By Zephyria 
The man Chaos was looking at.
That was… ‘me.’
In an instant, I, who had been synchronized with the memory, began to separate. The memories flowed down like a water-soaked screen, and soon I was thrown into a pitch-black darkness.
In it, I recalled the memories I had gone through.
Having recalled everything, I felt an emotion that could not be expressed in words. It felt like the string I couldn’t grasp was finally in my hand.
‘It was… all him.’
The one who first dropped a drop of the beautiful color called ‘emotion’ into me, who was an empty shell… the one who saved me from the loneliness of being alone in this world, it was all him.
I couldn’t know it until the moment of my death, but now I could. My feelings for him started from a sense of kinship, and in the end, it had already become love.
‘Ah.’
It was a time of over a thousand years.
During that terribly long time… three, three lives bloomed and withered. He was always waiting for me to look back, but I had come full circle and only now faced him.
‘I made you wait too long.’
In a way, he was a seed that I had sown and abandoned. Growing and growing, becoming heavy, and all the kernels rotting and decaying, making it difficult to stand alone. So now it was my turn to harvest him with my own hands.
I opened my tightly closed eyes with a flash.
Then, a voice was heard from somewhere. It sounded like the voice that had called me underground. I couldn’t hear it clearly, but the voice seemed to be whispering to me to return.
Immediately after, the darkness began to recede.
When my vision cleared again, I was in the warehouse. Seeing Sword fidgeting next to me, it seemed that I had been unconscious and collapsed ever since touching the remains.
“I’m fine.”
After relieving Sword’s worries, I dusted myself off to get a grasp of the situation and left the warehouse to look around. It felt like I had been watching the memories for a very long time, but the real time was only a few hours, so it didn’t seem like much time had passed.
‘That’s a relief.’
It would have been a big problem in many ways if too much time had passed. This place was peaceful, but the Valhalla Empire was at war right now…. As I was thinking that, I heard urgent footsteps running towards me from not far away, along with a voice.
“Ray!”
It was Ardian.
He was panting as he approached, having run in a hurry, and his expression was quite fierce. Was he worried that I had run away somewhere after telling him to eat? With the Cycle Shackling Space still maintained, he must have been very worried.
“You didn’t come back… I thought you had disappeared….”
Ardian gradually calmed down and softened his expression as he saw that I was still there. Looking at him with a fresh feeling, I spoke the name that I had wanted to call out ever since regaining all my old memories.
“Adam.”
Ardian paused for a moment. I could see a change in his eyes.
“Come to think of it, you were still using the name I gave you as a middle name.”
Then, his golden eyes, which had been shining like transparent glass beads, filled with tears. There was definitely an emotional being left behind the face that had always been dulled by wearing a mask.
I quietly approached and hugged him as he collapsed as if breaking down. No words were needed between me and him. Ardian, who understood that my memories had returned, shed tears with a face I had never seen before, and I waited until he calmed down.
He had told me not to regain my memories for my sake, but that wasn’t really the case. How lonely must he have been, keeping memories that only he remembered for a thousand years?
Looking back now, it was an absurd suspicion. The thought that he had approached me to take back the power he had taken from me. It was not a suspicion to harbor towards him, who had loved me consistently, not wanting to eliminate me but wanting to hold onto me, so I felt sorry.
“Let’s go back now. Before it’s too late.”
Ardian looked up at me with teary eyes at my words. And I gave him the answer to his heart that he would want to hear the most now, the answer that I couldn’t properly give him ‘back then.’
☠
The war ended abruptly.
This was because the Fiends suddenly stopped their advance first. If the war had dragged on, it could have escalated into a situation like the Niflheim War, but it was suppressed early, so there was almost no damage.
Of course, there were no casualties, so it was a complete victory for the humans.
And it was determined that the one who had brought the Fiends into the Empire’s territory in this war was the Duke of the Blest family, a western feudal state with an unusually strong faith, who had tried to use the Fiends in the hope of ‘Chaos’s Reincarnation.’ As a result, the Blest family was removed from the cornerstone of the Empire.
…This is the story that is currently known to the world.
The fact that the mastermind behind this war was actually the fourth Imperial Prince, Ardian, and that Ardian was Chaos himself, and that the Empire itself was connected to the Fiends, was all concealed and not known.
It was actually easy to conceal this. In the first place, the only ones who knew the whole story of this incident properly were Corso, Ardian’s… no, Chaos’s closest aide, me, who was directly involved, and Balkan, the last remaining direct guard of Chaos.
Of course, if I revealed it here, all the facts would be exposed. In a way, it was a precarious situation, like covering the eyes with a thin piece of paper. Moreover, Ardian did not threaten me or give me any hints, and he was like, ‘Do whatever you want.’
Even though the Empire itself could collapse if the whole story of this incident was revealed, he gave me the hilt of the sword too easily.
Isn’t he a fool who only looks at me?
…I decided to overlook all the facts I had learned. Even if Ardian was a heinous criminal who could not be tolerated by the world, I was on his side to the end.
As things stabilized after the end of the war, Merzel Academy, which had been on hiatus even after the end of the vacation, also resumed classes.
Today is the day I return to school after a long time.
However, Ardian, who was assigned to the same dormitory room as me as I went up to the second grade—it couldn’t be a coincidence, but I pretended not to know about this as well—seemed unable to return to school right away.
“You won’t be able to attend classes for a while?”
“Yeah. We removed the Blest family because of this incident. There are various opinions among the nobles regarding the selection of the next cornerstone family. They must be appealing to me to be chosen because they want the title of Duke. Anyway, my brother asked me to help with that… so I think I’ll be busy.”
Ardian sighed.
It was ironic that the current Emperor was asking his younger brother for help with political issues. Well, Ardian will take care of it himself even if I don’t worry.
“Then take care. I’m going now.”
I had to go to school now, so I got up from my seat. There wasn’t much time left until class, but the location of Merzel Academy and the Imperial Palace wasn’t far, so if I used Blink to go back and forth, it would be quick, so I wasn’t in a hurry.
“Ray.”
At that moment, Ardian, who had briefly grabbed my wrist and stopped me, left a short kiss on my lips as I turned around. He seemed to have a good scent coming from him as he approached. Drawn to the scent, I tilted my head once more and kissed him first.
Ardian, who willingly accepted the soft tongue that penetrated between his lips, mixed his flesh and swept through my mouth. The slow and meticulous movements, as if he was reluctant to part, were enough to hasten the excitement within me.
But I should postpone this any further. Once I start, I probably won’t be able to stop when I need to, so I’ll have to skip the first day of class after the resumption of classes.
“Have a good day.”
Ardian, who had taken his lips off first, smiled beautifully. Ardian, who had taken off a layer of his mask, looked more lively and beautiful than before. I, who had been looking at that face for a little longer, also smiled faintly. It was probably the softest face I could show.
Afterward, when I quickly arrived at school with Blink Magic and opened the door to the lecture hall. The familiar faces that had already gathered in the lecture hall turned to this side at the same time.
The expressions that followed were quite a sight.
“Raymond!”
“Ray! Are you, are you okay?! Did anything happen?”
They came up to me one by one to check on me, and Tom, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, started to make a fuss all by himself and started to sob.
Come to think of it, I haven’t met the other kids in Class A except for Herman and Zeon since my condition worsened. And then the war broke out, so it was even more of a mess, so they must have been worried.
“Um. I’m fine now, and other than that… nothing happened.”
“Waaaaa. I was worried! I’m glad you’re safe.”
I roughly ignored Tom clinging to my waist and raised my head. I ran into Zeon, who had come right up to me. I could tell just by looking at his face. How worried he must have been about me, who he hadn’t been able to contact for a while, whose presence was too far away to reach.
“Zeon.”
As I called his name, Zeon, as if realizing it, softened his expression and left a kiss of reverence on the back of my hand.
“I am more than happy that you are safe.”
And I recalled the confession of love I had heard from Zeon. Now that I knew my emotions and realized the direction my heart was heading, it was time to answer that heart.