Let’s Make Saving a Habit - Chapter 125

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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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Chapter 125
After a prolonged silence, Aiden’s response was not the kind I had anticipated.
“…How did you find out about that? Who on earth told you?”
“Pardon?”
A scorching fury erupted within me, hot as molten lava. How could his first words to me be….
Neither an admission nor a denial.
Not an excuse.
Not an apology.
How did I find out? Who told me?
“Is that really all you’re curious about right now?”
As I stumbled backward, consumed by betrayal, Aiden grasped my arm firmly and met my gaze.
“Tania, it was a choice I made to protect you.”
“A choice you made to protect me?”
Those words were so absurd that I couldn’t even muster a hollow laugh.
“Do you have any idea how many deaths I endured because of that choice of yours?”
I cried out, my voice trembling with surging anguish.
“If I hadn’t possessed the ability to rewind time, I would have been torn apart by monsters at five years old and died young!”
Only then did Aiden’s pupils dilate sharply.
“After countless deaths, I barely reached the Village and wandered the streets to survive! When you say I lived without dying, you mean I didn’t even have the choice to die….”
My vision blurred with tears.
I wanted to see clearly what expression he wore. Whether he felt any regret at all.
“Was this the life you wanted to protect?”
In the end, he had protected nothing.
A ringing sensation filled my mind, and forgotten memories surfaced.
Memories from after I was five years old, abandoned in the Monster Forest.

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An ordinary village, an unremarkable home like any other.
Fortune had smiled upon a couple living their mundane lives.
“Good heavens. Dear, where on earth did all these gold coins come from?”
“Hahahaha! We’ve struck it rich! Aiden said he was giving me enough money to live a life of leisure forever!”
“Really? But he was sending us money every month, wasn’t he?”
“This was a one-time payment. He said he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore, and asked us to take good care of things.”
“He said he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore? Then….”
“That’s right. It means we no longer need to burden ourselves with that deadweight.”
“He kept showing up to check on us, which was exhausting. Now we can finally have some peace. And with this much money…!”
“There’s a wonderful city in the Southern Region. Let’s start a new life there with this fortune!”
But the wife’s expression darkened as she considered one problem.
“Are we leaving Tania behind in the village?”
“We can’t! If we leave her here and Aiden comes looking for her later, what then?”
“Indeed?”
“On the day we move south to start our new life…. With all the chaos of moving, we might not notice if the child were to slip away from the carriage.”
The wife quietly continued, understanding what he was implying.
“And if that place happened to be deep in the Monster Forest, by the time we found her, it might already be too late.”
“Exactly. Unexpected accidents can happen anytime, after all.”
And so, on the day of the move.
The couple abandoned Tania deep in the forest and departed.
Uncle had told Tania to wait here without moving for just one night, and he would come back for her.
But the child instinctively sensed that he had abandoned her.
Suddenly left alone in the depths of the forest, Tania wept and cried as she chased after the carriage.
But the moving carriage never stopped.
The mercenaries hired to traverse the Monster Forest heard the child’s cries, but they had already been paid for their silence.
As the carriage disappeared from sight, Tania found herself utterly alone in the vast forest.
To make matters worse, monsters began gathering one by one, drawn by the child’s weeping.
Grrrrrowl—!
A beast-like monster approached Tania, drool dripping from its maw.
Encountering a monster for the first time, the terrified child stood frozen, unable to move.
The sound of the massive monster’s roar and thundering footsteps drew steadily closer.
The child’s face was already streaked with tears and mucus.
“P-please save me! Uncle, I’ll listen from now on. I’ll eat less. Please…!”
In that desperate moment, light erupted from Tania’s body.
The monster that had been about to pounce recoiled in terror, scrambling backward.
Tania kept her eyes tightly shut, unaware of what had just happened.
But realizing that only light had burst forth with no real effect, the monster approached the child again.
One step, two steps.
Crack.
And so darkness came for Tania.
Or so I thought it had.
Terrible agony had certainly descended upon me, yet suddenly I felt no pain at all.
Bewildered, Tania cautiously opened her eyes.
And there, unmistakably, was the monster that had devoured her, right before her gaze.
Though it kept its distance from her, trembling as if seized by terror.
It was strange.
Truly strange.
Before I could even comprehend the situation, the monster began approaching me again, slowly.
Convinced I would be swallowed once more, Tania forced her rigid legs to move and bolted away.
The monster that had been creeping forward accelerated its pace as well.
The young Tania was caught within moments, and just as the monster’s grotesque maw gaped wide once more.
Another creature, drawn by the child’s cries from afar, lunged at the monster threatening Tania, seizing it by the neck and beginning a vicious struggle.
It was a battle over prey.
Having barely escaped that peril, Tania ran blindly while the two monsters clashed.
But the child had been abandoned in the very heart of the Monster Forest. There was no sanctuary anywhere.
The second death came swiftly.
Upon realizing that death would return me to a fixed point in time, Tania fell into despair.
An endless hell had unfolded before her.
Death and flight. Death and escape. An endless cycle.
How many deaths had I endured?
I discovered that I could designate the fixed point myself.
After learning this, Tania’s survival rate skyrocketed dramatically.
Using my ability at critical moments, I barely reached a certain Village.
Rather than relief at having survived, Tania rejoiced at the prospect of never needing to die again.
Yet life in the Village proved no gentler.
Unfortunately, that Village harbored no warm household willing to shelter a child too young to be of labor value.
Tania scraped by among the villagers who shunned her.
Or rather, I had no choice but to persist.
For Tania, death was not an ending but merely an infinitely repeating refrain.
And so, on one unremarkable day of mere survival.
A man with dark skin and a long scar across one eye appeared before Tania.
The child, frightened by the imposing figure blocking her path, shrank back and prepared to reset her timeline.
Yet the man introduced himself in an unexpectedly gentle tone.
“I am Aiden. And your name is…?”
Tania blinked as she gazed at Aiden’s face, then slowly parted her lips.
“I’m Tania.”
But the child’s answer to the man’s question was not born from his gentle manner of speech.
I simply wanted to know.
Who was this man with the hard, resolute features of one who seemed to have built walls against the very concept of tears.
Why was the Old Gentleman weeping with such a distorted, anguished expression?
Tania tilted her head curiously.
“Old Gentleman, why are you crying?”
“…Dust got in my eyes.”
“That’s a lie.”
There was no way dust alone could draw such sorrowful tears.
Ah. Could it be…?
“Were you abandoned too, just like me?”
At that, the man’s composure shattered entirely, and he broke into wrenching sobs.
A sorrow of unfathomable depth washed over him in waves.
“Oh….”
I seemed to have struck a nerve.
It was my first time witnessing an adult cry, and I didn’t know how to respond.
Tania carefully reached out and wiped the tears from the man’s face.
“I don’t know who made you this sad, but they’re truly terrible.”
For such a large man to shed tears—what awful thing must have been done to him?

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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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