Green Claw Guild.
Inside of a large meeting room.
A large oval table made of wood hosted a number of people who were seated nearby. As everyone looked at the big screen near the room's entrance, their auras spread through the whole room.
On the monitor was a short video depicting an incident.
The video didn't last for long. It was about a couple of minutes long, and it soon ended. Once it did, silence filtered throughout the entirety of the room.
Everyone's attention then shifted toward a certain individual.
"This video has been circulating all over the internet. Do you have an answer for this, Dominion?"
A deep voice echoed out into the room. It belonged to the current Guild master of the Green Clawn Guild.
Jerome Nox.
ranked, and ranked within the top 100 of the Hero rankings.
He was a man in his mid-fifties with short green hair and a bulky body.
? His face, although expressionless, contained boundless anger as he gazed at Dominion, who shivered under it.
"T,that…"
He stuttered under the gaze. However, he was soon able to muster up enough courage to speak.
"…I was caught off guard. He used some sort of trick, I-"
"Enough."
Jerome cut.
"That's now what I want from you."
Jerome threatened as Dominion found himself unable to breathe as Jerome's aura pressed on him.
He continued.
"What I want from you is an answer on how we can mend this situation. Currently, we've become a laughing stock among the other guilds because of this one incident. How are we supposed to mend our reputation?"
"This.."
Dominon looked around.
He looked at Jerome and swallowed out a mouthful of saliva before opening his mouth carefully.
"A,although he's powerful, he's not as strong as you. If you allow me to deal with the situation, I can find a way to mend the situation…"
Back then, although for a short period of time, he felt the youth's strength.
…It wasn't as domineering as his guild master.
He wasn't exactly sure how strong he was, but the guild master was unquestionably above him in terms of power. He was certain that he would be able to handle him.
Ding―!
It was all of a sudden that a subtle ringing noise spread throughout the room.
The focus of everyone's attention shifted to Jerome, who grimaced and pulled out his phone. As he read the notification that had appeared, his expression changed from one of annoyance to one of surprise as he began to smile.
Putting the phone away, he looked toward the others.
"It looks like we won't have to deal with this alone."
***
There weren't many things that utterly shocked me. Even when I found myself in a new world where everyone didn't know me and everything was different, I was able to retain my calm and calmly process what was happening.
I was perhaps alarmed, but I wasn't shocked.
I thought that with all that I had seen, there wouldn't be many things that would bring forth such emotion.
Yet…
Staring at the youth in front of me, I couldn't help but feel shocked.
"M,matthew?"
The fact that he was alive wasn't what shocked me. That seemed fairly normal considering that this was a different world.
What shocked me was the fact that he seemed to know me and what was happening around me.
He flashed me a smile.
"Are you that shocked to see me?"
He seemed to be enjoying my reaction, as he laughed a little.
"You probably wondering why I know you and why I seem to know about your circ.u.mstances, right?"
I didn't say anything.
I couldn't say anything. Opening my mouth, I found myself struggling to find my words.
Eventually, I nodded my head.
"There's really nothing much to it."
Matthew leaned back against the bench and gazed toward the distant sun. He didn't look for too long, as his eyes soon squinted.
In that short moment, I was beginning to calm down and come to terms with the situation. His next words, however, caught me completely off-guard.
"…I've long known that you were going to come. Kevin told me a long time ago."
"..."
I paused, trying to process his words.
It was a rather slow process since the words didn't seem to register in my hand.
When I did process them, however, I almost got up from my seat.
"What?!"
Thankfully, I remained seated and didn't cause a scene. Despite that, I still found it hard to contain myself.
"Did you just say Kevin told you a long time ago?"
How was that possible?
…Did the two even know each other?
"You must be confused."
Matthew smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt. It was very clear that he was enjoying my shock, but his smile soon faded.
He looked around him.
"You're wondering why I know Kevin and what is currently happening to you, right? You probably already figured out that this world isn't the same world that you lived in, and that there must've been a reason why you were sent here…"
"Yeah."
Right on.
That was exactly what I wanted to figure out.
Although Matthew's appearance shocked me, I was soon able to calm down. Right now, I was intently listening to what Matthew had to say.
"I'll start off simple."
Matthew licked his lips as a complicated look flashed across his features.
"…From the very beginning, I've been working with Kevin."
My eyes opened wide.
"You call that simple?"
Before I could say anything, Matthew continued.
"Don't get me wrong. What I did to your parents and signing a contract with a demon… That was all me. When I say I've been working with Kevin from the very beginning, I mean from several regressions back."
His smile grew bitter.
"As you're very well aware, once a contracted demon dies, their host will also similarly die. Only on a rare chance will they survive... and that's extremely rare... from the moment that Everblood killed the demon I was contracted with, I was supposed to die… Yet, I survived. Do you want to know why?"
"…"
I nodded without saying a word.
Indeed, looking back at it now, Matthew wasn't supposed to have lived as long as he did. He was supposed to have died along with the contracted demon.
"While Everblood thought back then that I had survived due to that one small chance... reality was that I only kept on living due to Kevin's interference."
"At the time, I didn't know he had interfered before, but during that one brief moment where I was supposed to die in one of the timelines, he restored my memories, and from there, I was able to learn about our past…"
The smile on his face grew more bitter.
"The things I did to you… The brief moments where my head became clear and I learned of my actions… The regret that I felt during each death of mine… It all came crashing down on me at that moment, and he finally appeared before me."
He closed his eyes.
"We had a brief conversation. It wasn't that long, and I'm not sure how long ago it was... but from what I remember, he told me that there would come a day where I'd need to explain to you the contents of our conversation, but that the time wasn't right yet..."
"He told me that the day wouldn't be too long and that for now, all I had to do was just follow Everblood and report to him everything that he was doing. In a way, I guess you can say that I was spying on Everblood while also checking up on you when the time came that you entered the Monolith."
His eyes soon opened, and he looked at me with clear eyes.
"I don't know how many times I've died under your blade ever since then, but I guess you can say that I deserved it for what I did to you, although you really never were gentle with me when you killed me."
His eyes suddenly squinted, and his face grew bitter.
"…Getting stabbed in the chest really isn't the most pleasant of experience."
"How was I supposed to know?"
I scratched the side of my cheek.
Back then, all I wanted to do was survive. I didn't really care about whether he suffered or not during his death.
Matthew looked at me with disgust.
"Didn't you hear me say, 'If there's a next time, do it more gently?'. I didn't just say it because I was dying. I said it because I literally meant it."
"Eh?"
So that's what it was about?
Back then, I didn't really think much when he said those words. I thought they were just a few short words he said to make light of his death… but it seemed like that wasn't the case.
"My memories were wiped. I really didn't know."
"I'm just messing. Don't take my words seriously."
Matthew laughed a bit before finally standing up from the bench.
He proceeded to stretch his back before looking at me.
"You must be wondering why you were sent here, right? While I also don't exactly know the reason, I was told to show you several things."
Matthew suddenly paused as he looked at me.
"Ah, right. If you were worried about going back, don't be. After everything is done, you'll be able to go back to where you belong. You can say that this is a small trip you have to take in order to get a better understanding of why Kevin did what he did..."
He smiled.
"...He really did sacrifice a lot."