A/N: Very lightly edited chapter... 😅
—
After William Frankfort was eliminated, Gondoa's protection stone resumed its effectiveness, deflecting most of the Dark Flames. Whatever stragglers left behind were swiftly taken care of by the city's Swords, who up until that point hadn't had a chance to do much or shine.
At some point, Jun and his party disappeared into the crowd and weren't seen again in Gondoa. Before they left, Aurelius and Raven paid a visit to their mother, introducing Jun as their "wife" to her. More so than the fact that they had the same "wife," who turned out to be a man, Gracie Gravadain was relieved to learn that both her sons were alive. And they even brought her an adorable 11 year old granddaughter!
They stayed with her for a week before returning to Illia, their real home. Gracie Gravadain and her husband decided they'd move to Illia once they settled all their affairs. The reason they chose to remain in Gondoa was in the hopes Aurelius and Raven would return to them one day.
A month later, Jun received a notification from the system.
|Congratulations, dearest Host! Not only have you completed the two Side Missions, purify 100 Swords and cure 100 Dark Omens, but you've also completed the Main Mission! This is your best performance yet!|
Quite frankly, without the whack interference called Emil, Main Mission Type B's weren't all that difficult to complete.
|Now you will enter the lifetime protection period and you'll be able to live in this world until the end of your life in peace. Do you choose to stay, Host?|
|Of course.|
This was why he rushed to complete the two Side Missions over the last month. Running around and completing tasks? He'd rather live a quiet retirement life with Aurelius and Raven again.
|... Although the interference is gone, I must warn the Host that things could still go wrong this time, though to a lesser extent...|
What System 00 was referring to was the matter of his hundreds of years of life in the beastmen world having been cut to a mere 20 years and such other nonsense.
|I understand.|
Despite the system's concerns, Jun spent a total of 50 years in this world. The average life expectancy for the people here was 80 years old, so he lived a full life. During those years, Ophelia learned to combine the use of three types of magic, eventually surpassing Jun to be able to combine four types. Later, when she reached adulthood, she left home for her own adventure and became known as the Supreme Being.
Supremely intimidating, that is. It was difficult for Ophelia to find a partner, and after some time, she did, in the form of a sweet girl named Amelia, who was actually equally as fierce as her. Whenever they weren't adventuring, they stopped by Illia to visit Jun, Aurelius, and Raven.
Regarding Aurelius and Raven, they spent those years working very, very hard to impregnate Jun, which failed when they watched him close his eyes for the last time.
Raven caressed Jun's cool cheeks, his eyes filled with longing. Beside him, Aurelius stood with a lost expression, unusually silent and solemn. Would they ever be able to see that brilliant emerald green again...? Awareness struck both at the same time.
"Elior," Raven said.
"Azazel." Aurelius nodded at him.
"He's almost there."
"I know."
"Let's go then."
Much like the previous times, their bodies dispersed into thousands of red, yellow, and green sparkles before fading...
—
Back in Limbo, Jun was greeted face first with a ball of fur. "Dearest Host, it's been so long!!! This system missed you so much! Did you miss this system?"
Jun nonchalantly removed the system from his face. "... Hmm, sure."
"That didn't sound very honest! But this system forgives the Host." Still lost in the warmth of Aurelius and Raven from the last world, Jun was somewhat out of it. Near the end of his life, he asked them a question that had long been bothering him.
"Why do you love me?" Though he knew they loved him, it was never truly explained as things between the three of them always happened so naturally, almost instinctively.
"Baby, you should know!" Aurelius said while laying some gentle kisses on his knuckles.
"You're the only one. It can only be you." Raven said.
With a roll of his eyes, Aurelius explained for them what the ineloquent Raven couldn't. "We—cannot exist without the other, but we are complete opposites on a scale so we reject each other while constantly trying to overpower the other. And you..."
"You are our balancing point. You are the only one..." Raven trailed off, his eyes distant.
"You are the only one we'll accept, the one we chose, the one we'll always choose."
"It can only be you," Raven emphasized.
Not knowing how to respond, Jun hmmed. Although he had grown to love them maybe, their feelings for him ran much, much deeper. It was a depth that couldn't yet fully be seen by him. Perhaps if he recovered more of his memories...
"Host?" System 00 hovered around Jun's face again, twirling in circles.
"What?" Jun snapped out of his contemplation.
"With the completion of the Main Mission and three Side Missions, the Host can ask me three questions that I must answer as truthfully as possible and learn a new skill! What would you like to do first?"
"I'll ask questions first." His questions had been prepared long ago.
"Ok, ask away, Host!"
"Who is your Creator?"
"... Oh, how tricky!" The System hovered around for a while, seemingly hesitant. "But too bad the system was already granted permission regarding this question."
"Oh?"
"Yes! And the Host has met the Creator already... twice, even. Can you guess who?"
Someone he already met twice? It couldn't be one of those two men or both of them, could it? But the system said Creator, so that meant one person. Also, he specifically said "twice." Someone he met twice? In Jun's mind, some old memories began to resurface.
After all, if you count the time spent in the ABO world, the training room, and the world just now, over 60 years had passed since he last saw her. There was one other person who seemed to know him from the origin world.
"Hah... of course. I should have known." He mumbled to himself while chuckling. "It's big sis Ana, isn't it?"
"Ding ding ding! Host is so smart! The system's Creator is indeed Oriana Silvie."
"Then for what purpose were you created?" In his mind, he had an idea, but he wanted to be certain. The system always dodged him when he brought it up, saying things like: "Host, you have to trust that the system is on your side!" If that wasn't suspicious, he didn't know what was.
"This..." System 00 appeared to be spacing out, but he was double-checking with his Creator, who approved it. "This system was created to assist the Host in regaining your true memory and returning you to your origin world."
"Really?"
"Really! The Host should really stop suspecting this system of evil intentions! I've said so many times I only have your best interests in mind!"
"Then... Did the original me want to live? Actually, no, don't answer that." When he first met the system, his memories were already lost, but was that enough to explain his lack of desire to live? He even wanted to die instead of doing missions. Now, he definitely wanted to finish his missions, go back to the original world and—
"My last question is who are Azazel and Elior to me?"
"Who... That, this system is still not authorized to answer."
"Then try and answer it however you can. It's my final question and I won't change it."
"... This system can only tell you their true names: Azazel Noumenios and Elior Sulwored."
'Wow,' Jun thought. 'Those are some fancy names.'
"... Why are they experiencing these worlds with me?"
"Unfortunately that is all this system is allowed to answer, dearest Host, as you've used up all 3 questions. Please don't make things difficult!"
"Fine, I'll let you be." He'd just work hard in the next world to earn more questions.
"Then will the Host pick a skill to learn, take a break, or proceed to the next world?"
"I'll choose a skill to learn."
"Ok, please choose, dearest Host!"
Jun scrolled through the list of skills on the screen before him. If he could, he would pick another type of martial arts to learn, but that wasn't allowed. Cooking was on the list, but he had learned from nearly every incarnation of Azazel so that was unnecessary. He was already an expert marksman when it came to the bow and arrow...
"I'll choose... Medicine."
The best way to stop Death was to specialize in stopping Death! Also, from what happened in the beastmen world and the Swords world just now, he understood how important being able to "heal" really was.
"Choice confirmed. Is the Host ready to enter the training space?"
"Yes."
"Great! Initializing the training space in 30, 29, 28—"
"Do you have to do the countdown every time?"
"—27, 26, 25..."
"Just ignore me then."
The Medicine skill was the hardest one Jun had ever picked, because it encompassed not only the basic medical skills of a general practitioner but a surgeon, pharmacist, physical therapist, acupuncturist, and so on. All in all, it took Jun a total of 30 years to master everything and by the time he returned to Limbo, he was still in a daze from all the theoretical and practical medicinal knowledge still bombarding his mind.
"Host! It's been so long!" System 00 tackled Jun in the face, giving him a mouthful of fur and tears or sweat. He wasn't sure. "But really, it's just been a paragraph!"
"..."
"Time sure does fly, doesn't it, dearest Host?"
"Yup."
"Would you like to take a break...?"
"No, let's just go to the next world." 30 minutes wasn't going to be enough to unmuddle his head swimming with medical knowledge.
"Certainly, my Host! Transferring to the world 'The Cannon Fodder Strikes Back!' in 30, 29, 28..."
Jun couldn't help but think: Why does that sound like a Star Wars movie? Wait a minute, what cannon fodder?
—
A/N: Cutting it off here even though it's a little short. Chapter title also taken from the song "Never Let Me Go" by Ghostly Kisses. A few more lyrics from the song...
Tell me
Where do we go now?
I will follow you
I will follow you