HDBMTD 45

Chapter 45

Nocturne remembered that moment—when he had subdued Willow and his men and entered the lab.

The inside of the ruined building was pitch dark. Faint moonlight slipped through the collapsed ceiling, and shards of glass and concrete debris littered the floor.

A faint light came from deep inside the laboratory, where the princess sat alone. Her golden hair draped over her shoulders, her face slightly bowed.

A flashlight stood upright next to her, its beam shining straight up to the collapsed ceiling.

The moment he saw that, he couldn’t help but mistake her for someone else.

Ari had the same habit—pointing the light toward the ceiling in Cambiata-related places.

In Nocturne’s memory of that day, they had decided to raid Cambiata’s secret hideout. They silently infiltrated the pitch-black building.

But then Ari spoke:

“This hideout is empty.”

“What?”

Disappointed murmurs erupted around them.

“Did they figure out we were coming?”

“Yeah, it seems they escaped in advance.”

People clicked their tongues in frustration.

Finding the hideout empty made everyone relax.

If there were no enemies, there was no danger—or so they thought.

Normally, the combat-class Eshafae would lead the way, but this time Ari went ahead.

The moment Nocturne entered the building, he noticed the stench of blood.

And just as he pinpointed the source—

The feet of a corpse hanging from the ceiling brushed against Ari’s forehead.

“Ari!”

Ari looked up in shock and saw a familiar yet horribly strange face.

“…Riman?”

It was the comrade she had fought alongside for months, now stitched to the body of a monster and hanging from the ceiling.

As the corpse, barely hanging on, threatened to fall on her—

Nocturne lunged forward and pulled her into his arms.

Thud!

“Aaagh!”

The sound of something massive hitting the ground echoed, followed by the horrified screams of their comrades.

“Ari, don’t look,” Nocturne said urgently.

But with her vision blocked, Ari instinctively used another’s sight to scan the area.

And then she saw them.

Human-monster hybrids, grotesquely fused and hanging like spiders from the ceiling, staring down at them.

“No!”

Cries of dead comrades’ names rang out from all directions. Some collapsed to the ground, some retched, and others fainted from the shock.

The next morning, one soldier who had lost their partner hanged themselves.

From that day onward, Ari developed the habit: whenever entering a dark Cambiata-related place, she would always shine light at the ceiling first.

And now the princess had done the exact same thing.

Nocturne’s heart pounded irregularly.

“Because she has Ari’s memories…”

That’s why she had inherited everything—Ari’s trauma, her habits, her thoughts, even…

Her emotions.

“See you tomorrow, my love.”

Suddenly, he remembered the day the princess had smiled at him with Ari’s face and called him her love.

Back then, he had thought it was just an act…

But could a being who had Ari’s body, Ari’s memories, and Ari’s heart really be called Cambiata?

At that moment, he remembered a myth Padva had once told him.

It was four months after Ari had died.

At the time, Nocturne had isolated himself at the duke’s estate, recovering from the aftereffects of his berserk state. He only came out when high-class monsters appeared, then hid away again.

Padva had visited him then.

“I heard you’ve recovered a lot. I’m glad.”

Nocturne hadn’t cared about anything back then, but Padva continued talking about various things. Then he brought up a story:

“By the way, Nocturne, do you know the story of ‘Theseus’s ship’?”

“I do not.”

“It’s an old myth from before the Great Cataclysm, found in some documents discovered 10 years ago. It’s very interesting. The main characters are Theseus and the Minotaur…”

Padva explained who the mythological figures were.

“After Theseus defeated the Minotaur, he returned home on a ship. The people of Athens decided to preserve the ship as a memorial to their victory.”

Padva continued slowly, as though telling an old tale.

“But as time passed, the parts of the ship began to rot. So they replaced the rotting parts with new ones—masts, hull, everything. In the end, not a single original part remained.”

“…”

“Then the philosophers asked: can that ship still be called Theseus’s ship? Even though all the parts had been replaced? But the more interesting question is this…”

Padva didn’t care that Nocturne wasn’t responding.

“What if someone gathered all the discarded original parts and rebuilt the ship exactly as it was? Now there are two ships—the one made with new parts and the one rebuilt with the old parts. Which one is truly Theseus’s ship?”

Nocturne’s hand paused for a moment.

“There’s no answer. Some people value continuity and say the ship that’s been in use is the real one. Others value the original materials and say the rebuilt ship is the real one.”

Padva looked at Nocturne with a meaningful gaze.

“What I wonder most is… what would Theseus himself think? Whichever ship he recognizes would be the real Theseus’s ship, wouldn’t it?”

Nocturne sensed something strange in Padva’s green eyes.

“Why are you telling me this story now?”

“Just…”

Padva trailed off briefly, his green eyes shining mysteriously.

“I wanted to encourage you.”

He shrugged and stood up.

“Don’t cling too much to the past. Ari would want you to keep moving forward.”

Standing alone in the corridor, lost in old memories, Nocturne wiped his face with both hands and pulled himself together.

He started toward his bedroom but stopped again.

He was too restless to sleep anyway.

He was about to take a walk when he noticed a shadow moving outside the window—a woman with orange hair heading behind the lodge.

“That maid?”

It was Tita: Lucien’s spy, a psychic Eshafae, and the one who had served the clone most closely while revering Ari.

He already had things to discuss with her, so it was a good opportunity.

And since she still didn’t know the princess was a clone, now was the time to tell her.

Nocturne made up his mind and started walking.

Tita was out for a late-night walk. As she walked along the small garden path behind the lodge, she saw a familiar silhouette in the distance.

“Your Grace?”

It was Nocturne and his aide.

“Out for a walk at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Walk with us. This area is a hunting ground, so it’s dangerous to walk alone.”

“I’m not exactly alone. My knight escort is with me…”

Tita was a little nervous, but as he said, there was no harm in being with an S-class Eshafae so late at night. She didn’t refuse twice.

As they walked through the garden, Tita glanced sideways at Nocturne.

To be honest, her first impression of him had been the worst.

They say a man who stays by your side when you’re sick and struggling is the real deal, but the duke had been the complete opposite.

If someone had asked her then for the opposite of “the real deal,” she would have answered: Nocturne.

But the princess, blinded by love, had defended him, saying he was an angelic puppy and only acted cold because of brainwashing.

“So I trusted her and told him the situation… and in the end, he did find the princess for us.”

When she saw him carrying the princess gently out of that gloomy ruin, he had looked like a saint.

He continued to worry about the princess’s health afterward too.

In that time, Nocturne had been promoted three ranks in Tita’s heart, going from “ungrateful bastard” to “Duke Vendrix.”

But she wasn’t ready to completely let down her guard.

She wanted the princess to live a happy life after escaping the palace, but she wasn’t sure the duke was capable of giving her that.

“I wonder…”

While Tita was staring quietly at Nocturne, he suddenly spoke.

“Have you noticed anything strange about the princess? Something different from before?”

“…Strange? About the princess?”

His tone sounded like he was probing. Tita realized he was trying to dig up something about the princess.

“Is he… suspicious of her?”

Now that she thought about it, the knight assigned to the princess seemed more like a guard than a protector, and he was constantly checking on her.

“Why would he suspect the princess, when she’s been through so much and is still unwell…?”

She didn’t know what he was trying to find out, but it hurt.

The princess had always looked at him with love, yet the duke seemed to treat her purely politically.

Tita adored the princess and believed the duke should feel the same way.

But he didn’t—because he didn’t know something important.

The princess was too humble to say it herself, so Tita had to.

“Rance,” Nocturne called, intending to reveal the truth about the princess to Tita.

His aide had prepared evidence in case Tita refused to believe it, including documents stating that cloned humans couldn’t use Eshafae powers.

But just before Rance could hand over the papers, Tita spoke first.

“Please treasure Her Highness. She nearly died trying to break your brainwashing.”

“…What?”