Chapter 15
Elisha gave a bitter smile.
“I feel like I’d do something stupid all over again just because I love him.”
Elisha had never been able to hate Cedric, even after he abandoned her.
She still loved him.
That was why she had stubbornly insisted on possession in the first place.
She knew herself too well.
She knew she would never be able to completely cut him out of her heart.
So instead, she had decided to forget everything and choose disappearance.
The thought of craving his affection again, only to be coldly abandoned in the end...
She truly did not want to go through that a second time.
Elisha let out a light sigh.
“Regression, possession, reincarnation... I guess they really aren’t for everyone. Maybe I’m rotten to the core like a proper villainess, because if I can’t do things my way, I’d rather not do it at all.”
Sohee raised an eyebrow at Elisha’s sulky words.
But when Elisha suddenly burst into laughter, Sohee realized she was joking and let out a small laugh of her own.
“Then I want to leave right away. That’s possible, right?”
“Of course.”
They stood in front of the ‘Gate’ inside the Wicheon Happiness Center.
Beside Elisha, who had chosen disappearance, a Direct Reaper checked her name with an emotionless expression.
“Elisha Brown.”
If a guest decided to disappear without attempting regression, possession, or reincarnation, they had to undergo another inspection by a Direct Reaper.
Elisha, who had been standing beside Sohee, stepped forward.
“Yes.”
The moment she answered, the Direct Reaper’s eyes sharpened.
He stared straight through her as if checking something.
After a short while, he nodded.
“Elisha Brown. You have chosen disappearance. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Enter through the Gate.”
At his words, Elisha took a deep breath in and slowly let it out.
Then she turned around and looked at Sohee.
Elisha’s final request had been for Sohee to see her off.
After all, Sohee was the only person here with whom she had formed even the smallest bond.
“So Sohee. You know what I’m trying to say, right?”
“...Yes.”
“Don’t trust her too easily. Keep enough distance that the Direct Reaper can intervene.”
“I’ll remember.”
The Moon Jar was not happy about Sohee personally seeing characters off.
In the past, she had nearly been seriously harmed by a character who was about to disappear.
Still, taking responsibility until the very end for those who had stayed at the motel, received counseling, struggled with their choices, and finally decided to leave was part of the motel manager’s duty.
So the Moon Jar could only warn Sohee again and again.
Of course, Sohee had also learned from her past mistake.
Always stand behind the Direct Reaper.
That was the minimum distance needed to watch the character leave safely while protecting herself at the same time.
Elisha stood in front of Sohee and lowered her gaze.
She looked down at her own hand for a moment.
Then she removed the ring from her fourth finger.
It was the engagement ring she had shared with Cedric, set with a blue diamond.
“Take it. My lodging fee.”
Sohee smiled and waved both hands.
“We don’t charge lodging fees from people who don’t use regression, possession, or reincarnation. Besides, we already received plenty from your father.”
“That was his payment. This is mine.”
“...Elisha.”
“Take it. And make sure you give some of it to Kuku, that chef. Tell him I paid him back for all the whining I did.”
This should be enough, right?
Elisha grabbed Sohee’s hand and placed the blue diamond ring into her palm.
It was difficult to imagine what kind of resolve it must have taken for a woman who had given up everything because of love to finally let go of that engagement ring.
Sohee silently stared at the ring in her hand for a moment before raising her head.
Elisha’s eyes were moist.
“Thank you for helping me leave without any lingering regrets.”
And yet, she did not look sad at all.
Having finally let go of everything, Elisha soon turned around with a resolved expression and stood directly in front of the Gate.
Sohee quietly watched her.
No comforting words.
No farewell.
No gestures of regret.
Sohee simply clasped her hands together.
Like someone attending the funeral of a distant acquaintance they rarely saw, she quietly wished for Elisha’s peace and safety in her heart.
Elisha stepped lightly through the Gate.
As if it had been waiting for her, a cool breeze blew out from inside.
Her long, beautiful silver hair flew brilliantly behind her.
The Saintess of Silver Wings.
At the end, she looked exactly like the perfect saintess from the novel she had once lived in.
Sohee silently bowed her head toward the Gate through which Elisha had disappeared.
At the front desk, Sohee opened the Regression, Possession, and Reincarnation Ledger.
Beneath the satisfying record of Dang Je-ik’s successful return, she wrote something a little heavier.
[+106 days. Elisha Brown. Chose disappearance after consultation.]
After hesitating for a moment, Sohee wrote in the box beside it:
[Blue diamond ring.]
Then she closed the ledger with a soft thump and stared blankly at the blue diamond ring.
“Lord Moon Jar.”
“What.”
“What exactly is love?”
“What nonsense are you going to start spouting this time?”
“...Love.”
Sohee closed her eyes for a moment, repeating the word over and over.
Then she leaned her whole body comfortably against the chair.
“Leaving because you love someone too much. Because you don’t trust yourself not to love them. Because you know too well that if you lose them again, you’ll completely fall apart...”
She had always thought the phrase breaking up because you love someone too much was complete nonsense.
But now...
Sohee felt like she could understand it, at least a little.
“Elisha is... kind of amazing.”
“Now what have you gotten obsessed with? Tsk, tsk.”
The Moon Jar seemed to have gotten somewhat used to her personality by now.
She was curious about everything and always wanted to understand things she did not know.
“To think you could love another person enough to give up everything you have...”
Sohee fell into thought.
Then she began digging through every corner of her own heart.
Did she have even the smallest seed of a similar feeling?
Something that could burn that hot.
Something that could burst into flames and eventually turn to ashes.
Something strange that made you want to hold on even tighter, even when it was already in your hands, because you never wanted to let go for even a moment.
...
After reaching the conclusion that she probably did not have anything like that, Sohee suddenly felt a little disappointed.
The thought that she might live her entire life without ever experiencing such passionate love made her strangely gloomy.
Wasn’t that kind of unfair?
Maybe it was hiding somewhere.
Some tiny invisible corner deep inside her heart.
Sohee began examining herself with great concentration, as if holding a magnifying glass over her own emotions.
As her eyebrows kept twitching this way and that, the Moon Jar let out a dry laugh.
“How would a little brat like you know anything about it?”
Sohee’s eyes immediately lit up.
In other words...
“Lord Moon Jar, have you ever had that kind of love? I’m serious. Someone you wanted to protect so badly that you’d even break your jar and ascend for them?”
“...”
“You have, haven’t you?”
Sohee moved closer to him.
She did not look like a middle school student begging a trainee teacher to tell them about their first love.
Instead, she looked like a graduate student who had just discovered a fascinating new research topic called What Is Love?
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Maybe I would.”
“You just watched Elisha Brown, who was hopelessly in love, and you still don’t understand love. Do you really think you’d understand just because I explained it?”
“...”
Sohee’s enthusiasm visibly crumbled in real time.
She seriously reflected on herself after hearing the Moon Jar’s words.
So Sohee. Am I simply a hopeless human being when it comes to understanding love?
As she began seriously analyzing herself, the Moon Jar apparently decided this had gone far enough.
He spoke first.
“Hm. There have been a few times when I wanted to break my jar.”
Sohee looked at him in surprise.
She had not expected him to tell her anything at all.
“Most recently... about five times.”
“R-Recently?”
Five times?
Was love really something that could start that easily?
Could people break up that easily too?
Could they really be ready to throw away their lives so easily?
Sohee’s eyes widened.
She pulled her chair closer to the Moon Jar.
“Then how do you know when it happens?”
“Whenever So Sohee starts talking nonsense, I immediately want to break my jar and...”
“Seriously! Lord Moon Jar!”
Feeling completely tricked, Sohee huffed angrily, spun around, and stormed off.
The Moon Jar laughed for quite a while, clearly amused.
“Ha... hahahaha.”
Only after confirming that she had completely disappeared from sight did the Moon Jar stop his stiff laughter.
Alone at the front desk, he muttered,
“It would be a disaster if I didn’t at least have the fun of teasing So Sohee.”
At the same time Sohee was storming away in frustration, an emergency report was underway at the Regression, Possession, and Reincarnation Hotel, the place in Wicheon with the highest traffic of characters.
“What did you say?”
Behind his glasses, the eyes of Chunrok, the hotel’s general manager, flashed sharply.
The gentle expression he normally showed guests had completely disappeared.
Faced with that icy gaze, neither the deputy manager nor the secretaries dared make a sound.
“...An official notice came down from Wicheon’s upper administration.”
“And?”
“The reincarnated protagonist we sent back... is apparently in danger of being pushed out of his position.”
“...”
Chunrok stared silently at the chief secretary giving the report.
He understood the words.
He simply could not make sense of them.
The protagonist was in danger of being pushed aside?
What kind of nonsense was that?
In the frozen atmosphere, Deputy Manager Dong-i finally gathered his courage and spoke.
“The reincarnated character we sent back is Enoch Hamington, the protagonist of The Wizard Is Too Good at Farming. He was a wizard loyal to his country, but after dying unjustly and being reincarnated, he decided to pretend he had no magical ability in this life. Instead, he poured his magic into farming and contributed to agricultural development, pesticide research, and...”
“Just give me the conclusion.”
Deputy Manager Dong-i swallowed hard and continued.
