“Without me, who would actually grant the Demon King’s wish and how? How would you unlock the magic stone and swallow the Demon God’s enormous power in the first place?”
She had never been this angry with anyone in her whole life. She wasn’t expecting it, so she didn’t feel hurt by any kind of mistreatment. It would be lying if she said that she had really been okay. Nevertheless, it only seemed like something she had to put up with anyway.
All because she was someone whom nobody had ever wanted.
“Am I really just an ordinary human being? Did I even say something that is so presumptuous? Without me, even the Demon King wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer. You couldn’t control the enormous magic that you have greedily swallowed up and you couldn’t even sleep comfortably unless you got to lean on me…!”
All of a sudden, Julia had shut her mouth.
Ah, she shouldn’t have given him her own heart. She thought that she wasn’t expecting it, but she had just been foolish yet again.
Her eyes were all clouded with shame. She felt like an idiot for being disappointed with her own expectations and she felt like a disgusting monster to use that just as an excuse to hurt Bael that way.
The air was ultimately silent. She didn’t hear anything other than her own weeping breath. However, the cold, cynical gaze that touched her skin seemed to reveal Bael’s own feelings instead.
Julia finally knew for the first time that sometimes, when she hurt others, she could also hurt herself.
“I guess that I have been too easy on you while not knowing how fully arrogant you could be…”
Bael lowered his head and grabbed a handful of her hair. The pale pinkish hair was instantly tangled up in his big grip.
“Ugh!”
Julia bit her lips at the heart-wrenching pain. The pain passed in the blink of an eye, but her stone-stiff limbs defied her wishes and did not budge at all. All her strength was taken away so that she couldn’t even lift a finger anymore.
Julia, who plunged helplessly back on the bed, could only stare blankly at Bael’s back as he coldly left the bedroom altogether.
* * *
Julia was suddenly submerged in the deep water. The long rays of the sun softly shone through the slow waves. But the warmth did not reach where she was plunged in.
The ripples that were created by the fins of a swimming school of fish, the sound of tiny water droplets that could be heard every time the birds that had been flying freely on the surface of the water landed occasionally.
Her surroundings were immediately immersed in pitch-black darkness under the red moonlight cast through. Then, the color of the sky was dyed brightly as soon as the morning sun had risen again in such a mysterious way.
It was a space full of nothingness where even nothing could be felt. All she could ever do was to watch the passing of time while leaving her body to the tight sensations that had entangled her limbs.
Where was this place? Why was she in a place like this? Was there really no way out?
‘Ah, who was I before that though?’
Each and every question simply became meaningless. All thoughts had disappeared within that strange space. She lost the feel of boundaries and senses that could distinguish herself from others. She couldn’t even follow the passage of time as well.
‘Everything is utterly pointless anyway. I just want to fall asleep.’
A trail of tears eventually trickled down out of the sorrow for the loneliness that had pierced her heart. Even so, she couldn’t readily say that it was not so. Wasn’t that her past self, then? The moment when she had surrendered herself to that terrifying floating feeling, it was exactly what she had been longing for.
A long set of jet-black hair fluttered softly in the water.
She was crying before she even knew it. She had just noticed that this wasn’t her own memory to begin with.
“Ugh…!”
Julia opened her eyes and coughed hard while holding on to her throat. It was terribly painful, just like cold water gushing down to her nose and mouth, but she couldn’t really feel anything at all.
Julia then looked down at her hands. There was a proper—not blurry—image through the ripples. The tower that spread the purple magic power as well as the red crescent moon were all clearly visible.
The fact that it hadn’t really happened flooded her with such endless relief. Julia eventually collapsed on the bed helplessly. A soft, light-colored lock of hair unfurled against the white sheets.
‘Without me, even the Demon King wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer. You couldn’t control the enormous magic that you have greedily swallowed up and you couldn’t even sleep comfortably unless you got to lean on me…!’
Oh, what did she actually say to him?
Julia’s big pupils blurred right in an instant.
She still didn’t know where it was that strange place which she had just seen in her dreams. Why was Bael being imprisoned there and what had been the identity of the sticky feelings that had terribly entangled her limbs.
However, just being in that dream for half a day had made her mind go blank, so she couldn’t even guess how Bael, who had been chained like that for countless hours, felt like when he was there. Wasn’t it literally like that of a living corpse?
‘I have to go and apologize right now. I’ve said something too harsh……’
Perhaps due to the aftereffects of the imprint, her body still could not render any strength. However, Julia forced herself to raise her body and step out of the bed in spite of it. On the way, her body had collapsed several times and each time, she would remember Bael’s gaze that looked at her before.
A cold, cynical, piercing kind of look. They were the eyes of a wounded man.
“How come I didn’t even notice that? Me—not anyone else?”
Her small white feet eventually staggered. Without ever thinking of tidying up her messy hair or even hiding her face that had been wet from tears, she quickly left Bael’s bedroom.
Thump—the deep, distant sound of water ultimately reverberated through the tightly closed door.
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