Chapter 273

Nerys Truydd woke up in tears.

“…Truydd, Truydd!”

The voice calling her name grew increasingly frantic. Nerys realized she had been lying face down and quickly straightened her back. What happened to the assassins? And her mother?

“Nerys Truydd, to brazenly fall asleep during class like this! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Laughter erupted around her. Nerys was bewildered. Nerys Truydd? I should have been married already, right? And class?

Come to think of it, she was in a classroom. A very familiar one, the Noble Academy classroom. Nerys was sitting in the back row, surrounded by the sneering faces of her classmates.

‘Is this a dream?’

Yes, she had definitely had this nightmare before. Madam Alix, the teacher, sighed in disbelief at Nerys’ blank face.

“Having a nightmare? You should sleep at night, not be so rude during class! Go stand at the back of the classroom!”

It sounded like a reasonable request. Nerys rubbed the tears from her eyes. And habitually turned to her side. Diane would surely be making a face that said, ‘Can’t she let her sleep a little? That’s too much,’ and she wanted to exchange a knowing glance.

But there was no one next to her. Nerys gasped and looked around again.

Familiar classroom, familiar jeers from the children, familiar hostility…

‘Ah.’

Nerys trembled and slowly stood up, finally realizing the reality.

She had no friends.

Why did she act like someone should be with her?

Moreover, the name she recalled was even stranger. Diane MacKinnon?

Certainly, there was a child with that name in the class. But she and Nerys had never spoken. They had few classes together.

Nerys’ steps as she walked to the back of the classroom were as listless as ever.

❖ ❖ ❖

Cledwyn realized for the first time that a dragon could be such a convenient mode of transportation.

Even if Dragon Kion actually awakened, there was no guarantee that she would be friendly to them. But fortunately, she seemed to have the same personality as the one he had seen in the ruins before, and she also retained the memories from when she dreamed.

“Don’t you sometimes remember your dreams? It’s similar to that.”

Cledwyn wasn’t exactly in the mood to chat with her. But as soon as she appeared, she circled the Imperial Capital once in her true form and then took him away, so he didn’t feel any hostility towards her. He was about to ask how long it would take to get to Maindulante on a dragon, but there was no need.

Kion teleported Cledwyn. The surrounding scenery changed with just a simple word or two.

Leaving Aidan and Joyce in charge of things in the Imperial Capital, and ‘picking up’ the Pope on the way to the Papal States, was something he barely managed to do in the midst of the confusion.

White Swan Castle didn’t exist when she was active, so she didn’t know the coordinates, and despite her casual attitude of just going somewhere in that direction, the dragon was amazing.

Cledwyn arrived at the entrance of White Swan Castle with Ren, who looked like he didn’t know what was going on. And after briefly explaining the situation to Ren, he rushed into the castle.

“Your Highness!”

“Good heavens, Grand Duke!”

“You’re not a ghost, are you?”

People who were passing by stopped in shock when someone who should have been in the Imperial Capital suddenly appeared. But there was no time to waste here. Cledwyn grabbed Ren by the collar, almost lifting him, and ran towards the West Palace.

Originally, he was going to find Madam Truydd or Ellen to ask about Nerys’ whereabouts, but there was no need. The door to the Grand Duchess’s bedroom in the West Palace, the place where his mother had passed away and he had stayed for a very short time, was wide open.

Relying solely on instinct, the two men burst into the Grand Duchess’s bedroom. And froze at the sight of Nerys sleeping on the bed.

“Your Highness…!”

Ellen, startled, stood up. She had been caressing Nerys’ hand with a tearful face. She looked back and forth between the two men with an incredulous expression.

“How did you get here…”

“Ellen, Ren. Ex, plain.”

Cledwyn couldn’t breathe properly and sputtered out the words as if exhaling empty air. He couldn’t understand.

The Ja’an of Pheros had been unleashed and the Evil Dragon had awakened. The magician was dead. So why was Nerys still asleep?

“What the hell is going on!”

Ren, who had only heard that ‘Nerys had been harmed by Princess Camille’s scheme and you might need to heal her,’ grabbed Cledwyn by the collar. He could have pushed away that thin arm with just a finger, but Cledwyn was helplessly shaken.

Gray eyes, devoid of focus, dimly reflected Nerys.

Nerys.

Each breath was like a needle. He couldn’t breathe at all. He couldn’t distinguish between heaven and earth. Just like that.

It felt like he was falling into the abyss.

Ren roughly threw Cledwyn aside and approached Nerys. And with a serious face, he began to pour divine power into her. First, a light the size of a lamp, then a light the size of moonlight… finally, a light the size of the sun brightly illuminated the bedroom.

But even after the light faded, Nerys remained pale and asleep.

“It’s a curse.”

Ren, the owner of outstanding divine power, noticed that Nerys’ sleep was vaguely related to some sinister magic. But the magic had entangled her so deeply that it seemed like he needed to understand the structure of the magic, rather than the amount of divine power, to solve the problem.

“Who cast this curse? Bring me that bastard!”

“He’s dead.”

Cledwyn said again, as if squeezing the words out. He couldn’t even stand up and crawled to Nerys’ bed. And taking her hand, he pressed his forehead against it.

He could smell her scent from the bed. That scent would be the last breath he took. He knew it. This terrible grief would make it impossible for him to live any longer.

“Ah… ah…”

A convulsive groan, neither voice nor breath, leaked out. The world was black. He felt like he was going to die. No, wasn’t he already as good as dead?

Only now did he fully understand how his father had followed his mother after she died.

It wasn’t something that could be done with effort. Just.

It was such a natural course of events.

“Did you say Grand Duke is here?”

Cledwyn heard several footsteps approaching behind him, but he didn’t recognize them. Someone forcibly pulled him away from the bed a moment later.

“Oh my, it really is His Highness! Why are you here? What about the Imperial Capital?”

Diane MacKinnon and Madam Truydd were startled to see Cledwyn. Cledwyn barely managed to ask them.

“Com.muni.cation.de.vice.is.oka.y…”

The two women looked at each other and sighed as if they were in trouble. Madam Truydd soon said solemnly.

“Riz told me before she collapsed. To pretend that everything was normal so you wouldn’t worry. I thought it would be okay if I brought a priest after the war ended… Oh my, Your Holiness.”

Ren was covered in tears. Madam Truydd seemed to have grasped the situation after recognizing his pure face. Her face turned white.

Diane tried to brighten the atmosphere, raising her voice as much as possible.

“Her breathing is stable! She’ll return to normal if we keep treating her, right? Otherwise, Riz wouldn’t have endured it like that when she has a baby too.”

Usually, ‘keep treating her’ meant showing her to an even more skilled priest. When Ren, the most skilled priest in existence, didn’t answer and was lost in thought, Diane also made a crying face. Cledwyn was dizzy and in pain, and his body trembled. His face turned dark blue.

Eventually, Ren stood up and got angry at Cledwyn again.

“What do you mean the magician is dead! What the hell did you do? What is this place that you just let the Grand Duchess be attacked by suspicious people! It was a problem from the start that you left her here and went to war! You useless bastard!”

“It’s not His Highness’s fault!”

Diane retorted reflexively. But neither Ren nor Cledwyn paid any attention to her words. Soon Ren began to accuse Cledwyn with every word he knew, and Cledwyn just stared at Nerys without saying anything, his lips trembling.

It was a mess. Diane sighed as she watched the scene.

‘What should I do, Riz?’

‘The two men who supposedly do the biggest things in this country are both like this.’

‘Maybe men shouldn’t do too much. If they sew, they take away the needle, if they cook, they take away the ladle, maybe I should choose a man like that.’

‘I’m sure you left something behind, so I’m worried now, but I think it’s more important to figure out what that something is.’

‘Those guys can’t stand situations that are out of their control, so it’s more important for them to blame someone.’

Behind Diane, who was lamenting, a voice that didn’t belong to anyone in this castle was heard. Diane turned around, thinking it was Talfrin, and her eyes widened.

Hair like molten gold and eyes that looked like they were made by pouring gold. The unique magician she had briefly seen in the ruins before was clicking his tongue as he looked at the two men, wondering when he had entered.

Cledwyn’s complexion finally returned when he saw her. He took a deep breath with great difficulty and asked her.

“Is there a way to help?”

“Ask ‘is there a way to help,’ you impudent thing. Pheros should have told you, don’t you remember?”

Only then did Cledwyn remember. The memory that he had put aside for a moment because he was so shocked by Nerys’ pale face.

The words of the Eye of Pheros that only she could help ‘next time’.

Kion laughed as if it was nothing and struck the floor once with the staff she was holding. A dazzling golden magic circle instantly appeared around her with a hum.

“You’ve made the magic quite potent. This child is human, so the Seal wouldn’t have required that much magic. With the Power of Pheros and the magic of the sacrifice poured in, she’s already trapped in her own memories. The connection to the outside world is almost completely severed.”

“Th…then? Magician? Can’t Riz wake up?”

Diane didn’t know much, but she had a feeling that this ‘person’ was a very important figure, so she asked desperately and very politely. Kion chuckled.

“You should know that you’re very lucky. She can still be brought out. Isn’t the young one that the child of Elandria is with the connection to the child of Pheros at a fundamental level?”

Cledwyn’s eyes flashed. He stood up as if he had regained all his strength and rushed at Kion.

“What do I have to do?”

“Ask ‘what do I have to do,’ you impudent thing.”

Kion clicked her tongue. She struck the floor again with her staff. This time, another smaller magic circle floated in the air in a golden light.

“You go into the memories of the child of Elandria. Find me inside and ask for help. There is a possibility that this child will shake it off on her own if she realizes that memories are just memories, but that path is impossible.”

“Why? I’ve woken her up from a similar curse before.”

“Whatever curse you woke her up from before, it won’t be the same as this one. If you go into this child’s memories, from that moment on, you are not an independent human being, but one of the characters in this child’s memories. No matter what you say, this child will experience the same things she experienced in her memories, and you will soon forget what happened in reality due to the atrocious coercion of those memories.”

“Then how do I save her!”

Ren, who had forgotten that he had been blaming Cledwyn until just now, shouted. Kion sighed.

“The world has changed a lot. How dare a human child shout at me… I’ll treat it as still being in the middle of a game and forgive you this once.”

Only then did the people in the room realize that she was the dragon they had only heard about. Diane’s eyes widened and Madam Truydd covered her mouth.

“I’ll give you a guide. Child of Pheros, go where your child leads you. It’s perfect that there’s a priest here too, as if you were aiming for it.”

Kion raised her staff.

“To send the child of Pheros to where the child of Elandria is, I have to extract the soul once. The empty body will die if left alone, so priest child, you protect and heal that body.”

Ren, who came to heal Nerys but ended up having to heal Cledwyn, seemed very dissatisfied, but he nodded for now.