CHAPTER 57…………….
“Wait a moment!”
Linaria hurriedly stopped Magnus.
Noah, ambushed in the middle of the night, had pupils blown wide in panic.
And as if reflecting his confusion, sparks began to fly around him, the air growing hot.
A very bad sign.
“You said you were going to examine his condition. How can you just shove something into his mouth like that?”
“This is exactly the situation I anticipated. That’s why the treatment method comes out immediately. The problem is, he’ll have to drink it often. But if we repeat this process each time, it’ll work.”
“How often?”
“Every day.”
“…I don’t want to go through this every day. Let’s try persuading him instead.”
“After we’ve already pinned him down? Forget it. First step decides the last step, and we botched the first.”
Magnus’s judgment was cold.
While he and Linaria argued, flames spread toward Kaaz’s hand, the one covering Noah’s mouth.
Linaria turned at the smell of burning and gasped.
“Kaaz, what are you doing? Let go!”
Even with fire burning his hand, Kaaz hadn’t made a single sound of pain.
It was hard to believe this was the same man who, just a few days ago, had exaggerated his nearly healed wounds to feign suffering.
At Linaria’s words, Kaaz finally let go.
Freed, Noah muttered—
“Anna?”
He looked at Linaria and whispered the name.
She had expected him to scream at the intruders.
But instead, he called out some girl’s name. Magnus gave Noah a side glance.
“I’ll persuade him.”
“Looking like this? You realize if we’re treated like criminals, we’ll have nothing to say for ourselves.”
“But he’s still capable of conversation. What if we force-feed him the medicine every day and it causes side effects?”
“Then that’ll just be his fate.”
Linaria stared hard at Magnus.
“Fine, fine! Do as you like.”
Unable to win against her stubbornness, Magnus finally stepped back.
Linaria had changed her hair color to avoid recognition.
That was why Noah had mistaken her for “Anna.”
When you don’t know whether it’s lucky or unlucky to be recognized…
You turn it into an advantage.
Linaria decided to brazen it out.
“We came here by the will of Lord Brimstone.”
“…Auguste?”
Brother Auguste. Please understand.
Dropping Auguste’s name, Linaria declared confidently:
“Yes. Auguste Brimstone. The Duke’s friend.”
Hearing a familiar name from a familiar face, Noah’s unease seemed to settle, the flames gradually receding.
He visibly calmed down.
“And this doctor is going to give you medicine. You need to take it every day.”
“Medicine?”
“Medicine that will draw out the divine beast inside you.”
“Impossible.”
“You can’t conclude that until we’ve tried.”
“N-no. If we trigger that thing by mistake, everyone will die. Just like that day…”
His eyes lost focus, darting around.
It felt like people were surrounding him.
But now all he could see were black, faceless shapes.
Heat swelled in his head, and the air grew hotter.
Hot?
No, no, no.
He’d lose control again. Burn everything again.
Just as Noah trembled in fear—
“You won’t die.”
A cold, firm grip suddenly closed around his hand.
His hazy vision cleared. He saw a pale hand tightly holding his own.
“I won’t let you die.”
And a resolute voice.
“When a typhoon strikes, no one can demand it to stop.”
“…”
“I believe it’s the same with the power of a divine beast.”
“But… I must control it completely. I am Ignas. Otherwise, the divine beast never would have chosen me.”
Noah’s voice trembled, heavy with self-blame.
“Y-yeah. It chose wrong. I never should have inherited a divine beast.”
Seeing him like that, Linaria felt certain.
He’s killed with this power before.
She pieced it together—Magnus’s theory, and the little she knew.
Noah’s parents.
The former Duke and Duchess of Ignas were said to have died because they failed to wield the divine beast’s power properly.
No one questioned the cause.
After all, Ignas was notoriously difficult to control.
But what if they had actually died because Noah lost control while inheriting the beast?
According to Magnus, attempts had been made in the past to turn bearers of a divine beast into gods themselves.
None had succeeded.
They either died in a rampage or lived as ticking bombs, ready to explode at any moment.
Those were the only two outcomes.
And even if they survived, their growth and aging would stop.
The timing fit perfectly.
Linaria hadn’t seen what happened back then.
But she didn’t believe Noah was a murderer.
“It’s called a disaster because it’s unpredictable and uncontrollable.”
“…”
“If the divine beast is nature, then you’re just human. A pitiful human caught in a disaster.”
He had only been thirteen.
Far too young to comprehend what it meant to become Ignas itself.
Realizing that, Linaria made her decision. She would offer him a hand.
“Please, Master of the Tower.”
“I knew you’d say that. You’ve got a soft heart, you know that? Tch. Even if I refused, you’d ignore me anyway.”
Noah had lived burdened with the guilt of killing his parents, shutting his heart completely, terrified of unleashing disaster again.
Turning her back on him now would only leave regret.
“Having a divine beast doesn’t make you a god. So stop blaming yourself for everything.”
Humans fear gods.
But it’s always humans who kill humans.
“If you can’t see your situation objectively, it’s not humility—it’s arrogance.”
Noah blinked.
No one had ever told him, It’s not your fault.
No one had ever reminded him he was only human.
“I-I’ve never thought that way.”
He slipped his hand free from hers.
“Then let me ask you one thing. Do you want to go outside? Beneath the sun that isn’t burning hot?”
“I…I want to.”
So Linaria pressed something cold and hard into his hand.
“A gift from me.”
It was a glowstone.
“Endure while believing that someday, you’ll stand beneath the real sun, not this light.”
Noah stared at the glowstone, then slowly nodded.
And with determination, he drank the potion.
“Ugh—!”
He gagged immediately.
“Once a day. Don’t skip it. And don’t let anyone find out about it.”
Magnus set down the remaining bottles with a businesslike tone devoid of warmth.
“Since you have the divine beast, you won’t die or go mad easily. What matters is your will.”
“…”
“Endure even when it hurts enough to die. Because if you endure, you won’t die. And even if you want to die, endure.”
Magnus glanced at Linaria.
“Because if you die, there’s still someone left who would cry for you—and that’s a blessing.”
“My child nearly died because of that damned Ignas!”
“Which is why I told you we shouldn’t attend the Unity Gathering. But you insisted on dragging the boy along, Samantha.”
Thomas answered his wife irritably.
He was a distant relative of Duke Noah of Ignas.
His wife and son bore the mark of Leviathan. He had warned them against going to Ignas’s gathering, but they had gone anyway, and now this mess.
“Do you think Leviathan belongs only to me and our child? Or is it a crime for a fox to play king when the tiger’s away?”
When he first heard that Ignas’s power had rampaged while the children were playing, he had been terrified.
Some blamed a servant. Others claimed it was one of the younger kids.
But when he visited the scene, there were no culprits—only a hallway burned black.
Even Samantha, who wielded Leviathan’s power, had felt a chill down her spine at the sight.
She had realized instinctively that this was power she could never stop.
“It’s dangerous. We should be grateful no lives were lost. From now on, stay away from Ignas entirely.”
“But, dear.”
“What?”
“If Duke Ignas dies… isn’t it highly likely you’ll inherit the divine beast?”
The qualification of bearer of a divine beast.
There were only two ways to gain it:
- Being born with it.
- When no bearer exists, a minor inheritor awakens to it.
“Since all the collateral kin died seven years ago, yes, the chances are high.”
Noah’s thirteenth birthday.
It wasn’t only his parents who died that day.
Which meant Thomas, who hadn’t attended the banquet, was the closest thing Noah had left to family.
“If it were possible to kill him, I’d have done it long ago. But as you know, he’s the head of house. Assassination is impossible.”
He had even tried to seize control of the family through finances.
But the butler, sharp as ever, had foiled every plan.
“What if Duke Ignas loses his sanity completely?”
“He already has.”
“No, I mean—what if we truly turn him into a living corpse?”
