This is the story of a magician and an elf girl.

There must be a companion you can trust, the girl once told the magician.

But the magician did not agree with the girl's words.

"Rinna... in my life... there have indeed been several wonderful encounters and good bonds..."

"That……"

"But in the end, I still got nothing."

"..."

From the look in that person's eyes, she could tell that this was a heavy topic, and the girl didn't really want to get these things out of him if possible.

But she still wanted to know, after all, this was about him, and it was what he was willing to share with her: "... no matter if it was the people who admired me... or the people I saved... they would always disappear in front of my eyes... or pass away... no matter how I tried to stop these things from happening, I couldn't change the law of cause and effect, so one day I gave up, I chose to live alone, accompanied by loneliness, and act according to the principle of loneliness."

"elder brother……"

It's not that he doesn't have a sense of companionship, it's not that he doesn't want companionship.

It’s just that I can’t get it, I have never been able to get it.

Is this a curse, or is it karma or fate playing tricks on me?

He has never been able to let it go or come up with a reasonable answer.

"Whenever I desire something more, I understand the meaning of loss and the value of gain. Life is an extremely short experience. Most people may not feel it in their lifetime, but for me... the value of life is just this... Even so, the reason why I want to protect them... I have long forgotten..."

"..."

"Always deceiving myself like that...always perfunctorily answering questions like that...trying to make myself value life and feelings more...the result only makes me more and more cold-blooded...to be honest, I'm tired of suffering. After that, every life that falls into my hands...will never live long...it's as if they're saying that I'm the god of plague...cursed magicians...will never be happy in the end...I've been told that before..."

"elder brother……"

The girl held his hand tightly, and looked at his eyes that were about to cry with a comforting look. She knew that he felt very inferior and painful about all the lost lives.

Through Athena's confession, the girl learned that the magician, who had witnessed numerous sacrifices and deaths, did have an ignominious past, but she had never thought that the truth was much heavier than she had imagined.

"So... Linna... This time... no matter what happens... I will protect you... I swear... I will never... I will never succumb to fate again, I swear..."

"Um……"

The magician placed his forehead against the girl's head, gently made a vow to the elf girl, and then fulfilled it with his own life.

"……elder brother……"

"Ah...you're awake...are you okay? You were talking in your sleep..."

"..."

When Jack woke up, Linnae thought it was that man. She didn't let Jack see her expression like a sleepy child. But when she thought about what happened just now, she began to wonder why Jack was still here: "Wait... why are you still here... fighting... I..."

"Ah, wait, don't move. The battle is still going on. Adventurers are taking turns to go to the ground. The battle has been going on for two days. The demon has not made any moves yet. It seems that he is planning to attack tomorrow."

"Two days... I... slept for that long..."

"Of course... you have been fighting continuously for more than 20 hours... a normal person would have died long ago. Although you may not be aware of it, everyone is alive thanks to you, so you can rest assured."

In the blink of an eye, the three-day deadline was approaching. Linna said that because she was worried, but at the same time she was also surprised that the adventurers could actually fight the puppets for her during this period of time. It seemed that their strength had been honed to a certain extent.

"It may be a little presumptuous to ask this now, but why do you call that magician brother? Aren't you blood relatives?"

"...Why...Is it not possible?"

"...Uh...nothing...just asking, out of curiosity...hehe..."

"... Humph... If it were any other time... I would have beaten you until you lost your memory... But now I'm tired... I'll let you go for now..."

"Please... please... if I remember that this incident made you so unhappy... please just use a punch or a kick to solve the problem... I don't intend to be solved by you."

"Just forget it...it's not a big deal anyway..."

"...Is that so...I must have thought it was something extremely shameful..."

"..."

Jack felt a chill when Linnae glared at him and shut his mouth, otherwise he would definitely be punched or kicked.

Linna took a moment to adjust her mood, twisting her bangs with her fingers and saying, "... He doesn't like himself, his appearance, or his identity. He always takes all the blame on himself, and thinks that any mistakes are his own, even if that's not the case at all. As long as ten people point their sharp mouths at him, he won't say a word."

"...As the saying goes...a nice guy is more likely to die at the hands of a sharp tongue...What an unpleasant reality..."

"... a magician... an intellectual pioneer... a wise sage... even if he is called such a noble name - I have never seen him feel happy about it."

"...You mean...he is a humble...and self-deprecating person?"

"...half right and half wrong...his attitude is not modesty, but rather a sign of tiredness in expressing negative emotions."

"...Tired...?"

"Yes... to him... hatred... anger... contempt... greed... those are all very meaningless behaviors. Just to worry about these problems in a day, people consume a lot of mental energy to deal with them. This is an extremely wasteful and extravagant behavior, but in order to protect their self-confidence and self-esteem, people can't avoid paying these prices... He once said so."

"...wait...isn't this natural...no matter how much one hates these emotions, one can't completely suppress them, right? After all..."

"…Yes, after all, we are all human, so no matter how hard we try to suppress it, it is impossible. But that person also said that if a person's emotions and intellect are not managed by reason, then the value of that person is at best that of a beast."

"..."

"…Suppressing emotions is a skill that people must learn after they are born. It is an ability that people must possess. Those who do not learn it intentionally are all animals or garbage. I know very well that such people will only bring unrest and unnecessary waves to the world. Whether it is the behavior of an individual or a group of people, nine out of ten times it is inseparable from the influence of emotions."

"...You mean... that only people who are heartless and desireless... can contribute to the world?"

"……What do you mean?"

To be honest, Jack doesn't think that managing one's emotions through rationality is something worth referring to or practicing.

"Human emotions are not controlled by reason or desire. Emotions are just emotions. They are our reactions to external stimuli. We use desire or reason to deal with them... They are just products of thinking and self-processing. Just like your admiration for him, does it have anything to do with reason..."

"……certainly."

"…What do you mean?"

"I said... He doesn't like himself, he doesn't like everything about himself... He feels that what he did in the past made others unhappy, so he excludes all thoughts about himself, and just wants to make up for his mistakes and spend every day. It takes a lot of effort for him like that... I want him to know that he should stop blaming himself for the world."

"..."

"I don't want to be like everyone else... I want to call him with words that will make him feel warm. I want to heal his heart that has long been abandoned in the abyss, and remind him that not everyone has abandoned you. Those many misfortunes will happen in one form no matter what, and it is definitely not your fault alone. So - I think 'brother' is the most appropriate name for him."

"...It seems that even if he was very unfortunate in the past... meeting you is really a blessing in disguise."

Jack, sitting on a wooden chair and chatting with Linnae on the bed, felt relieved that everything was justified.

"...Not really...Sometimes I always wonder...maybe I made him suffer even more..."

"You are talking nonsense... How is this possible?"

"…One time, he had to go out with others to look for lost people. It took about a week. If I left the village, the villagers would lose their protection. So I stayed in the village, and he went to look for lost people. Time passed quickly. A week later, he was the only one who returned to the village. I heard that he killed all the puppets he encountered on the way, but the lost people and the others also died."

"…It's really an unlucky story…"

"...There were many other things like this after that...I spent more than a year or two with him...During that time, I knew he wasn't lying, and that my brother had been tortured by the unfortunate karma...When I thought about how if I died in front of him...he would definitely be filled with despair...I felt very uneasy..."

"..."

"...My brother is not a strong person...He is afraid of loneliness and solitude...He is afraid of losing...He is afraid of being betrayed...No matter how much he wants to suppress his emotions, he can't hide them from me at all - this incident made me understand how heavy and strong his trust in me is. It's just because he knows that I won't betray him. It's as if he has entrusted everything to me...So I decided to share the pain with him and never let him be alone again."

"..."

"But who would have known... that time, in order to protect me... he really even risked his own life..."

"..."

In order to make him understand happiness, and to make him realize the importance of happiness, in order to protect it, someone must stand up and bear all the pain in the world.

Whether what Linna did was the same as what others did, even she herself didn't know.

"...I understand his feelings...Men are like this...They will always commit suicide to protect the happiness in their hands...If it were me...Wendy would definitely say something bad about me behind my back..."

"...You are all idiots...Have you ever thought about what will happen to us if we stay in this world?"

"…If Wendy's eyes become as fierce as yours, it would be unimaginable…"

People strive for happiness and pursue happiness in order to escape pain.

But if there is no happiness in the first place, what on earth are people fighting for?

"...Beyond the light...The origin of magic...He left too few clues...I thought I understood him well enough...But now it seems...Maybe I still can't untie the deepest knot in his heart..."

"…I do have some idea about this matter…"

"Uh……"

Jack, who told Linnay everything that had happened before, was actually very concerned about this keyword and had a headache.