"When I went through the information of the Universal System, I looked into the information regarding the girl you were close with. I am sorry to say.....but Elysia Moonglow is dead."
I didn’t immediately reply.
The room gradually fell silent around me as I slowly lowered myself onto the couch behind me, my thoughts drifting elsewhere.
For some reason, after hearing those words spoken aloud, I found myself remembering things that should have been meaningless.
The way she smiled whenever she caught me overthinking something. The way she always seemed capable of trusting people far more easily than I ever could.
The way she would become strangely stubborn whenever she believed she was right, refusing to back down no matter how unreasonable she was being.
And perhaps most annoyingly of all, the way she always looked at me as though I was capable of far more than I actually was.
A strange heaviness gradually settled within my chest.
It wasn’t because Henry’s words had shocked me.
Ever since the day I found myself drifting through the endless void while Elysia remained behind on Akumia, I had already understood what kind of future most likely awaited her.
The enemies surrounding her had been too powerful, the forces moving in the shadows had been far beyond anything I could influence at the time, and I myself had been too weak to change anything even if I had somehow managed to return.
I knew that.
Perhaps that was why I never allowed myself to hope too much.
After all, hope was a dangerous thing.
It made people believe reality would somehow bend in their favor simply because they wanted it to.
Reality had never worked that way for me.
Back then, while drifting through the endless darkness of space, I had spent a very long time questioning my decision.
I questioned whether I was a coward.
I questioned whether I had betrayed her.
I questioned whether choosing survival over love made me pathetic.
In the end, however, I had accepted the answer.
I wasn’t Elysia.
I never would be.
She was the kind of person who could throw herself into danger without hesitation if it meant protecting someone she cared about.
I wasn’t.
No matter how much I cared about someone, some part of me would always calculate the consequences, always search for another option, always choose tomorrow over a beautiful death today.
That was simply who I was.
And if time somehow rewound itself and placed me back into that exact same situation with the same strength, the same circumstances, and the same choices before me, I knew I would still make the same decision.
Not because I didn’t care and didn’t love her.
But because returning wouldn’t have saved her.
Dying alongside her wouldn’t have protected her.
And powerlessness remained powerlessness regardless of how noble the intention behind it was.
I still believed all of that even now.
Yet understanding something and finally hearing it confirmed were two completely different experiences.
As long as nobody knew what had happened to Elysia, uncertainty still existed, and as long as uncertainty existed, no matter how small it was, the future remained unwritten.
May be she could have escaped somewhere beyond everyone’s expectations.
May be she could have survived through some miracle that nobody anticipated.
May be she could have disappeared into a corner of the world where nobody would ever find her again.
The chances of any of those outcomes becoming reality had always been small, ridiculously small if he was being completely honest with himself, yet they still existed.
And as long as they existed there would always remain a small part of the future that was unknown.
But now that uncertainty was gone.
Henry’s words had transformed countless possibilities into a single reality, and for the first time in years there was no longer a question waiting to be answered, but only a final conclusion sitting quietly before me.
Elysia.....Nancy was dead.
She died once again.....and this time once more....I was not able to protect her....
The strange thing was that I couldn’t even bring myself to blame anyone.
A long breath escaped my lips as I slowly lowered my gaze, allowing the silence to linger between us while I organized the countless thoughts drifting through my mind.
Regret wouldn’t change reality, guilt wouldn’t bring back the dead, and wishing for a different outcome wouldn’t alter a decision that had already been made years ago.
What I currently needed was strength.
Absolute strength that nothing could stop.
"What happened to her?" I finally asked while lifting my head and looking directly into Henry’s eyes.
"I want to know everything, from the moment I disappeared until the moment she died, and I don’t want you to leave out a single detail."
Henry looked at me for a few moments before slowly shaking his head.
"Sorry, but I don’t want to elaborate too much. I informed you about her death because I believe you should know, but my time is running out. If you want to know that badly, seek the information from the Universal System yourself. I already gave you the method to do so."
As Henry was saying that, the space around him suddenly started to distort.
I immediately noticed the change.
Tiny cracks began appearing around him one after another as though reality itself could no longer endure his presence.
The surrounding space twisted unnaturally, and faint spatial and some unknown energy fluctuations started to spread through the room with increasing intensity.
Henry glanced around before letting out a helpless sigh.
"Told you. I was already overstaying."
The cracks expanded further.
"My time to leave has come. If destiny allows it, we will meet once again in the future."
As he spoke, Henry slowly stood up from the couch.
By now, the largest crack had already expanded enough for a person to walk through. Beyond it, there was nothing but endless darkness, yet somehow that darkness felt deeper than the void of space itself.
Henry stopped in front of the crack before turning around one last time.
For a brief moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Henry suddenly smiled.
"You know, I find humans very strange."
I raised an eyebrow.
Henry continued.
"They spend their entire lives trying to become stronger so they can protect the things they care about, yet when they fail, they convince themselves that caring was the mistake."
My expression remained unchanged.
Henry simply shrugged.
"Love isn’t weakness, Ash. Friendship isn’t weakness either. People only call them weaknesses because they expose parts of themselves they can’t control."
The smile on his face gradually faded.
"The desire to protect someone, the desire to stand beside someone, the desire to not lose someone important... none of those things are weaknesses. The weakness is lacking the strength necessary to fulfill those desires."
His black hole-like eyes met mine.
"So don’t make the mistake of throwing away what makes you human just because reality was cruel to you once."
Then he suddenly chuckled.
"To be honest, I find you quite amusing."
I raised an eyebrow.
Henry shrugged.
"You keep trying to act rational, detached, and logical, but for someone like that, you spend an awful lot of time caring about things that shouldn’t matter."
"..."
"You care about your friends and the people close to you. Just look at what you did the moment you realized who I was. Your first instinct wasn’t to protect yourself, it was to make sure everyone around you was safe, whether by sending them away or storing them somewhere beyond my reach."
"Hell, you even spent most of this conversation asking for ways to become stronger instead of asking how to remain undetected by the people after you, how to live an easier life. People who only care about themselves don’t think like that, nor do they act like that."
A faint grin appeared on his face.
"And before you say that becoming stronger is for your own benefit, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence."
I remained silent.
Henry simply laughed.
"You are not nearly as selfish as you think you are."
For some reason, those words sounded ridiculous.
I was selfish.
I was an Hypocrite.
But, maybe because they were coming from a lunatic who hacked a Universal System, travelled across Infinite Dimensions, they somehow still deeply resonated with me.
"People who only care about themselves don’t carry burdens for others. They don’t concern themselves with protecting people. They don’t exhaust themselves trying to understand things they could simply ignore."
His gaze met mine.
"They certainly don’t look the way you do after hearing about someone’s death."
For a brief moment, neither of us spoke.
"Which is why I think there is still hope for you."
He stepped backward toward the crack that had now expanded large enough for a person to pass through.
"Oh, and one more thing..."
Henry pointed at me.
"When you eventually become some terrifying existence capable of shaking Infinite Dimensions, don’t forget that you still owe me a favor."
A grin appeared on his face.
"With interest."
Before I could reply, his body had already begun disappearing into the darkness beyond the crack.
His laughter echoed through the room one final time.
"Also, my name is Henry G. Cavendish, a fellow Dimensional Traveller and a Reader."
That was the last thing he spoke before entering the crack and vanishing along with every spatial disturbance.
The cracks disappeared and the distorted space returned to normal.
The room became silent once more.
And just like that, I was alone again.
****