Chapter 30

“There’s nothing left. Do you know how it feels to realize that everything you thought was yours had actually been prepared for someone else?”

Keith said nothing. He just looked at me.

The despair I felt when I realized that even my body—my entire life—had been prepared to be handed over to Jang Hyeonji.

Pain that no medicine could touch twisted in my gut, and I had clawed at the walls until my nails fell off…

“I don’t want to die. The person who wants to live the most is me. Do you think I want to die like this, after losing everything, after being defeated by her?!”

I will live.

“I’ll crawl if I have to—get away and throw away everything that was meant for her, with my own hands.”

My family, my fiancé… and maybe even the one name that had once mattered most to me.

“I will live, more happily than anyone else. From now on.”

“……”

“I won’t lose anything again…”

All I wished for was to never lose what was mine again. To throw away everything that wasn’t, and finally live as myself. I bit the inside of my cheek. In the corner of my vision, Mari was still asleep. My boiling heart settled in an instant. My head lowered.

Such a small wish—and yet so hard to grasp.

Everything around me had burned to the ground. A girl who had shown me kindness lost her arm. The world was never on my side, so its cruelty didn’t surprise me. But the fact that those who’d been kind to me had to fall with me… that hurt. So much, it was unbearable.

“I’ll ask again. What do you want to do from now on?”

“……”

“Florence.”

My lips moved, but no sound came out. After all that emotional outburst, I had no answer to Keith’s question. Something was stuck in my throat, and the words wouldn’t come out.

“I want to live…”

“And?”

“I don’t want anything taken from me again… I want to go somewhere no one will interfere. And throw it all away.”

Enoch… I should’ve listened to you earlier. I lifted my head.

“And?”

“…To be happy…”

Keith prompted me gently.

“I want to be happy.”

It was the first time I’d ever said that wish aloud. I didn’t cry—maybe because I myself found the wish too absurd.

Linus would never give up on this body. That horrible monster was persistent, and he had the power to make his obsession a reality. He’d never give up the chance to reclaim the woman he loved. The Seymour family would surely back him, too…

“I know it won’t be easy. Linus, that bastard, is one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom of Yullia—and strong, too. Compared to him, I’m useless, weak, and I have no allies. But even so—”

“You have one.”

“What?”

“I’m on your side. And so is that kid.”

Keith’s voice was calm.

“The Knight Commander’s seen my face. He’s seen the kid’s too. We’re in this together now. There’s no way he’s going to forget us.”

“……”

“For your wish to come true, we’d have to kill that bastard first…”

He pointed at himself with his index finger.

“Maybe if you pray hard enough, someone will make it happen.”

“……”

It was a terrible joke. When I didn’t laugh, he looked a bit sheepish—but then shrugged with practiced shamelessness. He started rummaging through his bag for something. So he was embarrassed…

“Well then, Florence. First, let’s properly assess your condition.”

“Do you know how hard it was to get this? Honestly, I had to run around all over the place for it—left you unattended because of it.”

“…Who are you, really?”

“You can ask that after the exam.”

What Keith pulled out was a magical medical device.

The kind used by palace magicians—so valuable they were said to be worth more than gold. I remembered it from when I was little. My grandmother had used one on me when I kept fainting. Just like in that memory, Keith handled the device with extreme care.

“If they find out I stole it, I’m dead… Better return it after using it nicely.”

“You stole it?!”

“Of course not! Who do you take me for?! …Not that I’ve never stolen anything.”

He should’ve stopped before that last part.

“Here, give me your hand.”

“This thing won’t tell you anything. I used it as a kid.”

“I know.”

“…?”

“You, I mean…”

Keith shook his head. Why stop in the middle of a sentence? But he ignored my protest and pulled my hand onto the device.

“When I was treating you, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong.”

“The doctors said the same when I was a kid.”

Except that my body was frail.

“They probably couldn’t give a clear diagnosis because you were young. If you were born with low magic, that might explain it. Anyway, let’s just see.”

Keith spoke as if he were a real doctor.

But medicine, magic, and divine power are all completely separate disciplines. Just because someone is a doctor doesn’t mean they can use healing magic or divine power—and vice versa. I stared at the glowing magical device, then glanced at Mari. Looking at this thing wouldn’t change anything.

Above my head, Keith chuckled.

“You like that kid that much? You can’t take your eyes off her.”

“…I like her.”

Of course I did. Right now, Mari was my favorite person in the whole world.

“She saved me.”

“What about me?”

“…I mean, I’m thankful, but…”

It wasn’t just my life Mari had saved. Keith made a mock-hurt face. I knew he was joking, but I still felt a bit awkward.

“…Sorry?”

“Don’t apologize, it makes me feel more pathetic.”

While Keith sorted through the results of the exam, I sat back and observed him. The man who talked like his mouth would fall off if he stayed quiet was now silently focused.

What was his name again? I tried to recall the name I’d pushed to the back of my mind. I was grateful he’d saved me, but I hadn’t wanted to know more—because if we got any more entangled, nothing good would come of it.

Keith Hayden Brien. A man that good-looking… If I’d seen him before, I would’ve remembered. Whether for good reasons or bad. Maybe he existed in Jang Hyeonji’s memories, but he hadn’t left much of an impression. Or maybe… he just wasn’t important.

‘There wouldn’t be a forest like this in the capital, so we must be far from the city…’

A high-level mage capable of healing magic—at least Class 7.

I remembered hearing that the highest-ranking royal magicians were Class 7. If Linus was the youngest Sword Master ever, maybe Keith was the youngest Class 7 mage, unofficial though he may be. He hadn’t said so himself, so it wasn’t confirmed.

But I was sure of it. He had to be Class 7, at minimum. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even dream of challenging a Sword Master.

Just who was he, really?

“You’re staring a hole in my face.”

“I’m thinking. Have we really met before?”

“Oh, definitely.”

And I forgot that face? I tilted my head—and then my eyes widened. Wait…

“Did you… get plastic surgery?”

“What?!”

“You know, like… cosmetic magic or something…”

“This has been my face since birth, thank you very much.”

Guess not. I shook my head. That couldn’t be it. And if not… I had no idea.

“There’s never been a case of a mage who could command three greater spirits and was Class 7 suddenly losing all magic overnight.”

“……”

“Just a month ago, the Marchioness of Baldwin summoned the Great Spirit of Water. I saw it with my own eyes.”

A spirit made of water—a dragon—bowing its long neck before ‘me,’ responding to Jang Hyeonji’s hand gesture. The crowd clapping. Linus holding her waist. Since it happened recently, the memory remained vivid.

That wasn’t me…

Keith looked at me.

He was a sharp man. The fact that he distinguished between me and the “Marchioness of Baldwin” meant he had guessed at least part of the truth.

“But it was that body.”

I nodded.

“Whether a contract with a spirit is bound to soul or body… no one knows yet. A person can’t exist with just a soul or just a body. But that body—you—could summon spirits and use magic. It had that much magical power.”

Keith wasn’t so much explaining to me as thinking aloud. I stayed silent, nodding gently so as not to interrupt.

“This vessel is still usable.”

Hope, stubborn and wild, started to grow.