Chapter 103
She had disobeyed the man who told her to come back.
But when the day of awakening came near, fear drove her to return to this place.
Barun took a deep breath as he looked at his faded silver hair reflected in the glass window.
“If you hadn’t crossed the line, I would’ve stopped.”
The child he had spared countless times had finally gone too far—
past a line that could never be forgiven.
Barun drew a dagger from his robes and slashed his wrist.
A few drops of crimson blood splattered onto the wooden floor, revealing an invisible magic formula that began to glow faintly.
For an instant, the pattern shone brightly, then condensed into a single point before vanishing altogether.
Barun closed his eyes.
A foreign presence suddenly filled the air… and in the next moment, a chilling killing intent wrapped around him.
“Kh—!”
Barun’s eyes flew open.
It was too late to avoid it.
The hand clutching his throat was ice cold.
This wasn’t the kind of reunion he’d ever imagined. His whole body trembled, his heart pounding violently in his chest as he struggled in panic.
“Who are you?”
Golden hair. Golden eyes.
The man, still as beautiful as he was in Barun’s memories, stared down at him with emotionless eyes.
It was as if time had never passed—there was not the slightest trace of age or change on that face.
Barun’s face flushed bright red under the man’s powerful grip.
“G—Ghk!!”
He slapped desperately at the man’s arm, begging silently to be released. Finally, the man’s hand loosened.
As the long-awaited air rushed into his lungs, Barun coughed violently, gasping for breath.
“Y-you—!”
But when he met that detached, cold gaze, Barun realized something was terribly wrong.
Those golden eyes held no emotion at all, only the faintest trace of mockery—as though he were looking at something utterly insignificant.
It was the look of someone who would not even flinch if the thing before him disappeared that instant.
Barun swallowed hard.
If he wasn’t careful, he might die right here.
Then, acting on pure instinct, he spoke a name—one that wasn’t his own.
“V–Velia Arfedi!”
“…What?”
Seeing the man’s reaction, Barun hurriedly continued.
“Born December 19th—Velia Arfedi, the one you’ve been looking for! My younger sister!”
The man tilted his head slightly… and then froze.
Time seemed to stop. Barun couldn’t move a muscle, just waited in tense silence for the man’s next reaction.
Then the man’s frozen gaze slowly changed.
His pupils dilated, and his lips curved upward into a graceful arc.
At the end of that motion, he spoke with a dazzling smile—one as beautiful as it was terrifying.
“Ah… I remember now.”
The soft tone of his voice sent chills down Barun’s spine.
“Yes. That was the name.”
The satisfaction of rediscovery filled his face, a twisted mixture of delight and horror—beautiful, and utterly demonic.
“Velia Arfedi… found you.”
The scar on the man’s neck began to change—
the once jagged mess of wounds now forming into a single, indecipherable number.
✦✦✦
Near the borders of the Kingdom of Ethel, across the sea from the Holy Nation.
A bright shimmer of light appeared amid the thick forest.
Flap!
Startled birds scattered from the trees as two figures appeared between the dense branches.
“Haah—! Hahh—.”
Panting heavily, Karin struggled to steady herself.
Having barely escaped from the Holy Nation, she leaned weakly against the trunk of an old tree, her legs trembling.
“Gods, wow… I don’t even remember the last time I ran this much.”
“The Forest of Mist,” muttered Carlton.
“Ah—right.”
Even the usually expressionless Carlton seemed exhausted, his breathing uneven as he stared at the object in his hand.
“But at least we found it.”
In his grip was a chalice—an ancient, weathered holy grail.
Karin’s face twisted with frustration as she saw his satisfied look.
“Yeah, we found it, but are you sure this is the one? We almost died back there!”
The scene they had left behind before teleporting was pure chaos—
holy knights in panic, alarms blaring throughout the temple.
The priests had been horrified when they discovered intruders within the sanctum.
Having barely survived their escape, Karin’s face was pale as a ghost.
“We got it out, but if they find out we stole a relic—! We’ll be wanted across the entire continent!”
“Velia said to trust the Saintess,” Carlton replied calmly.
“Are you sure that’s even real?!” Karin’s frustrated shout echoed through the trees.
Carlton just shrugged. “Who knows.”
“Are you seriously that calm about this?!”
“What’s done is done. And Velia said she needs it.”
That was true.
A short while ago, the two had secretly infiltrated the Holy Nation and stolen the relic.
It wasn’t one of the most sacred artifacts, so the security had been relatively lax, allowing them to retrieve it quickly.
Still, the thought of how this theft might shake the continent was chilling.
[We must find the Saintess. Before Vain does—before he makes his move.]
Those words, written in a letter from Velia two days ago, had sent Karin and Carlton toward the Holy Nation.
“The Saintess…”
Karin murmured the word mentioned in the letter, her fingers tracing the relic’s surface.
She still couldn’t quite believe it.
If not for the memories she had recovered in the Forest of Mist, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it.
But she and Carlton did remember—
hazy, fragmented moments when Vain had spoken the word Saintess.
Considering where they—and Vain—had come from, the possibility couldn’t be dismissed.
Still, to think that such a word, long vanished from history, would resurface—it was bewildering.
If it hadn’t been for Velia’s certainty, neither of them would have moved.
In truth, if it hadn’t been Velia who asked, they would never have done something so reckless.
“Do you really think a Saintess exists?”
Karin stared blankly at the relic in her hands—
the Holy Grail of the Saintess.
It was a well-known artifact across the continent, familiar even to common folk.
Priests used it during their awakening ceremonies to channel divine power;
despite its exalted name, it was a practical tool.
From small chapels to the Holy Nation’s central temple, every sanctuary was required to possess one.
Most were replicas infused with divine energy—
but the true Holy Grail, the genuine artifact, had been kept in the central temple…
and now it rested in Carlton’s hands.
“But if she’s really a Saintess, shouldn’t she be able to awaken without the grail?”
Karin had questioned this ever since Carlton decided to move after receiving Velia’s letter.
A Saintess should awaken naturally, grail or not.
“That’s the point,” Carlton replied. “Because she can’t, the Saintess hasn’t reappeared in this world.”
“Huh?”
“Anyway, let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To Velia. We need to see for ourselves whether the Saintess really exists.”
Carlton turned his gaze toward the direction of Revlon, the destination written at the end of Velia’s letter.
They had escaped the Holy Nation, but they were still within the reach of its magical barrier.
He tried to focus mana into a teleportation orb—
but the energy scattered uselessly. He shook his head.
Thankfully, both of them possessed divine power mixed with magic, allowing them to endure within the barrier’s suppression.
Any ordinary mage would have been crushed by the pressure of holy energy here.
“Ha… let’s just keep moving,” Karin sighed, forcing her heavy legs forward.
But as soon as she took her first step, Carlton suddenly stopped.
“We’d better hurry.”
“Why?”
They needed to hurry anyway, but his sudden urgency made Karin frown as she tried to keep up.
“Hey, slow down! I’m dying here!”
Sweating profusely, she looked up at him—only to see a strangely uneasy expression on his face.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered something.”
“What?”
“After that relic theft years ago in the Holy Nation—apparently the Mage Tower got an official request.”
“The Mage Tower?”
“Yeah. It was before I became Tower Master. The old Tower Master told me once that it was one of his proudest works.”
“What work?”
Carlton widened the distance between them slightly before replying:
“He said he made an incredibly complex tracking formula—to show those priest bastards who hated magic what real sorcery looked like.”
“Tracking… formula?”
Karin blinked between Carlton and the relic in his hand.
Then, as the realization dawned, her face went pale.
Carlton hesitated before muttering under his breath—something that sounded far too calm.
“…The formula’s not coming off.”
“WHAT?!”
Karin’s scream echoed through the forest once again.
“We need to move. Fast.”
If they were discovered, it was over.
And at this rate, being caught was only a matter of time.
With grim faces, Carlton and Karin poured every last drop of magic they had left into running forward—
driven by a single thought: they had to reach Velia.
And at that very moment, the Holy Nation declared a state of emergency across the entire continent.
