ALL NOVEL The dream continued.
This time, it wasn’t the memory of when I was ■■■, but rather the memory after I had possessed Ichilbok’s body.
However, the content was a bit different from what I knew.
It was the same in that I adapted to an unfamiliar village after possessing Ichilbok’s body and worked odd jobs at Elder Eom Baekhyun’s clinic to survive, but everything changed completely after rescuing Dokgorin from the water and entering the Dokgo household.
To highlight a few of the biggest differences, Dokgorin’s mature personality had turned into that of a naive child her age, or that she got along really well with her second brother, Dokgoseok, or that she no longer made habitual comments about marrying me.
At this point, I realized that this was the memory from my first playthrough.
I watched as someone with the same face and personality as me struggled alone in various ways to save Dokgorin, who was destined to be unhappy in the future.
However, knowing future information did not make it possible to change an already predetermined outcome.
On the day of Dokgorin’s coming-of-age ceremony, Weijichun and the black-suited men annihilated the Dokgo family, and Dokgorin and I, who had barely hidden in the underground training hall, escaped the mansion and wandered for nearly ten years.
Weijichun’s obsession with Dokgorin was truly close to madness, so I couldn’t even seek refuge with Tang Hochang, who was in the same province.
In a situation where we had no one to rely on but each other, it was only natural that Dokgorin would develop such feelings for ‘me.’
But we couldn’t escape forever, and an end eventually came.
While Dokgorin was away, I was captured by Weijichun’s minions, and even under harsh torture, I held out until the end without revealing Dokgorin’s whereabouts.
When Dokgorin finally found where I was trapped, she held me, with the spark of life fading from me, and cried sorrowfully, but all I could do was tell her not to feel guilty while wiping her tears.
That was the end of the first playthrough, as the hand that was wiping away tears lost its strength and fell to the ground.
*
‘…….’
To be honest, it was a complex mix of emotions in many ways.
I never knew I would verify fragments of the past this way, even though I couldn’t remember them.
‘I now understand a bit why Rin is so attached to me.’
If I had known about such a past, I would have treated her more kindly on a regular basis.
I regretted it too late, but it was already too late.
As the memories of my previous life scattered like a panorama, the surroundings were enveloped in complete darkness.
But it wasn’t particularly scary.
Unless it stemmed from a comforting feeling of returning to my mother’s amniotic fluid.
‘How long has it been since I entered this space?’
The last thing I remember is the moment I got stabbed in the abdomen by Yangbang instead of Dokgorin.
After that, I came straight to this space.
Logically speaking, there’s no way a ‘dream’ could feel this vivid, but I decided to just believe it was a dream.
It would be easier for my mental state to cope that way.
‘I hope Rin is alive. And Sosso and Ruby too.’
I worried about the well-being of others, but for now, there was no way to confirm it.
At least, the fortunate part of being in this space was that I could completely forget about the concept of time.
Whether a very short time or a very long time, it all felt the same when I was here.
‘What’s going to happen to me now?’
Am I going to be buried in darkness and blend into it?
Or am I going to what people often call the afterlife?
There was also the possibility of incarnating into another person’s body.
While I was lost in thought, it happened suddenly.
‘Huh?’
Amidst the pitch-black darkness, a tiny light suddenly appeared.
I turned my head to see what was going on, and a rabbit wrapped in white light was staring at me intently.
‘A rabbit?’
It was so out of the blue.
However, the rabbit that unexpectedly appeared from the darkness scratched its neck with its hind legs and gazed at me with its bright eyes.
As if telling me to follow it.
Then the rabbit turned its back and began walking somewhere.
I hesitated for a moment, but realizing that staying still would lead to no outcome, I started to follow the rabbit.
How long had it been since I began to walk after the rabbit?
At some point, I found myself standing in front of a shining door.
The rabbit that brought me here glanced at me before forcing itself through the slightly open crack of the door.
‘…Should I go in?’
I didn’t know where that door led, but for some reason, I felt compelled to go inside.
So I boldly stepped through the door where the rabbit had just entered.
At that very moment,
“Ugh!!”
I opened my eyes in bed.
*
“Where am I…?”
It was a place I had never seen before.
I thought I had just barely escaped from a completely dark space, and now I found myself in an entirely unfamiliar place.
Wondering if I was still dreaming, I pinched my own cheek, but the sharp pain confirmed that this was reality.
Creeeak!
Just then, the firmly closed door swung open, and a short person entered the room.
“Oh? You’re already awake?”
With a bright voice, in came a girl with light blue hair.
I thought Dokgorin’s fluorescent green hair was eye-catching, but this girl’s hair color was no less striking.
However, there was one element that drew even more attention, and that was the pair of ‘rabbit ears’ sprouting from the top of her head.
Perky!
As if she noticed my gaze, the pair of long ears moved whimsically.
‘…Could they be real?’
Since coming to this world, I thought I had seen a lot of crazy things, but this time, it was truly shocking.
After all, it was the first time I had seen something that was ‘not human.’
As I gazed at her with curiosity, the girl seemed to notice my stare and pointed at the white rabbit ears on her head with her palm.
“Please don’t stare so much; it’s embarrassing.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
As I hurriedly lowered my head, she said it was okay and set down what she was holding on the ground.
What she brought was a typical mortar seen in a pharmacy.
With skilled hands, she peeled the paper covering the lid and poured the contents into a bowl.
“Drink it all down.”
She offered me a bowl of a black liquid sloshing inside as she said that.
Taken aback, I received the bowl and, holding it with both hands respectfully, asked her.
“What, what kind of medicine is this?”
“It’s a medicine that heals injured spirits and enhances the body’s natural healing abilities.”
“Spirit? Natural healing abilities?”
She seemed to be throwing around some difficult terms that were hard to understand, but it seemed like it was a medicine good for my body.
“…Well then, I’ll drink it well.”
Steeling myself, I gulped down the black liquid in the bowl.
‘Ugh—’
As expected, it tasted terrible, but out of gratitude for the effort put into making the medicine, I swallowed it all without spitting it out.
After finishing, I felt a warm sensation in my stomach.
‘They say good medicine tastes bitter.’
Feeling as if my stamina was already being restored, I handed the empty bowl back to the girl, and she passed me a peach, saying it was for a palate cleanser.
Since I was feeling quite hungry, I quickly devoured the peach, and the girl stood up, saying.
“There are your companions who brought you here. Now that you’re awake, I’ll let them know.”
“Oh, thank you.”
As I said that and bowed my head, she smiled lightly and said it was okay before taking the empty mortar and bowl and leaving the room.
Once the room fell silent again, I finally had a moment to look around.
‘Is this some kind of cabin?’
It felt quite rough and humble for being in or even near a castle town.
They must have brought me to a pharmacy on the outskirts to treat my wounds from Yangbang.
‘So, was that rabbit-eared girl some kind of healer?’
I thought it was a pretty reasonable deduction when suddenly,
Bang!
“Chilbok!!”
The door swung open, and Dokgorin rushed into the room.
“Rin?”
When I stared at her with a dazed expression, Dokgorin came running over with a teary-eyed face and threw herself into my arms.
It was slightly bewildering, but while I held her in my embrace and patted her back, another figure entered the room.
“Oh, you’re already warm right after waking up.”
The one who entered was none other than Baek Yujin.
“How long have I been lying here?”
I felt like I’d been in that black space for a considerable time.
But since it was a dream, time couldn’t be measured proportionally.
So I was thinking at most a week had passed, but Baek Yujin calmly said.
“You really know nothing at all. You’ve been lying in bed for a whole month after being critically injured by that Yangbang guy.”
“…What?”
I’ve been lying down for a whole month?!