By Zephyria 
“Well, you can go on outings as you please, but I hope you didn’t do anything dangerous.”
It was the first time in a very, very long time that he had seen that face. God’s hair, bathed in the light of the dawning sun, still shone brilliantly, and the gentle curve of his smiling eyes was still beautiful enough to captivate and never let go of all his senses.
Delicate fingers grasped Noah’s shoulder and easily pulled him back into his arms. The moment their skin touched, his heart raced uncontrollably. He felt like he would blurt out a childish complaint, asking why he had come only now, rather than a resentful question of why he had appeared at all.
Damn infatuation, damn fate. Noah bit his lower lip hard to keep from making a mistake.
“Haha, how cute. Are you sulking again? You don’t have to hold back from saying you missed me.”
But it was too easy for God to read the inner thoughts that didn’t come out as words. So the loser between the two was always destined to be Noah alone.
“Oh, and it seems your family and fiancé have noticed something is amiss. The human Sorcerer seems to have done his best… but it seems it was too much.”
God was, after all, God. He didn’t flick his fingers or move his magic power like Lennox. Just by having that will, Noah was already back in his bedroom in the mansion in the capital, which he had left months ago, by the time he finished speaking.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything that’s happened in the meantime.”
With a single word from God, memories that had been absent flooded back. What the doll Lennox had created had seen and heard was spread out like the contents of a book and took its place.
“Ah, no…”
Noah, who was desperately trying to keep up with the flow of forcibly implanted memories, finally came to his senses and struggled.
“No, you can’t do this, you can’t do this. I haven’t even said goodbye to Lennox yet… I haven’t even said goodbye…!”
“Easy, calm down.”
God, who effortlessly suppressed Noah’s desperate struggles, which he had put his heart and soul into, stroked Noah’s head with a rather affectionate imitation.
“You were going to die without saying goodbye anyway, weren’t you? So it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No… that wasn’t what I was thinking…”
“Liar.”
God smiled slyly.
“How dare you think of dying, leaving me behind.”
“……!”
Noah hadn’t really intended to die. He had just imagined falling off the cliff for a moment… and the gaping chasm in the earth had looked alluring… But consciously, with a definite intention, he really hadn’t been planning to die. At least, that was how he perceived it. But it was a futile excuse to God, who knew every nook and cranny of Noah Hamilton’s mental state better than Noah Hamilton himself.
“You lovely, adorable thing. Die, leaving me behind? How dare you want to die? How can you have such excessive and foolish thoughts when I’ve poured so much Blessing into you?”
God still spoke in a gentle tone, as if reading a fairy tale in bed. The content of his words was a scolding, and the emotion they carried was contempt.
He wasn’t angry. He just genuinely thought Noah Hamilton was pathetic.
Since they could never be equals, he wasn’t genuinely angry. It was like dissuading a dog who had been fed a full meal on time from barking and demanding more food before it had even digested. That was about the extent of the emotion God had for Noah now.
“I think I’ve been too kind to you. That’s why you have thoughts of running away, not knowing how scary the world is.”
“Ugh… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Learned helplessness thoroughly crushed Noah. Noah trembled and clung to God, but God sternly scolded him with an uncharacteristic severity.
“I need to punish you… and I need to punish your family for neglecting to manage you, whom I entrusted to my precious Young-won.”
God was still not angry. He just thought it was necessary to give a warning. So he took a very light measure. He lightly kissed the small head that was trembling in fear, even leaving the reassurance that it wouldn’t be a big punishment, so he shouldn’t worry.
God left, and the morning had fully dawned. The Hamilton Family, who had been as beautiful and harmonious as a friendly family in a fairy tale, came to an end that day.
It was that a Free Mercenary, suspiciously resembling Count Hamilton’s second son, Frederick Hamilton, had appeared in the capital.
“Marion! Marion, you…! Have you been deceiving me all this time?”
“No, it’s a misunderstanding. Oh, William! Please, listen to me.”
“What misunderstanding! Did you not see that bastard’s face? Ha, damn it…! The timing of when that bastard came to the capital before even matches perfectly. Are you still going to deny it?”
“It was just once, please believe me. I thought he was your child…”
Like many noble couples, William Hamilton and Marion Hamilton had not started out in a relationship of love, but they had grown fond of each other and gradually came to treat each other with respect and love. At least, Count Hamilton, William Hamilton, had believed so.
Between them, there were the firstborn and the youngest, who had inherited the characteristics of the Hamilton Family, and the second, who didn’t resemble the family’s appearance at all but had the same hair and eye color as the Countess. It was occasionally felt to be strangely odd that the second son’s appearance itself, except for his curly dark hair and green eyes containing the color of new verdure, didn’t particularly resemble the Countess… but the Countess said that he resembled her late father, so he just thought that was the case. Of course, it wasn’t a problem that one out of three children had taken after the maternal side.
But the fact that a child didn’t resemble him and the fact that he wasn’t his child at all were stories of vastly different importance.
Frederick Hamilton’s biological father was a fairly skilled mercenary. Since he had come to the capital after a long time, there were many people looking for him here and there, and naturally, he had many opportunities to meet with the noble lords. Then, a word casually thrown out as a joke by someone with a good eye became the root of the problem.
Come to think of it, you… except for the eye color and hair color, you look exactly like Sir Frederick!
At first, it was a ridiculous rumor, but the rumor gradually gained strength and flesh. It was a terrifying speed, like a snowball rolling down a hill. Coincidentally, the timing of the mercenary’s visit to the capital was just before the Countess Hamilton became pregnant with her second child, and it was strange from the start that a child with a talent for swordsmanship suddenly popped out of the Hamilton Family, which was typically closer to being a family of scholars… Above all, that face. The rough face of a warrior, which didn’t show the cool and graceful facial lines of the Hamilton Family at all, was nothing less than evidence of infidelity.
The Countess had personally conceived Noah, the protagonist of the Divine Mandate, and other families didn’t want to attack the Hamilton Family, which would soon become in-laws with the Imperial Family, if they could help it, but Frederick Hamilton, who was alive and breathing, couldn’t help but become the protagonist of the topic just by standing there perfectly fine.
The Countess stayed confined in her room, sobbing guiltily, and the Count, writhing in betrayal, raged that he would divorce her immediately. If they had maintained a marriage of convenience where they didn’t love each other very much until the end, he wouldn’t have felt such betrayal. The Count could not tolerate the fact that he had been deceived all this time as much as he loved his wife.
Even with his status as the Crown Prince’s fiancé, there was nothing Noah could do. The Little Count, Andrew Hamilton, was too busy handling the family’s affairs in place of the Count, who had lost his mind, and Frederick, who was actually in greater shock than anyone else, was holed up in a corner of the training grounds like a wreck. Noah carefully took care of Frederick and his mother, who were in despair, and visited his father several times a day to beg for forgiveness on their behalf. He felt like he could do anything if they could just go back to being a harmonious family like before, as if nothing had happened.
“Is this enough of a punishment?”
“…Yes.”
Since he couldn’t win anyway, it wasn’t even shameful to kneel before him and beg for mercy. Noah prostrated himself, begging that he had done wrong and that he would please make it as if it had never happened. God generously forgave Noah. Frederick’s biological father naturally left the capital again, and the matter was concluded in everyone’s minds as a mere happening caused by a coincidentally similar person. The Count and Countess, trapped in fabricated memories, also laughed, saying that it had been a very interesting event. In that way, Frederick remained the cheerful Frederick, and the family regained harmony as Noah had wished.
Noah developed a habit. It was to secretly press a sharply sharpened paper knife against the palm of his hand, without anyone knowing. Even if blood came out or a scar remained, it was easy to make excuses that it had happened while opening a letter. Only the moment when sharp pain remained in his palm felt like he was alive. Conversely, most of the other times felt like he was dead.
Of course, sometimes, really by mistake, he would deeply cut his wrist below his palm. When the tempting thought that he could fall asleep comfortably if he stayed like this crept up his shadow…
“Tsk, why are you so slow to understand? I told you, you can’t run away.”
God would invariably appear, heal Noah’s wounds as if washing them clean, and then disappear again.
Noah grabbed his clean wrist that God had healed and burst into cheerful laughter. Ah, in this perfect world. Only my death becomes your weakness. It becomes the only channel to call you. I call and believe this kind of thing love… and I have to wait for you my whole life.
It was a futile realization.