Chapter 315 – Reunion (Five)

“Gurgle, gurgle…!”

Ray stared at Doctor with cold eyes as he gradually lost consciousness.

If he swung the fireball here and now, he could obliterate Doctor, leaving not even a handful of ashes in this world.

But if he did that, the whereabouts of the red fragment would be lost.

Crackle.

So he had to endure.

For the original purpose.

Ray grimaced at the intense headache he felt then.

‘This is…’

Memories were replaying.

The ashen world and the ancient races.

The vast grasslands and the seven-colored band.

At first, he thought it was the same memory where Doctor and the World Tree had appeared, but he soon realized it wasn’t.

Because the perspective was different.

The ancient races, gathered by the seven-colored band, the Rainbow, were all looking this way.

In that moment, Ray understood.

That the owner of this memory was the silhouette of light that had appeared beneath the Rainbow.

And that this was one of the unidentified memories that had persistently knocked inside his head.

The silhouette of light opened its mouth.

Simultaneously, Ray’s lips moved.

─I

“I.”

─shall make you know emotion.

“shall make you know emotion.”

Doctor’s eyes widened.

Ray swung his other hand and hurled the fireball he was holding at the wall.

Kwaang—!

“Ghk, kgh… Huhk… Huk…”

Doctor, released from Ray’s grip, tumbled onto the floor.

Gasping for breath, he looked up at Ray with disbelief in his eyes.

“You…! Why…! Why didn’t you kill me…!”

“Redran.”

Doctor’s body flinched.

“There are no parents in this world who kill their own child.”

A calm and quiet voice.

Doctor wore a dazed expression for a long while.

Then, he burst into mad laughter.

“Kehehehe…! Kehahahahaha—!”

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

The black-hued fear within the Vessel could be seen scattering and disappearing like ashes.

Then, silence descended.

Doctor laughed no more.

With a face that looked both relieved and devastated, he stared at the ceiling and breathed his last.

The Mana flowing out from Doctor’s body and spreading into the surroundings.

A phenomenon that occurs when a living being dies after reaching its natural lifespan.

“……”

Ray closed Doctor’s eyes.

Memories were tangled, causing confusion.

He was the Rainbow.

And simultaneously, he was also Ray, the boy.

Sensing a trace of Mana, he searched Doctor’s embrace.

What came into his hand was a gem emitting a brilliant red light.

‘Rainbow Shard.’

Its surface was covered with magical traces of attempts to destroy the fragment.

Was it Doctor who tried?

If so, why?

After pondering briefly, Ray reached his own conclusion.

Perhaps Doctor had intended to gather all the Rainbow Shards and destroy them.

To prevent emotions from spreading throughout the world again.

Also, since he couldn’t destroy them with his own power, he might have planned to use Ray’s power to do so.

Thinking that way, he could understand why Doctor had continuously provoked him into attacking.

After absorbing the red fragment, Ray looked around for a moment.

Only desolate silence lingered in the underground space that had lost its master.

Crunch.

A Bloodstone fragment was crushed underfoot like broken glass.

Ray recalled the emotion Doctor’s Vessel had shown in his final moments.

What had Doctor been afraid of?

And why had it been resolved at the very end?

Lost in thought for a while, Ray climbed the stairs and emerged above ground.

The brightly lit view. Though it was the same scenery he had seen just tens of minutes ago, it somehow felt different.

Whoosh!

He summoned all the fragments he possessed and floated them in the air.

Red. Orange. Yellow.

Green. Blue. And indigo.

Now, all that remained to complete the Rainbow was the violet fragment.

“……”

He raised his head and looked around.

His current location was the outskirts of Sector 1; there was nowhere further to go upstream.

Even the upper part of the Elton River, which led up into the canyon, would eventually end in a closed lake.

There was nowhere left to search.

But Ray knew exactly where he had to go.

Zzzt—

He opened a Spatial Rift and stepped into it.

A bright Light Cluster covered his vision and vanished, and the location changed.

Damp, milky-white buildings.

Passersby with lifeless expressions.

A grimy, faded grayish-white landscape.

The place where everything began.

The lowest place, Sector 50.

Tap— Tap—

The passersby cast glances at Ray walking through the street.

But they soon averted their gazes and immersed themselves in their own tasks.

Their lethargic movements and the depression contained in their Vessels proved they had no energy to spare for others’ lives.

Tap.

Ray paused for a moment.

He looked up at the street sign.

’17th Street.’

The day the Black Rain poured heavily, he had been chased here by Hector’s underlings.

In a way, it was an inevitable event.

No Gang would simply let a street orphan who was caught stealing food from a warehouse go unpunished.

‘I only see those presumed to be Hector’s Operatives. Originally, this was the area Niles managed.’

It was an expected sight.

Niles’s faction was annihilated by the surprise attack of Hector’s faction, backed by a Wizard.

After that, how the streets of Sector 50 would change was obvious.

But still, he had thought there would be those who somehow survived and were continuing their lives.

‘Are they all dead?’

Liam, Charlie, Marcus, all of them.

Considering Hector’s cruel nature, even if they survived the ambush, they might have all been executed.

Also, Ray felt a strange sense of incongruity on the streets.

Orphans below a certain age were conspicuously absent.

‘This is where I fought with Ron’s Gang. And over there is…’

Tap, tap, tap.

Recalling memories as he walked, he eventually arrived at the Riverbank.

Along the way, he encountered many residents.

But not a single one had recognized Ray yet.

Unlike now, Ray in the past had ash-gray hair and the appearance of a complete boy.

Swoooosh—

The polluted water quality and floating trash.

The Elton River swirling below the Riverbank was exactly as it had been before.

The underpass was also the same.

There were two things that had changed.

That there was no longer a tent under the underpass.

And that the ash-haired orphan who lived there had now crossed the boundary of boyhood and was moving toward a new direction in life.

Lost in thought amidst the splashing of the river water, that’s when—

Vroooom—

A truck entering the bridge from the outskirts of the Sector came into view.

Among the figures riding in the back, he saw a familiar face.

After casting Stealth Magic and Haste Magic, he followed the truck.

Soon, the truck stopped in front of a shabby building in the Slum.

“Get out, you slugs! Can’t you move faster?!”

“Worthless freeloaders! I guess you want to starve for dinner!”

Those who got out of the driver’s seat were Hector’s Operatives.

They climbed onto the cargo bed, kicking and forcing the people to get down.

“I-I’m getting out. J-just a moment.”

“Oof! Ugh!”

Clothes covered in black stains.

Sweaty skin and haggard faces.

And the restraints on their hands revealed they were miners enslaved by Hector.

“You big, slow oaf! Hurry up and get out!”

The kick aimed at the last remaining miner was particularly harsh.

Bald head. Tall and large.

A muscular, sturdy build.

It was Humphrey.

The man who, in exchange for finding his brother who was sold to the City of Wizards, had helped Ray escape Sector 50.

Ray was puzzled.

To his knowledge, Humphrey was definitely an Executive of Hector’s faction.

“You traitorous bas…!”

The Operative kicking him flinched for a moment upon seeing Humphrey’s fierce glare.

Ashamed and angered by this, he intensified the violence.

“You bastard! Traitorous bastard! What are you gonna do, glaring like that?!”

Thwack! Wham! Thwack!

Humphrey, collapsed on the ground, contorted his face in pain but didn’t utter a single groan.

“Huhk… Huhk… You stubborn bastard…”

The beating only ended when the assailant grew tired.

Afterward, the miners entered the lodging building, and the Operatives put the truck in the garage, then took out guns and stood guard.

“Will the game be on again today?”

“Of course it will. That bastard Rex, he was pissed off after losing big yesterday.”

Ray passed between them, chuckling as they smoked, and went inside.

Following the trace of Mana from Humphrey, he moved his steps, opened the back door, and arrived in the courtyard.

Humphrey was leaning against the building wall, staring blankly at the sky.

Ray dispelled his Stealth Magic and spoke directly.

“Humphrey.”

“……!”

Startled, Humphrey turned to look at Ray and couldn’t take his eyes off that face.

Soon, with a shocked expression, he stammered,

“You, you are…!”

“I’m back.”

Humphrey’s mouth gaped open and closed, unable to form words.

Then, with a choked voice, he barely managed to utter a sentence.

“Two years… it’s been two years. Did you come back because you’re confident it’s enough?”

“Of course. Can you tell me what’s been happening?”

Humphrey held his trembling hands to calm them and explained the situation as calmly as possible.

After the war, all surviving Operatives of Niles’s faction were executed.

And the subsequent tyranny had caused the Sector’s residents to suffer.

“…And I rebelled against Hector, failed, and ended up like this.”

“I didn’t see any children on the streets.”

“That’s also Hector’s doing. Orphans younger than ten are all captured and sold as commodities to upper Sectors.”

A few more stories about Hector’s faction were exchanged.

Looking at the wounds covering Humphrey’s entire body, Ray said,

“Thank you for holding on.”

Humphrey shook his head.

“If it weren’t for you, I probably couldn’t have held on. No matter how small the probability, as long as there was hope that you’d return, that’s why I could endure.”

A deep violet emotion surged within Humphrey’s Vessel.

“Don’t worry now. All of Sector 50’s problems will be resolved. But, wait just a little longer. I’ll be back. There’s something I need to do first.”

“Understood. Don’t worry about me.”

Zzzt—

Humphrey’s eyes widened at the suddenly appearing Spatial Rift.

After briefly gazing at Humphrey’s emotion, Ray stepped through the rift.

Fwoosh.

A familiar intersection appeared.

The day after the night of the Golem attack.

It was the place he had passed through while escaping the Sector, being chased by Hector’s faction.

And.

“Long time no see, Grandmother Viola.”

It was also a place where a certain figure from Sector 50 remained unchanged, like an old landscape.

Ray looked at Viola, sitting on a mat, holding her face with closed eyes toward him.

The can was empty.

Her income as a blind woman was telling mysterious stories to passersby and receiving coins.

The main reason for the empty can was likely that her primary customers—the street children—had all been captured by Hector and disappeared.

Ray recalled a past conversation.

「Hehe, if children don’t fantasize, who will?」

「Adults generally don’t. And children shouldn’t. Because they get lost in useless delusions and fail to live in reality.」

「I don’t think so. Children have the privilege to imagine anything in their minds.」

“It’s Ray, isn’t it.”

The voice that reached him pulled him from his thoughts.

Viola wore a gentle, faint smile.

“Yes, it’s Ray. May I hear a story?”

“Of course you may. Well, is there a story you want?”

Ray bent one knee.

For the first time in his life, he placed a coin in her can and said,

“A story about the Rainbow.”