A Thousand Years of Waiting
Everyone has had delusions at some point. But I, in particular, used to indulge in them quite often. I would drift into fantasies during boring classes at school, while walking down the street, and lying in bed before sleep.
In those delusions, I was the protagonist of an entire world. I adventured through fantasy realms, became a popular broadcaster in a gender-reversed world, starred in cosmic epics that spanned countless planets, and rose as a hero who saved the world. The stories I conjured were countless.
So when I first encountered these situations, I didn't connect the dots. But the moment I saw that pink-haired woman, it all came rushing back.
It had started with a simple thought: What if vampires actually existed in this world? From there, the delusion had spiraled outward.
In that imagined world, beings with supernatural powers—monsters—lived hidden among humans. On the surface, everything looked like my original world, but beneath it lurked creatures that concealed their true natures. Most people remained oblivious to their existence.
In that setting, Korea was under vampire rule. The vampires had brainwashed the upper echelons of both Korea and Japan, pulling strings from the shadows. That brainwashing was the unique ability of the True Ancestors, the pinnacle of vampirekind.
Opposing them was the Vatican—the Papacy—which sought to control and eliminate such monsters. Allied with the Papacy were the Lycanslopes, a race of werewolf-like beings who served as the hidden world's enforcers against monsters.
The Lycanslopes had once been persecuted and driven to the brink by humans. Through the leadership of their first chieftain, Khan, they fought for recognition and eventually became the secret police of the underworld, tasked with keeping monsters in check. This naturally put them at odds with the vampires who manipulated humanity from behind the scenes. A massive war between the two factions was inevitable in my delusion.
The pink-haired vampire was Bathory Hosa, the second-in-command of the vampires, known as the Immortal Pink Devil.
In her youth, she had roamed the world with a man from the Grace family—one of the True Ancestor bloodlines—named Autumn Grace. But for reasons unknown, he died. In his final moments, he sacrificed his reincarnation and everything he was to grant her the power of eternal life and immortality.
Having transcended mortality and attained a fragment of divinity, she became a demigod and escaped the control of the True Ancestor families. Yet she never forgot the man she loved. For a thousand years, she served the Grace family in atonement.
And that Autumn Grace… was me.
Whenever I built a world in my mind, I naturally placed myself at its center. So in this delusion, I had become a male vampire of the True Ancestor Grace family. I had taken my real name, Gaeul, translated it into English as "Autumn," and called myself Autumn Grace.
One day, as a child wandering the streets, I encountered a young vampire girl whom other vampires shunned and ignored. That pink-haired child had no parents, no siblings, no relatives—not even any vampire acquaintances. She survived by scavenging scraps from the trash. Her village had been annihilated by humans; branded as unclean, it had been purged by crusaders dispatched by the Pope. Her parents had sacrificed themselves to smuggle her to safety. She was the sole survivor.
Bathory had been an ordinary vampire girl, but her tragic life had sealed her heart away. Kind-hearted as I was (at least in my own setting), I took her into my mansion and made her my attendant. Through persistent care and effort, I eventually coaxed her heart open, and she came to accept me.
Once her heart was open, she grew excessively dependent on me. When I casually mentioned that I liked her pink hair, she changed her name to Bathory Hosa—adding the word for "pink" to her name.
On the day we both came of age, the two of us set out alone to explore the world. As a True Ancestor of the Grace family, I was forbidden from leaving the family's protection. Still, I had wanted to live out the classic tale of a noble heir's grand adventure, so Bathory and I departed together.
For a hundred years, we wandered the world side by side. We met martial artists who wielded inner energy in the East. We ventured into uncharted jungles and battled dragons. We even sailed the high seas with pirates under our command.
After so long together, we became closer than anyone else in that world. We grew strong enough that few could hope to stand against us. But then I decided the story needed a tragic ending. A beautiful tale was fine, but tragedy would make it unforgettable. Of course, I never imagined it would become reality.
We explored a hidden ancient ruin. Bathory's mistake activated a sealed mechanism, and an ancient evil god was revived. Even pouring every ounce of our combined power into the fight, we couldn't kill it. If the god escaped the ruins, the world would be destroyed. Unwilling to abandon the world we had grown to love, we chose to sever the entire ruin's dimension from the original world. It was meant to be a beautiful sacrifice—two lovers saving the world together.
But by then, I had grown too attached to Bathory's character. So I changed the ending.
I—Autumn Grace—refused to let my lover die. Yet the dimension had already been cut off, and crossing the void between worlds would tear one's body apart. Return was impossible. So I chose complete self-sacrifice. Autumn Grace, a 9th-circle archmage, used the ultimate forbidden magic that bent the very laws of reality to grant Bathory the power of eternal life. In doing so, she would gain a fragment of divinity. The price was immense. To pay it in full, Autumn Grace abandoned all his reincarnations and vanished completely.
Through his sacrifice, Bathory obtained immortality. She escaped the severed dimension and returned to the original world. But Autumn Grace, her first love and everything she had, was gone forever.
If only I hadn't touched that device in the ruins! Because of me, Autumn died.
Despairing, she tried to end her own life. But she was now immortal—she could not die. Even if she attempted to use forbidden magic with her own body as the price, she might have achieved oblivion. Yet at the final moment, she realized that doing so would betray Autumn's last wish.
She returned to the Grace family with her heart barely mended. Serving them became her way of honoring Autumn. She fought valiantly in the great war on their behalf, earning the title of the Immortal Pink Devil and becoming a symbol of terror. In truth, she was stronger than any vampire lord in history.
Thus she served the Grace family for a thousand years, waiting for the return of a man who would never come, all while atoning for a sin she believed was hers alone.
That was how my delusion ended—with Bathory still alive in the modern era. A quiet hope that somewhere in the world I lived in, she might exist.
Looking back, I really did something cruel to her.
Anyway, to her, Autumn Grace was her everything. And that Autumn Grace was me.
Bathory rarely showed emotion to others. A thousand years of life had given her vast experience, and losing Autumn had dulled much of her capacity for feeling. Yet the way she stared at me now, visibly shaken, told me she believed I was him.
If she thought I was Autumn, then perhaps… I could escape this situation.
"Bathory? Is that you, Bathory?"
!!!!!!!
"That can't be… Autumn? Is it really you?"
Okay. My guess was right.
Good. This was where it began.
I had to answer carefully.
The most dangerous tightrope walk of my life was about to start.