By Zephyria 
Eyelids that had been softly closed fluttered open. Through the gaps of flickering eyelashes, brilliant Gold Eyes half-revealed themselves. A vacant gaze stared blankly ahead, blinking several times due to a sensation of something foreign in the eyes.
The focus was blurry and the vision shimmered like a haze, making it impossible to see clearly. Yet, for some reason, his heart felt at peace. The gentle swaying of his body felt as if he were lying in a cradle.
That is, if not for the stifling feeling in his ears and the humming sound echoing within.
Just as he raised a hand to rub his face, thinking he hadn’t fully woken up—
‘…!’
An unknown liquid suddenly surged into his nostrils.
Startled by the sudden loss of breath, Leonardo reflexively bolted his upper body upright.
Splash—
“Cough, hack—!”
The displaced water surged in all directions, soaking the moss-covered floor. Simultaneously, clear liquid streamed out from every single orifice in his face. Leonardo coughed incessantly, like a man who had just returned from the brink of death.
“Cough, ugh, haa….”
As he gasped for air, his throat turned bright red and thick veins popped out on his forehead. With his features distorted, he barely managed to hold onto his consciousness and began to assess his situation.
‘What is this?’
Water droplets dripped from his drenched hair. Above him was a dark brown roof, through which thin slivers of light filtered in. It felt like being inside a small cave. Below his neck, he was submerged in dark water, obscuring his vision.
Slowly raising his arm to check the liquid flowing between his fingers, the falling droplets created a clear, rhythmic sound that rippled outward.
‘Water?’
Seeing that it was colorless and odorless, it seemed to be a pool formed by collected rainwater or groundwater.
It appeared he had been submerged in this until a moment ago. Up to the very top of his head, no less. It was fortunate that he had been holding his breath unconsciously; had he been a moment later, he would have fallen into a brain-dead state due to lack of oxygen.
A sudden chill ran down Leonardo’s spine, and he instinctively felt his forearms and shoulders.
“…?”
But this time, his palms touched bare skin. Leonardo shifted his creaking gaze downward and stroked his shoulder. Similarly, he felt smooth skin. Reaching his hand beneath the water to grope his abdomen and thighs, he belatedly realized that he was naked. He even felt his penis, which had shrunken in shock, beneath his fingertips.
He was utterly bewildered. Naked? Had he fallen asleep while bathing?
With a thousand thoughts racing through his mind, Leonardo awkwardly stood up to look for clothes first. However, as soon as he rose, his head suddenly spun, and his legs buckled, sending him crashing back down.
Thanks to the fine sand covering the floor, the impact wasn’t severe, but his upper body ended up half-stranded on the damp ground.
“Ah….”
He pressed his palm against his eyes and groaned from the dizziness. He remained still, trying to settle his churning stomach.
Then, he felt the surroundings brighten. Even with his eyes closed, his vision was tinted with a gentle light.
“Are you awake already?”
A human voice. Leonardo snapped his head up. A presence flickered at the far end of the cave where the light was entering.
Instinctively, he lowered his body and loosened the knuckles of his hand. He intended to launch a surprise attack if necessary.
Had he been kidnapped? Was that why his clothes were gone? His vigilance swelled as the presence approached, but ironically, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. This was because the human who revealed herself was very small in stature.
The figure draped in a cloak and hood looked incredibly young, even through his dizzying vision. She looked like a child, barely ten years old.
‘A child?’
It was then that the final scene before his memory cut off flashed back to him.
A full moon had risen through a gap in the distant, winding cliffs, and simultaneously, a pure white flash of light appeared and reached out to him. The figure that appeared with the light had shouted urgently, as if they already knew him, telling him to grab on.
Leonardo stared blankly at the protagonist of that memory.
“You….”
The child was struggling to drag in a jar as large as her own body. Watching this eccentric behavior, Leonardo narrowed his eyes and asked.
“Who are you?”
The child settled into a corner of the cave, dragged over a flat stone to prop up the bottom of the jar, and then stood on tiptoes upon it. She lifted a wooden ladle hanging from her waist and stirred the mouth of the jar. Occasionally, a plop sound echoed, suggesting something was inside.
“When asking someone a question, you should identify yourself first. Do you not know that is basic etiquette? Honestly, the youth these days….”
Pulling back her hood with one hand, the child clicked her tongue at Leonardo as if he were pathetic.
In appearance and voice, she was clearly a young girl, but her manner of speaking was that of an old person. A very stubborn old person, at that.
Perhaps because of her demeanor, a depth of years could be felt in the eyes within that youthful face. Still, she looked like a child on the outside, so Leonardo, feeling quite offended by the brat’s lecture, arched an eyebrow.
Just as he was sending her a sharp glare and shifting his weight to the floor to move toward the shore—
“You brat, you’ve barely been awake. Just stay there. Someone like you, covered in clinging thoughts, needs to be washed clean in clear water.”
Leonardo paused again. It was because the words sounded similar to what the shopkeeper had told him.
“Do you know Grimbleton?”
It was only natural that the name came out reflexively. The girl, looking back with prim eyes, countered with a question of her own.
“Are you that novice Grimbleton said he was sending?”
Leonardo, who had been in an awkward posture, slowly sat back down in the pool.
As expected. The child knew the shopkeeper.
‘But does she not know who I am?’
Leonardo tilted his head, but that wasn’t what was important right now. He might have finally met the ‘person well-versed in curses’ the shopkeeper had mentioned. If so, this little thing was the benefactor who could tell him about the choker around his neck….
He figured things weren’t always as they seemed, but still, to think that the person he had searched for so desperately was a child who looked like she would burst into tears if poked. It was a hard fact to believe, but then again, hadn’t Grimbleton lived for 300 years? Spiritual power had nothing to do with appearance. Leonardo tried his best to cast aside his prejudice and change his demeanor to answer politely.
However, the other party spoke first, muttering while stirring the ladle.
“No wonder the Swamp of Thoughts was turned into a wasteland. What on earth was that old geezer thinking, sending a guy like this?”
Wasteland. Suddenly, the image of the monster lunging with its maw wide open flashed through Leonardo’s mind. And his comrades, who had faced the beast alongside him in that desperate moment.
Gasping as the memories returned, he asked abruptly.
“Wait, what about my kids? Did they escape? What about Milly? What happened to them?”
“Now, now, so impatient. Be quiet and drink this first.”
The child fished out a wooden bowl that had been floating like a small boat in the jar. She scooped the stirred soup into the bowl and held it out to Leonardo, who was still submerged in the pool.
“I’ll tell you once you’ve drunk it all.”
The mysterious soup offered by a tiny hand wasn’t a great threat to Leonardo. However, the thin, green liquid without any solid ingredients didn’t look particularly delicious, nor did it look like edible food.
As Leonardo narrowed his eyes and looked at the child as if asking what this was, she added.
“It helps restore your energy. Don’t stop; drink it in one go. It’ll be a struggle if you try to breathe in the middle.”
“…Why should I trust you enough to drink this?”
“Fine, don’t. After I went through the trouble of brewing it for you.”
Responding cynically, the child placed the bowl roughly on the shore and turned away. She walked over to a low rock beside the jar and plopped down, resting her elbows on her knees. With both hands supporting her chin, she looked exactly like a young child. It was a posture as if she were acting cute, framing her face with her hands.
However, the words that came from her mouth were the complete opposite.
“Everything you saw in that swamp was an illusion created by you. It wasn’t real.”
The voice, now significantly lower, had shed the quality of a child and become that of a young woman. Before he could dwell on the strangeness, Leonardo’s eyelids slowly opened. His face, clouded with confusion, asked a beat late.
“An illusion?”