“…”

An icy silence fell. I stared at Zachary, frozen, but he made no denial. The prolonged silence was as good as an affirmation.

‘If everything Celestia said is true, did you really stay by my side just because it was fun?’

Did he hate me so much that he didn’t even want to kill me?

I was tormented in the whirlwind of emotions. However, Zachary just stared at me blankly with calm, glass-like eyes. It felt like the gaze of a reptile, and I unconsciously averted my eyes.

‘Actually, this is the expected outcome, isn’t it?’

As in the original story, I always thought that I might be killed by Zachary. So I imagined that if I were to die by his hands, I would accept it calmly.

But Zachary hasn’t tried to kill me, and I’ve only learned the truth that he merely wanted revenge. Why is it so painfully difficult?

I wanted to maintain an indifferent expression, but it was impossible. My face gradually hardened, and soon my vision began to blur.

Thud. At that moment, Zachary reached out to me. But I instinctively flinched and swatted his hand away.

“…Ah.”

Zachary’s eyes met mine. I opened my eyes wide when I saw his face.

Frozen with his hand awkwardly outstretched, he looked like a hurt child.

But Zachary instantly hid his expression. Was this another deception? However, that expression just now was one that could never have been faked.

Just as I was about to say something, my lips trembling…

“Your Highness!!”

There was a commotion outside.

Zachary and I turned our heads towards the door simultaneously.

“The detained Emperor has escaped! Not only that, but there’s also a strange phenomenon occurring in the imperial palace right now…!”

The Emperor… Celestia? It’s surprising enough that she was detained, but now she’s escaped?

The situation seemed more serious than expected, as the knight’s voice delivering the message was extremely urgent.

Zachary furrowed his brow and immediately started walking towards the door, but then hesitated.

“Y-Your Highness!!!”

The noise grew louder. It seemed like a time-sensitive situation, but Zachary didn’t go outside and just stood there.

He looked at the door for a while, then turned around and started walking quickly towards me.

“…”

However, Zachary didn’t say anything as he approached. His dark blue eyes, fixed on me, seemed to tremble slightly.

“Wait here.”

Suddenly, Zachary uttered incomprehensible words. To me, who was just blinking slowly, he added in a low voice.

“…It will all be over soon.”

With those words, Zachary immediately left the room.

“Haa.”

As soon as he left, the tension drained from me and I collapsed onto the floor.

My head hurts so much.

‘Does he really hate me?’

But my heart kept defending Zachary to the end, insisting it wasn’t so. The hand he reached out to me when I was in pain. And the wavering in his eyes and voice whenever he looked at me. I kept thinking that these couldn’t possibly have been fabricated lies.

I know it’s an extremely slim possibility, but I recalled one possibility I had been putting off.

It’s an absurd thought. But why do I keep…

‘What if he wanted to stay by my side even after the spell was broken?’

Why do I keep having these unreasonable thoughts?

‘If, just like I wanted to keep him by my side when he was under the spell, Zachary felt the same way…’

BANG!!! CRASH!

A sudden thunderous noise cut off my thoughts. An enormous explosion sound was heard nearby. I jumped up in surprise.

The shock reached the room I was in a moment later. Thick smoke filled the room. Then suddenly, a gust of wind blew in. I covered my face with my arm as I felt my hair being blown back instantly.

The wind was so strong that I staggered just standing there.

Through my gradually clearing vision, I saw a gaping hole. The window, which had been sturdy with iron bars, had been blown away.

And beyond that…

‘What is that?’

A scene from hell was unfolding. A long, huge, hideously shaped monster was coiled around the castle.

Was this Celestia’s doing? But how could she, who uses holy power?

As soon as I saw the hideous monster, goosebumps ran all over me. The bizarre feeling emanating from its otherworldly appearance made me feel nauseous just by looking at it.

However, at the same time, I felt a familiar energy and narrowed my eyes.

‘Is it an attack?’

As I was feeling bewildered, I saw the monster move. Although it gave me chills just looking at it, I couldn’t just stand there in a daze. I needed to find a place to hide.

Thud! At that moment, a hand appeared on the windowsill.

The hand, covered in ash and a complete mess, gripping the windowsill looked like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

‘I need to run away.’

Are they attackers? Or knights?

As I was looking at the hand and glancing back, I saw that the tightly closed door had been flung wide open due to the earlier impact.

The outside, where the knights guarding the room had all disappeared, was quiet. It seemed that everyone had gone to deal with the monster coiled around the castle. Still, I couldn’t make noise as it could cause trouble, so I slowly moved my feet and grabbed the doorknob when…

“Ah, really…”

A voice tinged with a unique laziness, muttering irritably.

“So damn…”

I turned my head. I saw a man who had already climbed onto the windowsill.

The man’s hair, with his head bowed, looked brown, but it was mottled with dust covering it entirely. As he let out a deep sigh, dust particles fluttered and flew with his breath.

The man shook his head with an annoyed gesture. As he did so, his hair, which had looked brown, began to turn gray.

I stared at this scene in a daze. The man raised his head as his hair completely turned gray.

The face looking at me was…

“I came to get you.”

With eyes that were not brown, but ash-colored, he looked straight at me.

“Oscar.”

It was Erhan.

***

Zachary picked up a bright red paper from among the lizards crawling on the floor.

It was a paper with a large eye drawn on it. As the paper burned in Zachary’s hand with a whoosh, all the lizards at that spot flipped over and died.

Blood streamed from the eyes, nose, and mouth of the dead lizards.

“Ugh.”

Some of the servants nearby covered their mouths at the pungent smell. Zachary stared coldly at the bleeding lizards and then looked outside.

As he killed the lizards, the monster that had been rampaging around the castle instantly disappeared. The castle, which had been damaged by the monster, also returned to its original state.

The knights, realizing that everything they had seen was just an illusion, opened their eyes wide.

“This is…”

“An illusion.”

Normally, they should have realized it was an illusion right away.

Zachary pressed his eyelids firmly.

When was the last time he slept?

What price had he paid to bring Oscar back and get ‘that’? Zachary hadn’t slept for days now, searching for that object without rest. Even if his physical condition wasn’t normal, to not notice such a simple spell…

Zachary, who had been sneering, suddenly stiffened. An illusion created by a spell. As soon as he thought of someone who could cast such an illusion, his head cooled with anxiety. Everything might have been a trap to draw his attention.

Zachary moved immediately. The knights were confused for a moment but quickly followed Zachary as he hurriedly returned. No one could block Zachary’s path.

He burst into the room where Oscar should have been. Or to be more precise…

“…”

As if intending to leave no trace, into the room that was blazing with fire.

This, at least, was not an illusion. A voice escaped like a sigh.

“…Oscar.”

It was a room that seemed to have been recreated exactly as it was on the day he brought Oscar. There was only one difference. Oscar, who had been in his arms, was gone. It felt like all the blood was draining from his body.

Finally.

As soon as he imagined Oscar escaping with his brother, whom he cherished so much, blue holy power flashed in Zachary’s eyes. His eyes, carrying a vivid anger that looked as if it might cover this land in blue at any moment, stared beyond the bright red flames.