Chapter 175

Chapter 175

Translator: yun

“That’s why I follow Castor.”

“It’s not because he suppressed your powers?”

“Of course, if I did not have Castor with me right after I had given up on my [Companion], I would have imploded and become a beast that relied only on its instincts. Even now, it’s difficult to resist my urges away from him.”

Hernan gave a faint smile.

“But I no longer have a place to return to so what else can I do than stay? So, the reason why I follow him is not merely because he suppresses my powers.”

“Then what is the reason?”

Hernan closed his eyes.

“When I close my eyes, I think of the ruins. The city I knew, that had been destroyed by the current Crown Prince, was once a very beautiful place.”

Hernan seemed to be insisting on something with his words. 

“To follow Castor, I chose to give up on something very very precious to me.”

Growl. A beast-like gurgle seemed to accompany his words. 

“For the sake of my ruined city, I had decided to take revenge. Castor had made a pact with me that one day he would capture the Templars of Chaos responsible for my ruined city and hand them to me. That’s why I decided to become his dog.”

The wound on his neck that was already on the verge of closing must have been the symbol of their pact.

For a moment, Amor was envious of Hernan’s passion. He was free. Looking at him, for the first time, Amor was reminded of his situation.

‘I can never leave this place.’

He wondered when he would get to leave? When he dies? He thought he would be satisfied with witnessing spring and then waiting for the season of blooming flowers again through his windows. But was that what he really wanted?

“My prince. You never see me as some pitiful thing. As if you’re unable to hate me no matter how hard you try.”

Thinking about how pitiful Hernan was, Amor stared at him.

“That’s why I’m worried about you.”

The words that had slipped past his lips had manifested into a prophecy and became the truth. 

Lucy. 

The maid, who Amor had given his heart to only returned it to him with a sword of betrayal stabbed into it, had died in Castor’s hands. 

At some point, she had been a woman who reminded him of his mother whenever she tied up her reddish brown hair during the day. 

Even after several months, Amor remained gripped with this indelible loss before suddenly recalling Hernan’s words. 

‘If I can’t get over something that I lost or died, wouldn’t it be better to just forget it all!’

He wanted to forget everything. He wondered how it would be like to forget everything in his ruined world and live a new life? There were days when he struggled. But he would rather forget everything and live as if nothing happened. 

Was it because even though he believed that happiness would come for him, he ultimately lost it? As soon as Amor broke beyond his limits, he drowned himself in his research without hesitation. 

Finally, he made a drug that made him lose his memories. It was a drug that would erase only the most torturous and ugliest memories that pierced through one’s bones. 

He wanted to consume it and become a normal person. He wanted to be someone who would no longer be swayed or toppled, yes, someone like Castor would do.

He was that desperate. He wanted to stop suffering from the betrayal and the loneliness he felt from staying in this chillingly cold palace. 

“Amor, is this the drug that can erase memories?”

“Yes.”

But in the end, he failed.

“It makes you forget the memories you desperately want to forget the most.”

“Will it completely erase them?”

“No. Memories are organic so you can’t possibly erase a single memory completely.”

“Hm…”

“However, if you lose one memory, all the memories related to it would evoke a faint sense of loss in the memories related to them.”

The bottle that was the size of his thumb was the colour of a pale pink like a camellia flower. 

“If this wipes a memory of you drowning, you will instinctively avoid water just by encountering it. You will instinctively be reluctant to even think of water.”

“Will it last forever?”

Amor shook his head.

“No.”

“… I see.”

It was Castor who visited him out of the blue before taking the drug that would wipe out memories. He listened to Amor’s explanation before tilting his head slowly. 

“It’d be nice if it lasted forever.”

“Then, are you going to drink it?”

“I’m not sure.”

With a languid and listless expression, Castor recited with a slight smile and a monotonous voice. 

“I just had an urge to drink it.”

He wondered why. For the first time, his brother had a bitter smile on his face for a moment. 

“But unfortunately, nothing lasts forever.”

He massaged his forehead with his index and middle fingers before slowly shifting his gaze to look at the bottle and his younger brother.

That day, Castor showed a rare smile. With an expression he had never seen before. 

Amor found it ironic how the only people in his spacious and empty room were Castor and Hernan.  The brother who brought him his antidote every single day so that he would not die and Hernan who pitied Amor and continued to insist that his surveillance was protection. They squeezed into his routine and filled up his time. 

He had no choice but to be unfamiliar with love when they were the only people in his life. One was too cruel and the other was not even human.

***(1)

“Alright. If you provide for me, brother, I’ll bring you the most talented painter in the world.”

“A painter? Why would you do such useless things?”

“I wanted to show you a world that you cannot see, brother.”

The girl who flashed him a faint smile barged into his world with words that didn’t mean much. 

“I understand. Losing things. I know how it feels to lose things. Right? There was nothing we could do but to continue to work hard.”

She understood loss.

“We worked hard to live but we’ve lost so much. Both brother and I.”

With a sweet voice, she talked about the fleeting future. As if it was going to come true.

“Do you want to come with me?”

She spoke with her uniquely cheerful yet pitchy voice before blinking. 

“The 4th Branch of the Empire, will you be my patronus in the Founding Festival?”

She made him dream.

He didn’t understand love because everyone who loved him had died too early. 

So, he gradually learned it himself. 

This was love. 

When he suddenly realised what he had already known, the chill that dissipated like low tide from a beach had dominated every portion of his heart. 

It was strange. 

From the moment he first ingested the poison, the curse that continued to haunt him ate away at him and zapped his brightness. 

So, at some point, he realised. He wouldn’t live for long. He would live a much shorter life than the average person. He thought his resentment at this fact had already faded a long time ago. 

But what was this intense emotion that was suddenly rising within him? He had imagined himself dying countless times now. He had been afraid and tortured because of it before finally calming down. 

But he wondered why if the girl in front of him were to suddenly die, or get killed… just imagining it made it difficult for him to breathe. 

No, he couldn’t even get his act together after seeing her collapse from her serious injuries. 

Ashley always got injured. Eventually, she stood in the centre of the Empire and it was all because of Castor. If this continued, the road ahead of her could only be dangerous like a bridge swinging precariously over a cliff. 

Why was she living such a turbulent life with her thin body?

“It’s not a waste of my energy. It doesn’t matter if it hurts. Because I’m used to it.”

“…..”

He didn’t know anymore. Don’t die. It feels as if he was going to die. 

“So, don’t make it impossible for me to protect what I’ve set out to protect. Because that’s terrible of you.”

Blessings were the bare minimum. The power to miraculously carry out what you desperately desire.

Amor covered his lips and whispered inaudibly. 

‘I wanted to see you happy before I die.’

The faint green light. Amor’s face that was illuminated by the light was still hidden by the shadows. 

“I’m sick and tired of losing things.”

If he could, he wanted to keep her in the safest place he could think of. 

But the reason why he didn’t manage to say it in the end was because he didn’t know if he was going to die soon. 

***

To you, the meaning of Tellus is ‘sacrifice’.

That was what the light that made him a templar prophesied. 

***

Amor liked white and clean things. He also didn’t like making physical contact with other people. As a prince, he had no choice but to meet people frequently. Whenever he had to shake hands with templars sent by the 2nd Prince to meet him, he felt terribly uncomfortable. 

Hence, he wondered why he was not feeling the same now? The girl who was lying down in front of him with a skirt that was crumpled and dirty as if she had just been rolling around in the dirt did not make him feel displeased. He should have hated it but he liked it. 

The time he spent with the girl during the period between night and dawn couldn’t be disturbed by anyone. Her violet eyes that reminded him of purple flowers and amethyst stared at him for a long time. 

Her cheeks that were still chubby even though she had lost her baby fat and her thin fingers and soft wrists that looked like they would break if he grabbed them. 

Her lips that would always grumble coolly and calmly were the colour of a rose that just bloomed. 

As he thought about her faint sincere smile and her cheerful high-pitched voice, countless nights passed.

But he knew that those nights were different from the night he was spending with the girl now. 

‘So, why did she drink that?’

Amor felt so frustrated he couldn’t breath even with a gulp of air. 

The drugs he had offered her included painkillers that could stop headaches and the most terrible and torturous drugs he ever made. 

It wasn’t his intention to hand it to her so carelessly. The sight of Ashley like that tortured him making him unable to see what was ahead of him and suffocated him. The vines moved towards her as if they were acting on his feelings. 

There were dozens of bottles. And it was only one of the many. With such a slim chance, the girl drank the drug that was made to temporarily forget the pain that accompanied one’s torturous life. 

“… Right, Ashley.”

“Yes?”

Why and for what reason was she smiling so happily after forgetting her pain? Her smile proved to Amor how much suffering she had been through. 

“I have died 40 times.”

He remembered the girl confessing to him just before she collapsed. That expression… made her look desperate yet calm. Amor became distant from her at the realisation that all this while Ashley hadn’t lived her life to the fullest. 

What had she been going through before she thoughtlessly drank it? It must have been what made her eyes look dead even though she was alive. 

His wounds had engulfed him and he could not get over the shock that had enraptured him. Eventually, he met a girl that could see him eye to eye. The face she had whenever she saw him was unbelievably clear.

“Brother?”

After forgetting her death, she was able to smile so innocently and brightly like a day star.

‘You…’

His fresh green eyes trembled for a moment before he captured Ashley with his gaze. 

The period between the quiet night and dawn. The gazes of the two that intertwined like a skein were so different. (2)

“What’s the matter?”

Amor smiled. His chest hurt. His heart was in pain and he was suffering. Was this happiness? Seeing the girl smile so brightly, he thought this was happiness.

If momentary happiness and comfort was enough for her.

He.

“… Nothing.”

He was willing to do anything for her. 

“Yes.”

Amor knew. 

Even though she did not call him by his name, hers had already become something sweet to him. 

“It’s getting late.”

The girl who suddenly appeared in his heartless world and saved him. When the girl who couldn’t cry and could only rub her eyes out of habit finally flashed him a big smile.

“Go sleep.”

He fell in love again. 

T/N:

Ash be having everyone fall for her geez. 

(1): I don’t remember exactly which chapter the following scene took place in, so forgive me if the translations are not the same (like the painter part)

(2): According to the oxford dictionary, skein is a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted.