Free Web NovelChapter 112: Digging The Past
The restaurant had become strangely quiet. Only the clinking of plates and the faint conversations of other customers filled the air.
Toma sat motionless. Her cup of tea rested untouched in front of her. Her fingers trembled slightly as she stared blankly at the table.
Across from her, Nobody quietly watched.
The cheerful atmosphere from a few moments ago had completely disappeared.
Nobody gently waved a hand in front of her face. "Toma?"
She didn’t respond.
"Toma."
She suddenly blinked. "H-Huh?"
"You’ve been staring at the table for nearly a minute."
Toma looked around in confusion. "I... have?"
Nobody nodded. "You also shouted."
Toma slowly lowered her eyes. "I...I remembered something."
Nobody leaned forward. "Did you remember something?"
Toma closed her eyes. "I...Don’t know. It felt like....a nightmare."
She took a deep breath. "I was little...I wore my school uniform. I was running."
Nobody listened carefully.
"There were several men chasing me. They kept shouting...’Catch her! Don’t let her escape!’" Her voice became quieter. "I remember crying. I kept begging them to leave me alone." She grabbed her own arms. "I could hear my own heartbeat. It felt so real."
Nobody’s playful expression slowly disappeared. He had never seen Toma like this.
Suddenly, a familiar blue window appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analysis Complete]
[Toma Is Recalling Suppressed Past Events]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened slightly.
Another message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Memory Recovery Process Initiated]
[Unknown Trigger Detected]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Memory Recovery Detected]
[Target: Toma]
[Suppressed Memory Fragments Found]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at it.
Another notification appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analyzing Memory Fragments...]
[Recovery Progress: 12%]
[Further Triggers Required]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "So...This wasn’t just a dream."
Another message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Negative.]
[Target Toma Is Recovering Genuine Past Memories.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked back at Toma.
She was still trembling. "Toma." She slowly looked at him. "I don’t know why...But I feel scared."
Nobody smiled reassuringly. "Then don’t force yourself. If those memories want to come back...They’ll come back."
Toma nodded. "Maybe...But..." She hesitated. "I feel like they’re important."
Nobody glanced at the floating window again.
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommendation]
[Investigate Memory Origin.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody scratched his head. "Looks like even the system agrees."
Toma blinked. "The system?"
"Oh...I mean...My instinct." Nobody said with an awkward smile.
Toma giggled softly. "You almost sounded like you were some kind of Anime MC ."
Nobody laughed awkwardly. "Yeah...Haha...Definitely not."
After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant. The afternoon sun shone brightly above the city. People walked past without paying attention to them.
Everything appeared perfectly ordinary. Yet Toma kept looking around.
Every street...Every building...Made her feel strangely nostalgic. As if she had seen them somewhere before.
Nobody noticed. "You remembering anything?"
She slowly shook her head. "No....Wait."
She stopped walking.
Nobody turned around. "What?"
Toma stared toward a distant road. "There..."
"What is it?"
"I..." She frowned. "I remember a station."
"A station?"
She nodded. "There was a railway station. I don’t remember the name. But...It started with..." She closed her eyes. "East..."
Nobody immediately took out his phone. He searched nearby stations. Several names appeared.
East Park, East Central, East Harbor and East Riverside.
Nobody showed her the screen. "Any of these?"
Toma stared carefully. Then...Her eyes widened. "East Harbor. I’m... pretty sure."
Nobody memorized the location. "Then let’s go."
About forty minutes later...They arrived at East Harbor Station. The place looked much older than the rest of the city. Several buildings clearly hadn’t been renovated in decades.
Rust covered old railings and small shops lined the streets. The atmosphere felt strangely frozen in time.
Toma slowly looked around. Her breathing became uneven. "I’ve...I’ve been here."
Nobody quietly walked beside her. "Take your time."
She nodded. Without realizing it...She began walking. Almost as if her body remembered the route by itself.
Left.
Straight.
Another left.
Then...She suddenly stopped.
In front of them stood a narrow alley. Its walls were stained with age. A broken streetlight leaned to one side. The place looked abandoned.
Toma’s face turned pale. "This..."
Nobody looked toward the alley. "What about it?"
"My feet...They brought me here."
Nobody slowly looked around. Nothing seemed unusual. Yet...The atmosphere felt heavy.
At that exact moment—
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Memory Trigger Located]
[Recovery Progress Increased]
[Current Progress: 21%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s expression became serious. "So this place really is connected."
Toma slowly stepped into the alley. The moment she did....
Another memory flashed.
A little girl running. Small footsteps splashing through puddles.
Several men following behind. "Catch her! She went this way!"
Toma instinctively covered her ears. "No...No..."
Nobody immediately grabbed her shoulder. "Toma!"
She gasped. The vision disappeared. She nearly lost her balance.
Nobody caught her before she could fall. "Easy."
She looked up. "I remembered more."
"What did you see? They were closer this time. I..." She held her head. "My head hurts."
Nobody didn’t push further. "It’s okay. We’ll stop here."
She nodded thankfully.
Meanwhile...
Several kilometers away...
Inside a luxurious office... The gray-haired man calmly read several reports.
A knock came at the door.
"Come in."
A young employee entered respectfully. "Sir."
"What is it?"
"The investigation surrounding Mirai Corporation continues."
The older man nodded. "As expected."
The employee handed him a folder. "We’ve also received another report."
The older man opened it. Inside were several photographs.
One showed East Harbor Station. Another showed the surrounding streets. The last photograph...Captured Toma and Nobody standing near the alley.
The older man’s eyes narrowed. "They’re investigating there?"
"Yes, sir."
"We’re not certain why."
The older man quietly placed the photographs back inside the folder. "So...They’ve reached that place."
The employee waited. "What are your orders?"
The gray-haired man remained silent for several seconds. Then answered calmly. "No action."
The employee looked surprised. "Sir?"
"We continue observing."
"What if they discover something?"
The older man’s expression remained unchanged. "After eight years...There shouldn’t be much left to find."
The employee nodded. "As you wish." He left the office.
The older man stood. Walking toward the window. He quietly looked over the city. "So...You’ve started remembering." His voice carried neither panic nor anger. Only calculation. "The past has excellent timing."
Back at East Harbor Station...
Nobody sat beside Toma on an old bench. Neither spoke for a while.
Eventually...Toma broke the silence. "Nobody."
"Hmm?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
She looked down. "Do you think...people can forget something so painful...that they completely erase it?"
Nobody thought for a moment. "I don’t know. But...I think the mind sometimes hides painful memories. So we can keep moving."
Toma smiled weakly. "Maybe."
She looked toward the alley once more. "I have a feeling...that in my childhood there is a memory I have completely forgotten."
Nobody already knew the answer. The system had practically confirmed it.
Still... He didn’t say anything.
Instead....
The blue window appeared once again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Objective Added]
[Investigate Toma’s Forgotten Past]
[Current Progress: 21%]
[Reward: Unknown]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody sighed. "Looks like we’re officially detectives now."
Toma looked confused. "Detectives?"
Nobody laughed. "I mean...We’re going to figure this out."
Toma smiled. Her expression looked calmer. She now became more relaxed by the warm words of Nobody. "Thank you."
Nobody scratched the back of his head. "Don’t mention it. In fact...I think we’ll get to the bottom of this."
Toma nodded. "I want to know the truth."
She looked one final time toward the old alley. The forgotten memories...The mysterious men...The fear she carried for eight years...They were all slowly returning.
....
As they left East Harbor Station, neither of them spoke for several minutes. The evening sun painted the streets in shades of orange.
Cars passed by one after another, children laughed while returning home from school. Life around them continued as if nothing unusual had happened.
Yet Toma couldn’t shake the strange feeling lingering in her heart. She suddenly slowed her pace.
Nobody noticed immediately before stopping beside her. "What happened?"
Toma looked at her own hands. "...They were shaking in that memory." She slowly clenched her fists. "And... I don’t know why, but I felt like I was carrying something."
"Carrying something?"
She nodded. "A small... brown envelope."
Nobody frowned. "An envelope?"
"I can’t remember what was inside. It could’ve been papers... maybe pictures..." She sighed in frustration. "Every time I get close to remembering, everything becomes blurry again."
Nobody looked at the system window, hoping for another clue.
Almost immediately, the system window notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Memory Fragment Updated]
[Recovered Object: Brown Envelope]
[Content: Unknown]
[Recovery Progress: 24%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody quietly read the message before looking back at Toma. "It seems you’re remembering little by little."
Toma gave a small nod. "I hope so." She looked up at the evening sky. "I have a strange feeling..."
"What kind of feeling?" Nobody asked in middle.
"...That whatever was inside that envelope...is the reason those people chased me."
Nobody’s expression became serious. If that was true...Then the memory wasn’t just about Toma’s childhood. It could be connected to everything happening now.
The hidden mastermind, then Kuruda and the conspiracy surrounding Nathan Industries.
Nobody placed both hands in his pockets and smiled reassuringly. "Then we’ll find out together. No matter how long it takes."
Toma looked at him for a moment before smiling back. "...Thank you."
The two continued walking down the sidewalk as the city lights gradually came to life around them.
Neither noticed that the story they thought had ended with Kuruda...
Had only just begun to reveal its deepest secrets.
