CHAPTER 81………………….
Yankeller left after saying he would think about what to receive instead of the first consultation.
Everett’s steps felt heavy as she escorted him out and climbed the stairs.
Even if it was a replica, it was the same as the one Saint Angelus used.
“Is it really okay to use this?”
She couldn’t bring herself to unwrap Yankeller’s gift again and simply lay down on the bed.
As her tension finally unraveled, a wave of fatigue hit her, and Everett unknowingly drifted into sleep.
How much time had passed?
Everett woke to the rattling sound of a window not properly closed.
A chill ran down her spine as the dawn wind seeped through the gap.
When she locked the window and turned around, her eyes fell on Yankeller’s gift resting on the table.
She hesitated.
Still, it’s a gift… I should at least take a proper look, right?
At first, she felt indifferent.
But soon, Everett couldn’t take her eyes off the Arcana.
The so-called replica was so meticulously crafted that one could easily believe it was the real thing.
“Magic really is amazing. To recreate something like this…”
Just then, as she examined the Arcana, a tingling sensation like electricity coursed through her hand.
“Hm? What’s this… feeling?”
Along with a heavy pressure pressing on her chest, a strange sensation enveloped her whole body, and her heart pounded.
“Could it be… that even a replica grants foresight?”
The absurd thought made Everett chuckle briefly.
Curiosity stirred in her.
How was this different from tarot cards?
She spread a velvet cloth over the table, placed the Arcana on it, and began shuffling.
The hazy, dreamlike feeling she had moments ago vanished in an instant, leaving her mind crystal clear.
Her hands moved more deftly as she shuffled, stirred by an inexplicable shift.
Shrrrrk—
The crisp sound of thick cards colliding filled the air, forming a beautiful arc across the table.
“Phew…”
Everett closed her eyes, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
“What is the relationship between you and me?”
She lowered her left hand, hovering it over the Arcana, brushing slowly across the surface.
“Ah!”
A sharp pain pierced the center of her palm as if stabbed by something pointed.
Startled, she inspected her hand, but there wasn’t a single scratch.
“Did a thorn from the explosion really lodge itself in this deep?”
Since the stinging pain wouldn’t stop, she extended her right hand instead.
“Argh!”
This time the pain was far more intense, shooting through her palm—yet she couldn’t pull her hand away.
It was as if the Arcana itself was forcefully pulling her in. No matter how she struggled, she couldn’t move.
At that moment—
An unbelievable scene unfolded before her eyes.
From the pure-white backs of the Arcana, images suddenly began to emerge.
Her eyes remained locked on the cards, even as her hand stayed trapped.
“What… what is that?”
What sprouted forth were none other than the very illustrations on the Arcana’s faces.
If not for their angular outlines, Everett could have sworn they were real, shrunken people brimming with life.
Mesmerized, she forgot even the pain in her hand as she stared at them.
The images stretched and moved like people loosening stiff muscles.
Everett found their motions oddly endearing, and a faint smile touched her lips—until a sharp stab of pain pierced deeper into her palm.
“Ugh!”
Her involuntary groan made the images snap their heads toward her in unison.
The first to lock eyes with her was The High Priestess.
With a gentle smile as soft as the crescent moon in her hand, the Priestess dipped her head gracefully.
Following her lead, the other images each offered Everett their own form of greeting.
“Aahh!”
The pain, once confined to her palm, shot up her arm and spread through her entire body.
As Everett’s face twisted in agony, the images hurriedly began moving, lining up one by one behind The Fool.
The pain was so severe that she couldn’t even groan anymore, her shoulders curling inward—
And yet, she didn’t look away from the Arcana.
Almost as if aware of her gaze, the traveler from The Fool card waved at her.
“Kh—!”
A sharp cry tore from her lips as a pain stabbed deep into her heart.
At the same time, the lined-up figures were sucked back into her palm.
It felt as though her body were being ripped to shreds from the inside.
Everett collapsed to the floor, gasping as if her last breath might come any moment.
Gradually, the pain dulled, but the unsettling sensation of something crawling through her insides remained.
Curling into a ball, hugging her knees, she trembled.
“Haah…”
Releasing her strained breath, she was suddenly overwhelmed by irresistible drowsiness.
At the very moment Everett endured her strange agony—
Kyle, as always, wandered aimlessly within a dream.
“I’m so exhausted from barely sleeping for days… and yet, another dream?”
It was the same dream that had haunted him for a year.
At some point, he had become aware that it was a dream, but his body still repeated the same actions against his will.
Walking and walking, with no destination in sight.
Every time he fell asleep, he woke again within the dream, drifting through spaces that seemed both familiar and different.
Sometimes he wondered why he dreamed this way—but dismissed it. After all, it was just a dream.
Yet after witnessing that vision in the Imperial Library—something between a dream and a hallucination—he began to crave answers.
The places and people might change, but the realm was always the same.
Why did he endlessly roam this place night after night?
At first, he hoped it was divine revelation.
But over time, he began to fear it was merely the madness running in Bartmann blood.
“God… or madness…”
Sweeping away the heavy fog shrouding his path, Kyle muttered:
“I wish you’d stop this and tell me the reason already.”
Then, it happened.
“Hah… hah…”
The ragged, strained breath of someone at their limit echoed.
As though guiding him, the mist ahead thinned where the sound came from.
“I shall obey His Majesty’s command.”
Kyle saw the back of a man in unfamiliar clothing, standing before another who lay upon the ground.
Since it was a dream, Kyle approached without hesitation.
“Thank you. I place my trust in you.”
“Your Majesty… are you certain you will not regret this?”
“Regret? Do I have anything left to regret…?”
Kyle froze when he saw the face of the man lying weakly.
A sickly man with the same red hair and deep green eyes as himself.
The very man he had once seen weeping in despair during that hallucination.
“No way… Emperor Rubert?”
Rubert, fading with every breath, whispered faintly:
“Since the moment I lost her, my life has been meaningless.”
His sunken eyes drifted endlessly into the void.
“This life ends here. The next, I leave in your hands.”
At his resigned words, the standing man’s face twisted in grief.
“Your Majesty, had you found me sooner, things would not have come to this.”
“This… is punishment for failing to trust Anishu.”
With a heavy sigh of surrender, the man lowered his head.
“I will do my best—but I cannot say when it will happen.”
“I know. She said she would wait for me… so I will wait for her too.”
The man kissed the back of Rubert’s outstretched hand before dissolving into smoke.
Kyle stared at Rubert’s pale face, identical to his own, with a strange unease.
“Will I look like that when my time comes?”
He muttered under his breath.
“No… once is enough to face death like this.”
Rubert’s eyes locked onto his, and he answered.
Kyle stumbled back in shock.
Seeing his tense reaction, Rubert gave a faint smile.
“So… the time has finally come, if you and I are face to face.”
Kyle held his breath, staring silently.
“I am Rubert Souw Bartmann, founder of the Bartmann Empire.”
“Why… why is Emperor Rubert appearing in my dreams?”
“Hm. So you think this is a dream? Fair enough. Even I cannot predict how I might appear.”
Kyle couldn’t make sense of a word.
“Then… everything I’ve seen in these dreams…”
“Think of them as fragments of my life.”
“Fragments… of your life?”
“Indeed. Soon, they will settle into you as memories of your past life.”
Past life?
Kyle let out a disbelieving laugh.
“What in the world are you talking about…”
Rubert gave a hollow smile.
“Seek the shamans of the forest.”
“You mean the ones hiding in the southern woods?”
Kyle recalled the immense forests he had once glimpsed while traveling south.
Vast, endless greenery so dense it couldn’t be taken in with a single glance.
Enormous, swaying trees that looked like eerie sentinels guarding the land.
“Why must I find them?”
“Because it was the forest shamans who arranged for you and me to meet.”
Kyle’s mind reeled.
To think what he had dismissed as dreams were actually past lives—
And that he himself was supposedly Rubert, the empire’s founder—was beyond belief.
As his complexion paled, the frail Rubert suddenly vanished, replaced by a towering figure in a crimson cloak.
Startled, Kyle tried to back away, but Rubert seized his throat, pulling him close.
His burning green eyes bore into Kyle as he spoke slowly, each word searing:
“Do not forget. You… are soon to be me.”
