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chapter 30
“Seriously… you’re the one who told me to come early, and then you fall asleep.”
Lirian had dozed off, lying back against the roof.
For a long while, he simply looked down at her.
Her cheeks, flushed under the moonlight.
Her eyes—always sparkling with mischief—now peacefully closed.
Her fine eyelashes casting delicate shadows.
And—smack, smack—
Her cherry-colored lips moving ever so slightly in her sleep.
He whispered softly.
“I’ll be back soon.”
It would take some time to crawl up from the bottom of the Church all the way to the place where the Duke’s daughter lived.
But now he had a goal.
A goal to stop living the way others pushed him to.
“So you too… live well.”
Strong, like now.
Illay wanted to protect Lirian.
So that she could remain this bright, this innocent.
Let the filth and storms of the world hit him instead—his body was already stained with disgrace anyway.
Perhaps, he thought, this must be what family feels like.
The desire to protect and cherish someone—it felt like having a younger sister.
She already had three older brothers, but what was one more?
‘You’re usually sharp, but sometimes you miss the mark in the weirdest ways.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. Who else?’
Out of nowhere, he remembered a conversation with Yuri Ershioni—Lirian’s second brother and his only same-aged friend.
Though he’d grown close to all four siblings, he naturally spoke most often with Yuri.
Lirian, of course, was in a category of her own.
He didn’t know why that memory surfaced just then—perhaps because tomorrow he’d be leaving Ershioni, and the thought unsettled him.
“Pathetic.”
He chuckled faintly, draped his cloak over the sleeping girl, and straightened up.
“Please board.”
A carriage from the Church had arrived.
White, with golden patterns etched into its frame.
Illay curved his lips into a crooked smile at the knight who spoke politely, but whose eyes looked down on him.
Half a year ago, he might have shrunk under such a gaze.
But after half a year of running around causing trouble with a certain troublemaker, being reckless had become his default state.
“Your eyes lack respect, Sir Knight.”
Illay tugged at the stiff collar of the priest’s robe he hadn’t worn in so long.
The Holy Knight assigned to guard—and monitor—him glanced at him, as if unsure he’d heard correctly.
Illay stepped onto the carriage’s stair, deliberately placing himself above the man, and looked down at him.
“Weren’t you planning to use me as a pretty face? If this face gets even a scratch, the citizens will love it. Of course, the one they’ll ‘love’ is the Church.”
“You… what did you say?!”
When Illay drew the dagger he had hidden for protection, the knight’s face went pale.
It was a bet with his own life on the line.
Illay remained cold in his thinking.
The only thing he could wager right now was himself.
Luckily, thanks to the Empress flaunting him around as a trophy, his name was well known among the Empire’s people.
That was probably why the Church picked him as a tool for polishing their image.
The important part was—he was their card. If that card was destroyed, the Church would be damaged too.
He smirked crookedly and ordered:
“Eyes down.”
Though abandoned, he was still once of the Imperial Family.
He’d been educated in ways commoners could never imagine, and he’d also learned just how far a person could fall.
He knew both heights and depths.
When he deliberately used cruder words, the knight trembled with rage, but in the end, ground his teeth and lowered his gaze.
Illay thought to himself:
‘I need to get stronger fast. It’s exhausting to have to tame every single one of them like this.’
Just as he turned to step fully into the carriage—
“Illay!”
The faint scent of flowers drifted behind him.
Illay turned in surprise.
“…Lirian?”
“Why are you leaving so fast?!”
The very same Lirian who had fallen asleep the night before, looking as if she wouldn’t wake even after he left, was now running toward him.
As she drew close, she leapt into the air.
Illay instinctively caught her in his arms.
“How many times have I told you—it’s dangerous to jump like that!”
“Ehh, brave Sir Jin! Do you not trust this Rose?!”
“…What kind of speech is that supposed to be?”
“It’s from Rose of the Eastern Kingdom! The newest volume just came out!”
Looking at this mischievous girl, he felt utterly powerless—and smiled despite himself.
He didn’t know why.
Half a year had passed, yet he still hadn’t found the reason.
‘Whatever.’
He just laughed.
Because seeing her made him happy.
Because leaving her so soon made him sad.
There were many reasons.
‘I really do have to climb faster.’
One look at her bright face lit a fire in him.
Even if he had to join the Forbidden Division and fight abyssal monsters day and night, he’d earn merit quickly.
So that he could return—just a little sooner.
Even as he set his own path into hell, he bickered with Lirian.
After laughing together for a while, Lirian suddenly exclaimed, “Ah, right!” and rummaged through her bag.
“Illay, here.”
“Hm?”
“A gift!”
She pulled something out with a flourish—
A flowerpot. A tiny, adorable one.
Illay stared at it silently for a long time.
“…Starflower?”
“That’s right!”
“How…? Starflowers only bloom in spring.”
Blue flowers shaped like stars.
That’s why they were called starflowers—and they were famous for blooming only in spring.
The day the two of them first became friends, the garden had been full of starflowers in bloom.
He hadn’t known their name back then, but the memory was so vivid that he’d looked it up later.
“I planted it in spring, but I had my eldest brother cast a protection spell on it every day so it wouldn’t die!”
So Seran had been roped into this.
Illay offered the poor man silent condolences.
To keep a plant alive out of season required enormous effort.
Not only Seran, but Lirian too must have tended to it every single day.
With all her heart.
“….”
He took the flowerpot wordlessly.
Lirian’s eyes sparkled as she smiled.
“I really wanted to give it to you. This flower… it looks like your eyes.”
No, he thought. That star looks more like your eyes.
But once again, he swallowed the words he couldn’t say. For some reason, it felt like he had to.
“Thank you. I’ll take good care of it—and return it to you next time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
No one knew when that “next time” would be.
Perhaps 10, or even 20 years later.
But he said it anyway.
Because he fully intended to make it happen.
It was a kind of vow.
“See you later, Lirian.”
And so—he didn’t say goodbye.
But back then, he didn’t know.
He didn’t know that by parting without a proper farewell, Lirian would never live past the winter of her seventh year.
While he fought in the Forbidden Division to earn merit and return quickly, a tragedy struck Ershioni.
All he received was a single letter from Yuri of the past.
[Lirian has lost all memories after age five.]
Just one line. No explanation.
[She doesn’t remember you.]
Lirian had lost all memory of him.
Ten years passed.
Illay lived on the battlefield for ten years.
He grew into a nineteen-year-old man.
And then—the Abyss burst open.
“What should we do, Captain?”
Illay stared blankly at the table.
Upon it sat a flowerpot—once small, but now shrunken even more beside him.
The flower he had cherished, even within the Forbidden Division, had withered completely.
The last petal had fallen—
Ash-gray.
Illay’s voice came out flat, emotionless.
“Turns out, when I came back from hell, the world itself was a worse hell….”
News arrived that Ershioni had been reduced to ashes.
No survivors confirmed, and the truth buried with the tragedy.
Only an uncertain future remained.
“Search. Any trace at all.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked up at the sky, split wide by colossal fissures.
The world had already begun its steep descent into its fated apocalypse.
The Imperial family was silent, the Empire in chaos.
Even his own survival was uncertain—but Illay didn’t care.
His goal had long since narrowed to one.
“So please, just live. Lirian.”
There’s still a star I haven’t returned to you.
Later, he would learn—
the starflower’s meaning was reunion.
