Margon pressed the sword Varen had given him to my throat.
That made it certain. Margon wasn’t under any magic that bound him to me.
Leobin had been under that magic, so he’d easily accepted it when I acted differently from the original Ceryl or traveled with a dragon.
Am I supposed to call that a relief.
“Answer, now! You fraud!”
It was something I was going to face someday. The timing was the only surprise.
I showed both open palms. Instead of moving rashly, I spoke in a calm voice.
“Margon, settle down. I was going to tell you anyway.”
“Tell me what.”
“I lost my memory a few months ago in an accident. I don’t remember the past, but the last few months—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Losing your memory doesn’t change a human’s nature.”
I’d thought he’d let it slide, but Margon only glared harder.
The blade Varen had gifted was honed keen. Even the lightest touch drew a cut on the skin of my nape.
“Back at the Facility, something was off. At some point I felt you weren’t the same Ceryl.”
“......”
“But I chalked it up to you overcoming a long depression. I was glad you’d brightened, like when you were little.”
Depression? So the original Ceryl Aylos had been sick at heart.
Before I could digest the new information, Margon took a step closer.
The brown-haired idiot who’d always felt solid now looked fairly threatening.
“You now are different from Ceryl in your nature. I can feel it.”
“...Margon. I—”
“I only want one thing from you. Where is the real Ceryl?”
His words, ground out between his teeth, struck me anew.
From the moment I woke inside a character of a fantasy novel, I’d only wondered why I’d come here.
Not once had I wondered where the soul of the body I’d taken had gone.
Where did the real Ceryl Aylos go? Is he living as a veterinarian in the world I came from?
Following the thought only made the confusion worse. Even with a sword at my throat, a different fear took hold.
“Answer! Where is the real Ceryl!”
I ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) bit my lower lip and let my raised arms drop, limp.
I didn’t know the answer, so I couldn’t answer. Even if I died by Margon’s hand like this, I had nothing to say.
Then Kallen—who had sat like a person with her soul knocked out ever since watching her lifelong enemy die by Neira’s hand—rose to her feet.
A sword Varen had likewise given her was in Kallen’s hand. Her grip on the hilt trembled.
Even with a blade at my neck, I knit my brows at once.
“Put it down. Draw that and—”
My hard voice turned on her, and Kallen faltered, startled. But she stubbornly didn’t let go of the hilt.
I furrowed my brow again and raised my voice.
“Kallen! Put it down!!”
I didn’t take my eyes off Kallen. Even with a blade at my throat, I didn’t want to stain a child’s hands with blood ever again.
But Kallen bit her lip with a wronged face.
“I don’t want to be someone who can’t do anything! I don’t want to lose anyone precious ever again!”
“I understand how you feel. But don’t do anything dangerous.”
“I’ll do it even if it’s dangerous. There must be a reason the dragon gave me a sword!”
A reason.
Varen had said he’d seen the future at the Spring of Wisdom.
After that, with no explanation, he gifted swords to Margon and Kallen.
I didn’t know what kind of future he’d seen, but it clearly wasn’t the picture I wanted.
I pleaded—not with Margon, who had the sword on me, but with Kallen.
“Kallen, put it down. This isn’t what he gave it for.”
“But...”
“Please. It’s harder for me to see you holding that.”
Kallen seemed to waver. Thankfully, my earnest plea got through; she set the sword down.
I turned my heavy gaze back to Margon.
When I raised my voice at Kallen instead of him, Margon looked at me with confused eyes.
“Margon, if you’re going to kill me, do it after we leave Belzena. If Varen learns you killed me, he won’t let it pass.”
“......”
“Don’t die because of me.”
At the sincerity of it, Margon’s face crumpled. The eyes he’d flared so fiercely filled at once.
A face full of pure loyalty showed emotions crossing in a jumble.
Margon couldn’t bring himself to attack me wearing his lord’s face. His shaking hand withdrew, and his head dropped.
“If you’re a fraud... then where is the real Ceryl...”
I kneaded the stiff, tense nape that had gone rigid. I wiped the beads of blood on my palm off on Varen’s clothes.
Maybe because the headaches had been piling up one after another, my tired mind wouldn’t turn any further.
No excuse came to soothe Margon. I scrubbed my weary face and spoke the truth, plain.
“Sigh... I don’t know either. Where the real Ceryl—”
“Who’s a fraud!”
Kallen cut in sharp over my tired voice.
Her face looked even more wronged than mine, fists clenched.
“The Ceryl who rescued you when you were trapped in the tower, the Ceryl who never gave up on you when you couldn’t walk anymore—that Ceryl is the one right here!”
A voice like a scream of fury rang in my skull.
“He’s the one who risked his life again and again to save me! So who exactly are you calling a fraud!!”
Margon had no answer for the panting Kallen.
Clang. With a heavy metallic sound, he dropped the sword he’d been holding. He only lifted his left hand to cover his face and stood in long silence.
“...Then the one I swore to lay down my life for... where is he...”
His massive shoulders began to shake.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Margon cry, but a dense grief spread that I couldn’t bring myself to comfort.
“Then Leobin—did he... ngh... die protecting a fraud...”
At that, a hard knot rose in my chest. Something surged up and clogged my throat, and my eyes burned.
No matter how hard Kallen defended me, nothing changed.
I was a fraud Ceryl, and Leobin had died protecting the fake me.
“I’m... sorry. Leobin, he... I...”
Strictly speaking, I killed him with my own hands. Whatever the reason, the fact that I killed him doesn’t change.
But I couldn’t bring that cruel truth to my lips.
My stray gaze wandered the innocent floor. I couldn’t keep listening to Margon’s sobs growing louder.
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. If only...”
It was a death that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come to this world.
Without a word of explanation to either of them, I left the reception room. I needed to get out of the rushing whirlpool of negativity driving me to a corner.
I yanked the door open and stepped out.
The dam I’d held together burst with a snap.
“...Varen.”
Varen stood before me. His expression was subtle, unreadable.
A secret I hadn’t wanted anyone to find out had been found out. I steadied my breath and stammered.
“Did... you hear all that?”
“Yes. I heard everything.”
When I squeezed my eyes shut, the tears pooled there pattered down.
I’d thought Varen would press me, ask why I’d lied, but he came close in silence and wiped the drops away.
At the gentle warmth on my skin, my grief thawed like a glacier. And the tears flowed all the more.
“I—I’m sorry... hhk, I wasn’t... trying to trick you...”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Ceryl.”
“Don’t call me... that, ngh... I’m not the real Ceryl Aylos...”
Not a single easy day since I fell into this world.
Surprises kept coming. One thing after another that I couldn’t control.
Even so, I did my best in any situation. Maybe not the right answer, but the best choices I could make.
And still, not one thing went my way. Everything was a mess.
I buried my face in Varen’s hand and wept. Varen carefully embraced my shaking shoulders.
“For the first time, I’m of one mind with the little human.”
A faint laugh colored Varen’s voice. The “little human” he meant was Kallen.
“The one who found me when I was alone in the cave was you. The one who read me letters and gave me flowers was you.”
“Hhk... what?”
“The one who gave me back my name—also you. The you who’s here.”
The firm conviction carried in every syllable undid my exhausted body. Strangely, all the strength ran out of me.
I tucked my head against his broad chest. The irregular heartbeat of a dragon thumped, thumped in my ear.
“Ceryl, it doesn’t matter if you’re real or a fraud. The one I love is the you in front of me.”
He never tired of the love talk; a helpless laugh burst out of me in the end.
I lifted my head and looked up at Varen.
The face I’d grown more used to than his dragon form wore a fine smile. In any form, those steady blue eyes didn’t waver a bit.
The sight laid a calm over my heaving heart.
But as I watched him smile, the anxiety that had been chasing my back since earlier washed over me again.
“...Varen, I came here one day out of nowhere. It wasn’t by my will.”
“I see.”
“So... one day I might disappear just as suddenly. Whether I want to or not.”
I’d barely found a place in this world, and yet—like the day I arrived—I was something that could vanish at any time. That was the root of my anxiety.
With a hand full of unease I clutched the line of his waist hard.
Varen let out a pleased little laugh.
“Don’t worry, Ceryl. You’ll be my mate. We’ll be happy for a very, very long time.”
“...And if that’s just your dream? A wish?”
“It’s fine if you can’t believe it. But I am certain.”
His lips touched and left the sweat-damp skin of my forehead.
“The future Dravergh saw does not change.”
