Durin's Diary

What kind of life is considered wasted?

Ever since Durin's mentor had posed the question, it had echoed in his mind.

Since he could remember, Durin had lived in an orphanage, life was neither good nor bad. It was bad because he didn't have a real family, but it was good because everyone was as close as a real family, and the matron always found ways to make delicious food for the children.

Until disaster struck, and he and a good friend escaped the dilapidated orphanage, struggling to survive in the freezing, broken city, until fortuitously rescued by a mentor, which gave him a different life and future.

After many years of studying in the High Tower, Durin graduated. In that era, only the most talented and the hardest working children had the privilege to become Spiritual Energy Swordmasters of the High Tower.

But Durin, having only the effort and not the talent, eventually became an assassin.

Being an assassin wasn't anything bad, at least Durin didn't think so, because society was a giant melting pot, the world a huge market. Assassins were not the lost souls wandering the lavish world at night; like all occupations humans had created, they were but mortals creating wealth with their own hands.

Creating wealth with one's hands is not wrong; the profession of assassin is just a bit special. But when compared to those man-eating devils, assassins at least understand what labor and reward mean.

Even as an assassin, Durin would pay taxes on his income, for after all, the Southern Tai tax bureau had no mercy on tax evaders.

As an assassin, Durin didn't kill good people; this was his last bit of pride. In his eyes, a person's life was a puzzling form of wealth. Good and bad people, the poor and the rich had different values and statuses in society, but in Durin's eyes, their lives had the same value, the same status.

A life was worth a bullet, a bullet signified a harvest; wealth and status ultimately couldn't withstand the merciless penetration of a ten-millimeter steel-core armor-piercing pistol round through the skull.

At this thought, the aged man entangled his hand with the oxygen tube.

My life has ultimately been wasted, Durin hated himself because, in the end, he never mustered the courage to pursue his dreams. He remembered in his youth, walking into the cinema with a friend, after watching a movie he had desired to make a great film for the whole world to see... So, Durin, you orphanage ghost, when you killed for the first time, you wouldn't have thought that your last deal would be taking your own life, right?

Well, it's fitting that an assassin's final job is to kill oneself, using one's last breath to create wealth, which will be transferred to the orphanage. The old matron's granddaughter is looking after it now, finding a lady as kind-hearted as her had become extremely rare in those times.

Thinking of this, he looked out of the window at the tall buildings. This lavish city felt so familiar yet so foreign to Durin.

He took one final deep breath, then calmly pulled off his oxygen mask.

In his dying moments, Durin asked himself: If I could start over, what would I become, would I still waste my life?

If life had "what-ifs," would there be so many regrets?

Or say, to live once more, to have another life, would there be less regret?

Unfortunately, there is no antidote for regret.

Right, Durin?

...

Opening his eyes again, the first thing Durin saw was the familiar ceiling.

The story in the dream belonged to his past, the confessions of an old man at death's door, whether a god had listened or luck simply could not be stopped, in any case, the moment Durin opened his eyes, he saw such a bizarre world.

Was it a chance given to him to relive his life, to rectify his regrets?

Durin sighed softly, reached out, and touched his chest where his ribs had been shattered by a brick, which now felt so healthy that even patting them elicited no response.

So I didn't die after all.

It seemed that destiny had not forgotten Durin's fixation and had given him another precious opportunity.

Durin, we really need to think about how to fulfill the dreams we couldn't in our previous life.

Thinking this, Durin then sat up.

Just as he was about to lift the bedsheet, he abruptly stopped.

Because a silver sphere—about six centimeters in diameter—suddenly appeared before him.

·Dear patient sir, we meet again, I have saved you once more.

Durin instinctively touched the back of his neck—the voice, he would recognize it even in ashes. Wasn't it the Life-Sustaining Personal Terminal that the hospital had implanted in his electronic port at the back of his neck when he last got hospitalized due to heart failure?

There was no cybernetic port; the small carry-on reminded its owner of his reality as a Grassland Elf.

·Mr. Durin, I am quite surprised you've switched bodies, especially since based on my knowledge of you, you surely couldn't afford such a sophisticated prosthetic. Also, combining what I have learned since awakening, it seems we have arrived in another world together.

"Then why didn't you appear before?" Durin retorted, as he was a bit puzzled.

·Because before this, I was merely a set of data, only able to live inside your body. But after you fell into that great pit, I found this unexpectedly.