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Chapter 64
Erin stared intently at Isis. The corners of his mouth, usually lifted in a pleasant smile, were now straightened, and his eyes carried a hint of caution.
Erin knew very well what he must be thinking about her.
He was probably on guard. She couldn’t blame him if he suspected her allegiance was with the Emperor and Ditrion. She would have done the same in his place.
Since then, they hadn’t exchanged words. They simply continued walking toward their destination.
Along the way, Helix felt something was off. The danger zone was quieter than usual.
Normally, it wouldn’t have been strange to encounter a few mid-tier monsters, but none appeared. That it was unusual enough to unsettle him indicated something was amiss.
‘Something’s about to happen.’
At that moment,
“We’ve arrived.”
Isis spoke, and Helix looked ahead. Their destination: the orphanage.
As soon as they stepped inside, Isis turned to Erin.
‘There’s something I need to confirm before entering.’
He finally spoke the question he had wanted to ask her all the way here.
“Erin Rises, before we go in, let’s be clear about one thing. What is your purpose in approaching Lord Ferdin?”
Instead of answering, Erin drew her sword.
Seeing her unsheath it, Helix also prepared his weapon, but he couldn’t stop her attack.
In an instant, the sword flew past Isis and struck something behind him.
Isis turned, startled. Erin’s eyes glinted with a cold, unsettling light.
Blood from a monster dripped down her blade.
“This feels… wrong.”
Erin frowned, pressing her hand to her forehead. As soon as she spoke, Isis sensed the unease as well.
“Magic? Such a large-scale spell?”
Something was disrupting his mind.
‘What on earth is this?’
It wasn’t divine power—it was a curse so ominous that, if not for his own holy energy, he might have fallen victim before realizing it.
An intense force seemed to fight against the divine energy surrounding him, shaking his mind violently.
Isis quickly turned to Erin, panic in his eyes. Helix and he could resist it thanks to their divine power, but a normal knight like Erin would surely struggle.
As expected, Erin’s empty gaze reflected nothing but focus.
“Isis, use your divine power immediately!” Helix shouted urgently, holding onto him.
There was no time to hesitate.
Isis grabbed Erin’s shoulders and began channeling divine power.
Erin slowly closed and opened her eyes. She knew that everything before her was an illusion.
If she hadn’t been a Sword Master, she would have been consumed by the vision—it was that vivid.
It was a cruel magic that trapped the mind within past memories, forcing the target to live a lifetime in a nightmare.
Erin scanned her surroundings. She knew exactly where she was.
The Rises residence. Her home. The origin of every nightmare.
‘Ferdin?’
At the glimpse of a figure, Erin closed and reopened her eyes. Ferdin was standing before her.
Even knowing this was nothing but a horrifying illusion, Erin couldn’t take a single step forward.
She instinctively reached for her sword’s hilt.
“Lady Erin.”
Ferdin approached her, covered in blood. A skull rolled at his feet.
At that moment, someone grabbed her ankle.
Erin looked down and saw familiar faces: Calips, Amon, Lilia, and countless others…
‘Yes, it’s a nightmare. Definitely.’
The corpses at her feet were all people who had died protecting her.
The nightmare she always had after Ferdin’s death… She hadn’t experienced it since time had been reversed, but in her previous life, it had been unbearably familiar.
She knew what would happen next. Ferdin came closer, his eyes full of resentment.
He touched her face and smiled with a beguiling charm, as if to mesmerize her.
And, just like in all her dreams, he spoke:
“You killed me.”
She knew it was all a lie.
Yet Erin couldn’t move. Frozen, she only looked at Ferdin.
In the past, she never responded to the dream-Ferdin, thinking he would hate her.
But she spoke without realizing it:
“I wasn’t happy for even a single moment.”
Words she had always wanted to say.
“After you died, every time I slept, I wished I would never wake up. Life was too painful… I wished everything would just end.”
She wanted to see Ferdin yet didn’t want to. Seeing him, even in a dream, twisted her heart in unbearable ways.
“If I hadn’t been born into a marquis family, and you hadn’t been born into royalty… would our lives have been better?”
A meaningless “what if.” Erin smiled as she said it.
“I thought if I died, I could meet you again…”
Yet even in death, she couldn’t.
Erin felt something tightly restraining her feet. Looking down, she saw the corpses pulling at her.
Slowly, she raised her sword. The illusion of Ferdin tilted his head at her.
“Are you going to kill me again?”
A sad smile crossed Erin’s face.
Then, without hesitation, she swung her sword.
Blood streamed down Erin’s arm.
Isis stared in disbelief. She had cut her own arm.
Deep red blood dripped from the wound.
Erin’s unwavering action left Isis horrified. He instinctively stepped back a few paces.
Erin slowly turned to look at him. Their eyes met, and an indescribable chill ran through him.
Isis tried using his divine power to help Erin regain her senses. The more insidious a mental spell, the faster one had to escape the illusion before being trapped forever.
In that moment, he caught a brief glimpse of what she was seeing.
‘What was that…?’
Corpses scattered around, and Erin choosing to strike herself instead of the Ferdin illusion in front of her.
Why? Was she truly mad, manipulated by dark magic into harming herself?
But Isis quickly realized that Erin was astonishingly clear-headed.
Her eyes were clearer and brighter than ever.
Resisting this spell without losing consciousness was impressive enough, but the extreme choice she made to break free was, in every sense, insane.
“You…”
Ignoring the astonished Helix and Isis, Erin tore her clothes roughly and pressed them against her wound.
Isis’s usually smiling, composed face collapsed.
“Are you… insane?” he asked, stepping closer to heal her. Erin rejected his touch.
“Do not heal me.”
“……?”
“So I can maintain my sanity.”
Isis could only stare. Erin’s white clothes were already stained red.
“Lady Erin, are you sure? You’re badly hurt… but we don’t have much time. A horde of monsters has appeared.”
Helix’s words brought Isis back to reality.
Seeing the sudden wave of monsters, his face went pale.
They had no idea where the monsters had come from, but if they stayed there, they would all die. Not just them—everyone in the western region was in danger.
Grrr!
Helix’s face hardened as he swung his sword, cutting down monsters charging at him.
Even imbued with divine power, the resistance he felt against his blade was unusual.
These were no ordinary monsters—at least mid-tier or higher.
“There’s no way a horde this size just appeared suddenly…”
Helix turned to Isis.
“Where did they come from? I’ve heard no reports of monsters gathering nearby.”
“Most likely from underground beneath this place,” Isis replied. The filthy aura rising from below made him nauseous.
Helix gritted his teeth, continuing to swing his sword. He suspected that somewhere in the underground area mentioned by Isis lay the clue they had been searching for.
