MHHC Chapter 86

"I understand now that you've been turning back time. Repeatedly, at that... Just how many times have you done this?"

[...]

"Ten times? Or perhaps twenty?"

[Do you truly want to know?]

A suddenly cool quality entered his voice. Adelheid witnessed the darkness dwelling in his gaze—eyes that had always been as gentle as spring breezes.

Never had she so viscerally felt the fact that he was not human, but dragon.

[If you're that curious, I'll answer. By human reckoning, about 360 days. Roughly a year, repeated.]

For a moment, she felt dizzy. Not so much from the span of a year, but from the fact that it had taken her until now—after a full year of repetition—to finally notice.

"...If I hadn't noticed, just how long did you intend to continue?"

His elegant mouth twisted momentarily in something like disgust. It was fleeting, and he soon smoothly concealed the emotion on his face.

[Who knows. Perhaps for a lifetime.]

A lifetime. She couldn't even fathom how long a dragon's lifetime might span. Adelheid barely swallowed the breath rising heavily in her chest.

"Why on earth... I promised you with my own lips that I would return. There was no reason for you to do this..."

[Because human promises are light.]

She looked up at him with utterly hollow eyes.

Human promises are light? Valentin's words were nothing less than a declaration that he didn't trust her at all. Her lips trembled as she bit them.

Ten days. A short time, but she'd thought they shared emotions and trust.

She'd felt overwhelmed by the possibility of further development, thought this was a relationship with nothing left but to nurture it beautifully going forward.

Had all of this been her delusion alone? Adelheid's gentle eyes sharpened severely.

"If you couldn't even trust me, why did you keep me by your side?"

[Because there wasn't a single part of you that wasn't lovely.]

At the immediate answer, she was momentarily struck speechless.

[But a human's heart cannot be trusted. No matter how lovely and special you are to me, you're human by birth.]

"..."

[Pitifully, you weren't born with magic and fell all the way here, but now you've gained magic. Even if you leave this forest, you can live however you wish.]

"..."

[If I'd known, I wouldn't have awakened your magic.]

"..."

[I should have cherished you only a very little.]

The regret permeating his will felt alien. Only then did Adelheid realize he looked somewhat exhausted.

Only then did she truly see him. Valentin, who had turned back time countless times, preparing the same day over and over so she wouldn't feel wrongness, clinging helplessly to a relationship with no development or future.

Even as she couldn't understand it, thinking of that desperation inevitably softened her heart.

"...Valentin."

When she stepped closer, Valentin's hand twitched. At his visibly anxious expression and gaunt face, she let her gaze rest for a time.

"..."

Adelheid stood on tiptoe and gently touched his jaw. She saw his throat rise and fall urgently at her touch.

He, who had frozen stiffly at Adelheid's contact, soon carefully overlapped his hand on the back of hers.

Adelheid thus captured his gaze and brought it down to her. Meeting his eyes, she whispered a question.

"Answer me. Why were you so afraid of me leaving this place entirely?"

Adelheid recalled the priests' advice written in the "notebook."

That "He" came without warning, stayed only very briefly, then left. So they must always be thoroughly prepared to receive a guest.

These ten days had merely been special; generally, it seemed Valentin stayed alone in the forest. Was that why? Though he knew something of human habits, his understanding wasn't deep.

'If this is the first time Valentin has decided to remain by a human's side. If he's formed attachment to this first relationship.'

She could understand fearing to lose her. At Adelheid's question, a look of distress momentarily crossed Valentin's eyes.

[I don't know.]

He raised his gaze, saturated with melancholy. Adelheid carefully chose her words to make him understand.

"I'm not angry. Rather, I feel regret. You could have simply shared your anxieties honestly with me. Instead of turning back time like this, suffering alone in your worry."

[...]

"If you were truly that anxious, you could have left the sanctuary with me."

[That cannot be.]

"Why not?"

[I made a promise. Not to leave this place.]

"A promise with whom? I don't understand why a divine dragon would cling to a mere promise for so long."

[A promise with Morig. Remember? My shadow, my twin.]

Ah. Adelheid bit her lip, having completely forgotten that being's existence.

"Is he such an important being to you? Important enough to trap yourself in this place, unable to leave?"

[Are you curious about that?]

He asked back with an unwilling air.

"If you'll tell me, it will help me understand you."

Adelheid was certain he gave a bitter laugh. For all those long years, he'd never sought anyone's understanding nor needed to understand anyone—it must be an unfamiliar concept to him.

[Hmm.]

He furrowed his brow as if choosing words, or perhaps recalling memories. Valentin's slightly lowered eyelids became saturated with immeasurable fatigue.

[In the beginning, there was God. Fearing imperfection, the parent split itself in two. One received perfect goodness, strength, and power. The other received only the 'wicked parts' carved away from itself.]

"..."

['Morig' fell into despair upon realizing this. Split from the same parent, why had it inherited only the most base ability? It grieved for a long time. And I couldn't bear watching it grieve and resent.]

"Ah..."

At her sigh, Valentin nodded faintly.

[So I promised. I would remain here enjoying all divinity, while it would have the human world.]

Adelheid barely suppressed the antipathy rising toward Morig. What use was enjoying all divinity while imprisoned?

Of course, Valentin wouldn't have been ignorant of that manipulation.

That his shadow, who had even taken the name "Morig," wanted to isolate him in precisely that way to fill its own base satisfaction...

'Wait a moment.'

Adelheid felt a subtle wrongness in Valentin's words.

"Have the human world"?

Those who could be described as "having" the world while living among humans were only a nation's king or royalty.

'Surely not.'

She quickly erased Mikhail's face, which had surfaced in her mind.

It couldn't be. They'd known each other since childhood.

Mikhail wasn't entirely without exceptional qualities, but he didn't possess anything remarkable enough to be considered a dragon's shadow.

[I have no interest in humans, cherish them not at all, so I thought it sufficient if that made the child content.]

She barely emerged from her thoughts at Valentin's continuing words.

[Yet still, that child occasionally sent humans to be my conversation partners.]

Adelheid barely swallowed a bitter laugh.

'So that's what it meant—one priest per generation guarding the sanctuary...'

It could be sufficient for no one. It would have been better to be utterly abandoned or to abandon everything. Better than living confined in this prison with the fine-sounding name of sanctuary, alone calculating throughout a lifetime the world one could never obtain with only a single human companion.

"Haven't you been lonely all this time?"

As her eyes twisted with piercing compassion, Valentin smiled smoothly.

[Who knows. Loneliness is an emotion felt only when there are others of one's kind. No matter how cute dogs and cats are, one can't become a dog or cat.]

"..."

[That's how humans appear to me. Of course, that was before I saw you.]

"..."

[You're like a tiny bird. Even your speech is as adorable as birdsong, and yet your body is so small and fragile.]

Why do you feel so unbearably lovely to me? The will he didn't voice but swallowed seemed to echo vividly in her head.

When Adelheid, unable to bear the embarrassment, averted her gaze, he reached out and cupped her chin, lifting it. A savage quality momentarily crossed his eyes.

[Don't look away.]

"..."

[Every time you do that, I want to bite around your eyes until they bruise red. If I watch you cry while calling my name, will this feeling improve?]

At the raw language, Adelheid's cheeks flushed. Valentin stared at Adelheid with eyes that seemed desperately, feverishly boiling.

Not knowing anything, not even knowing how harmful to her the impulses he possessed might be.

"..."

In that moment, Adelheid thought of kissing Valentin. She recalled how he'd led her to pleasure with such skill today.

Of course he would. He'd been repeating "today" for an entire year...

By now, he would know inside and out exactly how and in what way she responded.

"..."

What must it have felt like? When the carefully built bond vanished each morning, when he had to build everything anew from the beginning with her, who woke having forgotten completely.

"Valentin, I..."