Chapter 147 :

Episode 30 : Abominable Snowman (1)

‘I should have come quicker..’

I gritted my teeth when I realized that Frostina was suffering much more because I was busy retrieving the others.

Although Frostina may look relieved that she had escaped from the mirror's hallucinations, I could undoubtedly tell that she must be suffering inside.

..That's why I apologized earlier for my late rescue.

"My liege, you don't need to give me an apology."

As I heard her comforting voice from behind, I turned my head to look at her, noticing her beautiful grin on her pale face.

It was at that moment when we were about to return to the maze to regroup with everyone, that her smile was like a glimmer of beauty to my eyes.

‘...Am I flustered?’ I pondered, shifting my gaze away from Frostina's eyes as if I was avoiding her glance. ‘How odd..’

Immediately after that, her smile had been imprinted into my head to remind me of the adorable Frostina in the past.

Despite her grin being attractive, it could never outshine the blameworthy act of me in her past.

..Because it was my fault for her past to turn out that way..

Furrowing my eyebrows once I remembered how weak I was in my 50th reincarnation, I was frowning upon the so-called person named ‘Eric Stephen’.

The disappointment and guilt I felt, could make me want to ruin a world instantly to relieve myself, but that wouldn't even erase the fault in me.

‘Damn..’ I bit my lips.

The past has been done, so I can't do anything to redo my death and my lack of presence in Frostina's ruinous past.

..Thus, her past will always remain that way forever..

‘I'm truly the worst, aren't I?’

Not only did I fail as Frostina's friend who couldn't protect her nor was even able to give her a better future, I wasn't by her side as I promised.

And for that, she had to suffer such a past from those players…

‘And yet..’ I thought before I grinned bitterly at Frostina.

She stayed by my side to help me find the amnesty scroll and supported me through the toughest times of my lives.

I beamed a sweet smile. "Really.. I have the bestest comrades."

"And I have you, my liege." She responded with a smile as well.

———

After a short period of time, we finally got back to the maze, finding ourselves to be surrounded by our comrades.

Thrilled, Mirai exclaimed. "Big sis! You're okay!"

Once Mirai spotted Frostina, the former had swiftly jumped into the latter to give her a warm hug.

To be honest, it was more of a comforting hug to be considerate of the things our comrades went through and to tell each other that everything is fine.

‘Cute, isn't it?’ My lips curved upward pleasantly.

Another meaning can be seen from our embrace..

A hug for us that warms and comforts others, means everyone will be by their sides to handle all the hardships together.

‘Should I give Frostina a hug?’ I chuckled to myself while I watched my comrades embracing one another.

Sooner or later, the hugging section stopped after my comrades gave each other a cuddle to ease ourselves.

"Ah, here you go, captain." When she remembered, Mirai speedily handed my mask over to me.

"Thanks. Hm?"

While I was putting on my mask, Frostina, who seemed to be in a tight spot where she was still being firmly embraced by Mirai, gave me a ball of strings.

"Ah, yes." I muttered as I took the strings.

This ball of strings is quite useful. Since it was made specifically for a resistance to the maze's confusing rotating paths and slightly a reduction to its illusion.

In view of the fact that we can't ignore that this place was also a maze as well as a prison, this ball of strings which was created by Mirai's full concentration with a duration of a century, is very precious to Mirai and us.

And yet…

"Frostina, why didn't you tie the strings to your wrist? And everyone's?" I asked her.

Without expecting it, Frostina flinched the moment she heard me, moving Mirai aside before giving me an answer.

"I was distracted."

"..? That's strange."

"..I'm sorry for my incompetent."

Her expression looked as though she had gone through something when she entered the maze.

It could mostly be her past appearing in her sight the second she set foot inside the maze, and I can't blame her for that.

‘It must have been hard..’ I thought.

"Everyone makes mistak—"

Upon trying to reassure Frostina, I had been swiftly cut off by someone who I disliked but also liked as well.

"Took you long enough. Can we get our asses back to finding the exit?"

It was Asher.

"We will, but I must say, where is that guy?" I smiled with rage when I had already noticed the disappearance of Felix, the luckiest coward.

"What, huh?!"

Soon shocked, the surprised Asher jolted around to locate where Felix was, but it was to no avail.

"I gave you one job, and you failed miserably." I stared down at her with a gaze filled with irritation.

Flustered, she argued with me. "Goddamn! You know how that moron is, so don't give me that ridiculous gaze!"

"I'm just enraged, that's all."

"Damnit! When I find that asshole, I will punch him so hard!!"

Technically, I wasn't mad at all. I was actually relieved that Felix left our sights since it was already irritating keeping him by our side.

I grunted. ‘I had to literally watch a foolish man trying to impress a girl and that lady is Asher.’

In that very moment, a voice that didn't belong to me nor Asher, resounded toward us.

"Hey, mate! It seems you got back bloody fast."

..Unfortunately, it was Felix.

In a matter of moments, Asher with her obviously furious expression glared at Felix and yelled at him.

"Where the heck have you been?!"

"Beg for me and I'll tell you." Felix winked, winked.

PUNCH!

‘See what I mean? Tsk, tsk.’ I shook my head before facepalming at this sight.

That's what Felix deserved for saying stuff like those toward Asher, even after the other times he did that, he still persisted in trying to make Asher do what he wanted.

I pondered, feeling slightly stressed and annoyed. ‘I can't believe that ‘Numbers’ chose him. It would have been better if someone decent had it instead of Felix.’

No one knows about this, but when me, Asher and Felix were searching around, it was the horrific and vexing moment of this life.

Not because I was with Asher, but Felix's personality was as terrible as crap.

I sighed. ‘Does this guy never change?’

———

In the meantime, HwanGi, Alaine, Louis and Mya were sitting beside the mirrors, some were unsettled while some were making an expression of grief and regret.

"We had it rough, huh?" Louis started a conversation to enlighten the mood around them a bit.

"...Yeah." Alaine responded with a lifeless tone.

"I won't ask you about your past, if you don't ask about mine.."

"That's a deal then."

When she was trying to force a smile on her face, Alaine and the others were caught off guard by someone in their group who unexpectedly apologized to them.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?!" Louis, Alaine and Mya were greatly surprised.

Mya, who was saddened by this, had held HwanGi's arm firmly. "Uncle.. Why are you apologizing?"

"Because I was the first to disappear.. If I hadn't, maybe this won't happen."

"HwanGi, as your friend and the person who stands by your side, I hate it very much when I see you blaming yourself for every mistake or situation."

A tone of solemnness had left through Alaine's lips as she spoke sincerely, along with her serious eyes directed at HwanGi's fazed gaze, she was truly being stranger than her usual self.

‘Is this Alaine..?’ HwanGi wondered shockingly.

In addition, HwanGi wasn't the only one who was baffled by Alaine's seriousness.

There was Louis who was agaped by her charm, blushing when he heard how cool she just sounded.

‘Amazing.’ Louis glanced at Alaine from how impressive she was.

Not only that, there was also Mya who had described Alaine as the type of sister who protected, and she would lie about her injury to stop others from worrying.

Of course, Mya also enjoyed Alaine's joyfulness, but when she saw how serious she looked, Mya was surprised.

‘Sister Alaine is so spectacular..’ Sparkling eyes as Mya dazed at Alaine, she gasped.

Anyhow, HwanGi muttered. "Uh.."

Entirely at a loss for words, HwanGi was ill at ease or more likely he was too flabbergasted that he didn't know what to do in this situation.

"I'll make sure not to do it again?" Finally, HwanGi more or less replied to Alaine's words.

"That's great!"

Eventually, Alaine's solemn face soon turned to that of delight and high-spirited, grinning as if she didn't say those words earlier.

"Have you guys recovered?"

All of the sudden, a person had stood in front of these four when the voice echoed to their ears, shifting their gazes up only to find that it was JoonChul.

In due course, Louis was the one who answered for everyone's behalf. "We're fine."

"I'm not talking about physical injuries. I meant your mentality."

"That.."

"Seems like we'll be taking a break for now. Let's stop here."

"Are you kidding?! The mirror will capture us again, we should just leave right now!"

"It's alright. There's a cool down until the mirror sends us back into its hallucinations. So we may as well get ourselves relaxed while we can."

"We could just use this window of opportunities to find the exit!"

"When I said no, I meant it. Relax while I go cook us something to eat."

"Hold on a minute..!"

When JoonChul had already gotten to his comrades' side, he had quickly tossed a long string toward Louis.

"Tie this on your wrist right now, it's necessary." JoonChul instructed them.

Because Louis didn't like how JoonChul just left like that without being reasoned with, he frowned in slight rage while he tied his wrist with the string.

Alaine let out a sigh. "Really.. I can't understand him at all."

At the same time, the others also followed what Louis did, and had wrapped the string onto their wrists.

..And it almost looked like they were connected to each other, since it was only one string, they wondered where it ended.

"Where does the string end..? Hm? Oh!"

Upon realizing that JoonChul's comrades had the same strings as them, they kept looking for the one who had the other end of the string only to notice that the string ended on JoonChul.

‘Makes sense since he's the leader.’ Louis exhaled a frustrated sigh.

Still vexed by JoonChul, Louis found another question to ask. "What is this string for anyway? Why can't he just tell us already?"

"He only said it's important, so I guess we should trust him?" Alaine spoke, eyelids falling slowly.

"But that's not the point, why aren't we leaving this place? We have already experienced enough."

"At least we can have some snacks while we rest a bit. To be honest, I'm sleepy right now." Alaine yawned before she dozed off a little bit, nodding her head in the process.

"Alain—"

Thud.

"Eh..?"

When Louis tried to talk to Alaine, he suddenly saw her head falling onto his lap because she had already fallen asleep at that moment.

At that point, Louis' cheeks were changing to red as he looked down to see Alaine resting so quietly that she made him smile a little.

"What am I going to do now with you on my lap?" Louis grumbled even though he was liking it.

"Big brother Louis, why are your cheeks red?" Mya unexpectedly asked Louis a question that would be hard to tell a child.

Needless to say, Louis struggled miserly as he tried to come up with a reasonable lie. "I am… just.. sick. Yeah, that's right, I have a cold right now."

‘Merde! I just lied to her!’ Louis averted his gaze away to avoid Mya's innocent eyes.

"Oh no! Are you cold?! What should I do to help..?" Mya, seeming concerned by the supposedly 'sick' Louis, frowned.

‘Oh god. What have I done? I made it even worse by lying!’ Louis thought.

It was then that the conversation was interrupted by HwanGi. "Mya, Louis is just feeling cold from the breeze. He's strong, so no need to worry."

"Really? Then that's a relief.. whew."

‘Phew, thank you, HwanGi.’ Louis, staring at HwanGi with gratitude, gave him a thumbs up.