Ordin’s unexpected words made me jerk my head up to look at him.
And then, belatedly, I clapped a hand over my mouth at a fact I still couldn’t get used to. It was pointless—Ordin could read the thoughts in my head anyway.
‘Humans... you think such cruelty I couldn’t even imagine.’
“.......”
‘An innocent child will be sacrificed. Is there truly no way to save Kaldrok’s child....’
At the heartfelt lament, my expression hardened.
Ordin couldn’t even guess what humans had planned, but I could connect the dots as naturally as water flowing downhill. It wasn’t because I was smarter than Ordin, or more clever.
Still holding his hand, I lowered my head.
“Ordin, I’m sorry. I really... I’m sorry.”
Just as Ordin said, I was human too. No matter how hard I struggled, there was one fact I couldn’t change, and it was unbearable.
That I had stepped forward claiming I’d stand with dragons—and then failed to stop Ordin from dying.
Not a single part of what was happening now felt unrelated to me. It all felt like my fault. With guilt pressing heavier and heavier, I couldn’t lift my head.
‘You have nothing to be sorry to me for. Humans are creatures whose outsides and insides do not match.’
I looked at him—sleeping like the dead—with questioning eyes.
‘But you were a human whose outside and inside matched, even if you had secrets.’
It sounded like praise, and all I could do was give an awkward smile.
What I learned from dealing with Varen was that lies didn’t work on dragons. That was why I never intended to deceive Ordin from the start—but I wasn’t such an honest human being.
When I couldn’t find any reply, Ordin spoke first.
‘Ceryl, your soul is transparent, but complicated. I can’t grasp what you are at all.’
“...That’s....”
‘At first, I thought you were deceiving me. But when I breathed my power into you, I realized.’
At the end of that cryptic line, Ordin added something that made me doubt my ears.
‘There are two souls in one body. That’s why ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) I couldn’t read your true nature.’
My heart dropped cold, and gooseflesh ran up my neck in a rush.
Everything I’d experienced since coming to this world flashed past like a spinning reel.
Nightmares so vivid they felt like reality. Nameless emotions that felt as if they belonged to me.
And the real Ceryl Aylos’s soul—gone somewhere I couldn’t find.
What had been a vague haze seemed to take shape, as if I could close my hand around it.
Ceryl Aylos’s soul was still inside this body.
“Ah... here....”
With trembling fingers, I lifted my hand and pressed it to my left chest.
Thump, thump, thump. A clear, fast heartbeat. Maybe it was my imagination, but it almost felt like two heartbeats layered over each other.
Before I knew it, tears were spilling from my eyes in fat drops.
‘Ceryl, you must not forget who you are.’
Even with Ordin’s advice, my mind went blank. I realized it too late.
As I desperately acted out Ceryl Aylos’s life, my own identity had already begun to fade.
“I’m....”
I released Ordin’s hand and, instead, grabbed my hair as if I were tearing at it.
Who was I, really? I clenched both hands tight, trying not to lose the afterimage of memories that were blurring more and more.
I... my name was....
‘Before it’s too late, there’s something I want to ask you. Will you answer me honestly now?’
I forced out the breath stuck in my throat and lifted my head.
Even as his heart rotted away, Ordin was holding on by sheer will because he had something he wanted to ask me.
I hurriedly wiped at my tears and nodded. With shock flooding over me, I barely held on to my flickering consciousness.
“Yes, yes... Ask.”
‘...Is this world truly a story inside a novel?’
I let out a hot breath and closed my eyes. The drops pooled there fell.
As Ordin awakened Ceryl’s power, the soul of Ceryl Aylos still remaining inside me began to assert its presence.
His memories. His emotions. I could feel them slowly swallowing this body.
Because of that, something I almost forgot surfaced—an identity far more important than a name.
“Yes. This is... the world inside a novel I read, and I....”
A being that did not belong to this world. A reader from outside the book.
And every time I remembered that fact, regret followed and swallowed me again.
I should have read the novel to the end. I should have known every secret and every truth in this world.
Then I could have saved Ordin. I wouldn’t have lost Leobin.
“I... h, ngh....”
A wave of truth too heavy to bear crashed over me. In front of it, a mere human could only writhe in pain, helpless.
Ordin said nothing. He was only quiet, as if he were watching my confusion.
At his still reaction, I lifted my tear-blurred gaze.
“...Is that the only thing you were curious about?”
Ordin had been reading my thoughts from the beginning. He already knew the answer.
So he wanted confirmation from my own mouth that this world was a story in a novel?
He postponed death for a truth that would have been better left unknown?
‘My son....’
Reading my confusion, Ordin finally bared his real feelings.
‘Varen... truly, will he become the one who kills all the monsters in this world....’
“.......”
‘...Will he become the villain of this novel?’
The question I hadn’t expected hit me like a blow to the head.
What was a parent’s heart, really? I didn’t know. I’d never felt it, never received it.
Ordin was suffering more over Varen’s future in the original story than over the shock that the world he had lived in his entire life was fictional.
And the moment I understood his sincerity, my chest felt heavier.
“No, Ordin. Varen is....”
If Ordin already knew the truth and still asked, it could only mean one thing: he wanted to hear hope, not truth.
“Your son will save the monsters of this world. Varen isn’t a villain. He’s a hero.”
A faint track of moisture formed at the corner of Ordin’s eyes.
He wore no expression, but a voice lighter than before echoed in my head.
‘Promise me, Ceryl.’
“Yes. I promise. I’ll promise you, Ordin.”
Only now did I understand Ordin’s advice not to forget who I was.
Something the original Ceryl Aylos could never do.
A promise only I—an outsider reader—could make.
“Varen will... become the protagonist of this novel.”
***
After finishing his conversation with me, Ordin exchanged final farewells with his family.
He told Varen what it meant to live as Dravergh, and to Neira he pledged a meeting in the next life.
When the dragon king had done everything he needed to do, he closed his eyes in peace—and the future Varen had seen happened exactly as it had been seen.
A few days later, the joint funeral began for Ordin and the dragons who had been sacrificed in the war.
The dragons’ bodies were carried to the highest peak in Belzena. There, the unquenchable Primeval Flame burned.
In a solemn atmosphere, the dead dragons were laid into the flame one by one. It was a silent funeral where no one cried.
Finally, Ordin was laid into the scorching flame. His brilliant golden body slowly disappeared into fire that shone brighter than he did.
‘The flesh returns to flame, and flame rises into the sky.’
Neira’s lonely voice rang through Belzena Gorge.
At that, all the dragons lifted their long necks and looked up at the sky.
‘Your breath will become flame and light the sky’s beginning once more. We will remember you and raise the wings of eternity high.’
The dragons, who had kept silence all along, began to cry toward the sky all at once.
It was a cry that held less sorrow for the kin they had lost than a blessing for those returning to the Primeval Flame.
***
The flame that burned the dragons blazed high for an entire week.
From the highest point, the rising fire was visible at a glance even from the distant caverns. Day and night, it lit Belzena Gorge bright.
And Varen never once took his eyes off it. He neither slept nor ate—he only watched Ordin burning.
Even the unusually bright full moon of this world couldn’t overcome that light. Beneath the huge, radiant moon, Varen looked especially lonely.
I approached him quietly. Varen, who had been in the form of a golden dragon, noticed me and Humanized for my sake.
Thanks to his consideration, I could lace my fingers with his.
“...Varen.”
Even with our hands clasped, I didn’t know what to say.
After long deliberation, I finally managed to speak his name, but Varen didn’t look at me.
Instead, he tightened his grip around our intertwined fingers.
“Ceryl, I have something I’m curious about.”
“Yeah. Ask.”
“What did you talk about with Father?”
Remembering my last conversation with Ordin, I gave a faint smile.
I felt like it was time to tell Varen the whole truth—yet part of me wanted to postpone it.
Because I thought it was still too cruel for Varen, who had lost his father just a week ago.
I gently rubbed his hand with my thumb as I chose my words.
“Mm... I made a promise with Ordin.”
