Chapter 68
Even when I confronted Seru in Maersen, I hadn’t been sure.
How could I be? Adam was the first name I erased, the one I never wanted to recall again. Out of all the heinous crimes Rivier had devised, it was the most horrific—something that should never have existed in this world.
I had even felt relieved that I possessed this body before that plan could come to fruition. The memory of it was chilling enough to make my skin crawl.
And yet… in the end, Rivier had dragged it back to the surface.
“Haah—!”
I couldn’t breathe. My fingertips went ice-cold, and the documents I had been holding slipped from my hands.
I struck my chest over and over, desperate to breathe, but nothing worked.
“Erdia—!”
Hands gripped my shoulders tightly, and Khalid’s rough voice shouted near my ear. The moment I saw his face, all the grief I had suppressed surged up at once.
I had destroyed it all.
Erased, burned, exterminated everyone involved. I had thought it would never end unless I did.
And I had truly believed it was over.
But the images rose again—the tent villages filled with people who had given up on life. Children far too young who already knew what awaited them if they were taken, and yet accepted their fate. People treated worse than livestock, driven past sanity until they no longer resembled themselves.
Bellaniv had been hell.
If Adam was the true goal, then these experiments were meaningless. They had no value. And yet they continued to this very day.
As if Rivier meant to slaughter every single one of those I had once saved in Bellaniv.
This is your way? Is this really what you call vengeance?
Rivier had inflicted cruel torment on the people I loved. That twisted revenge wasn’t just directed at those around me.
From deep in my abdomen, something hot and sticky surged up.
I grabbed Khalid’s collar, my trembling hand gripping with such force that veins bulged along my wrist.
My chest, my heart—it felt as though they would explode. I couldn’t even tell who stood before me anymore.
If I didn’t spit it out now, I would burst.
“How… how could you! How can a person do that? Do you know… do you know what I felt—!”
My vision blurred.
All the feelings I had pressed down for so long finally erupted, and consciousness slipped away.
The last thing I saw was Khalid’s startled face as he caught me in his arms.
“Erdia! Erdia!”
As darkness swallowed me whole, his voice reached me—urgent, aching, and strangely dreamlike.
Because unless this was a dream, Khalid would never call me with such desperate longing.
It felt as if someone had shoved me off a cliff.
Falling, endlessly, into a deeper hell beneath hell itself.
A faint voice reached me.
“…If you’re alright, could you talk to me for a moment?”
The tone—uncertain, careful, gentle—didn’t sound like Khalid at all.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Then… could you tell me your name?”
The voice cracked, but it was definitely a child. I remembered what Zerman had said—that there was still one boy left with his mind intact.
He had survived through self-inflicted wounds, hadn’t he…?
Only then did I realize—I was breathing easily again.
My eyelids fluttered. My awareness was hazy, my body heavy like I had sunk into deep water.
When I finally forced my eyes open, I saw the dim glow of a lamp on the ceiling.
Before I could even recall that this was the inn room Khalid and I had stayed in, the child’s voice spoke again.
“…My name is Aren.”
At those words, I slowly turned my head.
On the sofa not far away—where Khalid had kept vigil through the night—a boy sat quietly.
Thirteen, maybe fourteen at most.
His head and thin limbs were swathed in bandages, scars scattered beneath his cropped hair.
He looked frail, near death… but his eyes were clear, fixed firmly on Khalid.
“…Ah.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
That face—I knew it. The one that kept resurfacing in my mind ever since we entered Bellaniv.
“We have to survive! How can I give up on the life my parents sacrificed theirs to give me? Just because we lost our home?!”
“My name’s Aren. Thank you so much for saving me.”
“I’m fine! Really! My parents gave their lives, and the saint saved me. I won’t waste this life. I’ll live as hard as I can, to the very end!”
That child.
The one who had cried, smiling through tears, thanking me.
The one who alone had shouted that he would live, when everyone else had already given up.
That boy… was still alive.
His body broken, covered in scars, yet alive—and here before me again.
My chin trembled.
“Thank you… for saving me.”
Aren paused, steadied his breath, then continued.
“I… I saw you once before. You came with the saint, didn’t you?”
“….”
Khalid said nothing, but Aren nodded as if he already knew the truth.
“You’re the Crown Prince, aren’t you? You came to… to save Bellaniv?”
“…Yes. Far too late.”
For once, Khalid’s voice carried unmistakable regret. Just like me—or perhaps even more so—he was drowning in guilt.
I knew that feeling too well. And so I stared silently up at the ceiling.
“Ask me anything. I’ll tell you everything I know. My body won’t last much longer… but until the day I die, I’ll keep living.”
“If it’s too hard, you don’t have to.”
“No. I need to. I have to live well, so this never happens again. I want to help. It’s the only way I can repay the one who saved me.”
There was something almost innocent in that answer, despite all the suffering he had endured. Khalid only lowered his gaze, silently.
“I didn’t save you expecting repayment. You don’t need to carry such a burden. Haven’t you… already suffered enough?”
Khalid’s voice was quieter, deeper than usual, weighted with sorrow.
I didn’t need to see his face to know his expression. He was carrying the same grief and guilt that weighed on me.
The fact that neither of us could embrace the other made it all the more bitter.
But Aren only listened quietly, then pressed his cracked lips together in a faint smile.
“On the day of the great flood… the saint looked like a true savior to me. That’s when I understood why people called her the Saint.”
“….”
“I was shocked. To see someone so noble… crying so desperately, screaming at us to live, fighting to hold back that monstrous flood.”
“….”
“My parents didn’t make it… but thanks to her, I survived. That’s why I can’t give up so easily. I’d be betraying her if I did.”
Every day of Aren’s life since then must have been pure torment.
Bellaniv had sunk into cruelty and exploitation, choked by twisted experiments.
Yet this boy had endured it all alone.
And still—
“That’s why I tried my best to live. I thought… that was the only way I could repay the one who saved me. And besides… if you keep living, maybe good things will happen again. Like today—being rescued once more.”
Even now, Aren’s eyes still shone with light.
Khalid raised a hand gently, brushing Aren’s hair.
“The master of holy power… would be deeply grateful that you lived.”
“You think so? Do you think… she still remembers me? If you ever see her again, please tell her for me. Tell her I’m doing well. Tell her not to worry.”
“…I will.”
Khalid’s voice drifted into the air, frail and heavy with longing.
As though he truly wished—more than anything—for that to come true.
I clenched the sheet in my fists at the ache of his words.
