Chapter 80
I wandered through a long dream.
It seemed the Grand Duke’s magic power hadn’t completely healed me. Moments from my past life that I had forgotten unfolded vividly before my eyes.
The earliest beginning of the dream was when I was a Grand Magician.
Born fortunately with vast magical power, I spent my long life searching for the reason behind reincarnation. Many couldn’t understand why I, having reached the level of Grand Magician, would waste my talent.
“Wouldn’t it be better to pursue different research?”
“Reincarnation and past lives? Using unproven concepts as research topics is a bit…”
“The Imperial Family has sent notice that they’ll cut funding if you don’t change your research subject!”
Even my pursuit of magical tools imbued with spirits was to research whether otherworldly power could break the cycle of reincarnation. My life during that time was spent entirely in the laboratory.
Back then, I recognized that the repetition of life was a curse.
“It might have something to do with the original work.”
No matter how many nights I spent researching, I couldn’t find a way to solve the curse.
With sunken eyes, I gulped down potions one after another. Whenever doubts sprouted that my thoughts might be delusions, I steeled my resolve.
I believed I could definitely return to my original world.
‘Though I ultimately failed.’
Now, even the memory of what kind of place I originally lived in was faint.
In that life, obsessed with research rather than interacting with others, I ended my life pathetically from overwork.
‘In the next life, perhaps something…’
When I was reborn, I wondered if perhaps much time had passed. Pointless expectations were betrayed time and again, and I was endlessly reborn.
With each rebirth, what was “normal” became increasingly ambiguous.
“That child is creepy! The baby just spoke.”
“What if it understands everything we’re saying?”
Sometimes I recovered memories of past lives as a baby, sometimes as an adult. There were lives where I ended in suicide, unable to overcome the despair that flooded in after recovering my memories.
Was it a gift from heaven, taking pity on me?
Born as Kashian, I remembered nothing. Just the fact that I couldn’t remember made me desperate for life.
Yet despite finally wanting to live, I was forced to go to the battlefield. My parents sent me as a soldier instead of my sick younger brother.
The more I barely survived on the battlefield, the more I wanted to live.
“Is that the woman who rose from a low-ranking soldier to a knight?”
“Still just meat shield. She’ll die soon enough.”
“Lucky her, being born a woman and still getting promoted. If it weren’t for the war, would a woman ever become a knight!”
My parents demanded that I survive as long as possible to earn money for my brother’s medicine before dying.
In truth, my younger brother wasn’t particularly nice either. He had no redeeming qualities, and our verbal arguments always escalated into fights.
I found him annoying, using his illness as an excuse for all kinds of misbehavior.
But when I told him I was going to the battlefield, he greeted me properly for the first time. It was an ordinary greeting delivered in a voice devoid of hostility.
“Come back safely.”
Just because of that simple greeting, I truly wanted to return.
Though I was merely struggling to survive, I gained the support of many. Though I was merely struggling to survive, I gained the support of many people. I had as many followers as I had detractors.
Gradually, the world began to feel more worth living in.
But when I returned from the battlefield, my younger brother was already buried.
“If you had sent medicine a little earlier, he wouldn’t have died!”
“Yes, you should have come back sooner at the very least.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t leave any message. What would he have to say to you?”
Even my brother, who seemed to be loved, was ultimately worth less than money.
They had said it was a minor illness that could be cured if only they had money. Yet my parents spent every coin that came in on pleasures they had never enjoyed in their lives.
With no reason to stay at home, I returned to protect my comrades.
“I heard you were retiring. Why have you returned to the battlefield?”
“Just bored.”
Knights of common birth like me were easily expended as consumables on the battlefield.
As the number of people I couldn’t protect increased, so did my fame.
“How can I become like Dame Kashian?”
That question jolted me to my senses, and I sought to end the war so that no one would have to become like me. As a result of living more fiercely than in any other life, I was able to welcome a brilliant era of peace.
‘I’ve done enough.’
Standing at the end of the dream after countless past lives, I raised my head at the sound of someone approaching.
“What is this unpleasant mental space? I’ve never seen such bad taste before.”
“Heishar?”
“How much do you remember? Surely you haven’t crossed over to the world of the dead already?”
Heishar frowned as he looked at the surrounding area filled with tombstones.
Light particles floated around him as he removed his robe. The golden light shone down around him like a halo.
His inhuman appearance didn’t particularly surprise me.
“Setting everything else aside, I don’t understand why you’ve erected these tombstones.”
“They’re my graves.”
The dozens of tombstones here all bore the names of my many previous lives.
When this life ended, soon another tombstone would appear where I was standing. Probably with the name Liat engraved on it.
Heishar stood beside me and gazed at the tombstones for a moment.
“Did you make graves for protagonists from fairy tales you read before?”
“Perhaps.”
“Indeed, there are some names I’ve heard throughout human history.”
“I’m honored if you’ve heard of them.”
After a moment of apparent silence, he got to the point. His voice was unprecedentedly cold and indifferent.
“Do you have no desire to live?”
Before recalling each life like a flashback, I think I had wanted to live. But standing here before these tombstones after passing through all those dreams, everything felt tiresome.
“No.”
Heishar’s face clouded with questions at my resolute answer.
“Why? Aren’t you young? Don’t you want to grow up?”
“If I grow up, I’ll just get old and eventually die anyway.”
“Well, yes. But if you die now, is there no one who would be sad?”
At those words, faces came to mind one by one.
The Grand Duke, Tristan, Lucas, and Sen. The faces of retainers and knights who had participated in the doll tea party also vaguely surfaced in my memory.
What they liked was the illegitimate imperial princess whose position I had taken over.
“They don’t like me.”
“Are you just trying to believe that because you’re afraid of taking responsibility?”
Golden light mixed into Heishar’s eyes. Had his eyes always been that red color?
I tilted my head at the strange sense of dissonance. Finding me frustrating, Heishar demanded.
“Tell me honestly. What do you desire most?”
The moment I heard those words, my true feelings spilled out involuntarily.
“To die forever.”
I was confused by the answer that came out regardless of my will. Heishar’s face showed as much turmoil as mine. It seemed he had forced my answer with some kind of power.
“You shouldn’t be able to lie. Is that truly how you feel?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I thought something was strange when we talked, but this…”
“It’s not that I want to die right now.”
“Is there nothing you desire? Money, power, anything?”
Though I felt sorry for Heishar, who was making offers, I truly had nothing. He ruffled his hair as he pondered.
After trying to sort out his emotions, he finally spoke calmly.
“Fine. Let’s form a contract, however imperfect, that won’t last long.”
“Contract?”
“I’m saying I’ll force you to live. Since it’s not a formal contract, its power will be weak, but you won’t lose anything.”
Heishar created a sphere of light in his palm. When he clenched his fist, the light scattered.
He recited characters I couldn’t understand while drawing a pattern.
He gripped my forehead and infused it with a warm energy.
“…Ah.”
I felt a nostalgic sensation, like finding a lost family. Simultaneously, magical power incomparably more abundant than before filled my entire body.
***
A certain energy I had once felt from him dissolved into me.
A more intense force that subjugated nature’s magic.
The magic power blended with the new energy without any resistance. Having researched this before, I quickly realized what this energy meant.
‘Spirit power.’
After the death of the Divine Beast of Light, spirits did not contract with humans. For humans to use spirit power, they could only seal it in magical tools.
‘It was possible to form a contract.’
To think that I would form a contract that had only been passed down in literature. I could feel my weakened body being “newly created” in a healthy state by the spirit’s power.
I had never read anywhere that a contract with a spirit would transform the body itself to be able to hold magical power.
‘He’s not an ordinary spirit.’
At the same time, Heishar’s memories, not my own, flooded in. Heishar, in the form of a boy, handed a bouquet to someone.
“These are flowers the spirits gathered. I made it myself.”
“I’ll accept it gratefully.”
“If it makes you happy, I can make it again and again.”
The woman wrapped in light was difficult to see clearly. But her gestures exuded elegant dignity.
Young Heishar, with shining eyes, fell into the woman’s embrace. The boy’s gestures, expressions, and gaze all conveyed affection for the woman.
The young Heishar called out in an adorable voice.
“I like you! Lady Anastasia!”
Anastasia?
Could that woman be Anastasia, the Divine Beast of Light? According to the empire’s myths, the Divine Beast of Light had one attendant.
Called the Spirit King, meaning the being whom all spirits followed.
‘Is Heishar that being?’
The moment I felt my body had been somewhat reconstructed, Heishar’s incoming memories were cut off. As the space created by my consciousness collapsed, a completely black space appeared.
In that space sat a golden wolf the size of a house.
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