My Husband Was the Master of the Magic Tower

Have you ever dreamed with your eyes open?

Of course, there are people who have had such an experience, but it wasn’t Dante. Although he was certainly insane, he didn’t hallucinate.

In the first place, if he had been able to see the illusion of the person he loved, he wouldn’t have deliberately gone to the monsters’ habitat to see them showing the illusion.

It was natural for Dante to judge himself as not completely insane, as he always thought of dying before he went mad.

Obviously, there was bound to be a distance between Dante’s evaluation of himself and the evaluation of him by others, but that’s another story.

After all, at least that one thing was the point, that he didn’t think he was completely insane.

But then, in hindsight, Dante had the idea that he must have been irrevocably insane. Unless he was dreaming with his eyes open, unless he was seeing a hallucination or something.

How the hell was he supposed to explain the person in front of him?

The same as in his memory, no, a clearer image than the one he remembered, clenched her teeth.

“I really thought anyone else could do that.”

A voice that uttered a reprimand out of the blue, without filtering out one’s anger.

“It’s not like you meant to die, Dante.”

The voice had a terrifying resemblance to the memories he had been groping for.

And when Dante heard that voice, of course, he was so flustered that he couldn’t even answer. At that time, all he could do was lick his lips in bewilderment.

Obviously, what the opponent wanted from him wasn’t an answer.

As if she wouldn’t allow even one excuse for him, angry voices were fired one after another. She asked about monsters and told him about the secret that he told her someday.

She was already gripping the collar so much that her hands turned white, and the more she spoke, the more he felt her hands tighten.

Contrary to the stinging voice, brown eyes trembled. Even in the midst of anger, the hand holding him tightly as if not to let go.

The person in front of him was clearly angry with him, yet at the same time, seemed sad. No, she was actually sad as well as looking like that. Dante could recognize her, though no one else could.

He had never thought so before, when he met her in the Illinan habitat. He has never seen such an angry face, so it felt more real.

It was the same even now. He had never seen Ei sad, and that’s why.

He felt as if Ei had returned to life.

At first, he was too bewildered to answer, but as soon as he thought she might be real, he shut his mouth, determined not to answer. The moment he said anything, she seemed to disappear right in front of his eyes.

Even then Dante, he couldn’t be sure what he was seeing wasn’t an illusion.

All his senses were shouting that the person in front of him was real. Hearing her voice for the first time in a long time made his heart beat helplessly, and heat gathered around his eyes as if he would cry at any moment.

If it had been fake in the first place, she wouldn’t have been angry with him. If she focused on tricking him, she’d be focusing on proving she was real. It’s not like she was mad at the top of his head for what he has done.

However, his years of losing her were a whopping 10 years. How could he trust only his judgment and senses?

Dante already knew. He knew that if a bomb exploded under one’s feet, one would die, and the dead would never come back alive.

His wife wasn’t one to survive the blast. She was a normal person, different from him, unfortunately, completely different from him.

Has he ever dreamed with his eyes open? No.

But has he ever wished to dream with his eyes open? There were too many to count.

I’ve been waiting for so much, so I guess this is what I see in the end. As expected, this couldn’t be real, when Dante thought resignedly.

At that moment, her voice pierced his ears.

“Even if I hadn’t come back to life, I would have strangled you at least once, whether in heaven or hell.”

Although it contained sincerity, it was more like an expression of anger. A word that was still filled with anger and resentment.

And it was also a word that included the word “life.”

Those words completely denied the fact that Dante obsessively thought, ‘The dead can’t come back alive’.

“…What,”

When the feeling of resignation turned into surprise like a flipped palm, Ei fiercely shot at him as if driving him to a wedge.

“You obviously said so. You have eternal life, so you won’t leave me by dying..”

Yet what is this?

“You clearly almost left me behind.”

“…”

“And it’s none other than dying, following me. If you died like that, you really wouldn’t have seen me again! Do you understand, Dante?”

He couldn’t have understood.

Obviously, he shouldn’t have been able to understand. But incomprehensibly, it was the feeling of realization that suddenly crashed into Dante’s head.

What are you talking about, I’m leaving you, it’s you who left. You’re the one who left, but if I die, maybe we won’t see each other again?

Are you saying you really survived? How?

The dead can’t come back alive. So there’s no way you’ll survive, but if you did, how did you survive? It’s impossible and it can’t be. It was a fact that shook all of Dante’s common sense.

But does that matter now? Now that Ei was in front of him, how she came back alive wasn’t important.

You’re in front of me now.

For whatever reason, none other than you have been revived.

The hair, dull from the successive shocks, eventually turned pure white. Dante was like a real idiot, he didn’t understand her yet he kept thinking.

So it’s really Ei. I don’t know how or why, but somehow she came to life, she came to me, and she’s in front of me.

…You came to me, you.

Just as his confused mind was slowly but surely drenched with joy, Dante’s spirit suddenly returned to him after leaving its house.

Because he witnessed the tears welling up in the brown eyes that glared at him.

In addition to the angry look, Dante had never seen Ei’s tears. As soon as he faced her weeping face, Dante literally froze on the spot.

“…Why did you want to die?”

Unlike before, when she was angry, Dante felt the sensation of cold water being poured over his head the moment he heard Ei’s cries.

If you can live forever, just live, so why did you think of death, or something. She said that she never expected him to suffer so much that he thought about dying, and she didn’t resent him anymore.

It was herself that she blamed entirely. There were no words of apology from her, but he felt the sorry Ei felt for him ran through his body.

And that’s how much she blamed herself.

At the moment of reunion, which should be the most joyous one in the world, Ei was sadder than anyone else.

The fact that he suffered for 10 years after Ei left him, and the fact that he was dying on his own in his self-blame and despair, all evaporated and disappeared as soon as he faced that sadness. Only the fact that his own choice made her cry remained in place and confused Dante’s mind.

More than the pain he had experienced himself, his complaint for why had Ei gone so far hurt more deeply.

She spoke as if she was rebuking him, yet it was her kindness that kept him concerned. Saying that I couldn’t understand, why did you think of dying, in the end meant that she was sorry for leaving him alone.

Her name that Dante whispered, it seemed that Ei heard that, or not.

She might have been pretending she didn’t know, while in fact she heard. Thinking her own figure was unsightly.

He felt the strength in her hands slowly loosen. When Ei, who hadn’t cried until the end, finally uttered the word that she was real.

And as soon as she said that, when she walked to the door like she was about to run away from this situation.

Dante then stretched out his arms, then he was able to embrace the person he loved, loves, and will love from then on.

Ah, really. The warmth that she drew over and over again. The sensations that seemed to be dulled by recalling it all over became clear again. He was familiar, missed, desperate, and really couldn’t help but want to cry.

Then Dante hugged her little body tightly and listened to what she said in a faint voice.

“Don’t cry.”

“…Mm.”

He knew he couldn’t stop crying, yet he didn’t care. His miracle was so sweet that he knew she would soothe him if he cried. And that tenderness had returned to him now.

His hands trembled as he hugged her tighter.

This was the end of the disaster.