Chapter 247
Chapter: 247
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 247
>Chapter Title: Soul Stone (1)
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>It took Seongjin quite a while to finally break free from Logan's grip. The guy just wouldn't calm down.
"Hey, are you crying?"
"What nonsense is that? No."
Crunch.
He kept his face buried and locked Seongjin in a headlock nonstop, which was driving him to the brink of death.
Finally losing patience, Seongjin said, "Hey, my neck's about to snap," and now Logan was silently pouring holy power into twisting his neck!
Like father, like son—they were doing exactly the same thing.
"How did you know? Did you just meet Father?"
Crack.
Rubbing his newly freed neck around, Seongjin asked. The Holy Emperor's parting words had been nagging at him anyway.
-Since you're here, there's a place I want to check out briefly.
It seemed to point to this guy.
"Yeah."
Logan, finally calming down, hung his head and replied.
"I see. You already knew. Makes sense."
Seeing him so uncharacteristically slumped and pitiful, Seongjin didn't feel like complaining about his crick in the neck anymore.
Still, watching his red, swollen eyes return to normal in an instant really drove home how incredible Logan's holy power was.
'I'm kinda jealous of that. If I had that ability, I could use aura way more freely.'
He was thinking the Holy Emperor would be shocked if he knew, when Logan hardened his expression and looked at Seongjin.
"But when did you find out? Why didn't you tell me right away?"
"Uh...."
Seongjin scratched his cheek awkwardly.
"I only heard roughly from Father recently myself, so I didn't know how to explain it to you. It's not like I had proof to show."
"But if you'd told me, I probably would've believed you."
"Yeah, sure."
Seongjin's face grew a bit serious.
Dude, that gullible streak—what's there to brag about?
"And also...."
"Yeah?"
'I wonder why you were so kind to us even without your memories, but hated us so much before. Why did you hate me so much?'
That's what Logan wanted to ask. But he just mouthed the words silently before clamping his mouth shut.
What good would asking now do? Moreth had no memory of it anyway.
More importantly, Logan had apologies to make to the brother he'd finally found.
"I'm really sorry."
"Huh? For what?"
"I couldn't figure out where your soul had gone. I even thought it might be impossible to find you forever. If things stayed like this, clueless Moreth might've given up on you completely."
Logan's eyes were filled with thick guilt he couldn't hide.
"And when Moreth returned to his body, I thought Lee Seongjin might disappear—and I didn't want that."
Seongjin was baffled.
'No, wait—I'm Lee Seongjin anyway.'
Isn't that basically saying he was worried about me? Why apologize for that?
But as Seongjin stared blankly, Logan started digging himself deeper on his own.
"And I told you to give Moreth his body back. That was basically asking you to die willingly. What kind of thing is that to...."
"......?"
Seongjin couldn't comprehend Logan's thought process at all.
'That's worrying about Moreth, isn't it? So since I'm... Moreth...?'
Why was this guy thinking so complicated? Why feel sorry about that?
But Logan's digging continued, finally reaching the boundary between the mantle and outer core, stamping the finishing blow on his earth-digging spree.
"I'm sorry for suspecting you from the start. Sorry for not recognizing you right away! How can I call myself your family proudly like this? I have no face to show."
"...Hey, if you say that, what does that make me?!"
I didn't recognize anyone from the Holy Emperor's family at all! I couldn't even guess my identity until Father told me!
Plus, I kept denying I was Moreth first! You forget that?
"Moreth. I mean, I...."
"Hey, shut up. Just stop!"
Now it was Seongjin's turn to twist Logan's neck.
Crack.
"Gah! Hey!"
Quit the embarrassing crap and stop the pointless drilling! Even if oil came out, there's no use for it here anyway!
Fortunately, Seongjin's firm punishment seemed effective. After flailing for a while, Logan finally escaped, shaking off his gloomy mood completely.
Instead, he looked at Seongjin with newfound eyes and called,
"Moreth."
"......"
"Moreth."
"Uh, yeah, what...."
Seongjin awkwardly tugged the corner of his mouth up.
Father calling him Moreth felt natural, but hearing it from Logan felt weirdly off.
Logan, sensing Seongjin's discomfort like a ghost, smiled faintly.
"You're still not used to the name Moreth, huh."
"Yeah... honestly, yeah."
Truth be told, aside from Father, Logan was the only one who knew he was Lee Seongjin. Being called Moreth by others versus by Logan was worlds apart.
Logan nodded.
"I get it. I once struggled with the fact that I was no longer 'Gael Bertrand.'"
Hm. Yeah, definitely.
Seongjin remembered the confusion and anxiety when he first fell here. Without the noisy Demon King by his side, he probably wouldn't have adapted so quickly.
"Father knew, didn't he? Should've talked to him from the start."
"You think so?"
Logan let out a quiet laugh, then suddenly made a strange face.
"Funny, isn't it? I was born his son, yet you—who thought you were someone else—trust and follow him more."
"Father's a good man, Logan."
"Yeah, I think so too."
Logan replied, paused as if in thought, then carefully spoke.
"Do you want me to keep calling you Lee Seongjin?"
Seongjin's eyes widened. He hadn't expected that.
Well, yeah, it'd be more comfortable.
"But is that okay? You've wanted to find Moreth from the beginning."
Logan smiled brighter than ever—not his usual faintly sad smile, but one of genuine joy.
"Don't worry about that. The fact that Lee Seongjin is my brother doesn't change. Just like Gael Bertrand was always Moreth's brother."
"......!"
So characteristically him—super corny and convincingly so.
But flashy words like that could be a huge comfort sometimes. Feeling a strange pang in his chest, Seongjin got swept up in the mood and asked without thinking,
"Uh... should I call you Gael when it's just us?"
"Nah. I've been Logan since meeting everyone in the Cyan Rose Palace. And as your elder, that's no hardship."
Seongjin's eyebrow twitched up.
What, dude?
"Hold on, elder? Watch your words. Didn't we just acknowledge each other's past lives? Then I'm obviously the older brother! Plus, your birthday's half a year after mine!"
"What are you talking about, Lee Seongjin?"
Logan put on a stern face, speaking in the tone of an elder scolding.
"You were sixty, I was seventy. A clear ten-year gap."
"What? You little punk, still inflating your age?!"
"Who's inflating?"
"Who? The one and only Sword Master Logan, who swept battlefields with a single sword at seventy!"
A guy famous enough for multiple biographies, trying to fudge it like that?
Logan looked highly displeased.
"So you've grown up now, huh? You used to call me 'big bro' properly when you were little."
What? No way!
"You punk, you mocking me 'cause I lost my memories? Where's this fabrication from?"
Losing patience, Seongjin glared and twisted Logan's neck.
Crunch.
"Urk! Hey! Keep this up? Act like a little brother!"
Logan, neck turned, groaned and swung his arm to wrap Seongjin's neck.
Crack.
"You stop forcing it and admit it properly!"
"Eek! Let go nicely, Lee Seongjin!"
"Hmph, think I will? Give up and accept it! Admit you're the little brother now!"
After tumbling around like that for a while, Seongjin and Logan suddenly felt staring eyes and finally looked up.
"...Your Highnesses, what are you doing right now?"
"......!"
Masain was looking down at them with a baffled face, having arrived unnoticed. He'd taken off his armor, eaten roughly, and come back to Seongjin's room out of worry.
"Seeing you fight over who’s the 'big bro' like in your childhood at the Cyan Rose Palace is nice, but do you have to bond like this here? What will the people of Sigismund territory think of you two?"
Seongjin narrowed his eyes at Logan. See? Who called you big bro?
Logan's face visibly reddened as he quickly released Seongjin's neck and backed away.
"Anyway, how's your condition, Your Highness? Is your eye okay now?"
Masain sighed lightly, picking up the scattered bandages from the table.
"You should avoid light for a while, right? Covering your eyes for a few days would be...."
Eek? No way!
He knew it was fine, but he didn't want to. It felt stuffy!
Seongjin panicked, but luckily Logan stepped in. He knew the Holy Emperor had already come and gone, and felt Seongjin's aura activation was fully normal.
"Don't worry, Brother Masain. Moreth's eyes are completely healed."
"Really?"
Masain's eyes widened at the unusually firm statement. Logan laughed ha-ha and turned to Seongjin.
"Your big bro fixed it properly. Right, Moreth?"
Seongjin stared at him quietly for a moment.
Logan had always avoided calling him by name in front of others, and even then awkwardly. But now, he looked utterly at ease.
Realizing how much he'd been holding back, Seongjin chuckled unwittingly.
"Yeah. Got a little help from my holy-power-strong little brother for once."
"...You're really persistent."
Logan and Masain stayed in Seongjin's room for a while after that. And for the first time, Seongjin heard the full story about his sleep-talking.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
At Seongjin's question, Masain looked a bit sheepish. He'd worried it'd stress Seongjin out, especially without memories, hearing about weird sleep-talking.
'But wait, the Demon King must've heard it all along, right?'
So after the two finally left, Seongjin grilled the Demon King. Why'd he keep quiet knowing?
After several grillings, the Demon King's unexpected confession came.
[I thought back then you were gradually being overtaken by Moreth's memories.]
Come to think of it, Seongjin hadn't fully explained to the Demon King that he might actually be Moreth, so that made sense.
[You mistook Delcross language for Sigurd 34's at first, right? And sometimes in dreams, you'd see from Moreth's view. I figured realizing it would just accelerate you getting swallowed by the memories.]
'Hm.'
[But it kept happening daily, and I got completely used to it. Later, I thought it was no big deal.]
Yeah, they'd talked about it before.
-If you keep mistaking his feelings for yours and his knowledge for yours, won't you eventually mistake yourself for Moreth?
From then, the Demon King had voiced concerns. That staying as Lee Seongjin would get harder.
-You might need some special way to hold onto your Lee Seongjin identity.
Seongjin had dismissed it as needless worry. It hadn't been hard so far.
But now, even Logan—the one person in this world who called him Lee Seongjin—was no longer distinguishing Seongjin from Moreth.
He said he'd call him Lee Seongjin when alone, but that boundary would blur over time.
'No real difference anyway. I am Moreth, after all.'
But for some reason, Seongjin suddenly thought,
I can't lose 'me' until the end. If no one properly calls my name, I'll end up....
'Hey, Demon King.'
Deep in thought, Seongjin called out.
[Yeah?]
'No matter what, to you, I'll always be [Lee Seongjin], right?'
[Of course.]
The Demon King perked up and nodded vigorously.
[You're the Lee Seongjin I met. Past lives, reincarnations—none of that matters. You'll always be Lee Seongjin to me.]
'...Yeah.'
Finally, a sense of relief.
With newfound ease, Seongjin closed his eyes and said magnanimously,
'Anyway, what's for dinner? Should we ask for bear steak?'
[What? Really? For real? Yay!]
The Demon King thrashed so excitedly, Seongjin's head felt shaken.
[Bear meat, bear meat, strong-scented, smoky bear meat~]
That good, huh?
Listening to the Demon King's clumsy tune, the absurd Seongjin shook his head.