Chapter 95
There were other people here. Had they arrived before us? Or later? Were they imperial citizens too?
There were so many things I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I could only imagine how devastating it must have been for Jenas to talk about the people who had been with him dying.
I paused, choosing my words carefully.
But before I could even offer him a word of comfort, Jenas spoke first.
“I don’t know how much time has passed.”
“Ah…”
“At first, I think I counted the days. But at some point, I lost track.”
Jenas answered in a perfectly calm, flat tone, his arms full of coconuts.
“I see.”
Then it would be hard to compare when he arrived with the date we woke up.
“Did you come here alone too, sis?”
“I had companions as well. I got swept away by the river and separated from them. Like you, when I woke up, I was already on this island.”
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, I should’ve introduced myself sooner. Margaret Rose Flonet—just call me Margaret. I’m from the Langrid Empire. A noble of the Duke Flonet family.”
“A noble…”
Jenas stared at my face with obvious curiosity. Was this his first time seeing a noble? I grew flustered under his intense gaze.
He’d probably faint if he saw the crown prince and the royal heir.
Thinking that, I briefly recalled the rest of my party.
Are they all safe? They have to be.
The island seemed quite large—what if we kept missing each other? Maybe I should head toward the suspension bridge after all?
Here I was, worrying about others when my own life was on the line. I let out a sigh.
From the looks of it, Jenas didn’t seem to have any real weapons either. First, we needed to get somewhere safe, assess the situation, and then think of a way to find Kaiden and Enoch.
“Sis, I have a hut where I stay. Want to go?”
“There’s a hut here?”
“Yeah.”
Jenas nodded vigorously.
I’d thought the only hut was the one we stayed in on the southern island.
Can I trust him?
But if this boy was somehow connected to the island’s secret, I needed to find out what that was.
Besides, once night fell, anywhere would be dangerous.
“Your wound. I can treat it.”
The boy pointed at my injury and added,
“There’s medicine in the hut.”
“Medicine? Really? You actually have something to treat wounds?”
At my question, he quietly nodded and looked at me. He didn’t seem inclined to explain further.
“…All right. Let’s go.”
The mention of medicine made me hesitate for a long time, but I eventually decided. Leaving the wound untreated could lead to infection.
I couldn’t judge by appearances alone, but this child didn’t look like someone who had kidnapped all of us.
Still, I had to stay on guard.
I looked at the items I’d laid out on the pebbled shore to dry. Following my gaze, Jenas looked there too and said,
“There’s a lot of strange stuff.”
“The clothes you’re wearing are unusual too.”
At my words, Jenas lowered his head and blankly examined his own outfit.
“I found them in the hut. They’re comfortable.”
Found them in the hut—just like how I’d found a bag and sneakers in my hut, it seemed his hut also had modern items.
“There are other clothes there too.”
As he said that, Jenas openly scanned my outfit. I suddenly felt embarrassed.
The dress exposing my calves was in a pitiful state. The decorations and lace at the hem were torn, the ribbon and jewels at the neckline ripped off.
On top of that, it was soaked and clammy. It didn’t smell, but it felt awful.
Pointing at my tattered dress, Jenas said,
“You should change too, sis.”
“Is the hut close to here?”
“If we go in just a bit, we’ll be there.”
At his words, I bent down to pick up the crossbody bag lying on the ground—and screamed as pain surged through me.
“Hngh—ugh!”
Watching me, Jenas sighed, then picked up my belongings himself, put them into the bag, and handed it to me.
“…Thanks.”
“Yeah. Shall we go?”
I quietly followed behind Jenas into the island’s interior. I tried to get a sense of our location by looking around, but it was hopeless.
All the forest looks the same.
Tomorrow at dawn, I’d need to climb a high mountain and get my bearings again. If only the flare gun had been intact—I could’ve fired it into the sky to signal my position.
What’s the best way to let them know where I am?
While pondering that, I looked at the back of Jenas’s head again.
“How did you survive here? This place is really dangerous. There are monsters too.”
At my question, Jenas glanced back at me, then looked up at the sky with a thoughtful expression. Scratching his temple, he replied,
“I’m good at running away and hiding.”
“That’s kind of like me.”
“I didn’t need to find food.”
“Huh? Why? Does the hut have a lot of food?”
I asked with a bit of hope. But his answer was completely unexpected.
“I’m a mage. I can live without eating.”
So that’s why he was wearing a mage’s robe over his hoodie.
But what puzzled me more was what he added after revealing he was a mage.
“How can someone live without eating? Are all mages like that? The mage I know isn’t.”
“I changed my constitution. Other people can’t do it.”
Jenas answered firmly—so firmly it almost felt arrogant.
I walked while keeping a sharp eye on our surroundings and asked,
“I don’t think that has anything to do with constitution. Is that even possible…? The archmage I know practically wants to die when he’s hungry. Oh—he’s one of the top mages on the continent.”
Jenas didn’t answer. Only after a long pause did he speak.
“Sis, I’m a genius.”
Oh. That’s some serious confidence.
“He’s a genius too.”
I shot back, defending Kaiden. He was the youngest archmage and the youngest tower master, after all.
His personality was a bit—no, very—strange, but if someone like him wasn’t a genius, who was?
“He can’t even change his constitution. Then he’s not a genius.”
Well… when you put it that way.
“If that’s true… But you can’t use magic on this island.”
“I changed my constitution back when I was still in the kingdom, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I see…”
Since I knew nothing about magic, I couldn’t tell whether he was right or not. I’d have to ask Kaiden later.
“Then you’re from a kingdom? Hestia?”
“No. Ingram.”
“…What?”
Startled by his answer, I froze and grabbed his shoulder, coming to a halt.
The sudden stop put terrible strain on my abdomen, but the pain didn’t matter right now.
“Wait—what? The Ingram Kingdom?”
Jenas tilted his head in confusion.
“Why?”
“The Ingram dynasty collapsed a thousand years ago. It’s been ages since Ingram fell and the Langrid Empire was founded.”
“Ah…”
Only then did Jenas seem to understand, nodding calmly. His expression still showed no agitation.
“You don’t mean…”
“It’s already been a thousand years.”
I was left speechless, staring at the beautiful boy in front of me.
Complicated thoughts crashed over me like waves. A thousand years of living.
Could he really be the one who kidnapped us? And he was a mage—no, a genius mage.
Jenas looked at me quietly, then shrugged as if it were nothing.
“When you’re here, your sense of time dulls.”
“A thousand years is way beyond ‘your sense of time dulls’! Ngh.”
I raised my voice in agitation, and pain surged again as if my wound had reopened. Damn it—I really needed to treat it soon.
“Are you okay?”
Jenas asked in a flat, lifeless tone. I nodded just as halfheartedly, though in truth, I was far from okay.
Between the pain and the mental shock, my thoughts felt completely frozen.
Then, suddenly, I remembered the absurd theory I’d come up with just before meeting Jenas—the earthbound spirit theory.
A spirit unaware of its own death, endlessly repeating the same place and time.
“Don’t tell me…”
I clutched my head in shock.
Dying from getting hit by a signboard had already been ridiculous enough—had I died again in Margaret’s body? When? How?
“I’m dead…”
I knew it was an absurd thought, even as it crossed my mind, but I couldn’t easily shake the feeling.
After I’d stood there despairing for a long while, Jenas spoke to me in a calm voice.
“What are you talking about? You’re not dead.”
I slowly lifted my head. Jenas stood there with his arms crossed, looking at me as if I were pathetic.
“I’m not dead either.”
“You said you’ve lived here for a thousand years.”
“That’s true, but I’m not dead.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve never died.”
With that confident statement, Jenas stared straight at me and asked,
“You don’t remember how you died either, right? That’s because you didn’t die.”
“Earthbound spirits don’t remember dying either.”
“Earthbound… what?”
Jenas frowned, narrowing his eyes in confusion.
With a sigh, I pushed the earthbound spirit theory aside and asked him,
“If you’re not dead, then… you just couldn’t escape?”
Jenas looked away, as if thinking, then slowly nodded.
“Yeah. More or less.”
“What kind of unsettling answer is that?”
Even at my question, Jenas just stared at me blankly, clearly unwilling to explain any further.
Feeling awkward, I started to stand—then suddenly thought of his age.
“Wait… then that means you’re over a thousand years old.”
