Chapter 88 Aria's Request

After exactly 5 hours later, I opened my eyes and looked around.

It was still dark, but not that dark enough to make me blind to the environment.

I raised my head and looked up. There I saw very tall, red trees that covered the sunlight with their leaves and length. Just letting a few rays of light illuminate the dark, eerie forest.

I turned my head to Aria, who was sitting on the ground while leaning against a tree with closed eyes.

'Hmm, she is sleeping…' I thought while searching my storage artifact. It wasn't on me, so I thought that Aria might have taken it while I was sleeping.

That is why, I crouched and looked around her. Then I found my storage artifact.

I took out a healing potion and blood replenishing potion and drank them in a gulp.

I thought that maybe these potions could reduce the pain I was feeling but they didn't work as I assumed.

So I decided to do what I needed to relieve myself from this torture.

'Welp, what a pity to die at young age…' I joked inside to humor myself in my last moments and took out a dagger from my storage artifact.

It was a plain but shiny knife that shows that it didn't even spill some blood. But now it's time to bathe in my mana-filled blood.

'It would be funny if it becomes a cursed weapon.' I thought and sent my mana into the dagger.

My skin was tough and my muscles were hard as steel, which made it impossible to harm myself with this mundane knife. But mana was a miraculous thing, so when I strengthened the dagger with my mana, it became tougher than my skin.

In my previous life, I wanted to die at my 40 while sleeping. That is why I decided to kill myself in a sleeping position instead of standing like this. It was one of my greatest wishes and there was no particular reason to not die like this.

I even thought of inscribing my old name to a tree or on my body but for some reason, it didn't feel right, as even my intuition said to not do it.

The old me probably died in my previous world and his place wasn't in this world.

That is why I settled with just suicide instead of writing my life story in a book and making myself a tombstone.

My life was worthless and the value of my body too was worthless.

That is why, I lay on the hot ground and closed my eyes, put the tip of the dagger onto the left area of my chest and after finding the exact location of my heart, I lifted the tool of suicide.

Then with a fast motion, I lowered the knife toward my heart, slicing the flesh and damaging the bones.

But strangely I didn't feel any pain and this was strange even with my reduced sense of pain. I thought that I would feel something like a fly bite but there wasn't anything at all.

Well, I didn't care, hence I tried to turn the knife to the right, effectively crushing my heart.

"Hngg!!"ραпdα `nᴏνɐ| сom

A grinding noise of gritted teeth came from my side, hence I opened my eyes to see Aria whose teeth were clenched, and her eyes were shut tightly with a few tears coming from them.

There I noticed that Aria did something idiotic and that was to put her hand in front of the dagger, protecting my heart from the sharp tip of the steel knife.

I got up from the ground and looked at Aria with a child gaze.

"Why did you do that?" I asked without pulling the knife or pouring a healing potion.

There was a little bit of curiosity in me to know the meaning of this pointless action to save my life.

I knew that she loved me, which I didn't understand the reason for, but this was pretty unreasonable for her.

She could just kick my hand or make me lose consciousness but she just put her hand between the knife and me.

Anyway, Aria opened her mouth slowly and spoke with agony apparent in her voice:

"I don't know." She said flatly like always she did.

"So, this was your subconscious act to protect me, huh…" I concluded out loud and crouched to her eye level.

I grabbed her chin with my index finger and thumb, then lifted it slightly.

"Do you love me so much that you can throw yourself in front of me, right?" I whispered into her ear.

"But did I order you to stop my act of suicide? Do you have any reason for this? To make me experience this misery for who knows how long?"

My voice was emotionless while speaking like this. I wasn't even mad at her, I was just trying to get some answers by making Aria feel guilty.

"I don't have any real reason other than my selfish desire, master. I just wanted to live my life with you." Aria said weakly while blood was dripping from her wound.

"What a great love you have for me." I said and got up.

"If your love is great like I am thinking, then you can grant the wish of the person you love so much and kill him with your beautiful hands." I said and pulled the knife from her hand, splashing the blood around.

Then I poured a healing potion on her wound and put the knife's handle on her hand.

She looked at me with wide eyes while biting her lips hard enough to draw blood.

"I have a request you have given to me, master. I want to use it right now." Aria said and stopped in front of me.

She wrapped her arm around me and buried her face in my shoulder.

"I will do my best to lessen your pain. So, can you live with me for as long as you can?"