CH 103

Episode 103

A cracked voice rang out in the empty field.

“I mean it, I don’t need anything else. That one just enough.”

The golden eye resembling the tiger’s eyes looked down at me. His eyes were shining brightly like a lake in an old legend that turned into gold.

“Yerine….”

“Cassius, don’t blame yourself for my injury.”

I said, wrapped his hand and pressed it firmly.

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was just an accident.”

I raised my head and looked up at Cassius, who quietly bit his lips.

“But I just keep thinking about it.”

“What are you thinking?”

Cassius answered, turning his head sideways.

“If I had a skilled healing power, I don’t think you would have been hurt.”

“Cassius, the magic didn’t work on the spot, but eventually, the wound was healed faster. Cassius’s magic has helped me.”

I said, clasping Cassius’ hand firmly and lifting it.

Cassius smiled faintly at the sight but did not agree with me.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what happened.”

He shook his head and talked.

“But maybe it wasn’t because of my magic. It just happened that way.”

Cassius’ voice was sinking low.

With a voice that felt the weight of agony, my heart seemed to be getting heavier.

“I know why you keep saying you’re okay. You’re a person who can’t say harsh things.”

“Cassius, no. No one thinks Cassius should feel guilty.”

Cassius tilted his head and answered me with his sparkling golden eyes.

“I don’t know if I’m guilty……. I can’t say there isn’t a sense of guilt at all, but I don’t think that’s all I feel.”

Looking at his worried expression, I couldn’t figure out exactly what emotion he was feeling.

Perhaps Cassius himself doesn’t know how he was feeling.

His expression seemed to be a mixture of complex emotions.

“I wasn’t used to keeping things. You were the only one I wanted to keep.”

The face of Cassius, who was crying in the memory of Yerine, passed through my eyes.

The voice that was urgently shouting to save me, and the touch of the small hand that was holding my collar tightly.

“I thought that if I learned the healing magic, you won’t be hurting so much as you were a kid.”

Then Cassius smiled a small smile.

“But I guess I was overconfident. Even in the last raid, there was nothing I could do.”

“What do you mean nothing? You fought hard with the monster. You even take the lead in that.”

I spoke with a slightly cracked voice as I replied to Cassius.

“I don’t know. I only thought that my healing magic didn’t work.”

His eyes rolled like the surface of a lake with a boat in the middle.

“Regardless of the healing magic, I just think I’m powerless.”

I understand why Cassius feels that way. I thought I would have felt that way if I were in Cassius’s position. But even so, there was no reason for him to bear such a burden.

“That’s not true, Cassius.”

“Yerine.”

“I’m sure. Cassius is neither weak nor powerless.”

Suddenly, Cassius’s hand wrapped in my hand felt cold.

“Well, shall we sit back on the bench and talk?”

Cassius nodded silently.

As soon as we came and took a seat to the bench, I lit up a small flame.

“Now, it’s warm and we can see each other’s faces, right?”

Cassius’s eyes fell very slightly when he smiled softly.

“That’s right.”

Cassius’s face was more visible when I lit the fire.

I felt sorry that his face, which was smiling in front of me, was shaded.

“Cassius, you said this before, didn’t you? It’s a secret that the Imperial family can use healing magic.”

“Yes, I did. But what about that?”

I replied, looking back at Cassius’ face reflected the flickering flame.

“You used that magic in front of Erica and Eugene. To heal my wounds.”

“I was in a hurry back then.”

I smiled at Cassius who answered like that.

“That’s it. Cassius was trying to cure me while taking the risk of revealing Cassius’s own secret.”

I didn’t hate people. But most of the people I met in my previous life didn’t give me very good memories.

Everyone hurt others instead of giving up their own interests.

Even if the benefits are very small.

People in this world won’t be much different either.

“Not many people can do that for others.”

I continued my speech in a calm voice.

“Because you’re not weak, you can act and risk yourself for others.”

Slowly, I looked at the shaking flame.

Many things have happened since I first saw him at the successor appointment ceremony.

All those memories passed through my head like a flashlight.

And when I was with Cassius, I thought I was laughing the most.

“I’ve gained a lot of strength thanks to Cassius’s support. I’ve had a lot of fun, so thank you.”

I meant it. It was not just a word made up to console Cassius.

“Cassius was the one who told me that I could be a valuable person to someone. That Cassius, I don’t think you’re powerless.”

Cassius looked blank for a few seconds and looked only at the flames that were slowly swaying in the wind.

Then with his head down, he answered in a quivering voice.

“……thank you.”

“And I know honestly. Cassius would do anything for me.”

I turned around and talked to Cassius, looking straight at him.

“Still, don’t sacrifice your life.”

For some reason, something was going to come up from my throat. I tried to pretend to be okay, but my smile seemed more awkward than ever.

“Then I’ll be so sad.”

In the dusk, Cassius did not budge for a while.

But after a while, I could see his silhouette moving.

He grasped my left hand, which wasn’t turning on the light, and I felt a little warmer than before.

“If that’s what you want.”

Cassius said, bowing slowly.

Gradually the distance between the back of my hand and his lips narrowed. Soon, slightly rougher, but warm lips touched and fell on the back of my hand.

“As much as you want.”

He looked up and smiled.

It was the same as when he kissed my hand under the skin on the day of the Academy Foundation Day ball.

His beautiful eyes, which look like sun in the sky, were fully captured.

***

When I opened my eyes, I was in an unknown forest.

‘It’s the same place I saw in my dream.’

The shape and atmosphere of the tree were similar to those of that time.

Sure enough, I looked up and saw the woman I saw that day standing.

This time, the woman was standing a little closer than last time.

It was enough to see a few strands of the woman’s white hair fluttering slightly.

[As I said before……….]

It was the same as then.

I could hear the woman’s voice in my head.

[Come and see me whenever you have trouble.]

I murmured inwardly at her words.

“Trouble?”

I couldn’t figure out exactly what she was referring to. And why she says that to me twice.

[Yes, trouble.]

The woman answered me as if she had read my mind.

Then she stretched out her long, white hand.

At first, I didn’t know exactly what she was going to do.

But soon her long, thin fingers stroked my head.

[It looks like something bad will happen soon. I’m sorry, child.]

Unlike last time when she smiled softly, the woman’s face was full of worries.

Her red eyes were full of worries.

“What do you mean bad?”

There’s another one. It was as if this had happened before.

[I don’t have much time to explain.]

Her answer came in.

[Just remember one thing.]

She squeezed my shoulder as if she was in a hurry to deliver her voice in my head.

[When something that seems impossible for you to solve sooner or later, or when you feel desperate for someone’s help.]

Her eyes were shaking. Her eyes radiating a beautiful red colour like a ruby.

[Call me.]

There were so many questions I wanted to ask.

What the hell is going to happen to me?

Who are you?

I don’t know what it means to call you when I need someone’s help.

But without ever asking for those things, my consciousness sank back into the abyss.

Just before closing my eyes in my dream, one more question came to my mind.

‘Why me……..’

Yerine already had a mother.

But that woman was a completely different person from Yerine’s mother.

But why was she looking at me as if a mother looking at her child?

***

As I felt the morning breeze, I thought I had a strange dream.

I thought it was a strange dream last time, but it was just a silly dream.

However, I had a dream that followed my last dream, and the content was not unusual.

“Call her if something bad happens, what did she mean by that?”

I didn’t know how specifically the white woman was going to help.

There I didn’t know who she was, and I didn’t know her name, so there was virtually no way to call her.

“Is it really just a silly dream?”

Subsequently, people said that there are cases of dreaming like this. Although the dream was so vivid, there were too many strange things to believe that it was real.

When I slightly turned my head, my eyes met with myself in the mirror.

A woman with red eyes, like a woman in a dream, was in it.

“And I’ve never seen anyone with eyes of the same colour as me.”

People called me a monster because I had red eyes that no one had.

And Yerine’s parents, neither of them had red eyes.

Of course, the woman in my dream was so beautiful to be a monster. I couldn’t figure out what was what even though I thought about it.

Finally, I got out of bed with a sigh and started to change my clothes.

***

“Phew, why are you so concerned these days?”

I woke up early because of a strange dream, so I had too much time left until class.

Eventually, I decided to practice magic, but I couldn’t concentrate because my mind was too complicated.

‘And the red-eyed woman, and the Cassius and Eugene issues…….’

I sighed again and closed my eyes.

‘I understand why Cassius says so, but Eugene, why does he say he likes me all of a sudden?’

At that very moment, the door to the gym opened.

“Huh? What, were you here?”

Sure enough, Eugene, one of the causes of my troubles, stood there.

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