A chill ran down his spine.
Just a handful of fragmented memories...
And they could exert this much influence?
'Do more memories surface as time passes?'
If that were true...
Would he be able to protect the Great Archmage Haran's personality from Pyo Haram's memories?
This time, he had merely lost control of his body.
But somehow...
He couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't the end of it.
What worried him most was how, for a brief moment, his consciousness had nearly faded away.
What if one day...
He truly lost himself?
The thought filled him with fear.
On the surface, he had crossed dimensions to take revenge on those who had betrayed him.
But there had always been a deeper reason.
'They say that when a human is forged into a Soul Stone, their sense of self disappears, leaving only the abilities they possessed in life.'
He feared losing his identity.
If you no longer knew who you were...
Could that really be called living?
Yet even after escaping into another world...
The same threat had found him again.
For now, he could only observe what happened.
But he had a very bad feeling about it.
'If only I could seal away this body's memories...
...No.
If I could summon my original body...
Or create a new one.'
Pyo Haram's soul had already vanished without leaving so much as a trace.
Because of that, Haran felt no guilt over wanting to erase the body's lingering memories.
He knew little about the afterlife, but if Pyo Haram had truly been a decent man, then surely he had ended up somewhere peaceful.
The real problem wasn't the dead Pyo Haram.
It was Haran himself, who still had a long life ahead of him.
'Summoning my original body...'
It wasn't impossible.
Several spells immediately came to mind.
If he researched them further, he was certain he could devise some kind of solution.
The problem was...
Time.
And mana.
Right now, there was absolutely nothing he could do.
"...Sigh."
Letting out a heavy breath, he pulled the suicide note back out of his pocket.
Flutter—
He unfolded the crumpled paper.
Neat handwriting filled the page.
Pyo Haram.
Twenty-six years old.
Unaffiliated freelance E-rank Healer.
That was all the information the note gave about Pyo Haram himself.
Not even two full lines.
Everything beneath that...
Was densely packed with information about his niece.
The little girl's face that had flashed through his mind earlier resurfaced.
'Uncle.'
According to the note...
The child was only six years old.
He couldn't help thinking of his own stupid yet adorable disciples.
Powerless little creatures who couldn't survive without an adult looking after them.
'...First things first.'
'I suppose I have to go pick up that child... Sua, was it?'
He couldn't bring himself to abandon someone so helpless.
Even if he intended to leave later...
He would at least have to make sure she could survive on her own first.
Pushing aside the flood of unnecessary thoughts, Haram focused on the immediate priorities.
'The kindergarten.'
'Then home.'
Having settled on his objective, he looked around.
The hospital was so enormous that he had no idea where the exit was.
Fortunately, a volunteer guide noticed him and walked over.
"Do you need any... Oh my! The blood..."
The volunteer froze after noticing the dried blood smeared beneath his nose and across his chin.
Haram casually wiped it away with the back of his hand and waved dismissively.
"It's fine. More importantly, I'm leaving. Where's the exit?"
The volunteer's eye twitched slightly.
The young man standing before her looked barely in his early twenties, yet he was speaking to her as though she were his junior.
Still...
Her eyes drifted toward the IV stand beside him, the fluid bag hanging from it, and his tattered clothes.
'Ah... He's a patient.'
There had already been countless rescue victims brought in from the dungeon today.
He wasn't wrapped in bandages, so he probably hadn't suffered external injuries...
But that certainly didn't mean he was unharmed.
'They said it was an unclassifiable dungeon...
Just how horrific must it have been in there...?'
Her gaze toward Haram softened with sympathy.
"I said, where's the exit? If showing me the way is too much trouble, at least point me in the right direction."
"...You're planning to go home?"
"Yes."
"Um... shouldn't you see your doctor first?"
"You mean those fellows in the white robes? Already did. They said my body's perfectly fine and they just wanted to keep observing me."
"Ahhh..."
So they wanted to observe whether his confusion improved!
Just as she thought...
This really was a patient with a brain injury.
The volunteer's smile became even gentler.
"Do you have a guardian?"
"A guardian? The only one capable of protecting me is myself."
"Oh... I see."
"Then let's remove your IV first and ask whether you're cleared for discharge."
"Fine. Do that."
Knowing absolutely nothing, Haram obediently followed her.
Afterward...
A nurse removed his IV.
A doctor briefly explained his discharge instructions.
And before long, all the paperwork had been completed.
"Please take care on your way home."
"My thanks."
Some time later...
Accompanied by the suspiciously warm farewell of the volunteer...
Haram finally left the hospital.
* * *
"We've arrived."
Using the faint traces of muscle memory left inside the body, Haram had managed to ride something called a taxi all the way to the kindergarten listed in the suicide note.
"Eighteen thousand won."
"Here."
Just as he had done at the hospital, he handed over something called a card and successfully paid.
After getting the card back from the driver, he stepped out and looked up at the kindergarten.
'Hmm...
A place where they gather snot-nosed little brats together and educate them.'
In his own world...
Such a place would have been called an academy.
But here they used all sorts of strange names.
Kindergarten.
Elementary school.
And countless others.
'Even something like this differs between worlds.
Interesting.'
To someone born to be a scholar...
Everything about this world fascinated him.
*I'll pick up this Sua child...
Then have a look around the area.*
Thinking that, he headed inside.
"Oh... Mr. Sua's guardian...?"
A woman passing near the entrance recognized him.
She started to greet him—
Then froze after taking in his appearance.
"I've come for Sua."
"...Ah, yes! I'll go get her. Please wait just a moment."
Fortunately...
No one caused a scene.
It wasn't exactly a secret around the kindergarten that Pyo Haram was an E-rank Hunter.
He had returned home injured after recklessly entering dungeons more than once before.
Though...
This was certainly the first time he'd shown up looking this awful.
Meanwhile, completely unaware of all that, Haram found it strange that the woman who had hurried inside looked so pale.
I thought this was a place that educated children.
Why does everyone look like they've seen a patient on death's door?
"Samchoooon!"
While his thoughts wandered elsewhere, the inner door suddenly burst open.
A tiny little girl came running toward him.
Jet-black hair tied into two high pigtails.
Fair skin.
Plump cheeks.
Long eyelashes.
Large round eyes with slightly upturned corners.
'Uncle.'
It was the little girl from the memories.
Now that he saw her in person...
She resembled Pyo Haram quite a bit.
"U-Uncle?"
Just then—
The little girl, who had been charging toward him as though she meant to leap into his arms...
Abruptly stopped.
Her bright little face twisted in shock.
"Uncle...
Why do you look like a homeless bum?"
...Right.
Only then did he remember what he looked like.
He had washed the blood off his face and hands...
But his ragged clothes were still stiff with dried blood.
'If only I had my magic...
I'd clean this up instantly.'
Unable to cast even a simple Clean spell...
And forced to let a little brat see him looking like this.
The Great Archmage's pride took a direct hit.
As he frowned...
The child politely greeted the woman who had accompanied her before timidly approaching him.
"Umm..."
The girl who had just called him a homeless bum now looked strangely nervous as she studied his face.
"U-Uncle...?
Are...
Are you mad?"
The tiny fingers nervously twisting the hem of her pink dress looked impossibly small.
"...No."
"Let's go home."
Looking into the girl's watery eyes...
He could already feel Pyo Haram's cursed memories beginning to surge again.
In the end, he turned away first, almost as though he were fleeing from the child.
Watching his back as he walked away without waiting...
The little girl shrank her shoulders.
Then hurried after him.
"U-Uncle."
Haram, who had been striding ahead, suddenly stopped.
Something had tugged on his clothes.
Looking down...
He found the tiny girl, who barely reached his waist, looking up at him timidly.
His gaze dropped to the little hand clutching his shirt.
"U-Um...
Could we...
walk together..."
"Let go."
"..."
He gently peeled her fingers off his clothes.
Her eyes instantly welled up with tears.
"My clothes are filthy right now."
"If you're going to hold onto something...
Hold my hand instead."
"...!"
His calloused hand wrapped around the child's tiny, soft fingers.
Her eyes grew round with surprise...
Then curved into a beautiful smile.
"Come."
"It'll be dark before long."
"Hehe.
Okay, Uncle."
Glancing sideways without letting her notice, Haram deliberately slowed his limping pace.
Beside him...
The little girl happily chattered away about her day.
"So today we learned numbers!
And addition too!
I know what ten plus ten is now!"
"Oh?
Then what's ten plus ten?"
"Thirty!"
"...You need to study a little harder."
Despite looking thoroughly annoyed...
He never ignored her chatter.
Perhaps that alone made her happy.
Her smile never faded.
'Hmm...'
Without letting the child notice, Haram quietly observed her face from the corner of his eye.
Pyo Haram's personality had surely been completely different from his own.
Their mannerisms.
Their atmosphere.
Everything.
He had never bothered hiding the fact that he wasn't Pyo Haram anymore.
So he had assumed...
The girl must have noticed something by now.
'Is she simply too young to realize?'
Oddly enough...
That thought relieved him.
Maybe it was because he didn't have to deal with a crying child asking where her real uncle had gone.
Whatever the reason...
He found himself hoping that, at least for a while longer...
She would remain blissfully unaware.
Grrr...
"...?"
Lost in thought, Haram suddenly heard a strange sound.
Turning toward it...
He found the little girl clutching her stomach, blinking at him in embarrassment.