Crown of Thorns

9-10

CHAPTER 9

Translator & editor : Cuties

When I flipped the deck of cards, the future was back again.

Light will set the darkness aside, and give me eternal rest.

The future of the young warriors was also back. I couldn't understand, but I decided to believe this situation. That I woke up from a long dream. As I often had precognitive dreams before, I also saw the future this time. It was a horribly long and vivid dream, but it's so small and insignificant price to pay for seeing the future. Compared to the time I've actually spent, this dream was nothing.

And I decided to think calmly because there must be a reason for me to go through this.

I used to tell the future through fortune-telling and my foresight, but not to this extent. I could never tell what changes were going to be enticed by my choices, exactly what the consequences were going to be, and what my future, not others', was like.

After the young man died, my future had disappeared. Which meant that the light that the divination referred to, was indeed him. I kept fighting and pushing so that I wouldn't be swallowed up by the darkness, but it didn't work and my efforts did not change the future, which could only mean that my method was wrong.

Nevertheless, being able to see the future meant that there was a way. It meant that I still had options left.

One only option, in fact.

Protecting the young warrior.

I had no choice but to take care of him so that he could not die until his light grew and he led the darkness away. Instead of pushing him away, I had to keep him by my side and watch over him.

The witch trapped in the tower decided to raise the young warrior.

Until he grew up and brought the darkness to an end.

CHAPTER 10

Translator & editor : Cuties

I was crouching in the dark, thinking of countless things. It was unbecoming of me who always tried to kill my thoughts, my mind, and my time. But now that I have something more important than that, I couldn't help it.

It was the young warrior whom I suddenly met again.

I couldn't get myself together for a while because the boy I thought I'd never see again appeared in front of me. There was no distinction between what was a dream and what was real. It was too long and clear before to be a dream, and it is too vivid now to be a dream now.

The inside of the damp, dark tower was the same as it has been before I met the boy. There was nothing but a few items that were covered in cobwebs and dust and smelled bad with rotten blood, and the rotting and ragged furniture.

There was no trace of the food, books, daily necessities, and water that the boy had been regularly bringing with him in his spare moments as he grew to a young man. Not that they had disappeared, but as if they had never existed in the first place. The time I spent with the boy disappeared into thin air.

I can't read my future, nor can I know how it changes following the choices I make, but I don't understand why I've come to experience such an ordeal. The bell still rang at the same time every day and I wondered whether it was an echo from an old memory, or if I was hearing it for the first time.

But I soon came to the conclusion that it didn't matter.

I wanted to see the boy's red eyes and white hair. I was sad that I could never see him again. It was heartbreaking to know that he would not come even if I waited and waited. I resent the boy for telling me to wait and then leaving.