Saved a Heroine From the Brink of Death

147. Irina (1)

#147. Irina (1)

[ Cain… ]

Irina looked at the being she loved for eternity, the being who promised her love.

The name of that being is Cain.

It was his fiancé whom he had met for the first time in eons.

***

I thought life was fleeting.

That was my first thought when I first reached transcendence.

Life was meaningless, and living was the same as dying.

This was not a thought I had while looking at mortals. The same was true for the transcendent beings who had escaped the shackles of life and lived eternally.

In a world where all existence cannot escape the influence of death in the true sense, it cannot ultimately have any meaning.

Eventually, as time passes, it will be forgotten, and its existence will only remain as a record. Maybe… it won’t even be recorded.

Irina, a young transcendent being who had reached the realm of illusion, thought so.

After reading the Akashic Records and catching a glimpse of the truth, she confined herself to her fantasy. She did not give up on life. She simply did not want to be trapped in the absurd space of reality.

Ironically, Irina, who created a false space called fantasy and lived there doing only what she wanted, achieved more and more as the days passed. Her divine powers grew stronger and stronger, and her fantasy gradually became more and more real.

There were no human relationships.

She didn’t trust others and refused to communicate. It was because of the trauma she had when she was mortal. She was locked in a lonely room, practicing and honing her skills. She was always alone from the time she was mortal until the moment she became a transcendent being, and even after that.

And as she confined herself in her fantasy, her relationships became fixed.

… Sure, I thought that was it.

“Hey- You made a fun space? What is this place?”

One day, an uninvited guest invaded his fantasy. So far, countless uninvited guests have entered and died. First, they sent a warning, and second, they showed force. Those who died while trapped in their fantasy were such people.

I also thought that the man in front of me was that kind of person.

A scoundrel who ignores his own warnings, dwells in illusions, and invites death.

Irina hurled a bolt of lightning at the man.

Lightning is an illusion, but the wounds it causes are real. That is the ability of one who has reached the realm of illusion.

“Wow, this was a near-death experience. Despite her beautiful appearance, her hands are cold.”

“Get out. Get out of this space… immediately!”

Irina hid herself in the fog as she watched the man who had blocked the lightning strike. At the same time, she once again covered the world with a strong illusion, declaring the intruder as the enemy of the world.

“This is a bit scary…?”

The man was shocked to see his fate turn into a misfortune. Reading the flow of causality, he burst into laughter and shouted at Irina.

“Oops! I’ll come next time! That’s all for today!”

The moment the volcano erupted and the tsunami struck, the man fled to find a way out of the realm of fantasy.

He left her fantasy, confidently leaving behind the words that he would once again enter Irina’s space.

“… … .”

Irina watched the man go outside and decided to repair the barrier so that no one would ever invade her space again.

For many years, he traveled around the fantasy world, pouring his divine power into creating a strong barrier.

“Whew… I finally finished it.”

Irina nodded in satisfaction as she saw the fruits of her labor over the years.

“Yeah, yeah. At this level, no one can just randomly invade the fantasy. It’s perfect.”

She thought that with this level of barrier, no one other than an outsider could invade her space. She was that confident. She had been born with the talent of the illusionary world, so much so that she could overwhelm the illusionaries even when she was a mortal.

“Oh my- Why did you make the barrier so strong? It must have been hard to break through.”

“… All, you?”

“Oh. Do you remember me? Yes. It’s me. Me. The guy who came last time.”

“How did you break through the barrier?”

Irina shook her head, looking straight at the face of the intruder she had seen before.

“No, no… Just. Die.”

Irina, who had hidden her existence in the illusion, began to intercept the man by converting the divine power of the barrier into an attack.

“I won’t be treated like last time. This time, I’m saying that we’ve come prepared to some extent.”

The man parried the phantom attack with his fist. Red flames swirled around him, protecting him.

“…simple.”

“Hahaha! I’m a little ignorant. So what? Being ignorant isn’t a crime, right?”

“No. Ignorance is a sin.”

Irina shook her head firmly and poured out a fantasy curse at the man. It was a high-ranking curse that would have repercussions even if he escaped to reality.

“This is dangerous… Ugh, look at that creepy thing. Well, let’s call it a day.”

“Don’t come back again…!”

Irina tried to catch the man who was running away, but he quickly escaped outside the barrier. Eventually, Irina gave up on catching him and started repairing the broken barrier.

And so time passed again.

“you…!”

“Hahaha. Aren’t you starting to feel happier? It looks like no one comes here. And it seems like I’m the only one who visits here regularly.”

“You don’t need that, so please leave!”

Irina fired an arrow made of illusions at the man.

“I’m leaving right after I get here today. Then, should I at least tell you my name? My name is Cain. Next time, tell me your name too!”

The man who revealed his real name used the throwing knife to immediately tear through the barrier and escaped outside.

Irina looked at the place where he had been with a dumbfounded expression and burst into laughter.

“… I really don’t know what kind of person he is.”

The man who introduced himself as Cain continued to visit Irina’s visions periodically thereafter.

He survived tenaciously, teasing and talking to Irina. That was when Cain visited Irina’s visions dozens of times.

“You’re not going to tell me your name today either?”

“… … Irina.”

“Then that’s right… huh? You just said your name, right?”

Cain called her name with an awkward expression.

“Irina.”

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“…?”

“Irina… what a pretty name.”

Cain said so and waved his hand at Irina.

“I guess I should go out soon. Is today the first day that I’m going out voluntarily and not you?”

“… … .”

Irina shook her head in disbelief as she watched Cain smiling brightly over nothing. He was a strange man. I don’t know how he keeps breaking through the barrier, but Irina gave up on stopping him.

‘… He’s a strange person.’

Irina decided to ignore Cain, calling him a strange guy. Trying to understand him would only make things more complicated.

After that, Cain often visited Irina’s visions, and the two talked.

Irina, who was trying to stop Cain, changed her direction from trying to kill him to talking to him and quickly driving him out. This was because Cain had set a condition that if he allowed her to talk to him for 10 minutes each time he visited, she would leave quietly without doing anything.

“Do you have a favorite food?”

“… Nothing in particular. I eat anything.”

“Really? I recently went to an extra-dimensional place. On one of the planets there, I ate a dish called ‘duck’, a deep-fried animal… It was so delicious.”

“Duck?”

Irina tilted her head. It was a creature she had never heard of before. Cain let out an incomprehensible laugh and held out his hand to Irina.

“So… I brought it to give you a taste. Here, this is fried duck.”

Cain held out a piece of fried chicken leg to Irina.

“Just grab the bottom and bite it.”

“Hmm….”

“Why don’t you like it? It’s so delicious.”

Irina hesitated to accept the food from Cain’s hand, but when she smelled the strong smell, she finally couldn’t hold back and accepted it.

“How is it? Is it delicious?”

“… … .”

Irina didn’t want to say it was delicious because of her pride, but she had no choice but to admit it.

“Oh, it’s delicious.”

The fried duck food called duck was truly delicious. The duck fried in Irina’s hand disappeared in an instant.

“… Is there more of this?”

That day, fried duck became Irina’s favorite food.