Chapter 64
‘Stop using your holy power, Rivière!’
‘B-but… ugh! Ah, there are still people who haven’t escaped yet…’
‘If you keep going, you’ll die!’
Khalid’s fierce shout rang out. Even while coughing up blood, I didn’t stop channeling my holy power.
I couldn’t properly see Khalid shaking me, begging me to stop.
At that moment, I couldn’t think of anything else—only the thought that my belated foresight had failed to save the city consumed my mind.
How… did I stop my power?
My vision swayed.
When the blurriness cleared, there was only endless water before my eyes. Ah—this was the very disaster I had foretold.
The water surged forward. No, perhaps “collapsed” would be the better word.
The moment entire buildings tilted and crumbled,
the river swallowed the city like the sea.
Streetlamps bent, and the sound of horses screaming, people shrieking, and structures collapsing mixed together, tearing through the sky.
With the sanctuary gone, the city was devoured by disaster in an instant.
A child clung to a roof, unable to escape; a woman was swept away in the current.
If only I could have held out a little longer… if only I could have maintained the sanctuary just a bit more…
I felt like I would lose my mind.
Everything was my fault. If I had foreseen it earlier… if I had predicted the time and place more precisely… if I were truly “Rivière Arfin”…
The surge of emotion tore out of my chest.
Once my holy power was completely spent, my collapsing body was caught and held firmly in someone’s arms.
Khalid embraced me without wavering, even in the pouring rain.
‘If you don’t want to be swept away too, that’s enough… Do you mean to make me lose you?’
‘B-but… if only I’d been a little faster…’
‘You are not a god, Rivière. Even if you are not perfect, you have already performed more than enough miracles. Anything beyond this… is only greed.’
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Held in Khalid’s arms, I could only cry harder than before.
The screams still rang in my ears.
Heavy and painful, like the grudges of those I could not save.
The downpour blurred my sight.
Those who had escaped could only stare blankly at the drowning city.
All I could do was remain at their side, so they could live on again—
To extend a hand to those who had lost their family, their children, their homes.
‘Thank you, Lady Rivière, you saved us.’
‘Blessed Vescia must have protected us. We are truly grateful.’
They didn’t know. They thanked me because they didn’t know.
If God truly wished to save them, why grant me the vision so late?
There was only one reason. Because I wasn’t the real Rivière.
Because I was a fake, my holy power was always lacking.
For someone claiming to be the bearer of holy power, I could maintain the sanctuary for only a short time, and I could not tend to the endless wounded.
Even if I had not taken it deliberately, it felt as though I had stolen someone else’s rightful place.
‘Why? Why couldn’t you protect all of us?’
‘…You should have told us sooner. If you were the bearer of holy power, you should have!’
Words of gratitude turned into curses, their eyes brimming with blood-red tears.
They pointed at me, calling me a fake.
No… no, that’s not true!
I truly wanted to save everyone.
I shouted my desperate denial, but all that came back was resentment.
This is a dream… it’s only a dream. I’ve never actually heard such words.
‘Have you been deceiving me all this time? How dare a fake like you…’
Even Khalid, who had always extended his hand to me with kindness and stood by me firmly, looked at me as if I were something abhorrent.
He coldly batted away my outstretched hand and turned away without hesitation.
No matter how far I reached, I couldn’t touch him.
I wanted to see him again—Khalid, with your warm smile, the one who loved me.
“…Hah!”
That was when I woke up.
A strange ceiling pattern above me, my underclothes damp with cold sweat, and the screams still lingering in my ears.
“If you’re awake, get ready.”
Then, cutting through it all, came a clear voice that lodged itself firmly in my ears.
I turned my head toward that voice.
Khalid was not as he had been in the dream.
He had not turned his back, nor did his eyes carry that cold glare or his words that cutting edge.
He stood by the window, gazing indifferently at the morning mist beyond.
“It’s the appointed time.”
The hour we had set to investigate the truth behind the rumors spreading in Bellaniv. The dawn mist blanketed the city.
That brief sentence slowly pushed the terrible nightmare back beyond the edge of reality.
After changing into comfortable clothes, I quietly left the inn with Khalid.
Following behind him cautiously, I remembered the words he had spoken in my dream.
‘To think I’d dream something like that… ridiculous.’
From the start, Khalid had no reason to resent me. To him, I was nothing more than an unfamiliar “Erdia,” not even worth resenting.
Even so, it left a bitter taste in my mouth, as if I had already glimpsed his reaction for when I finally told him the truth.
“You’re here.”
“Zermann, what’s the situation?”
“A short while ago, we spotted a suspicious person heading southwest.”
The inn where we stayed was located in the eastern highlands of Bellaniv. The grand mansions of the nobility stood to the north, which had suffered the least flood damage.
The south was close to the disaster area, while the west was where nobles had extorted relief funds from refugees and sold off their land.
“That overlaps with the area where the flood victims live.”
“Yes. We’ll need to check it ourselves to be certain.”
Whether our suspicions were truly the truth of this place, we couldn’t judge until we saw it with our own eyes.
At Zermann’s words, Khalid nodded, and we began to move quietly.
Unlike Khalid or Zermann, I had not learned stealth techniques, so my movements were clumsy—but thanks to the mist shrouding Bellaniv, our pursuit looked convincing enough.
After a silent tail, we arrived at a place hardly worthy of being called a village.
Where the water had receded, the ground was caked in dried mud, and instead of houses, makeshift shelters stitched from scraps of cloth flapped in the wind, torn in places.
On the ramshackle tents propped up by dry branches were blotchy stains—whether from rainwater or blood, I couldn’t tell.
“He’s stopped.”
At Zermann’s signal, we hid nearby and watched.
The suspicious man we’d been following was a bearded fellow in black clothing. He stopped at one of the tents.
“Brother! Brother!”
“Roan! Get inside! Stay inside!”
Two children moved in a hurry at the sight of the man.
They were barefoot, standing in the mud, dressed only in scraps of cloth too loose to be called clothing.
Aside from the crying younger child and the slightly older boy, no one else spoke a word.
In fact, in this place, speaking felt like a luxury.
Even when someone cried or collapsed, no one turned their head.
“Can’t move any faster?! You’d better keep quiet and come along nicely.”
“I will! My younger sibling is still small… That’s all.”
“Click—such a nuisance.”
“Roan!”
The man dragged the boy by force and kicked the younger child out of his way, spattering mud on his trousers—then spat on the ground in disgust.
That bastard…!
Even through the mist, the horrific sight burned clear in my vision, making my anger surge.
If it weren’t for Khalid’s signal to stay put, I might have shouted at him right then and there.
“Roan, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Remember what I taught you, all right?”
“Huaaa! Brother! Don’t take my brother away!”
The pain of loss was worse than any kick. The child clung to his brother, sobbing uncontrollably.
The man didn’t hesitate. When the child clung again, he kicked him. The boy threw himself in the way to take the blow instead, head bowed.
“He’s still just a child. I won’t resist… Let’s go.”
“Tch, such a bother! Move!”
The man grumbled and struck the boy’s head hard enough to make a thud.
“Huaaah! Brother! Don’t go!”
“Roan, go inside. Don’t follow me. Remember what I told you?”
The boy pried his crying brother off him and walked away after the man.
The child left behind cried and called for his brother desperately.
His heartrending cries filled the tent village—yet the surroundings remained as silent as they had been at the start.
No one was surprised.
As if this was nothing more than an everyday occurrence.
