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Chapter 29
“…I don’t think so, but if you want to check, I won’t stop you.”
“All right.”
Cecilia answered confidently.
“Shall we make a bet, Edward? If I win, you have to do one thing for me.”
“And if I win?”
“Then I’ll grant you one wish.”
Edward shook his head.
“My wish is something you can’t grant.”
“Then let’s pretend the bet never happened.”
Cecilia looked disappointed.
She was sure—one hundred percent—that she would win the bet!
That night.
After sending Edward away because he was a bother and remaining alone in her room, Cecilia took out a clock to check the time.
In ten minutes it would be one in the morning.
‘He must know by now.’
Lieutenant Hope had promised to carry out everything as quietly as possible, but there were that many whistles handed out; there was no way he hadn’t noticed.
Still, that didn’t mean she would stop the ghost ruckus.
They’d shown up every single day — would they suddenly stop because the Empress, a Grand Magister, was investigating?
Anyone would find that suspicious.
‘But it would be a good way to catch them off guard.’
Cecilia kept her guard up and listened for the whistle notes that might come from somewhere.
Then, at midnight turning to one a.m.
Although it was high summer, a chill wind passed through.
Cecilia always kept the room at a comfortable temperature, so the added eerie breeze felt very cold.
‘…No way.’
She swallowed dryly. In theory, a fiendish apparition (giyongsang) lowers the ambient temperature and forms itself.
Of course, con artists would also cast cold spells to make a fake giyongsang match the theory.
But if the temperature in her room was dropping…
‘How dare they try to trick me directly?!’
Björn barked.
“How arrogant!”
He, too, apparently disliked anyone bold enough to try and con the Lord of Magic.
“If you’re from Mejina, I’ll grind you to bones!”
Instead of replying, Cecilia was speechless while Björn unloaded a torrent of threats.
He said he’d grind them to powder, turn them into pork and eat them, shrink them to an ant and stomp them to death… The language was extreme for a three-year-old dragon’s mouth, but Cecilia understood the sentiment.
She, the Grand Magister, felt indignant at being looked down on; how much more enraged would Björn, the Mage-King, be?
Not long after, a pale shape began to materialize before Cecilia’s eyes.
Cecilia’s eyes narrowed.
It was a stereotypical con trick.
If you made a perfectly human form, it would reveal flaws somewhere; so con artists often crafted a vague, unclear shape to deceive.
She snorted and reached out, firing a spell.
A tracking spell — it would reveal the caster immediately.
Yes, that’s how it should work…
Her magic passed through without affecting the figure, hitting the wall and dissipating.
Björn scoffed.
“I’ll try myself.”
He slipped from Cecilia’s wrist, slid up her hand, and rose upright on the back of her hand, pinching his small gap-toothed mouth and spitting a thin flame.
But the flame…
Extinguished right in front of the figure.
“Huh…?”
“W-what is that…?”
Both Cecilia and Björn blurted out dumbfounded voices.
A form that even a dragon’s fire couldn’t touch.
A shape human magic passed through without perceiving.
They didn’t want to believe it, but every clue pointed to a single conclusion.
That was a giyongsang.
“This is impossible!”
Björn yelled.
“Why would that show up here? It would be perfect if it had appeared in Mejina! To show up in this uncivilized country and be humiliated like this…!”
“Calm down, Your Majesty.”
Though he spoke calmly, Cecilia’s heart pounded.
If her comrades at the Guardian Tower knew about this, they’d be green with envy.
How many people get the luck of seeing a giyongsang in front of them?
Cecilia smiled broadly and stepped toward the apparition — and then a voice reached her.
“Help me.”
A chill ran down her spine.
‘No, it’s worse than that.’
It wasn’t merely familiar; it was the voice she heard every day, every moment — a voice she could never forget even if all others faded.
If someone were staging a con, she might have excused this as an effort to make the trick more convincing.
But this was… a genuine giyongsang.
Cecilia stared, stunned. Through the wavering form she thought she recognized the oval face and long silhouette — was it her imagination?
“My…I think…”
“I know.”
Cecilia cut off Björn’s sentence.
She had no choice but to accept it.
That was… herself.
A past self? Or a future self?
The mystery resolved itself quickly.
As Cecilia recognized the other, pale color began to gather slowly in the wavering form.
She could see her former golden hair and the pretty, sparkling blue eyes.
But the face was far from the youthful, pretty version of her past.
It looked gaunt from malnutrition, with a dazed expression.
Blue bruises marred the limbs — clearly signs of abuse.
Her past self had never been like that.
Now Cecilia knew.
This was the self she had seen in prophetic dreams — a thought-form made by a self who had died unjustly in a future that would never come.
A young empress accused of wrecking the country and killed.
A life that could have been saved if she had realized and used her power earlier.
‘You can’t dismiss it as just a dream. In some world that really happened.’
The other Cecilia opened her mouth again.
“Help me.”
“I’ll help.”
Cecilia said sincerely.
“Just tell me how I can help.”
“Trapped…”
The other said.
“I ran away, but I’m here. Make me disappear.”
Cecilia swallowed dryly. If the figure truly was a giyongsang, annihilation shouldn’t be difficult.
She could destroy it with her enormous magic.
But how could she destroy a future version of herself?
“It’ll hurt.”
Cecilia licked her chapped lips and whispered.
“It’ll be painful and hard. You might hate me for it.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to rest now…”
Tears welled in the other’s large eyes.
“Let me rest.”
Cecilia realized her own eyes had grown wet.
“Do you really want that? I can free you. You could live freely here…”
The other shook her head.
“My life is over. End it for me properly. Before I grow worse.”
Her speech grew faster and harsher.
“I’m neither dead nor alive. I’m terrified every time people I don’t know recoil when they see me.”
Her voice, choked with sobs, poured out without end.
“Do you know why I only appear at this time and in the morning? Fewer people wake then! But even so, people see me… they look at me… they look at me…”
Cecilia stepped closer.
The other’s small body fit entirely into her arms.
Although certainly the same person, holding her felt like cradling a much younger sister.
Cecilia poured her magic into the apparition. She prayed it would make things less painful.
She hoped the other Cecilia would finally find peaceful rest.
Blue mana filled the room, a chill that seemed to freeze even blood suffusing Cecilia’s body.
But she held on to the apparition until it quietly faded away in her arms.
The other left behind just one sentence.
“Be happy for me.”
