After sharing an awkward story, Judas flinched while looking at the other person.
‘…Wait a minute. Could this person be…?’
The only distinction of the other person was their black hair.
Their figure was shaking severely.
‘Una…?’
The sound was similar too.
It was a breath, heavy and sobbing.
‘Is it really such a sad story…?’
It wasn’t just sniffles; they were crying quite sorrowfully.
“Um… are you okay?”
The other person nodded.
Judas wanted to ask their name today, but in this state, that was hopeless.
Elijah, gathering her thoughts, asked.
“Do you, by any chance, know who that person is…?”
She intended to ask if the other person didn’t remember, but was too choked up to continue.
The image of him holding on until the very last moment made her feel heartbroken and sorry.
She regretted saying not to speak like that back then.
She wished she had thought a bit more before making a judgment, feeling a rush of regret.
On the flip side, a glimmer of hope sprouted.
Having waited and missed the past so much, perhaps he might remember her.
That hope was crushed by the next answer.
“Well, that’s a bit…”
In Judas’s view, he couldn’t carelessly disclose the previous owner’s name.
Even though he was currently exiled.
Of course, he and Elijah weren’t exactly unknown, so if one wanted to find out, it’d be easy.
However, it felt awkward to mention the previous owner’s name out loud.
Elijah understood that answer as a sign that he didn’t remember.
“Ugh… hic…!”
Her heart ached.
The spreading pain constricted around her body.
Part of her also felt wronged.
Longing for a place to return to, yet not remembering who it was.
Even the party involved was right next to her.
She wanted to reach out.
The other person felt the same way.
But they couldn’t touch; they shouldn’t touch.
She bit her lip until it bled.
She had to hold back her tears.
She was just an ordinary wizard.
Crying like this felt so strange.
Would Judas possibly recall her if he saw her crying like this?
There was no chance for that hopeful imagination.
Seeing her choke on her sobs, panicked Judas tried to change the mood.
“Um… I didn’t realize you were this emotionally sensitive. If I had known, I would have talked more lightly.”
Suddenly, Elijah stopped crying.
Being called emotionally sensitive was a first for her.
Honestly, she had never thought of herself that way.
She had a personality inclined to laugh and cry easily.
A far cry from how she usually saw herself.
But in front of Judas, she was like this.
Easily laughing and crying.
It became totally hard for her to control her emotions whenever she was with him.
She only discovered this side of herself after meeting Juda.
This precious realization had no value at all.
Ultimately, without him, this realization and she herself were mere inconsequential byproducts.
His words weren’t entirely ineffective.
Suddenly feeling a huge emptiness, Elijah was able to stop crying.
She just smiled weakly and replied.
“Yeah. I, too, realized today that I’m this kind of person.”
In the end, she couldn’t convey to him that he was the master he needed to return to.
Speaking to someone who didn’t remember would only inflict more pain on herself.
She could endure pain for his sake if it meant achieving something.
But if that was meaningless, she didn’t want to hurt for no reason.
She had suffered enough pain to the point it felt overflowing.
If this was all that remained of her painful life, she thought dying would be easier.
The reason she held on was purely because of Judas in front of her.
*
‘…Huh?’
She opened her eyes.
What she saw was a familiar ceiling.
Her room.
In other words, the bedroom in the house she created in Jericho.
‘Oh, what’s this?’
Her eyesight returned.
It wasn’t foggy at all; it was crystal clear.
Colors, distinctions between objects, everything was sharp.
She didn’t realize how comfortable and beautiful it was to see the world clearly.
‘Life really teaches you a lot.’
The first two days had been completely blind.
After that, she gradually adapted, slowly recovering from a slight hindrance.
But it was clear, seeing sharply or not is a huge difference.
‘My hearing is also perfectly back.’
It had always felt muffled, like hearing underwater, but now it was clear.
The sound of her breathing, background noise, the sound of birds chirping outside—she could hear everything.
‘That person… seems to be next to me again today.’
Apart from her own breathing was another person’s breath.
She had become accustomed to it.
Always beside her.
Whether she was asleep or awake.
‘Are they comfortable?’
She peeked up and saw them again today.
A head crowned with plenty of curly black hair.
They were lying across the bed in a rather uncomfortable position while sitting in a chair.
Judas had said several times that it wasn’t necessary to go to such lengths, but he was very stubborn.
‘…Today, it’s not just a resemblance to Elijah. This head is huge.’
Even the red scarf was identical.
The clothes were… a bit…
She rustled.
The moment she woke up, they seemed to sense it and would wake as well.
What a curious person.
Why had she cared for him so tenderly?
She could see her face for the first time as she slowly lifted her head.
What would happen if she told him her eyesight had returned?
Somehow she felt both excited and anxious.
‘But what about that doll I was hugging…?’
A black cat doll.
It was definitely the one she had given to Elijah…
“……”
Their eyes met.
Crimson eyes.
A narrow-eyed gaze like a cat.
A teardrop mark beneath the right eye.
She seemed slightly thinner than he remembered, with dark circles around her eyes, looking like a worn-out person, but somehow, this was definitely…
“…Lady Elijah?”
It was the Elijah he knew.
‘No way, has she been taking care of me all this time…?’
That made no sense.
Elijah should be in a war.
How had she even found him?
What was the reason?
“……”
Elijah slowly blinked her eyes.
She pinched her own face with her hand.
Was she thinking this was a dream?
‘If anything, I’m the one who feels like this is a dream, so why would you…?’
Elijah, staring blankly at him, suddenly jumped onto the bed.
“Ugh-!”
He lay down in surprise.
Yet Elijah didn’t stop.
She got on top of him.
Spreading her legs to trap him and crawled to reach his face.
In the process, her body almost touched his.
Only the blanket and Elijah’s clothes grazed against him.
“Suddenly, why, why are you doing this…?”
Elijah placed her hand beside his face and stared intently at him.
Her long hair brushed against him, tickling.
After a moment, Elijah tilted her head to the side like a cat.
“…Judas?”
“Y-yes… that’s me, but why…?”
“What did you just say to me?”
“W-why are you asking that…?”
“Before that.”
“…Lady Elijah?”
“……”
Elijah’s blinking hastened.
Tears began to fill her crimson eyes.
They sparkled like jewels.
“Judas, I… I… I remember…?”
“…What?”
At that moment, everything stopped.
What was she talking about?
“Did you just say you remembered? What are you saying?”
“…?”
The look on Elijah’s face, which seemed about to cry, turned into confusion in an instant.
She studied his face as if examining it closely.
“You were dead and came back, suffering from short-term memory loss, right?”
“W-what? Me?”
“You didn’t even remember me…”
“I… did I…? When did that happen?”
“……”
“……”
*
After a long silence and brief conversation, they reached an absurd conclusion.
He leaned against the bedside while Elijah sat in a chair.
“So…”
She summarized their earlier conversation.
“Your sight and hearing were just temporarily paralyzed.”
“…Right.”
“The ability to converse during that time was purely from deduction.”
“…Yeah…”
“Not recognizing me was simply because your senses were dulled. And the thought that I wouldn’t be here. That’s all there was to it.”
“…Yes.”
“Thus, concluding that you lost your memory was merely my misunderstanding…. that’s it, right?”
“……”
He averted his eyes slightly.
He felt like dying from embarrassment.
From the beginning, it was Elijah who had cared for him and watched over him.
It was such a ridiculous situation, and at times the fantasies he had imagined had become reality.
That was acceptable enough, but…
‘Always. Always, since that day…’
When he thought about whether he had missed her, it echoed in his mind.
‘I want to die…’
He didn’t know he was saying that to Elijah.
‘It’d be nice if I just fainted here…’
That stroke of luck didn’t happen.
Elijah, dumbfounded and seemingly replaying their conversation, soon covered her face with her hands.
Then her shoulders shook as she sobbed again.
“I’m so glad; I’m truly glad…”
What could she be glad about?
He waited a moment for her to calm down before asking.
“Did you rescue me, Lady Elijah?”
“…Yeah.”
“How… Did you come to find me?”
She nodded.
“Why did you do that?”
He didn’t mean to blame her or get angry; he was genuinely curious.
Elijah hesitated, glancing at his face.
“Because I wanted to see you…”
“……”
In the time he hadn’t seen her, she had changed in many ways.
“I wanted to see you so, so much…”
It seemed she had become overly honest.
For now, he decided to listen to her story step by step.
*
The first statement was shocking.
“Anyway, I knew it wasn’t your corpse.”
“……”
Was she a genius?
How did she know?
Elijah was a genius, to be sure.
But…
As she glanced at his expression, she said in a whiny voice.
“I just know when I see it. Anything about you.”
“U-uh, I see…”
“Well, anyway… because of what I said, I thought it was that, so I didn’t want to search for you…”
Her voice trembled, possibly because she was choked up.
She wiped her face again while crying.
Unconsciously, he raised his hand as if to wipe her tears.
But Elijah flinched at the sight of his hand and pulled back.
Feeling awkward, he put his hand down.
Did she really not want to touch?
“Anyway, after that… honestly, I don’t remember much. I lost track of time. I probably declared war and got busy running around everywhere.”
“Although it’s a bad time to ask, are you alright to be in this situation?”
Elijah was in the middle of a war.
Not to mention, she was a crucial force in the anti-Empire alliance.
Despite his concerns, Elijah appeared calm.
“I took care of everything I needed to. I went out early in the morning.”
As if to say not to worry.
Despite everything, she remained meticulous about her duties, which he found impressive.
“I can’t quite remember how I ended up in Jericho. It just happened naturally. Strangely enough, it felt as if you were guiding me… And then, I really saw you here.”
The Gigantic Drake.
When she saw him fighting and getting eaten, all her blurred memories abruptly returned.
Right after, Elijah instantly killed the Drake and split it open to rescue him.
‘…That’s impressive. How is it possible to take it down in one blow?’
After that, she believed he had lost his memory and stayed by his side until now.
Elijah watched him and, in a small voice, spoke with disappointment.
She seemed like a shy child with her head hung low and fingers fidgeting.
“I’m sorry… I said something bad… I shouldn’t have said it to you…”
“Then why back then…?”
“I said that if you get close to me, you’d die.”
Elijah explained that she heard it from Epona.
She had grown rapidly as a result of absorbing his magic since childhood.
But that had taken its toll on his body.
And in the end, it was said that he would die if he couldn’t handle it anymore.
As evidence, at that time, black soot formed all over his body.
“If I kept you close, you would be in danger, so I intended to send you far away… I figured you’d run off to Bethany during the trip. If I told you the truth, you’d probably want to stay, even if it meant dying, so I thought I had to drive you away…”
Surprisingly, that was spot on.
If she had gently reasoned with him, he would have stubbornly stayed by her side.
Of course, he would have tried to find another way without contacting Elijah.
“I’m sorry…”
Elijah said through her tears.
“Really, really sorry… what I said back then wasn’t all genuine… it was a lie…”
An apology wouldn’t erase the words spoken back then.
That they didn’t need him.
That she would rather wish he died.
Her expression at that moment.
The air and smell of the office.
The feelings he experienced.
He remembered them all one by one.
He just quietly gazed at Elijah.
What had he done while she was gone?
For a moment, he reflected on that period and those feelings.
Listening to the news from outside daily.
He had often dreamed.
And many other things.
His neck had felt empty without the necklace, and he even called out her name in his sleep.
There was no need to reflect too long.
It was so obvious it made him chuckle.
‘After all, I have been thinking about you for a long time…’
He slowly opened his mouth while keeping one curiosity.
“I…”
*
“So that’s how it was…”
Levi nodded while reading the documents.
The papers in his hands clearly outlined all the information gathered so far.
“Batrahem. The village where Elijah lived before coming to me. And that guy, Judas…”
Could Elijah’s expulsion of Judas be related to this?
Well, that was unclear.
Shouldn’t the direction of negative emotions be aimed at the Empire?
‘Or maybe not. He may have been an emotional fool.’
Emotions often shake the reason.
‘By the way, is that guy really dead?’
Officially, that’s what was known.
Elijah sent Judas to Bethany, where he supposedly died.
But Levi didn’t believe it.
Elijah had recently begun an unusually long break.
It felt like she was fighting as if she didn’t care about dying, and then suddenly?
‘Maybe it was just accumulated fatigue… but if not…’
Judas was alive, and Elijah had found him.
Levi speculated.
If that were true, the usefulness of this information increased significantly.
This was information of greater significance when both were together and close.
‘I really hope no one else besides me is aware of this information…’
Levi pondered, gazing out the carriage window.
‘How should I utilize this?’
A sly smile began to appear on his face.
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