CH 41

Ophelia stopped talking and kept her mouth shut.

There would be no concept of electric charges or lightning rods in a world without electricity.

“Uh… hmm. Ahem, ahem.”

Ophelia cleared her throat awkwardly before opening her mouth again.

“This is also what one of the grandfathers next door said in his sleep, so let’s move on. If we go to the highest place, I don’t think the assassins will be able to follow us up there. As before that, they’ll all drown.”

Richard didn’t ask more, and when Ophelia closed her mouth again, only the sound of rain could be heard.

How long did they wait for the assassins?

Almost out of patience, Ophelia shook her legs and turned her head to Richard, who, noticing in advance that she had something to say, replied,

“There is no sign of an assassin yet.”

At his answer, Ophelia did not hide her nervousness and stretched out her neck.

‘It can’t go on like this.’

‘Unless special measures are taken!’

With determination in her eyes, Ophelia licked her lower lip.

“Richard. I’m going to do something crazy, but I’m not betraying you.”

“What?”

Before he could figure anything out, Ophelia took a deep breath and exclaimed loudly.

“Here! Here is the prince!”

—Here, here, here…

Although she cried loudly, her voice echoed faintly through the sound of the rain.

After a few more shouts, Ophelia breathed in and looked up at Richard.

Richard, about to ask what she was doing, caught sight of the childlike expectation and hopes in her eyes, shut up for now.

When he didn’t question her, Ophelia urged.

“How is it? Is anyone coming?”

“…No. What have you done?”

“Ah, it’s not that I’m betraying a comrade on the same path. I just thought that if I spread the location of the assassination target to the surroundings, the assassins can come straight without wandering, and we can die a little faster.”

With embarrassment coloring her face as she spoke, Ophelia glanced around and looked at Richard.

“I’ll say it again, I’ll never betray…”

“It’s not betrayal.”

“Yes. Please be aware of that.”

Seeing Ophelia smiling pretentiously like a servant, Richard laughed out loud.

Ophelia’s eyes widened as his laughter pierced through the sound of rain and thunder hitting the walls and fiercely shaking windows blown by the wind.

“Did you just laugh…?”

Unconsciously, she raised her index finger and pointed it straight at Richard.

She was so shocked that she almost forgot what the situation was.

Even so, the crown prince of the empire, Richard, laughed.

No, he was never angry nor embarrassed.

Everyone who knew him would say the same.

—His face is always expressionless, and the only expression you get a glimpse of on rare occasions is boredom.

But Ophelia was an exception.

She had always been, since she kidnapped Richard.

She saw his smile and the way he held back his laugh, which no one else had ever seen.

She even reached out her hand towards his broken, dry, crumbly interior that no one else could tell.

So it should not be strange that it was Ophelia who saw him laugh out loud.

When someone laughed, even if others didn’t know what was going on, the laughter would be contagious and they would laugh together.

Ophelia, however, was so surprised by Richard’s laughter that she kept her eyes rounded like a rabbit’s and her ears perked up.

Soon, his laughter died down and he looked at her with his eyes curved.

“What did you do?”

She saw his unexpected smile in a situation that didn’t suit it at all, but she emphasized it again.

“I’m afraid we’re hiding so well that they can’t find us. It’s absolutely not a betrayal.”

“Yes, there is no way that you will betray me. You won’t be able to.”

Although there was a sense of discomfort behind the words, Ophelia nodded hard because she would never betray him anyway.

“Sure.”

Because of that, Ophelia did not notice it.

The second when Richard’s honey-colored eyes darkened to the point where they looked black, almost like the pitch-black night.

And at that moment, the seed that had sprouted a little inside him grew slightly bigger.

It was too small a change for him to notice, as it was still only a bud.

Eventually, Ophelia came to a conclusion.

“I guess unlike the last time, you can’t just think about it. Last time, you said that an assassin came when you tried.”

“Yes. In that case…”

—Sureung.

Richard drew his sword without hesitation, and Ophelia swiftly grabbed his wrist.

“It’s dangerous.”

“Wait.”

She tugged his arm and continued talking nonchalantly.

“I must die first.”

“What?”

“Until now, I’ve always died first. If I die after Richard dies first, and I can’t regress…”

Ophelia shut her mouth shut.

If she didn’t regress, it meant her death.

But more than that…

The back of her hand holding his wrist tensed and the bone bulged.

If she didn’t regress, he…

Richard would be left alone.

Again.

In an infinite regression that was no different from an abyss that even he did not know the end of.

All alone.

Ophelia wasn’t alone when this bloody cycle started for her.

On her first infinite regression, she found him, and was able to see the same place with him.

But Richard was alone from the start.

If Ophelia hadn’t burst into his life, forever… 

A bright blue flame glowed in her cerulean eyes.

‘I can’t let it go like that.’

In order to live with him, she committed the grave crime of kidnapping the crown prince, even grabbing him by the collar.

“I will die first.”

While reaching her hand toward the hilt of Richard’s sword, Ophelia asked,

“Do you have another sword?”

“What?”

“I’ll go back there. You have one more sword, so don’t go later to collect it.”

Ophelia paused a second, then she added with a chuckle of her own.

“And don’t look at me either. I’m shy.”

Her tone was light, as if she was trying to hide an embarrassing hobby.

But what she was talking about now was death.

She would do it with her own hands.

Even though she was smiling, and her stiff face showed signs of nervousness, she did not withdraw her hand.

Rather, as if she was trying to pounce on him, she groped for the hilt of his sword that her fingertips touched and even pulled it lightly.

“Please lend me this.”

“Ophelia.”

“I thought about it a lot, so lend me…”

“Why are you…”

Having cut off his own words, Richard couldn’t follow through.

Why.

‘Why are you…’

‘…not asking me to kill you?’

He would be able to kill her with one single strike, with as little pain as possible.

Although she killed assassins, she had actually never held a sword.

There was no way she could accurately stab her heart with his sword.

In the end, all she would create would be a painful and lasting death.

Ophelia couldn’t have not known that.

But she didn’t ask him.

‘You’re not asking me to kill you.’

And somehow, Richard could tell why without even asking.

During the last regression, that was, during the earthquake, Ophelia died before his eyes countless times.

Sometimes she showed her back, and sometimes she faced him.

Maybe it was then.

She must have realized then how he was seeing her death.

Come to think of it, she only died facing him once.

In the countless deaths, Ophelia desperately tried to die out of his sight after that single encounter.

Of course, there were many times when things didn’t go as planned.

Despite knowing that Ophelia’s death would constantly scratch his insides and make it bleed, Richard tried to confirm it.

He couldn’t bear not seeing it.

He didn’t know why, but when he didn’t check on Ophelia, he felt like he was suffocated, and he scratched his throat while panting.

So he probably wouldn’t listen to her request not to see her death.

Rather than that…

‘Rather, at once, without her even noticing…’

Immediately after Richard had that thought, Ophelia met his eyes, which had sunk like the thick twilight.

She opened her mouth, but she said nothing and reflexively took a step back.

Because there was clear murderous intent in his eyes.

Death had been experienced countless times.

Under various methods, time and place, and the hands of people of all ages and gender.

Has she ever felt their murderous intent?

‘That’s ridiculous.’

As in the Murim texts, which she read in the family’s library, only a handful of people were said to be able to conceal their intention to kill until right before killing, or even while killing.

Thus, without a single exception, those who killed her spewed murder before doing so.

So she was used to it.

‘But Richard’s…’

Ophelia, whose shoulders trembled intermittently, tried desperately to open her frozen mouth.

“I… don’t kill… don’t… do it. Yes… yes… I don’t want… I don’t… ah.”

Ophelia didn’t even realize that she had spoken to Richard.

Even if she knew, she wouldn’t have cared.

Really.