Chapter 42: The Witch’s Silence (5)

“Are you serious?”

I asked coldly.

Sympathy wouldn’t work on me.

I had experienced it countless times.

I knew very well just how ugly humans could become when they appealed to pity and emotions.

Even if I could peer into Ianna’s mind—
even if I knew exactly what she was thinking—
it would be the same.

If she dared to weigh her life against my sympathy, I was prepared to ruthlessly reject her.

I trusted no one.

I refused to suffer again by falling for honeyed lies hiding a needle.

No more.

“…I vaguely know. That some part of me is merging with you.”

“A part…?”

So it wasn’t that her full personality remained intact.

“Yeah, a part. The me standing before you right now is also just a part of Ianna’s personality.”

“…”

Ianna was dead.

I realized it immediately.

The one standing before me was Ianna’s ghost.

A mere remnant clinging to the body.

“…That’s right.”

Ianna nodded without denying it.

‘…Why?’

Had Ianna died the moment I possessed her?

Or—

“Do you remember? That day.

When snow fell in thick clumps.

The day you were rescued by your comrades.

The day you groped through your near-blindness, pulling out the medical tubes embedded all over your body.”

It was about the time when Ianna was supposedly rescued.

“That day, I was already dead.”

It was a shocking revelation.

I couldn’t say anything in response.

“…Then how until now—”

“Who knows? You’re free to imagine whatever you like. Use your vivid imagination all you want.”

Ianna, with tear-streaked cheeks, gave a small smile.

The reason my personality was becoming so influenced by Ianna—

It wasn’t because her influence was invading me.

It was the opposite.

I was devouring Ianna’s personality.

The influence came because of that.

The small, faint fragment of Ianna’s mind was getting swallowed up by the whirlpool of my soul, destined to disappear completely.

“That’s right. You’re exactly right.”

“…”

It was a miserable fate.

Even knowing how her story ended—

how the novel concluded—

even I found Ianna’s life overwhelmingly tragic.

And to think even her ending was tainted with falsehoods.

“If I disappear like this, the fusion will stop.
You’ll be able to use my body however you want. Probably…”

“…And you?”

“So please, I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if necessary.

Please save everyone.
I don’t care what happens to me anymore.

Now that I know what kind of future is ahead, I can’t just stand by.”

She accepted her own sacrifice as natural.

“It’s my duty.”

I tried to ignore it, but Ianna’s quiet words struck a chord deep within me.

Because I knew everything about her.

I couldn’t turn away.

“You can hate me. Resent me.

You can do anything you want.

But please… please… I’m begging you…”

Ianna looked no different from any ordinary girl.

Except that her hair, shining under the moonlight, looked even more radiant.

Tears streaming down her face, Ianna set me down onto the wooden veranda.

And then.

She slowly began strangling herself.

Her neck tightened more and more.

Although she wore a pained expression, she never eased the pressure.

If anything, she applied even more force—

As if determined to die right here in front of me—her eyes mixing madness and resolve.

Just as her complexion turned deathly pale,
my body moved instinctively.

I hurled myself at Ianna and tore her hands away from her neck.

Losing her balance, Ianna toppled over onto the veranda floor.

I climbed atop her, desperately restraining her hands that were trying to strangle herself.

The two of us—same face,

different souls—were tangled together.

‘…Why?’

If.

If my fate was truly to merge with Ianna’s body and rewrite the predestined downfall—

Then it would have been best for Ianna to vanish here and now.

The optimal move would be to erase her soul fragment completely and send it soaring into the starry sky.

Even my logic was screaming at me:
kill her here so that her remnants would never drag me down again.

‘…No.’

I was not a good person.

I had climbed higher by trampling over countless colleagues.

Even knowing it was all a trap.

I never regretted the things I had done.

But.

“Don’t stop me…”

I gritted my teeth and pinned Ianna’s wrists down.

It wasn’t because of some shallow sense of justice.

Nor was it because I saw the image of my siblings overlapping with Ianna.

It was the final line.

The last boundary I had drawn inside my heart.

If I crossed that line—
if I allowed Ianna to die or killed her myself—

I would become exactly like my father.

I had no extraordinary talent.

No great luck with people.

Only stubbornness.

It was sheer stubbornness that had pulled me up from the gutter.

Believing—just believing—that I was different from my father,

I had walked the path ahead, supported by the gaze of my siblings who looked up to me.

I walked a road from which there was no return.

Only a hell disguised as paradise awaited.

Only nightmares beyond imagination.

Maybe.

Maybe it was karma.

Maybe the price had come due for someone like me—

someone who had spent his whole life looking upward and neglecting everyone around him.

Did someone like me have any right to force death upon Ianna?

I believed.

Ianna wasn’t dead.

The Ianna standing before me was the real her.

Not some leftover remnant of a soul,
but Janwol herself—the girl who had spent decades sacrificing everything for those she loved.

I couldn’t kill her.

I couldn’t force death on her.

I must not.

Sympathy.

It was a feeling I had told myself I must never harbour.

It was always my sympathy that led to indecision and ruin.

Even when I should have prioritized myself,

I wasted too much time and money helping lonely seniors, orphans, and struggling students—
people who reminded me of my siblings.

I hated myself for it.

How many times had I ruined everything because of fleeting sympathy?

Even when I steeled my heart, it was useless.

I couldn’t turn a blind eye.

I refused to turn away.

Because I knew too well how easily my father had cut ties with his family.

It made me cling all the harder.

I wanted to prove—

prove that I was nothing like my father.

“Stop it.”

Death didn’t suit Ianna.

She was someone who always smiled calmly and brightly.

Someone fundamentally opposite to death.

I knew.

Ianna’s life was far, far more tragic than mine could ever be.

Accustomed to being called curses rather than her own name by her mother,
she lost everything at a young age and was cast into hell.

Ianna didn’t deserve this.

She shouldn’t have to suffer even at the moment of her death.

The path she was meant to walk wasn’t one of despair.

A life spent protecting the weak.

She had the right to achieve her wish.

Her wish wasn’t riches or fame.

It was a selfless desire.

‘To protect tomorrow.’

To make sure those she had protected could greet another peaceful day.

To make sure they wouldn’t be killed unfairly.

To make sure that all the things they worked so hard to build wouldn’t be destroyed.

That was the wish Ianna held.

Too humble to turn away from.

That was all.

“…Thanks, but honestly, I’m just a hindrance.”

Ianna said with a smile, sticking out her tongue.

And then—

Crack!

Just as she bit down on her tongue—

My tongue plunged deep into Ianna’s mouth.

Ianna’s eyes widened in shock as she struggled to fight me off.

But I didn’t allow it.

Our tongues intertwined—
just like how I was now intertwined with her body.

A perfect overlap.

Could she still sever herself now?

No.

I had completely blocked all her paths to death.

In the noisy dawn, with crickets’ cries brushing past our ears—

Ianna tried over and over to shake me off,
but each time, she was thwarted.

I could feel her ragged breathing against me.

Of course—
we were locked mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue.

To prevent her from pulling any tricks,
I pressed even closer.

Our noses touched, sharing warmth.

“Mmmph…”

I still hadn’t permitted Ianna’s death.

Stopping her from dying—

That was my right.

Dragging an unrelated stranger into this world and then selfishly choosing death—
I refused to accept that.

It was an equivalent exchange.

In return for helping Ianna achieve her wish,
I was taking the right to prevent her death.

“…Mmph.”

Ianna must have understood what I was thinking.

She had seen it from the moment we entered this ethereal space.

Finally, Ianna stopped struggling and stared at me wide-eyed.

‘…You’ve calmed down.’

Thinking that,

I slowly pulled my tongue from her mouth.

I also slowly released her wrists.

Ianna would not die.

I didn’t want her to.

I sincerely wished so.

And just as I was moving away from Ianna’s body—

Thud!

“…That’s not how you’re supposed to tangle tongues, you know.”

Ianna pounced on me.