Confession
Liliana Yekaterina froze in her tracks, unable to move as an overwhelming shock seized her. A scene that was too shocking unfolded right before her eyes.
“Veri…?!”
Her own body had been thrown toward the unknown giant monster to shield her. Now that same boy’s body lay sprawled right in front of her.
The girl rushed over without hesitation, but the boy’s condition was worse than anything imaginable.
His left arm, left completely untreated after the fight with the black monster, hung limply. For a swordsman who relied on swinging that arm and using his body as a weapon, this was the worst possible outcome.
And that was only the beginning.
A jagged red hole had torn open in the center of his body, and blood poured out in thick streams, turning the ground into a slick, glistening puddle.
“Ya! Ya! Veri!! Pull yourself together, Veri!!”
The girl called out desperately, but the boy showed no reaction. His flame of life flickered and gradually went out before her eyes.
She screamed his name again and again.
Get up. What on earth are you doing? How can the Academy’s top student collapse like this?
Yet her pleas fell on deaf ears. The boy’s crimson eyes slowly dimmed.
Again I’ve lost the person who sacrificed themselves for me.
How powerless. How futile.
She had sacrificed everything—bleeding, enduring pain—to become the perfect imperial princess she had always dreamed of being. And still she remained distant from that ideal.
Just as the girl’s self-loathing and guilt reached its peak, the boy suddenly sat up.
“Veri?! You can’t get up like this…!! Veri?”
The girl’s voice cracked with disbelief.
Only moments ago, any passerby would have seen him as a dying man. A sight so pitiful that even the kindest soul would have looked away. Yet here he was now, as if nothing had happened, brushing himself off as though the previous state had been nothing but a hallucination, walking away without a backward glance.
Toward the very black monster that had been secretly lurking behind her.
—Whoosh.
The boy’s step forward caused the air around them to shift violently. The unsettling atmosphere that had swallowed them both vanished like a frightened bird, replaced by a warm, protective warmth that swirled around the girl like sunlight.
The boy’s presence was completely different now. Before he had been a silent predator waiting for the perfect moment, but now he was like an unyielding fortress—solid, unshakeable, immovable.
The girl could barely comprehend how a person could transform in an instant.
Soon the boy closed his eyes, then opened them. The life that had been fading from his gaze returned, now burning brighter than ever. A brilliant, golden light shone where his crimson eye had been.
Eyes are the windows of the soul, people say. As if to prove it, the boy moved forward one step at a time, as though burning his own soul with every stride.
Step. Step.
He walked toward the darkness with perfect composure. Each step was so light, so clean, that it was impossible to imagine any fatigue or struggle. It was the gait of a veteran warrior who had long since mastered every obstacle.
Step.
In the center of the dark silence, the boy advanced, and the darkness itself recoiled as if afraid of him.
He lifted his head and gazed at the darkness with quiet resolve, as if silently accusing it for trying to flee from him.
The girl blinked once, her gaze still fixed on his retreating figure. The situation felt too unreal to believe.
Soon the boy vanished from her sight. She asked herself whether she had gone mad, but the answer came immediately: he had simply moved far into the shadows.
Next, the boy drew a line with his sword.
The girl found no other way to describe it. He had drawn a golden line across the darkness itself.
Saa…!
A sound like fabric tearing accompanied a heavy thud. The body of the darkness that had threatened them both had split in two.
Soon followed the sound of trees in the forest crashing down. The canopy that had blocked the sun vanished, and sunlight poured through the gap, illuminating the boy.
The boy turned his head toward the girl, his gaze filled with a distant, nostalgic light—as if reliving an old memory.
Soon he offered the girl the same warm smile he had once given her long ago. Yet this time he collapsed to the ground, his body utterly spent.
“Veri!!”
She rushed forward. The legendary heroes of the tales had sliced open the sky itself. In truth he had only cut through the forest canopy, but to the girl it was the same—cutting away the overwhelming darkness that had enveloped them. She ran without stopping, worry burning in her chest.
Was it possible he had truly burned his last spark of life?
She reached him in moments. When she was close enough to hear his voice, the boy whispered into her ear with a clarity that surprised her.
Perhaps he had thought the face before him was nothing but a dream, overwhelmed by exhaustion.
“Princess…”
“Why… why would you do this… even when your body is like this, why…?”
The girl struggled to understand. As the imperial princess, she could have received countless favors from nobles if she had shown kindness. But to value a life so highly… she herself would have shaken her head in disbelief.
Even if she had said she wanted to protect someone who caught her eye at first glance, she could never have imagined it would cost a life.
The boy’s question hung in the air, leaving her reeling.
“I made a promise…”
“…What?”
The boy spoke calmly, without a trace of deception. No one in such a dire situation would lie. The girl had no choice but to accept the words as truth.
With whom? Why?
That was the question burning in her mind.
With whom had he made a promise that allowed him to sacrifice his life for her? What price had he paid to keep it?
“I promised to protect you until his share… is taken care of, Princess.”
His left eye had been the one that had glowed before, but now the crimson eye shone. The boy answered her unspoken question. The girl’s eyes clouded, unable to look at him.
The boy could never know the storm of questions raging inside her, and his answer only stirred them further.
Then the boy spoke again.
“It’s a good thing I can protect you this time, Princess.”
“…What?”
The moment the words left his mouth, the boy extinguished the light in his eyes as if burning them out, and fell unconscious.
The girl’s gem-like eyes, still clouded with unanswered questions, wandered aimlessly.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
The sound of her own breathing filled her ears. She had taken deep breaths in and out, yet the weight of everything that had happened pressed down on her chest.
‘Thank goodness I came back safely without any more trouble after that.’
She lifted her heavy eyelids, and a ceiling adorned with Baroque-style decorations came into view, along with the white canvas tent that surrounded her. She knew exactly where she was from the tent alone, yet she still had to speak the words.
“Ah… a strange ceiling.”
The line from the anime that had once moved her echoed in her mind. Beside her, a gentle, bell-like voice rang out as if in answer.
“You’re awake, Master Berry from the Swordsmanship Department.”
She jolted. If this were Earth, it would have been painfully embarrassing, but here the world was different. The culture accepted such over-the-top lines without question.
She calmly turned her head to confirm the speaker’s identity. Platinum hair that shone like silk cascaded down to her waist, serving as a curtain that hid her sensual figure. Her turquoise eyes, like beach sand in the sunlight, clearly conveyed purity and innocence. Her features were so perfect that even the shape of her eyebrows or the curve of her lips was enough to make anyone realize she was beautiful. And her body…
She swallowed hard.
“Oh, the first thing you do upon waking is react like this… It’s wonderful to see that you’re healthy.”
She smiled at the girl lying on the infirmary bed with such warmth.
“Grace.”
“…After the entrance ceremony, this is the second time I’ve seen you.”
Second? She might have been the second for Grace, but the girl in front of her had been the same character she had read about dozens, even hundreds of times in the novel.
The same first-year student. Top student of the Divinity Department. Grace.
Not yet awakened, but at the end of her first year she would awaken and become a saintess revered by everyone.
And…
the only being in this world who possesses the means to revive the dead, and therefore the tragic character who falls into the NTR route because of it.
She could not let this walking potion that was the best efficiency possible die for such a stupid reason.
Because as long as she lived, she would become a powerful suppressant against the Demon God.
She looked down at Grace with a gentle smile.
“…I’d like to speak with you for a moment.”