How miserable was it to have to live an entire lifetime on the strength of a single memory from long ago?
That was the fate of merfolk. It was like an illness they were born with. The most intense emotion engraved upon the soul left a vicious mark that no circumstance could ever overturn.
For Iser, that mark was the human named Giovanni.
“Good night.”
“…You too, Teacher….”
This place is peaceful.
“Have a peaceful night.”
It is comfortable to a chilling degree.
It was an absurd sensation. It was not a sensation that a merman—that Iser—could allow himself.
Even the quietly blowing spring breeze and the gentle murmuring of the forest came to him with a charm he could not shake off. Iser had been given a bedroom in Gio’s cabin.
“…….”
The floor beneath his bare feet was made of wood.
The cabin’s smoothly varnished floor, walls, and ceiling gave off a bitter fragrance that left his mind hazy.
The large window to the terrace stood wide open, filling the room with forest air, and the bed, neither too large nor too small, radiated a soft warmth.
“…….”
When he lay down upon that texture.
“…This….”
Iser could not hold back and spoke.
“How does this make any sense?”
Within this peace, Iser felt a terrible emptiness and loss.
“Where am I right now…?”
In the merman’s memories, Giovanni was dead. He had died horribly.
What had Iser thought as…