Chapter 51: Dying Man's Last Breath

"Mr. Wang!" A familiar voice of a girl shrieked as the old man was trying to head for the cottage. At a distance, he saw the young lady Camille waving at him cheerfully, beckoning him towards her.

He thought that it might just get troublesome to meet her once again as he knew how she had been searching for him the whole time when they were in the Tale Park World. And also, he was a bit embarrassed being a burden to her.

On the other hand, Camille was too oblivious of the old man's concerns, so she just rushed towards him and caught his hand.

"Mr. Wang! Why are you avoiding me?!" She asked with a hint of annoyance. "I haven't seen you since we first entered the Tale Park World! Where have you been? Are you alright?"

Mr. Wang just sighed and pulled his hand away. "I'm fine, young lady. So mind your own business and go someplace fun. I'm just an old boring geezer."

He was about to walk off again when she spoke up. "I…! I saw your memories! Your first love was pretty, Mr. Wang! What's her name?!"

"…Chu Hua."

"Chu Hua! Can you tell me more about her?"

He didn't look back as he hesitated silently.

"Let's go to the cave," Camille invited him. "You know, Mr. Wang, the reason I was attached to you was because you listened quietly to my sentiments before without any judgement. And it felt like you understood me. I… I wasn't blessed with a great father that I can rely on. That's why I felt at ease with you. You're more like a father figure to me than my real dad, so please let me in and let me hear your story this time, Mr. Wang."

He already knew about those things. The old man knew why the young lady wanted to get close to him.

"Let's go to the magical cave, Mr. Wang," She told him again. "I don't know if Haru already told you about it, but the magical cave heals the physical body. We can smoke cigarettes there without having to worry about its consequences, right?"

The old man finally looked back and directed his eyes towards her with all sincerity. And with that, he finally gave in.

"Fine, let's go."

Camille was delighted as she led him towards the magical cave.

As soon as they were inside, Mr. Wang was clearly surprised with the interior's light and dazzling surroundings as it looked dark from the outside. Camille looked at him as if waiting for something, so he immediately pulled out his box of cigarettes and gave her the last stick.

"It's almost finished…" She pointed out.

"Well, what do you expect? I came here with only a single box. I mostly used it during our stay in the Tale Park World."

"Was the smoke room from Castellia Fort a good alternative for this?"

"It's more than good."

"I can have this for myself, right?"

Mr. Wang glanced at the cigarette stick on Camille's hand and somehow, it felt wrong to let her have it. Nevertheless, he just let it go since she seemed to like it so much.

Besides, the magical cave felt like it was healing enough to let him through the hours without having to smoke.

As he lit up the cigarette for her, Camille shot out the question without hesitation. "Who was the dying man? The one you were scared of… I could feel your heart shaking even from that memory."

"I met him during a major shootout in a battlefield. I forgot the exact place as we were just going from one field to another, just firing our guns and looking away from the corpses of our own troops. That dying man was from the enemy's side and went towards our side while he was bleeding so much. We didn't even have to get alarmed because of the state he was already in."

"Before him, you met a lot of dead people and dying people."

"I did."

"Then what made the difference? Why were you scared of him at that time?"

There was a trail of silence before Mr. Wang could reply again.

"…It felt like he would give me nightmares I'll never erase from the rest of my life. I was able to forget the piles of cold corpses thrown away, discarded, and left on the field, but he was an enemy. A dying enemy. Maybe the reason why I was so scared… was because I don't really exactly know why he's my 'enemy'. He never did anything against me and even if he was standing on my way, it felt so wrong to watch him die. When I saw the dead people around us and then I saw him, I couldn't tell the difference. I didn't know why others were my comrade and this one was supposed to be my enemy. I got scared. So much that it didn't let me sleep for nights and he truly became a nightmare."

Mr. Wang could still remember that dying man's face.