Chapter 29

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter Title: Chapter 126

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The moment I spotted Dillon, the smile that had bloomed from sheer delight froze over coldly.

The situation was so sudden, but seeing him like this had filled me with joy—yet that emotion vanished without a trace.

"Isn't that a little weird, Dillon?"

"……."

"Normally, you'd say something like 'You're alive' at a time like this."

"……."

Dillon's eyes gleamed coldly, submerged in darkness. His demeanor felt so detached from his usual self, carrying a weight of unspoken meaning.

"……You know something, don't you?"

His face was shrouded in shadow, hard to make out, but it almost looked like he was crying... or maybe laughing.

"Come to think of it, you said you'd help me get back to Korea. Right……."

"……Rose."

"You knew something all along."

I pushed myself up from the coffin, staggering toward Dillon.

With every step, it felt like sand slipping through my fingers—my body losing the substance needed to hold itself up.

Still, I lunged at him desperately and grabbed his chest.

I clung to Dillon with everything I had. It was almost laughable now, how in the three years I'd spent here, Korea hadn't crossed my mind once.

Why had I carved out every last memory of it?

All the questions I'd buried deep came surging up right then and there.

And every answer hinged on Dillon.

But he gazed down at me, his face twisted in utter torment.

"Rose, why did you come back?"

My heart plummeted at those words. Why did I come back……?

"Weren't you supposed to kill Yurta and return to your world?"

"……What does that mean?"

"……Don't you remember again? That's what you wanted."

Dillon's voice sank like into a murky bog. I couldn't make sense of what he was saying.

Then a chilling realization slammed into the back of my skull.

"No way—my dying is……."

"Yeah, that's right."

Dillon's voice rumbled low.

"But Dillon, I…… I came back."

The woman wearing Rose's face... she killed me. I could still feel my mind fading into haze, my breath cutting off.

"……Because you didn't enter the proper way."

His voice cracked with pain as he forced the words out.

"You didn't kill the Transcendent."

I blinked, his words not computing. What did killing the Transcendent have to do with me going back?

Come to think of it…….

<Didn't you kill Yurta and go back there?>

Three years ago, Dillon had said exactly that.

<I promised to help you if you killed Yurta.>

Maybe the deal between Rose and Dillon wasn't equal at all.

Maybe it was a contract made just for her.

"……To go back, you need an immense amount of energy—on par with a god."

As realization dawned on me, Dillon kept talking.

"The Transcendent isn't some ordinary human. He's a vessel brimming with vast mana."

"……So?"

"You have to shatter the vessel."

Dillon jabbed a finger right at my heart.

"Kill him and rip it out."

"……."

"……So that energy floods into the dimension and tears open a rift. That's the only way."

Dillon might have struck that deal with Rose from the start—for her to kill Yurta.

And then I took over her body. So…….

"……Then killing the Transcendent means I die too?"

Dillon fell silent. I knew that meant yes.

The method was murder. What kind of twisted nonsense was this?

Snuff out someone's life, crush their heart, and steal the energy?

Suddenly, I flashed back to killing that knight in the Northern Region who'd tried to do me in.

The sticky warmth of blood on my fingertips, that fleeting metallic tang.

It still haunted me like a nightmare, vivid the instant I closed my eyes.

And now he wanted me to do it again?

My whole body shuddered. My mind went blank white.

"I can't do it……."

"Don't."

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Both of us a total wreck.

"……Just."

"……."

"Just live with me, Rose."

"……."

"……Can't you?"

His face laid bare his torment and shame as he confessed his raw feelings.

Those desperate eyes choked the air from my lungs.

"……You said that place doesn't even cross your mind anymore."

He was right—I had.

I had no idea why it hadn't back then…… but now it did.

"Why do you suddenly want to go back now?"

"Because that's my real world."

It was the most obvious reason in the world to want to return.

My family, my home, the life I'd built—they were all waiting there.

No one there judged me through Rose's shadow like they did here.

In Korea, it was just me. Nothing else.

"Isn't this world enough?"

Dillon's voice trembled as he asked.

I stared at him in silence.

"Why even say that? You promised to help me. You said you'd get me back to Korea……."

"Yeah. I did. I said all that……."

"So now you're saying you won't?"

"You……."

His jaw quivered. He heaved unsteady breaths, hot and ragged, before finally parting his lips.

"You know."

His trembling hands gripped my shoulders.

"You know I don't want you going back there."

"……."

I went speechless in that instant.

"……Why?"

After promising to help me—help Rose.

"……You said I'm all you have."

Dillon muttered, his voice thick with pent-up resentment.

Why the hell did Rose say something like that? You don't just throw out words you can't stand behind.

"……You said I'm everything."

The grip on my shoulders slackened.

"Dillon, I……."

"You made yourself my whole world, my everything……."

He shoved me away and stumbled back.

All the way until his back hit the wall.

Moonlight spilled across Dillon's profile.

His shadowed expression—smile or sob, impossible to tell before—came into view.

Tears spilled from Dillon's crimson eyes.

"You're awful."

"……."

"A liar."

Did he just hate the thought of being left alone?

Maybe back then, Rose really only had Dillon. That's why she'd said it.

And he'd fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Because he was just as desperately alone.

"Dillon……."

But I wasn't Rose. I couldn't take those feelings on.

"I'm sorry, Dillon."

I turned him down.

My foggy mind started clearing, little by little.

Only then did the agony of torn-apart limbs, splintered and shattered, come flooding back.

Yurta's eyes twitched faintly at the corners from the pain.

Through his barely lifted lids, light stabbed in from every direction.

As awareness sharpened, Yurta clung to the frayed edge of his last memory before blacking out.

<Yurta.>

<I hate you.>

She'd smiled so brightly as she plunged the blade into his gut without a shred of hesitation, then shoved him off the cliff without a second thought.

More excruciating than his mangled limbs was the fact that Rose had discarded him without remorse.

Rose had always hurt him.

She'd never once stopped hating him.

She'd been dead set on finishing him for good.

A strange urge to cry welled up.

But he couldn't let go of the pain.

If enduring it meant he could see her, he'd swear he could even love the torment.

Yurta tried to sit up.

Or at least, he tried.

That's when it hit him.

Somewhere in the void, he was shackled.

Like a beast.