Chapter 225

The ceiling was unfamiliar.

Shadi, trying to raise her body, felt an overwhelming fatigue.

She had clearly just woken from sleep, but why was her body so heavy?

Still, she gathered her strength and stretched.

At that, her mind cleared a little.

“…Mm……”

Shadi Shandor smelled medicine.

It had a smell very similar to the Security Bureau’s infirmary.

Why medicine, she wondered, and as she held that question, other questions began to follow one after another.

Come to think of it, where was this?

Why was I here?

What was I in the middle of doing?

‘…I feel like I was somewhere else.’

Then where was that other place?

From a distant memory, the sound of waves surged.

A dark night sea, crashing waves, she had been waiting.

Right, she had been waiting for the jade-eyed captain, Amethus Aretion.

She had not waited alone.

Someone was with her.

Ubias! Ubias Ubias Uterbeum.

She was with her adjutant.

‘Right! I was waiting for Captain Amethus with Ubias……. And…….’

Her face slowly stiffened.

‘…Ubias was an Imperial lackey, and he was enraged, saying he didn’t know Captain Amethus was an Aretion, and then I, trying to avoid him, slipped and…….’

Shadi Shandor’s face turned white.

She realized her eyes, which had been blind, had returned to normal.

She also found that her limbs had become very emaciated.

“…Just……”

Even her lips were parched.

She shuddered at the encroaching fear and muttered.

“…How much, how much time has passed……?”

“7 years have passed, Shadi.”

An unchanging voice reached her heart.

It felt as if her fear vanished in an instant.

Shadi Shandor saw the jade-eyed man.

She knew him.

Amethus, Shadi Shandor’s eternal captain, and… the man she had yearned for.

“You have been asleep all this time.”

“…Captain Amethus.”

“You must have many questions.”

Amethus slowly approached.

Shadi did not stop him.

For some reason, tears came.

Amethus’s eyes were also red-rimmed.

“I will explain everything, Shadi.”

Shadi Shandor felt that Amethus seemed like a person who had been waiting for something for a very long time.

Before she could even wonder what he had waited for, Amethus took Shadi’s hand.

Very carefully, as if afraid he might hurt her emaciated hand.

“But for now……”

Amethus held Shadi’s hand.

Shadi blushed.

She had been the Special Operations Unit commander of the Imperial Security Bureau.

It was just a moment, but she could tell many things.

“…Yes, for now……”

That Amethus had realized her feelings of yearning, and that he was approaching her with the same feelings.

That the moment she had always waited for, a moment she couldn’t even dare to dream of, had arrived.

And so, Shadi grasped Amethus’s hand back.

The jade-eyed man’s eyes curved.

They curved with joy, yet the corners of his eyes drooped with sorrow.

This was because the sorrow accumulated over time does not disappear in an instant.

Amethus suddenly felt afraid.

Was this time a dream, and if it was, would he be forced to wake up.

That was why he just held Shadi’s hand tightly.

Shadi, too, instead of speaking, gazed deeply into Amethus’s jade-colored eyes.

“…Let’s just be quiet for a moment, Shadi.”

“Let’s do that, Captain Amethus.”

Shadi felt something hot stream down her cheek.

She was happy, and yet tears came.

It was a strange thing.

It was the same for Amethus.

From those fierce jade eyes, very large teardrops fell.

The two, man and woman, faced each other and cried.

They were quiet for a brief moment, and then they embraced each other.

It was as if they were confirming that the other’s existence would not disappear even when embraced.

And so, at last, the two yearnings became one.

***

Merion’s tallest bell tower belongs to the Original Ladder Church.

I, Shion, walked up the wall of the bell tower.

I strode ahead, regardless of whether anyone was watching.

I wasn’t using an Ars, either.

I simply willed myself to walk up the wall, and so I could.

It is an aftereffect of ‘Dragon of Six Horns’.

I was gradually becoming inhuman, gradually becoming able to do things humans cannot.

Near the top, there is a small window.

It is the bell-keeper’s room.

However, the one who peeked out from inside was not a shabby bell-keeper but an old man in priestly robes.

The old man, seeing me, Shion, standing vertically on the wall, flinched, but soon opened his mouth.

“…Shion.”

“Bishop Hille.”

I offered a greeting and entered the room.

“Have you been well?”

“Sadly, I could not.”

Bishop Hille let out a sigh.

“War has approached, has it not?”

“It’s right at our throats.”

“……Why did you call me to a place like this? It is quite cold.”

“From here, you can look down on all of Merion, can’t you.”

I gestured with my chin.

The sun is slowly setting.

“Please look at this city.”

Merion was originally one of the foremost great cities on the Bururade Peninsula.

Since the Verchello family was revived, it has developed even further, its streets overflowing with vitality.

Children playing, merchants closing their stalls, women from whom the smoke of dinner preparation wafts, young men carrying goods to and fro, soldiers holding spears to protect them, and I, Shion, and Bishop Hille, watching it all.

The entire city is alive and breathing.

Bishop Hille smiled faintly before he even realized it.

I, Shion, also smiled.

But I could not hide a sorrowful expression.

“It’s a very beautiful city, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Merion is beautiful.”

“When you step back a few paces and look, there is nothing as beautiful as a life lived diligently for the day.”

“You speak just like an old man. I, for one, can sympathize.”

“My heart may have already become an old man’s.”

I closed my mouth and looked down at Merion.

It is so beautiful and full of life, but in my Shion’s eyes, I saw something different.

Flames covering the entire city, shouting soldiers, maidens being dragged away, children who could no longer run, torn families, the rank stench wafting from wounds, hanged people, the unfurled Imperial flag…….

The scene from before the regression, which still sets my heart ablaze, flickered before my eyes.

It is something that has passed.

It is something that has not yet come.

I, Shion, was given one more chance, and the Merion of now is just full of life.

And yet, a sorrow I could not understand washed over me.

“……”

The Regressor Prince’s, my, eyes crinkled.

My skin is white and smooth.

Even though my face is beautiful, like a doll, like a girl, wrinkles sometimes form around my eyes.

Bishop Hille knew those wrinkles were the traces of sorrow.

He knew I wasn’t even twenty, so he wondered what sorrow could have swept through my life.

The old man firmly suppressed his question.

“…I would like to entrust the Verchello family to you for a while.”

I only opened my mouth again after looking down on Merion for a long time.

It took quite a long time to shake off the Merion from before the regression, flickering like a phantom.

“The Verchellos, to me?”

“Yes, no matter how I thought about it, there was no one I could ask but you, Bishop.”

“Is Serena not here?”

Bishop Hille mentioned my, Shion’s, wife.

“That child is doing much better than you think. How diligent and how outstanding she is……”

“I know. Serena is excellent as a lord. But she will be leaving her position for a while.”

“…Why?”

I, Shion, moved my lips.

“Because I am going to have her evacuated.”

“……Serena will not want to leave Merion behind.”

“Her consent is not necessary.”

“……”

Bishop Hille shuddered, discovering that my, Shion’s, two eyes were frighteningly blue, and that my pupils were slitting vertically.

I intended to make Serena evacuate even if I had to tie her up, and Bishop Hille sensed that, my, Shion’s, inner thoughts.

“…Do you think that is a good choice? Serena will come to resent you.”

“It is not a choice, Bishop.”

I, the Regressor Prince, bared my teeth and smiled.

“I have no choice in the matter.”

A dreadful sob always lingers in my ears.

Ah, that woman with the empty eye sockets.

Aah, the Serena de Verchello I love so dearly.

And yet, she never looks at me again, only crying, Poesia, Poesia.

Every time she sheds drops of bloody tears, my, Shion’s, melted heart also flows in drops.

It could not happen a second time.

I could not let the war trample Serena again this time.

Just thinking that such innocence, that sparkling passion, that raspberry-like beauty would be trampled once more, I, Shion, felt as if I would become inhuman.

“…How could I refuse.”

Bishop Hille opened his mouth with difficulty.

“I am greatly indebted to you. Not just me, but the entire West. I will do as you wish, Shion.”

“Thank you, Bishop.”

I, Shion, nodded.

I leaned my body out the window and stood vertically on the wall, just as when I had arrived.

“I’d like to stay for a cup of tea, but I have too much work.”

“…Be careful on your way.”

“I will be going.”

I, Shion, took my feet off the wall.

I fell, as was natural.

Even watching me, Shion, fall from the dizzying height of the bell tower, Bishop Hille held not a trace of worry.

And just as expected, I, Shion, who had been falling, soon tread on the empty air and broke into a run.

“……”

Bishop Hille stared at the spot where I, Shion, had disappeared, then turned his head.

On the wall of the bell tower hung the emblem of a ladder.

The Original Ladder, the ladder connecting to the origin, the symbol of the Original Ladder Church.

He believes.

In the one who must be at the top of this ladder.

Therefore, believing he was being heard, he spoke.

“…Is it truly war? Is that terrible era coming again……”

The old man, left alone, spoke as if muttering.

He had experienced the war 53 years ago.

The memories of that time, though he wanted to forget, would not be forgotten and still tormented him to this day.

“…God……”

The old man decided to do his job.

He is a priest.

It is his calling to kneel politely before the ladder, bow his head, and fold his hands.

“……Have mercy on us.”

***

“Cornelius has finished his preparations, he said, Amethus?”

“Yes. He will be departing with Shadi and Lady Serena shortly.”

Amethus looked relieved.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t had a chance to talk with Shadi Shandor. How is she?”

“She is so energetic it’s hard to believe she just woke up after 7 years. She also became friends with Lady Serena right away.”

“That’s a relief.”

I, Shion, smiled shyly.

“…Will it be alright not to talk with Lady Serena, Shion?”

“She’ll just get angry if she sees my face.”

“Still, you should have explained it to her yourself.”

Amethus said.

“With what heart you are making Lady Serena evacuate, if even a little of that got across……”

“If it got across, what?”

I, the Regressor Prince, turned my head.

I bared my teeth and smiled, but my eyes were not smiling at all.

“What’s the point of forcing this hatred onto her? To light a fire in a heart that hasn’t been lit yet? Or should I tell her that I’ve turned back 19 years of time?”

“……My apologies. I overstepped my bounds.”

“No. I understand. Your long-awaited lover has woken up, so it’s understandable your heart has gone soft.”

“Lover……”

“Am I wrong?”

“…I can’t say you are.”

I, Shion, chuckled.

“Shadi and Serena will go to the Hanchamus Islands. Even before the regression, the flames of war did not reach that far. But I’m worried about their guard……”

“You’ve assigned Cornelius, Dussell Duke, and even Valziart. That should be enough.”

“No. No matter what I think about it, it’s not enough.”

I, the Regressor Prince, scratched my chin.

“I’ve been thinking hard, and what you just said has convinced me.”

“…Convinced you of what?”

“Amethus.”

I, Shion, spoke as if giving an order.

“You will also leave with them.”

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