Chapter 1683 - 1683: Epilogue 29 - The End of the Beginning (9)

Before I arrived in this world, my previous life had ended because I was struck by a speeding taxi.

Part of the accident had been my own fault because I had been holding my phone against my ear while crossing a pedestrian crossing.

Obviously, that wasn't exactly the smartest thing I had ever done.

Still, the taxi driver had seemed to have been completely out of it, and I didn't have much chance to react before the vehicle hit me.

I wasn't particularly grateful for how things had turned out.

If anything, I had hated that life long before it ended.

I hated my wife.

I hated my job.

I hated the monotonous routine I had been trapped inside.

Most of all, I hated the feeling that I was simply wasting my life without getting anything meaningful out of it.

Compared to that, my current life was far more interesting.

It was more powerful.

It was more entertaining.

I had abilities that I could never have imagined possessing on Earth, and the possibilities available to me were practically endless.

I could accomplish things that would have been completely impossible in my previous life.

Unfortunately, there were still certain people who refused to make things easy for me.

Leona happened to be one of them.

I looked toward the direction she had disappeared.

"She's certainly a troublesome woman," I muttered.

After saying that, I finally turned away from the painting.

"You are here again, huh, woman?"

I looked behind me.

A black-haired woman was standing there. Not Leona, of course. Someone else.

She appeared to be in her early twenties, although there was something about her presence that made her seem considerably older than her appearance suggested.

She always wore that same fucking smile.

It was the kind of smile that somehow managed to irritate me simply by existing.

For years, I had wanted to wipe that expression off her face.

"Is that really something you should be saying to the person who reincarnated you into this world?" she asked.

I stared at her.

She had a point.

Before I died on Earth, while I was lying on the road and bleeding from my injuries, this woman had appeared in front of me.

I could barely move at the time.

My vision had already started fading, and I wasn't even sure whether I was still going to survive.

She approached me and gently held me for a moment.

Then she whispered something into my ear.

"It's okay. You'll be fine."

Those were the last words I remembered hearing before everything went dark.

When I eventually woke up, I was in this world.

At first, I had absolutely no idea what was happening.

I was confused.

I was angry.

I had no idea where I was, who the people around me were, or why everything looked completely different from anything I had known on Earth.

I remember lashing out and shouting at everyone around me because I genuinely thought something had gone horribly wrong. But there was no one around me for some reason.

Then I looked down at myself.

I was a child.

My head was bleeding, and there was an injury that looked as though someone had struck me with a stone.

That was when I started putting the pieces together.

The original body of this child had already been abandoned.

Whether the original soul had disappeared, died, or simply ceased to exist was something I still couldn't say with absolute certainty.

Whatever the case, I had taken over the body.

Somehow, I had been given another life.

This world became my new home.

The woman standing before me now was the same person I had seen immediately before my death on Earth.

After she appeared before me on Earth, the moment I woke up in this world, she immediately appeared before me again, healed me, and then disappeared before I could properly understand who she was.

After that, she would occasionally appear before me.

Sometimes months would pass.

Sometimes years would pass.

She never seemed particularly concerned about explaining herself.

She would simply appear, say something cryptic, and disappear again.

This time, however, was different.

I hadn't seen her in years.

"Why are you here?" I finally asked.

"My purpose for coming here has now been completed," she replied.

She spoke calmly, almost casually, as though she were discussing something that wasn't particularly important.

"And I am here to take up the slack."

I frowned.

I wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that.

"What exactly are you talking about?"

She continued smiling.

"Carl..."

She paused before correcting herself.

"No, Shigeru."

Hearing my old name immediately caught my attention.

She knew exactly who I had been before I came here.

She had known me when I was dying.

She had watched me take my final breath on Earth.

"The twilight is near," she said.

Her expression became slightly more serious.

"You have to become Lilith's vessel."

I stared at her without saying anything.

"As soon as possible," she added.

"I didn't think you would come looking for me because of something like that," I said. "Honestly, I was starting to believe that I probably wouldn't see you again, and that you'd simply disappear from my life without giving me any explanation."

"Well, here I am again," she replied with a faint smile. "It seems I managed to surprise you after all."

"I can certainly see that," I said. "Although, I'll admit that I'm grateful you reincarnated me into this world. Compared to the place I originally came from, this world is infinitely better in a lot of ways. Still, I wouldn't exactly call you some kind of benefactor, and I don't need you showing up whenever you feel like it just to tell me what I should be doing."

I looked directly at her.

"I'm already involved in an actual war right now. Do you honestly think I have the time or patience to worry about whatever nonsense you're trying to drag me into?"

"Nonsense, huh?" she asked with an amused smile.

The expression on her face made it obvious that she wasn't offended in the slightest. If anything, she looked like she was enjoying my irritation more than she probably should have.

"I don't think it's nonsense at all," she continued. "Actually, if you think about the situation carefully, there's a very good reason for what I'm suggesting."