Sage 12

I’ve had many regrets about giving people affection, but I’ve never felt the emotion of ‘love’ as Yekarina had devoted to Darwin.

My lifespan is completely different from that of ordinary humans, so it was difficult to have romantic feelings. My moment is someone else’s eternity.

Thanks to this, I had a lot of crying to do for a while.

Before I was hit by a truck on the day of the college entrance exam after reading a fantasy novel incorrectly, I was also an ordinary human. Until enough time had passed, I couldn’t even escape the status of a slave that I was given when I first fell into this world.

It was also common for me to be harassed by narrow-minded humans because of my foreign appearance. Because there were many bad people around me, there were also many cases where I became fond of kind people who didn’t treat me harshly.

Just as Yekarina’s death was sad, the betrayal or corruption of those who had been kind to me was also painful. I tried to become numb, but it wasn’t easy. Even now, over 400 years old, I sometimes felt a surge of emotion when I thought about the relationships of the past.

It was the same when I thought about the many relationships I left behind in South Korea. I was already dead there, but I was still alive here.

The faces of my classmates that have faded now, and the voices of my parents and siblings that I still remember vividly…

To live an eternal life while continuing to think about something and feel emotions was a good way to go crazy. In order to maintain my sanity, it was best to wear down my emotions or bury my memories in the depths of my mind.

“Do you think I was cruel to the child?”

[I wonder.]

After the day we went out to Kaman, Irkus was noticeably avoiding me.

I naturally thought he was an ungrateful bastard, but since I was the one who was harsh to the child first, I decided to take some time to reflect on myself.

[But you must have had no choice. You were already exhausted when you came to the Southern Forest.]

Gilbert tapped my shoulder with a hand that looked like a tree branch. Or was it a tree branch that looked like a hand? Anyway, a hard tree branch touched my shoulder and then fell away. It was a very human-like comfort for a tree spirit.

As he said, when I first came to the Southern Forest, I was a little out of my mind.

I had never loved anyone, but I had given affection to many, so I was very tired. The more I attended funerals, the less I felt sorrow. While others were sobbing, I was jealous of other people’s deaths.

It became natural for humans who seemed to be my age to grow old when I came to my senses, and I was no longer surprised when people who seemed like they would never change, changed in the blink of an eye. I also saw countless upright people become corrupted. Those who lived a mess became saints. Human life was fleeting and variable.

I hadn’t changed, but everything in the world was passing me by too quickly. Those were the days when I keenly felt that eternal life was not a blessing but a curse.

I gave up living as a human in human society and fled to the Southern Forest. I chose to live with tree spirits, who don’t change easily, instead of humans who grow and die in an instant.

[Do you want to apologize to Irkus?]

“No. If anyone should apologize, it’s that ungrateful brat to me.”

[Try to be a little honest, Yoo-an.]

In the end, I couldn’t stand it and used magic to make Gilbert’s lush green leaves shake violently in the wind. Gilbert shook his branches and got angry when he was helplessly hit by my magic, but I just ignored it.

Apologize? Why should I do that first? I felt bad for being harsh, but it was Irkus who made me act that way.

[Act your age.]

“No. I’m going to live young.”

[People call that senility.]

“Don’t talk like a human when you’re a tree spirit.”

While Gilbert and I were bickering, Irkus opened his door and peeked his head out.

I thought he was sleeping, but he must have been hiding in his room and secretly listening to my and Gilbert’s conversation. Otherwise, there’s no way he would come out of his room at this timing.

“Yoo-an.”

“What? If you don’t sleep early, you won’t grow tall.”

“Even if you say harsh things to me, I won’t get hurt.”

Cheeky brat… I, the Great Sage who doesn’t act my age, met the eyes of my charge, who was staring straight at me.

It was a rude attitude, but at the same time, I felt proud. As expected, the material to be an emperor is different. He won’t go anywhere and be intimidated.

“You’re the first person who has ever reached out to me.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I know you’re worried about me. That you care for me. Even though you say you don’t…”

I really don’t?

I’m not very worried about Irkus. He’s the protagonist, so he won’t die even if I don’t pay much attention to him.

It’s true that I take care of him a little more than others because he’s a descendant of Yekarina and he might kill me someday because he’ll be emperor, but that’s all because I have a purpose.

“You have a big ego for a prince.”

“You always have to rain on my parade even when I’m trying to say something nice.”

“Raining on parades is a virtue of the Great Sage. Go to sleep. Don’t think nonsense.”

Irkus pouted his lips in dissatisfaction. It was cute, but I had no intention of showing it.

Originally, I was unilaterally keeping the protagonist, who should have escaped the Southern Forest on his own, so I didn’t want to negatively affect Irkus’s growing independence. I have to raise him to be a self-sufficient child.

But it was surprising that no one had ever reached out to Irkus until he was twelve years old. Even though he was the Third Prince.

Is the current Crown Prince’s position that secure? I think there was a description in the first volume of <The Book of Irkus> that Irkus’s position was unstable…

I didn’t remember reading about how bad the situation was in detail. It might have been written, but I forgot, or it might have been omitted because it was too much information to include in the book. Or, it might have come out after the first volume.

“Ir.”

“Yes.”

“When you become emperor, everyone will reach out to you. When that time comes, you won’t need me. That’s how humans usually are.”

Unless you’re conscious of it, humans are equipped to live by being obsequious to those who are stronger than them and looking down on those who are weaker. What do you think is the reason why ordinary people so desperately want to have wealth and power?

Irkus’s eyebrows furrowed again, as if he didn’t like my words. If you frown like that from a young age, you’ll get wrinkles on your forehead when you grow up. I reached out to approach him, but then I thought that I shouldn’t make intimate actions often, so I stopped.

“Why do you always try to keep your distance?”

Unlike me, who had retracted my steps, Irkus easily took two steps closer to me.

The favor I showed to Irkus was also a favor with a purpose. Keeping a distance from people is inevitable. Just as I’m sometimes afraid of small animals because I might accidentally hurt them if I hold them wrong, I was sometimes afraid of humans. To be precise, I wasn’t sure I could handle myself, who didn’t even feel anything even after hurting humans.

It wasn’t easy to say that I was scared out loud. How can I, as the Great Sage, show weakness to a twelve-year-old I made my disciple?

It was easier for me to just let Irkus think of me as an old man with poor social skills. Irkus will have to kill me someday, and if Irkus can’t do it, I’ll abandon him like I did the other descendants of Yekarina.

It felt like a stone was pressing down on my chest. I knew what this feeling was.

It’s… guilt.

I was feeling an inexplicable sense of guilt toward Irkus Robain right now.

* * *

I had a very rare sleepless night.

If I fell asleep like this, I would most likely have a dream about Yekarina.

Even though it was a long time ago, Yekarina’s face often came to mind clearly. Was it because she was a rare beauty? If you look closely, her delicate features seem to resemble Irkus’s.

Yekarina and Irkus had different hair and eye colors, but they still had a similar atmosphere when they smiled or frowned, as if they were of the same blood.

When Yekarina spoke to me with a smiling face, I had no choice but to bow my head like a child being scolded in my dream.

Yekarina whispered softly to me in the same gentle and soft tone she used when she first taught me the common language of the continent.

It was a familiar curse. The curse of eternal life that Yekarina had whispered in her worn-out voice before she died, which made me live in hell.

‘I will die, but you will never die.’

‘…….’

‘Until someone who can kill you appears.’

One thing I’ve learned from living for 400 years is that the underprivileged generally don’t dream of eternal life.

Only those who already have power, or those who have so much wealth that they can’t use it up even if they live an eternal life, dream of immortality.

Those who dream of immortality are usually crazy. They don’t calculate that they will lose more than they have the moment they decide to live on a different timeline than others.