I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit - Chapter 207

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Clatter, clatter.
Arun said something, but I couldn’t hear him clearly.
It was as if his voice was filled with static.
Yet Arun gazed at me with an unfailingly gentle smile and eyes brimming with boundless love.
His touch on my head now brought comfort rather than excitement.
His hand was still warm, but I felt an inexplicable emptiness.
“…You’re not real, are you, Arun?”
Arun nodded, and I found my own answer in that gesture.
“Is that why you can’t give me the answer?”
“I think there’s no such thing as a right answer in this world.”
Perhaps that’s why I loved mathematics.
Mathematics was concrete, with clear answers.
Arun spoke to me.
“I’ll wait.”
With those words, Arun’s form gradually faded.
“There’s no rush. Come back slowly. I’ll always be by your side.”
Normally, I would have reached out to hold onto Arun, but not this time.
I was aware that I was in a dream.
Once I awoke from this dream, I was certain Arun would be beside me.
I gazed out the window.
“A train that shows me what I wish to see.”
Now I could see a city.
The night city as seen from above the clouds.
That very sight.
This train was running on rails that stretched across the sky.
It rushed forward vigorously, parting through the clouds.
The night city bathed in glimmering orange light came into view, yet it no longer brought joy or happiness as before.
“I am…”
I was beginning to understand.
“I’ve been running away. To here.”
Running away from reality.
It seemed my real self had cast a spell on me to escape.
To flee from something utterly terrifying.
“In the end, have I failed to truly face my own wounds?”
Earth was a sore finger to me.
More precisely, it was like a finger that only ached.
Of course, there were many people I was grateful for and moments I cherished, yet despite all that, it hurt too much.
They say the mind follows the body.
My body hurt so much that my mind couldn’t remain sound.
“In the end, it seems I was too afraid of my own homeland…”
I had tried to overcome the wounds within me, but in the end, it seemed I had failed.
In the end, Earth repaid my goodwill with malice.
Pharmaceutical companies and government officials—they all tried to capture me.
No one knows what would have happened if they actually succeeded.
I might have become a slave manufacturing potions, or a subject for human experimentation.
Either way, I’m certain nothing good would have come of it.
If it had been the better option, they would have extended a polite invitation from the start.
“Or maybe I was just sad about it.”
Still, it seemed I had harbored a glimmer of hope.
Earth. My homeland.
I had hoped this blue star would welcome me.
But this star is a cold, merciless thing. So it greeted me with bullets.
I rested my chin in my hand and gazed out the window.
“Is that why you ran away, Isabel?”
A lucid dream.
I didn’t want to wake up yet.
The dream train that had raced across the sky now passed through the night sky and was running across a meadow.
In the distance, I could see a young man and woman enjoying tea time on a mat.
“Teacher Karin!”
I saw Karin, who had first taught me magic.
It had been a while since I’d called her by her title, but the word “teacher” still felt far more natural.
Since this was a dream, calling her teacher wouldn’t be impolite.
I opened the window.
As my hand touched it, the window dissolved away, and the train came to a stop as if it were all an illusion.
-This station is the Meadow, Meadow Station. The exit is on your right.
An exit appeared to the right of where I was sitting.

* * *
Karin and Arun.
The two of them were having a conversation.
I watched as they sat together, though neither seemed aware of my presence.
“Teacher? Arun?”
They didn’t appear to see me.
Looking more closely, I realized they weren’t actually drinking tea.
Cold, long-forgotten tea sat before them both.
“Yes. Isabel left on a brief journey.”
“Explain in detail. Depending on what you say, I may punish you, Arun.”
Karin’s pale pink eyes held an unfamiliar light.
They resembled the eyes of a psychopath I’d read about in novels.
“It seems she was deeply wounded by her homeland’s betrayal.”
“Isabel wouldn’t simply flee over mere betrayal. Isabel is stronger than anyone.”
“She’s someone who strives to be stronger than everyone else.”
Arun met Karin’s terrifying gaze without flinching.
I realized something then.
This conversation wasn’t taking place within a dream.
It was happening in the world beyond the dream—in reality, between my teacher and Arun.
Though I couldn’t be certain, it seemed Karin had crossed over to this side as well.
With her magical prowess, such a thing was entirely possible.
Creating something from nothing might be difficult, but tracking us down would be well within her capabilities.
“Isabel was a child who wanted to become stronger than anyone else. But the moment she returned to her homeland, it seemed as though that hard shell cracked.”
“….”
“The memories of this world don’t seem pleasant for her. Those memories are so sharp and jagged that Isabel found it difficult to remain unyielding.”
Karin lowered her head.
“I see. Everyone has their weaknesses. Isabel must have hers as well.”
Fortunately, the murderous glint in Karin’s eyes softened slightly.
She seemed to have realized that Arun wasn’t at fault.
“But you don’t look entirely well yourself.”
“…Did it show?”
“…Did you think it wouldn’t?”
Suddenly, I was seized by a strange sensation.
The world began spinning wildly around me.
No—the world was actually spinning.
I felt slightly dizzy.
Karin and Arun’s figures scattered like smoke before reappearing.
Sometimes they sat upside down in the sky, sometimes they drifted far away.
It seemed I no longer wished to hear this conversation.
“…Ah.”
I hadn’t fled from Earth.
Of course, Earth was like a “finger that only ever ached” to me, and I had faced terrifying gun barrels right before my eyes, but despite all that, it didn’t seem to have been scary or dreadful enough to warrant escape.
Through my spinning vision, I heard Arun’s voice.
“It is most agonizing.”
Arun had taken all my illness and pain upon himself.
Because Kim Beolggwol said he was strong.
Because a blessed dragon’s body made this nothing at all.
Thanks to that, I gained my freedom.
“That is why it hurts all the more.”
“It hurts all the more?”
“Because Isabel suffered from this suffering.”
Arun’s entire body was stained pitch black.
This was a lucid dream.
The content of that conversation might be real, but that appearance itself was false.
A fiction created by my unconscious mind.
Yet I was deeply shaken.
Black liquid streamed down from Arun’s eyes.
“I know how much this hurts. That is why it pains me all the more.”
“Isabel must have noticed that you were suffering.”
“Perhaps… it seems so.”
Arun pressed his forehead.
“I was certain it didn’t show.”
“Pain of that magnitude is difficult to conceal. Arun, this is not entirely your fault.”
Teacher Karin looked at me.
Those pale pink eyes that had gazed at me when I was young.
“Isabel. It’s alright to run away a little more.”
It felt as though someone was stroking me.
This lucid dream was becoming increasingly close to reality.
“Isabel. Everyone has weaknesses. Even the greatest mages do.”
After those words, Teacher Karin’s voice could no longer be heard.
The touch could no longer be felt.
My unconscious seemed to be pushing Teacher Karin away.
The figures of Teacher and Arun grew distant.
The real me seemed not to want to see them anymore.
I fled back to the train like a coward.
Yes. I was a coward.
Perhaps I had noticed that Arun was suffering.
Yet I was delighted. I rejoiced that this illness had vanished.
And so I passed my pain entirely onto Arun.
“Yes. I may have known all along.”
Perhaps I would have turned away from it all.
Magic is not omnipotent.
If it were, Arun would have erased the illness itself.
Since he couldn’t, he took it upon himself instead.
“He must have suffered just as much as I did, or far more intensely.”
That was the price of bearing another’s misfortune.
As formidable as a dragon’s body is, the illness I carried must have become equally formidable within him.
The pain, magnified far beyond what I had endured, must have gnawed away at both his flesh and spirit.
Arun must have suffered terribly. Because of me.
It seemed he had embarked on this train journey as an escape from that guilt.
I was truly sorry to Arun—I was a pathetic coward. Endlessly weak. That was who I was.
My wretched subconscious was rejecting the outside world.
Blocking out everything external.
Yet despite it all, Arun’s steady voice reached me.
“Yes. I love even that weakness of yours.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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