Aaron's Side Story Chapter 26: The First Dream (10)
* * *
Time passes.
The time limit declared by the boy is forty years.
In that time, Aaron must find an answer somehow.
There are two things he must do.
Break through the wall and move on to the next stage.
Or dig into his hidden memories and confirm his true feelings.
‘The former is impossible.’
Aaron recognizes this.
It is the result of decades of acceptance.
He cannot possibly surpass the wall with his talent.
Then there is only one option left.
‘I must retrieve my memories.’
What pushed him into this maze without an exit.
Why is he moving in the opposite direction from his goal of returning home to meet his younger sister?
Of course, even if he knows, his daily life won’t change drastically.
At best, he would reduce the time spent thrusting a spear and increase the time spent writing letters.
[I have a purpose to become strong.]
The purpose of becoming strong.
At first, he thought it was to help his brother.
He thought about how wonderful it would be to help his comrades with his own strength in dangerous moments.
‘Wasn’t it?’
He must be honest.
Here, there is no need for pretentiousness or noble reasons to impress others.
So he decided to acknowledge it.
In truth, socializing with his comrades was merely a justification.
Helping in the lobby and becoming stronger to defeat enemies was just a means.
It was not the end goal in itself.
Then, he must return to his most pure heart.
When Aaron, the hero, was summoned to the lobby, what did he want more than anything?
There was only one thing.
To return home.
To socialize with comrades.
The days of sweating while swinging a spear.
Battling enemies with his life on the line.
All of this was merely a process to achieve the dream of 'returning home.'
‘Was it like that?’
If a close comrade dies in battle, Aaron would be sad.
But he wouldn’t stop.
Because the true purpose continues.
‘But if it turns out that no matter how much I fight, I can’t return home...’
It would be different.
Aaron would despair.
He would give up on moving forward.
No matter how anyone tries to persuade him, it wouldn’t matter.
During the 2-star ascension ceremony, Aaron glimpsed some forgotten memories.
It gave him an even stronger conviction that if he became stronger, he could return home.
Since that moment, Aaron couldn’t stop.
“I’ve wasted my time.”
Aaron muttered.
In the dark room with the window closed.
He was writing letters relying on a single candle.
There, his name, background, and reasons for becoming strong were detailed.
At first, it was just a few lines of letters.
With that alone, he could feel the purpose of why he came here.
But as time passed, the content gradually grew longer.
With just one or two pages, he couldn’t realize his purpose anymore.
Decades of time had eroded most of his memories and emotions.
The memories and events after Aaron was summoned became hazy.
It’s somewhat natural.
His life in the lobby didn’t even last a year.
It couldn't dominate Aaron's entire life.
“......”
Aaron reads down the letter.
[I have a reason to become strong.]
The few lines had turned into hundreds of lines.
No matter how long he wrote and read, no emotions arose.
[For my brother.]
[For Miss Jenna.]
[For Miss Eolka.]
[For Master.]
[For Sragin.]
Other than names, there were characters recorded that he couldn’t recall.
Memories with those people followed in detail.
Times spent with his brother.
What he had done for him.
What he had mistakenly done to him.
Various life-threatening situations and the deaths of comrades.
Along with many other incidents and sentiments.
“I’m sorry, brother.”
Aaron apologized.
He could no longer recall his face.
“Memories of a person are this futile. I’m sorry, Miss Jenna. Miss Eolka. All of you.”
Rip.
The letter tears apart.
Aaron shredded the papers he had written over the hours, one by one.
In the corner of the room.
On the modular bookshelf, letters written over the years were piled up neatly.
Aaron pulled out those letters as well.
He tore them.
Burned them.
Discarded them.
He disposed of them all.
Because they were lies.
They were evidence of how he had deceived his own heart.
‘One page would suffice.’
Again, Aaron sat in front of the bookshelf.
He took out a large sheet of drawing paper and spread it on the desk.
He soaked a feather pen in ink and began to draw.
A big circle.
Inside, two eyes. One nose and one mouth.
It was a level that would surely make anyone who knew how to draw chuckle.
And it truly was so.
His younger sister would laugh and ask what kind of drawing this was.
But still.
He tried hard in his own way.
Aaron had no skill when it came to crafts.
Even when playing catch, he would always drop the ball.
When he drew, his friends would laugh out loud.
In hide-and-seek or tag, he was always the last.
In any case, his sense of sports was terrible.
Most people wouldn’t even recognize this drawing as a face.
A small circle inside a larger circle with two small dots and one vertical and one horizontal line.
If you looked closely, you’d understand those were the eyes, nose, and mouth.
When he said this was his sister’s face, she would get quite angry.
She would hit Aaron’s shoulder, asking if he was making fun of her.
But it was visible.
If you look closely.
They say you can see with the eye of the heart.
With that eye, you can know.
He can see the smiling face of his younger sister.
So,
Aaron took thirty minutes to complete the drawing.
A single page that could be mistaken for a doodle.
But that one drawing assured him more than hundreds of letters.
‘I haven’t forgotten you.’
Above all, it was undeniable proof.
Aaron smiled sincerely for the first time in a long while.
He beautifully framed the drawing of his younger sister and hung it on the wall.
The next day.
“What is this garbage?”
When he returned from training, the boy was flapping the paper.
That was the portrait of his younger sister that Aaron had poured his heart into.
“Get yourself together. Why are you making a fuss over such a doodle? Why hang a doodle in a frame? Are you out of your mind?”
Wham!
The boy ripped the portrait in half with a shout.
“……!”
Bang!
An unexpected ambush from the boy.
“Are you crazy! Hey!”
“Give it back! That’s my sister!”
“What’s this got to do with your sister! It’s just trash doodle!”
“I’m not joking!”
In any case.
From that day on, Aaron’s room was adorned with doodles, no, family portraits.
* * *
It was from then on.
Aaron began to dream.
Sleep was originally something that shouldn’t exist in this world.
He merely lay down with his eyes closed, forcibly cutting off his thoughts.
But it changed.
As Aaron lay under the blanket on his bed, sometimes there would be a discontinuity of consciousness.
Dreams.
It should be called a lucid dream.
In that strange world, Aaron maintained his consciousness.
His consciousness shifts from the real world to the fantasy world.
When he opened his eyes, he saw it.
A winding dirt road and a small house beyond it.
Smoke was rising from the chimney of the house.
It smelled golden, as if something was baking.
‘Home.’
He couldn’t forget it.
When he opened the door and entered, Nina would greet him.
As a merchant, Aaron often left the village to trade goods.
When he returned home, Nina would always bake bread for him.
It was a nostalgic scene that made him tear up.
Aaron walks along the dirt path.
The warmth of the air. The scent of grass. The familiar shape of the brick house. The fragrant smell of smoke and bread.
‘Yes.’
This was it.
What Aaron desired was only one thing.
To open that door and step inside.
Aaron walks.
His steps became half a run.
He dashed along the dirt path and arrived at the closed door.
“Nina!”
Aaron opened the door.
It didn’t matter if the door broke.
With all his strength. With all his might.
“I’m back...!”
Thud!
“......?”
The door wouldn’t open.
Thud. Thud thud. Thud thud.
He shook the doorknob back and forth and pulled.
The closed door didn’t budge.
“Nina, it’s me! It’s me!”
Bang! Bang bang!
Aaron pounded on the door with his fists.
“Open up!”
She must hear it from inside.
She couldn’t possibly ignore him.
She would probably curse him for being too noisy.
And... wouldn’t open the door.
“......?!”
What the heck.
The door is closed.
He knocked, he banged, and eventually started kicking it.
It could break. As long as he could open this door.
He could call a carpenter to fix it separately.
So open it.
Open the door!
Thud!
Aaron kicked the door again.
The door didn’t budge.
It must just be a wooden door.
‘What’s going on.’
Aaron lost his mind and lifted a large rock near the door.
He threw the rock at the door.
Thud!
With a loud noise, the door shook as if it would break.
It shook but did not break.
No matter how many times he threw it until his body was drenched in sweat, the door remained the same.
“Nina, can you hear me? It’s me, Aaron!”
He continued shouting from outside, but it wouldn’t open.
In panic, Aaron returned to the window.
He could see through the curtain.
A cozy kitchen.
A girl in an apron was baking bread in the oven.
“Hmm~ Hrum~ Hrum~♬”
A cheerful hum flowed out.
The girl, with her back turned, was decorating a plate with vegetables and fruits.
She was waiting for her brother to return.
Thud! Thud!
Aaron knocked on the glass.
The window was locked from the inside.
“Nina!”
He shouted again and again.
He shouted until his throat was raw, but the girl did not turn around.
Thud!
He picked up a sharp stone and struck the glass.
It remained intact. Why? Why?
He struck the window with the stone again and again.
Blood flowed down from his partially torn fingernails, but he didn’t care.
“......Why.”
Aaron waited.
The bread would eventually be baked.
The girl’s meal for the family would soon be finished.
If that’s the case, she would turn around.
To lay out the dishes on the table.
“......”
The bread in the oven was not baking.
“Hmm~ Hrum~ Hrum~♬”
The girl’s humming didn’t stop.
The girl in the apron had her back turned.
This is a future eternally closed world.
The sister waiting for her family can never welcome her brother.
The brother who wants to go home can never open that door.
* * *
It has been one hundred years since he arrived here.
Every day, Aaron dreamed.
The time spent living in dreams became longer than the time spent thrusting and stabbing with the spear.
The dream does not change.
Aaron simply continues knocking on the door that won’t open.
The dream doesn’t change.
It merely overlays.
From nightmare to a worse nightmare.
A sprout of forgotten memories begins to bloom.
It extends its stem and sprouts leaves.
The last thing to appear is a flower bud.
It waits only to bloom.
And finally.
A pitch-black flower blooms.
Aaron has regained the forgotten memories.
* * *
The happiness of the weak is like a sandcastle on the beach.
It disappears with one whim of the waves.
It scatters and becomes grains of sand.
The happiness of the weak is merely a daydream that will someday end.
It is not happiness.
If it cannot be preserved, it is not happiness.
* * *
A burning sky.
The young man and the girl run.
They ran hand in hand.
The young man named Aaron looked at the sky.
The clear sky was stained red as if it were covered in blood.
Surely, it was daytime now.
Other than the sun and a few clouds, the sky should have been blue.
But it was burning with pitch-black flames.
The sky is burning.
How should this be expressed?
The church people prayed for the goddess's mercy.
But the mercy and salvation they longed for did not descend.
The twin goddesses of purity and mercy, who loved humans and the world, did not reveal themselves anywhere.
Everyone said it.
Everyone spoke.
The end of the world is coming.
This is the end of the world.
‘......It’s unfair.’
Aaron gritted his teeth.
What’s the end?
What’s the apocalypse?
The days when he lost his parents as a child and relied on his sister to get by.
It was tough and painful.
But Aaron did not give up.
He did everything he could.
He went to the city and stole for a piece of bread.
He pickpocketed and offered it to the trash who called himself the leader.
Of course, Aaron, who had no skill, often got caught and beaten nearly to death.
In that way, he desperately saved money and started a business.
He sold anything he could.
Whether it was tangible or intangible.
As long as it meant he wouldn’t go hungry.
But there was his younger sister at home.
She, who had been weak since birth, found it hard to endure their harsh life.
‘What is happiness?’
When they were young, the siblings were happy.
They had parents who cared for their children.
Their father and mother were kind.
Both parents were merchants.
They traveled between nearby cities and villages, buying and selling goods.
They had a proper store in the village.
The siblings were quite well-off.
But happiness is something that can easily disperse.
On the way to the city, they encountered a band of robbers.
Their lives ended there.
‘That’s how it was.’
The siblings lost everything.
They lost all happiness.
No.
To say they were happy was merely their own illusion.
From the beginning, they were not happy.
The happiness of the weak is not happiness.
Happiness that cannot be preserved is not happiness.
‘If only Dad and Mom were strong.’
If they had the strength to defeat the robbers.
If they had spears and swords, and the skill to wield them.
Happiness would not have been stolen.
So.
‘At that time, our happiness...’
From the beginning, it was an illusion.
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