Rasputin of the East

＜ Epilogue (1) >

The moment of death was not a pain, but rather a feeling of liberation.

Liberated from the prison of the body, I sat in a train station where there were no people.

Then, a woman walked by with a cup of coffee.

Casual… So, in the 21st century, a woman in her twenties would wear an outfit and holding an Americano in her hands.

At first, I almost didn’t know who it was. After a few seconds I understood who the opponent was.

“Are you coming?”

“…..it’s sad, we’ve been living together for decades, but can’t you see that my style has changed a bit?”

“……Did you follow me too?”

“A month and a day.”

“yes?”

“It took me a while to follow you.”

“… I didn’t have anything to follow.”

“So do you, do you still feel sorry for not getting on the train?”

“Train.”

I looked at the track. There were no trains.

“Well, actually, you’d better pack up and leave, both you and me.”

“Did you have more to organize?”

As if it was hot, Olga took off her long coat and handed me a cup of coffee.

“I’m sorry if there is only something to drink, so should I buy you something?”

It was only then that I realized that there was a kiosk on the platform right next to the bench where I was sitting.

Without waiting for my answer, Olga got up and returned from the kiosk with a few bags of sweets.

“I’m sorry first.”

“……?”

“I was the one who made you suffer, right?”

Olga smiled and put a cigarette in her mouth.

“I’m dead anyway, is one cigarette okay? I smoked a lot the first time, but the second time I couldn’t because of you.”

“Wait, second?”

Olga smiled without saying a word.

“you…….”

“Yeah, I got shot and turned into a hive, then the body was burned, and I wandered around the world, seeing a lot of things I didn’t see. I wasn’t the only one.”

“….. all?”

“All.”

Olga smiled sadly.

“I saw that hell, thousands of people starved to death, slaughtered, and a city turned to ashes in the blink of an eye, and there was nothing I could do about it. But someone whispered in my ear, do you want to help them at all costs?”

“……”

“I was a ghost, technically my real soul was fulfilled, and I could no longer call it my soul. It was just a fuzzy glitch that was imitating Olga Nikolaev or Romanova.”

“I came to the past, what happened?”

Olga took off the bag she didn’t even know I was wearing from my shoulder, took out a backpack from inside, and flipped it over.

In the meantime, there was a single note scrawled like a bookmark.

＜Lord, give us patience>

＜This year was just stormy and gloomy days>

“…… This.”

“It was a prayer I wrote before I died. Yes, that was the medium. Of course, there was a slight mistake, but originally, you should have passed your original age at the time I wrote this prayer, but by mistake, the younger you fell back to a long time ago. Well, the results were better, so it doesn’t matter?”

“It’s true that I fell, that is, that you chose to call me, but is there someone else who actually summoned me?”

“You know too, right? Belief has great power, if everyone believes that something exists, it becomes real, you know there’s a saying like this in your hometown? You said three people could make a tiger?”

“Well… I understand what you mean. But what does this have to do with that? Everyone in the world believes I’m flying into the past, so it’s come true or what?”

“We are the beings of the 20th century, what comes to mind when you think of the 20th century?”

“World War II, Great Depression, Fascism…”

“It is the era when the madness of nationalism began to take over the world, and consequently, I died because of it.”

“… So, you mean that the concept of a nation or a nation even has an ego? Are you kidding me?”

“Did common sense exist in the world of soul and spirit? In fact, according to the materialistic view that my killers loved so much, this train station doesn’t exist in the first place, and you may be delusional because of the lack of oxygen you feel as you die as your heart stops and the chemicals you release just before you die. Maybe it’s a fantasy I see of myself getting shot and dying.”

I had nothing to say, so I shut my mouth.

“Those who were dimly present found themselves, but there was very little they could do, because even if they knew everything, they could not even lift a piece of paper. But over a hundred years later, the story has changed a bit. Originally, nationalism and fascism are well expressed in situations where they are driven to the extreme, right?”

“Wait, there’s something I still don’t understand, so there must have been other countries besides Russia? rather……”

“A human fall is greatest when hope is seen and then broken.”

“……”

“And that built up over a long period of time, and there was an ego that had accumulated enough power to barely throw himself and another being into the past, and that ego met me. The process was very fortunate, because there were countless ghosts like me.”

“Then the other ghosts… the country… the people…”

“The world doesn’t remember second place.”

Olga shook her head.

“It’s too sweet, I thought I’d ask you to add a shot.”

“Do you even have anything like that?”

“Aren’t you used to this space? It’s a space that was originally recreated based on your memories.”

It was only then that I realized that this place resembled a station I knew in the distant past.

“It’s like.”

“So, the shotchu is still in good shape. Anyway, to tell you a little bit more, the ghost disappeared without a trace as soon as you went back to the past, so am I correct to call it ‘real’ Olga? No, what are you trying to set the standard for the real thing? Are she and I really different beings?”

“……”

“I should have been shot, burned and buried in the icy ground. Am I my past or future? Whatever it was, the reason I came to know it was because she, the All-Russian remembered it and gave it to me, though I learned it when I came here.”

“……”

“She is a spirit if she is a spirit, and a guardian deity if she is a guardian deity.

“Can she see it too?”

“It depends on whether she will remain a guardian deity after completing her duties, or if she will go to the afterlife. A concept cannot die unless it is forgotten by everyone, but she has strayed too far from that existence.”

“…………”

“Then, isn’t that enough of an explanation?”

Then Olga got up from her seat. And suddenly he fell to his knees.

“Are you coming?”

“thank you.”

she smiled and said

“Thank you so much for making me, my unlucky princess, my sisters, for making them so happy, for saving so many people who were doomed to death, and for living with me, and on behalf of the Romanov dynasty of the Russian Empire and everyone living in the Russian Empire. .”

Olga continued.

“You didn’t have to. You don’t have any silver coins with us, Russia. But you did it.”

“…because you were there.”

I opened my mouth.

“Because they and I never passed by. Because I couldn’t let go of the tough bond of a bond even knowing the end.”

Then, a voice was heard.

“Still, the meaning of your dedication to us does not fade.”

It was Tatiana’s voice.

Tatiana, who sat next to me, held out a bottle of wine.

“Remember this drink?”

“Jack Daniel… You ate this and stretched out on the same bed?”

“Actually, I was really happy back then.”

Tatiana said in a whisper.

“I wanted to be loved, I wanted to be loved, I wasn’t a prince, I didn’t enjoy horseback riding, but back then, my brother was a prince on a white horse to me.”

“…… Sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was a different, very familiar voice.

“As the sisters said, we were originally destined to die alone, but to the man who let us live the life God has allowed us to live, to make love, to have children, and to live a life of giving them to our grandchildren. Do we deserve an apology?”

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Maria grinned.

“So don’t be so sorry, we were happy, and… one day, time passes, the leaves fall, after the first snow falls, and the buds bloom again and again and again and again, and then we will meet again, Until then, I will remember my life, and I will cherish the memories a thousand and ten thousand times from beginning to end.”

When Anastasia finished speaking, they disappeared like smoke.

And then there was the sound of high heels. The woman who passed through the ticket gate was looking at me with her silver hair and purple eyes.

“…… Irina.”

“Lord.”

Irina smiled softly.

“You know how funny that face is, right?”

“…what should I call you?”

“I don’t care what you call it, All-Russia, Rus, the Russian Empire, the Romanovs, or Irina? To be honest, I liked the last one.”

Her white hand rested on the back of my hand.

“I’m here to say thank you, and I have to apologize.”

“……”

“The words of thanks are so obvious, I’ll start with my apologies, for cutting you off from all your past, and for bringing you here without asking your will.”

“……”

“And before that, there are so many things I need to ask for your forgiveness.”

Irina’s eyes looked sad.

“I killed a lot of people. I have burned, or at least encouraged, so many cities, and inflicting personal suffering on you is ultimately my fault.”

“You were unwilling, I heard you were very limited in what you could do after you opened your eyes. I can’t hold you accountable for that.”

“No, I do not deny my essence. I was the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union. And it was the Republic of the Russian Federation. All sins committed in the name of the country and people are my sins. In Katyn, in the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, and everywhere else.”

“……”

“So, I apologize to you. You are the only one who remembers it now, but at the same time, that’s why I ask my apology. Your grudges and anger are justified.”

“Even if you say that, there is someone else who needs to kneel before me.”

“They’re not strong enough to come back, maybe we’ll see each other later.”

“later?”

I was going to ask more, but Irina continued.

“And, I am not just apologizing on behalf of Russia. representing them all. And, you too are not just yourself. After all, you are the only one who remembers history, so you are an individual but not an individual.”

“What…”

“I apologize. On behalf of all those who have been swept away by that powerful current and who have endured and vanished meaninglessly, on behalf of the atrocities who perpetrated wars and slaughter, I apologize, on behalf of all those responsible for their blood. And I sincerely hope that one day I will walk in that garden again. And it is also a reminder that such a day will come someday.”

“you……”

The train glided in and stopped on a platform. I moved there without knowing it, but Irina, who entered the train first, grabbed my shoulder.

“This is my present on the way out. It is a path that is only allowed once for everyone, but you have a third. And… please enjoy the world, if you have fully devoted your two lives, why not enjoy your third life?”

and kissed Then he shoved me on the shoulder and dropped me off the train.

The platform, which was a collection of thoughts from the beginning, disappeared. The railroad track made of dreams has also disappeared. I could only feel Irina’s farewell farewell to the others I knew and to Irina’s departure from the train.

Only then did I clearly see the emptiness surrounding me. The train was a passageway between the two worlds, and the colorful threads of fate were scattered in a mess, mixed with illusion and truth, as if reflected in many mirrors.