Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

It was not only because of the words that he said right now. Kairen had long wanted to know Alan’s story. He was curious about that man’s life, about how he knew so much about the things that everybody has forgotten and even wasn’t written in history. How old was he really? Where and how he has lived?

Kairen wanted to know them all.

However, that didn’t mean he could accept the words Alan just said. Kairen was not satisfied with the answer given to him, no actually he was rather annoyed. There was something that Alan was mistaken about.

“Kain is not dead.”

Kairen said with a loud and confident voice as he believed those words to be the truest of the truth.

“He is no different than a dead man.”

Alan’s answer came immediately, cold and stern. Feeling something cold spread in his heart, Kairen took one step back and glared at the golden-haired man. He actually wanted to punch the man in the face for what he said, but he just shook his head and looked away from him once again.

“...I don’t want to talk about this anymore. If you are not going to explain about the religion, then move aside.”

.....

“You’ve got to accept the reality.”

Though Alan didn’t even listen to him and kept talking.

“The people whose souls are taken by those artifacts are no different than dead. The man is only alive because you broke the artifact at the right time, or something else. You are a strange freak so I can’t tell for sure how he started to breathe again after losing his essence, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he is a dead man. No longer alive.”

By the mention of a stolen soul and the broken artifact, the team leader’s eyes went wide. He was looking between the two with his face visibly filled with questions, but none of those two cared about him and kept arguing.

“He breathes and his heart still beats, then he is alive. The only thing we need to do is to bring back that soul.”

“He is only an empty shell.”

“He will be fine again after his soul comes back.”

“That is not possible! The ones who were taken by those artifacts can never come back. The things taken by them can not be retrieved, the after-effects can not be undone, the curse can not be lifted.”

The urge to punch the man in his face was so intense that Kairen had to clench his fist as hard as he could to stop himself from doing that.

Alan knew how the young boy must be feeling. After all, such feelings were not alien to him. Still, he had to say those words, he had to tell the truth so that the boy wouldn’t chase after an empty hope for years. The boy might hate him, but he had to wake him up from his delusion.

“You are so confident, have you tried that before as well?”

Alan then heard Kairen’s mumbles. He closed his mouth. He opened and closed his mouth several times but didn’t say anything. Alan’s face was suddenly shadowed with unknown emotions that were rare to see on him. Looking at him, Kairen wondered if had touched a sore spot or something like that.

“...”

As his answer was taking too long, Kairen even started to think that he might need to apologize. Did he really say something he shouldn’t have said? Why did the man suddenly go silent?

But Alan was being the annoying here! How dare he call a living, breathing man an empty shell with no hopes to come back to life?? He kept saying that Kain was dead! Why would Kairen apologize? Nah! Forget it!

Team leader Dains was still standing beside his desk and was watching the scene. The two looked so agitated that the team leader was starting to think that they would finally jump into each other to beat the shit out of the other one at any moment.

‘Should I somehow stop them?’

Just when he was wondering if he had to step forward and stop the argument, Alan finally uttered something.

“Why do you...”

Alan paused once more after saying only those three words as if hesitant but opened his mouth back soon enough.

“Why do you think I am in this state right now?”

“...”

Kairen blinked at the unexpected answer.

In this state?

Kairen, still frowning so hard that his face was crankled like an old man, tilted his head slightly.

What state?

Looking at Kairen’s mixed expression of anger and confusion, Alan decided to explain a little bit more so that even fools like this young boy could understand.

“How do you think I turned this way, unable to age, turn old, or even die?”

“Ah?!”

A small gasp left Karein’s lips, his eyes slightly widened at the mention of those words.

Unable to age, turn old, and die.

Kairen’s brows frowned even more.

‘Is this...’

Is this what he thinks it is?

He had not thought about it before, but was this also related to the artifacts? Alan knew a lot about them, and there was also his panicked reaction when he first saw the bracelet on Kain’s arm.

Was it possible that he too was once the master of an ancient artifact?

‘Oh... Really...’

Kairen never expected such a thing.

“You can’t age?”

Someone blurted that out with a surprised voice. Those were team leader Dain’s words that slipped his tongue as he was too surprised that he couldn’t hold himself back from saying what was in his mind.

“Shut up.”

And that’s the answer he got from Alan accompanied by a glare from the gold-haired man.

“....”

The team leader lowered his head with a little bit of a dejected expression and decided to just stay back and silently watch them.

Turning his gaze back to Karien, Alan started to talk again.

“Do you think, if there was a way to lift the after-effects from the affected person, I wouldn’t have tried it?”

Kairen’s eyes widened even more at those words.

“You-”

“Why do you think I’m like this, huh? Answer me brat.”

Kairen closed his mouth shut, but his face was the face of someone who was starting to realize things little by little.

“If there was a way, I would’ve long found it. I’ve done anything that one person could do, after all. Even more than that as I have a power that the other people don’t.”

He then chuckled.

“Even if there really IS a solution, only one person would know about it. You know who am talking about, right? The great Emperor Reynold, who is the one who is the first and true owner of those artifacts. You need to go find a man who had disappeared, and most probably died in one corner of the world, bring him out of his grave, and ask him about the artifacts if you are so desperate to bring your brother back to life.”

Kairen didn’t know if the last words were said in order to comfort him or mock him, but he didn’t feel good hearing them either way.

“You’d better accept the reality, Kairen. That man will never wake up. Stop wasting your time and efforts on a gone person already.”

“....”

Kairen bit his lips, not saying anything for a long while. He stood in his spot, thinking about Alan’s words.

‘Is it finished?’

Team leader Dains looked between Kairen and Alan, wondering if they were done with their fight. He actually didn’t understand much about the contents of their conversation. He wanted to know the details as well, but the mood didn’t seem right for him to ask so he just decided to change the topic to the original one.

“If-”

“Then.”

Just when the team leader opened his mouth, Kairen once again started to talk.

“Then, how did you end up like this?”

He looked up at Alan.

“Didn’t you know about the aftereffects of using the artifacts?”

Did he also use the artifact without knowing what it was? How and when did he even find one?

Alan looked at him with a strange gaze before answering.

“I knew.”

“Then how...”

“Sigh.”

Alan sighed with a helpless face.

“I tried to do what you asked before.”

.....

Alan shrugged as he walked past Kairen to sit on a sofa.

“Turn back the time to bring back the dead. I did that. Several times. To do that, I needed to use the power given to me by the artifact. In the end, I exhausted that power, got cursed, and didn’t even manage to bring her back.”