CH 40

Yves whispered, voice hoarse.

“I don’t know. Revenge just suddenly lost its meaning.”

Even I felt that Yves’ actions were pretty strange and unlike how he usually was.

Yves had, for his perfect revenge, planned long and hard to return what he had experienced to the people who had forced pain upon him. I really couldn’t understand his actions.

Why did he give up on his perfect revenge when it was right in front of him?

Yves looked at my curious gaze towards him, then hugged me tightly. Then, he let out a deep sigh and muttered.

“I just want to let everything go.”

I stared at the poison spreading from Yves’ neck. His state was getting worse. Yves, who was still hugging me, had burned up at first and was now getting colder and colder.

I clenched my fist and shoved Yves away from me.

Yves stared as I stood up and whined without an expression.

“Where are you going, come back. I’m cold.”

A deep, welling anger burst through my chest.

“Are you kidding? Let what go? You need to figure out how to survive instead of how to die! Yeah, I did get paid to do all of this but I poured my soul in to help because I supported you. I was trying my best to figure out where we would go to play together and you’re what, what? Letting everything go?!”

“…………?”

I felt like crying but I didn’t. I clenched my mouth shut and barely resisted crying. I was slightly disappointed. Before entering this room, he talked about living how he should at this age, how he was going to go around and play, but it sounded like he was giving everything up. I had ended up saying everything in casual speech, but it didn’t matter.

Yves seemed to be confused at my reaction. Then, a corner of his mouth lifted into a mocking grin. But under that grin was a warm gaze. A warm mocking grin?

“I said that I wanted to, not that I was going to let everything go.”

I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my face.

“…………”

I thought that my overwhelmed emotions would look funny.

He had just finally gotten freedom after suffering under the guild, he wasn’t going to die, right? The saying went that the more hated a person was, the longer they lived, but Yves had gotten a lot of hate throughout his life so he was definitely going to live a long time.

I couldn’t see it, but I could hear Yves’ laughter from somewhere.

“I said I wasn’t going to die. Do you think I’m stupid enough to just cause a situation on impulse and then die afterwards?”

“Damn it. Keep your strength instead of talking.”

I brushed my hair back as I tried to figure out a plan. I was thinking of collecting the magic stone pieces from the floor and eating it to head to a hospital. But I wasn’t sure if hospitals were equipped to treat this particular pison.

Hearing Yves talk about dying made me panic. But I really didn’t know what to do. My magic was completely depleted, and the person in question was completely calm. If things kept playing out like this, Yves was 100% going to die.

When Yves saw me collect the stone pieces off the floor to try and eat them, he grabbed me back into his arms.

“What have you been eating off of the floor from earlier?”

Then, he stroked my hair roughly.

“I thought something like this would happen, so I called someone beforehand.”

“What?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t happen, but just in case I lost my temper and killed him with my own hands. I thought just in case and contacted someone beforehand. It’s a kid who uses healing magic.”

“Huh?”

……….I felt like I was played. A few tears almost dripped down my face, but my tears stopped. He really wasn’t going die, this person.

I felt like I had underestimated Yves. He’d lived life so precariously until now, of course he wasn’t going to die.

I had no reason to get angry but I did. What was it? What.

When I just stood blankly in front of him, Yves took off the jacket from my face. I probably still had tears in my eyes.

No, but why didn’t you say this beforehand? You should’ve told me this before. When I quietly hid my face behind my hands, Yves smiled and pushed my hands away from my face, holding them in his.

“Out of all the people who shed tears in front of me, none of them cried out of worry for me.”

At Yves’ words, I forced myself to pull my lips upwards. So what?

“You should’ve just cried. I was almost touched.”

My face cleared up thanks to Yves. I saw Yves through my newly cleared vision. Yves stared at me before smiling gently, eyes curved into a half moon.

He looked like he was in pain, but he looked like he was having a lot of fun. Yves dragged me towards him.

“But anyway, were you really going to play with me?”

Yves kept touching at my face. I tried to swat his hands away, but I did so in my mind only. I didn’t want to do anything right now.

“How cute.”

Yves placed a kiss onto my tears.

Yves’ cold lips briefly touched my under eye with a cute-sounding chu.

Yves had swooped in while I was still blank. When I stared at him with a shocked expression stamped on my face, Yves stroked my hair as if I was cute.

“You look like a wronged hamster.”

It looked like Yves was back to normal.

I felt like I had to respond somehow, curses or whatever, and was just about to speak. But my voice was buried under the loud bang of the door opening.

The person who had entered had kicked the door open. The newcomer, who had entered the room with an obnoxiously loud sound, looked around the room and approached the bloodied Yves.

“Hey, Yves hyung. You got more handsome while I was gone, huh?”

The person who had entered was a boy around my age.

The boy had silver hair that was almost white, and eyes that seemed to change color under the light. It was a face that shone on its own. If one had to describe how an angel looked, it would have been how this boy looked. He had a weird visual effect that made it look like stars were shining as he walked. Out of everybody I had seen before, he had the prettiest, shiniest face. He was handsome, but he looked more beautiful than handsome.

But it was a strangely familiar face.

“You should’ve just died comfortably over there. You really wanted to live?”

The boy spoke harshly with a bored expression on his face.

“Swanhaden, if you’re here, hurry, ugh. Just fix me up already.”

Yves spoke, struggling to do so. He pretended not to be in pain in front of me, but it really seemed like he was in a lot of pain.

But what did Yves just say right now? Swanhaden? Wait. Swanhaden as in that little lord?

I figured out why that boy was so familiar. I had seen him a few times when I was younger.

When I was younger, there was a time when Hestia, Swan, and I hung out together, the three of us. Back then, he was just a kid that was cold and never spoke, but seeing him speak so much now was a big surprise. Well, he still had a shit personality like he did back then.

But it seemed like Swanhaden and Yves had known each other before. Swanhaden had even called Yves ‘hyung’, and Yves had spoken casually to him. They seemed to be close.

Swan came over to where Yves was lying down and spread his hand open. Then, a white light shone from his hand and covered the whole area in a moment. Then, not only did Yves heal, but all of my tiny scars had healed as well.

I was shocked. All of my injuries had immediately healed themselves completely. At the same time, the black lines that had spread from Yves’ tattoo had also disappeared.

“Man, how annoying. If you’re barely in pain like that, just bear with it. You crybaby.”

“I ran out of the antidote you gave me.”

“Then die.”

Swanhaden smiled, telling him that was how you solved the problem. He was a smiling sharp tongue.

“What the. Why are you suddenly smiling like that? Gross.”

Instead of a response, Swanhaden just bore a hole through Yves with his stare before shoving his fingers into Yves’ eyes.

I watched as Swan healed him. He was so dark and awkward as a kid, but now he was so bright. He became brighter but more malicious. No, seeing Yves’ reaction, was he pretending to have gotten brighter?

But anyway, that was an amazing healing skill. I’d never seen injuries heal so quickly.

Magic was split into three types: black magic, regular magic, and white magic.

Normal magicians were all categorized under regular magic. Cory and I were also under regular magic. Regular magic was the broadest in terms of use, and was most diverse and commonly used.

Of course, it wasn’t possible to choose one’s type of magic. It was just chosen at birth.

Because of that, not a lot was known about black or white magic.

White magic, for example, only worked if you had the genes for it. That was incredibly rare.

Because of that, anybody who had the ability to use white magic was given special treatment by the kingdom. They were given titles immediately, and had the choice to work at the royal castle if they wanted.

Thinking about it, the ‘Blanche’ family that Swanhaden was from was famous for producing white magicians from before. The only people who had white magic were from this family. It might have been a white magician skill, but everyone in the Blanche family was white. The duke, who I had seen once before, had also had a super white feeling to him.

“You’re sending me the promised item, right?”

Swanhaden, who had finished treating Yves, asked. I didn’t know what kind of deal went between the two, but Yves nodded.

Swan wandered through the room for a bit before finding the leader’s body. Swan looked at the corpse with a bored expression before kicking him.

“Wow, so he’s finally dead. That’s great, he was disgusting!”

He rolled the corpse under his foot like a rolling pin. He peered closely at the leader’s face before turning his head towards Yves.

“It’s a waste to just chuck him into hell, should we take off his clothes and send his body to the perverts?”

This kid really just said anything and everything. I couldn’t hide my shock at his wild statements. He was pretty quiet as a child but he wasn’t anything like this back then. What had happened? Or was his personality originally like that? He wasn’t close with me at all so I didn’t know.

Yves looked at Swan, then nodded as if he approved.

“I guess we’ll have to preserve him then,” added Yves. Swan nodded at Yves. It felt like Swan was living in a different world than me. Yves was whatever considering his circumstances, but Swan, why were you used to this situation? You’re the son of a duke?

He still looked like a young boy, and because of how angelic he looked, it felt even weirder.

Seeing how another character from the original novel had appeared, I tried to remember what kind of character Swan was. Out of all of the male characters in the novel, he was the most twisted, cruel, scum of the earth psychopath………….but I wasn’t completely sure.

Swan said that he was done with his work so he was going to head out, then walked towards the door. Then, right before he headed out, Swan turned his head to look at Yves as if he remembered something.

“Oh right. I’m entering the academy in a year. It’s unpleasant so let’s pretend to not know each other?”

“Wasn’t it supposed to be in two years?”

“That was the plan, but it seems like the dukedom inheritance is going to end sooner than expected.”

Oh, right. Thinking back, it was said that Swan had briefly gone out of the country to study abroad. Hearing his words, it seemed like he had just briefly returned during his study abroad.