episode_0072

Agape.

It’s time to wake up from the dream.

…Yes.

I couldn’t escape the dream for too long.

Trying to forget the nightmare, I only tried to hold onto the sweet dream, failing to think about escaping the nightmare itself.

My tears, as I destroyed the Amber until the very end, were proof of that.

My convictions, my dreams, my long-held promises.

Now, like shattered glass, they were fragmented into pieces, scratching my skin and causing terrible pain. I thought I had let go of the lingering regrets, thinking they were mere remnants.

I had vowed to abandon my convictions and embrace the conviction of pursuing strength, thereby completely erasing the very trace of the human named Agape from this continent.

But even at the last moment, as I shattered the fake Amber I received from Fulcanelli, I hesitated.

Inside my shriveled, wrung-out heart, past emotions still swirled, flowing out in the form of tears.

And I realized.

Ah.

I was still waiting for someone to run to me.

Unable to escape the lingering regrets of the past, I was hoping someone would reach out a hand of salvation to me, even at the very moment I was erasing my own existence.

Kara.

I had secretly hoped Kara would run to me.

Like a fairy tale, a story filled only with dreams and illusions, I had hoped she would run to me.

How foolish.

A dream is just a dream, and an illusion is just an illusion.

Was I also captivated by the fairy tales Kara loved so much?

I wished that, as if by magic, she would appear, and we would embrace, hoping all that had happened was a misunderstanding.

That it was a misunderstanding, and that I had actually loved her.

So let’s reconcile and live together again, just like before.

…Fairy tales are just fairy tales.

There are no happy stories.

At the end of every story, only misfortune awaits.

Because whoever created this continent, this world, and destiny, loved for stories to end unhappily.

Yes.

Let’s break it.

Let’s shatter this last hesitation, and at the same time, break this fake Amber.

After all, there will be no salvation for me.

It was never there before, and it won’t be there in the future.

So-

*Snap!*

Now, it’s truly time to wake up from the dream.

“Senior!”

A familiar voice, and an even more familiar, cheerful tone I had longed to hear.

Helena.

As if from a fairy tale, she appeared before me, piercing through dreams and illusions. And then-

*Whoosh!*

She rushed forward as if flying, embracing me tightly with both arms wrapped around my neck.

*Squeeze!*

As if she would never let go.

Her arms were rigidly entwined, and she buried her face in my neck, trembling.

Her black horns, rising like tree branches, tickled the back of my head.

She had launched herself at me with all her weight, causing me to involuntarily sway backward, standing precariously as if I might fall at any moment. But Helena didn’t seem to care, pressing even closer against me and letting her tears fall onto my neck.

“Senior… Senior…”

She kept calling my name.

Like someone who had longed for a person for a long time and finally reunited with them.

The reborn Succubus called out to me affectionately, truly as if Helena had come back to life.

“Hele…na…?”

How long had it been since I was this surprised?

After putting on this armor, I had rarely been surprised by anything.

Helena’s soul, which I thought could never return, had returned for all to see. The hesitant demeanor from before was gone, and she was back to the Helena I knew.

‘Impossible.’

But that impossible thing was happening right before my eyes.

Like a hopeful story from a fairy tale that turns the impossible into a miracle.

“Helena…?”

I called her name again, asking if she was truly the Helena I knew.

“Are you really the Helena I knew?”

“Yes, Senior… I’m Helena… I’m Helena Camellia, the Helena you knew…”

With those words, Helena hugged me even tighter and burst into tears.

“What in the… world…”

Eventually, my legs gave out, and I sank to the ground.

Following the direction Helena leaned on me, I slumped onto the spot as if falling, my expression frozen as I stared into the air.

*Drip… Drip…*

As raindrops began to fall, one by one.

*Pouring down!*

Announcing the beginning of Mullipen’s rainy season, we both embraced each other in front of ‘Agape’s Tomb,’ where the epitaph had been erased.

Helena, in reunion after a long longing.

And I, rejoicing in the vivid sound of her heartbeat returning from the brink of death.

***

“So what happened?”

Helena intercepted the question I wanted to ask.

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“That jewel that looked like amber earlier, it wasn’t an ordinary object, was it? I thought if you broke it, Senior would just disappear immediately… but instead of disappearing, nothing happened.”

“……”

Thinking about it, she was right.

Helena thought it was just simple amber, but it was undoubtedly a fake Amber.

I had wished for my existence as ‘Agape’ to be erased from this continent, but instead of the wish coming true, Helena’s memories returned, and she rushed into my arms.

Then… could my wish have been fulfilled in the wrong way?

Instead of erasing the traces of my existence, did I secretly wish for Helena’s memories and personality to return, and thus made the wish?

With that thought, I asked her how her memories and personality had returned, and Helena replied:

“Do you remember the kitchen where we first met, Senior?”

Strangely, among the mostly ruined buildings inside the ducal castle, that kitchen was almost the only one that remained in its original form.

She said she felt strangely drawn to it, so she went inside, and then a severe headache struck, and her lost memories returned.

“So that’s how my memories came back.”

“……”

It felt unbelievable that her memories returned just by stepping into the kitchen once, but no matter how I looked at it, Helena seemed to be telling the truth.

Is this what people mean when they talk about ‘fate’?

Though I hated the concept of fate itself, I could somewhat understand why people would speak of the ‘flow of fate’ creating such miracles when such miraculous things unfolded.

Because if they didn’t use such an unbelievable word, there was no way to explain the miraculous situation they were in.

‘No, perhaps.’

For Helena, the first meeting in the kitchen might have been such an important memory that this miraculous event occurred.

It remained such a precious and irreplaceable memory, important enough to be a central pillar of her life.

But it was still just as hard to understand.

No, rather than being hard to understand, it was more that it simply didn’t resonate with me easily.

‘That, was it such an important memory?’

I knew Helena liked me.

From the start, she always clung to me and showed such affection, so unless I was a clueless idiot, there was no way I couldn’t have known.

That’s why I thought I had to push her away even more, maintaining a thorough distance and excluding her from harboring any expectations for me.

Because of that, I hadn’t even imagined she liked me *that* much…

I truly hadn’t dreamed that she considered a place related to our memories important enough to recall me as soon as she went there.

“So, Senior.”

Helena called me again.

“What happened to that jewel you had earlier?”

‘Ah, right-‘

Helena had asked me about that.

“Wait a moment.”

Before answering, I decided to check if the fake Amber had functioned normally.

“……”

I looked at the tombstone closest to me.

On the tombstone where my name was written, the name Agape was no longer present, only my birth and death years were inscribed.

And…

‘Father’s sword.’

And wrapped around that sword, the red muffler I received from Kara.

The red muffler I received from Kara had scattered like dust and disappeared the moment the fake Amber shattered. My father’s sword remained stuck in the ground exactly as it was.

I thought an object I had carried my entire life would naturally disappear, but perhaps it remained because I cherished it as my father’s object rather than my own.

It seemed the fake Amber had judged it to be ‘Father’s’ object, not ‘Agape’s’, and thus left it intact.

‘…I understand the criteria to some extent.’

First, I understand that the very letters of my name have disappeared.

And also, that all items I considered my possessions during my time as ‘Agape’ have also vanished.

As I thought that far, another question arose in my mind.

‘Then why does Helena remember me?’

According to the wish made on the fake Amber, even if she remembered me again, she should normally forget me again.

After a brief moment of deep thought, Cerebus’s words came to mind.

‘He said that for someone who remembers me intensely, the fake Amber’s power wouldn’t be enough to completely erase my existence.’

In other words, Helena had etched my existence so deeply into her heart that even the power of the fake Amber couldn’t erase it.

Having concluded that thought, I met Helena’s eyes, which were looking up at me expectantly.

“What I broke was the fake Amber.”

“Fake… Amber?”

“Yes.”

After I finished explaining what the fake Amber was and what wish I had made with it, Helena looked up at me with a sad expression.

And then.

“So… you tried to use that to erase your very existence… from this continent, Senior?”

“……Yes.”

At those words, Helena buried her face, saddened.

“……”

Seeing that, my own heart naturally felt bad, and I wondered if I had foolishly spilled everything. But considering her changed species, it was still the right thing to do.

‘Helena is a Succubus.’

And Succubi read the inner thoughts of others.

Emotions, moods, and even the ability to discern lies.

Of course, the effective range of that ability varies greatly depending on the Succubus’s power level, but Helena isn’t just an ordinary Succubus; she’s one who absorbed the Demon King’s essence.

It’s said that demons who absorbed the Demon King’s essence were once called ‘Archdukes’ and possessed catastrophic power, so in a way, Helena’s potential is comparable to that.

So, even if she hasn’t fully awakened her abilities now, she might awaken them someday and learn all my inner secrets. It was far better to be honest like this than to lie and hide things.

Even if she couldn’t do something as absurd as reading thoughts, there were still plenty of other ways for a Succubus to discern a person’s true feelings.

Even for me, who wore Morgoth’s armor and had great immunity to the Three Powers, it was difficult to evade the abilities of her, who became a Succubus by absorbing the Demon King’s essence.

‘Even if the armor itself has immunity to the Three Powers, the Demon King’s catastrophic power was fundamentally different from the Three Powers to begin with.’

Yes, so it was the right thing to do.

Thinking that, I looked at Helena, who had buried her face in my chest, her head bowed low.

“……”

*Clutch!*

Helena, who had silently clutched the outer coat of my Joshua disguise, quietly opened her mouth.

“You thought no one would remember you, so you did something like that?”

I didn’t answer, but she, with her face buried in my chest, seemed to take my silence as an answer and said:

“…I see.”

It was a short murmur, but it held many emotions.

“……Yes. That’s, how it was.”

Helena remained silent for a long time, as if deep in thought.

“Senior.”

After a long silence, Helena called out to me.