It’s Time to Stop Clinging to the Fake Guide - Chapter 71

Her back pressed against hard, cold stone. But there wasn’t even a moment to think that it was uncomfortable or painful.

Lynette squeezed her eyes shut. Her body trembled in small shivers.

Euphen tried to approach her, but Shirin stopped him. A few mages who had thrown on their robes in a rush had already finished their preparations.

“Lynette.”

“Haah.. ugh…”

Lynette’s vision blurred. Her mind was filled only with the thought that she didn’t care how much pain came later, as long as this pain was taken away right now.

“Leave, Your Highness.”

“I need to see it with my own eyes.”

If she had enough sense left to understand their conversation, she might have begged him to leave. But to Lynette now, voices were nothing but noise, neither more nor less.

Without offering a second warning, Shirin immediately began chanting the incantation slowly. At the same time, a familiar yet unbearable pain engulfed Lynette’s entire body.

Compared to guiding Euphen, the agony was far more intense. Unable to endure it, she let out a scream. From the beginning, she had no need to hide her pain here, so her reaction was instinctive. For a moment, she even forgot Euphen was by her side.

“Aaahhh!”

She curled herself into a ball. Even knowing that no position would bring relief, she moved unconsciously.

Cold sweat soaked through her clothes. Her brown hair stuck messily to her cheeks and forehead, but she had no time to care.

Euphen’s blue eyes widened. The difference between hearing that someone was in pain and seeing it with your own eyes was like the difference between heaven and earth. Lynette’s face had gone deathly pale as she let out a terrible scream.

Her small body trembled violently. He wanted to shout at Shirin to stop immediately, but he knew all too well that he couldn’t.

Because all of this was what would lessen Lynette’s suffering.

It was laughable. To be at ease, she first had to endure even greater pain.

Subconsciously, he bit down hard on his lip.

“Ugh.. Haah…”

His eyes fell on Lynette, curled up as small as a child. He wanted to go and embrace her, but he couldn’t.

His very existence… was nothing but pain to that woman.

The thought made him feel monstrous. Euphen clenched his fist so tightly that the wound he had once sealed on his arm felt as though it had torn open again.

A dull throb of pain made him furious. Wasn’t it because of such a trivial injury that he hadn’t used his power? That choice had hurt Lynette, had made her suffer and writhe like this.

With a hardened expression, he stared at the woman who looked more fragile than ever. Her brown hair was scattered messily on the floor, her slender back trembling… it felt as though the sight pierced his chest again and again.

She was in such agony, yet none of the mages in the room spared her a glance. As if it were something they were used to.

“Haah…”

Euphen shut his eyes tightly and ran his hand down his face. He tried to suppress the boiling emotions inside him, but it wasn’t working as he wished.

Painful as it was, he had to watch. He had to see clearly what kind of consequences his actions had brought.

‘Lynette.’

He whispered her name inside his heart.

At first, yes, he couldn’t deny that she had seemed special because she was a “Guide.” Whether fake or real, it didn’t matter. Lynette had guided him all the same.

He remembered vividly the time when he awakened as an Esper without a Guide, writhing in pain with no end in sight. The moments when he barely held onto consciousness, only for it to suddenly cut off.

She was the one who saved him then. To not think of her as special would have been harder. He didn’t deny that.

But Lynette had something beyond simply being a Guide. Why was that? No matter how much he thought, there was no answer.

When she had said, as though it were obvious, that “this feeling is because of guiding,” he had thought deeply. Why was it that when she smiled, he felt joy, that he wanted to love her? Why did his gaze keep following her? Why did he want to keep her close?

Yet no matter how much he thought, he could never find an answer. It felt like meeting a lover he had been with for a very long time in a dream.

‘A dream, huh.’

Euphen let out a bitter laugh.

He had even imagined, once, that perhaps in countless dreams he could no longer remember, he had met Lynette. Because otherwise, he had no way to explain all these emotions and thoughts.

And the decisive reason he had such foolish delusions about meeting her in dreams was because of her green eyes. From the very first moment they met, Lynette’s eyes were already filled with love.

By now, the pain seemed to have lessened considerably. Euphen watched quietly as she let out only faint groans. Her face was ghastly pale, her dimmed eyes opening and closing slowly. From between her parted lips, sounds like sobs slipped out.

Love.

He gazed intently into those all-too-common green eyes.

What he had first realized growing up in the Imperial Castle was what emotions people carried. Who bore hostility, who showed goodwill, who sought to use, who feared, who rejoiced.

Others’ feelings had always been clear to him, like looking into clear water. That was how one survived in the Imperial Castle.

‘From the very first moment, Lynette…’

She had loved him.

He had seen countless emotions in his life, but the sweet emotion overflowing from her eyes was the most vivid and unmistakable of them all.