He bade goodbye to his grandmother after an extensive talk with her about a myriad of topics, pondering what he ought to do next. Having pleted his mission across humanity, he suddenly had a lot of free time to himself. There was no pressing objective to fulfill within a deadline that he needed to work hard to achieve.
His thoughts drifted across several topics. He considered Amare.
He considered the ten days he had left in the Human Domain.
He considered the Quarrier Village.
He felt hesitant to return to them. He had made peace with them the last time he had left. It hadn't been easy for many of them to say goodbye to him for what was understood to be forever.
He wasn't sure if he wanted to put them through that a second time.
Additionally, his connection to the orphanage and village was dimming.
He didn't have a personal relationship with most of them. The original members of the Orphanage when he had grown up were few and far between the much of the younger population. Many of the older caretakers from when he was a kid had already passed away while the rest were in their elder years.
He wasn't sure if he could bear to return.
He actually was sure, given the Enlightenment of Self that he had attained, he knew how painful it would be to return. If he chose to return this time, he would be inclined to return in the future. He would be forced to watch the people he had built a connection with grow older and older, and eventually watch them die.
It would be painful.
He knew that.
And yet, he also knew what choice he was going to make anyway.
WHOOSH
In the blink of an eye, he surged to towards the Mantian Region, towards the Quarrier Village at astronomical speeds.
He would maintain his bonds even if they brought him pain.
It wasn't too long before he arrived at the Quarrier Village, beholding it from the skies.
"It's grown larger," he murmured.
The entire village had grown into a small town. He could see more developed infrastructure across the entire town, with buildings made up of bricks and cement instead of wood. Roads were paved where there were once mud paths, forming a network of paths that spread about the entirety of the small town, occupied by moving motorized and horse-drawn carriages.
He did a double-take as he struggled to reconcile this image of Quarrier Town with the Orphanage he grew up in. The difference was so vast that it genuinely didn't even feel real to him in the slightest.
"Fifty years is a long time, I suppose," he murmured with a faint voice.
Fifty years had passed since he was born in the real world, although he was a lot older than that due to the many years he had spent in the manifold. Ever since he had gained a Martial Body, fifty years had an entirely different meaning to him than it did before. It certainly wasn't a small amount of time by any means. Still, it didn't feel as overwhelmingly large as it once did.
That was why he was stunned to see how much has changed in the span of fifty years, momentarily forgetting that civilization could radically change to bee unrecognizable in such extensive periods of time. He was experiencing that realization in real time as he juxtaposed the ancient wooden house constructed with more primitive civil engineering versus the multi-storeyed buildings built with more sophisticated and plex civil engineering that had advanced significantly in the span of half a century.
The world had changed a lot in ways that Rui hadn't even noticed.
The Quarrier Town had bee alien to him. He heaved a sigh as he descended upon the town with an expression of disfort.
The townsfolk paused as they beheld the descending figure, slowly lowering himself from the sky.
"Is that…?"
"It's him…!"
"It's Prince Rui!"
News spread like wildfire as the townsfolk recognized him as he descended upon the town, clapping and cheering for him.
STEP
He arrived at the outskirts of the town as the adoring gazes of the townsfolk converged upon him. Yet, before they could even approach him, he was gone.
WHOOSH
He arrived before an older building at the very center of the town, casting a light Phantomind Void on himself to prevent himself from drawing attention.
A small smile emerged on his face. "I suppose some things never change."
That wasn't entirely true, of course.
The building had been renovated and refurbished many times since he was a kid, but it still retained some of its vintage and older charm. It was still larger than it had been in the past, and yet, it was used for the same purpose it had been used in the past.
STEP
"Hey, give me that."
"That's mine!"
"No, it's mine!"
Immediately, he could hear the nostalgic boisterous tantrum of children, something he had grown up with in the Quarrier Orphanage.
"Now now…" A gentle elderly woman's voice coaxed the children. "Play along with each other nicely, will you?"
STEP
He arrived before the door.
An old, wooden door.
A familiar one.
It was the same he had seen when his mother brought him back from the hospital after adopting him. His gaze grew bittersweet as a flood of memories surged from within him, countless memories that he now cherished as priceless relics of his warm childhood.
"Rui?"
He stirred, breaking out of his reverie as he found himself staring at an elderly woman at the dusk of her life. She had aged greatly since the first time he saw her fifty years ago, having been the first one to greet him when he came home from the hospital in Lashara's arms.
A melancholic smile emerged on his face. "Alice."
A heartwarming smile emerged on her face as she slowly reached out for a soft hug.
"Wele back home."
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