Chapter 33: Assumptions

Three days had already slipped by since Mitchel took up residence at the palace. Over those three days, he had barely left my side. He occasionally stepped away to handle various matters now that he was at the imperial court, but he spent the vast majority of his time with me.

Today was no exception. As soon as he walked in from his dawn prayers, I offered my greeting.

“Hello.”

“Did you sleep well, Ian?”

Mitchel offered a bright smile, looking immaculate in his cream-colored priest’s robes accented by a slender sash woven from pale purple thread. Both his hair and his eyes were so softly pigmented that they practically turned white beneath the sunlight. In moments like this, the smile on his face carried a translucent quality, making him look limitlessly divine.

Two days ago, Mitchel had started reading the scriptures to me every morning. He told me they were the words of the Goddess, but to my eyes, it looked more like a meticulously kept record of humans desperately trying to follow a long, exhaustive list of things the Goddess demanded from them.

“…The two clashed, yet together they forged a path toward a new world. This, then… is the genesis of the world.”

Mitchel droned on. Frankly, the scriptures could easily pass for a history book. This world belonged to the Goddess, after all—a place meant to honor the Dragon and revere her.

I stopped focusing on Mitchel’s voice and stared blankly up at the ceiling. His clear, melodious voice smoothly read the text aloud, but after a certain point, the words turned into a dull hum that simply drifted past my ears.

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. The top button of my shirt, fastened right to the edge of my throat, suddenly felt like it was choking me. Nausea rolled through my stomach, prompting me to lift an arm and cover my eyes. Blocking out the persistent sunlight, even behind closed eyelids, brought a small wave of relief. With Mitchel’s voice serving as white noise, my consciousness gradually began to recede.

The screams, and the vivid shadow of death piercing right through my body…

There were far too many memories I had to carry. I didn’t want to think anymore.

I gritted my teeth. This place was peaceful and abundant.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but I finally dropped my arm and opened my eyes when a hand firmly shook me. The sudden intrusion of light made me wince reflexively. Mitchel was standing with his back to the window, the glare silhouetting him so intensely it looked exactly like a halo.

“—Mitchel?”

“Ha, haha…”

“…?”

“Haha…”

The moment I called his name, the rigid tension draining from Mitchel’s frame gave way to a hollow, breathless laugh.

“Your body suddenly went entirely stiff, Ian.”

“What?”

“Like a corpse.”

“…”

“It terrified me. It felt like you were about to vanish right then and there.”

His face was stark white, proving he had been genuinely shaken. Is this the Goddess’s will too? I let the absurd thought drift through my mind while taking deep, deliberate breaths to reassure him. In, out. In, out.

“I will be returning to the Temple soon.”

He needed to go back. He was only staying at the palace because of me, and there was no real reason for him to linger anymore. I was perfectly fine. If anything, with one of the six High Priests who guarded the capital missing from his post, the Temple was probably in a state of chaos.

Mitchel had been smiling dutifully ever since that day. Wondering if he was forcing it just because I had told him to smile, I studied him closely, but his smiles seemed as natural as they always had been. The benevolent Goddess and her servant. I wondered if Mitchel actually knew—that the Goddess’s love was far from just. But as long as Mitchel was happy, well, it didn’t matter. That was the nature of religion. If Mitchel found happiness in a life devoted to her, then his faith had already served its purpose.

“When are you leaving?”

“The morning after next.”

“Ah…”

Even though I knew he would have to go back eventually, a pang of disappointment flared within me. I couldn’t help it. Mitchel was a genuinely warm person. There was a reason the Temple had managed to remain so clean and transparent until now; the servants of the Goddess were all lovely people.

Catching my disappointment, Mitchel pulled his chair closer and took my hand.

“I will come see you again.”

I appreciated the sentiment, but I knew Mitchel wouldn’t be able to return so easily. And I had absolutely no desire to turn the palace upside down just to summon a busy High Priest back to my side. Everyone was showering me with far too much attention. While affection was a nice sentiment, to someone like me who had lived a dry, barren existence, such an excessive amount of it felt nothing short of a burden.

“No, it’s alright. You’re busy.”

“Actually, if you recover your health quickly, Ian, I believe we will see each other again very soon.”

Huh? I blinked, slightly taken voiced. Surely Mitchel wouldn’t be attending the ceremony, would he? I felt a bit sorry for him, but since I had no intention of accepting the title or the honors in the first place, I doubted we would ever meet at the palace again.

“I’ve already been designated to represent the Temple at your investiture ceremony.”

Mitchel pressed a light kiss to the back of the hand he was holding.

“It looks like I will be the one anointing you with holy water.”

Bestowing a title of nobility required the joint approval of both the Imperial Crown and the Holy Temple. Consequently, an official ceremony demanded the presence of not only the Emperor but also a representative from the priesthood.

The spot where Mitchel’s lips touched my fingers tickled. His lips were incredibly soft, a stark contrast to my own, which were dry and rough with peeling skin. His translucent purple eyes held a unique depth; even though we shared the same eye color, his shade lacked the dark, muddy tones of my near-black irises, leaving his eyes looking perfectly clear and holy. I watched blankly as his eyelashes blinked. Under the light, those extremely pale gold lashes gleamed stark white. White…

Slipping my hand out of Mitchel’s grasp, I pinched a strand of my own hair and brought it before my eyes. It wasn’t very long, but it was enough to check the color. Black hair. It was the starting point of this iteration’s memories.

When I rubbed my fingers together, the strand slipped and scattered with a faint rasp. Black hair with just a hint of a natural wave. Changing it now wouldn’t alter a thing, but if I could somehow turn back time and visit my past self, I wanted more than anything to tell that young boy not to let it get to him. Some scars simply refused to fade.

As I kept my eyes anchored to my hair, Mitchel suddenly layered his hand over mine. It was a beautiful, unblemished hand.

Felix appeared around his usual time, just as I was finishing my lunch and nodding off to sleep. Since he dropped by right before attending his own midday meals, he technically held the highest frequency of visits right after Zeimer. Today, Felix had his hair completely down, a departure from his usual styled appearance. His clothing was casual and comfortable rather than his formal uniform. The fine strands of his hair shifted subtly with every step he took. Mitchel had stepped out of the room for a brief moment.

“You look sleepy.”

Hearing his low, whispering chuckle, I managed to force my heavy eyelids open. Now that the war was over, it seemed all my tension had completely dissolved; the hyper-vigilance I used to maintain around the clock had vanished, replaced by an endless need for sleep. It was an excellent way to kill time, so I didn’t particularly mind, but lately, I could acutely feel just how loose my general senses had become. Besides, under the Goddess’s protection, I could lounge around in utter lethargy all I wanted without a soul calling it into question.

Pressing the back of my hand against my slightly swollen eyelids to clear the fog, I offered Felix a greeting.

“Ah, Your Majesty. Ahem, hello.”

Seeing me floating in a daze, unable to properly snap out of my sleep, Felix sat on the edge of the bed. He slipped off one of his gloves and gently stroked my cheek. One side of the mattress dipped heavily under his weight.

“Are you very tired?”

“No…”

I looked up at Felix’s strikingly handsome face. From the hand resting against my cheek, I felt as though I could sense the steady pulse of his heart. With his bangs framing his face, his aura felt entirely different from usual.

“My schedule for lunch cleared up today, so I thought we might share some tea. It seems my timing was poor.”

The corners of Felix’s lips curved into a handsome arc. Ever since our souls formed a bond, he had been limitlessly indulgent with me—as if he would overlook absolutely anything I did. Felix wasn’t the type of person to rule through tyranny to begin with, but entirely separate from that, he was a member of the imperial bloodline who deeply valued hierarchy and faithfully upheld tradition. Of course, Zeimer remained the sole exception to this rule, courtesy of his characteristically arrogant nature.

As I continued to blink my dry, heavy eyes, Felix placed his palm directly over them. A faint golden light bloomed behind my eyelids, and in an instant, the strain in my eyes vanished entirely. Felix pulled his hand back, locking his gaze with mine. After a brief hesitation, I reached out toward him. He naturally slipped his hands under my arms, guiding my arms to loop around his neck as he lifted me up. I was practically pulled flush against his chest.

“You’ve grown quite coddled lately.”

“…I have not.”

“The Hero who used to live as if he were entirely alone in the world finally seems to be opening his heart a fraction.”

Felix’s voice vibrated right next to my ear. For some reason, it carried a bitter undertone.

“Your Majesty.”

“Yes.”

“If—just hypothetically,”

“…”

“If I hadn’t been the Hero.”

Felix was an exceptional Emperor. He was wise, and he was profoundly cold. Yet, alongside those traits, his insight was terrifyingly sharp. I often found a strange sense of solace in him. If Mitchel was like a blanket of warm sunlight, Felix was the sun itself—a blazing force capable of burning away my exposed, naked self. And perhaps it was because I was already so broken, but I found this direct, almost violent form of emotional exchange far more familiar and comfortable.

“Would I have been able to save more lives?”

It was a thought that had crossed my mind out of nowhere. I had spent my entire life being pointed at and reviled. Especially after the Demon King appeared and turned the world into a wasteland, the singular fact that my hair was black turned me into an arbitrary sinner, forcing me to hold my breath and hide. It was a cruel irony. The very boy detested by the world had held hands with the Goddess to deceive that very world. And my own life had been utterly fractured by a false Demon King. Sometimes, the jarring dissonance born from this gap made me shudder even in the middle of sleep. If only I hadn’t been the Hero. But the world always contained meaningless assumptions.

Even though I knew that, I wanted to hear the answer directly from the most straightforward person I knew.

Because I had been nothing more than a worthless, black-haired orphan beggar.

“No.”

Felix’s firm, resolute voice echoed low near my ear. His two arms tightened their embrace, locking me securely against his chest.

I tended to think far too much sometimes. Futile thoughts had a habit of slowly dragging me down into the depths. In moments like those, I wanted nothing more than to be entirely alone, yet simultaneously craved someone to lean on. I was the Hero. Did I even possess the right to grieve?

In this world, there were things you loved so deeply that you weren’t even permitted to mourn them.

Feeling the solid strength of the hands holding me up, I buried my face against Felix’s shoulder. The gentle hand patting my back felt entirely too cold.