TEASER
Volume 4 Final Chapter Part 2
With the Remaining Embers in One's Heart Part 2
After witnessing Ken's
sealing, Nozomu invited Lisa to join him for a walk. After walking around the
central park, they sat down on a park bench. Then they gazed at the chalk-white
school building of Solminati Academy in silence. It was Nozomu who opened his
mouth first.
"Umm,
sorry."
"It's not
something Nozomu should apologize for, is it? Besides, it was I......"
These words also made
Lisa's face cloud over.
Even though she was
deceived by Ken's scheming, it was undoubtedly she who hurled abusive slurs at
Nozomu.
And her words were the
decisive factor in plummeting his position at the academy to the bottom of the
barrel.
"Umm, I should be
the one to apologize. I have been saying horrible words to you......"
Turning to Nozomu,
Lisa bowed deeply. She herself never intended to be forgiven. Still, she felt
she had to apologize properly here.
"No, I should
have confronted you and Ken in the first place. The only reason I didn't was
because I ran away from you both."
Nozomu looked at her
as she lowered her head and slowly stated his true feelings.
His words were colored
by regret. Indeed, Nozomu was rejected by Lisa. On top of being deceived by
Ken's scheme, he was also impatient with his own ability, which was not growing
at all at the time.
However, Nozomu was
also responsible for the situation getting so complicated.
He thought that if he
became stronger, it would be for Lisa's sake. He had never faced them, escaping
under the delusion that they would understand him. This was definitely Nozomu's
mistake.
"In the end, we
were saying that we were doing it for each other's sake, but we were not truly
thinking about each other's feelings. We imagined our own convenient stories
and kept turning our backs on each other because it didn't work out. That's why,
I should apologize as well."
Once again, Nozomu
turned toward Lisa and bowed deeply.
And then both of them
raised their heads at the same time, and smiled at each other.
"Fufu~, we're
doing something weird, aren't we?"
"Haha, you could
say that again. If people saw us sitting on a park bench in the afternoon with
our heads bowed to each other, they would tilt their heads and wonder what we
were doing."
They smiled and
chuckled at each other for a while. The stagnation that had settled in the
depths of their hearts over the past two years began to wash away. It has been
a long time since they laughed from the bottom of their hearts.
Although they both
said they were doing it for the other, their relationship was distorted in that
they were still dependent on each other. The rusty cogs in their relationship
have finally begun to turn.
"What are you
going to do from here on out, Lisa?"
Nozomu asked after
they had laughed for a while.
In response, Lisa
looked upward to the sky and closed her eyes, as if to check something in her
heart.
Then she smiled,
turned to Nozomu, and slowly opened her mouth.
"I don't know.
I've always wanted to be an adventurer like my father, but I've come to think
that there's more to it than that, and I still want to study many things here,
besides......."
After hanging up her
words without finishing them, Lisa quickly closed the distance between herself
and Nozomu. Her moist eyes were staring at him from close range, and she looked
as if she was about to cry.
"Hey.
Nozomu....... If I decide to leave the academy, would you come with me?"
This is just a teaser.
The full chapter is currently only available for my Patrons.
This chapter will be available for free on August 22, 2024.
