Chapter 435 – On the Scar.

After visiting Krikaliev’s grave, Usher finished going out with Rachel only when the white city was dyed with sunset and the sky was about to go down.

‘What do you mean? I just wanted to show you. The city you protected.’

She couldn’t understand why she was doing this, so she asked and the answer came back.

‘I didn’t do it alone.’
‘But without Usher, it would have been harder for her. So I want you to be more proud.’

That’s how he engraved his eyes on every corner of the city as Rachel led him today. Perhaps she did it in hopes that she would stay here.

“As expected, I have to leave.”

It only made Usher’s heart firmer. After taking Rachel to her vice-captain’s office, he returned alone to the abode prepared in Parz.

“I’m gone.”
“Welcome.”

Helena was the first to greet Usher back home.

“Ah, you’re finally here!”

What is different from usual is the fact that another woman is here. Seol Shien wondered how long she had been waiting for, and immediately got up from her seat and she approached him.

“When are you planning to go to Pacifenia?”
“I plan to leave here in a few days, so be prepared.”
“Yes, yes?! So fast?”

Seolshien seemed embarrassed, but he had already planned this trip for a long time, so he could do it if he prepared more for her share of the sudden party.

“Wouldn’t you like to go home as soon as possible?”

If I was going to leave anyway, I was thinking of leaving before I had more regrets.

“Wait a minute! Please wait a moment.”

Sulsien grabbed him as he tried to enter the room first. What are you talking about? Looking back, she could see her amber eyes staring at him resolutely, biting her lip in the helmet.

“I have a favor.”

Can not be done. Isn’t there anything she can give to herself anyway? She will not be able to accept any request if it interferes with his purpose, so she will have to cut it down. The color resembling that memory disturbed his coolness.

“What are you asking for?”

Eventually, Usher had come into her room, which had been given to her. Because Sulsien said she wanted to talk to him alone.

“I still have work to do.”

Then Sulshien started talking about how he came to be here. She knew that she was a member of a school of alchemists in Pasifania, and that she had been dispatched to investigate the unusual situation in which the Dragon King descended twice in succession.

“What does that have to do with me?”

But Usher couldn’t understand why he was talking to him like that. On his way out of this place, he only sought out Seol Sien as a guide. What benefit did he get from helping her with her studies?

“That’s it! That’s…”

Seolshien tried to shout at Usher’s question, but managed to regain her composure. She knew her too. She knows that in order to convince him she has to explain more logically how she will benefit him.

However, she was nervous because there was no way she could convince Usher to do so. The wagon was at least exchangeable for a new one, but half of the budget had already been given to him.

Besides, he seems to have business in Pasifhenia, and he had to go around to her research instead of going straight to Pasifenia. By all appearances, he had nothing to gain Usher.

“If there is nothing else to do, I will go.”

When he finally got up from his seat and left the room, Seol Sien shouted in anger.

“My everything!”
“…What are you talking about?”

Fortunately, that cry caught Usher’s steps.

“It’s literally. I’ll give you my all.”

No matter how much Sul Shien thought about it, he thought that this was the only way left. It was a story that she hesitated until the end even to say because it was literally dedicating my all to him, but there was no place for her to retreat anymore to her.

“So please let me finish my investigation and return to my hometown.”
“Why are you so obsessed with it?”

In response to Usher’s question, Sulsien let out a sound and calmed down his rough breathing, recalling the names of the knights who had brought him here.

“Because you have to be successful.”

Aidos, Aegeus. Their names I only learned after death.

“If it wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t made an investigation plan, these people would have been alive and well.”

They might not have died if Sulsien had acted more carefully. If they had not made such a plan, they would have been living in Pacifenia even now.

“If the investigation fails even after sacrificing those two people, what will be the sacrifices of those people?”

Already, she received some support from her home country. But if the research fails, let alone succeed, how should we look at them? In the school, failure is more fearful than death, but the honor and money that can be gained when you succeed are great.

“I’m going to visit the families of the two of you.”

Wouldn’t that be enough to tell their families that their sacrifice was not in vain?

“The money I have left, the wagon that was exchanged… Even my body. You can do whatever you want.”

So please, I beg you. As she knelt down and saw her bowing her head, Usher kept her mouth shut and thought. She had no reason to do her favor.

There was no way to know how long Sulsien’s investigation would take, and there was no guarantee that the trip would go smoothly. Even so, Usher couldn’t deny that he was attracted to her proposal.

“The closest place to where Bingryong Otter descended is Ragado.”
“That word…!”

She nodded as she saw Seol Sien looking up at him with a bright red color on her face.

“I will accept your offer.”

After leaving her with her words, Usher returned to her room and laid her on her bed.

“Because it might be there.”

When I quietly closed my eyes while whispering an excuse I didn’t know to whom, the black darkness covered my eyes.

‘Belka.’

When she was little, she was with him in a small forest in the woods and protected him by whispering unreserved love.

‘Erika.’

A girl who met under the legacy of a cold and dark past and was in trouble for playing a bit of a prank, but nonetheless gave her all for him. The lovable girls who tried to deceive him with lies they couldn’t even do for him until the end and told him to forget themselves.

I’d rather lie a little bit better. If only I had begged not to forget myself. If he had known that there was no hope, he would have given up without regret.

‘Eoseo, why don’t you just decorate it instead of wearing that kind of armor? Well, maybe there will be more girls… But let’s start with the shoes.’

The shoe store that Rachel led him to discover was an old man in Lantua.

‘I heard that the cafe opened last week. To visit once. Oh, don’t go alone first!’

There, at a table that passes by at first glance, the past self that I want to forget is sitting with the girls.

‘It must be difficult to make paper. Who keeps making magic books?’

In the bookstore in old memories, there are childish traces of blindly wishing for magic.

‘That’s where it was in Lak Saria too! Even when I was young, I ate it occasionally.’

Thin potatoes fried in hot oil melted and scattered on the girl’s tongue as she playfully held them out.

‘Looks like someone’s getting married.’

The ring that was put directly on the little hands of the girls at someone’s simple wedding that I found while passing by.

‘Sorry. Vice-captain.’

The things Rachel wanted to hold on to Usher, she convinced him. Wherever, at any moment, the images and memories of the girls are deeply melted, and they are with you in gold and gray.

Even though it had already become a piercing pain in his heart, he could not deny that he came to love even that pain. Cutting off his remaining hesitation, he decided to go in search of the last remaining piece of the girl.

Accepting Sulsien’s proposal was not a special reason. The reason why he decided to go to Pacifenia first was that it was a great power that boasted the largest scale than any other country, so he wondered if he could find the last remaining fragment of the girl there.

Likewise, it was a very natural fact considering that the piece could be found in Ragado.

“You really are leaving.”

Just as he had promised, his visit was opened.

“Helena.”

She then calls her name sitting next to her and opens her eyes to see a smiling woman. She, along with Belka, wants to heal him. She came from Lantua over the cloud region and, having only been a child, a woman who claimed to be his maid who took care of him.

Thanks to her being by her side all this time, even after he returned from a long battle with monsters as her knight, there was no dust in her house and there was always warm food to eat.

“Thank you for that time.”

She was also the woman who made me see that such a relationship was not just about love. I’m sorry when I think about it.

“Please go.”
“I will be back.”

That was all Usher could say to her, who told her that he would wait for him to leave in search of her pain.