The Imperial Hotel, Yetrisha Branch.

My bedroom on the second floor of the pharmacy wasn’t suitable for spending the night because the floor was occupied by two living people – Niel and Yupheon – along with the corpse of an assassin who had been killed by Niel’s sword.

Cail took me to the Yetrisha Imperial Hotel, and without hesitation, demanded the most expensive and best room from the hotel manager, who came running out to see him.

“Wait, Cail. Do you even know how much it costs per night here?”

I had been silently observing the conversation between Cail and the manager, but suddenly startled, I tried to stop him.

“Don’t worry, Jella. I have plenty of money.”

“How much money could you possibly have!”

At my worried words, Cail drooped the corners of his eyes.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“That’s not the issue…!”

“If I were your wealthy former fiancé, or the high priest of the noble Holy Nation…”

Cail muttered in a gloomy voice, lowering his gaze.

“Then you would have gladly accepted their kindness.”

“…Then just for one night.”

Weakened by his demeanor, I finally agreed to accept his help for just one night.

Cail’s face immediately brightened.

The manager, who had been rolling his eyes, waiting for our conversation to end, promptly showed us to the room.

“This room was highly praised as the finest, even by Lady Jella, the last Emperor of Shunaibel.”

“When did I ever…”

I was about to say, “When did I ever say that?” but stopped myself.

‘Now even hotels are using my name to make money.’

Even if I’m supposedly dead now, this is really too much.

I grumbled inwardly while looking around the room.

“If you need anything, please pull this cord anytime, and have a good night, ahem.”

The manager seemed curious about the strange woman who came with Cail, but didn’t ask and went downstairs after finishing his explanation.

Then Cail also bid me farewell.

“I will take care of the men who defiled your pharmacy. Please rest comfortably here tonight.”

“But…”

Somehow, it felt like I was leaving all the troublesome tasks to him, which made me feel a bit sorry.

“Cleaning up after you has always been my job.”

“……”

When I couldn’t readily respond, he smiled gently and said.

“I’m just doing what I should do as your servant, so don’t make that expression.”

“What expression?”

“……”

This time Cail couldn’t answer.

“You’re the one.”

I, who had been silently staring at his face, suddenly said.

“Stop making that expression at me.”

“…What expression are you talking about?”

He asked me in a cracked voice that seemed as if he had barely squeezed it out.

I stared at him intently and slowly opened my mouth.

“Your expression just now, it’s like…”

My fingertips kept twitching on their own. After moving my lips for a moment, I eventually clenched my fists tightly and responded curtly.

“I won’t tell you until you tell me first.”

At those words, Cail gave a gentle smile.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Just because. If it had been the old you, you would have gotten angry and asked how I dare deflect your question.”

At his words, delivered in a calm voice mixed with laughter, I bristled.

“What? Anyone listening would think I’m someone who just gets angry all the time. When have I ever been that angry?”

“You were angry not too long ago.”

“That was…!”

Suddenly, I remembered the time a few days ago when I had burst out in anger at Cail in front of the pharmacy.

Thinking that Cail still remembered how I was that day made me feel a bit embarrassed.

‘I was a bit excessive that day.’

I slightly blushed and apologized to him.

“I’m sorry. Were you upset?”

At that moment, Cail called me in a surprised voice.

“Jella?”

“Hmm, I didn’t mean to upset you. But you kept…”

“Jella.”

As I tried to continue my apology, he cut me off with a firm voice.

“Don’t apologize to me.”

“Huh? No, I was being unreasonable that day in front of the pharmacy…”

“Don’t explain yourself to me either.”

“Uh…?”

Cail’s face was very solemn as he said this.

“You are someone who can do anything to me. How could someone like you apologize to me?”

No, when a person does something wrong, it’s natural to apologize. What is he talking about?

I looked at him with a bewildered face, but he looked at me with unwavering blue eyes and added emphatically once more.

“You have done nothing wrong.”

***

A slanted shadow fell across Cail’s face as he left Jella in the hotel room.

You have done nothing wrong.

You have done nothing wrong.

For the past five years, he had to repeat those words to himself like a mantra.

Because if he didn’t, he felt he might resent her.

How dare he, someone like him. Toward her.

“It’s okay, Cail. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. It’s not your fault.”

Whenever he remembered that gentle voice that whispered such words to an ill-mannered young slave, he loathed himself so much for having dared to resent her for even a brief moment.

An ungrateful, shameless slave.

That’s why she abandoned him.

That’s why… she abandoned him…

Cail gritted his teeth.

Since earlier, he kept remembering that moment when she abandoned him.

“Cail Aleret. Fulfill the covenant made in the name of the dragon Helasio.”

It was horrific.

His body moved on its own.

His creaking body drew the sword and stabbed her.

Your Majesty…!

No voice came out. His body, which had deviated from its master’s will, wouldn’t even let him plead aloud to her.

No, no, no…!

No matter how many times he shouted at his body that was moving on its own, it attacked her, defying his will.

Please stop. Please stop, Your Majesty. Please withdraw that order, Your Majesty…

Her flesh was painfully torn, and red blood seeped through.

Kill me instead, Your Majesty. Please…

What was even more terrible was that because his will trying to restrain his body and his body moving on its own were fighting each other, the trajectory of the sword cutting her body wasn’t clean, which must have caused her more pain.

Perhaps that’s why she wanted to end it more quickly, too.

She pulled his sword.

With a thud, the sword perfectly penetrated her heart.

Bright red droplets of blood were scattered like dots on the snow-covered ground.

Seeing that, Cail cried for the first time in his life that day.

Before meeting her, even in that filthy place, he had never cried, but on that day, he wept uncontrollably.

“I will…”

Finally, a sound came from his closed throat. His body, which had been beyond his will, had at last completed that terrible task.

“…never forgive you.”

Stupid slave. While she was dying, he just blabbered such nonsense and cried.

How absurd must he have seemed to her.

Blood spread across her pale lips. Her red lips trembled. The corners of her lifeless mouth rose with difficulty. She… smiled.

Why was she smiling at this moment?

Those light pink eyes looked at him.

It seemed like she was trying to convey something.

Cail gritted his teeth and glared at her, but still strained his ears to focus on her words, however…

Thud.

In the end, she couldn’t part her lips, and her body fell limply into his arms.

[Aaaaargh! Jella Shunaibel! You crazy woman!]

The dragon’s soul parasitizing her heart screamed. Soon after, her eyes closed.

“Jella…!”

Cail embraced her body, which still retained some warmth, and cried out her name.

But despite this slave so impudently calling her name, she never opened her eyes again.

“Jella, Jella…”

Thick tears fell onto her face.

“Please open your eyes, Jella. It’s all my fault. So please get up, get up and scold me. Jella. Please, please… Jella…”

But she, peacefully asleep, did not open her eyes.

Nevertheless, unable to accept the fact that she was dead, Cail was begging her to please wake up when.

Black smoke rose from her chest.

[Hey! Human! Make a contract, with me, hic, huerk…]

Something in the form of a black dragon, becoming blurry and then regaining its form repeatedly, spoke to Cail.

[Your heart! If you let me use your heart as a vessel, ugh, I’ll give you all my power!]

“……”

But until then, Cail couldn’t hear a word of what Helasio was saying.

[You, do you want to save that woman?]

A pause.

Cail’s eyes, which had been fixated on her dead face all this time, finally shifted toward the black dragon.

[I can’t bring her back to life with my power, but I can hold onto her soul! Her soul! So make a contract with me, human! Hurry…]

And so Cail made a contract with Helasio, and due to the aftermath of receiving the dragon into his body, he fainted on the spot.

That was the last memory of that day.

Cail had never forgotten the memory of that day, not for a single day.

The memory of that day when the sensation of the sword piercing her heart was transmitted to his fingertips.

The memory of that day when her body, which he embraced for the first time, gradually grew cold in his arms.

The memory of that day when he wept sorrowfully, unable to hold onto her fading breath.