Chapter 142

 

He killed dozens. The golden floor was stained with blood. He slashed and slashed until the blood flowed beneath his black hair.

I covered my face with outstretched hands. It was overwhelming to bear the flood of tears.

“Stop……!”

He was trying to abandon himself. To escape a world without me, he was willing to give up his life.

Eventually, he arrived in a vast room and faced a man wearing a golden crown.

Having etched deeper into his heart hatred, and deeper still into resignation, he plunged his sword into the chest of the one who ruled over human lands.

As if confronting the one who had brought about the world’s destruction, without hesitation.

Suddenly, everything inside him overflowed. The floor was drenched in crimson.

I realized that after I was gone, his world was as good as non-existent.

The man with the golden crown, Carlotian, was the one who ended his world.

Thus, he finished his revenge against the one who had destroyed his own world.

Plunge

He pierced his own body.

How could he live in a shattered world? How could you, whose world has collapsed, continue to cling to life?

I saw the sword piercing through his body. My mouth opened. A scream erupted.

No, no, no.

Don’t do it.

Even as I cried and pleaded, my voice did not reach him.

But then—

His eyes, which had been looking into the void, suddenly turned to me.

I felt as if my eyes met his.

I reached out my hand toward him.

“Carlothian.”

I called out to him.

I called him with a voice that he could not hear.

Tears burst forth. It’s okay. It’s enough now. I want to see you.

I want to meet you. I want to touch you. I want to hold you and tell you that it’s all right now.

But—

He was not satisfied with just piercing himself once. He pulled out the sword that had pierced his body. And once again.

With a thrust—

As many times as the number of people he had killed until now. Dozens of times. He harmed himself until his whole body was ragged.

“Ah, ah…….”

Something filled my chest. At that moment, something else called out to me.

The balance is broken. The power of evil has grown too large.

“Ah, ah. Please stop that man. Please save that man.”

I began to beg. It answered.

This is the last time I can use my power.

I lifted my head. It was blinding. My vision blurred.

Tears poured down like a lake that would not dry, flowing wildly.

Evil is above your heads.

In that moment, something whispered its final words to me, and I—

Opened my eyes.

“Gasp……!”

I saw a familiar ceiling. I was panting. Where is this? Where am I right now?

I gasped with emotions and memories filling my mind.

This was different from the regressions before. No, is it really a regression?

Where is he? Where is the one who harmed himself and gave up everything?

I got up from my place and wrung out the blanket. Squeak, thud. My vision spun, and I stumbled to my knees on the floor.

Crawling on the ground, I stood up.

I couldn’t tell what time it was. But that didn’t matter to me right now. I dashed out of the room in an instant.

As I ran down the long, wide corridor, I gasped for breath.

A feeling I knew well filled my chest. I want to see you. Carlothian, Carlothian.

Impatience enveloped me.

I ran with all my might. To Carlothian’s room one floor above.

“Carlothian……!”

My throat ached painfully.

I sprinted from the end of the hallway, breathless, but I didn’t pause to catch my breath as I raced up the stairs.

Just then, I heard heavy footsteps coming from above.

I looked up.

There he was.

He was there, as if he had hurried out searching for something, and our eyes met.

And the moment our eyes locked, I knew. What I had seen was not a dream.

I reached out my hand.

I opened my mouth before he could say anything.

To ensure he wouldn’t give up again. To let him know that I was here.

“Hello…….”

I looked into his face. I squinted and smiled at his tear-streaked face. Tears fell like rain.

“Hello, my love……!”

His eyes widened. His arms opened wide.

Without anyone saying who should go first, we embraced each other.

Tears burst forth.

Sitting on the middle of the stairs, we cried like mad people while holding each other.

His groans and my cries echoed through the stairwell. The warmth enveloping me was intense.

Tears flowed endlessly from my eyes.

He, who had held onto my dead self and spoken to me countless times.

The one who finally took revenge and ended his own life.

“……Ariadeline.”

His cheeks were stained with tears.

“Did it hurt a lot?”

I asked.

“No.”

He replied.

“It didn’t hurt at all.”

He whispered while holding me tightly.

“Really, it didn’t hurt at all.”

I tightly gripped his clothes and bit my lip.

“……That’s a lie.”

A lie, a lie. You suffered so much. You had that kind of face.

It felt like my heart was being torn apart.

I had never wished for you to experience the emotions I went through.

I would have rather wanted to hate you comfortably than to wish for you to feel the same as I did.

But he was right in front of me, having fully understood that.

Calling my name with his blackened eyes.

 

☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

 

Ariadeline and Carlothian cried until the servants heard the commotion and began to murmur, then they entered the room together.

Inside Carlothian’s room, which he hadn’t entered in a long time, there was a smell of loneliness.

When Ariadeline couldn’t hold back and sniffled, Carlothian embraced her and headed toward the bed. He gently laid her down on the bed.

“Carlothian……?”

“Sleep a little longer.”

She blinked. His face was smiling, but the light in his darkened eyes had not returned.

Feeling anxious, Ariadeline reached out her hand to him, just as she had done back then.

Tap.

Unlike the time when he was in an unknown place, his cheek met her fingertips. She gently stroked his cheek and murmured.

“……We can’t go back to the time we didn’t know, can we?”

He nodded in agreement.

“Yeah.”

He lowered his eyebrows and spoke.

“I don’t think I can go back to the way I was before I lost you.”

“…….”

Yes, how could one forget the feeling of having something they loved taken away? Ariadeline wrapped his hand with both of hers and pressed it against her cheek.

She rubbed it gently, as if trying to warm his cold fingertips.

Carlothian looked at Ariadeline with a somewhat unfamiliar expression.

He carefully curled his fingertips and brushed her cheek.

“……Sleep well.”

Ariadeline felt her heavy eyelids, tired from crying. Holding his hands tightly, she gradually let out slower breaths as drowsiness began to wash over her.

In this way, she fell asleep, and Carlothian quietly watched her.

Her shoulders gently rose and fell with her breathing. Carlothian listened intently to that small sound.

It was a sound he couldn’t hear before time turned back. Yes, she was alive now.

Carlothian withdrew his cold hand from hers. Then he looked closely at her.

He saw things he couldn’t see in her when she was dead. Her flushed cheeks, light breaths. Shoulders rising and falling, and a warmth that felt light.

As he felt these things, he whispered to himself.

This time, he had to protect her.

By any means necessary.

Carlothian’s eyes shone in the dark room. The gleam in his black eyes sparkled with a strange madness.

He confirmed that Ariadeline was asleep and quietly left the room. A moment later, he commanded the attendant who had followed him.

“Guests will be arriving soon, so ‘prepare’.”

At his words, the attendant briefly lowered their gaze before responding.

“Understood.”

With that, the attendant quickened their pace and disappeared, while Carlothian walked alone down the corridor, deep in thought.

Since time had turned back, Seth Dolorante would come as scheduled.

‘There’s nothing to gain from that guy.’

Carlothian knew who had kidnapped her and why.

The Emperor and Seth Dolorante wouldn’t know that the time had turned back, so they would be in a state of complacency.

They died so easily. He shouldn’t have let them go so easily.

Carlothian wanted to return everything to them. How much Ariadeline had suffered, what she had gone through.

And he remembered all too well what had happened in the end. Instead of grinding his teeth, he raised his lifeless eyes.

“……All of it.”

He murmured quietly.