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Chapter : 28
Kaiden began galloping east without hesitation.
From a rational standpoint, it would have made sense to stop by Niveus Castle first and ask Laura about what had happened before and after—but he had no intention of doing so.
He was gripped by the fear that if he wasted even a moment, Zenaida might die.
What if Zenaida didn’t go with him willingly?
The “bastard” Laura mentioned was most likely Ellen.
Kaiden had once seen him freely control monsters at the monster tournament, so he assumed that Ellen was also the reason monsters had invaded the castle.
If Ellen threatened her to take Zenaida away…
Efficient and self-sacrificing as she was, Zenaida would surely have offered herself in exchange for the monsters’ retreat.
Everything fit together perfectly.
That was precisely why he couldn’t afford to waste time.
Kaiden bitterly resented the fact that he wasn’t a mage capable of teleportation.
He might not be able to reach the Witch’s Forest, but he could have saved at least some time.
The regret left a bitter taste in his mouth.
At that moment, an owl hooted and circled above his head.
When Kaiden looked up, the owl suddenly glided down and stopped at eye level with him.
Is it a messenger bird?
Wild owls were notoriously difficult to tame.
Yet this one stared straight at Kaiden and continued hooting, as if it had something to convey.
He checked the owl’s leg, but there was nothing resembling a letter.
Kaiden tried to ignore it and ride on, but the owl kept pace with the galloping horse.
What is this?
In the Aden Empire, owls were known as symbols of guidance or wisdom.
There were even occasional stories of people lost in monster-infested snowy mountains surviving thanks to an owl.
Could it be… that this owl is trying to help me?
He knew it was madness, but Kaiden spoke to the owl anyway.
“Can you guide me to a knight with blue eyes and silver hair?”
In response, the owl flew a short distance ahead, then turned back and paused, repeating the motion as if urging him to follow.
“All right. I’ll follow you.”
At his reply, the owl rose higher and began flying straight ahead.
Kaiden did not believe in superstition or gods.
He believed only in people—and in his own judgment of them.
But just this once, even superstition would do. He would do anything to find Zenaida.
He whipped his horse harder, praying the owl would lead him to her.
Zenaida staggered backward, but she was already deep inside the cave.
When she belatedly tried to retreat, her body was in no condition to cooperate, and more importantly, it felt as though an invisible barrier was there—her palm bounced back, forcing her to stumble toward Liam.
It’s made of holy power.
High Priest Liam was definitely dead.
Wishing for him to be alive had been nothing more than hope—he was gone. There was no way he could return.
Yet he had cast a barrier with holy power?
With nothing but an illusion?
Wasn’t clinging to an illusion pathetic enough—now she was trapped by it?
A hollow despair surged as she confronted the worthlessness of her own abilities.
After regressing, she had decided not to run away but to protect Kaiden because she believed in her own strength.
Though others had ostracized her for being a spirit contractor, she had lived more earnestly than anyone—and she had been confident, at least, in her abilities.
But at this moment, even the last shred of pride she had barely been holding onto collapsed.
“Ha…”
Where had it all gone wrong?
Was it a mistake to think she could protect others with such meager power?
Would it have been better if she had died instead of surviving when she fell from the wyvern’s back?
She had thought it was luck—now she realized it was misfortune.
Zenaida sank weakly to the ground.
Then Liam’s illusion placed a hand on her shoulder.
Though she called it an illusion, the hand was so warm she could have mistaken it for a living person.
She curled in on herself.
From behind, a resentful voice rang out.
“You always run away like this.”
Zenaida covered her ears and shut her eyes.
But it was impossible to block sound completely.
The voice slipped through her fingers and tormented her ears.
“If you had quietly stayed at the temple that day, I wouldn’t have died.”
“……”
“You sold my life for nothing more than a fireworks display.”
The illusion dragged out memories she had long buried.
Zenaida’s body trembled violently.
“Look properly.”
“……”
“Look at what you turned me into. I’m the victim. I have the right to curse you, don’t I?”
That isn’t High Priest Liam.
The Liam she remembered would never hurt Zenaida or force anything on her.
If anything, he was someone who embraced everything and bore it alone.
And most importantly—
I never said words like that out loud.
She had shouted at that mysterious voice, asking who it thought it was to judge and define her life—but she had never spoken of having the right to curse her.
Those thoughts had stayed in her heart.
People can only guess at another’s inner thoughts. They can never be certain.
High Priest Liam is dead.
The dead cannot be brought back.
The dead cannot return to this world.
That is nothing more than a meticulously crafted illusion.
Zenaida struggled to face reality and rejected the illusion.
But it had no intention of retreating.
“Do you really have to go?”
“……”
“What if you get hurt?”
Liam’s afterimage murmured softly, just like he had in the past when he tried to soothe Zenaida as she insisted on going to the fireworks festival.
Her body stiffened in shock.
The words were exactly the same as those he had spoken back then.
It can read memories too, not just minds?
She had to kill it.
She was trapped inside the barrier anyway, unable to escape.
Wouldn’t it be better to struggle to the end and die?
She happened to have a sword at her waist.
Zenaida swiftly drew it and slashed the illusion.
Because she firmly believed it was only an illusion, there was no mercy in her strike.
Instead of merely dispersing, as she expected, blood burst out like that of a living person and splattered everywhere.
Naturally, warm red blood streamed down her face as well.
She wiped her face and gasped for breath, continuously brainwashing herself that it was only an illusion.
But once her blood-smeared vision cleared, that self-deception became useless.
“…!”
Before she struck, it had been High Priest Liam.
After the stab, the face had changed—to Kaiden’s.
Th-this is an illusion… it’s not real… an illu—
“Did you love me?”
It felt as though she had returned to that moment.
“…I have to save you.”
To the moment she killed him without even understanding what she herself wanted.
“I have to save you!”
In her confusion, the thread of reason snapped.
Zenaida reached out with trembling hands.
Her body was growing colder by the second.
She pulled him tightly into her arms, desperate to share even a little of her warmth.
Though her stamina was completely drained, and her own body was just as cold.
“Don’t die… please don’t die. Live.”
She whispered desperately to the corpse, begging it not to die.
Crying, she tried again and again to drag Kaiden’s body with her broken strength, only to collapse repeatedly.
Seeing her body refuse to obey her will, Zenaida was consumed by despair.
There was no one she could blame—this was all her own doing.
She buried her face in his blood-soaked chest and cried like a child for a long time.
“I love you.”
Like a child learning emotions for the first time.
As a child, Zenaida had believed endurance to be a virtue.
Only after becoming an adult did she finally learn how to express her feelings honestly.
But it was as if God showed no mercy to a woman who had killed the one she loved, delivering a cruel outcome.
What had once been Kaiden’s human form was now nothing but sun-bleached bones, crumbling to dust at her fingertips.
When Zenaida finally realized this, she screamed until the cave itself seemed to shake.
So in the end, God did not grant my wish.
Regressing wasn’t mercy—it was punishment.
To make me regret my sins to the bone, to live in pain forever while watching others be happy without you.
Zenaida, laughing like a madwoman, suddenly stopped—and began running straight ahead.
