The face was familiar. Riley and Nainiae, who had been on full alert, relaxed their faces.
“What the, it was you?”
Riley’s voice had no hostility in it. Inaril realized the one who had come wasn’t anyone bad. She lightly sighed.
“Mr. Nara?”
Priesia was sitting. She muttered the name after discovering the face of the boy who had entered the house.
“Ugh… Oh man. As I thought, you all came back here.”
With his palm on the door, the boy greeted everyone. He took a moment to calm his breathing and entered.
“Come on. You left me behind?”
Nainiae was hiding in the kitchen. She started to pretend that she was busy and picked up the tray that she had placed in the kitchen.
“Who left who behind? It’s just that you were late.”
As if he had done nothing wrong, Riley placed his fist on his waist and acted proud. As if he was trying to say he couldn’t beat Riley, Nara declared surrender. However, he stopped walking in.
“Um?”
Nara realized there were a few more people here in comparison to when he was dragged here the last time. So, he wondered what this was about. He blinked his eyes.
“M… Mr. Ian? Ms. Priesia too?”
“Ugh.”
Riley figured there would be many things to say and hear. Finding it to be a bother, he pointed at an empty seat.
“Sit first. I think there will be much to talk about.”
* * *
The conversation continued until nightfall. So, Riley and others decided to just sleep at Inaril’s place. They made places to sleep on the floor by laying blankets. Everyone was traveling through a dream world of his or her own.
“They sure are sleeping soundly…” 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
“A lot of stuff happened today.”
Nainiae and Riley had left the house for a moment. Nainiae had used a phrase from Riley’s past life and shrugged.
“To think thay you would use that phrase.”
“Compared to before, I have gotten better at it, right?”
She was asking if her common sense had improved since summer. Riley looked at her and then broke into a smile.
“All right. Yes. You have gotten better.”
Having heard the response she wanted to hear, Nainiae also smiled. She started to think about the things she had heard in Inaril’s home today.
“My head is a bit overwhelmed because I heard so many things today.”
There were the memories she had extracted from Rebethra. In addition to this, she had heard many things from Inaril and Ian. It seemed her brain was overwhelmed because she was trying to organize them all. Nainiae sighed lightly, and Riley said,
“I know. Things are tangled up in a complicated mess.”
Inaril was once called the Right Hand in this world. She said she was already dead and was only waiting for her body to disintegrate. At that moment…Ian just stared at her with a vacant look on his face. Riley was thinking about the Ian from that time.
“What would happen to Ms. Iril when Ms. Inaril’s added lifespan is exhausted?”
Unlike Riley, who was thinking about Ian, Nainiae thought about Iril. She was thinking about the brief conversation she had with Iril on Andal’s mountain last time. It seemed that Nainiae was finding the situation regrettable.
“Well, she could continue living in Romera Village or she could leave this place, one of the two, don’t you think? She probably will inherit her grandmother’s house or something.”
Inaril looked like she was in late 20s to early 30s at most. However, she was older than Ian. Thinking about this, Riley emphasized that Inaril was a grandmother as he muttered.
“She is a grandmother huh…”
In his past life and this life, he had never met anyone he could call grandmother. He shook his head.
“So, how long did she say she had left?”
“She said she had about a week left.”
Those were the number of days remaining for Inaril.
Her body had died a long time ago. To warm her cold skin, she always kept near the fireplace. Even at best, she had a week left.
Because Riley had brought up Inaril, Nainiae brought her hands together and started to fiddle with her thumbs.
“I feel like I am seeing my former self.”
Nainiae felt like she knew how someone who was prepared to die was feeling. Riley scratched his head and asked,
“What is it? Does it bother you?”
“It would be a lie if I said I was not bothered by it.”
Nainiae stopped fiddling with her thumbs. Now, she thought about Ian, the senior butler who must be snoring inside Inaril’s home.
“I’m worried about Mr. Ian too.”
“…”
“He must have longed to meet her for a very long time.”