CH 61

Rosen reflexively picked up the pistol and turned around. The beast growled as they both looked in the direction the muzzle was pointing.

The darkness finally spat out its uninvited guest. Rosen checked the face exposed under the light of the gas lamp and let out a laugh. That f*cking handsome face.

Ian Kerner stood there, staring at her. 

Her fever still hadn’t completely subsided, so her whole body was hot, and her mind was blank.

She was truly out of luck. 

How was he standing there, awake, when everyone else drank?

Why did he keep threatening her? 

And he was locked up in the engine room, so how did he get here?

She gritted her teeth and screamed.

“Raise your hands!”

“…”

“Hands up, Ian Kerner. Can’t you see I’m holding a gun?”

Fortunately, she was the first to pick up a gun. He wasn’t pointing a gun at her.

The beast stepped forward and threatened him, revealing its teeth.

Without a word, Ian obediently raised his hands as she instructed. But he showed no signs of fear. Neither the pistol she was holding nor the oddly-shaped monster seemed to frighten him.

He walked toward her without hesitation. To the distance where the light reached, and her face was visible to him. She didn’t know if he was not afraid because he was a soldier, or if her threats were clumsy. She screamed again.

“Raise your hands properly! Don’t come any closer!”

He still had his hands up, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention to what Rosen was saying. He glanced at her pistol and opened his mouth.

“Is it Henry’s?”

“Why does that matter?!”

“…It’s not loaded.”

Rosen’s eyes went wide. The strength in her grip was about to fail. She braced herself, gripping the pistol tightly again, and put her finger on the trigger. Just as she was about to argue about how he knew if it was Henry’s gun or not, Ian’s hand lowered and released the pistol from his belt.

It was obvious who would win if Ian and Rosen had a gunfight. A pilot who spent 10 years in the war against her, who had never held a gun before today. Driven to the edge of a cliff, Rosen pulled the trigger.

Bang- Bang-

A gunshot cut through the air.

“D*mn it!”

Rosen realized that Ian was right. The sound was gunpowder exploding. Nothing was fired from the gun. Ian stepped closer to Rosen. 

She hesitated and stepped back. But there was no place to escape.

All she could feel behind her was the cold wall.

Reflexively, Rosen covered her head with her arms and closed her eyes. She forgot for a second that she was able to use magic as she crouched down like an idiot until he took a few steps forward, only to belatedly reach out his hand.

But nothing happened. 

The world was silent. 

She opened her eyes slowly.

The engine stopped for a moment, the boat was still floating on the water, and Ian Kerner came right up to her and crouched down in front of her, staring at her…

“This has live bullets.”

He was handing her another pistol. To be precise, the pistol that hung at his waist.

“It’s my gun.”

“…”

“It’s loaded, so it’s simple. Pull the trigger, and it’ll fire.”

Ian calmly handed the pistol to Rosen as she stared blankly at him. He pulled her arm forward and put the gun in her grip. The cold metal of the pistol wrapped around her fingertips. Suddenly, she could decide the course of his life with one movement.

“…What are you doing?”

“You can shoot whenever you feel anxious.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I want to talk.”

Rosen’s lips trembled. The beast ran up to him belatedly, clung to his arm, and rammed its teeth into him, but Ian didn’t blink an eye, removed the beast, and spoke again.

“Does this make you feel safe?”

“I have nothing to talk about.”

“I do.”

Rosen didn’t want to know why he was here, what he wanted to talk to her about, or why he didn’t shoot her. 

Those things… 

It didn’t matter anymore. 

It just made her steps heavier.

He shook his head, pulled something out of his pocket, and held it out. 

It was a gold coin.

“What’s this?”

“This is the coin you gave to Layla.”

“…”

“…It was a bronze coin.”

Rosen listened to him and realized…

The last condition, ‘some magic’? Ian Kerner found out that Rosen was a witch. 

Rosen stared into his gray eyes. 

He was waiting for words to exit from her mouth, not even moving away from the muzzle of the gun.

“I heard people locked you in the engine room.”

“Who said that?”

“Henry,”

“I wasn’t locked up. I ended up agreeing to throw you into the sea.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“…”

“…My God, you lied to the people.”

Realizing the unbelievable fact, Rosen burst out laughing. She soon realized why her plan had been executed so easily. 

Why people drank in this situation, and why he was the only one left awake on this ship…

“You fed them wine.”

Ian didn’t answer.

No, it was closer to not being able to answer.

“Because I believe you are innocent.”

“…”

“Because I believed your story, and I believed that you weren’t a witch…”

Ian Kerner believed Rosen. He believed her story and fooled everyone on this ship. He mixed up her exaggerations and betrayed the Empire because of her alone.

But what could she do? After all, she really was a witch…

“You are wrong. I am a witch.”

“Yeah, seeing how it’s followed you, it seems that way.”

With his chin, he pointed at the marine beast, who was circling around them. His expression was uncharacteristically calm. Looking at that emotionless face, where Rosen couldn’t find any betrayal or anger, she was rather helpless.

“…What do you want from me? What are you going to do now?”

“If you want, I can try to get you on trial again.”

“…”

“I’ll go back and get them to let you face trial again.”

Rosen was dumbfounded. Maria’s words crossed her mind. Rosen thought it was ridiculous at the time… In fact, Ian was crazier than Maria expected. He trusted her even though he didn’t sleep with her, and he was talking nonsense about letting her go back on trial for nothing in return.

“How are you-”

“I am acquainted with the Emperor. I’m from the military academy. And the Emperor has the right to ask the court for a special trial.”

“Oh, that scarecrow Emperor?”

Rosen chuckled. She didn’t know much about politics, but she wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that. The Emperor no longer had any power.

“There’s no way that could be, but let’s say there’s another trial. Do you think that would make a difference?”

He didn’t deny what she said. In fact, even Ian knew it. Even if the trial was repeated a hundred times, the result would not change. No one in the Empire could save her. Even if there was such a person, it wasn’t him.

But anyway, he was saying he would do for her what no one else in the world would. He was a man who didn’t know how to joke, so it was safe to assume that he was serious about all of this.

“Ian Kerner, what’s wrong? Why the hell are you doing this to me?”

“…”

“What the hell do you want?”

Rosen challenged him by asking a question she already knew the answer to.

But in fact, she knew. She was just in denial because she was afraid to admit it. She knew everything and tried to ignore it.

She just didn’t know why. 

What did everything he had done for her mean? 

Preparing a cake for her, jumping into the sea to rescue her, secretly taking a prisoner out of her cage and calling her to his cabin, anxiously caring for her in case she died, and finally betraying all the people who believed in him because of her…

Whether it was because he was mad and broken, or because he watched her for so long that she had fooled him…

Ian Kerner believed her wholeheartedly.

No one else in the world did.

This was a fight she had no choice but to lose from the beginning, but victory was already in her hands. She was aiming at him with the pistol he handed her. He gave her his lifeline without hesitation.

So she decided not to deceive him until the end.

Rosen asked, looking into his gray eyes.

“Do you want the truth?”

“…”

“Can you believe anything I say?”

“…I don’t care.”

It didn’t matter.

Why the heck did it matter?

He already trusted her. 

She knew how dangerous faith was. 

The deeper the trust, the moment it is overturned, the deeper the wound and the greater the hatred.

“So tell me, Rosen.”

Didn’t she say it didn’t matter? Then she’d tell him the truth.

He was a man who had the right to know the cruel truth, not the beautiful lie.

“The people are right. I’m a d*mn liar and a witch…”

The people were right.

She was a liar.

She told so many lies that she had come to the point where she was confused about what was true and what was not. 

But there was still one truth that she reminded herself of often.

It was a sin that plunged her life into the abyss, and at the same time, her pride.

She was the real culprit in the murder of Hindley Haworth. 

It wasn’t a robbery, nor did she take the blame for what Emily had done.

She did it alone.

She killed Hindley Haworth deliberately, calmly, and maliciously at the age of seventeen. She brutally murdered him by stabbing him thirty-six times with a knife. Even so, she shamelessly maintained her innocence over the years and threw the Empire into chaos by escaping twice.

For the first time, she admitted what she hadn’t told anyone.

“I am a murderer. I killed Hindley Haworth.”

Because that was the only truth she could tell him at this moment.

“Ian, I tricked you.”