I Pretended To Have Amnesia and the Hero’s Party Becomes Obsessed

30 – 4. Conclusion of Obsession (5)

When Clara embraced me, I thought everything was over.

Not in a positive sense.

It meant my lifeline was over.

Of course, not just mine, but everyone in the mercenary group.

A mercenary group, referred to as the closest place to the gods, attacked the Papal Office. Moreover, they shot an arrow into the arm of the holy maiden.

Unless you were a fool, it was hard to think that this would end well.

…But sometimes, the world seems to lend a hand to fools.

Surprisingly, we were able to get away without any punishment. We even received VIP treatment and were provided accommodation in the palace.

In conclusion, it was all Irene’s doing.

There was a dramatic compromise between the bishop who wanted to prevent the Pope, who had been in office for only a month, from committing suicide, and our relationship.

Honestly, I don’t know the details.

And I didn’t have the mental energy to care.

I looked into the mirror.

A monstrous creature appeared.

Covered in scars all over the body,

Half of the body replaced with a mass of metal.

…No, not half of the body now.

Instead of bronze, I raised my right hand made of flesh and bone. I gently touched my left eye.

Instead of the rigid feel of a glass eye, it felt soft.

As I moved my hand away, in the mirror, a red eye like Clara’s shone.

…In the end, Clara’s consciousness succeeded partially.

Left eye and right hand.

I now felt the regained awareness of body parts that had been scarce, lost.

However, I was neither happy nor could I be joyful.

Honestly, I couldn’t even figure out what or how to feel.

I just chose my words with a sinking heart.

“Miss Clara has awakened.”

Until she woke up.

***

Clara was imprisoned.

Accused of inflicting wounds on the body bestowed by the heavens.

And, ironically, the place she was confined to was the same place where I had lost my sight in the past.

I descended slowly into the underground, retracing my memories.

Although I tried to recall, the memories of that time were not vivid.

It just hurt, it was sad, and so it was fortunate.

Because I was the one suffering this fate.

“We have arrived.”

I lifted my head at the guide’s words.

The place was eerily identical to the past.

As if recalling the corridors of the Crystal Palace, long corridors lined with iron bars.

However, the same sobbing and moans from back then did not reach my ears.

There was only one frightened girl here.

Feeling something knotting in my chest, I approached the iron bars. I silently gazed inside.

At first, I couldn’t find Clara.

It was because she was huddled in a corner.

Moreover, as if trying to become one with the wall, she had dirtied her white clothes and hair with black dust.

What allowed me to barely spot her was the red bandages wrapped around her left eye and right wrist.

I stared at her in silence for a moment, feeling at a loss for words. After hesitating for a while, I finally spoke.

“…Clara?”

Her reaction to that was too tragically intense to be expressed as anything other than devastating.

Clara began to cover her ears with her fingers.

Seeing the blood coming out, I urgently went inside and held her hand.

“Let go! Release!! I said, let go!!”

She struggled, but being a woman without legal protection, she was inherently fragile.

I held onto her wrists with one hand, using the other to grasp her chin and force her to look at me.

Now, with only one eye left, I met her terrified gaze.

“Kill me, Rem.”

“End my life in the most painful way you desire.”

“But please, make it as distant as possible from my eyes and ears.”

“Do not let me hear your voice cursing me. Prevent me from feeling the hatred in your gaze.”

“At least that much…”

Her eyes, gradually moistening, finally shed tears.

“Please, at least that much…”

And her body collapsed to the floor as if crumbling, trembling while covering her face.

I stared at her, speechless, wiping my face.

Struggling to speak, I managed to open my mouth against the pressure on my throat.

“Clara, there’s a story you need to hear.”

“No…! Please, don’t make me endure any longer…!!”

“I was the one who betrayed first.”

Clara’s shoulders trembled, and her struggles ceased. She looked at me with confused eyes.

“I didn’t expect the day would come when I reveal this truth.”

I chuckled bitterly.

“It’s the story of when you confessed to Ivan, and only Ivan and I were left.”

And then, I began the story she didn’t know.

***

The boy knew as little about Ivan as the girl did.

Unlike with the girl, he rarely had conversations with Ivan.

Ivan often treated the boy as if he didn’t exist, and there was no direct communication from Ivan when talking about the boy.

Therefore, what the boy knew about Ivan was the Ivan from the rumors circulating in the Modified Palace, not the real one.

A dreadfully principled person.

As soon as the boy was freed from the constraints of the law, he looked at Ivan and asked.

“Do you intend to punish the prospective saintess?”

Ivan didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he opened the book the girl had handed him and began to read. After a while, without even looking at the boy, he asked, “Why do you think that way? Didn’t Miss Clara just say that the companion of a saint can learn the sacred laws?”

“Miss Clara has not yet undergone the initiation ceremony.”

The boy had spent two years in the sanctuary.

He knew well how the rules and laws of the sanctuary could change with just a single word or a single footnote.

“Fair point.”

Ivan smiled and closed the book. Then he threw it into the fireplace.

“Besides, outdated traditions like that have no place anymore.”

The old book was engulfed in flames in an instant. The boy looked at Ivan with both shoulders and eyes trembling.

“So, if that’s the case…”

“The regulations regarding the sacred laws are the cornerstone of the sanctuary. Of course, even being the daughter of the heavens won’t exempt her from those rules.”

Ivan wore his usual benevolent smile.

“Don’t worry. Punishment will be executed in the same place, whether it’s you or Miss Clara.”

Ivan, saying so, didn’t seem human at all.

Rather, he seemed like a monstrous entity wearing the skin of a human. He had never known feelings or compassion from the beginning.

The boy’s legs began to tremble involuntarily.

Fear was trying to make him collapse.

He wanted to bury the prepared words in his chest.

However, the boy gritted his teeth.

“What if Miss Clara didn’t teach me the sacred laws?”

Ivan’s eyes glowed coldly.

“What does that mean?”

The boy felt his body shaking to the point where it was difficult to stand. But he forced strength into his legs.

Reaching out his wrist, he recited a passage.

“Le-dian, Tu’ Aero fio.”

And the merciful goddess answered his prayer.

A shining crystal appeared on the boy’s wrist. It was a crystal that radiated warmth just by looking at it.

However, Ivan narrowed his eyes.

“Well, I know you’ve learned the sacred laws…”

“This is not the sacred law Clara taught me.”

The boy said in a tremble voice,

“Your Excellency, I have stolen the sacred law.”

It was the most desperate confession.

The boy’s tearful voice continued,

“Even though it is passed from mouth to mouth, as long as it takes the form of ancient language, I thought that there must be a record somewhere.”

“So, every night, I went to the library with hard oat bread and a needle. I engraved and memorized everything that seemed to be a trace of the sacred law on the oat bread. Once I memorized it all, I swallowed the oat bread to erase the evidence.”

“Then, three months ago, I discovered a desk with traces of something pressed hard. It was a verse that someone had written over and over again.”

“I transferred the imprint of that desk onto the oat bread. And I tasted it for the first time as I memorized it.”

“That was the day I first learned the sacred law.”

“It wasn’t the day Clara saved me.”

Ivan’s face had turned pale for some time. He looked at the boy with calcified eyes.

“Why? Didn’t Clara’s affection fill you with greed?”

The boy shook his head.

“It’s the opposite.”

The boy suddenly realized that he was crying.

It was because he was afraid of the future after this confession.

But instead of crying, the boy raised his voice.

“Clara is only eleven years old. How long can the affection of an eleven-year-old last?”

And he extended his blunt wrist to Ivan.

“How long will you like something that is broken like this?”

The boy with no hands couldn’t wipe away his tears. He just spoke through his tears.

“I always believed that it would be discarded someday. I thought that from the beginning. That’s why I stole the sacred law. I hoped that even after being thrown away, there would be a way for me to live.”

Finally, the boy’s voice broke.

“I wanted… to fix my hands.”

The boy knelt down with trembling legs. He pressed his head to the ground. The floor of the Crystal Palace was as cold as ice.

“So, Your Excellency, Clara is not guilty…!”

With hot tears falling on top, the boy prayed.

“It’s all my fault. I coveted what I shouldn’t have and wished for what I shouldn’t have. That’s why…!”

The last words didn’t come out of the boy’s throat. It was the instinct to survive that blocked them.

But the boy contorted his face and forcibly spit them out.

“Please, punish only me.”

And then, silence descended.

The silence was like a simmering turmoil in the boy’s mind.

The boy forced back tears and shivered, his small back trembling.

And so, eternity flowed.

Ivan’s indifferent voice finally reached the ears.

“Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, I know…”

“Those who steal the sacred law won’t just lose their eyes. They’ll bear the mark of heresy, never to set foot in the Crystal Palace again. No priest or cathedral will help or protect you from now on. Do you understand?”

The street urchin could barely survive thanks to the existence of the cathedral.

The boy, who had reached this place with the cathedral’s assistance, knew it better than anyone.

However, the boy nodded.

“…It’s okay.”

Silence descended again.

But this time, it didn’t last long.

“Your words are not false, right?”

The boy felt both elation and despair. With a trembling voice, he spoke.

“There are still loaves of bread in my drawer with verses carved on them.”

“I see.”

Then, the boy heard approaching footsteps. Soon, Ivan’s dry fingers lifted the boy’s chin.

In the boy’s black eyes, Ivan’s face, adorned with a compassionate smile, was reflected.

“If what you say is true, Clara has absolutely no reason to be punished. Instead, we should reward her for exposing someone knowledgeable in the sacred law.”

The boy’s eyes widened as if about to tear. Ivan continued with a smile.

“And if you hear that you’re being punished, Clara will surely be saddened. So, I plan to casually spread rumors that you left. Is that okay with you?”

“I-it’s okay!”

That was exactly what the boy wished for. The boy looked away and stammered.

“I, I actually wrote a letter in advance for him…! It’s in my room drawer…”

“Good, be sure to deliver it. But before that, there’s something I need to ask.”

The boy’s face froze. Ivan asked with a satisfied gaze.

“Why don’t you resent her?”

“Why on earth…?”

Clara, with a vacant expression after hearing my story, asked me. It was like something Bishop Ivan had asked me once.

And that’s how I responded back then.

“Because you were my master.”

But that was an answer far from the truth.

It was a reply bloated with the embarrassment typical of an adolescent boy, tainted with the naivety of youth.

In truth, that wasn’t what should have been said then.

I placed my hand on Clara’s cheek.

The words I’d repeated silently numerous times while she slept, I finally voiced them.

“Because I loved you.”

It was the period awaited for thirteen years in an unfinished story.

It was meant to be spoken aloud but ended up buried in the heart of a boy.

I sensed the emergence of newly formed eyes causing a malfunction. My vision blurred, and warm liquid streamed down my cheeks.

It was the sensation of tears long forgotten.

“How could I not have loved you?”

Tears streamed from Clara’s remaining eye. Clara, crumbling down, released the grip on my collar.

Feeling my face contorting, I wiped away the tears flowing down with my thumb.

“And I’m sorry.”

Clara’s eyes trembled.

“I couldn’t keep the promise to somehow come back.”

Forcing back the boiling tears, she continued speaking.

“I… thought that was the best choice.”

And then, Clara collapsed.

Clara’s arms embraced me. She buried her face into my chest, letting out a suppressed voice.

“Now… you’ve come back…!”

And Clara, clinging to me, started to weep sorrowfully. As if vowing never to let go again, she sobbed while clutching onto my back.

I held her tightly, shedding tears myself.

In the end, it was an insignificant ending fitting for an insignificant tale.

The lost years of the boy and girl would never return. And those wounds would never truly heal.

The boy and the girl will continue to live with that pain in the future.

The twisted past will always take hold of their dreams.

A happy ending of living together for a long, long time

is not permitted for them.

But, only for this moment.

In this dirty prison, embracing each other and crying pitifully,

it will be a happy ending for them.