Jiwoo woke up in the middle of the night and quietly slipped outside alone. The husbands, who had been merrily spending the night together, promptly became alert as Jiwoo arose, but sensing that she wanted to step out alone, they closed their eyes and remained silent

Outside, Helka was gazing at the distant sky, all by himself.

With his towering stature and his role leading the group. He was like a lone lighthouse standing tall and illuminated the vast ocean.

Sensing Jiwoo’s presence, Helka perked up his ears and turned around.

“Helka?”

Nope. It seems he had become a fool again.

Greeted by Helka’s beaming smile, Jiwoo hugged him. His immense frame over 2 meters tall gently pressed his forehead against her neck in a playful manner.

“Ung, come here.”

As she stroked his shoulder and back, he let out a mournful groan. A deep, resonant voice vibrated from his throat. It seemed to shake even her body that held him.

Helka was visibly delighted but restrained himself from doing more than nuzzling Jiwoo’s face, perhaps remembering the last time he was scolded for misbehaving.

“Do you want me to kiss you? Ung, uhp…”

Did he understand only what he wanted to hear?

As soon as Jiwoo mentioned a kiss, Helka pressed his lips against hers. He boldly intertwined his tongue, filling her mouth with a sweet and refreshing pine scent.

Behind him, the night sky unfolded. The Milky Way looked ready to spill over with the moon hiding somewhere. Jiwoo closed her eyes watching a couple of stars shoot across the sky.

Perhaps Helka was the most polite yet the most willful person in this group. If being willful meant being this pleasantly indulgent, it was alright to accept it to a certain extent.

Listening to the sounds of autumn night insects rather than the noises of intertwined tongues, Jiwoo accepted the pleasure he offered.

As Helka regained consciousness, his heavy breathing gradually subsided. But their kiss deepened.

“Ung.”

His large hands pulled her waist closer. Though it was an act clearly showing lust, Jiwoo surrendered herself and let herself be swept away.

Even in his moments when he lost control or regained senses, he remained a beast.

“Seo Jiwoo. Did you sleep well?”

Having satisfied himself, he ended the kiss and gave her lower lip a gentle lick.

“Yes, I was just looking at the sky and then going back to sleep.”

“Then come this way.”

Jiwoo took Helka’s offered hand and climbed to a spot slightly higher than where she was sitting before. It seemed like they had ascended only a few steps, but they reached a place where the dense foliage cleared, offering an unobstructed view of the sky.

He sat down at a spot shaped like a railing beside a tree and tapped the space next to him. As Jiwoo sat down and leaned in, a subtle pine scent wafted over.

He was a dependable person.

It felt like if she asked him to pluck a star, he would earnestly try to do so with a serious expression on his face.

“….Helka, there’s something I want to ask.”

“Yes.”

The calm response came as if he had been listening to Jiwoo’s approach.

“About your condition. Is it getting better?”

“I have no pain now, but occasionally my intellect seems to dip, unavoidably. But even this is gradually getting better.”

Tevon would surely tease him about this, joking that he’s truly getting old.

“It’s not that your intellect is diminishing, more like you’re becoming more beast-like.”

“We all are not so different from beasts.”

Despite his serious and dry tone, Jiwoo could sense that Helka was joking. She chuckled softly and leaned into him.

“I guess I’ll have to take good care of Helka. To keep you from turning into a fool.”

“Is that what you’re deciding to do?”

“What?”

“You seem to be pondering something.”

Well, he is quite observant. Jiwoo laughed softly.

“Actually, there’s something else I really wanted to ask.”

“Yes.”

“This.”

Jiwoo placed the bird on her hand to show it clearly.

“If I were to use this to travel back in time, would the moments I’ve experienced vanish?”

Akarna would have the ability to traverse time and space when returning to the original world.

If so, she might be able to return to a time before they met, before Akarna existed, or maybe even further back to her younger days. In that case, what would become of the present, the happy times now?

Helka paused to think.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Then?”

“A fixed moment in time doesn’t disappear. However, from the moment you move, a new timeline tailored with that move emerges.”

“I hadn’t realized such immense power existed.”

“Perhaps. It’s merely adding one more possibility to the countless existing ones.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine.”

Jiwoo’s faint, fleeting laughter echoed in the moonlit night.

“So, the time I’ve spent with you won’t vanish.”

“Right.”

Jiwoo pondered for a moment before speaking again.

“Then it doesn’t seem as beneficial as I thought. You can’t change the future by returning to the past, or correct past mistakes because the present remains unchanged.”

“Is that so, Seo Jiwoo?”

“Yes?”

Helka gazed at her calmly. His smile was somewhat chilling like a snow-covered mountain.

“We wish for your happiness, wherever you may go. If another you, in another timeline, finds happiness that way, then that’s also fine.”

“But I might never meet you.”

“That’s alright because it wouldn’t be us.”

“What do you mean, ‘not you?”

“The ‘us’ that met Seo Jiwoo and the ‘us’ that didn’t are separate. We don’t equate the ‘us’ in different timelines with the ‘us’ right now.”

“Am I any different then….?”

When Jiwoo pouted her lips in playful grumble, Helka gave a gentle smile.

“We’ve improved by meeting each other, haven’t we? What’s the point of going back in time if it means we might never meet?”

It was a concern she had already resolved, but revisiting it led her to the same conclusion.

Even if returning to her original world meant gaining vast wealth and high status, could she find this same relationship where she would need and be needed? A relationship that had been salvation for each other?

“Doing that would mean the current me here disappears, leaving only you all behind.”

“We just hope that even if you don’t meet us, you would still find happiness.”

“It sounds like you’re assuming I’ll use this to go somewhere else.”

“Is that so?”

Well, what can she say?

Conversing with him always felt like the focus was slightly off, yet upon reflection, she’d realize the conversation wasn’t as strange as it felt in the moment.

But still, Jiwoo felt she was too, well, too young to fully grasp him.

“If you keep speaking in riddles, I might start calling you ‘old man’ too,”

Helka’s ears drooped, and he looked sad.

“Seo Jiwoo.”

When he spoke again, his rich, deep voice was always a pleasure to hear.

“We don’t believe in an afterlife.”

“Yes, I thought it was surprising at first. You all seemed like you would. Like God… or something like that.”

Or perhaps they’d worship Ellandos as God. But the affection they harbored felt closer to that for an ancient homeland, a family-like tree providing powers vital for survival.

The practice of one female leading a group in El Ragneil was simply the most suitable arrangement for their communal living.

“We live dedicated to the present, focusing more on the phenomena before us. That’s why we became who we are after meeting you. I recognize that there is the possibility that we might not have met, but we don’t dwell on hypotheticals.”

“So, that’s not really ‘you’? Is that why you don’t bother thinking about it?”

“Yes.”

“Can we call those who haven’t met you ‘us’?”

It’s peculiar how he delivered such a romantic notion so dryly. Yet, she felt she understood what he meant.

And with that, she didn’t feel the need to argue the point.

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