The Third Chance (SPOILER ALRET!!)

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

"Aah, Sylphy, Roxy... Damn, you sure are cute as ever."

After many years of suffering and regret, I can finally embrace my death. After I give my information and my diary to my past self, I can feel bits of relief because that bastard Hitogami can taste some desperation knowing all his plans get ruined. It's funny that somehow I can feel that my past self can change the future for the better.

I know my future will not change, not one bit because I am not gone or erased. That means my past self will make a new branch of the tree of destiny, leaving the same branch that I took on the path of Failure and unredeemable. If 'Hell' does exist, I will probably be one of the inhabitants who knows how bad my sin is. After the long wait and silence, I heard somebody call my name.

"R.y....Ru.y..RRUDY!"

Then I open my eyes, and I see a somehow familiar ceiling. Then I start to look around, and to my surprise, I see a beautiful young elf with white hair and red eyes—none other than Sylphy has that look.

"Sy….Sylphy? Is that you?"

Then she tilts her head.

"Of course, I am Sylphy, your beautiful wife, eh, Rudy?"

I hugged her tightly.

"Sylphy! I am so sorry. I am so sorry."

Then I cried so hard in her embrace.

"Eh, Rudy, what happened!? Did you have a Nightmare?" Then she patted my back.

"It's okay; I am here for you always. Even though I am not always here for you, there are Roxy and Eris. Three of us always love and care for you; after all, we all know how fragile your heart is."

I am just crying like a baby.

' I can't even remember when the last time I felt this kind of happiness and warmth was.'

My loud cry invited other people to go inside; it was Roxy with her sleeping eye and Eris's sweating face, probably because she does some training. Then Roxy gets close to me and hugs me.

"Rudy, you have a nightmare, don't you?" I just nodded.

'It's a nightmare I want to forget.' Then Eris poses with her Boreast family.

"Hm. Rudeus, always cry, baby. I can't even leave you alone. I guess I must always be by your side." Then a small elven child got close to me with a worried expression.

"Papa? Is your tummy hurting?"

This little girl is my daughter with Sylphy. Then I look at her and pat her head.

"It's okay, Lucy; Papa just has a nightmare, a really bad nightmare."

She nodded, then went to her mother, Sylphy.

----

After a long talk, we went to the dinner table to eat. I evaluated what had just happened.

'How did I end up here? In my house with all my family still intact, even Eris is here, and I want to ask them, but I know this is too good to be a reality, so it must be a dream, but I hope I don't wake up from it. If this is an illusion, then I hope I never wake up from it. There is still a chance that Hitogami is toying with my mind, but...'

When I look around, I see Sylphy now feeding Lucy; Eris is eating while having a chat with Norn about sword training; Roxy is silently eating while sometimes glancing at me; and Lilia is feeding Mother.

'This family is just the thing that I want to protect with all my might, but.'

In my loss of thought, Sylphy said some things to me.

"Rudy, did you have something to do?"

"Eh. I don't remember if there are some things I have to do. To be honest, Sylphy, I want to stay here."

I don't want to leave this place. I have everything that I ever wanted. Why should I leave this place, even if I know it was just a dream or maybe an illusion? It is everything I ever wanted in my long, miserable life.

"I am sorry, Rudy, but you can't always stay here. Not that I don't like you here, Rudy, with all of us. It's just… I feel that if you don't leave this place, you will regret it forever. Neither of us wants you to live in regret, Rudy."

"No, please, Sylphy. I don't want to; I already have everything that I want. Why should I leave this place and my family?"

Yeah, even if it's just a dream, I don't want to leave this place. Then I felt pain in my cheek; it was a punch so strong that it sent me flying to the backyard. There is only one person capable of doing this, and that is Eris. She looks very angry; she has the same look every time I encounter her on my journey.

"ENOUGH OF THAT!! Why are you always like this, wanting to stay behind and not wanting to move forward? You think that if you leave, we will all be gone?"

"It does! If I leave, I can never come back here anymore."

Then I saw all my family watching me with sad faces. After I went silent, Roxy started to talk.

"Rudy, whom I know and love, never gives up on moving forward."

"But I don't want to leave any of you anymore."

Then Sylphy said, "Did you think that we would leave you when you were far away from us? You know that we all care for and love you so much and will never leave your heart alone."

"But you all did leave my heart and me alone." Then she said,

"Because you never moved forward, all you did was just stay behind, regretting and hating yourself so much that you forgot that we all stay in your heart. Can you see we are all here and have never left you?"

I just cried, remembering all I did, always looking behind me to see what I had lost and never seeing forward thanks to my grief for Roxy. I mistreated Sylphy. Lucy, Lilia, and my mother left me, and thanks to my blinded anger, Eris died without realizing how much she loved her. Then I stand up and wipe my tears.

'Damn, Eris punches do really hurt; not only do I feel pain in my face but in my heart as well.'

Then I saw each of them in the eyes and smiled.

"I understand Sylphy. I am sorry for what you have done to make you leave me and Roxy. I am sorry that I am not in time to save you, and Eris, I am sorry that I am too blind to see your love for me. I promise never to be Blinded by revenge ever again."

They all smiled back at me.

"And Lucy." I come closer to her and hug her.

"I am sorry to neglect you, my beloved daughter. I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?"

"It's okay, Papa; I know Papa loved me. Just promise me that Papa will never neglect Papa's son or Daughter any more than Lucy will forgive you.

"Then I give my pinky promise. Yeah, Papa, I promise I will never neglect your brother or sister anymore." She smiled and hugged me.

Then I remember something: I must be punished, even if It does not cover all of my great sins.

"Eris, can I ask you, Favor, can you punch my face five times?" She smiled at me then.

"Just grit your teeth, Rudeus, and I will make sure it hurts." Then

(*BAM*).

Then, after a painful punch landed in my face, I hugged all my family members for the last time. Then I walked to the front of the gate of my house, looked back, and said,

"Please never leave me. I know it's a selfish request and impossible, but I want you all to stay in my heart."

They all smiled at me and said,

((Of COURSE, Rudeus, WE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU. AND BE CAREFUL ON YOUR JOURNEY!))

'Come on, Rudeus. Hold your tears; you must keep smiling. I give them a warm smile.'

"Then I am going; I love you all."

Then I will keep walking forward without looking back.

----

Then I walk and see a single woman who has white skin with blonde hair and wears a black outfit and a red cape. Then I walked closer to her, and she said,

"It took you long enough. Well, I get it; it's hard to say goodbye after all."

"So may I know who you are? Are you the one to show me that dream?"

"Yeah, I did it. Did you like it?"

"Yes, I like it so much."

I bowed and thanked her sincerely.

"Thank you, whoever you are."

"Good. Good. I'm glad you like it. Byteway, my name is Ereshkigal, and when I see a wandering soul out of nowhere, I look into your soul and memories, and I am surprised at what I find. Your soul is not from the world I ruled and governed. I don't know how your soul got here. Rudeus, you are indeed a sinner; there is no doubt about that, but your fate should not be that of a great sinner but of a kind and gentle soul. I know from your memory how much you care for and love your family. So I tried to find the reason, and then I found out that a god toying with your fate makes you a sinner."

"Thank you for your kind words, goddess Ereshkigal. And yes, indeed, there is a god that is toying with my life, but that can't change what I have done." She smiled and said,

"Truly, as you said, I put you to the test using the dream to know your true desire. Your desire is only to protect and have your family back. So I give you a third chance, not a second chance; this time, I make sure no god or goddess is toying with your fate ever again. If you still do bad deeds, I will punish you for an eternity."

'I know she is not joking; she emits an aura that makes my soul tremble, but wait third chance?'

"Eh, am I getting reincarnated again?"

"Hmmm... indeed, you will be reincarnated again. At first, I thought I should erase all of your memory, but after seeing the test result better than I expected, I changed my mind."

"Thank you, goddess Ereshkigal; you have my gratitude. I hope one day I can repay your kindness." Then I see her blushing a bit.

"Hm, of course, I am a kind and caring Goddess after all. Then let us start talking about the main topic." She then shows a serious face.

"You will get reincarnated, and you will have your memory still intact. I know that after testing you, you don't want to forget about your family, don't you?" Then I nodded.

"Indeed, I don't want to forget them; they are the precious family that I don't want to forget." She smiled.

"I see, Another thing is that you still have your magic power, but I recommend you not to use your God Tears Magic because a god and goddess residing with mortals are probably not so pleased when mortals reshape their world."

"God? God is living with mortals?" she nodded.

"Yes, they are living with mortals. When I say they, I mean there are many of them. And don't worry, they don't have any power to directly hurt a mortal; they are all bound by the rule. If they break it, they will send it back to heaven."

Thank God, I almost scared myself to live with a powerful god and goddess. If they don't have their power, then nothing should make me worry.

"Then, you probably realize that the world you are being reincarnated in is not the same as before you died. This new world of yours we called 'Gekai, that is, where all mortals and you will live, and there is Heaven, that is, the world in which I reside and other gods and goddesses live. We can go to the 'Gekai' world, but in exchange, we lost most of our power, so we need to be afraid, Rudeus."

"I understand Goddess Ereshkigal; thank you. I will do my best and not let down your expectations." "Good, Then let's see, Hmmm."

She closes her eyes and puts her finger on her forehead.

"Hm, okay, now I know what race you will be reborn as. You will be reborn as a High Elf, which means you will be one of the royal families of eleven kingdoms."

'I see an elf and royal family, ahhhh.. not again. I hate doing political things. But still being reborn as an elf means I will be living longer than a normal human, if I remember that Elinalise-san has been living for hundreds of years.'

"Hey, stop mumming yourself; I am not finished here."

"Oh, sorry, goddess, I was just lost in my thoughts."

"Okay, then I will send you off, but before that, I will give you an ability as a parting gift to you." Then she put her two fingers into my forehead.

"It's done with this; you can distinguish between a bad person and a good person. If you see a dark aura, that is a bad person; if you see a white aura, that is a good person; if they are neutral, they have a gray-looking aura. To activate it, just say 'Eresh, and to deactivate it, say 'Gal. You got it?" I nodded. "Good till next time; have a safe trip, Rudeus-kun."

She waved to me, and somehow she got farther and farther away, and I fell asleep.