“Why are you apologizing?”

Jella spoke in a distressed voice to Yuphe, who kept apologizing.

“I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t know and said such mean things to you.”

Jella’s voice also carried traces of tears.

“Why did you do such a foolish thing?”

“…”

“Didn’t you think I would be sad if I knew? Not just me, but Lord Johannes and everyone who loves you would all be sad.”

“…”

“What you should really be sorry for isn’t anything else but not valuing your own body.”

“…I’m sorry.”

Yuphe mumbled with his eyes downcast. His reddened eyes and damp eyelashes, contrasting with his white skin, created a particularly sorrowful atmosphere.

After quietly looking at him, Jella asked in a deeply subdued voice.

“There’s… no way to reverse it, is there?”

“…”

Instead of answering, Yuphe smiled faintly.

For him who had already gained immortality, there were only two options: to live forever, or to face the annihilation of his soul like Arne did.

Of the two, the latter was nearly impossible and would be accompanied by terrible pain.

“It’s okay, Jella. I…”

Yuphe glanced at her expression and said with a slight smile.

“Since you’re alive like this, I’m completely fine.”

Jella’s lips, which were about to scold him for smiling when he’d done nothing good, closed firmly at those words.

“You’re alive and smiling at me like this. Since I can live forever remembering you like this, I’m truly okay.”

Yuphe looked at her carefully, as if to engrave her face in his memory forever.

At that intense gaze, Jella’s expression clouded with emotion.

Seeing her eyes reddening again, Yuphe drooped his eyebrows in distress and stroked her eyes.

“Someday you’ll leave first, but even then, I’ll be okay.”

The fact that someday he would have to say goodbye to her first made Yuphe’s throat tighten at that point.

“That’s what you are to me. That kind of person. Just being able to remember you gives me the strength to live through eternity.”

The hand that had been carefully stroking her eyes moved down to firmly grasp her hand.

“I’m in a perfectly sound state now. So I’ll confess properly once more.”

“…”

“I like you, Jella. I love you, Jella. I love you so very much.”

“…”

“Much, much more than you think, that’s how much I love you.”

At that confession, delivered with a fresh eye-smile, tears finally burst from Jella’s eyes once more.

***

She couldn’t keep holding onto Yuphe, who had only recently regained consciousness.

After entrusting him back to Lord Johannes, she went outside the building.

The cold night air hit her abruptly.

Perhaps because she had shed so many tears, her head felt dizzy, and a man standing straight in front of the building caught her attention.

She stared at the man for a moment, then approached and asked him.

“Why are you still waiting here?”

“…”

Niel’s expression frowned slightly as he looked at her face.

“…?”

“You’ve been crying.”

“Ah.”

She scratched her eyes with an embarrassed expression.

“Is it that obvious?”

Instead of answering, he sighed briefly and took out a handkerchief.

“Yupheon Arne was always a man who never hesitated. I sometimes envied that aspect of him, how he would always act without thinking. It seemed like his world contained only you.”

The gentle touch wiping her eyes was quite meticulous.

“Maybe that’s why I did it. Like that man I’ve always envied, not thinking about anything else. Wanting to think only about you and me. So.”

Slowly removing the handkerchief, he looked at her directly and said.

“So I tried to break the world’s taboo by sacrificing people who knew nothing, and run away with just you. I decided to abandon any guilt since they would all die anyway when the dragon went berserk. They were even the ones who rebelled against you.”

“…”

“I thought it couldn’t be helped if you came to hate me after learning the truth. So feel free to dislike and hate me as much as you want.”

“I…”

The moment she opened her lips, he cut her off with a face devoid of humor.

“If you’re thinking of comforting me again, don’t. What if I fall for that kindness again and end up doing something truly terrible this time?”

“…”

Her sore throat, painful from crying too much, rippled shallowly.

It was simply unfathomable that Niel Alpenhayer, who had been more righteous than anyone, had been making such plans.

Suppressing the rising emotions, she swallowed and asked.

“I have one more question.”

“I told you not to ask anything.”

“About bringing me back to life after I died.”

Niel, who had been responding sarcastically, suddenly hesitated.

“I heard you need three things: a body, a soul, and the breath of a god.”

This was a question she had been curious about all along regarding her resurrection.

“You brought Kim Ga-eul’s body. Yuphe killed a god and obtained the divine breath. Then my soul…”

“…”

After a brief silence.

Heh.

Niel let out a hollow laugh.

“You already know, so why are you asking?”

“…So it was Cain after all.”

“That man made a contract with the dragon to hold onto your soul.”

“…”

Cain said he had been able to use that power after she died. If so, he probably made the contract with the dragon right after her death.

“But why…”

Just as she was muttering while biting her lower lip hard.

“Why indeed. That man ungratefully went against your wishes. So don’t think about such an ungrateful man.”

At those words, she looked up at Niel.

“…Does saying that make me look like an ugly man who only engages in jealousy?”

He was wearing his invariably proper smile. It was a face that didn’t seem like the same man who had just spoken so bitterly about Cain.

Niel whispered with his usual gentle smile.

“Do you still think that man followed you simply because he was kind and innocent?”

His soft voice flowed to her through the night air.

“You’re the innocent one. What kind of kind and innocent man would make a contract with a dragon to hold onto a dead person’s soul?”

Though his tone was gentle, there were sharp thorns between his words.

Niel must have felt it too, as he suddenly distorted his expression and let out a cold laugh.

“Ha, saying it out loud makes me feel pathetic. This really makes me look like a desperate man trying to belittle that man in front of you.”

“…”

Not knowing how to respond, she kept her mouth shut, and in the brief silence, he escorted her to her room.

In front of the guest room prepared for her to stay overnight at the Grand Temple, Niel abruptly broke the silence.

“I still haven’t received an answer from you.”

“If you’re asking me to become Emperor again, I’ve already refused.”

As she responded calmly, the look in his eyes suddenly deepened.

“There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to strip you of the imperial family name.”

He confessed in a heavy voice that even conveyed a hint of pain.

“It was an arrogant thought. You, more than anyone, are suited for the throne. Only after ascending to this position did I realize that fact more clearly.”

Niel carefully reached out and grasped her hand.

“Long ago, you dismissed the confession of your ten-year-old fiancé as nonsense. That confession from that day, which you don’t remember, let me return it to you.”

Then he pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

“I like you. I want to live as your companion, supporting you by your side for a long, long time.”

A warm heat spread from where his lips had touched.

“So please, be my Emperor once more.”

Suddenly, a scene that had been blurry for a long time appeared clearly before her eyes.

“I like you, Princess.”

The young lord of the Alpenhayer family who nervously said that to her in her childhood.

“I want to live as your companion, supporting you by your side for a long, long time.”

She thought it was something Duke Alpenhayer had instructed him to say, given how uncharacteristically nervous he was…

But that wasn’t it. He had liked her since then.

As that fact freshly embedded itself in her heart, she stared blankly at the warm back of her hand.

***

Meanwhile, in the guest room prepared for Jella at the Grand Temple.

Helasio was trapped in a cage.

[Those wicked priests! After using me, they locked me in a cage and put me in this remote place!]

The specially crafted cage blocked magic, so Helasio couldn’t get out and was fuming.

While struggling to escape somehow, Helasio suddenly heard the door click open and quickly sat down quietly in the center of the cage.

Pretending not to have been attempting escape, Helasio watched as Jella entered the room and walked past him to the window.

Helasio glanced at her expression.

She looked deep in thought.