CH 4

Without looking at him, she could tell the kind of expression he was making. Hadelion was speechless.

All he could do was to press his dry lips together and look into her eyes.

‘Does she know something about me?’

His mouth was dry. The question weighed too heavily without a context. So he wondered if she knew something.

‘Should I kneel, plead for sympathy, and ask for understanding? It would be nice if I could use my mana properly at times like this.’

If he hadn’t been suffering from magic deprivation, he would have been able to shed some light on her inner feelings and read her mind. Had that been the case, he might have known to what end she had asked such a question.

‘But since I can’t use my mana and I look like a child, my only choice in this situation is to try and read her expressions.’

Their eyes met through the carriage window’s reflection.

“Why don’t you answer?”

“…”

“No, you can’t answer?”

A cool breeze blew through his uncontrollably beating heart.

‘I can never tell.’

Hadelion will never forget the day he committed his first and only murder.

He still vividly remembered the last words he said, the emotions he felt, and every small moment.

Even the intensity of the unusual sunlight.

“…Monster! I gave birth to a monster!“

Hadelion’s mother hated him.

“It is said your son will become an excellent archmage, so why?” That was what some people asked, but the question never comforted mother and son.

A being worse than a bug crawling on a trash can on the street. A lowly being, a slave from a defeated nation.  That was their status.

His mother knew the world too well. 

A ‘strong power’ was like poison to those with low status. Because the ones with power were always vigilant, thinking that someone might snatch what they considered their property.  Without protection, the ones at the bottom tended to fall into the sphere of the powerful who warily set their sights on them.

Therefore, his mother was afraid. She was afraid that her son’s power, which increased day by day, would push her into hell.

“Go away! Get the hell out of my sight!”

“Mom…”

“Who is your mother? I am not your mother! I didn’t want to give birth to a thing like you! I just wanted an ordinary kid. Why did something like you come out?! Why?!”

Even if she didn’t say it using such awful swords, Hadelion knew it too well. He would have preferred never knowing that reality for the rest of his life, but he couldn’t help it. The reality was his mother was cruel.

From a very young age, her constant scream and cry was all he heard. 

“How nice it would have been if you had been born normal? I wouldn’t be this unhappy.”

“…Is it because of me?”

“That’s right. It’s all because of you! The fact that my country was ruined, his death, and even that we were taken as war prisoners… it’s all because of you…”

She didn’t let him live innocently. She grabbed him by the collar and said,

“I should have just given up on you when the midwife said there was a risk of miscarriage!“

“Mother!“

“I lost him because of you! Because you–!!”

“…”

“You don’t know how much I wish you hadn’t been born rather than being a monster who took so many lives!”

Hadelion cried every night. The nights forged by his mother were filled with tears of blood that slowly accumulated at his feet.

He endured the occasional pain in his chest. It was all because of guilt.

“Maybe mother is right. Every unhappiness may really be because of me.”

He couldn’t even remember his father’s face, but still, everything seemed to be his fault.

Brainwashed with endless resentment, the child eventually gave up.

Slowly, his heart became as black as his shiny hair was golden.*

And finally, that day.

Hadelion started the day earlier than usual.

That oddly peculiar, sunny day was his mother’s birthday.

Although now imprisoned in the Oborduz Empire’s dungeons, his mother was once the Royal Mother of a country.

He wanted to give a small gift to the woman who lost everything because of him, born a monster.

So he lay down on the cold stone floor of the prison cell without a single light. He tried to find even the smallest flower, even if it was a simple wildflower. Hadelion searched the entire cell, fumbling with his little hands the size of a Paulownia leaf.**

“I want to make Mom smile.”

But even though he crawled until his knees were worn out, only weeds were found around the prison cell. In the beginning, there was no way flowers could bloom through the cracks in the stones, but he did not give up crawling and searching.

That’s how Hadelion greeted the dawn.

“Happy birthday, Mother.”

In the end, he devised a poor grass ring woven from weeds.

His mother’s emotion-dried eyes glanced at his dirt-encrusted hands. 

“I wanted to give you a flower ring, but this is the only thing I found.”

“…”

“When I leave this place later, I’ll give you a more beautiful and cooler gift than th–”

Even before he could finish the words he had prepared enthusiastically, pain spread across his face.

His mother’s hand was hot. No, perhaps it seemed that way because the dazzling sunlight sifting through the iron bars was terribly hot.

The light, which was unusually brighter than ever, shone bitterly on the grass ring that fell on the floor. Thanks to this, the stalks of woven grass seemed even more unattractive.

‘Ah, I shouldn’t have done it.’

Hadelion realized it too late.

“…Present? You want to give me a present?”

“Mother.”

“Then die! Just die already!! Disappear from my sight! That would be the greatest gift ever!!!”

All he wished for was his mother’s love.

At the end of her rant, Hadelion felt as if the floor that barely supported him was collapsing.

A distant abyss reached out to him. Slowly, he was swallowed by it as if from the beginning he was one with the darkness.

“Okay, I’ll die. If Mother wants it that much I…”

It would be his first and last murder. Giving up his own life as his mother desired.

Although, funny enough, when Hadelion opened his eyes again, he was in hell.

Yet, he wasn’t dead.  No, to be precise, he returned from the River Styx.***

“I thought I could die if I used all the mana in my body.”

But he was wrong. Ironically, the reason was because of his ‘innate magic.’

“It made my life unhappy as it pleased and won’t let me die at will either.”

The child chose ‘the end’ with the power given to him, but his ‘loving’ mana did not allow that choice. In the end, the child walked the path of immortality. 

The child’s mother sold him to the Oborduz’s Emperor for a high price after her child’s breathing stopped for a short moment.

Immortal life on a leash.

Some were envious of him, others said he was blessed.

Ironically, it was a life he had never wanted.

*     *    *

“-on… Hadelion?”

Her soft voice rescued Hadelion from his deep, despairing thoughts. He put aside the flashbacks and focused on the present again.

“I called you, but you weren’t answering.”

“Why do you ask such a question?”

“What?”

“‘Have you ever killed a person?’ That kind of question.”

Their eyes met briefly, but soon after she avoided his gaze. Hadelion persistently pursued her response, despite her attempt at avoidance.

“I’m curious why you ask such a question.”

“…”

“Looking at you, you seem to have a pretty high status, but you don’t want fame, power, or wealth, so I don’t understand why you’re taking me.”

Her gaze was fixed on the square window sill. The mysterious purple eyes trapped in the world outside the square-like window looked like a well with a dry, cracked bottom. Hadelion thought he had found a wild, frog-like girl trapped inside a well.

He, too, had spent his childhood swallowing his tears and recognized himself in her. 

Without realizing it, he reached out.

‘Don’t cry.’

The shrill words stuck in his throat, although he had almost voiced them. Obviously, her eyes were parched, but Hadelion felt she was weeping sorrowfully. 

“It occurred to me.”

“…What?”

“I just asked because it suddenly popped into my mind.”

An unknown woman stared at him with an expressionless face, and his heart ached for reasons also unknown.

“The reason I brought you, as I said, is because I need you.”

“I– …you need me?”

“Yeah. I long for you, Hadel.”

He knew those words were just sweet-honeyed babbling to make herself look good. Nevertheless, Hadelion felt strange inside. 

‘Just why the hell?’

After all, there were a lot of people who needed him.  That was the case with the Emperor of Oborduz, who made his life miserable. He envied Hadelion’s mana, coveted his great power, and tried to get his hands on it.

‘Although, no one who coveted my power ever said that.’

They needed ‘Hadelion’s power,’ not ‘Hadelion’s person.’

‘She doesn’t want my magic, what the hell?’

Turning the question over and over again in his head, he couldn’t find an answer.

It was a situation he had never experienced before. The woman in front of him was utterly strange. She didn’t tell him her name, family, or even the reason why she approached him.

And perhaps strangest of all was himself, blindly following such a woman.

“Are you done with the questions?”

“Wh- where is this carriage going?”

“Get out.”

“What?”

“We have arrived at the destination you’re curious about, so get out.”

As she finished speaking, the carriage door, which seemed to have been closed never to open again, opened wide.

Suddenly, he remembered when he ran away from prison a few days ago.

‘Is it because the wide-open garden caught my eyes?’

He felt as if his obstructed breath were released. Even though the air was damp, it didn’t feel heavy at all. 

“Do I have to escort you?”

She had left the carriage first and now reached out to him. 

The long outstretched hand caught his eye.

It was too soft and frail to protect anyone.

‘…It’s the first time.’

Has anyone ever approached him for no purpose, such as wealth or power?

‘Has anyone ever been curious about my name?’

“Hadelion.” He liked the sound of the name she gave him.

Hadelion suddenly thought;

‘If I hold that hand I won’t want to let it go no matter what happens. Even if she drags me into Hell, I want to walk with her pretending not to know.’

Finally, he reached out and took the pale hand.