Life didn't get easier, even in another world

328 The void

Kairen didn’t know how much time passed since he was in that place. The land he was in had no days nor nights. The weather didn’t change. The sun didn’t rise, nor did the moon. There were no clocks and nothing to show the time to Kairen. The only thing Kairen could rely on to barely make a guess about the days spent here was the number of times he ate food. According to them, he has been here for about five or six days.

Staying in this land was... more than boring. It was so boring that Kairen couldn’t even say how boring it was, or how bored he was. There was also the fact that he couldn’t step out of this room. He was actually scared of going outside so he was happy that he could stay inside all the time, but he wished there were things he could do. The only entertainment he had was to stare out of the window into the vast darkness. In the distance, there were a few shining lights. Kairen didn’t know what they were, but they were beautiful. Actually, he couldn’t even tell whether they were close or far away as everywhere was dark. He only guessed that those lights weren’t too close to him as they were small, didn’t illuminate the inside of his room, and he couldn’t sense any heat or noise from them.

Creak

Kairen looked away from the lights outside the window and turned towards Reynold, who just entered the room with a trail of food in his hand.

“Hi.”

Kairen greeted the man happily. The redhead nodded in his answer, put the trail on the bed, and sat down on a chair on the other end of the room. For some reason, Kairen was expecting him to take out two knitting needles and start knitting a scarf. He didn’t know where that thought came from, but it made him chuckle.

“What?”

Reynold raised an eyebrow.

“You’re laughing at my food?”

.....

“What? No!”

Kairen retorted and picked up his spoon.

“You are not eating again?”

Reynold shook his head. He kept bringing Kairen food, but he never ate himself. Kairen didn’t know if he just ate somewhere else or didn’t eat food at all...

Wouldn’t he die if he doesn’t eat?

That thought had crossed his head at first, but he soon dismissed it. Someone who survived a catastrophe that whipped out a whole world wouldn’t die from starvation!

“By the way, when are we leaving this place?”

“In a little bit.”

The spoon froze on Kairen’s hand.

“Yeah?”

Reynold continued as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“I should leave for the kingdom. There are things I need to take care of, and you are also coming with me. They’d gladly give you a room to stay in the castle if I say that you are my guest.”

Kairen’s jaw, naturally and elegantly, dropped down.

“K-kingdom? Castle?”

Did he hear things wrong or did the man really say those words?

“Are we leaving this blackish dark land?”

Kairen exclaimed with hope and happiness visible on his face. The man glanced at him for a second, then shook his head.

“No. We are heading deeper inside.”

“Pardon?”

“I told you about this place. This is the void. The land of nothingness. There is nothing here, but nothingness.”

“But you said there is a castle and a kingdom!”

“They are also nothing.”

“....”

Was Kairen too dump to understand those words or was the man talking bullshit?

Seeing his face, which was full of questions, Reynold chuckled and started explaining.

“Listen, Reyn.”

Reynold shut his mouth up and opened it in an instant.

“Re- I- Um. Ren. Kairen!”

He stuttered, suddenly clasped his hands, and lowered his head.

“Uhm! I meant Kairen. Yeah. Ahem!”

Kairen watched him stutter and spit out words nervously with a frozen face.

‘Did he just call me Reyn?’

Reyn? Such as Reynold?

‘Did he mistake me with himself? Huh?’

Reynold was still trying to correct his mistake. His face had gotten red from embarrassment and he was now playing with his long hair while looking at the floor.

“Uhm. Look, your brother keeps calling you Ren so you see, there might be mistakes! We are all human- no uh I might not be human but anyway, I can still make mistakes! For a moment, I mixed Ren and Kairen and uh, um, you see... Yeah! So the void is a land where there is nothing in it! Do you know why? Because it’s nothing? No. No that’s not right. I mean, you see... It’s a little bit hard to explain but the void is also connected to the irregularity and those destroyed worlds.”

“....”

Reynold was talking so fast that it was hard to keep up with him. Kairen momentarily stopped eating and only focused on listening to the redhead.

“What do you think happens to the dead? Where does their soul go? Correct! That’s the right answer! They enter the cycle and reincarnate!”

‘...I didn’t even answer... Who is he talking to?’

He was speaking to an imaginary Kairen who was... surprisingly... answering his questions right.

“But what about the beings that lose their lives as a result of a force outside of the chain? The ones who don’t die naturally, those people who get affected by chaos or irregularity, the ones who have lost their lives before their designed fate, and the ones who are under the influence of the chain. Shattered, damaged souls. The ones that contain a power that the world can’t bear. And the ones who might be dangerous to the cycle. Those souls can’t enter the cycle and can’t reincarnate. They are obstacles in the natural flow of life, so they must be kept away from the cycle. The void is where those words go. This is where they reside and keep living... maybe not... they are already dead so they can’t actually keep living... but anyway. That’s it. The void. The place where we are in.”

“....”

Kairen thought about those words hard and deep, contemplating every sentence that Reynold said, before reaching a simple conclusion.

“We are in the universe’s trash bin!”

“....”

Reynold slowly raised his head to stare at Kairen.

“Yes?”

“That’s the simplest answer! Those who can’t get recycled stay here!”

“....”

The redhead blinked his eyes several times, and looked around, before finally nodding.

“That’s... off the track but that’s right...”

“But what am doing in the trash- I mean, in the void?”

Didn’t Reynold say that he was alive and not dead? Then why was he in such a place?

“Because I live here? Where did you expect me to take you? A five-star hotel?”

“...”

The answer was unexpected... but logical. Kairen nodded his head, though he felt a little bit insulted deep inside.

“Also, it’s not like you don’t have anything connected to this place.” Commented Reynold. “It’s not only the dead who can enter the void. As you can see, I am still alive as well, but I live here.”

Kairen nodded his head. He could now understand this place a little bit.

“You said there was a kingdom here? Are there that many people who can’t enter the cycle and get a new life?”

“There are a lot of people who have lost their lives due to unexpected variables.”, Raynold said with a pained smile. “There are several worlds that were swallowed by chaos and irregularity. One was my world, and the first one as well... But that wasn’t the only one. Countless people lost their lives as a result of that. There are also several worlds affected by variables outside of the chain, which leads to the number of souls here to increase rapidly.”

Surprisingly, Raynold was good at explaining things, leading to Kairen understanding things quickly. He was also willing to talk to Kairen about different things. Like someone who had yearned to speak to a person for years, he would spit out everything he could tell Kairen as soon as he brought up an issue. He answered Kairen’s questions in detail and even told him more than what he had asked. That was, only if he wanted to answer a question. For example, Kairen had not managed to get a single answer to his questions about his previous life.

“Then, was the void empty before that thing happened to your world?”

Reynold shook his head.

“Before that incident, the void didn’t exist. It was created as a result of our world getting destroyed, from the shattered shards of our world, this place was created. The more the chain gets destroyed, the vaster this land gets.”

“Like another side to your world?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Wow!”

Kairen put his spoon on the empty plate.

“Doesn’t that mean that your world still exists?”

His world just moved from the bright side to the dark side, didn’t it?

“...It’s... complicated.”

.....

Reynold suddenly got up.

“Get ready. I’ll bring you new cloth. Wear them and come out. We are leaving this place.”

“Yes.”