Back then, I had wondered why his sister said such words, why Zachary didn’t even answer her but went on killing regardless. Now I understood.
At the time he suffered through all this, he had been a child.
I didn’t know his exact age, but no matter how much I stretched it, he could only have been around my age.
He had endured torture even grown adults would break under, and on top of that, he was shackled with brainwashing sorcery. How could anyone remain normal after that?
Should I have risked running into the Marquis and come sooner?
No—could I have changed anything, even if I had?
I had been living in a flowerbed.
To me, the Marquis was someone who smiled at me kindly. But the man who held the secrets of the royal family and of the kingdom’s nobility—that was the Marquis. House Serpentine’s power was immense, and naturally, the deeds of our house were equally cruel.
Earn his goodwill? Try to obstruct things?
This was not something within my power.
The plan had been absurd from the start.
Who in their right mind could hold affection for the house that had made them into this? Put myself in his place, and the answer was the same.
If someone tortured me brutally, cursed my body with horrific sorcery so that I couldn’t even control myself, stealing my entire youth away—of course I would be consumed by vengeance. Drinking their blood wouldn’t even quench my rage.
He’s far too broken.
Besides, goodwill could only be planted in someone who had enough consciousness left to grasp it. Zachary was nowhere near that point. The elaborate plan I thought I had laid collapsed at once.
And worse, the arrogance of me thinking that just because I knew what was coming, I had already “done something” was unbearably shameful.
In my past life I had often read stories of people who, knowing the future, prepared and changed their fate.
So I too had believed—maybe… maybe I could act like those protagonists, change the story by moving proactively. But that belief had been utterly crushed.
I was powerless.
So utterly powerless that even knowing the future, I had no means to change it.
Of course, if it came down purely to survival, the answer was simple.
Kill Zachary here and now—the root of all future disaster.
Look at how defenseless he was. If I only had a blade, if I stabbed his vitals, he would die easily.
So if all I wanted was to live, if I wished to avoid dying cruelly at his hands in the future, then the right thing was to cut him down here, like a weed.
But killing him just to save myself—that makes no sense.
I had no desire to.
If I murdered Zachary for my survival, then even if I lived, it wouldn’t be a life. What meaning would a life have, extended by stealing someone else’s?
And the Zachary before me now looked so pitiful that I couldn’t even think of laying a hand on him. If anything, only the urge to help welled up.
In the end, I can do nothing but wipe my own neck and wait.
Would it be different if Zachary had more awareness? Or if I were a more optimistic, less cynical person—would I have found a new path, made things easier?
Thinking such thoughts, I deliberately avoided looking at him. Just seeing him left me sick at heart. His appearance was that shocking. Even this brief glimpse would etch itself into me until the day I died.
For now, retreat.
I would go back, retrace my thoughts carefully. I had resigned myself—there was nothing I could do here and now.
“…ve… me.”
Suddenly, a chill like a lightning bolt ran straight through my body.
I whipped my head around—no one was there. The scene was deathly quiet. Zachary, whom I had been deliberately ignoring, looked the same as before. Slumped, limp, not a finger moved.
I could have sworn I just heard a voice, ragged with strain.
But now, only silence filled the space. The eerie feeling was beyond words.
Could it be a ghost?
In a house steeped in sorcery and curses, would it be strange to think so? Terrified, I quickened my pace.
But then, a voice again—proving it had not been a phantom.
“Please… save me.”
There was no mistaking it. Those five syllables were clear.
I spun around, and saw the only one here besides me capable of speaking.
He hadn’t moved. His posture was unchanged. But if you looked closely—
“Please.”
—then as he spoke, droplets of blood clinging to the tips of his hair fell with a drip onto the floor.
Only then did I realize it was Zachary who had called me in that rasping voice, and my mouth fell open.
“Are you all right?”
The instant I recognized that it was Zachary speaking to me, I didn’t hesitate. I had already used up all the hesitation I had for a lifetime when deciding to come here. I rushed forward, planting myself before him, looking up at his face.
Up close, the boy’s eyes were still empty.
Once, they had been a deep, beautiful blue—the color that symbolized the bloodline of the Holy Empire, the mark of a child beloved by the god. Now, all vitality gone, they looked like the lifeless eyes of a doll.
And yet, desperate to live, he forced my reflection into those vacant pupils.
“Save… me.”
From his bloodless, cracked lips, a pale voice leaked. Shredded into ruin though it was, it still carried the sound of a young boy.
What in the world…
The appearance, the glazed, clouded eyes emptied of light—
And most of all, given how much time had passed since he was first shut in here, I was sure he must already have entered the third stage of “education.” Hadn’t he?
How was he still capable of expressing himself? Shocked, I steadied myself and examined him carefully. After a while, I realized why he looked in such a ruined state.
…The sorcery hadn’t fully taken hold.
Five days.
By now he should have been deep into the third stage. From what I had heard from the Marquis, the third stage robbed one of the ability to express anything at all.
But here he was, after five whole days, still able to plead for his life.
Could it be because of sacred power?
It had never been proven, but they said in ancient times sorcery was reviled for being a power that opposed the gods. That was why sorcerers had been banished from the Holy Empire—only our family had stubbornly kept walking that path.
If sorcery was a force that opposed the divine, then perhaps for one loved by the god, it could not take hold properly.
That’s why they subjected him to such brutal torture.
Mental torment alone was enough to shatter most minds. Only a handful with an exceptionally strong sense of self could withstand it—like intelligence agents who had undergone years of training to guard the state’s greatest secrets.
Against such people, one had no choice but to inflict torture of unimaginable intensity.
But perhaps because I was a child, or perhaps because he simply hadn’t wanted to speak of it, the Marquis had never described that part in detail.
And now I knew why. It was this horrifying.
“…Hurts. Cold.”
Zachary, sitting before me, murmured faintly.
Even those two short words—how much must he be suffering? I couldn’t begin to imagine.
I let out a sigh at the sight of my empty pockets. I should have brought something. What had I been thinking, coming here unprepared, as though out for a stroll?
Looking at him, his body covered head to toe in wounds, I had no idea where to even begin treatment. But at the very least, I wanted to apply medicine to his injuries.
But the Marquis is too sharp—he’d notice.
Topical medicine carried a smell. Even if it were colorless and odorless, the feel of something applied would give it away. Especially to someone as keen as the Marquis.
So in truth, there was nothing I could do.
No medicine, no helping, no escape. My own uselessness weighed on me, but now was not the time to wallow in it.
“I’ll bring medicine.”
At least one thought seemed usable. Topical remedies would be noticed, but oral ones—unless he opened up his insides, the Marquis wouldn’t know.
“So wait here and…”
“Please… save me.”
“…”
“…Hurts.”
His dazed face kept repeating the same words.
I clenched my fists, quickly knocked six times, and pushed myself back into the passage.
Beyond lay endless blackness. I thrust the glowstone forward and began to crawl.