Episode 84

Igon realized that he had lived through countless lives.

The first and most crucial task was to collect himself. If he let himself be swept away, he feared he might succumb to the overwhelming urge to simply disappear.

Looking back on several of his past lives, he recognized that such a thing had happened before.

“Heh.”

A hollow laugh escaped his lips.

Since childhood, he had dreams unlike those of others. Dreams about his future self. In his naive years, he would share those dreams with others.

One day, he told the Duchess about one such dream, only for her to faint in shock.

The household priest was summoned, and an exorcism ritual was prepared. After that, he stopped talking about his dreams.

Still, he once wondered if he was genuinely possessed by a spirit.

“Skillful and adept.”

That was the praise Igon heard endlessly throughout his life.

Even he thought himself to be someone who learned things with ease. He attributed it to extraordinary genius, to talent.

But now he knew.

“All of it,” he muttered, “was because I had already experienced it all before.”

The realization was staggering.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

He slammed his head against the desk repeatedly.

Yet the memories wouldn’t stop.

He remembered killing and killing again, reliving the same deaths over and over.

Some scenes repeated so often that he felt like something must be wrong.

But it wasn’t wrong—it was the weight of countless lives extinguished by his own hand.

He groaned, crawling on the floor.

For someone still barely more than a boy, the burden was far too great to bear.

Though he spent the night wide awake, he joined the battle at dawn.

He swung his sword, slicing through the flesh of the monsters with unnerving ease, hardly needing to try.

“It’s real. It’s all real. This is real,” he muttered to himself.

With every monster he cut down, every life he saved that should have been lost, and every preemptive strike he stopped, despair grew within him.

He wished he were mad.

If the endless battles, the horror and monotony of it all, were nothing more than hallucinations born of madness, he could endure it.

But it was all real.

Even when the trumpet signaling retreat sounded, Igon’s sword did not lower.

He seemed no different from a man who had lost his mind.

Recognizing that something was seriously wrong, the knights called for a mage.

It wasn’t until the mage cast a spell meant to subdue monsters that Igon collapsed, unconscious.

His world went dark, as if the lights had gone out.

And yet, it was almost a relief.

When he woke in the silence of an empty tent, he began to process his situation.

Surprisingly quickly, though something within him felt slightly misaligned, he regained his composure.

The speed of his recovery was faster than anyone would have expected.

It was only possible because his returning memories included one vital person.

He understood now that saving everyone was impossible.

The Duke, already deeply poisoned, could no longer be treated. The Duchess, his mother, was no longer in her right mind.

That left one person.

One person he had to save at all costs.

Evelyn.

Evelyn Rodore.

The one person Igon could love in this life.

“This time, I have to save her,” he whispered.

It was rare for things to end cleanly with him dying first.

It was usually Evelyn who died first, followed by Igon cleanly taking his own life.

Reflecting on his past lives, Igon realized how often he had failed because of causality. He couldn’t afford to speak of his memories from previous lives.

Rubbing his forehead, he wore a troubled expression.

“There’s no standard,” he muttered, his youthful voice making his despair sound even more poignant.

The rules of causality were frustratingly ambiguous. What he could and couldn’t say depended entirely on the circumstances.

Even the same words could have different consequences depending on the depth of trust or affection he had built with Evelyn in that particular life.

With the overlapping memories from so many lives, mistakes were inevitable.

Despite countless failures and new beginnings, there was no guarantee the next attempt would be any different.

Thus, ambiguity was his safest approach.

He needed to act in a way that made it impossible to discern whether he cared for Evelyn or was merely using her.

One wrong word could end everything for both of them.

So, he often resorted to asking questions instead of providing answers.

The most critical fact was that Evelyn’s death was inevitable.

She had been born with a doomed fate, a life that was always meant to be cut short.

Long ago, when Igon could no longer remember how many lives had passed, he tried to save her by confining her to his estate.

It was then that he met an old woman who told him the truth.

Her name was Rosalind.

With Rosalind’s help, he transferred Evelyn’s soul into another body.

But even that body died.

He watched Evelyn die in countless ways, right before his eyes.

He didn’t want to see it anymore.

He didn’t want to carry new memories of her deaths.

When Evelyn died at the hands of the Count, even transferring her soul became impossible.

He had to find a solution.

Through countless attempts, Igon built a new plan, one where Evelyn’s soul could return to another body—Lily.

Each time Evelyn came back as Lily, her appearance, hair color, and eye color changed.

But Lily always ran away.

She was killed or took her own life.

Why?

I’m trying to save you.

The thought of her running from him was more unbearable than being called a monster by others.

He realized he needed to approach her differently—calmer, more detached.

But how?

He had long forgotten how to feel like an ordinary human.

It felt as though his mind was splitting apart.

Still, in his last life, Igon discovered something important.

There was something unnatural in this world, something that didn’t belong.

His destiny was to destroy it.

If he fulfilled that purpose, Evelyn—or Lily—would stop dying, and the cycle of his repeating lives would end.

Igon took a deep breath.

He could do it.

This time, he had to save her.

—

Igon summarized his story in brief, skipping unnecessary details.

When I asked a few questions, he answered succinctly.

“I’ve repeated the same life many times. I know about causality. I met Rosalind through you in a previous life.”

Though he didn’t answer everything, I felt it was enough for the night.

There were likely more stories left untold, but I didn’t press him for them.

I didn’t need to hear every detail about all his past lives. Knowing the context was enough.

Igon avoided talking about the happy memories or the good times we had shared in previous lives.

Perhaps they were too painful for him, or maybe he had another reason.

Still, I believed he would tell me someday.

There would come a time when those memories no longer felt like wounds, just as I had stopped fearing death.

I told Igon that I remembered my own past lives.

He nodded without surprise, as if it were only natural.

Having lived through so many cycles, he didn’t seem to doubt me.

“That makes sense,” he murmured.

“I did find your attitude a bit unusual.”

He paused, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“You’ve remembered your past lives a few times before, but this is the first time I’ve heard of you remembering lives from a different world. Even after all these cycles, life still manages to surprise me.”

Despite his words, Igon’s tone carried no astonishment.

What shocked me was learning that I had remembered my past lives before.

How many variables were at play here?

If I were Igon, would I have been able to keep trying?

That was the last thought I had before my memory of the night became hazy.

At some point, I lost consciousness, only to wake with my head resting against Igon.

I lifted my head and placed a kiss on his sleeping lips.

Leaning against his bare chest, I slowly rose and slipped out of bed.

Throwing on a robe, I opened the door and saw the faint blue light spilling into the hallway from the study.

It was dawn.

The sky was just like this when I ran away, feeling betrayed by Igon.

Sitting in the chair in his study, I gazed out the window.

Knowing how sharp Igon’s senses were, I expected him to wake quickly and come after me. But whether it was due to exhaustion or the relief that everything was finally over, he didn’t stir.

I reached for one of the blank sheets of paper stacked on his desk.

Picking up a pen, I began writing on it.

“What are you doing?”

Igon’s voice startled me. He had finally woken and was standing nearby.

When I turned to look at him, there was a faint hint of surprise on his face.

Was he still worried that I might leave?

Extending my arm, I beckoned him over.

Igon obediently approached, pressing a kiss to my hair. His hand gently cradled my cheek while another brushed lightly over my shoulder.

I lightly pushed him away, ignoring the longing in his gaze.

It was dawn. The sun would rise soon—this wasn’t the time.

Tock tock.

I tapped the surface of Igon’s desk with my fingers.

He lowered his head to see what I was doing.

I handed him the paper I had written on.

The words on it read: ‘Let’s go find Eunice.’

Igon stared at the paper for a moment before letting out a quiet laugh.

Then, his expression turned contemplative as he looked at me.

“How did you know?” he asked.

I wasn’t entirely certain, but his response confirmed my suspicions.

As expected.

Eunice had vanished suddenly, leaving behind a message in her room.

She must have known she was going to leave.

On top of that, Liam, someone Igon trusted deeply, was also missing from the estate.

The servants didn’t know the details, only that he had left under orders.

Igon wouldn’t have discarded Liam over something between us.

If Igon already understood the situation, then it was clear the two were most likely together.

‘A variable, perhaps.’

From what Igon had told me about his past, it seemed like something significant had happened involving the two of them.

I couldn’t say for sure, but I had a vague sense of it.

I could pretend not to know and live as though they didn’t exist, but I wanted to ask Eunice why she had apologized to me.

And I still owed Liam something.

“Fine,” Igon said, his voice cold and deliberate.

His reply sent a chill down my spine.

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