The End of the Eve, the Beginning of the Storm
The darkness that had seemed as if it would last forever finally receded, and morning arrived. I had stayed up the entire night without sleeping a wink, and now I rubbed my heavy, exhausted eyelids.
“Haaam…”
A yawn thick with drowsiness escaped me as I placed a deathweed between my lips. At that moment, the closed tent flap opened and someone stepped out.
“Ugh… I’m sorry, Tae-yang… I didn’t hear you calling and fell back asleep… Huh?”
Even right after waking, her silver hair still held a lustrous sheen. Her red eyes carried a faint trace of sleepiness. It was Maharet. She had been emerging from the tent when our eyes met, and her face went blank. She blinked several times, then rolled her eyes as if trying to process the situation.
I watched her calmly and lit the deathweed.
“Is something wrong?”
The flint sparked. A thin trail of smoke rose.
I took a deep drag. Only then did Maharet’s eyes widen in horror.
“……Don’t tell me you stood watch alone the entire night?”
“It wasn’t exactly enjoyable.”
I answered flatly and took another pull from the deathweed. Maharet stared at me for a long moment before pinching her brow in disbelief.
“We have activities today, too…! Did it never occur to you that pulling an all-nighter would wear your body down?!”
“I have insomnia… Sleep simply wouldn’t come. It troubles me as well.”
“Insomnia…?”
Maharet narrowed her eyes at the unfamiliar word. “Insomnia, what do you—”
“Hey, you bastard! Why didn’t you wake me for the watch?”
Just as Maharet was about to press me further, Gold Tae-yang burst out of the tent. I gave him a thumbs-up for the perfect interruption.
Well done, Gold Tae-yang. I was already tired and had zero interest in tedious questions. Excellent timing.
Gold Tae-yang, still rubbing his messy bedhead, took one look at me and reacted almost identically to Maharet.
“No way… You really stood watch by yourself all night?”
“It just turned out that way.”
“Whoa… I don’t even know what to say. Thanks to you, I slept like a baby.”
Gold Tae-yang scratched at his nest of hair. I waved my hand dismissively at his gratitude.
“Go wake Violet. It’s almost time to assemble.”
“Roger that. Gimme a sec.”
At my request, he threw the tent flap wide open again. In the corner, Violet lay fast asleep in her sleeping bag, breathing softly. She hadn’t moved an inch from the position I had laid her in hours earlier.
Gold Tae-yang looked at her and broke into a wicked grin. He drew in a huge breath and—
“Kniiiiiiight!!!!”
“Eek?!”
The shout was loud enough to shake the tent. I slapped a hand to my forehead and let out a long sigh.
Yeah… I’m the idiot for trusting this guy with anything.
Violet was dreaming.
A strange, incomprehensible dream.
A deep indigo sky glowed softly. A fresh, sweet scent brushed the tip of her nose. Crimson maple leaves danced elegantly in the breeze, and a bonfire flickered with scarlet light. The entire landscape was steeped in the aroma of autumn.
In the middle of that scenery sat a boy.
Jet-black hair and eyes hovered before her. A voice that tried to sound calm but trembled unmistakably. Raindrops falling with soft plops onto the ground. The boy was gently touching his own scars, tears sliding down his cheeks.
Violet panicked. She desperately tried to hide her scars. She knew what happened when people saw them—they changed. So she was afraid.
Even those who had approached her with kindness eventually changed. She never understood why. All she knew was that the phenomenon was connected to her burn scars.
The day every tragedy began. The day she alone survived the burning village. The day she met that monster.
“……”
As far as Violet knew, the curse was absolute. Not a single person who had ever seen her scar had escaped its effect. The degree of disgust varied, but every one of them had looked at her with revulsion.
That was how it should have been…
The boy was different. Even after taking in her scar with his own two eyes, he showed no revulsion. No—it seemed he felt none at all.
He reached out and gently stroked the burned flesh. A kind warmth seeped into her cheek. At the comforting touch, Violet unconsciously leaned into his hand. His body heat melted the autumn chill that had settled on her face.
Overwhelmed by a sensation she had longed for so deeply, Violet spaced out for a moment—then burst into tears.
She didn’t know why. She simply couldn’t contain the surging wave of emotion. After losing her entire family and receiving the curse, this was the first time someone’s warmth had reached her. To a girl who had been starving for human contact, it was unbearably intense.
As if possessed, Violet pressed her cheek against his hand. The boy silently held her up. He stayed with her until her tears ran dry and she fell asleep.
“……”
Violet had thought it was nothing more than a happy dream. It had felt far too unrealistic. She had convinced herself it was merely a fleeting fragment of her wishes.
……At least until the thunderous voice yanked her awake.
“Kniiiiiiight!!!!”
“Eek?!”
The sudden, violent shout dragged her consciousness out of sleep. Violet jolted upright in a panic.
“U-ugh…?”
“Hey, wake up. Morning’s already here.”
Still half-dazed, she blinked. The voice that had woken her spoke again. It belonged to Gold Tae-yang, the boy in the same group as her.
“……Couldn’t you have woken me more gently?”
“This way’s more effective, you know~!”
Gold Tae-yang laughed mischievously. Behind him, a boy stood quietly. He approached the tent with composed steps and looked down at Violet with an expressionless face.
“You’re awake.”
“……”
Violet drew in a sharp breath. The person she had just met in her dream—Raiden Lisite.
“You fell asleep in the chair last night. I moved you into the tent.”
“What? Violet woke up yesterday?”
“Yeah. She came out briefly at dawn.”
“Whoa~ A commoner having a private audience with the eldest son of a ducal house. Must’ve been terrifying, huh?”
“Shut up.”
Violet’s head filled with question marks at their exchange. A private meeting with Young Master Lisite? But that moment had clearly been a dream…?
“W-was it… not a dream…?”
“Dream? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I-it’s nothing!”
Raiden gave her a strange look as she flailed her hands in embarrassment. Violet quickly waved them again, insisting it was nothing.
“Hmm. I see.”
Fortunately, Raiden didn’t pursue it. As Violet let out a sigh of relief and tried to calm her swirling thoughts, he spoke lightly.
“Come on, get up. It’s almost time to assemble.”
“……”
His gaze lingered for a brief second on the bandages wrapped around her face before moving away. Violet felt as if lightning had struck her skull.
His eyes hadn’t been looking at the bandages. They had pierced straight through to what lay beneath—the curse hidden beneath the thick white cloth.
……He knows about the scar.
Only then did Violet realize that last night’s events had not been a dream. The memory of sobbing like a child and clinging to Raiden as if he were her only anchor—it had all been real.
Before joy at discovering someone immune to the curse could reach her, shame came flooding in first. Shame for everything that had happened at dawn.
“……!!”
Violet’s face flushed crimson with belated embarrassment.
“Why is she suddenly acting like that…?”
“How should I know?”
Gold Tae-yang and Raiden simply shrugged at each other, utterly bewildered by her reaction.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the island.
The forest that had been filled with explosive roars and crashes for so long had finally fallen silent. Trees and rocks blasted apart by the blasts lay scattered across the ground, spewing acrid smoke. The scene looked as though a catastrophe had swept through.
“Tsk… Morning has already arrived.”
The old man standing in the corpse-strewn field muttered to himself. His body was covered in dust. He brushed the ash from his clothes with an indifferent hand and looked forward.
Kneeling before him were roughly twenty black knights.
“Hehehe… It took longer than expected. The youth these days really are quite resilient.”
At the old man’s delighted murmur, one of the knights spoke up.
“My lord, will you be returning now?”
“Yes. I cannot linger any longer. The restraints seem to be activating.”
The old man pointed at his fingertips, which were slowly crumbling into powder. He tossed something he had been holding to one of the knights and sighed.
“I would have liked to play with a few students, but I wasted too much time on that young one… Still, it was enjoyable, so I suppose I’ll be satisfied with this.”
“The order you gave us…”
“Carry it out exactly. I don’t expect you to annihilate them with your remaining strength, so kill as many as possible and destroy everything you can.”
“Understood.”
Before the knight could even finish his reply, the old man turned and flicked his robe. In the next instant, he had vanished from the island.
The knight stared at the empty space where his master had stood, then drew the sword at his waist. The other knights followed suit, taking up their weapons one by one.
“It is time for death, my soldiers.”
The knight who appeared to be their leader tied the object the old man had thrown him to the top of his weapon and raised it high.
It was none other than the cleanly severed head of Professor Lucas.