Cultivation Through Artifacts

Chapter 3: An Apology

*Knock~Knock!*

“What do you want?”

Opening the door carefully, Khal walked into the room and looked around.

It was a small average looking room with a single bed on the left side, while on the right, only a single table with a chair could be seen. The walls were painted pink, giving a kind of girlish feeling, but because the walls were full of cracks, this feeling worsened a level.

The poor sight that Khal did not really see in his previous life, made him feel a bit sad, but only just for a second.

The next second he cleared his throat quietly and looked at Liza on the bed.

She was lying on her tummy with her head deeply buried into the pillow, holding the small pillow tightly with both of her hands.

Seeing her like that, Khal scratched his neck not knowing how to start his apology, but before he could have said anything else he noticed something on the table.

It was a picture with burnt edges, placed in a half-broken frame with visible caution.

In the photo, two families could be seen standing next to each other happily, while before the 4 adults, two smiling kids, a boy, and a girl could be seen, visibly chasing each other.

Naturally, the two kids were Liza and him when they were still small.

Slowly starting to put the puzzle together and realizing what could have possibly happened in the past and why Miss Mary said what she did, Khal started to sweat a bit.

“It seems both of our parents have died in an accident, and we were the only survivors.”, thought Khal and looked at Liza on the bed.

“Losing your parents so soon it’s a bit…”

As he thought about this, suddenly Khal remembered how he killed his parent in his past, just because of pure anger, grief, and sorrow.

Simply thinking back at those scenes made his expression to turn dark and sour in an instant.

“Well… Seeing those happy faces… It seems not everyone’s parents are a d*ckhead.”

However, this feeling of his didn’t last for too long, because the next second he smiled again and started to talk.

“Liza… About what I said earlier… I didn’t mean it, so I’m truly sorry if I hurt you.”

“…”

“Liza? Can you hear me?”

“…”

Seeing as he got no reaction at all from her, Khal started to scratch his neck slowly, but suddenly saw Liza’s bare waist. Thinking about something, he suddenly smiled widely, like some kind of evil.

Lowering his body to make less sound, Khal sneaked closer to her bed, and when he was totally on her side he attacked.

“EEK!!”

Liza’s body flinched instantly because of Khal’s sudden surprise attack. She was caught completely out of her guard.

Raising her head in surprise, she turned to look at Khal with a startled expression, and didn’t know what to do.

“K… Khal? What are you doing?”, asked Liza with surprise as she turned her head to see Khal behind her.

However, Khal didn’t react or replied at all but instead was surprised.

“She… She reacted in the exact same way as Nancy did.”, thought Khal, but this only made him smile even wider and said quietly, “Then that means…”

In an instant, without any hesitation, Khal started to tickle Liza’s waist like crazy, making her to be even more surprised and start squirming like a worm while laughing.

“Wai… Haha… Wait! Kha… Khal! I said… Stop! Haha! Khal!! Please! Haha!! Stop!”

Among tearful eyes and loud laughter and chuckle, Liza tried to stop Khal’s assault, but no matter how hard she squirmed or moved, Khal didn’t stop even for a second.

With a wide smile etched on his face, Khal watched Liza’s figure as she tried to escape, but couldn’t because of laughing too hard. He just simply continued to titillate her while calmly saying, “Will you accept my apology or not?”

“Haha! I… Haha! I… Will… Haha! Never! Haha!”

“Oh? Are you sure about that?”, said Khal with a smile and started to move his fingers even faster, while his expression suddenly turned a bit evil.

“No! Haha! No! Haha! Ple… Please!”

Seeing that Khal didn’t want to stop no matter how many times she pleaded, Liza started to pat Khal’s hand gently and said, “Okay… Haha! Okay! I forgive you… so… Please! Haha!”

Khal hearing what Liza said stopped tickling her waist and stepped back while saying with a calm and satisfied smile, “That is what I like to hear.”

“…”

Slowly sitting up, Liza turned her head at Khal, and without saying a single word she started to stare at Khal with scary eyes.

Those exact eyes that once made him sweat like crazy, made Khal to feel that something was very wrong here.

“Huh?”

Outside the building, Miss Mary was putting the wet clothes onto a string one by one, when suddenly the door burst open.

From the building, Khal started to run out hurriedly, while Liza was chasing after him with a somewhat angry yet blushed face.

Even though Khal’s expression looked scared while Liza’s angry, Miss Mary saw that under their expression there was a slight hidden smile.

Seeing both of their happy attitudes, Miss Mary smiled too and after a small chuckle, she said quietly, “Haha! Those kids… It seems everything has finally turned great again.”

***

When the sun has finally disappeared and the moon has emerged, Khal opened the door into ‘his’ room and walked in.

Looking around, he noticed that the interior of the room was exactly the same as that of Liza’s but with the only difference that the walls had blue paintings instead of pink.

“So this is where I will live from now on.”, said Khal quietly and after closing the door he sat down onto the bed and started to jump on it gently.

*Creaak… Creaak*

With a somewhat unpleasant sound, the bed was moving here and there, but except for that, there was nothing wrong with it at all. It was standing very stable even though it showed a very poor appearance.

“Great. At least it won’t fall apart that is for sure.”, said Khal and looked at the table before him.

On it, the exact same photo in the same frame that he saw in Liza’s room could be found. The only dissimilarity between his and Liza’s was that the photo he had was much more burnt than the other one.

“Hmmm…”

Looking at the photo for a bit more, Khal sighed and looked at the diary on his side then the bracelet on his wrist.

“I don’t know how I got here and what happened with the real Khal, but one thing is for sure. Before I died, I saw this thing litting up. Maybe it was only for a single second, but I can clearly remember of that.”

Shaking his hand to make the bracelet move, Khal frowned and said, “I don’t know what happened, but one thing is for sure. I will find out the truth no matter what. However, before that…”

Lowering his hand and looking at the diary on his side again, he said calmly, “I need to figure out just what is this world where I have been reincarnated into.”

With determination on his face, Khal grabbed the book and without any hesitation, he opened the diary on the first page.

“My dear diary…”