When Did I Become An Artifact Dealer?!-Chapter 40: Smell Of Memory

Jael looked fine. At least based on what Cail was seeing. He was sleeping snugly on the bed. Although the red veins on his body spread, so far, Cail sensed that it was stable.

He tried using his null against that strange thing inside Jael, but it didn't seem to work. Either Cail was still too weak or there was something about it.

"There's nothing I can do for now," Cail said as he leaned on the wall, looking outside the window.

At first, it was just a drizzle; now it's raining. Cail felt calm listening to the sound of the rain hitting. The pain in his body lessened a bit. He was used to getting injured, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt. It was painful, actually, but reacting to it didn't do anything, so he just learned to ignore it.

Iven and Oris were entertaining Sirae outside. Cail felt that maybe he should take a nap. The bed that Jael was lying on was big, and he was just laying there in the corner. Cail grabbed a pillow and laid down. To be honest, his body was beat up. Even during the times when he was wreaking havoc, it wasn't this bad.

He listened to the rain and closed his eyes.

...

Cail felt that he was trapped in suffocating darkness. He opened his eyes and saw a huge door in front of him. He tried to control his body but to no avail. At first, he was confused as to what was going on. This seemed to be familiar.

Then he heard himself call out, "Mom! Mom! Are you there?"

Cail remembered. This seemed to be his memory. He calmed down and let himself be the spectator. The little him was a very tiny kid. The doorknob in their apartment at that time was a bit tall, so little Cail had to tiptoe a bit to reach the knob.

When little Cail opened the door, he peeked inside the dark room and called, "Mom?"

Teen Cail, who was watching, knew what was going on. But little Cail felt confused. Where was mother?

Little Cail went to every room inside the house, but his mother was nowhere to be seen. He called out again and again, but no response.

"Mama said I'm not allowed to go out," little Cail said as he sat down on the cold tiles. His stomach was rumbling from hunger. He had just woken up and hadn't eaten lunch yet.

He sat dazedly at the floor. Finally, feeling weak, he stood up and walked towards the fridge.

Little Cail opened the door and looked inside. There were barely any groceries, and what he saw that seemed edible was a can of beef loaf.

Teen Cail remembered he was very sickly when he was a child and was a premature baby. He was always sick, and his mother would call him "little medicine jar." He was five years old in this dream, but he looked like he was three. Fortunately, as he grew up, he also grew taller. His weakness as a child didn't seem to have any effects when he grew up.

Little Cail looked at the can and felt a bit helpless as to how to open it. He remembered that his mother always used knives when opening this, but he also remembered what she said about not touching knives.

"But I'm really hungry," he pouted. He opened the drawer and took out a knife. His strength was meager. He managed to hurt himself multiple times before managing to stab a hole into the can.

Little Cail wiped the sweat off his forehead. He felt happy about the small achievement. He ran the knife through the can lid and finally managed to open it.

He didn't know how to cook, so he just ate it raw. It tasted strange, but little Cail felt hungry.

Teen Cail looked at the situation coldly. This memory was something that he hadn't forgotten but had just buried behind his mind.

For the teen him, this wasn't much, but for little Cail, this was a total nightmare.

After eating, he continued to look around, but aside from peeking at his mother's room, he never went inside for some reason.

This went on for days. Little Cail waking up, finding food, drinking water, and calling for his mom. But despite going inside every room, he never went inside his mother's bedroom.

This lasted until the food ran out. Teen Cail noticed something that wasn't in his memory.

There was an overwhelming stench coming from his mother's bedroom.

Little Cail at that time didn't understand, but when the food ran out, he tried to open the apartment door, but it was locked.

Teen Cail felt something off. Being in this memory kind of dream, there were a lot of things he hadn't noticed before. Little Cail never went inside his mother's room, but based on teen Cail's memory, he went inside and saw all her things gone, leaving behind an empty closet.

"Little brat! Check the room!" Teen Cail felt panicked for some reason. Why was this not in his memory!

Little Cail of course couldn't hear teen Cail. He just kept banging on the door, eating plants that could be poisonous, and drinking water.

Cail remembered this memory, he remembered this. But what he didn't remember was the overwhelming stench coming from his mother's room and the flies drifting around the house.

No matter how much he ignored this, the smell was familiar. For someone who dabbled in the dark side from a very young age, he knew what this smell was.

It was the smell of a rotten corpse!

"OPEN MOTHER'S ROOM!" Cail screamed inside. He didn't care that the child was already as thin as a skeleton because he knew that little Cail survived... but what was going on inside his mother's room?

Just like before, little Cail ignored him as he focused on his own survival. Little Cail was already feeling weak. As sickly as he was, this type of torment was not something his body could bear.

Cail was wrong.

Cail was very, very wrong.

Just as he thought with 100% certainty that little Cail would survive, he was now ejected out of little Cail's body.

In front of him was a skeleton-like corpse of a little child. The child had his eyes wide open with his mouth slightly agape.

Cail paused. What just happened?

This was the first time Cail lost composure. He felt like he was going insane!

He looked at the corpse with horror. "Wh—what?!"

In his memory, he fainted in hunger. His mother went back after changing her mind about abandoning him, and then she sent him to the hospital.

Now looking at the little corpse, Cail felt his entire life shattering.

Then....

It was quiet.

The brewing emotion just vanished without a trace.

Even Cail was a bit taken aback as to how fast his emotions shifted.

He didn't move. He just stared at the corpse.

After a while, he exhaled the breath that he was holding. He fixed his hair and straightened his sleeves. He felt that his legs were quite numb.

"So I died?" It was a question, but it sounded like he was saying it as a matter of fact.

There wasn't any panic in his voice. He sounded as if he was just talking about the weather.

"I guess that explains," he said mysteriously. Then he stretched his body as if he had just finished a dull lecture.

He leaned down and bumped into the wall. Then he heard a tap on the window.

He looked back and saw a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a white vintage suit. The man was knocking on the window. Despite not seeing his face, Cail could feel that he was smiling at him.