The Mark That Remained
Esperanes’ information guild was conducting an unexpected memory test.
The question provided was: [Who closed the gate that opened in front of the castle gates not long ago?] In truth, it was less a test or testimony and more a cross-verification.
The results were shocking.
‘Over seventy percent answered that the gate response team handled it.’
Only the remaining thirty percent claimed that a single man had closed the gate alone.
At this point, one might have been inclined to believe the seventy percent, but Starve, who had already finished his investigation, knew the correct answer.
‘Saerin’s memory was right.’
The thirty percent had spoken the truth.
‘How absurd.’
When they realized there was a problem with their memories, the atmosphere had grown quite serious.
Neither of them was foolish enough to misremember or confuse something that had happened only recently. Starve and Saerin, who trusted both their own memories and each other’s, had immediately begun digging through past records the moment they noticed the discrepancy.
Because it was not so distant a past, the information was accurate, and thus they discovered it.
The existence of ‘Raven.’
“Even though we’ve received requests regarding him before, for something like this to be possible……”
It was absurd that even after seeing the records, he still could not recall anything about the target.
Moreover, this was no ordinary person. He was a skilled individual who had single-handedly closed a gate in front of everyone, and all the guild masters had once placed requests with them to find him.
No, correction. He remembered receiving the request, but had forgotten the target himself, and even the fact that he had received the request until he saw the records.
“How fascinating.”
He could not help but take an interest. Especially when combined with the information that had just arrived. Starve flicked the newly arrived documents with his index and middle fingers and muttered inwardly.
‘I had expected that noble to request Eckhart Lofty’s death, and that Edardo would move to stop it……’
He roughly understood why the mercenary group, which had remained quiet all this time, had suddenly accepted the request to subjugate bandits and stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Edardo must have pulled strings from behind the scenes. Therefore, he had also known that Edardo would get involved in this matter, but……
‘I never expected Raven to join in and help stop it as well.’
It did not matter that he had ties to Lofty, but the fact that he had moved together with the masked man who was almost certainly Edardo was somewhat unsettling.
‘Do the two of them have some kind of connection?’
Perhaps they were planning to build one. That cunning predator, Edardo, would never let go of such a tempting prey.
‘If possible, it would be best to kill him while we still can……’
But was it even possible? To kill an existence that vanished so completely from memory?
‘At this point, isn’t he practically already dead?’
Even if he sent assassins, they might forget who they were supposed to kill along the way. Perhaps he himself would forget this existence again. Moreover, the barriers surrounding him were formidable, and Raven himself did not seem easy to deal with……
After calculating the gains and losses of killing Raven through countless obstacles, Starve soon organized his thoughts, set the documents down, and muttered quietly.
“It would be nice if I had the chance to meet him in person someday.”
It would be better not to touch him for now. He had developed curiosity and interest in him, and he wanted to meet him at least once.
‘Still, I’ll need a way to remember him.’
He did not know of any other way to make use of him, but there was no harm in remembering him. Starve took out a blank sheet of paper, wrote down that he needed to find a way to remember ‘Raven,’ and then picked up the next document.
And there he encountered a name that was both long unseen and very familiar.
‘Right…… Deciever. That demigod has returned.’
At the mention of a demigod, another existence came to mind.
‘Coincidentally, there is also a demigod in Esperanes.’
Perhaps he would know something.
It was just as well, since he had been planning to meet him for his schemes anyway. Starve began searching for a way to contact Esperanes’ Guardian God.
“I had hoped you would remain a child forever, fulfill your purpose, and die……”
“How unfortunate.”
Once, long ago, Raven had stood at the edge of a cliff and burst into laughter at a past guild master whose face was now hazy in his memory.
Your wish has come true, he had said. I can never become an adult now.
“Since I cannot form proper connections, how could I ever become an adult?”
People grow by forming various relationships throughout their lives.
It was not simply about creating connections. People matured through all manner of experiences: parting ways and later meeting again to exchange greetings, receiving help or clashing through unexpected past ties, and even experiencing eternal farewells through death.
“■■ entrusts his name to Death until the original contract ends.”
Raven had lost that opportunity forever.
‘Clever, Death.’
By taking Raven’s name, Death had made him an existence that existed yet did not exist.
Thus, Raven became a half-dead being who was alive yet not truly living.
‘The names of the dead are never called, and names that are never called are eventually forgotten.’
The time of the dead does not flow.
Even bonds formed are forgotten. Someone who had laughed and called him brother until recently would ask with a blank expression who he was.
Countless relationships reduced to nothing amid endless forgetting, Raven, carved apart by the blade of oblivion, lifted his empty, dead eyes to the sky. His murky gray eyes reflected nothing but pitch-black darkness.
“All I can do is imitate.”
“It’s fine. It’s something I can still do.”
Just because they had forgotten him did not mean the kindness and goodwill they had shown him disappeared.
Most of the goodwill he had received belonged to an ‘adult,’ so imitating it was something he could manage.
“But still…… though it’s only a one-in-a-million chance.”
[……]
“If someone who remembers me ever appears someday.”
His eyes were dyed in green light.
A sky so beautiful it stung his eyes filled his vision. It looked as though yellow, pink, and soft purple paints had been spilled across a blue canvas.
Gazing at the open sky, Raven smiled. A refreshing smile resembling a different sky from before spread across his face.
Whether this was resignation or hope.
“Could I become an adult then, too?”
.
.
.
And now, Raven followed Edardo as if entranced.
Along the way, the children from the arena and Eckhart had called out to him, but he had left, saying this matter took priority. He did not hear Eckhart’s belated thanks directed at him or Edardo, nor the shouts of promises added from behind.
He simply moved in a daze, barely managing to bring along one of Dan’s Sculpted Souls that had followed him.
‘An old acquaintance, he said.’
He had definitely called him an old acquaintance.
‘He is certainly an old acquaintance, but that was ten years ago.’
There was no way he still remembered him.
Nevertheless, the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, rose within him was something he could not suppress. Thus, Raven obediently followed him all the way to the suspicious hideout and sat across from Edardo.
The golden-haired man, having removed his hood and mask to reveal his full face, leaned back leisurely against his chair.
“Well then.”
“Before that, just a moment.”
Raven tucked the crow, which had practically become an attachment doll—no, an animal—into his arms, bit his thumb until it bled, and pressed it against the opposite thumb.
A jusul to block the target’s eyes and ears. The crow, suddenly robbed of its senses, fluttered about in confusion.
Since he had only blocked the Sculpted Soul’s senses, the main body should be fine. Raven held it tightly to calm it and turned his gaze to Edardo.
“Let me ask one thing first. How do you remember me?”
Edardo glanced at Raven’s bleeding thumb and the crow before pretending not to notice and shaking his head, his eyes returning to their original position.
“It’s ambiguous to call it ‘memory.’”
He removed the black leather gloves he had been wearing. His left hand was revealed, and he turned it so the back of his hand faced outward.
Raven’s green eyes, following the movement without thought, caught on the unusual scar there and froze.
“Right after my past self made a deal with you, the moment you left, I stabbed the back of my hand with a dagger.”
He had stabbed it three times in total.
Because an ordinary scar could be dismissed as an injury from some past battle, he had deliberately shaped it to make it obvious that it had been left on purpose.
“And beneath the treatment records, I wrote down the situation at the time. I also wrote instructions to find the records stored separately in a specific location.”
“……”
“Thanks to you, Aurell was able to exist as it does now.”
A softened smile was directed at Raven.
“……I see.”
Raven lowered his eyes as if recalling the past.
After leaving his disciples behind, he had hidden in the slums to escape the capital while avoiding the persistent children’s eyes and had gotten caught up in a dispute. He had ended up cleaning up trash on the spot.
And there, he had encountered an impressive man.
“You seem quite skilled.”
“I would like to propose a deal.”
“Aurell is currently short on manpower. It is only natural, since we are trying to establish ourselves in a place where Esperanes’ information guild is watching with both eyes wide open.”
“If you help Aurell, then for as long as Aurell exists, we will regard you as our benefactor. We will grant any request you make, as long as it does not harm Aurell, and we will prioritize it above all else.”
“……Well, anyone can paint a hopeful future. I am not unaware that my current words may sound like empty boasts from someone with nothing. However, the fact that I can cover someone’s eyes and hide them right now sets me apart from other braggarts. So, what do you say?”
“Is this not worth investing in?”
A confident statement.
“You must have hidden here to avoid someone’s eyes.”
The judgment to instantly assess the other party’s situation and use it in the deal.
There were people who shone no matter where they were. That day, Raven had discovered a brilliant sun in the slums where he had hidden.
“Rather than worrying about who to thank, you should be grateful to yourself. You were the one who proposed the deal, and I accepted after seeing you.”
In exchange for perfectly concealing his traces, Raven had worked as Edardo’s hidden blade for half a year.
The planned period had been one year, but Raven’s experienced movements had been more than enough to accelerate Edardo’s goal of ‘Aurell’s stable establishment.’
“I saw the mark of the sun in you.”
“Does that mean a king or emperor?”
“One does not need to hold such a position to become someone’s sun.”
That aside.
Raven blinked his lowered eyes.
“In the end, you did not ‘remember’ me.”
Well, that was only natural.
He should have thought of this first. The unexpected connection from ten years ago had approached him, momentarily blinding him.
A disappointed expression crossed Raven’s face. Edardo, who caught that fleeting look close to resignation, remained silent for a moment before slowly opening his mouth.
“Still, I would like you to focus on the fact that I tried to remember.”
“……That’s true.”
Ignoring that would be a terrible thing to do.
Raven glanced at the scarred back of Edardo’s left hand and gave a faint smile.
“So, why did you bring me here? If your only purpose was to greet me, we could have done that roughly on the spot and parted ways. Don’t tell me you need my abilities again, like back then?”
“Aurell is no longer so weak that it needs to borrow others’ hands. This meeting was also a coincidence, but……”
The golden eyes looked straight at Raven.
“It is true that I intended to make contact with you.”
“……”
“Not to receive help, but to give it.”