I smiled bitterly. How cruel. No, since we used it first, perhaps we were the cruel ones this time.

I lifted my head. Lerrhagen was leaning against the wall indifferently, his gaze directed outside the window, lost in thought. Now that I understood the basics, it was time to ask the truly important questions. But contrary to what I’d planned, the words wouldn’t come easily, and I remained silent.

‘How should I ask? Who was that woman? Why did she look like me? No, why did she die?’ 

Either way, Lerrhagen’s final expression made it difficult to speak freely. The look I’d seen on his face wouldn’t easily fade from my mind.

After much deliberation, I finally opened my mouth. “So, who was that woman?”

“…”

“The woman who appeared in your hallucination, the one who looked exactly like me.”

Lerrhagen seemed to have anticipated my question. An unreadable emotion gathered in his eyes, pressing down on me heavily. Somehow, it felt like I’d asked something I shouldn’t have.

A long silence stretched between us. Lerrhagen was the first to break it.

“Rasenita was my disciple.”

“Rasenita…?”

It was a name I’d never heard before. For someone who was Lerrhagen’s disciple, she should have left her mark in history, yet I’d never once heard of her.

“If she was your disciple, perhaps—”

“She was my first disciple. The child and I were bound by a contract as master and student. No, rather than master and student…”

“…”

“I raised that child.”

It was fascinating. Though I didn’t know who Rasenita was, I could tell she had been someone incredibly precious to Lerrhagen. His face looked unprecedentedly peaceful when speaking of her—an expression that could only emerge from genuine affection.

“Her brother was the king of a small country. This was before empires and kingdoms became so politically entangled.”

“If she was the king’s sister, why…”

“Her brother’s country was endangered by an attack from demon folk, so he sought me out. This was only about a thousand years after Gela entered eternal sleep, when I would occasionally survey the human world in Gela’s place. That’s how her brother came to know of me.”

“…”

Only a thousand years? How ancient was this story, then? The exact time of Divine Gela’s eternal sleep had never been clearly established. Since then, the calendar system had changed roughly eight times, with the current calendar counting up to 827 years.

“So I raised her.”

“…”

“And then she died.”

“…Why?”

“She took her own life.”

I suddenly felt breathless. Lerrhagen had watched the child he raised—his daughter—take her own life right before his eyes. Now I understood his empty expression. In fact, even that emptiness seemed inadequate compared to the strong turmoil I sensed within him.

“Do you know why she killed herself?”

“…I don’t know.”

“…”

“She claimed it was to save the world, but I don’t agree.”

“…Save the world?”

It was a rather grandiose reason, and somewhat unrealistic. ‘Ah, so that’s why she said not to be sad when she dies.’

But was such a thing possible? I wasn’t sure.

As I pondered this, I suddenly recalled Lerrhagen’s reaction when I was kidnapped recently, and I was struck speechless. Could his extreme response have been because of that?

But I would never die for someone else. I might get hurt or injured, but I would absolutely never die.

The atmosphere grew even heavier. I carefully chose my next words.

“Is that why you helped me? Because I look exactly like Rasenita?”

“Something like that.”

What does “something like that” mean? Either it is or it isn’t.

“Do you know why I look exactly like her?”

“Well…”

I couldn’t tell if Lerrhagen truly didn’t know or if he knew but refused to tell me. Honestly though, I believed there was no way I could be unrelated to Rasenita. Because…

“I’ve seen her in a dream before.”

“…What?”

“The day Ilian came from Death Gorge, the day I first directly encountered black magic. I saw a similar scene in my dream.”

By this point, it was a fact I had to acknowledge whether I wanted to or not. I clearly had some connection to Rasenita, though I didn’t know what that connection was.

‘Perhaps…’

For a moment, I raised my head and met Lerrhagen’s gaze. But I immediately swallowed what I was about to say. It was a meaningless hypothesis. Even if it were true, it held no value—at least not to me.

“I am not Rasenita.”

At my declaration, Lerrhagen slightly inhaled before letting out a long sigh.

“Who said you were?”

“I’m just saying in case you might be confused.”

“There’s no confusion. Rasenita only looked identical to you; her personality was completely different.”

“My personality is better, right?”

“Are you trying to joke because the mood has become too heavy?”

I pouted at Lerrhagen’s words with a “tsk,” but quickly continued.

“Let me ask just one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“That place I saw, was it Death Gorge?”

This was just a shot in the dark. I had never been to Death Gorge, nor did I know what it looked like or what was there. In my imagination, Death Gorge was a rotten wasteland where no life forms grew.

The place I saw in the hallucination was beautiful, with an elegant sunset. It seemed too beautiful and enchanting for a place of death. Yet strangely, I had a feeling it might be Death Gorge. It was just a hunch, but something was strongly pricking at me.

Lerrhagen confirmed my suspicion. “Yes.”

“I thought so…”

“…”

“So there’s definitely something in Death Gorge.”

From the moment I was turned into a child by black magic, I had been indirectly connected to Death Gorge. But it seemed I was excessively entangled with Death Gorge without even knowing it. First, Ilian came from there, and even the hair tie I gave to Sever was found there. 

Now I learned it was where Lerrhagen’s first disciple died and the place I saw in my dream.

Of course, the hair tie could have been planted by someone trying to frame others.

‘Maybe I should visit Death Gorge?’

But I couldn’t voice this thought. Lerrhagen would certainly oppose it.

Soon, silence fell between us again. After some consideration, I spoke to him.

“I understand. I’ll think about what all this means. Our mission is to find the black mage and for me to return to my adult form.”

“Right.”

“However…”

I let my words trail off.

However.

“At this point, it seems like this goes beyond just black mages or political issues.”

“Probably.”

“So you agree?”

Somehow, everything kept growing more complex. While complexity itself wasn’t a major problem, it became an issue if it grew beyond what I could handle.

“Do you think there’s a true mastermind behind all this?”

“You don’t need to worry about that specifically.”

“What do you mean?”

“Behind the black mages are the demon folk. And behind the demon folk—”

“The Demon King, Karen?”

Even as I spoke, I grimaced. I had uttered the name of a being found only in mythology, which hardly seemed realistic. But then I realized I was facing Lerrhagen, who was even less realistic, so I just closed my mouth.

Lerrhagen casually replied, “It’s a possibility, not a certainty.”

“Sigh. Whatever it is, this is getting complicated. For now, it’s better not to think about what we can’t see. Besides, even if there is such a mastermind, the one targeting me is surely someone among the nobility.”

First, we needed to take down the smaller enemies before eliminating the final villain.

‘But to do that… I need to go to Death Gorge. That’s where the biggest clue is.’

With everything so strongly tied to Death Gorge, no matter how I tried to shift my thinking, I kept returning to the same conclusion.

‘So there’s only one answer after all.’

Seeing that I had no intention of probing further, Lerrhagen slightly turned his body.

“Have you asked everything?”

“Yes.”

“So, what do you plan to do now? Today’s plan failed, and you ultimately didn’t discover the identity of the black mage.”

“Ah.”

“Will you gather everyone again?”

“Once is enough. Doing it too often would only raise suspicion. Besides, after today’s failure, the enemy has probably already realized we’re targeting them.”