Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The carriage rolled over the edge of the cliff.

Suddenly, the horse ran wild after hearing a strange sound, which happened at the same time the carriage headed straight off the cliff.

Confused and panicked, Cassion clutched the window frame and looked out.

At first glance out the window, his eyes met with the horseman’s frightened gaze.

It was just one second.

Yes, just a split second.

‘This time, again.’

Bang! His fist punched the window. The shattered glass ripped into his skin.

And that was that.

His body floated up as the carriage descended at a fast rate.

It was hard to tell which one it was that was going backward—if it was the carriage, time, or himself.

‘Ah, it’s making me dizzy.’

In a daze, he thought about when exactly this would be over.

Boom!

With a loud roar, the carriage crashed onto the ground.

The shock was as great as the shattered carriage’s sound.

The man’s body was flung towards another direction, his body broken here and there.

He couldn’t feel his body.

He was still in shock. He forgot how pain felt.

However, after a while…

“Uurk… haa… ugh…”

The pain that started at the tip of his toes gradually went up to his head.

The burning sensation all over his body made it impossible for him to breathe.

It was painful even to just inhale and exhale, so he held his breath, then spat it out at once.

A red sky could be seen through his distorted view.

His eyelids sank slowly and opened again.

‘Ah. Am I going to die here?’

In the end, it was like this.

A cold wave went over his tired heart.

Three waves passed over his heart, and what came to mind were the three people in a family portrait.

Father. Stepmother. Leo.

A family where there was no room for him.

Family.

Was there any other word as uncomfortable and unfamiliar as this?

“Ha… haa…”

A weak laugh spilled out his lips.

It’s just that… his situation was so amusing that he laughed instead of cried.

Today’s accident certainly wasn’t just that.

The runaway horseman would be evidence to that fact, but in the past, there was never any evidence to keep.

It wasn’t the first time that an unusual accident happened to him.

‘And they did it again.’

His stepmother and his half-brother, Leo.

They’d threatened him countless times.

They had broken his arms and legs countless times.

He teetered between life and death countless times.

There was never anyone there to help him.

The people in the estate kept their mouths shut even though they knew the truth that was happening right under their noses.

With closed eyes, with covered ears.

They lived as though they couldn’t see what they saw, couldn’t hear what they heard.

Even his father was like that.

’If you had any abilities at all, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.’

It was a cold voice that was as biting as ice. The contempt in those red eyes was like poison.

It was strange.

His father’s scolding was brief, but it hurt so much.

It was more painful than when he had rolled down a set of stairs and broken his bones, more suffocating than when he fell into a freezing pond in the middle of winter.

It was like a blade had pierced through his chest.

If his father wanted to get rid of him simply for having been born…

Then, why did he exist?

‘There’s no one.’

The fact that there was no one on his side in the world was terribly clear to him.

Since then, he had always led a life of vigilance because of all the thorns around him.

He couldn’t trust anyone in the estate, and he couldn’t even eat his food freely.

The whole world was strangling him. All those people’s eyes were like knives judging his existence.

It was a life that would be more aptly described as struggling instead of living.

He felt so alone every single day, as though he was standing in the middle of a vast open sea.

It was painful. It was lonely.

Like he was already in hell.

Nevertheless, desperately… he wanted to live.

The more people cornered him, the greater his longing for life became.

Somehow, he wanted to survive until the bitter end.

But now…

‘So this really is the end…’

A trembling finger scratched on the ground. Blood seeped out from his fingertips and to the rough mountain floor.

However, the shallow pain was incomparable to what he felt with the rest of his body.

Cassion dug his fingers and elbows on the ground and pushed himself up.

“Ugh… ha.”

Previously facing upwards as he looked up at the sky like he was floating in the sea, he rolled over and turned on his stomach.

Still, he desperately wanted to live. He stretched out a quivering arm.

As he reached out, and his hands scratched the ground, dragging his body across little by little.

The small movements made it feel like all his bones were being twisted.

The act of scratching the ground alone didn’t last long.

He couldn’t move for a while, and he didn’t even have the strength to scratch the floor any longer.

As his strength depleted, he could feel his life slipping away. And as his life slipped away, his desire to live burned more intensely.

It was a pity, it was miserable, he didn’t want to die like this.

It was him who would cry the most if he died.

There was no one to save him.

His throat closed up.

Suddenly, he missed his biological mother terribly.

Mother.

He didn’t have any memories of her because she died as soon as he was born, but at this moment, he wanted to see her face, which he saw only through a portrait.

His mother who gave up her life only to give birth to him… maybe… perhaps she would cry for him.

Cassion, who buried his face on the dirt floor, laughed bitterly.

Hot tears brimmed the corners of his eyes, and his voice rose weakly in the air.

‘If I die… I wonder if I’ll meet my mother. I also…’

Would he be able to meet someone who wanted him to live?

His eyes drooped heavily, and a shadowing darkness fell over his cloudy gaze.

However, before his eyes closed completely, he heard something moving.

The sound of gravel rustling, the sound of grass being stepped over, the sound of the air being swept.

It was someone’s feet.

Someone was approaching.

‘No way…’

Step, step.

His heart pounded at the sound of footsteps. The eyelids that had been so terribly heavy just a moment ago opened once more with great difficulty.

‘…Is it really a person…’

It was laughable.

Didn’t he just give up on life one moment ago? He wanted to live but failed to, so he thought that way.

Wasn’t he just thinking if he could see his late mother? That he’d see her soon?

But as soon as a string of hope was dangled in front of him, he couldn’t believe that his heart started pounding loudly again.

He couldn’t believe that he still wanted to live in this hell.

His life had only a few embers left as they died out, but his will to live continued to burn strongly.

The sound of footsteps continued to approach him.

Cassion concentrated all of his strength to raise his head in the direction of the sound.

Through his hazy sight, at first glance, he saw a silhouette.

While his weak eyelids opened and closed, the silhouette was still approaching him.

His red eyes opened to see who it was.

Or perhaps this was all a delusion.

But at that moment, a shallow breeze blew across them and swept away the dust. He closed his eyes unconsciously.

In an instant, his view became dark, and he shuddered with fear.

‘What if it really is just a hallucination?’

What if he opened his eyes and there was nothing there, just him and the dust?

The corners of his eyes trembled.

Afraid, his eyelids became even more heavy, but gradually, he opened them again.

…And it seemed like… he made eye contact.

No, their eyes definitely met.

Still with a certain distance between them, the woman walked leisurely towards him.

Golden irises shone as clearly as the moon in the dark.

Like the moon that could be found anywhere no matter how dark it became.

After their gazes met, Cassion reached out.

“Save me… please…”

A dry voice scratched out of his throat.

His outstretched hand trembled in the air for a moment, then fell helplessly to the ground.

The woman’s gaze, as she stepped closer, turned to his fingertips.

One step.

After approaching him at a leisurely pace, she slowly crouched down. As she did, the distance between their faces narrowed.

His quivering eyes were still on her. Her face was covered in dirt.

“Haa…”

A quiet sigh leaked out of her lips which had blood trickling down one side.

A disinterested face, fair like porcelain.

Long eyelashes, red lips.

Eyes that were as bright as the moon, hair so silver that it didn’t get colored by the sunset.

And…

“Do you want to live?”

Her voice.

Ba-dump. His heart stopped for a moment, then restarted.

The voice that came out of her lips was so sweet.

It was a voice that didn’t match the terrible surroundings.

No, it’s not just her voice.

Even her golden eyes didn’t match the situation.

Despite asking a fatally injured man if he wanted to live, there was no surprise, no worry, no fear.

Cassion looked blankly at Rosetta for a moment.

He heard that among monsters, there was one that seduced and ate humans.

Its face beautiful and its voice sweet, it captivated people until it could take out the heart.

Suddenly, Cassion was confused. Was she a human being or a monster?

Just through her gaze, it felt like he was being devoured.

His heart stopped beating when she asked him if he wanted to live.

After coming to his senses late, he opened his lips, but he couldn’t feel anything from his dry throat.

Eventually, Cassion answered by blinking his eyes.

Blink.

The woman’s face disappeared when he closed his eyes, then emerged once more as he gradually opened his gaze.

He could feel her soft knuckles brushing against his blood-stained chin, then she carefully lifted his head and laid him on her lap.

Cassion surrendered his body to her as soon as she touched him.

Her dress that was close to his face was so soft, so unlike the rough dirt floor.

“If you want to live, you have to promise me one thing.”

The light touch of her fingertips caressed Cassion’s face, blood trailing along the path.

“If I save you, return the favor by granting a wish of mine. What do you think?”

Despite the softness around him, it felt like his body was on edge.

Cassion, with his head on Rosetta’s lap, gasped and turned his eyes.

All he could see was a curtain of her hair cascading down and the bright red sky.

Beyond his vision, her fingers appeared as she closed his tired eyes, pressing down gently.

‘The one holding me right now… is it a human or a monster…’

The question flashed in his mind, but quickly disappeared.

Whether it was a human or a monster.

It didn’t matter.

His bloody lips struggled to open. A groan poured out with a labored breath.

Behind the groan, a short murmur spilled out, almost inaudible.

“I’ll do it… Promise. So… please save me…”

That’s right. Whatever she was, it was fine.

He wouldn’t die in vain.

He would survive.

All he had to do was give her his heart.