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As soon as Doah decided to take on the role of Ophelia, the first place she visited was the library.
So far, she had only been relying solely on Bunny’s memories regarding what she knew about this world.
Bunny was quite knowledgeable, and in fact, she was smart for her age, but she was still only just ten years old.
‘I’ll get a tutor like I did in the first life, but it’s better to study before then.’
Doah took out all the fundamental books that she could find and piled them all up in a trolley.
—Hey, you there?”
Doah was a little shocked by the familiar voice that she suddenly heard.
—Answer me if you’re there.
It’s a call.
‘That startled me.’
Doah reached into her pocket and took out the earring that she had forgotten for a while there.
While she was thinking about whether to answer him or not, the voice that urged her to answer changed its tune.
After a long time, the child murmured to himself calmly.
—So she threw it away, I knew it…
‘I knew it,’ he said. What’s with that.
Doah pressed down the urge to sigh.
Truthfully, she also had a choice to keep her mouth shut and just ignore him.
Given her current situation, ignoring him was the wisest and the most reasonable decision.
However.
“What?”
She kept the thing while she was caught off guard, but it was unfair on her part to be misunderstood that she had been carrying it in her pocket all that time and just threw it away like that.
And she pretended to brush it off, but she actually felt uncomfortable to hear that resigned voice of his.
—So you didn’t throw it away.
“You told me not to.”
—You didn’t sell it either.
An artifact could get you just the right amount.
It was an accessory with a ‘mana stone’ where magic spells could be engraved, but the higher the purity of the mana stone, the higher the price it could fetch.
And the mana stone could also be reused in a way that the previous spell would be removed and a new spell would be engraved.
“Why should I sell this thing when it’s not mine? If I do that, then you’ll never have the opportunity to contact the person you’ve been waiting for all this time.”
—……
Then, after a moment of silence, he replied with a weak chuckle.
—What does that have to do with you though?
Ah, maybe she should just bury this again by the roadside.
Suppressing the impulses that came in violent waves, Doah asked curtly.
“So then, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
—Just wondering if you still have it.
What a trivial reason.
But she had a hunch that this kid wouldn’t have contacted her just because he was feeling a bit bored.
Doah listened carefully to the kid and asked again.
“What’s wrong with your voice?”
—Voice? What?
“It’s totally messed up.”
—As if… You heard it wrong.
She couldn’t have.
The last time she heard his voice in a call, she was impressed by the fact that he had been born with a good voice, so she could clearly distinguish between the voice before and the voice now.
‘Something must have happened.’
For a moment, she thought about asking, but she didn’t push through.
It didn’t seem like this kid would answer easily.
Doah had a rough image of the child.
It seemed like it’s normal in his daily life to hold back his emotions, so pretending to be fine had already become a deeply ingrained habit. It wasn’t likely that he’d easily express himself at all.
‘No one else but me is there to listen to him, it seems.’
She was sure of this because she could draw from her own past experiences.
Doah recalled that one child who was crouching in the dark.
A child with tears that have already dried, with no energy left to shout for help, with only panting breaths leaving her lips.
A child who would have withered away had it not been for one caring old woman who reached out a helping hand.
That child was Park Doah from her previous life.
So, she decided not to rush him.
In a case like this, it’s better to just stay where she was right there.
“I’m alone, too.”
—……
“There’s no one for me to meet, nothing for me to do. I have all the time in the world.”
Surprisingly, the kid on the other side stayed silent.
He didn’t ask how she knew that he was alone, too.
She wondered if this was something common between two lonely people.
Doah moved for a moment, taking out a book and sitting down at a desk.
“All I’m going to do today is to read some books. If there’s anything you want to tell me, you can go ahead any time and just say it.”
—……
He’s really quiet now.
He was rather more talkative back then during the first time they talked to each other.
Glancing up at the particularly clear sky, Doah spoke.
“The weather is so nice today. Are you outside?”
The kid, who was just breathing for a long time without saying anything back, muttered back so quietly that Doah wouldn’t have heard anything had she not been listening intently.
—So the sun’s already up…
It’s been quite a while already since the sun rose to the sky, but it seemed like it’s the first time he noticed it.
She wondered if he was looking up at the sky.
With a broken voice, he muttered.
—The sky is blue.
“Yeah. It’s clear and blue, with not one cloud in sight…”
—There’s one cloud. It looks like a rabbit.
“That’s me, actually.”
—……
So it seemed like this kid didn’t know what jokes were.
She said this because she suddenly recalled the way he asked her if she was a rabbit because her name was Bunny.
It was enough to make anyone feel awkward because the intended reaction wasn’t elicited, but Doah turned the page without paying too much attention to it.
When talking to a kid, sometimes it’s better to do it in plain language.
She read the book in front of her for a long while.
There was a sharp turn of the pages.
Then the sound of the wind knocking at the window.
And the colorful fallen leaves circling in the air.
“How relaxing.”
Doah suddenly realized.
She didn’t know how long it’s been since she last looked at the sky like this and watched the scenery outside the window while feeling so calm and relaxed.
Then suddenly, the kid spoke.
—The night is going to come again today.
As if he was talking to himself, not exactly hoping for an answer.
—Tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that.
Instead of berating him for saying such an obvious thing, Doah asked, as if she had hit the nail on the head.
“Are the nights long for you? Are they scary?”
The boy had been consistently answering with succinct words or simply silence all throughout, but this time, he immediately responded.
—I don’t like the dark.
“Then is it the darkness that feels long and scary?”
—I told you, I don’t like it.
This kid really, how difficult.
Doah smirked as she said.
“In the night skies of winter, if you look closely, you’ll be able to see a rabbit right there.”
—……
“I’m serious.”
Doah told him about the constellations she had studied so desperately all those years ago.
There was a simple reason why she had studied such useless things.
What she was the most scared of in the world was the darkness of the night, so she tried to overcome that darkness somehow.
“If you connect the stars in the skies with a few lines, they can become various objects, figures or animals. Among the stars, you’ll be able to see a rabbit outline.”
—Yeah right.
“Something like darkness can’t be solved just by closing your eyes. Rather, that fear will just grow even bigger inside you if you do that.”
She closed the book she was reading and explained it calmly with a gentle tone.
“So, when night comes, you have to look at the evening sky with your eyes wide open.”
Most fears could be overcome just by facing them directly.