Chapter 21
“…Is he insane?”
“Mmm….”
The words slipped out before I could stop myself, and at the sleepy mumble beside me, I quickly shut my mouth.
The kid can hear. The kid can hear.
I gently shifted away from Lewin and lay down again. When I looked at him from where I was, his eyelids slowly lifted—as if he had finally woken up. His fresh, light-green eyes turned toward me.
I unconsciously held my breath.
“Mom… don’t go anywhere without me…”
Lewin mumbled groggily, still half-asleep. My eyes widened.
He speaks well…?
All this time, I thought Lewin couldn’t speak because he was six in body but acted younger. I had assumed he was just an early-developed three- or four-year-old.
After learning his age, I figured it was simply the aftereffect of mutism—referring to himself in third person, slurring his words.
Was that not the case?
Lewin rubbed his head against me. I slowly stroked his round little head.
“Okay. Mom won’t go anywhere.”
“I’m scared.”
“It’s alright. Everything’s alright.”
The fabric of my clothes, where his face pressed against me, slowly dampened. His tiny hands clutched at my clothes tightly—but with the strength of a child, weak enough that I could shake him off if I wanted.
…Did I just think about shaking him off?
Luckily, the child soon drifted back to sleep. I had thought he didn’t remember the accident, but… does he actually remember? Is he deliberately avoiding the memory?
I blinked at the ceiling, feeling my eyelids grow heavier.
Tired…
I tried to think more, but my thoughts refused to connect. The fatigue from using magic and undergoing a mana measurement test seeped through me. Was magic always this exhausting?
I’d never used magic, neither in my previous life nor this one, so I didn’t know.
Slowly, I blinked. And then, rest embraced me.
[Your Excellency….]
Again. That muffled voice, as if underwater. That floating sensation.
I hadn’t felt any of this since meeting Lewin.
What is this?
Even without Lewin or the duke beside me, ever since swallowing that strange artifact, this shouldn’t be possible.
I twisted my body. But no matter how I moved, I felt nothing. No soft mattress beneath me, no cool blanket over me.
Something’s wrong…
I raised my hand to touch my face. I could feel that I had lifted my hand—but nothing touched.
…!
I opened my eyes in a panic. And a strange sight unfolded before me.
A massive forest. Thick deciduous trees packed so densely that, despite it being daytime, the forest was dark as night.
Last autumn’s leaves, not yet fully decayed, were piled high across the ground.
Bluish grasses pushed their way between tree roots and the fallen leaves.
Above me, branches interlaced tightly, leaving only narrow slivers of sky.
Blue-tinged light flickered.
[…It is undoubtedly the young master.]
[No possibility otherwise?]
Ah.
The voices came again. I turned. In the distant shadows stood knights in black uniforms.
Their leader had his back to me. He wore a dark crimson cape, and his hair was blacker than the darkness around him.
I couldn’t see his face, but something about him was familiar.
Dorian?
But no—that presence was far more overwhelming than Dorian’s.
Something indescribable rolled off him.
A dreadful aura. Pure loneliness, despair, rage, and stubborn will—devoid of even a single thread of light.
It was… bleakness incarnate.
Dark, yes—but not like Dorian. Dorian was gentle darkness, like a night sky with stars.
A man with golden hair approached him and spoke.
[There is… no doubt.]
Even though the voice sounded distant, I recognized it. Without thinking, I stepped closer.
No matter how I walked, the leaves made no sound beneath my feet. I felt no grass, no branches.
Until I stood close, the man said nothing. Wind rustled the trees.
[…Handle it.]
His voice carried no inflection. No emotion.
He wasn’t suppressing emotion.
There was simply nothing there.
No lingering emotion. No hope.
[As you command.]
The golden-haired knight bowed, then lifted his head. His teal eyes, filled with deep grief, looked nothing like the face I had seen that afternoon.
It was Hartman.
But older. Sharper. Hardened.
As if years had passed.
Then… that man must be—
Suddenly, a coldness spread from deep inside my chest. I feared seeing the man’s face.
I looked away and instead approached the thing the knights were surrounding.
They didn’t notice me at all. They didn’t block me either—I passed right through them.
…!
At the center, someone knelt with a rod-shaped artifact. Before him lay a white cloth, dirt-stained.
A faint blue glow from the artifact illuminated the uneven shape beneath the cloth.
I recognized that artifact.
No…
Occasionally, parents searching for lost children would come to the orphanage.
Then the director would take out that rod-shaped artifact—used to test blood relations up to four degrees.
If it glowed blue, they were relatives.
When?
Lewin had been asleep beside me. There was no way—
No. Impossible.
I wanted to lift the cloth, but at the same time, I desperately did not want to.
I forgot how to breathe.
My heart twisted painfully.
Beneath the cloth, I saw a shred of fabric.
Rotting, decayed—but unmistakably the fabric Lewin had worn when I first met him.
“Hhh—!”
The darkness soaking this space rushed toward me as well. My knees buckled.
Footsteps approached from behind. I couldn’t lift my head.
[No. I will… handle it myself.]
Someone knelt right beside me. A pair of white gloves reached toward the cloth.
I turned my head.
Even as I turned, conflicting instincts crashed violently—wanting to look, and desperately not wanting to.
Like a rusted machine jerking to life, I looked at the man.
It was him.
Dorian.
His crimson eyes were drowned in darkness. A gaze worn beyond exhaustion, beyond pain.
Tears welled.
I shouldn’t have been able to cry—yet tears spilled down my cheeks.
There was an abyss in his eyes.
The kind of pain so deep that even saying, Let me cry for you, becomes meaningless.
My breathing grew ragged. Though I gasped and gasped, the air wouldn’t reach my lungs.
A burning pain spread through my chest.
How could everything look so unreal, so distorted—yet the pain was so vivid?
I couldn’t watch.
Couldn’t listen to the sound of cloth wrapping around things long lost to decay, curled into unrecognizable shapes.
Just as I closed my eyes, burned by agony—
“It’s alright. This future will not come anymore.”
A warm voice brushed my ears. From somewhere, bright light descended. When I lifted my head, a woman stood beside me.
The forest and the knights had vanished completely.
I inhaled sharply as a warm hand soothed my back.
“As long as you continue paying attention, he will not fall into despair.”
Her silver hair rippled like water, shining like an opal beneath the radiance.
“Beloved child. So don’t cry anymore.”
My tears stopped as if cut off.
I stared blankly at her.
Who… are you?
Her golden eyes—pupil-less, filled with stars—met mine.
“I am Shekina. The one known to the world as Hiram.”
The surroundings brightened until it was all light. But the woman’s face remained clearly visible.
A light that devoured all shadows.
“One who should have vanished, but did not.”
She smiled brightly.
“And also… you yourself.”
<Thank you. Then I’ll go now, since Lewin might wake up.>
Dorian twirled the pen in his fingers. He couldn’t shake the image of Rohella’s face when she had said those words.
Her flushed cheeks. Her trembling green eyes.
The pale arm that peeked through the flowing mint-colored sleeves whenever she moved.
A thirst bloomed in him. He tugged at the cravat around his neck—the same shade as his eyes.
Thirsty.
Was it because he hadn’t had tea? Or because the tension had suddenly snapped?
He tilted his head.
Then he recalled the magic flowing from her hand—like veins extending outward.
“That was definitely…”
It had resembled the interior of the stone that had trapped them earlier. The unknown mana and the stone’s material felt… similar.
He knew of no one in the Empire who used mana like that.
If another nation is involved, the problems become far too complicated.
If the perpetrators behind his parents’ train accident were foreign, it could erupt into a major diplomatic crisis.
Why would someone from a country across the ocean take the risk to attack a mere imperial duke’s household?
Who would even believe such a thing?
…Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Dorian rubbed his brow, smoothing the tension from his face. There was no proof the culprits were foreigners.
He pulled the cord.
“You called for me, sir.”
The butler slipped in, hand over his chest, bowing.
“Call Eva.”
If Rohella had returned to her room, Eva was surely in her underground laboratory by now.
He could almost hear the bubbling of unidentified liquids, the melting of metals.
Why did it have to be underground?
Thinking of Eva hunched over her experiments, eyes gleaming, sent a chill up his spine.
If Rohella found out such a facility existed under the estate, she’d be horrified…
He sighed.
“Have her report her findings.”
