Chapter 122
Chapter 122
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 122
Chapter Title: Missed Connections (2)
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1.
Amelia collapsed onto the floor the moment she returned to her room, her legs giving out beneath her.
As the scorching excitement, like the desert sun, faded away, a wave of self-loathing crashed over her.
Regret gnawed at her—she shouldn't have done it—along with blame for her own weakness.
Mingling bodies with him in his current state was something she absolutely shouldn't have done.
Siwoo hadn't fully returned yet.
Seducing him physically without him knowing any circumstances, just to satisfy her half-baked desires, was the kind of cowardly act Amelia despised above all.
She shouldn't have begged for forgiveness either.
Especially not asking if he couldn't forgive her even after regaining his memories—that was utterly shameless.
"Hic... ugh... ugh..."
But she had been so terrified.
Terrified of the look in his eyes once he came back to her.
Terrified of the hatred he would harbor once he recalled everything.
She'd thought she could endure any cruel words if it meant saving him.
But after spending those happy days with Siwoo, her heart had grown numb.
Weaker.
She couldn't bear to see him change so suddenly.
"Master... Master... what should I do...?"
No matter how desperately she pleaded, no one answered.
It felt like suffocating in a stuffy fishbowl.
A vial rolled to Amelia's feet with a faint clatter as she stifled her sobs, hand clamped over her mouth lest Siwoo hear.
Amelia picked it up with a dazed expression.
"If only this didn't exist..."
If not for the mysterious potion the Duke of Keter had left behind, she could continue this life forever.
Here in this cabin, with a few more happy memories added, living alongside Siwoo who gazed at her with affection.
Whispering love to him amid the lies built over forgotten truths, researching magic together, drawing pictures, playing the violin, baking pies, taking walks.
"Happily..."
Magical particles rose from Amelia's hand.
It was a superheated cluster capable of vaporizing the tiny vial entirely, contents and all.
She just needed to be a little cowardly.
Just compromise a bit.
Run away one last time.
She knew it was wrong.
It trampled his free will.
But didn't Siwoo find this life happy too?
She'd seen far more smiles from him in this past month together than in the five years he'd spent as her slave.
Instead.
She could make him even happier from now on.
As much happiness as she'd stolen from him, repaid tenfold, twentyfold—no, a lifetime's worth, until he grew old and left this world.
As Amelia's flame drew slowly closer, scorching the tag dangling from the vial, something caught her eye.
The flower crown Siwoo had made her as a gift.
Amelia had preserved it with magic and hung it by the window like a dream capture.
His first gift to her, when he was still just a little boy.
The moment she saw it, the magic in her grasp dissipated.
The near-mad impulse that had driven her washed away like mist.
"I... can't..."
She couldn't do it.
It was something she mustn't do.
Amelia slowly curled into herself.
Her silent sobs continued late into the night.
2.
He straightened the blankets, brushing his lips.
Since Siwoo couldn't fulfill even one person's role, Amelia had taken care of him.
Everything was fun with her around.
Even dull, tedious cleaning turned into a special event if she was by his side.
Amelia was his benefactor, his trusted master, and the first woman to stir romantic feelings in him.
"This is making my head spin..."
Siwoo clutched his head and flopped onto the bed.
That heated kiss with her.
His lips and tongue still burned with the lingering heat.
The moment their tongues had tangled deeply, Siwoo felt his reason snap.
Even though he thought they weren't at that stage yet, he'd groped her breasts with utter confidence for some reason and pushed her onto the bed.
Truth be told, he'd seen Amelia's breasts before, touched them, even suckled them.
But that was when he was so young, and to Siwoo—who'd regained ten years' worth of memories in just a month—it felt like a distant, hazy event.
Acting spoiled as a child with a child's body and mind was worlds apart from doing so with the firm resolve of an adult body and mind. The meaning and outcome were entirely different.
What on earth did Amelia think about all this?
"This feels seriously creepy."
Siwoo tore at his hair.
Right—he knew Amelia harbored some fondness for him.
Whether it was the affection of a protector for the protected or true romantic love between man and woman, there was no way to confirm, but today she'd actively accepted his kiss.
She hadn't even resisted his hands roaming her body.
So why had she rejected him at the very last moment?
Siwoo couldn't understand it.
'I want what you want too, Siwoo.'
'But... I don't have the right... no right to do this.'
With those words, Amelia had simply left the room.
"She wants what I want..."
Did she say that knowing exactly what it was?
"But she has no right..."
What right was she talking about?
He couldn't make sense of it at all.
Not fully grasping the situation, Siwoo tried recalling something vaguely similar.
One of his friends back then.
He'd been in that ambiguous phase with a girl from school—riding the "some" train, as they called it.
So when she asked him out first, he snapped a pic of his erection and sent it. She reported him in shock, and he got expelled.
"What a psycho."
Siwoo chuckled wryly at the absurd memory.
He remembered thinking back then, 'Good thing you're a host now.'
Wasn't this kind of the same?
Not to Takasho's extreme, but maybe he'd accelerated too far in that vein... leaving him with regrets.
As that thought crossed his mind, Siwoo suddenly felt a sense of dissonance.
"Takasho?"
Who was that?
A panoramic memory flashed by.
Two men laughing and talking in a shabby room.
The other's face was veiled, impossible to make out.
A headache hit at the same time.
"Ah, here it comes again."
Not long after taking Amelia's potion, his memories would tangle.
Dozens of TVs blaring at once—images and voices chaotic in his head.
Nausea followed briefly, then excruciating pain stabbed his left eye.
"Guh!"
It was agony like an awl plunged deep—no scream possible.
Siwoo lay rigid on the bed, enduring hellish torment.
The pain, lasting about ten minutes, vanished in an instant.
As if it had never existed.
Yet his body was drenched in sweat from it.
"W-what the hell...?"
He urgently wanted to find Amelia.
Her potions were what improved his condition.
He had to report this abnormality.
Staggering to his feet, Siwoo sensed something off.
His left eye was pitch black.
Which made sense, of course.
According to Amelia, he'd lost it in a fight.
A prosthetic filled the empty socket, covered by an eyepatch strap around his head.
But this darkness was different.
Not the absence of an eyeball, but like something was blocking it.
Siwoo undid the strap and removed the eyepatch.
Light flooded in, searing like fire.
His optic nerve, unused for so long, overloaded like emerging from darkness into blinding sun.
"Urgh...!"
But soon, his eye adjusted.
What was going on?
Covering one eye, Siwoo shuffled to the vanity.
"What the—why's it doing this?"
The prosthetic eye rolled naturally, as if always part of him.
Objects were clear through the left eye; he saw his reflection.
His vision fully restored.
But starkly different from the right.
His left iris gleamed brilliant gold.
And on the sclera, complex equations flickered like tattoos—appearing, vanishing.
Siwoo's confusion didn't end there.
"Whoa!"
Startled by faint glowing orbs around him, he whipped around.
Something floated before his eyes.
Lines of every color.
Faint, threadlike streams drifting through the room and beyond, like air currents.
At first, he thought it was hallucination from his optic nerve shocked by light.
But instinct told him otherwise.
This was mana flow.
As he waved his hand, it disturbed like winding threads on water's surface, then settled.
"Wow... incredible..."
By his magical knowledge, it defied understanding.
Normally, airborne mana flows were microscopically faint.
And they scattered the instant you tried observing, making clean visual strands impossible.
Magic to observe would disrupt it anyway.
Glancing absently at the desk, Siwoo's heart nearly leaped out.
Gazing at the scribbled formulas he'd jotted while piecing together memories, certain glyphs and equations popped out like 3D in a movie.
Siwoo stared wide-eyed.
Magic circles existed in three dimensions or higher.
Formulas were mere 2D projections on paper.
Just looking revealed their essence, as if he were in Ain itself.
Like reading sheet music and hearing a vivid orchestra in his mind.
A bizarre, bewildering experience.
Siwoo covered his left eye with his hand.
The 3D model vanished.
Uncovered it, and it reappeared.
"Incredible."
For Siwoo, who'd lately prioritized magical study over math, it was thrilling.
Before telling Amelia, something begged testing.
Not to mention, facing her right after that awkward incident felt embarrassing.
He pulled out the formula copied straight from his mind.
Despite deciphering not a whit, his memory held all 200 pages intact.
It must've been that important.
As he flipped through, lightning struck his head.
His body swayed backward, sinking into endless darkness—ever deeper.
When he came to, Siwoo was in a dim void.
An endless expanse of darkness, like space—this was 'Ain'.
The conceptual realm of self-generating magic, accessible only to witches who mastered it.
He'd been invited into the space he'd only heard of.
At the center of dim Ain loomed a massive structure.
Round circle? Clumped black shadow? Giant loom? ...Another form unrecognizable.
Though visible, cognition failed—dissonance.
Like beholding a higher-dimensional being from this plane.
"........."
Before it stood Shin Siwoo.
An older version, seeming late twenties.
How he'd look after a few more years.
He sat expressionless on a shadowy throne, staring fixedly.
"Something like that exists?"
He knew of Ain, but never that another (even himself) could be inside.
The other Siwoo's head turned.
Their eyes met.
Black iron chains instantly coiled around Siwoo.
No time to even gasp—he was ejected from Ain.
In a blink.
As dumbfounded Siwoo wiped cold sweat from his brow,
Memories of magic flooded his mind again.
Like bursting a dam, countless knowledge poured into his brain.
Siwoo stood blankly for a while, absorbing it.
Something was changing.