Paintbrush Summoner – 49

Chapter 49 – Field of Reeds

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“Are…alri…”

Everything was dark. It felt like he was being carried by someone. A reassuring arm supported his back. Sturdy, as if he could count on it to hold him.

“…ight…Mr…ew…”

The voice seemed far away.

The pain that had been wracking his body was now gone.

He fearfully opened his eyes. Ahh, what if it was that reality again? He shivered.

A blurry whiteness greeted him. For some reason, he felt something moving in his left hand, and so he let it go.

And then his vision cleared.

Endless whiteness was in front of him. And then there he was. The gentleman with the monocle was looking at him with a concerned expression.

“Are you alright, Mr. Menew?”

“Se…ker…”

The gentleman sighed with relief.

Menew jumped up, wide-eyed. He looked at his hands, touched his face, and confirmed it.

This was not the body of Kazuya Yamamoto. It was Menew’s body.

His heart was beating fast, but it did not hurt like before.

His eyes welled up with tears.

“Hah…”

And then he sighed.

The tears kept falling, but his heartbeat started to return to normal. And Seker stayed by him quietly.

When he was calm again, he looked up at the man who sat next to him.

“What…happened to me?”

Menew asked. Seker chuckled and offered his hand.

Suddenly, there was a sofa there. Or had it been there before? Regardless, he sat down on it.

“First, I am glad that you are fine. Had you stayed in that world, it would have been impossible to bring you back.”

“Was that…the world before I was reincarnated?”

“Yes. An ‘if’ world, where you did not die from overwork. And had you accepted it as your reality, it would have been established as a parallel world. But your soul, spirit and name, and the shadow of Horus, pulled you back to this body.”

He understood the soul, spirit and name… But the shadow of Horus?

As Menew looked puzzled, Seker pointed at a scarab that was crawling nearby.

“Aaru…the Field of Reeds. You were able to return to it, because…your name was bestowed from the god of fertility. A relative of Khepri, driver of Horus’s sun, stuck to your soul, so that your shadow existed in that world. As your spirit had grown, it rejected that world. Your soul and the people you met remembered your name. All of it together is why you returned.”

“Field of Reeds…?”

The moment he muttered it, the endless white transformed into a world of reeds. Just plain plants that resembled rice.

“On earth, people with faith might call this palace paradise.”

Seker waved his hand, and the world turned to white again.

“At the same time, it is also the underworld where souls go after you die.”

“…It’s all so grand that I don’t understand.”

“It cannot be helped. If your thoughts continue to fly, it is like a marathon without a goal. Only those who risk everything can understand. In any case, just know that you are able to return to that world as Menew.”

“…I’m so glad.”

The scarab went to Menew’s feet and started to kick at him.

He knew that it had helped him. But what did this act mean? He had forgotten to ask about it before.

“Hey, I was kicked like this in the town as well. Does Horus? Or Khepri hate me?”

“Ah, no… Horus is just making fun of you. He cannot help but be interested in you.”

“Interested? So much that he uses his servants to brand me as a shit bastard!?”

“But thanks to that, you were saved. You should be a little more lenient.”

(Horus’s order was only for them to approach you. The kicking is…a type of hazing to those who newly received his protection. But I will refrain from saying that right now.)

Seker thought with a laugh.

Menew sighed and stroked the back of the bug at his feet.

“Thanks.”

The scarab stopped and turned around. It seemed to look up at Menew for a moment. And then it turned around and started kicking again.

As if to say, ‘Don’t you mean thank you, sir? Damned rookie.’ But Menew didn’t know what bugs actually thought.

But it had helped him when he was in such a frightful situation. And so he decided to not care about being kicked. He would be a shit bastard if he had to.

This senior and junior were not exactly seeing eye to eye yet.

“Now, about why this happened… I think it was the work of a powerful god. But there are no traces of a god passing through the underworld… If I cannot sense them, then you must think that there is a ‘god in that world.’ And it tried to contact you with malicious intentions.”

“…So it sees me as an enemy?”

“That is likely. I shall watch over you more carefully from now on, but… I will also lock it, so that this does not happen again.”

“Please do… I don’t want to go back. I was so scared…”

Even though it was the reality that I had once lived in. Even if he was the one who had created that reality.

He had already started to live a different life. Have connections with others. And work hard towards a goal.

He ate, fought, slept, laughed, angered, mourned and learned what it meant to be happy.

The horror of having that suddenly taken away. Without being able to fight or resist it. Being controlled by someone who he had never even seen before.

Seker had picked him out of pure kindness, when he was nothing but a weed. He had felt a chill when he had first heard about how it was really nothing to him.

However, he believed in his intentions now.

“Mr. Menew.”

“Ah, uh. Yes.”

As Menew was deep in thought, Seker peered into his face.

“I may be the god of the underworld, I would not have been able to reincarnate you, had you not helped to spread the faith.”

“…Yes.”

“Returning to that world must be frightful for you. However, due to what you achieved in that world, you were able to get another chance at life. While getting a god like me involved.”

Seker said with a wink. While teary-eyed, Managed to laugh.

“Yes…that’s true.”

“And so do not be afraid as you turn to the world where you are living. I and Horus, and many other gods, are with you.”

As if to comfort him, Seker took Menew’s hand and shook it.

“I will continue to investigate the matter. And I will tell you if I learn anything. But right now, you should focus on your life as Menew.”

“…Thank you, Seker.”

“In a way, I am both your parent and child. It will be alright.”

After being encouraged, Menew wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

And then he felt the sensation of his body being pulled.

“I will come again. And from the right place next time.”

“Yes. I will be waiting.”

And like that, Menew fell into the hole.

“…You also can’t help but be interested in him too, huh?”

Seker turned around, and there the person stood.

“You understand, right? I’ll stay close and protect him. Probably.”

“I’m not sure if I’m relieved…”

“Well, gods always act on a whim. But don’t worry. He should be fine.”

“I’m counting on you.”

And then, the person jumped into the same hole that Menew had fallen in.

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