The World After the Bad Ending - Chapter 67



66 – The Real Hanon Appears

On the beach path during summer vacation.

I was running, facing a boy.

A boy who looked exactly like me.

“Seeing you up close is surprising. You really look just like me.”

The real Hanon smiled at me as if he found it fascinating.

“I’ve heard various rumors about me. They call me a lightning brat, don’t they?”

I hesitated.

That was a bit embarrassing.

I had tarnished his reputation.

“Pff, it’s okay, it’s okay. I don’t really care how I’m called.

Rather, it was fun to empathize with your exploits. Because of that.”

Hanon’s red eyes stared straight at me.

“I’m dying to know your true identity.”

Hanon started to increase his pace.

Realizing Hanon’s intention, I frowned.

I reached out to grab Hanon.

But Hanon easily dodged my arm with his flexible body.

Damn it, this guy’s evasion is maxed out!

Hanon’s unique trait is [Evasion].

He has insane reflexes that even dodge magical attacks.

If he made up his mind, even I wouldn’t be easy to catch.

“So, I’m going to find out for myself! Today, I’m going to enjoy your life for a day!”

“Wait…”

Before I could say more, Hanon ran into the midst of the children training in the morning.

Chasing him here would only complicate things.

“Damn.”

I had no choice but to turn around and enter the bushes.

Then I untied the bandages of the veil.

My true face was revealed.

As I tied the bandages again, my face quickly changed.

I soon transformed into a person who wouldn’t seem out of place anywhere in this world.

It was my original appearance from the real world.

With this appearance, it wouldn’t matter who saw me.

I roughly dressed in the attire of a beach worker and kicked off the ground.

While I was changing the bandages of the veil, Hanon had quickly run off and disappeared.

He wasn’t someone who had invested in agility for nothing.

He was incredibly swift.

“Hanon would know what I’ve been doing all this time.”

As much as he said he wanted to live my life.

He would surely go to find the people I was involved with.

There are four people closely related to me in Aaron Sea.

Isabel, Sharin, Hania, and Iris.

“It’s not Iris.”

Hanon didn’t act thoughtlessly.

If he went to find Iris, who knows what might happen.

Moreover, Hanon had a subtle fear towards Iris.

“Then it wouldn’t be Hania either.”

Hania stays by Iris’s side all day long.

Naturally excluded.

“What’s left is…”

Isabel and Sharin, just the two of them.

My steps quickly moved towards the room where they stayed.

I arrived in front of their room and took a light breath.

Hanon was nowhere to be seen near the room.

Instead, the surroundings were extremely quiet.

That made it all the more eerie.

It felt like the calm before the storm.

In the tension, I raised my hand.

Knock, knock-

Then I knocked twice.

“Yes.”

With the voice that came from inside, someone walked out.

There was a familiar face at the door that opened with a clatter.

It was Mina, Isabel’s friend.

She tilted her head when she saw me in my staff uniform.

“What is it?”

Hanon is not inside.

If Hanon were there, Mina wouldn’t be so calm.

“A message has come for Sharin Sazarith. It’s from the Blue Tower.”

“The Blue Tower?”

Mina’s eyes widened.

“Just a moment.”

She ran inside.

Then I heard her waking someone up.

“Lin, Sharin! There’s a message from the Blue Tower! Wake up!”

“Ughhh.”

Sharin, who was a heavy sleeper, was dragged out by Mina.

Sharin, still groggy from sleep, stared blankly at me.

Judging by her face, she didn’t seem to have a hangover.

Well, she had thrown up everything, so there was no way she could have a hangover.

Sharin, who had been staring blankly at me for a while, tilted her head to the side.

“…Hmm?”

Sharin can see through the bandages of the veil via Mirinae.

She wouldn’t be able to see the face inside, though.

She would have immediately recognized that it was me.

And if she’s as smart as she is, she would have noticed that something had happened to me.

Sharin, who had been looking at me for a moment, rubbed her eyes and turned her body inward.

“Wait a moment.”

It seems she intends to change her clothes.

Sharin went inside.

With her help, no matter how evasive Hanon is, we could catch him.

“Sharin, what if you fall asleep while changing clothes!”

…We can catch him, right?

＊＊＊

Thanks to Mina’s help, Sharin, who had safely changed her clothes, looked at me with a drowsy face.

“Is that, really your face?”

If it’s a real face, then it is a real face.

“Fake.”

In this world, I am Vikamon.

So, it’s a fake face.

Sharin stared at me with a disappointed face and then leaned her head against the wall.

She still looked sleepy.

“So, what’s the matter from the morning?”

Sharin said that with a languid smile.

“Did you want to see me from the morning?”

“The real Hanon Airei has appeared.”

Sharin’s eyes changed a little.

She knows that I have some intention and that I am in this form for a reason.

“So, what happens now?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re trying to catch him.”

I don’t know what Hanon is going to do.

So we have to catch him before that.

“Isn’t Isabel inside?”

“Belle is diligent, she must have gone for training.”

“Then it’s certain she went towards Isabel.”

I sighed and turned around.

There aren’t many places to train in Aaron Sea.

If we search, we’ll find him.

“Sharin, help me catch Hanon.”

Sharin heard that and approached me, grabbing my collar tightly.

Then she smirked.

“Gotcha.”

I wanted to flick her forehead, but she was a bit cute, so I let it slide.

“Anyway, as long as we catch him, right?”

“If we’re catching him, we might as well scold him a bit.”

“Sounds fun.”

Sharin showed interest.

This means catching him is certain.

Wait for it.

The real Hanon.

The fake Hanon is coming.

＊＊＊

A beach path away from Aaron Sea.

A woman was walking along the path connected to the nearby beach park.

The blowing wind scattered her honey blonde hair.

Her name was Isabel Luna.

She was a student at Jerion Academy.

After a light run for morning training.

She was taking a light walk along the beach path like this.

Her eyes gazed at the crashing sea.

The unique scent of the sea wasn’t exactly pleasant.

But still, it felt like summer, so it wasn’t a bad feeling.

However, separate from that, Isabel’s emotions were sinking.

Since experiencing Lucas’s death.

She often felt this sinking feeling when she was alone.

But it had gotten much better than before.

Initially, her mood would sink endlessly, and she had no strength in her body.

It was like being anchored to the bottom of the deep sea, sinking with no way out.

That terrible feeling where even breathing was difficult.

Now, much of that had disappeared.

Now, she could barely keep her head above water.

‘…Am I forgetting Lucas?’

They say time heals all wounds.

Isabel couldn’t understand that saying at all.

But lately, she felt it wasn’t entirely wrong.

Lucas was her most precious friend.

As fellow frontier nobles, they had spent their childhood together and thought they would continue to do so.

‘Lucas was.’

To Isabel, he was a friend and like family.

There was also a turning point when Lucas became like family to Isabel.

In Isabel’s childhood.

She had an older brother who was a year older than her.

A mischievous but caring brother.

But one day, unfortunately, her brother was involved in a carriage accident.

He barely survived, but he gradually weakened due to his injuries and eventually met his death.

Her mother cried every day in sorrow over losing her eldest son.

Her father spent each day comforting her mother.

In the process, neither of them could take care of Isabel.

She was too young to lose such a significant presence as her brother.

But buried in her mother’s sorrow, there was no one to understand her grief.

And then, it was Lucas who took care of her.

‘I must have leaned on Lucas in the shock of losing my brother.’

And that reliance came at the cost of Lucas’s death.

Unlike her childhood, Isabel had grown too much.

So she couldn’t lean on anyone.

‘No.’

She was clearly afraid of leaning on someone.

Having already lost someone she had leaned on.

She no longer had the confidence to lean on anyone.

So Isabel crumbled.

She walked towards death, just like her brother and Lucas.

‘That’s how it was.’

Isabel’s eyes reached the sea again.

They say that a person who decides to commit suicide sees no color.

Everything they see feels achromatic, and they can’t feel the beauty of the world at all.

But the sea that Isabel saw was shining emerald, incredibly beautiful.

The sea seemed to be saying,

Live.

“……”

Who was it that she owed her current existence to?

Isabel stared blankly at the sea.

There was no need to ask.

One person was already on her mind.

「As long as you’re so heated, you won’t think of dying.」

She remembered the day Hannon fought with her friends.

「What you’re doing now is the most disgraceful thing to your friend, isn’t it?」

And she remembered the day Hannon woke her up from heading in the wrong direction on the wall.

「Yes, so we have to see whose opinion is right to the end.」

Those words sounded like he was saying he would always be by her side.

From noble mtl dot com

「Above all, I have no intention of dating anyone.」

Last night.

I remembered the rambling words I had uttered under the influence of alcohol.

And in the process, she had also inadvertently revealed some of her true feelings.

Though she was drunk, it was an embarrassing act.

But.

Because of that, she realized.

‘…I thought I couldn’t rely on anyone anymore.’

Yet she was repeating the same thing.

A part of her heart ached as if it was being crushed.

That was undoubtedly anxiety.

Anxiety that had burrowed in because she had lost someone precious twice.

Anxiety that she must not lose this time.

She was aware that this was dangerous.

But she had no idea how to shake it off.

“Lucas.”

She quietly called that name.

“Am I broken?”

The day her brother died.

She might have lost some crucial part somewhere.

At that moment.

“Isabel.”

A familiar voice reached her ears.

As soon as she heard that voice, Isabel’s eyes widened.

The anxiety that had settled in her heart disappeared, and her face brightened unconsciously.

It was a swift emotional shift that Isabel couldn’t even notice.

“You…”

The moment Isabel tried to call him as usual.

She stopped abruptly.

There stood a boy with black hair and red eyes.

That face was undoubtedly familiar.

Isabel’s bright eyes instantly turned cold.

“Who are you?”