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

350 Not just one

The place Kairen and Kain resided in and called their house was not too far away from the castle inside the city in the void, so it didn’t take them long to arrive at the castle. The castle doors were wide open, like always, and the two guards were busy playing cards with each other.

Kairen had long found out that people here didn’t really care who came and went to the castle. As they were all dead, what was the point of protecting someone else or even attempting to kill someone who is dead?

However, they would still play the role of guards, kings, soldiers, and other various jobs out of boredom. There were even people who chose to be thieves for a while only to add some excitement to the city, or attempt other kinds of crimes only to create some new topics of conversation.

Kairen even participated in a court once. It was for someone who stole Stefan’s crown and then shouted out loud that he was the new ruler of this land. The man was sentenced to death. After his punishment was announced, everyone in the court began to laugh, even the judge. Then they freed the culprit and went to the castle to have a feast after being invited by Stefan. Kairen didn’t know how he was supposed to feel and what he was supposed to do. This place was so unserious that he couldn’t believe it.

After entering the castle and passing through the familiar halls and stairs, Kairen arrived at Stefan’s room. Without even knocking, he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The thing that entered his sight was the familiar study, with a large table on one side of the room and a bunch of sofas in front of it.

Kairen’s eyes wandered around until they settled on a figure sitting on one of the sofas, leaning back comfortably as if he was on his own. The man was wearing a cloak, but his head was not covered thus his red hair was clearly visible even from meters away.

“Reynold!”

Kairen shouted as he jumped inside the room, rushing towards the sofa without waiting for a second. Kain stood by the door and watched his brother jump over the sofa with an excited face. Kairen wanted to grab Reynold’s collar, shake his body back and fro, and ask him where the hell he had been all this time and why wasn’t he back, probably slapping the man’s face a few times in the process, but he held his desires back and instead formed a smile. The redhead was away from his home for a long time, so he must be tired. Jumping at him and venting his anger on Reynold would cause nothing but an argument.

“Where have you been all this time? You didn’t even say when you’ll return!”


.....

Reynold was holding a cup in his hands with steam rising up from it. He raised his head to glance at Kairen with a weird look in his eyes, before lowering his head and taking a sip of the liquid that was inside the cup. His face distorted a little bit and he moved his head back and lowered the cup, parting his lips a little bit as if his mouth got burned by the hot liquid.

“Ahem, I had work to do.”

Reynold responded coldly without even looking at Kairen’s face as if nothing happened just now, but he was secretly sending wary glances at the cup while putting it down on the table beside the sofa.
Kairen took in the sight while plopping down on the empty sofa beside him. By that time, Kain was already sitting on one of the sofas. Kairen leaned a little bit closer to the redhead, put his arms on the armchair of the sofa, and leaned his chin in his palm. With the same smile on his face, he stared at Reynold’s face, waiting for him to talk.

Before he came in, no, before he jumped inside the room, Stefan and Reynold were probably having a conversation. Kairen thought they might want to talk about some stuff in secret without anyone hearing, but as he was in a hurry, he decided to be the rude one here and interrupt their conversation. These two people could postpone their secret conversations to later as they had a long time to talk, it was Kairen who was worried he’d go back home too late and that he’ll find only the remnants of his family.

“Your soul has stabilized considerably.”

After a few seconds of silently observing Kairen, Reynold stated his understanding of the situation while nodding his head. He didn’t need to perform tests to see how much the extra energies residing in the young man’s soul were reduced, as he could clearly sense them without much difficulty.

“So? Can I go home now?”

Kairen didn’t hide his delight and excitement at all, expressing his desire to return home as soon as possible.

“There is nothing stopping you from going back, but it’ll take a little bit of time to set create the portal and set the coordinates. Also, there are things I need to tell you before you leave.”

Create a portal and set the coordinates? Is this how he is going to return home? A portal... Like the ones that Claire creates?

Instead of asking about the portal, which was clearly a complicated subject for a conversation and would take Reynold a long time to explain, Kairen asked about the second part of the man’s sentence.

“There are things that I must know?”

“Yes. I need to complete the explanations I gave you before regarding Samuel and his plans, as well as the new information I’ve gathered that you need to know.”

Reynold didn’t hesitate a little bit in answering that question. It was as if he had prepared those answers before, or was already prepared to bring up this subject as soon as he met Kairen. He even sounded a little bit hurried, or maybe anxious.

“Why should I know them?”

“Because I need your help in doing something.”

Once again, Reynold answered straightforwardly, and without waiting for Kairen to respond, he continued to talk.

“That’s only if you want your world to remain a ‘world’, and not turn into a part of The Void. No, probably, if Samuel really succeeds, it’s The Void that will turn into the outside worlds, not the other way around.”

As soon as Reynold closed his mouth, silence descended in the room. All of the people inside were staring at the redhead while their expressions gradually switched from blank ones to grim and serious ones.

“What do you mean by that?”

Instead of Kairen, it was Stefan who stated that question. The three people had the same question on their minds so it didn’t differ who asked that.

“It’s probably what he wants... It’s what he always wanted.”

Reynold leaned forward and picked up the cup once again, carefully taking a sip from it in preparation for the start of his long explanations.

“Samuel... Since the day that our world was destroyed, he only had one goal, and it was to review it. To return our world to the way it was before. But as you know, the chair was completely destroyed in that world, and a destroyed chain can not be repaired... He had been working on it for thousands of years, on finding a way to repair the chain.” Reynold paused, heaved a sigh, and shook his head, “I’ve been doing the same as well. At first, I too wanted to repair the chain to somehow save my world... but that’s impossible. It will only cause greater disasters if we try to do anything to the chair again. That’s why I focused on restraining and stopping the destruction caused by irregularity instead of saving my world, but Samuel has still not given up.”

Kairen, who had just came here in search of a way to go back home, had a bad feeling about the things that Reynold was about to tell them. He didn’t know why, but he felt like if he knew more about this universe, he would be in deeper shit. He had almost died and came to the afterlife when he literally knew nothing about the structure of the universe, what disasters would befall him if he got to know more?

However, he didn’t stop the conversation nor did he try to leave the room. Instead, he focused even more on Reynold’s words. If he couldn’t escape it, then it’s better if he could at least know what caused his misfortune.

“He still wants to return to his life before the disaster... That’s the only explanation I can find for his crazed actions.”

“What crazed actions?”

Reynold glanced at Stefan and chuckled.

“Tell me, do you know what would happen to your world if that day, before your death, you hadn’t stopped that device’s operation?”

Stefan, clearly confused as to why the conversation’s subject suddenly changed to him and the cause of his death, was puzzled and didn’t manage to respond to Reynold. The redhead didn’t seem to need an answer anyway as he continued to say in a lowered voice.

“It would face the same fate as our world. The chair would be broken there and the whole place would get swallowed by The Void, or rather, entered The Void.”

Stefan’s brows knitted as his shoulders stiffened visibly. Kairen and Kain were no different from him.

“And what do you think would happen if such devices were installed in not only one, but countless worlds?”