flashed through her mind.
If a fire broke out in this place and he got burns and had trauma, it made sense enough.
A person who was afraid of and wary of people’s touch like a wounded puppy.
‘I have to find Licht’s young self..’
To save him, the pure white girl was running around a certain hospital.