Thinking it was a strange occurrence, I tapped Zachary and said for now,

“…Put me down. I need to get the medicine.”

“…..”

“Zachary. Put me down quickly. Your wrists are injured…” Ugh!”

I felt the arm holding me loosen slightly at my words. I thought he would set me down on the floor, but that was a mistake. Zachary instantly pulled me into a tight embrace with all his strength. He buried his nose in my neck and exhaled.

Even as he nuzzled my neck, making me flustered, Zachary’s gaze was still directed towards the bed. Without even looking at me, he just pressed his nose against my neck and let out hot breaths. As I squirmed from the ticklish sensation of his breath on the sensitive area, he suddenly bit down hard on my neck. Very hard. So hard that I couldn’t even scream from the shock.

My body tensed up from the pain. As I trembled and clung to him, he licked as if to soothe me. Like a beast licking a wound to heal it quickly.

‘It hurts!’

Now even I had reached my limit. Resenting Zachary for persistently treating my neck as if it were his enemy, I shoved him hard and shouted,

“What’s wrong with you?!”

“I.”

A calm voice cuts through the space between us. In contrast to his composed voice, Zachary’s brow was nervously furrowed as he looked down at me.

“I detest the smell.”

Words spat out through clenched teeth, unrestrained emotions. The raw anger that I had to confront head-on. In that moment, I realized.

The person in front of me right now is not my servant.

“You….”

Who are you?

However, I couldn’t continue. It was obvious to anyone that it was Zachary, so there was no question more foolish than asking him who he was.

An alarm had been ringing in my head since earlier. Emitting a threatening, intense murderous aura…

A man expressing emotions so intense they seemed to overflow. I didn’t know such a person.

‘I’m scared. Is this really Zachary?’

Even more so if that was my servant, Zachary.

As I stepped back, feeling an endlessly unfamiliar sensation, he approached me. His attitude was adamant, as if he wouldn’t allow me to create distance between us. The moment I retreated with a pale face, I noticed something on Zachary’s neck.

‘Gray…’

It was a vivid gray magical formation. As if the magical formation had been undone.

My retreating steps involuntarily came to a halt. As I stopped, the distance instantly narrowed. Zachary, who had come within arm’s reach, reached out towards me with an enraged face. With all my attention focused on the magical formation, I didn’t consider the possibility that he might harm me.

‘The magical formation is gray. Completely gray.’

My heart began to beat wildly.

I approached Zachary. I wrapped my arms around his neck as if willingly trapping myself in his embrace.

Zachary flinched when I actually approached him. But soon, with a softened expression, he slowly lowered his head in response to my touch. His movements were stiff like a branch being bent, but he still lowered his head to the height I desired.

Now Zachary’s neck came into clear view.

Until now, the magical formation had been glowing bright red, indicating that the magic was properly activated, but now it was different.

I checked several times in disbelief, but the magical formation was definitely gray. The magical formation engraved by the marquis had lost its light and remained only as a trace on his neck.

This meant…

‘Has the magical formation really been broken?’

I couldn’t hide the joy that escaped me.

My hands trembled slightly. The sensation of being in front of a completely unfamiliar person was only natural.

Because the person in front of me was the ‘real’ Zachary.

But why did he call me young master, and why did he bite my neck? There were many things I wanted to know. However, in that moment, I could sense that this man, who expressed his emotions raw and unfiltered, was not Zachary the servant of the Serpentine family, but Zachary the male protagonist.

“Zachary.”

He showed no particular reaction in my embrace. While I was examining him, he simply stayed still without a word. He neither affirmed nor denied anything.

He just stared intently at my face, but…

‘He’s no longer a servant.’

I was certain. Such a servant could not exist.

At first, it was just a suspicion, but now I could definitively conclude. I took my gaze off the still silent Zachary and looked back at his neck. The magical formation that had faded to gray. As if entranced, I reached out my fingertips and traced it.

As I touched it, his Adam’s apple twitched and moved greatly for a moment. My fingertips trembled slightly as well, but I slowly traced the magical formation drawn on his neck. I hadn’t done anything to the neck’s magical formation. I was afraid that if I recklessly tried to undo it without properly understanding the nature of the magical formation, I might end up bleeding. So I had only undone the power-sealing formation on his wrist.

“You undid the magical formation on your own.”

This meant that during the time he was asleep, he had fought against the magical formation himself and emerged victorious.

I had merely opened the path for him.

“You did it.”

Ah. A shudder slowly enveloped my body.

I had always dreamed of it. The day when the marquis’s powerful magical formation would be undone, I had earnestly envisioned it through countless nights.

I believed and hoped that it would surely come one day, but I had also been disappointed and shattered countless times. No matter how much I struggled and tried, Zachary always called me ‘young master.’

‘Yes, young master.’

Come to think of it, didn’t he call me young master just now as well?

My head, which had been filled with pure joy, suddenly began to cool down. I raised my head and looked at Zachary. Our gazes met precisely, as if he had been staring at me all along.

Looking into those blue eyes made me feel anxious.

His eyes shone as if alive, and the chilling aura he emitted was not that of a servant, as anyone could see.

It seemed clear that the magical formation had been undone, but the form of address bothered me.

Even if I figured out his abnormal behavior later, he had definitely called me ‘young master’ in the snake’s passageway.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

My mouth was parched from the urgency. Fearing that all these thoughts might just be a delusion.

He slowly closed and opened his eyes. For some reason, that sight seemed to unfold in slow motion, as if time had stopped. Now that Zachary had opened his eyes, the image of the boy from the past overlapped with his clearly revealed features. The neat eyebrows, the straight nose bridge, and the deep, dark blue eyes like the depths of the water.

It was definitely not an illusion. There was no way the person in front of me wasn’t Zachary. Unable to bear the impatience, I hastily opened my mouth.

“Are you here?”

I had no choice but to ask Zachary, who was clearly in front of me, if he was here right now.

There were no other words that could express my feelings. My hands, fidgeting from the tension, had somehow reached his eyes.

He even slightly closed his eyes, lowering his head to make it easier for me to touch him.

The moment I saw that, strangely, it felt as if I had received an answer.

The corners of my eyes naturally curled up. The rising exhilaration overflowed, unable to be contained. Seeing me like that, Zachary’s expression softened. As I caressed his gentler eyes, even the murderous aura that had been evident since earlier tucked its tail. Only a warm and affectionate atmosphere surrounded us. Zachary spoke in a low voice.

“Yes.”

Although his outward appearance and movements were the same as the Zachary I knew…

The sparkle contained within was something I was unfamiliar with. His eyes shone more vividly than blue flames. The eyes that had never shone before were now twinkling in front of me.

That’s right. The person in front of me right now was a stranger. The one I knew best, and also the one I knew the least.

“I’m here.”

***

There was definitely a moment when he was free.

There seemed to be a time when he wasn’t forcibly controlled by someone else’s body and didn’t need to obey anyone’s orders. But now the memories were hazy.

People he had loved very much, who might have been family or friends. Strangely, instead of their faces, only their backs came to mind. For some unknown reason, trying to recall that time was painful and distressing, so at some point, he had stopped trying to remember.

After that, nothing came to his mind.

That didn’t mean he was dead, though. The man kept himself alive through habits that someone had newly engraved in his body.

Even when he wasn’t thirsty, he drank water at set times, and even when he wasn’t hungry, he ate meals at designated hours. That way, his body was maintained. He exercised to preserve his body and practiced countless times to be able to perform the chores programmed into his mind on time.

At first, he felt a fierce sense of resistance. However, at some point, he realized that even that resistance was fleeting and erased the thought.

The man spent more and more time with an empty mind. He gradually forgot who he was and what kind of person he was.

In the end, Zachary Thaddeus lost himself.