Even as I took the water Kallen offered and drank, it took time for my sense of reality to return. It felt like fog had settled inside my head.
"Are you all right, Ceryl? I wasn’t going to wake you, but... it looked like you were having a nightmare."
Kallen, wilted, let her shoulders droop as she piled on excuses.
I lifted a tired hand and lightly patted her head. Only after I drained the entire cup could I finally say, "You did well."
Forcing strength into my trembling body, I stepped out of bed—and then I noticed Margon sitting on the nearby sofa, watching me.
His eyes were full of worry. I couldn’t tell if it was for me, or for his lord’s body.
Before I even had time to collect myself, the moment I saw Margon, a question burst out.
"Ceryl—Ceryl Aylos... was he in danger?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Was Ceryl’s life being threatened by someone, or—"
"If that were the case, there’s no way I wouldn’t know."
At his lord’s name, Margon sprang to his feet. In a few steps he was in front of me, dropping to one knee with practiced ease.
And this time, he looked up at me with eyes thick with fear.
"Why are you asking that all of a sudden...? Are you in danger right now, Ceryl?"
I blinked with a stupid expression. I didn’t understand the short question at once.
The most confusing word in it was right now.
When was the Ceryl I’d seen? Where was Ceryl now?
"Ugh...."
I pressed a hand to my throbbing head. Both of them reacted instantly to my movement.
Margon rose in a fluster to check my condition, and Kallen hurried out of the room saying she’d call a healer.
In the bedroom left with only me and Margon, all I could hear was my ragged breathing. I swept back my sweat-soaked hair and calmly retraced the scenes I’d seen in the dream.
"Haah... I saw Ceryl. The facility... it was the room he used at the Facility. And Ceryl was... writing a letter."
Margon pressed his lips into a hard line. Instead of answering, he waited quietly for me to continue.
"I don’t know who he was writing to, or what kind of letter. I couldn’t see that far. But... Ceryl was crying. He looked like he was in so much pain—so much...."
Afraid I might lose the afterimage of the dream, panic rose in me. As I rambled on, Margon lifted a large hand and wrapped it around my shoulder.
The heavy, hot weight made the dizziness that had been spinning me taut ease, at least a little. I pressed my forehead again and forced out what remained.
"He begged me to help... begged me to save him. Haah... Ceryl was definitely looking at me."
I lifted my exhausted head.
Margon’s face was complicated. Eyes drooping with a mix of grief and loss made him look pitiful.
He wiped his face once, then planted his left arm on his waist.
"As far as I know, the only person Ceryl ever exchanged letters with was Lord Pyren."
"Who is Pyren?"
Margon’s sturdy lips clamped shut again, like a shell. Then his broad chest rose and fell as he repeated deep breaths, over and over.
That strange reaction narrowed my eyes. It was hard to tell why he was hesitating.
Was he weighing whether to tell me the truth—or fearing it?
After a long time, as if he’d steeled himself, Margon finally spoke.
"...Pyren Aylos. Ceryl’s uncle."
Pyren.
As expected, it was a name that never appeared in the original story.
And yet, for some reason, those three syllables felt familiar. Beyond familiar—so familiar it even felt frightening, the way it did for Margon.
Maybe because I was living in someone else’s body, it felt like I was sharing someone else’s memories and sensations now, too.
I clenched my faintly trembling hand into a fist. The longer we talked, the more reason returned, and little by little I steadied.
"At the Facility, Ceryl was in a situation where he needed help. I don’t know why, but he was in terrible pain, and he even begged me to save him."
"...I didn’t know."
My reason had returned, but what I was sensing couldn’t be explained rationally.
The Ceryl I’d seen wasn’t a dream. He was real.
And he was asking me—no one else—for help.
And a fierce premonition told me that was why I’d ended up in this world in the first place.
"Margon. The reason Ceryl infiltrated the Monster Containment Facility— you know it, don’t you?"
Ceryl had a reason to infiltrate the Facility. Margon and Leobin had entered alongside him, playing the role of foolish laborers to protect him.
I tried to untangle the mess by tracing it back from the end, but contrary to my expectation, Margon shook his head.
"I know almost nothing about Ceryl and the House of Aylos. The rule is that a bodyguard is not given important information."
"What? You said you attended him at his side since childhood."
"If I were captured alive, magic could strip information from me regardless of my will. It was a measure to protect Ceryl."
To prevent leaks, you give no information at all. It made perfect sense.
Still, I couldn’t help the hollow feeling. Like I’d finally grabbed a thread—only for it to snap the moment I tugged.
As I raked my fingers through my hair in irritation, Margon spoke in a voice even more subdued.
"Leobin... knew more than I did."
I’d thought the two of them were a pair, so it was strange that Leobin held that much information.
At my look urging him on, Margon gave a bitter smile and dropped heavily into the seat beside me.
"Because Leobin swore the ‘knight’s oath’ to Ceryl. Someone who has sworn that oath cannot do anything that harms their lord."
The knight’s oath?
What a joke.
A cruel, vicious curse that couldn’t even let you die even after death—and it had a name that sounded almost respectable.
And as if that filthy curse wasn’t enough, it even served as a lock to keep your mouth shut.
My brow creased instantly. I swallowed the emotion that surged up, forcing it down.
Still—if Margon could speak like this, then he clearly wasn’t bound by that curse.
"Haah... I’m glad you’re at least fine. But how did it end up being only Leobin who took that curse—no, that oath or whatever?"
Margon’s thick shoulders sank even further. I didn’t like the sight of that huge frame looking so dejected.
"Because of me. If it weren’t for me... Leobin wouldn’t have volunteered for that experiment."
"Experiment?"
The word grated on my ear and my eyes widened.
Margon kept dragging his thick palm down his face, but it didn’t improve his gloomy expression.
"Originally, only one guard was meant to follow Ceryl to the Facility. Naturally, it was decided that I would go, because my swordsmanship scores were the highest."
"Wait. So you’re saying Leobin volunteered for that filthy magic just to... follow me—no, follow Ceryl into the Facility?"
I raised a hand and cut him off.
I had no proper target to pour these feelings onto, but shock and anger churned up together.
When I raised my voice, Margon continued in his usual low, bleak tone.
"We promised we would protect Ceryl for our whole lives. But Ceryl said there was a chance he might not return from the Facility."
"...So it was dangerous even for Ceryl."
"Yes. Going to the Monster Containment Facility was something even Ceryl had to stake his life on. That’s why Leobin—he followed without caring about anything else."
Margon clenched the palm of his remaining hand tight. Even his fist looked ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) huge and hard.
"Both Ceryl and I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. He said it wouldn’t change anything, because his life already belonged to Ceryl."
I barely managed to hold down the emotion that kept surging up again and again. Then I buried my burning face in my palm.
Margon said he didn’t know anything, but even the fragments he’d just told me contained quite a lot.
If I gathered them and carried the thought through, I might be able to seize the thread I’d thought had snapped.
But right now, I couldn’t think at all.
"Why the hell would that bastard...."
Volunteering for that kind of curse just to protect Ceryl.
What did Ceryl Aylos mean to those two, that he was worth more than their lives?
The guilt hit me again, raw and fresh—because I was occupying the body of someone who had been more precious than life itself to Leobin and Margon. And an even deeper grief followed, because there was nothing left I could do for Leobin anymore.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop my voice from trembling. At the sound of it, Margon spoke as if to comfort me.
"Ceryl saved us when we were children. If I were in Leobin’s position, I would have made the same choice."
Maybe he meant it as comfort, but it only weighed heavier on me.
I jerked my head up and pleaded at Margon.
"Don’t say that, Margon. Please value your own life more than me. I... I’ll protect Ceryl’s body with my life."
"I can’t do that. You’re weak, and you keep getting dragged into dangerous things."
From the start, I’d never been someone who could win an argument like this. I had been walking into danger again and again in Ceryl’s body.
I couldn’t open my mouth, stuck—when the bedroom door that had been closed was suddenly thrown wide.
