No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 137

“You bastard! You’re a murderer! You terrible guy. I’ll stake everything to kill you!”

Murderer! Murderer! Georges Bontang just kept laughing like a madman even as Diedrich shouted. The Bontang family doesn’t matter anyway. Now I’m free! Murderer! Freedom! Two voices rocked in his head like a boat rippling the water. But it didn’t matter because Georges Bontang was going to leave.

In exchange for this deed, Demillang offered Georges Bontang a new life. A chance to live a new life with a new surname, name, and face! And as a branch of Demillang’s family! If Georges Bontang could just use Demillang’s power, he might be able to surpass Cassice Demillang’s position. After all, he clearly didn’t get to fully bloom his own talents due to lack of support in the right environment! Given the same circumstances, how are he and Cassice Demillang any different?

Of course, Georges Bontang didn’t know that the place he would be dragged to was a shadowy place more terrible than death.

Everything was going according to plan. The head of the Demillangs laughed, while the chairman of the council of elders, his great-grandfather, hardened his face. 

It was the moment Cassice Demillang fell.

* * *

Ryuseong didn’t know how it turned out this way.

“Ugh…!”

Thud!

Right before impact, Ryuseong instinctively dove under Cassice Demillang and absorbed the shock of the fall with his whole body. The moment of collision felt like his lungs burst and muscles were crushed. He could faintly see cracks forming in the ground through his shaking vision.

He needed to get up quickly but his bones creaked abnormally. The fall alone could have killed him, but with the added weight of another person, his entire body felt like it was pulverized in pain. However, the impact was strangely less severe than it should have been from this height. 

Come to think of it, Ryuseong didn’t know what the unknown magic Cassice Demillang had been chanting was. Could it be that this guy…

Ryuseong forced his body up, which felt like it would pass out any moment, and checked Cassice Demillang’s pulse.

“…You.”

He couldn’t believe his eyes. Cassice Demillang was suffocating from the black fog. Ryuseong quickly put his ear to Cassice Demillang’s chest. 

It was faint, but his heart was beating. But… why. Why are you unconscious. You…

‘Did you not put up an anti-magic barrier?’

It doesn’t make sense. This is the land of death. The origin point of the black fog, known by various names like the Black Fog Forest, Wasteland, or Desert – a zone of terror.

What in the world did you do while falling down after deliberately entering such a place?

Could it be you only mitigated the fall impact?

‘Why. When you knew this land was a death zone.’

Simply because Ryuseong fell together with him…?

That was the correct answer. Because Cassice Demillang recklessly spent magic only softening their fall without casting an anti-magic barrier on himself, their limbs were intact.

However, Cassice Demillang was unconscious. It was obvious. Not only was he not addicted to the black fog, but he showed signs of losing his mind from the aftermath of overexertion.

‘What were you thinking…’

Unable to even grit his teeth in the end, Ryuseong first cast an anti-magic barrier on Cassice Demillang. Then with a disconsolate face like a defeated soldier, he blankly stared at Cassice Demillang’s pale eyes.

Because he was sobbing as if he were dead.

However, time does not wait for lovers. Monsters that caught the scent were already gathering.

Ryuseong picked up Cassice Demillang, and drew his sword. 

And right before colliding, instead of clashing claws and sword, he slid the blade across the monster’s shell to slice it off and immediately chanted a spell. Their figures then faded to a faint transparency. The startled monster spit poison randomly, unable to discern properly.

If Ryuseong had not attended Areah Academy, a swordsman would only know how to use a sword.

But the teachings of Areah Academy, which he graduated from before regressing, were intense, and above all, Ryuseong…

“Unfortunately, I know this place better than you.”

Was a human born in this cursed land.

‘So I’ve finally returned. What should I commemorate it with.’

It was not a question. Ryuseong already knew the answer.

As his bright blue eyes dimmed and turned halfway,

Blue surged forth.

“Die. Monster.”

The power imbued in the single stroke minced the monster into pieces as dirty and gruesome screams burst out.

It was a one-sided and overwhelming act.

He killed one. He even ground it up nicely for the other monsters to eat well. This way, their senses would be drawn to the smell of blood instead of human. However, he had no intention of killing the rest that were rushing in like crazy. Even if he could, he wouldn’t. Otherwise, he would witness the monsters endlessly hatching eggs.

The students at the academy may be too young to know, but Ryuseong knew. Monsters were more cunning and terrible beings than one would think. So it was time to flee. Before being buried in the endless graveyard of monsters, before the ancient dormant ones opened their vicious eyes.

Until the moon hangs on the horizon soon.

* * *

I had a dream. No, maybe I want to believe it was a dream. I, the nameless one, was falling into deep, deep darkness when I saw an ember.

It was a blue fire like the deep sea. In other words, it was Ryuseong.

The blue reached out to me. With rough knuckles, it gently caressed my tear-stained eyes.

Is that why I grew more and more reluctant to wake up?

‘Ryuseong, you know what.’

This is a prophecy, but I will never forget the moment I half-slept with my head on your lap.

Even with my eyes closed, it appears vividly like an oil painting on canvas. I remember the black hair scattered on the back of your neck. I remember the crescent smile on your lips. I remember the chilling sensation of your hair that always felt somewhat thrilling when I buried my face in your shoulder. And how sensual your gaze was when you climbed on top of my body. Those things saved me.

You may not know, but I liked the desire reflected in your eyes. I liked that you desired me. I was happy. Because then it made me feel like I was worth something. As if I had even a handful of meaning.

‘A being like me, a mere piece of filth.’

Even if you loved Cassice, I was fine with it. It wasn’t just because this body I’m wearing isn’t mine in this world from a book I couldn’t bring.

I was the same in reality too. Because in the end, even the shell and husk placed here aren’t mine.

I lived my whole life with that mindset.

‘Even my name wasn’t mine to begin with.’

I don’t exist anywhere. So nothing could ever tie me down. I could go anywhere. Since I had no dreams, wandering was free. As if I was Don Quixote embarking on an absurd adventure without any signposts, I fell in love with this person’s heart, then that person’s heart. I pretended to do so. Because I was curious about love. Because I had never received it before.

Perhaps because I was so starved for affection, I was used to receiving love that wasn’t mine from the start. Having never properly received a parent’s love, a sibling’s love, or a relative’s love, I just took what belonged to others. I carried out exactly what my great-grandfather wanted from me. Love that wasn’t mine. As always, that’s how I lived until my ex-boyfriend tried to stab me to death with a kitchen knife.

You shouldn’t meet people that way. That was advice someone gave me. It was probably my brothers.

It’s funny, but I knew why my grown-up brothers cherished me.

They felt guilty towards me. The childish impulsiveness that made them mock and curse at me when we were little must have disappeared after they matured, making them change their attitude. Or they realized I had sacrificed myself for their sake. Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter, I liked my brothers.

Even after great-grandfather passed away, my mother and father remained indifferent to me. Maybe it wasn’t indifference but avoidance stemming from guilt. However, my closet, where I had to mimic “Jeong Ian” by great-grandfather’s stern order, only had skirts, but I was able to wear pants instead of a black skirt for the funeral. My brothers had secretly given them to me.

It was my first taste of freedom in clothing.

I liked those clothes my brothers gave me too much to call them sly. So much so that even when I outgrew them, I couldn’t throw them away.

After that, perhaps because their guilt remained, my brothers quite cherished me who didn’t betray their goodwill, and from then on, I was able to eat meals. So I no longer had to be hungry. I became quite happy. A few days later, my brothers made me cards and accounts. In an amount that ensured I would never go hungry in my life. They said they’d give me a house too if I studied well. I got a house. So I became happy. So I became a person who grew up happily. If great-grandfather had lived long, I wouldn’t have been able to. It was thanks to great-grandfather dying early.

I grew up well and happy. 

‘You may want to deny it, but this is the truth.’

Just being able to eat and sleep well means happiness, isn’t that just an infantile desire? So what? That level of infantile desire was really enough for me. Isn’t it that I was pruned to only be able to wish for such things? That’s right. It must be.

But what does it matter now?

‘As long as I’m full.’