No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 136

On the other hand, Diedrich Vinckel was also in a similar situation.

A situation where a shadow appeared and urged betrayal.

“Ah… seriously.”

Diedrich was sick of it all.

From the imprinting that started with not being allowed to betray such a person regardless of what Cassice Demillang said, to his entire life where all his relatives were clamoring that he was the only talent who could save their family, it was all disgusting.

He wanted to argue with his father, asking if he ever tried wielding a sword even once instead of running a damn gambling den. He was also sick of his mother’s excuse that he couldn’t possibly defeat Cassice Demillang even if he tried wielding a sword due to the helplessness of lacking talent.

‘It’s not like I can defeat Cassice Demillang either…’

I don’t remember, but I must not betray that person. The optimism that thought that person would survive even a measly betrayal just because that person was strong had broken that person, and now I realized that.

That fact alone drove people crazy. Something like that made people go insane.

So that’s what I meant to say. These words.

“Why don’t you find him yourself, dammit?”

Demillang wouldn’t be unable to find one person anyway, so it was suspicious from the start. Why are they going around asking people for such trivial information?

Now it seemed to make sense.

“I get it, you’re trying to turn everyone around into a traitor and divide them, and I know very well that I’m an idiot who got completely fooled by such a shallow trick! But now I don’t want to do that anymore. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to kill me?”

[…The sin of defying Demillang is great. Do you not care if all your blood relatives die?]

The shadow spoke chillingly, but at that moment, Diedrich burst into laughter.

No way, are there suckers who fall for such a cheap threat?

“At this rate, I’m about to kill myself. Damn it, what’s there to agonize over?”

[…Do you have no regrets?]

“Yeah, kill me. Dammit, you bastard. I said kill me!”

The red-haired cadet shouted with blazing eyes. Soon after, the shadow swung a scythe. Only then did Diedrich realize that he had been pursuing freedom all along. Even knowing that he would die soon, he would proudly cherish this moment when he was free even for a moment deep in his heart. So he closed his eyes…

Hotter than ever blood wrapped around his face.

‘…Huh? But it’s really hot?’

“Oops, sorry? Diedrich? I tried to control it, but it was too close.”

Diedrich, with blood covering his face, opened his eyes and immediately shook his head.

“…Seeing a shaman right after dying. I guess I really became an evil spirit that needs to be exorcised. Of course, I have nothing to say since I lived a damn life. Come on, exorcise me all you want. I gladly accept it.”

“…I think self-reflection is good anytime, but why don’t you listen to me first? It’s true that I’m Shin Myohan, but you’re not an evil spirit, you’re alive?”

***

Logan Esteban wasn’t in a particularly different situation either. It’s just that Logan was literally a ‘gentleman’, so he valued right and wrong. Logan wasn’t sick of a life without freedom like Diedrich and wanted to be free through death.

He was one of the rare people born in the sewage called a prestigious family or a powerful family who wanted to pursue a sincere ideal. That was the reason he wasn’t ashamed to say something that sounded like a rookie.

“I realized that I had been involved in something wrong. I don’t want it anymore.”

[The kid called the young clan head is saying something ridiculous. Do you want to see the Esteban family collapse?]

Logan suddenly thought of his sister under his eyelids.

His sister with mysterious pink hair, unlike Logan, liked to keep her hair short. Logan thought his sister, who was as pretty as a flower, would look better with long hair, but he didn’t say it.

‘Because my sister likes it that way.’

He thought his sister could do anything as long as she was happy.

He just wished she would stay in the family that he protected as the clan head.

…In fact, Logan didn’t care at all that his sister was an adopted child from a branch family. He didn’t mind the fact that she was the heir of the family brought in without knowing Logan would be born. His sister was an equal competitor. He thinks they both just wanted to protect the family.

It’s just that Logan thought there was no one who could protect the family as much as he could.

So his sister tried to die, and now the position of the family heir was at stake based on his choice.

That was too heavy a burden for Logan Esteban, who loved his family.

Logan forced his trembling lips to open. And mustering up courage, he chewed out each syllable.

“That’s a wrong thing to say. I think you’re mistaken, but the Esteban family won’t collapse just because I die.”

Perhaps that was all his sister needed to hear.

“Because the Esteban family is not me, but the value of the family that we all try to protect together.”

Logan had such a sentimental thought for a moment.

Cassice Demillang’s heavy emotions that he couldn’t remember now were pressing on his chest like a stone.

But it wasn’t a thought he could have for long. Because right after, the shadow’s spear rushed in. His senses sharpened just before death told him. The heart is pierced. It can’t be blocked. At that moment, Logan relaxed his whole body and focused all his strength only on his eyes.

Then he saw it.

The spear was moving slowly. As if slowed down, the trajectory was felt at a single moment transcending the moment. Perhaps if he hadn’t given up and moved a little faster, he might have been able to dodge it… Such regret was passing in an instant.

“Well done. Kid.”

A voice with a hint of laughter stretched out long and long as if elongating in the transcendentally slow space, and suddenly a hand reaching out from behind grabbed the back of Logan’s neck and pulled him back. Before making the judgment that this was absolutely impossible to avoid, Logan was pushed back, and the shadow was burning.

The slow effect caused by the psychic power was released.

The kid Logan, who had entered the realm of transcendence even for a moment, asked Lee Hyang’s body.

“Lee, Lee Hyang… It’s not you, right?”

Zhuque answered.

“He will soon become Lee Hyang. Before that, let me ask one thing.”

“…Yes?”

“What are you going to do now that you have rebelled against the clan head of Demillang?”

Logan said very naturally.

“I will cling to the young clan head. I may not be forgiven for my sins, but I should at least be a servant.”

“Why? Why did you make that choice?”

“Because that is right.”

Zhuque laughed at the sentence that smelled of a rookie. Right, wrong, proper, improper.

In a world where few children would say such things.

“I like you. I will entrust it to you. Go to Cassice Demillang carrying Lee Hyang who will soon collapse. And hold onto that lunatic in this life.”

“How, how can I do what even Ryuseong couldn’t…”

“Because that is not the right choice.”

Zhuque said that and left Lee Hyang’s body. It was already an overextended state. He knew his power was needed, but if he stayed any longer, Lee Hyang’s breath could stop. Lee Hyang couldn’t endure the scorching recoil and collapsed, shaking like he was having a seizure.

Logan gritted his teeth, approached him, and forcibly stuffed a potion into his mouth. The potion containing water-attribute healing power was extremely rare, requiring dragon scales to make, and was an emergency potion that even Logan could only obtain one, but it couldn’t match the value of life.

As the potion took effect, Lee Hyang’s seizure began to subside. He knew where Cassice Demillang was. Logan started running to Hoan Pavilion, where eternal love was said to come true, carrying Lee Hyang on his back. Hae Yuna, who was holding Capone, and Diedrich were the same.

Shin Myohan, who took out her sword for the first time in a while, stayed alone on the mountainside and began to protect other cadets while performing a ritual to call the gods, and the professors who were waiting from a distance for the cadets to call the helicopter realized that there was a problem because of that very ritual.

But by the time everyone arrived, it was already too late.

“You said we should pledge eternal love, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Pledge, hmm. It’s a sweet word. So sweet it rots your teeth…”

“…”

“I hate sweet things. What should I do? What if everything I showed was all a lie?”

“…”

“Can you still love me then?”

Before Ryuseong could answer, Georges Bontang, who rushed out from the bushes with a face full of delight and ecstasy, pushed Cassice Demillang off the cliff.

“Cassice Demillang!”

“If, if only you disappear, I can again…!”

“No─!”

And Cassice Demillang, who let go of Ryuseong’s hand, was falling off the cliff into the black foggy forest.

‘Just as planned.’

He was smiling brightly as if he had wished for this.

Kirill, the one subordinate planted in the demon realm’s Incheon, had long found evidence of who was behind all the assassination attempts happening at this moment.

However, a light incident like a mere assassination attempt couldn’t even scratch the clan head.

The finale was best when it was the most spectacular.

‘Yes. At least the young clan head should fall into the black foggy forest, right?’

Cassice Demillang thought so, and thus did not try to stop the fall. Rather, he willingly accepted it. As if he had absolutely no intention of using magic to fly up, he kept getting further away in a declaration-like manner. No matter what happened, he would not cherish himself… It was like a declaration that he didn’t know why he should be dignified.

Everyone who heard about Cassice Demillang’s past and had their memories erased but emotions remained despaired.

“Why, why are you doing this! Why…!”

The land below the cliff, the starting point of the black fog, was practically a hell where humans could not live. The sight of him smiling like that while falling there was enough to instill fear. No, it might not have been fear, but despair.

Cassice Demillang will not change. No matter who does what.

It might have been such despair.

But there was something here that none of them knew.

No one had even imagined that Ryuseong, who witnessed Cassice Demillang’s fall, would throw his body off the cliff together without any hesitation.

Crushed by the wind pressure, Ryuseong shouted,

“Take my hand…!”

When Cassice Demillang’s pale face, distorted for a moment, held a despair like death,

“Don’t come… I hate it, go away. I said get lost!”

Love willingly embraced what was not human.

What followed was a fall.

Into the forest of death where humans do not live, to where Ryuseong was born.

They were falling.

* * *

While falling, I had such a thought.

It was as if I had a dream for a moment. In other words, a dream of being loved. Like a daydream, like a fever, it was beautiful.

I suffered a long midsummer night’s dream.

‘There’s no way such a thing can be real…’

My reality is a pit like this place.

“Why did you do that…!”

The wind strangled my throat. Still, I pushed, clawed, and hit Ryuseong as if struggling.

As if denying that Ryuseong was falling with me, I shouted.

“Get lost, go away! I said don’t come to me…!”

Ryuseong tightened his arms around my waist. His tightly closed lips proved your will.

“Please, go back even now!”

You were a miracle and a grace to me. There was no light like you in the world, and no blessing like you in the universe. You were the one truth born from an impossible probability and devoted to me.

Your devotion eventually molded me into a human. You made a piece of trash like me want to live as a human, yes, as a human. Since you made me human, I wished you had just abandoned me.

Because I can’t leave you while I’m alive.

“I deceived you, lied to you. I betrayed you!”

How nice would it be if you came to hate me?

I don’t want to ruin you like me.

“I’m not Cassice Demillang! I’m saying this is not where you should be…!”

But Ryuseong interlocked fingers with his other hand, as if he would never be separated from me.

You embraced me fully in your arms.

It was a declaration, and I could do nothing.

“…”

In the end, we became one and cut through the wind.

And when the horizon began to appear, I sobbed, and I was so sick of it that I got goosebumps all over.

I was sick of myself. I hated myself.

Just as Ryuseong was reducing the speed of the fall with sword wind, I was no different. Chanting spells like a madman and casting magic in preparation for the fall.

Because not even a single wound should be left on Ryuseong.

But no matter how much magic I pour out, can the body and limbs remain intact when falling from this height?

I’d rather you left me alone, let me die.

“Why, why did you save me? Why?”

I was going to live anyway. Although my whole body would be ruined, I was going to survive and kill the clan head. But why did you?

Why do you follow me? Why do you…?

“Why do you crawl into this kind of hell?!”

“Shut up. Don’t order me around.”

And you, you finally embrace death and come down to me.

Even though you know how low I am.

You fall into a world like dirty filth.

“What am I… What the hell am I?”

My tears soared up into the sky, and now I can see the ground. The land of death is beckoning us. Come quickly, you die too.

“You should have left me at least.”

I think I called your name at the very moment the magic began to unfold.

Ryuseong. You know.

‘What did I say after that…?’

And then everything went dark.

If I were alone, I would have laughed that everything was going according to plan,

I was truly unhappy because I had you.