Chapter 26: What Happened Last Night?

Darkness surrounded Zeldryn once again, leaving him unable to see or hear anything. This time, however, he recognized the sensation. Before experiencing those endlessly repeating lives as Reka, his consciousness had sunk into this same darkness after unbearable pain struck his lower abdomen and his vision gradually disappeared.

Now he was there again, but something was different.

Warmth surrounded his entire body. It wasn't the oppressive heat that had filled his room the previous night, nor did it feel as though he were burning. Instead, the sensation was comfortable, almost as if his entire body had been wrapped in something soft. There was no pain or pressure, only a soothing warmth that made him reluctant to move.

For a while, Zeldryn wanted nothing more than to remain there, but the longer he stayed within that warmth, the clearer his consciousness became. Eventually, the urge to wake up began overcoming his desire to remain still.

His eyelids felt unusually heavy. Zeldryn tried opening them once and failed, but when he tried again, a faint trace of light entered his vision. With another effort, both of his eyes finally opened.

“Hm...?”

A small sound escaped his mouth as his blurry vision gradually adjusted. The first thing he saw was a ceiling, but it wasn't the plain ceiling of Reka's rented room. There was no light fixture or any of the simple features he had spent years seeing every morning before getting ready for work.

The ceiling above him was much higher and far more luxurious, covered in details that felt incredibly familiar. Zeldryn blinked several times and stared at it until his awareness finally returned completely.

“My room...” he muttered quietly.

There was no mistake. This was Zeldryn Giorry's room inside the Giorry family's border mansion.

He really was back.

Memories of what he had just experienced immediately surfaced one after another. He remembered the loops and Reka's endlessly repeating lives, the mysterious woman, the novel, the phone, the READ button, and the black figure with blue hair and blue eyes who had repeatedly asked him to return to her.

Zeldryn continued staring at the ceiling for several seconds before raising one hand and covering part of his face.

“After all that... that was seriously fucking weird.”

He still didn't fully understand what had happened. Part of him wondered whether the entire experience had simply been a dream, but it had felt far too real for him to dismiss it that easily. He could still remember decades of life inside those loops, including children he had never truly had, the house he had lived in, his career, the woman's face, and even what it felt like to die at the age of eighty-three before waking up and repeating everything again.

Zeldryn slowly rubbed his face.

'Don't tell me everyone who tries to understand mana experiences some kind of false awakening like that?'

Only a few seconds passed before even he realized how strange that conclusion sounded. He had absolutely no basis for assuming that the experience was something every Manholer went through, and it was entirely possible that what happened had nothing to do with mana at all.

Even so, the timing was difficult to ignore. Zeldryn had attempted to absorb mana, watched the particles disappear one by one, and then experienced unbearable pain beneath his navel before losing consciousness. Immediately afterward, all of that insanity had begun.

He stared at the ceiling again.

“Then who the hell was that woman?”

The figure had spoken as though she knew him, and not merely in the casual sense. She had acted as though she knew things even Zeldryn himself didn't understand. She said she didn't want to share him with other women, claimed to have waited for him for an incredibly long time, and then there was the final sentence she had tried to say before he pressed the button.

Zeldryn frowned as he recalled it.

'I even came back from the futu...'

“The future?” he muttered.

He had no idea whether she had been telling the truth or simply saying whatever she could to stop him. Unfortunately, he currently had no way to investigate any of it. The more he thought about the woman and what had happened inside that strange place, the more questions appeared.

Zeldryn released a long sigh.

“Seriously... can't I get even one day off?”

He had only been in this world for a short time, yet his body had already been beaten half to death. There were problems involving the Giorry family, the situation with Henry and Aeglo, his complete lack of practical knowledge about mana, and now some mysterious woman was appearing inside a dream, illusion, or whatever that place had actually been.

Zeldryn briefly closed his eyes.

“Whatever. I'll think about it later.”

For now, being back inside his room was more important. He opened his eyes again and moved one hand to the side, only then noticing the surface beneath his body.

Zeldryn went silent.

The surface was soft.

He was lying on his bed.

“Wait.”

The last thing Zeldryn remembered before losing consciousness was sitting in his chair. When the pain struck, one of his hands had been gripping the edge of the table, and even as his vision disappeared, he had still been there.

So why was he lying in bed now?

Zeldryn gripped the side of the mattress and began pushing himself upright. Instinctively, he prepared for the pain he expected to follow. His back had been covered in bruises, there was a wound on his chest, his neck had still been injured, and cuts covered various parts of his body. After whatever had happened the previous night, he expected lifting himself from the bed to hurt even more than usual.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He slowly pushed himself upward until he was sitting.

Then he stopped.

There was no pain.

Zeldryn remained still for a moment, waiting for the familiar aches to appear, but nothing happened. He cautiously turned his neck to the right and then to the left before moving his shoulders, arms, waist, and legs. Not even the slightest ache followed any of those movements.

“What?” Zeldryn muttered.

His body felt fresh, and not merely because the pain was gone. It felt as though he had just awakened from a long, deep sleep with a completely healthy body. There was no heaviness, exhaustion, or any trace of the discomfort that had accompanied nearly every movement he had made over the past few days.

Zeldryn stared at both hands as he moved his fingers one by one. He clenched one hand into a fist, opened it again, and then repeated the movement.

“It seriously doesn't hurt?”

Still confused, he stood from the bed and placed both feet on the floor. Zeldryn deliberately rose slightly faster than he normally would have since being injured, but once again, no pain appeared.

His confusion only deepened.

He looked around the room. The table, chair, candle, and window were all exactly where he remembered them, and nothing immediately seemed different.

There was, however, one fact he couldn't ignore.

Someone had moved him.

Zeldryn looked back at the bed. The last thing he remembered was losing consciousness near the table. If he had awakened here, then someone must have entered the room and carried him to the bed.

'Who?'

His thoughts immediately returned to the rule Hera had explained earlier. The old Zeldryn had forbidden servants from entering his room without permission unless they were cleaning, changing the sheets, replacing candles, or performing some other necessary task. The servants wouldn't even dare enter merely to deliver food.

So who had been willing to enter while he was unconscious?

Maybe someone had heard him screaming. If that was the case, Hera could have found him, but it could just as easily have been another servant or one of the guards. Zeldryn had no way of knowing.

He shifted his attention toward the table.

Something immediately felt wrong.

Zeldryn walked several steps closer. The papers were still on the table, and the pen he had used the previous night remained beside them, but the moment his eyes settled on the sheets, he stopped.

“My notes?”

He immediately approached the table and picked up the first sheet.

It was blank.

Zeldryn flipped it over before grabbing another page. That one was empty as well. He continued checking the papers one by one, but none contained the list he had written the previous night.

Everything was gone.

There was nothing about his body or mana, nothing concerning the Giorry family or the mansion, and none of the notes he had made about money, language, or writing.

Zeldryn stared at the table for a long moment. The pen remained exactly where he remembered leaving it, and the papers were still there, yet the sheet containing his notes was nowhere to be found.

“Shit...”

He crouched and checked beneath the table before searching the floor around the chair. There was nothing there either.

“Why does something mysterious always have to happen to me?” Zeldryn complained as his irritation grew.

He straightened and rubbed his head.

“Fucking hell.”

If someone had moved him to the bed, perhaps that same person had taken his notes.

Then another possibility entered his mind.

Had they read them first?

Zeldryn immediately fell silent.

That could be a problem.

The notes didn't directly reveal that he was Reka, but several of the things he had written clearly weren't subjects the old Zeldryn should have needed to investigate. The notes about language and writing were especially suspicious.

He tried remembering exactly what had been on the missing sheet, but that only reminded him of another problem. Zeldryn had written everything using the alphabet he knew from his previous world, and he still hadn't confirmed whether people here used the same writing system.

The more he considered the situation, the more uncomfortable he became.

'Who came into this room last night?'

There was obviously no answer.

Zeldryn examined the room again, searching for signs that someone had gone through his belongings. Nothing appeared disturbed. No objects had been scattered around, and the table looked almost exactly the same as it had before he passed out.

Only his notes were missing.

Zeldryn sighed. It was yet another problem he would eventually have to investigate, but as he rubbed his face in frustration, his hand suddenly stopped against his cheek.

The skin felt smooth.

He touched it again more carefully.

There was no pain, swelling, or wound.

Zeldryn froze.

He had been so distracted by the missing notes that he had nearly forgotten the strangest thing about waking up.

His body had healed.

Zeldryn immediately turned toward the mirror and quickly crossed the room. His steps were no longer slowed by pain, and when he reached the mirror and raised his face, his eyes widened.

“What the fuck...?”

The reflection was still unmistakably Zeldryn Giorry. He still had pitch-black hair, yellowish-orange eyes, and the same sharp, slender facial features.

But there was one enormous difference.

Every bruise was gone.

The red and blue discoloration that had covered parts of his face had completely disappeared, along with the wounds that should have remained around them. Zeldryn leaned closer to the mirror and tilted his head first to the right and then to the left.

He pressed a hand against his cheek before touching the places that had previously been wounded. There was no pain, no mark, and no visible trace that an injury had ever existed there.

“Is this for real?”

Zeldryn carefully inspected his face again, but nothing changed. His skin looked as though those injuries had never existed in the first place.

Questions immediately filled his mind.

'How did everything suddenly heal?'

His thoughts returned to the previous night. He remembered the mana particles disappearing, the unbearable pain below his navel, and finally losing consciousness.

'Was it because of the mana last night?'

Zeldryn wasn't ready to conclude that mana was responsible, but right now, it was the only unusual event directly connected to what had happened to his body.

Then another possibility occurred to him.

He looked down.

“If my face healed... then what about the rest of my body?”

Zeldryn immediately removed his upper clothing, pulling the fabric over his head before tossing it nearby. When he turned toward the mirror again, he stopped in disbelief.

It was true.

Nothing remained.

The red and blue bruises that had previously covered his body were gone, and the cuts caused by sharp objects had vanished with them. Even wounds that had already dried and formed scabs had disappeared completely.

Zeldryn turned his body slightly while running his hands across his chest, stomach, shoulders, and every other area he could reach. There was no pain, no rough texture from healing wounds, and no scars left behind. His skin looked completely normal.

“Holy shit...” he muttered while staring at his reflection.

His hand moved toward his abdomen, particularly the area just below his navel where the worst pain had originated the previous night. There was no wound, swelling, or mark there either.

Zeldryn pressed the area lightly.

Still nothing.

“What the hell happened last night?”

He was so focused on examining his body that he failed to notice the faint sound behind him as the bedroom door slowly creaked open.

Zeldryn remained in front of the mirror with his upper body exposed, his attention still fixed on the skin that had somehow become completely free of injuries.

Then a voice came from the doorway.

“Um... please forgive my intrusion, Young Lord Zeldryn.”

Zeldryn immediately stopped moving.

That wasn't Hera's voice.

“May I have a moment of your time?” the person continued.

Zeldryn flinched before quickly turning toward the door.

“Huh?!”

A man stood in the doorway. He was fairly tall, perhaps around one hundred and eighty centimeters or slightly taller by Zeldryn's estimate, and wore a clean white robe that looked much neater than the clothing worn by the mansion guards. His hair was black and cut in a style that reminded Zeldryn of the two-block hairstyle commonly seen in the modern world, while a pair of glasses rested on his face.

Zeldryn stared at him for several seconds.

The man was completely unfamiliar. No fragments of memory surfaced when Zeldryn looked at him, and nothing from the novel made him recognize the man's face either.

Yet this stranger was now standing in the doorway of his room while Zeldryn was still shirtless.

“Huh? Who are you?” Zeldryn asked instinctively, staring at the man in the white robe.