The Gap Between You and Me - Chapter 159

[Where do you think this is?]

The confused Edwin heard a voice in his ears. A strange voice, clear as if whispering right next to him, yet felt like echoes from afar. Edwin, who thought he was alone, got surprised and looked around him in vigilance.

“Who’s there?”

He growled low into the darkness.

“I said who’s there?”

[Well. Who do you think it is?]

The owner of the voice laughed a little as if finding the situation amusing.

[Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.]

“Show yourself.”

Edwin ordered.

“Show yourself before me at once.”

[If you want.]

RIght as soon as he finished speaking, a light bloomed in the darkness. The light, which had been faint like a haze, grew brighter and brighter, and soon took on a certain shape. Edwin’s eyes widened as he silently watched the scene.

“You are…… ?”

Seeing the shape formed by the light, he lost his words. His neat face was visibly contorted.

“You are, what on earth…… ?”

[How is it? Do you like it?]

The figure asked, tilting its head slightly to the side.

[I think we look pretty similar.]

With the same face as Edwin.

Edwin’s eyes were wide open as he gazed at the figure identical to himself. The figure’s appearance, as well as the outfit he was wearing, were perfectly the same.

Clang. Edwin quickly drew the sword that he was wearing around his waist. Then, without hesitation, he swung his sword at the figure shaped like his own. A long sword line was drawn with the whooshing sound and the wind getting cut.

[It’s useless.]

But the figure was not frightened in the slightest. Rather, it laughed at Edwin as if it was ridiculous. The shape where the sword passed was slightly crushed for a moment, and was soon restored as if nothing had happened.

Edwin, who had been staring at the bizarre scene, opened his mouth.

“Is this a dream?”

[It’s not a dream.]

“Then am I looking at some mirage?”

[No way. You are clearly looking at it properly.]

The figure deliberately exaggerated and answered generously.

[You really don’t know? The place where you are standing now?]

“…….”

[If you think about the last actions you took, you can roughly guess.]

‘The last actions I took?’

Edwin frowned at the figure’s meaningful words.

‘Come to think of it…… I was heading to Siqman Fortress.’

Edwin rolled his eyes with a serious face.

‘Surely I infiltrated the fortress to meet him, Bernard.’

Edwin’s expression hardened as a blurry scene passed before his eyes. It felt like the thick fog that had covered his vision was slowly dissipating. Memories he had forgotten for a while began to return to his mind one by one.

Edwin withdrew the Kustan army that was stationed in front of the Siqman Fortress as ordered by Kustan’s upper command. After completing all his preparations, he infiltrated the fortress single-handedly to take revenge on Bernard.

He had already been seriously injured on the battlefield. There was no way he could win against a thousand or so Velician soldiers. On top of that, against Bernard, who was in relatively good condition.

Still, he went ahead with his plan. It didn’t matter if the plan went wrong anyway and he would not achieve his goal. After losing Herietta, he had been wandering in the depths of despair, and it made his life so burdensome that it was difficult to breathe.

He had nothing more to gain or lose. A world without Herietta Mackenzie. There was no salvation for Edwin in that world. There was no rest. And unfortunately, that fact only became more apparent as time passed.

So that was why. The reason he didn’t answer Lionelli’s question when she asked if she could see him again. He went to the fortress without hesitation to carry out a mission with a very slim chance of success.

In fact, from the moment he planned all of this, he had no intention of returning alive.

‘But why?’

Edwin’s jaw tightened.

‘Why was she there?’

Everything was going smoothly as planned. No, he thought so. Until someone other than Bernard entered the room. Until the person he had believed must be dead appeared in front of him.

‘Why is she there, not anywhere else…… ?’

The moon, hiding behind the clouds, appeared and at the same time the face of the woman sitting next to him was revealed.

For the past year, it was a face he had never forgotten for a single day. The face of the eighteen-year-old Herietta that stood under a tree that swayed in the wind and stared at him.

She was looking down at him as he fell to the floor, with a more mature face than the same Herietta had remembered.

With a fully terrified look.

Throb. The moment Edwin recalled the look in her eyes as she looked at him, he felt suffocated inside. He felt the pain as if his stomach had been hit hard with a fist.

It was ironic. She was the woman who Edwin wanted to protect no matter what. Yet the reason she was so terrified was none other than Edwin, it was because of him.

Tang. His hand lost strength and the sword he was holding fell to the floor. He stumbled a little, and unknowingly took a step back. Haa, haa. He could hear the sound of his own breathing, which became a little rough in his ears.

[You must have remembered. What have you done?]

The figure that had been quietly watching the scene said so.

[Then you can guess where this place is and who I am to some extent.]

“…… Are you saying I’m dead?”

Edwin, who was catching his breath, asked softly.

“Are you an evil spirit that came to greet me?”

[Evil spirit?]

The figure frowned as ‘evil spirit’ came out of Edwin’s mouth.

[Why do you think so?]

“Because hell is the only place that will accept me.”

There was no need for a long explanation.

It was something he was prepared for from the moment he gave up being human for revenge and became a monster under a human mask. Edwin knew very well how heavy and serious the weight of his sins was.

Want to read more? Up until the final chapter are available on Patreon: