I’m Looking for the Male Lead for the Ending - Chapter 21

Chapter 11.2

˚ ･: * ✧ * :･ ˚

“She noticed. So, that route is…”

A strange voice that didn’t seem to belong to a person.

I recalled where I had heard that voice and quickly turned the corner. Inside a dimly lit alley where even the sunlight struggled to penetrate, there was a young child covered in a robe. The child stood in front of a rotting wooden crate that reached up to my waist.

My heart began to pound loudly at the sight that eerily felt similar to the last moments of my last life.

At that moment, as if sensing my presence, the child slowly turned toward me. Due to the dimly lit alley and the deep hood of the robe, their face was not clearly visible, but I was certain.

…It was undoubtedly the child who had killed me in my previous life.

I balled my fists as I looked at the child’s clean feet despite being barefoot and standing on dirt. Despite the fact that the wound in my abdomen that had stung during my previous life had long since healed, leaving no trace, the fear etched in my mind sent a dry lump down my throat and caused a cold sweat to run down my back.

I couldn’t easily find words to speak as I stared at the child, but for a moment, the child seemed to look in my direction. They placed something on the rotting wooden crate and then sprinted in the opposite direction from where I was standing.

Taken by surprise, I rushed a moment later in the direction where the child had disappeared.

“Wait, just a moment! I have something to ask…”

However, when I turned the corner, what appeared before me was a dead-end alley blocked by the exterior wall of a building. I blinked quietly as I stared at the place where there was absolutely no place to hide.

‘What… What is this?’

When faced with an incomprehensible situation, my mind momentarily blanked. It was only later that I recalled something the child had left on top of the box.

There was a lapis lazuli brooch lying there.

…It was the same one I had seen in my previous life.

After hesitating for a while, I cautiously picked it up, and in that instant, a system window appeared before my eyes with a flash.

[ 〈SYSTEM〉

A men’s brooch with a lapis lazuli-studded world tree design.

Function: ??? ]

Function? What kind of function?

I looked suspiciously at the system window that had appeared before me. In all my dozens of iterations, I had never encountered anything like this before, let alone an item with a function. It was when I was still staring at the system window, unable to comprehend it, that the voices of people were getting closer to where I was.

I quickly hid myself in the dead-end alley where the child had disappeared and held my breath.

“Didn’t you see a child passing by here a little while ago?”

“A child?”

“Yeah! The kid was wearing a robe that looked like a nobleman.”

“Have you been drinking in broad daylight?”

The man was clearly referring to the child who had disappeared in the dead-end alley a while ago.

‘…It wasn’t just me who saw them?’

I took out a scroll from my pocket in case of an emergency as I kept an ear out and listened to the conversation between the two men.

“What alcohol are you talking about?! Of course, calling them a noble is just my guess, but when I saw the hands that came out from under the robe, they were hands that had never done any dirty work.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man muttered in a suspicious tone, making sure his companion couldn’t hear him.

“They’ll surely fetch a high price if we sell them to a slave market. Even though I only got a glimpse, their pupils seemed as if they were holding the world tree of Neitzia within them.”

At that moment, the person listening to the story burst into laughter. His mocking laughter made the man’s breathing grow heavy.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me now?”

“Haha, of course not! How can a guy who hasn’t even left this slum, let alone Erhel, claim to have seen the world tree at the end of the Liam continent?”

“That, that’s…!”

The man’s voice rose in embarrassment in response to his companion’s rebuttal, who added his words as though his argument wasn’t over yet.

“And I guess you haven’t heard the rumors yet, but the world tree has withered. However, you said that the child’s eyes seemed to have the tree embedded in them. Does that mean their eyes were like rotten wood?”

“What are you talking about? The world tree has withered?”

“What do you mean? It’s so shriveled up that no one could refute it if the emperor pulled it out right now.”

…The world tree has withered?

I recalled the appearance of the world tree I had seen about eight years ago upon hearing the man’s words. Certainly, until that time, the world tree had been so lush that it could almost blot out the sky. The news of the world tree, beloved by all the people of Arbonis and said to be guarded by dragons, being in such a poor state left me with mixed feelings.

“That’s it! I’m a fool to have told you the value of the child. If you’re not going to help, then get lost! Instead, go catch that child, and don’t say anything else to me!”

As the defiant man’s breathing grew louder and louder, I instinctively tore the scroll I had been holding and made eye contact with the man who had just emerged from the alley.

“Look at this, over there—”

The man’s eyes widened in astonishment, and once again, I disappeared into the light.

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