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chapter 36
“A secret of birth?!”
It was a huge incident, one that followed right after her parents’ lovey-dovey story!
Lirian’s eyes sparkled brightly.
“Just like Rose!”
Rose, too, had a secret about her birth.
The fact that she now shared the same kind of secret as her favorite puppet show character made her little heart pound wildly.
And Illei, who could hear the tiny heartbeat thumping against the body pressed closely against him, was flustered.
“Does she also have arrhythmia?”
Hearing the heartbeat so out of sync with his own made him feel extremely strange.
“Fairies?”
“…Us?”
The children all wore bewildered faces.
“I wanted to be a golem!” Jeril grumbled.
Resa looked at the children’s varied reactions and smiled with slightly sad eyes.
“Yes, I’m a fairy. My little fairy babies.”
Resa was what humans called an Other Race.
Fairies, beastkin, dwarves.
Among them, she was of the fairy race—those who could commune with spirits and possessed the Spirit Eye, which saw into the essence of the world.
Because they lived beyond the Northern Sea, humans who could not cross it would never in their lives encounter a fairy—unless the fairies themselves crossed over to the continent.
“Fairies… to be exact, the Other Races, you see… They are the ones who once built the great civilizations of what is now called the Old Civilization. Today, only faint traces remain in lands now forbidden, but long ago, the entire continent was like that.”
“Like humans are now?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Her gentle, storybook-like tone drew the children’s complete attention.
Meeting each child’s eyes one by one, she continued:
“But the prosperity that seemed eternal… was not eternal.”
The civilization built in a land without gods crumbled in an instant, like a sandcastle collapsing.
“The Abyss came.”
Lirian and Illei’s eyes lit up at the same time.
“Everything on this land was swallowed by darkness. Civilizations fell, most of the living perished and vanished. Only a few survivors sealed themselves in what they called the Sanctuary—their final land—to fulfill one last mission.”
“A mission?”
Lirian tilted her head, and Resa stroked her hair.
“To survive, and to pass this disaster on to future generations.”
Resa’s voice was tinged with bitterness.
“That was our mission.”
Thus, the people of the Old Civilization barely endured the age of darkness.
Until the Morning Star rose and the land regained its light.
They lived holding their breath, and holding it still.
“But… we were steeped in darkness for far too long.”
The disaster had not ended.
Unlike humans, whom the gods directly granted light to wash away the darkness, the Other Races had to withstand the deep, gloomy Abyss for ages.
And perhaps because of that…
Just as exposure to the strange phenomenon called “rifts” eventually drives one mad and turns them into monsters,
the Other Races, at some point, lost their sanity.
“We call that Corruption.”
Resa’s face was solemn, stripped of its usual gentle warmth.
She looked straight into the eyes of the only child who had inherited her eyes—Lirian.
“For fairies, jewel-like crystals called Fairy’s Tears sprout all over the body. Beastkin lose their reason and fall into beasts. Dwarves are consumed by the flames they lived alongside, becoming monsters.”
That was Corruption. The curse left behind by the Abyss.
Caesar slowly closed his eyes.
The children swallowed hard. The three who had seen Lirian’s rampage firsthand were especially shaken.
Illei clenched his fists tightly.
“But before the regression, this never happened.”
“That… I cannot say. Corruption appears suddenly, out of nowhere. No one knows why it comes, when it erupts, or how to cure it.”
That was why, whenever signs of Corruption appeared, it was an unspoken rule among them to leave their homes voluntarily.
Resa, too, one day showed signs of crystals forming on her body, and so she crossed the Northern Sea to human lands.
“…And who would have thought that I’d end up falling in love with one of those humans I had always considered unlucky to meet.”
She had only intended to live quietly, hidden from the world, and end her life herself once the Corruption worsened.
Until she crossed the Northern Sea, she had never imagined…
that she would gain the most reliable husband in the world and four precious children.
“This gem’s owner must have been fully corrupted. And what happened with Lirian… is likely because she inherited strong fairy blood. She inherited my eyes, after all.”
Resa’s and Lirian’s amethyst-colored eyes were not ordinary.
They were Spirit Eyes, a gift only fairies possessed.
‘And Lirian is special in so many other ways too.’
Exceptional physical abilities, and affinity with mana.
The signs had been there.
But Resa had believed that since her daughter was a half-blood, she would be spared her fate.
That she would not have to endure the same curse.
She had prayed desperately for it.
“I’m sorry, my dear. I’m so sorry.”
Lirian smelled sadness on her mother who held her tight.
Sadness, regret, frustration.
They sparkled like jewels, but carried a sorrowful hue, falling as tears.
“I’m sorry for being your mother, Liri.”
Lirian understood.
A jewel can never become a star.
And so her mother’s tears could never become stars.
For a star is like the brightest hope.
Slowly blinking, Lirian raised her little hand.
Pat, pat.
She stroked Resa’s head gently and spoke.
“But I like that you’re my mom.”
Resa’s eyes widened.
“You don’t hate it?”
That was a crystallization of purity, something that could never be called Corruption.
Resa shed one last tear and smiled faintly.
“Of course not.”
She carefully set Lirian down, then pulled all four children into a fierce embrace as they stared up at her with unsure faces.
“I love my little fairy babies more than anything in the world.”
Illei, standing a step away, watched the sight of a mother hugging her children under the afternoon sunlight pouring down.
“Is there really no cure?”
“…Yes. We’ve tried many things, but never achieved a full recovery.”
The boy asked the duke, who was watching the same scene.
The reply came in a bitter tone.
Caesar was one of only three dukes in the Empire.
He had summoned high priests to perform exorcisms, collected every rare herb said to exist in the world.
And still, no cure.
“At best, being near the northern borders close to the Northern Sea seems to calm it somewhat. That’s the only reason we can live like this.”
It was the reason Duchess Resa had lived alone in the remote northern wilderness.
But it also meant she could never remain in this estate forever.
There was no solution at present.
So, Caesar decided to seek answers in the past.
“The Northern Sea… that’s the fairies’ home, isn’t it.”
“Yes. I’ve sent ships many times. None returned. According to Resa, that place is a sanctuary of fairies, and they do not allow outsiders. Still, I won’t give up.”
Illei listened silently, sinking into thought.
The repeating end of civilizations.
The Abyss that came with them.
If time had not been turned back, humanity would have shared the same fate as the Other Races.
It struck him—something he had been too desperate to consider before the regression.
“Why does the Abyss appear?”
Why does it hate life so much, destroying everything?
Illei looked at Lirian’s radiant smile in her mother’s arms.
“…Perhaps the answer lies there.”
“Hm? What did you say?”
“Nothing. More importantly, you should examine this gem, Your Grace. The fact that Akranse was in Zerkino is suspicious. If its true nature was a corrupted fairy, perhaps it holds clues to crossing the Northern Sea.”
“…Very well.”
He was a regressor.
If Caesar sought answers in the past, Illei would seek them in the future—as only a regressor could.
“But really, how long will you keep calling me ‘Your Grace,’ Illei? Just call me uncle.”
“Ah, but…”
“And drop that formal speech too.”
Illei was left speechless.
He hadn’t expected to hear the exact same words from Duke Ersioni as he had before regression.
“Hm? You don’t remember when Liri went berserk?”
“N-no! I do, Mom!”
“What should I do… It wasn’t a good memory, but you mustn’t forget the feeling. That’s how you’ll calm yourself quickly when the signs appear again. For now, let’s at least take some medicine.”
“Noooooo!”
Somehow, in the midst of their conversation, Lirian had confessed too much, and ended up sentenced to a dose of medicine.
Watching her, Illei unknowingly laughed.
At last—it truly felt like he had come home.
