Novel Bin Chapter 72 The Old Man's Identity
She politely answered, "Sir, I am afraid that you do not seem to realize the situation you are in right now. I am sorry to be the one to inform you that you are dead, you have been dead for months now. I am a grim reaper of the Sun star, my name is Scarlet. It is my duty to help you move on to the next phase of your life."
The old man stared at her as if she was crazy. The sides of his lips were ticking as if he was about to laugh or scream at her at any moment.
"Dead." he repeated after her.
"Yes, dead, If you think that I am lying, feel free to step out and see if anybody else beside me can see you. My brother and father buried your body in the back, I can also take you there."
She did not wait for him to answer but she touched his shoulder and appeared with him in one of the vegetable farms. Severus had told her that at level two, she could blink and appear in one place or another at the snap of a finger. She could also turn herself invisible for as long as she did not wish to be seen.
She could not wait to reach reach level three and finally get her own scythe.
"Look around you and see, they cannot see you. You can scream, shout and yell if you want. You can even bang a stone against the metallic armor on your body but nothing will change."
The old man\'s soul floated around the fields, and she kept a very strict eye on it. She was being kind and polite because he was not like other souls, he still had an active consciousness.
She wondered if a strong soul could become a soul eater. Could a soul like that one be easily stopped?
When the old man was finished with his tour of the area, he returned to where she was and stood next to her.
"Am I really dead?" he asked her.
"Yes." she replied.
The old man let out a few broken laughs from his mouth. "This is not what I thought death would be. I thought we just vanish into nothingness when we die, what is happening to me? Why am I here? Am I even here?"
He was confused, and she could not blame him. There were no teachings about the possibility of an after life in this world. People were told that if they died they just evaporated and turned into nothing. For a strong soul like this one that could see, hear and understand everything this had to be shocking.
It was like leaving your home and being dropped on a new unfamiliar world with no guidelines. He had to be terrified right now because he was faced with many unknowns.
"What\'s your name?" she asked him.
"Maddox," he said in a soft voice, "Maddox Varakas." After saying his name he laughed. "I have not said my name out loud in a very long time, I have lived in hiding, waiting for the day when I could take my revenge and now I am dead. Why did I wait so long?"
His voice was filled with pain and anguish, it was also filled with regrets, so many of them. Death with regrets was all too common, almost everyone died with them.
"I can\'t go like this, I refuse to go." he said.
"Maddox." she tightened the soul binding rope around him just in case he tried to run "You cannot stay here, whatever business you have left unfinished leave it to the deities, go and plead your case with them. Someone like you is a valuable find in the underworld realm, when you get there, bargain for what you want."
She did not know if it was in her place to give him such advise or if the old deity would be mad at her but she wanted to stop him from spinning out.
Maddox suddenly turned and looked at her with despair on his face. "You are alive, you walk among them. I saw you talking to that boy."
"Yes, a grim reaper lives in both worlds." she answered. "It\'s a reward for the work that we do."
"Then can I be like you, I want to take revenge..."
She cut him off, "I don\'t think you will be allowed to be a reaper if your aim is to have vengeance. Like I said, the deities will deal with your enemies in their own way. You have to forget all about them now and say goodbye to what I perceive to have been an exhausting life for you. You lived alone, no friend or family. You carried all your anger and pain alone, it\'s time to put it all down Maddox. You have a chance at a great new life, a good one, so take it. Do you think every dead person gets the chance that we got? We are the few lucky ones, you are lucky Maddox."
As she was convincing him, she sounded like the old deity when he was convincing her to accept the role of a grim reaper.
"If your enemies are in this world, I will do something about them. I may not kill them but I will do something that makes their lives hurt."
"Why?\' he asked her.
"Because I have borrowed your identity and I am using you as a shield. Everyone thinks that you are my teacher, I want to repay the favor you have unwillingly done me I guess."
She blinked and they returned to his house, standing outside in front of the fields. As the wind blew they swayed, showing off their golden beauty.
"Where did you find the grains that you planted?" she asked him. She had been itching with the need to know.
Maddox was staring up at the sky, even if he could not feel the heat anymore, he could see the suns.
"I will never be able to see those two suns again if I go, right?" he asked her.
"You will see another sun or moon or five suns. I don\'t really know because there are so many worlds out there. You will have to find out for yourself."
"What are deities?" he asked her.
"Gods, the creators of all the worlds." she answered. "I think it\'s too late for me to give you a lesson on who they are or how powerful they are."
"Up there, where you pulled me from is my storage bracelet. It contains everything about myself, my life, my research and my origins. I am ready to go now."