Chapter 130 :

Episode 27 : Back in Action (4)

"Sa? Why did she stop?!" Ruby bellowed as she almost fell from her branch.

At the same time, Sapphire had taken notice of Eve and JoonChul's facial expressions, including the way JoonChul was speaking through lip reading.

"Fascinating."

Despite her observation, she wasn't able to focus because of how much Ruby was ranting on and on about Eve.

"Why stop halfway?! This is killing me! Ugh!" Ruby bawled while shaking the branch a lot with her energetic body.

Having enough of it, Sapphire produced a great amount of ice cubes with her power, making them fly into Ruby one by one.

And of course, since ice cubes are like snacks to Ruby, she gladly accepted the ice cubes that floated into her mouth without her needing to move much.

Upon giving Sapphire a thumb up, Ruby complimented the ice cube's taste. "Nom. This is tasty! Can you give me more?"

When Sapphire watched how Ruby enjoyed this, she exhaled a sigh out of her lips before smiling slightly.

"How childish can you be?" She muttered.

While munching on the ice cubes, Ruby asked Sapphire with a mouth full of ice.

"So.. Did you know what Eve was trying to say?"

"Do not speak while you're eating, Ruby."

"What? I can't help it."

"Sigh.. I can't tell who Eve was greeting earlier. But I'm certain it must be the resurrected player."

"Doesn't seem like it. That guy's name is so different from the one Eve was calling. Could be she must have mistaken."

"Huh."

"Wait.. If that's that.. Ah, I got angry over nothing!" Ruby ruffled up her hair while grumbling.

Seeing how Ruby was acting, Sapphire couldn't help but shake her head with her hands covering her face completely.

"Oh, Ruby.."

"Grrrr! That's it! Can't we just leave now? The event already ended, so what's the point in staying?" Ruby groaned toward Sapphire.

Undoubtedly, Sapphire responded. "We need to report every little detail to Emerald. Did you forget that while you're here?"

"Ah.. freakin' right. I very much don't want to get a scolding again!"

"... How long will it take for you to fix your way of speaking, Ruby?"

"Incredibly long. Y'know how my personality is, too angry to change my ways."

"Ruby." Sapphire glared at Ruby with her coldest stare, enough to bring chill to Ruby's boiling hot spine.

‘I felt it through my hot layers of hotness! Gosh!’

Ruby backed away from Sapphire, but eventually, she was getting chilly by Sapphire's eyes. And as a result, Ruby instantly flew to another branch to get away from Sapphire's coldness.

"Cold as ice! Colder than ice actually!" Ruby grunted as she quivered.

And Sapphire appeared to have mistaken Ruby's words as a compliment. "Why thank you."

"Ugh…"

———

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After a little moment of me getting out of the coffin, I took a breather as I made some stretches for my body to get used to my movements.

I murmured. "My body feels so stiff."

Since I had been asleep for who knows when, my body would definitely feel like stone in that coffin.

In the meantime, I already told my comrades to prepare what they were creating, and because I got some time before doing 'that', I needed to do something with my time.

Thus, I ran around the only enormous tree in this garden as an exercise for my restless body.

‘Soon, this tree..’ I thought as I circled the tree.

Needless to say, it was a satisfactory stroll around the tree with an amazing scenery of flowers and tons of plants in my viewpoint.

And during such a pleasant stroll, I mumbled under my breath in a sullen mood.

"This won't last long."

[You! You!]

As if I just jinxed myself, I heard a voice reverberating from behind me.

"What do you want, Eve?" I asked the person at my back, still running and panting a little.

Without expecting it, Eve popped up in front of me which led me to pause my run for a short moment.

Standing there as I gazed at her, Eve was looking like she had something to say to me. Even I didn't know what was on her mind to make her very hesitant about telling me.

"Don't waste my time, Eve." I stared into her eyes with slight annoyance.

After that, Eve flinched from my glance as she pouted at me angrily, making ‘hmm’ sound to show how mad she was.

‘What's with her pouting?’ I mused, raising my eyebrow.

If we were talking about pouting, Mirai would look ten times cuter than Eve right now.

"Pfft." I hid my chuckle from Eve.

Thankfully, she didn't notice my laugh, but she did start to ask me a strange question.

[I don't know how to say this, but.. are you going to persuade me into eating that fruit again?]

What was the point in asking me that question? Could she be implying that I was going to redo my past action? Or did she already figure out my plan?

Either way, I couldn't let my plan be found out by the ‘Helpers' just yet, so I'll be blunt and say this to Eve.

"Shut up, Eve."

[Wow.. Your personality is getting worse and worse.]

"What did you expect from a man who lived a long life? Something gonna change even if you don't want it."

[I don't know what happened in this life of yours, however, I do know that you got trustworthy friends.]

The moment I heard her say that, I beamed a satisfied and contented grin on my face since I truly knew that my comrades would always be with me.

‘Always.’ I thought before resuming my run and passing Eve in the process.

By then, Eve exclaimed behind me. [Hey! What is your name this time?]

Pausing my jog for a bit, I turned my head and introduced myself once more to her.

"My name is Wang JoonChul."

For some reason when she heard my name, her expression was relaxed and normal until she turned her expression into an exultant one.

I pondered as I ignored her to get back on running. ‘Did my name make her that delightful?’

Anyways, I finally got to have my peaceful run after such a long time of staying within worlds that weren't Earth.

‘The ‘Arctic’ World, hm.. Seems like I need to worry about my guild.’ I mused.

"JoonChul-ssi."

I frowned the second I heard that voice coming from behind me, so not wanting to have a conversation, I sped up my pace to avoid him.

‘All I want is a tranquil stroll, not this.’ I scowled as I really wanted a break from all of these chaos and constant thinking.

Technically, I did have a break by having to die and nap inside a coffin for whatever duration.

But either way, that didn't count as a break since I literally ceased to exist.

"JoonChul-ssi! Wait!"

"JoonChu—"

"What?" I cut him off before stopping and turning to look at the person who was persistent to start a conversation with me.

It was obviously HwanGi, by the way.

He spoke to me. "JoonChul-ssi.. I had this question I wanted to ask you when you're back."

"And?"

HwanGi looked at me in a slight surprise as though he noticed how my personality was a bit off from my usual self.

What can I say? As a person who dies and gets reincarnated, I find it hard to reverse my personality back.

I narrowed my gaze while I told him. "Just get on with it."

"Right.. JoonChul-ssi, how many times did you die?"

"..!"

My eyebrows twitched when HwanGi, of all people was the first to discover some part about me in such a short amount of time. It was absolutely stunning to find a person who learned about me this early, since there wasn't anyone who could uncover me this quick in the past.

‘How did he..? Not even the past players who teamed up with me, discovered this. So how?’ I wondered while dazing at HwanGi.

With a brief delay, HwanGi already noticed my expression and he immediately looked directly at me with a somewhat splenetic gaze, informing me of this.

"Noel and Crystal told me some parts of their past with you. And somehow, they mentioned you in it."

By then, I thought, averting my expression back to calm and casual. ‘So that's how it is. The reason why he's giving me that angry look, is because he listened to Noel's past.’

‘No wonder he knew of my death and my blameworthy act in Noel's past.’

Shortly after, I clenched my fists the instant I thought of Noel and Noelle, along with the fact that I hadn't even confronted Noel when I had awakened from my death.

..I felt extremely guilty..

I scowled, thinking. ‘This guilt is frustrating.’

"JoonChul-ssi?" HwanGi called me.

And I didn't want to respond to him because I was trying to find the right words to reply to his question.

As if HwanGi took notice of me struggling to answer him, he told me. "If you don't want to tell me, you don't need to."

He then apologized which baffled me. "I'm sorry for asking you an odd question."

To be honest, I was more shocked by him leaving without an answer to his question, watching him walking away step by step.

"Wait a second, HwanGi-ssi." In the end, I called out to him which prompted HwanGi to halt.

"..?"

"Give me back my sword."

"Your sword?"

Seemed like he didn't know about Lucifer attaching on his waist, so clearly, I pointed toward the sword to show HwanGi what I was talking about.

‘Honestly, how did he not realize that he had a sword around him?’ I wondered when I witnessed HwanGi getting flabbergasted by my sword.

‘Maybe it wasn't a right decision to make him the guild deputy. Say.. why did I assign that role to him in the first place?’

HwanGi said before returning my sword back. "How did I not even notice this!?"

Handing it with both of his hands out, I raised my eyebrow by his action and just swiftly took Lucifer back.

"Thank you for keeping my sword safe all this time, HwanGi-ssi." I thanked him sincerely before finally continuing my stroll for the third time.

Not having a fancy to say goodbye to HwanGi nor look at him when I went back to jogging, I placed my sword back on my waist.

"How was it?" I asked while looking like I was talking to myself, I was actually waiting for someone's response.

In due course, Lucifer responded to me. ‘It was normal, Master.’

"Spare me the details later. What I want to know is—"

When my eyes caught a glimpse of Noel leaning onto the tree's trunk, I immediately and unknowingly stopped.

‘Oh, for devil's sake, why can't I have a nice jog?’ I cursed my luck.

At that moment, Noel walked up to me with nervousness written all over his face and everything about him.

Soon, he uttered slowly. "Father.. I.."

Without a doubt, I was staring at him with all my attention, hiding my subconscious guilt away with my composed posture and expression.

‘Goddamnit. Why is it so difficult to get rid of this guilt within me? Even if I stored Lucas' memories inside Lucifer, I can still feel his emotion without his memory.’

..Enraged yet guilty, I was wholly conflicted.

Needless to say, it became awkwardly quiet with both me and Noel helplessly speechless on what to say to each other.

After a long period of silence though, Crystal, who was in Noel's arms the last time I checked, had enough of this awkward silence.

In no time, Crystal bawled. "Why can't you just talk it out already?! Do you two think this is fine by keeping yourself quiet?! If Noelle were here right now, the situation would have been different by now!"

"Pfft.." I let out a chuckle by the sight of a bunny being grumpy.

Following this, Crystal growled at me furiously. "Oh ho! How can you still find this funny after all the time we spent together?"