Chapter 72: I want to be happy too

Roger blinked slowly and quietly as he listened to those strange, ambiguous words from this man who resembled him perfectly. Making logical decisions? Cryptic, bizarre words, and features completely identical to his own.

At that moment, Roger thought for a split second that these were definitely the symptoms of absolute madness. He felt he had lost his mind a long time ago, but what was happening now seemed like an explicit confirmation of it.

Surely, this person was nothing but an illusion, a mirage conjured by his exhausted mind as a defense mechanism. This was the only logical explanation; his body was teetering right on the edge after ignoring all signs of fatigue and exhaustion and burning his magical core.

The man was telling him: "Stop searching."

How could a stranger possess this secret information—that he was looking for his mistress—other than his own mind?

It was his subconscious mind, without a doubt, playing psychological tricks on him to force him to stop. After all, no one in this world would suddenly appear out of nowhere in the middle of a dark street to hurl such advice at you, as if he were the legendary mountain sage advising the hero to be wise in children’s fairy tales!

What next? Would he tell him that he is the chosen one to save the world? Or even more ridiculously, would he inform him that this man is "himself" who has somehow come from the future to advise him? Although this final possibility seemed logical in the context of the absurd, its occurrence was absolutely impossible in this world.

Suddenly, a flashing thought struck Roger’s weary mind: since he was now facing his subconscious—or more accurately, that cowardly part of him that refused to continue and demanded surrender—if he could bypass it and defeat it psychologically, wouldn’t that mean he would completely break his psychological shackles? Wouldn’t it mean he would continue his path without feeling this fatal mental fatigue?

At that moment, a mocking smile etched across Roger’s lips:

"You tell me to stop searching... but at the same time, you say you know I won’t stop. What difference does it make then? Do you want me to abandon her after everything I’ve done? If you are a traitor, I am nothing like you! You are the traitor who surely killed her because you didn’t tell her the truth about the betrayal. You are the coward. As for me, I will never be a traitor again!"

Roger confidently believed he was addressing his own mind; this man seemed to know exactly what Roger meant. He was now raving to himself aloud, and surely, if a stranger passed by at this moment and saw a tattered man talking to a mirage, they would pity his state and think him a lunatic.

But the expression of the man standing before him suddenly shifted into a total frown.

The smile vanished from the man’s face, and a dense black aura, resembling liquid tar of darkness, began to flow violently from his black suit, staining the air with the scent of death.

"Roger... do not call me a traitor!" the man roared in a low tone, yet it shook the very depths of the place. "I did all of this to let her be happy! I have lived for thousands of years, Roger, and when I saw her again... I was the one who allowed her to be killed once more and did not intervene, because I knew with absolute certainty that she needed to be happy! I am the one who transferred her soul into the body of that man’s daughter so she could have a peaceful life... I never exploited her, and I never betrayed her!"

Roger continued to convince himself that his mind was hallucinating; surely these were just flimsy justifications crafted by his cowardly mind to wash its hands of what it had committed. This was the only explanation, wasn’t it? But the man did not stop talking; instead, he took a step forward, his black aura growing more massive:

"I did this because I wanted to make her happy, Roger... believe me! There was no other way. After thousands of years, I still haven’t been able to break out of the cocoon of the cowardly Roger to tell her everything... I am too afraid that she won’t believe my story! Why are you always so stupid? Why do I not have the right to be happy again through you? You are my only hope... my last hope to be with her again! I sacrificed my very existence from the future, and everything I owned to be here in this time... Do you realize the magnitude of this sacrifice?!"

Silence dominated the area. Suddenly, Roger felt something amiss; the man’s words carried a tone of genuine, profoundly deep sorrow—the tone of a man who possessed overwhelming power yet stood helpless before fate. Roger did not understand the point of this nonsense, but the raw emotion poured into that voice shook his pride.

The man in the black suit continued speaking, his eyes gleaming with a dark brilliance as he placed his hand on Roger’s shoulder: "I am greedy, Roger. I appeared here because it wasn’t enough for me to just see her happy alone... I wanted to be happy with her too! You are surely the only one who must understand me!"

But Roger, at the absolute peak of his exhaustion, did not want to hear any more of this rubbish. He weakly extended his hand and pushed the man’s hand away from his shoulder:

"I’ve heard enough nonsense for today. Get out of my way."

Roger completely ignored him, passing past him and continuing his trek through the dark streets, indifferent to the existence of this entity behind him.

The man shouted from behind him in a decisive voice: "Go to 21 Mayres Street on the eastern side... and you will find her there!"

Roger did not look back, nor did he want to listen to the ramblings of his weary mind ever again. Simply... he ignored the words and continued his path, leaning with a trembling hand against the cold walls, walking through the empty streets devoid of humans... alone, as was his custom.

But he failed to notice something; the man behind him did not vanish like an illusion. Instead, he remained standing in his place, a solitary black mass in the dark street.

"I must not let this fool die of exhaustion searching in vain..." the man muttered to himself.

He slowly removed his black glove and looked at his palm; his hand was cracking and disintegrating into gray light particles, gradually and slowly swept away by the wind.

"It seems I will not be able to last long in this era..."

The man in the black suit felt a profound helplessness as he contemplated his fading body; he felt that even after everything he had done and endured, he would ultimately fail to achieve his selfish goal.

Suddenly... the air froze completely, and the temperature plummeted to zero in a fraction of a second.

"Who are you?"

The voice came sharp, like an icy blade from behind his head, and with it, a sword’s edge settled, radiating a terrifying, supernatural violet aura. A blade that nearly grazed the back of his neck.

From the midst of the darkness, a woman appeared with long white hair flowing like a waterfall, and eyes beaming with highly destructive and dangerous violet energy. She gripped the hilt of her sword tightly, pointing it toward the man in the black suit, her body overflowing with limitless killing intent.

It was... Lucy Montgrad!