Weren’t You the One Who Was Dying? Chapter 65

“Who are you?”

When I turned around, the background had changed back into a dark forest. The boy was nowhere to be seen.

Was it a hallucination? Had I lost my right mind because I was completely exhausted?

“Dapf…len? Father.”

A slightly trembling voice came from behind me again. It belonged to a different boy than before. The voice sounded familiar, like someone who had just entered puberty.

I turned around again. As if in a dream, the scenery had already changed to somewhere else.

Ah. This was a place I knew. The room I used when I was young.

By my bedside stood Father and my young older brothers.

“Elzers, we have a duty to make our family happy. You understand what that means, don’t you?”

Just as I was about to step forward toward them, everything vanished.

Once again, it felt like falling into water, and everything was sucked into pitch-black darkness.

In the dark void, a suffocating pressure rose up.

Just as it felt like I was about to choke from it, something wrapped around me, pushing the darkness away.

And when I came back to my senses, only the mirror remained in front of me once more.

‘What was that just now?’

It felt like a scene from a memory, but also like a simple dream.

I stepped a little closer to the mirror. A warm energy was flowing out from it.

Without realizing it, I reached out my hand toward the mirror and slowly placed my palm against it. For a moment, the heat flared sharply and intensely—then quickly cooled and faded away.

The strange visions no longer appeared. All that remained in the mirror was my own weak, barely-standing figure.

‘What on earth was that?’

A dizzy feeling washed over me, like I’d just used up all my holy power in a rushed treatment.

“……Ugh.”

I let out a groan and slumped down.

But then it hit me— I’m a healer. I definitely learned a healing technique that could be used in situations like this.

I curled up for a moment and thought.

‘Right. Let’s use that.’

And so I started self-healing, converting the fat in my body into energy.

‘I never even considered using it before, since it costs a lot of holy power in exchange for stamina.’

But in a situation like this, it was actually a pretty useful emergency measure. It felt like giving myself an IV drip.

As I sat still and circulated the energy through my body, my thoughts started drifting again.

When my body weakens, my emotions seem to get sentimental too. I kept sinking into my feelings.

‘I’m not even anything to Ehit, so why is Naya doing this to me…?’

If he had at least given me his heart, I could’ve felt wronged about it.

It almost felt like I was going through the hardships that Ridel was supposed to face.

‘If the two of them can be happy without all this suffering, that wouldn’t be so bad either.’

Even though the original story ended in a disastrous sad ending, the two of them were happy during the process.

As I spent a long time imagining Ridel and Ehit together, I suddenly stopped.

‘Wait. Come to think of it, wasn’t there an episode like this in the original story?’

The one where Ridel gets locked in a storage room in the basement of the Kloyden estate.

My gaze turned toward the mirror from earlier. Back then too, it had been a place with a mirror that caused hallucinations like this.

‘The way Ridel escaped that place was definitely…’

I stood up after finishing the restorative treatment. I couldn’t be sure this was the same storage room as in the original story, but I had to try something.

‘Let’s do it.’

I walked up to the wall and clenched my fist, knocking on it lightly.

Holding the dimming lamp, I walked around, examining everything. From the bottom of the wall to the top, I felt and knocked, searching for something.

‘Please, let it be here…!’

After moving around for a long while—

‘Found it!’

Knock. I froze after tapping the wall in the corner opposite the door.

It made a clearly different sound from the other walls—a hollow sound unique to a wall reinforced with wooden boards.

I knocked again. Beneath the wallpaper at about chest height, only that section was wooden.

Yes. There was definitely a passage here. A passage leading to the main building.

“Hoo.”

I rummaged through the stored items and found an iron rod. Holding it, I stood in front of the wooden wall.

After taking a deep breath and holding it in, I raised my arm with a grunt and brought the rod down with all my strength.

Rip—crack! The wallpaper tore as the wood splintered.

“……Ha.”

Only then did I breathe out again.

After clearing away more of the broken wood to make space, I brought a candle and set it down in front of the passage.

Beyond it stretched pitch-black darkness.

A narrow, suffocating path, just wide enough for a single person to crawl through.

‘I can do this.’

I didn’t have the strength left to sit around waiting for someone.

‘I have to get out on my own.’

I knelt down and crawled into the passage. Cool, deep air brushed against my skin.

I squeezed my eyes shut once, then opened them and moved forward.

‘This way? Or that way?’

Maybe because the place I’d been trapped in was so strange, even the passage felt like a maze.

For now, I was relying on instinct and continuing forward, but…

‘I won’t end up crawling forever, right?’

Crawling through the dark passage with nothing but my own breathing for sound, it was hard not to worry.

Or what if it didn’t lead to where people were, but somewhere even stranger?

Or into a sewage drain where waste collected?

And then I’d get dragged into something really awful and disgusting…

‘No. Don’t imagine it.’

I scolded myself and moved forward again.

After crawling for who knows how long—

“…….”

Just as it was getting so quiet that I almost felt like singing, I heard another sound. Not my breathing—something else.

I stopped and focused on it.

‘From the right…’

I moved slowly. After crawling a bit farther, I reached a fork in the path.

Going farther to the right, I saw a faint light. The hope buried deep inside me lifted its head like morning sunlight.

Ignoring the pain in my knees, I crawled desperately toward it.

The light grew stronger.

My heart raced from too much hope. With a body that hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for a full day, my heartbeat thundered in my ears.

But compared to the joy this hope gave me, it was nothing.

And then—
In front of the vent where the light was coming from.

Just as I was about to knock and call out to whoever was on the other side—

“Nowhere?”

My hands and breath froze at the same time.

I pulled my hand back from the wall.

“Still?”

It was Naya’s voice.

The very person who had called me and locked me in the storage room was beyond this vent.

It felt like the hope I’d worked so hard to build burned away in an instant. I wanted to collapse, but I was already on my knees.

‘Why here of all places…’

Naya was talking with her husband, the Count of Cloyden.

I pressed my eyes close to the vent and carefully watched what was happening beyond it.

“They say there are no signs she left the estate, Naya. Ehit has come back too and is still searching for the girl.”

What kind of expression did Naya have as she listened to the count? Was she enjoying this? Feeling satisfied?

“……”

But strangely enough, Naya’s face was full of worry.

Why?

‘No. Don’t be fooled, Dapflen.’

I know. Even if she looks like that now, who knows what face she’ll show once the count leaves.

‘Don’t forget. Naya is a villain. She’s someone who would do anything to torment Ehit.’

The count opened the door and left the room. Left alone, Naya slumped down into a chair.

Now that she was alone, her true nature should show. I pressed my lips together and watched her through the vent.

Naya muttered under her breath.

“Where did you go, child…?”

She let out a deep sigh and covered her face.

After biting her lip hard, she brushed her hair back and muttered again.

“Did you hide because you hate our Ehit?”

Naya sat there for a long while, her eyes shaking with anxiety.

‘Why does she look like that? She almost looks like she’s really worried about me.’

After sitting there with a pained expression, Naya suddenly lifted her head.

“No way.”

As if something had just occurred to her, she shouted urgently.

“The storage room in the west annex!”

I heard her rush out of the room, sharply ordering the servants.

“Did you check the storage rooms?”

“Pardon? The storage rooms?”

“Damn it. Right—of course you wouldn’t have checked that one. Follow me!”

Her heated voice faded into the distance.

Staring at the now-empty room beyond the vent, I remained frozen there for a while.

 

 

****

 

That was how I was rescued after a full day and a half.

Since I couldn’t turn around inside the narrow passage, I carefully crawled backward the way I had come.

And as the entrance drew near, I heard a loud commotion on the other side.

“……Ugh.”

As I pulled both aching knees out of the passage, I heard the sound of the door being smashed open.

“Hurry!”

Though the wall blocked my view, I could clearly tell it was Ehit’s voice.

After the sound of metal being cut and some time passing, the door finally opened. People holding bright lanterns poured in all at once.

The sudden brightness made me squint. Through the light, I saw one person breaking through the crowd, running straight toward me.

“Dapflen.”

Ehit pulled me into his arms urgently. And only then did it feel like all the strength left my body.

I realized it only after something to lean on appeared—  I could’ve collapsed at any moment before that.

“Dapflen.”

Instead of asking if I was okay like usual, Ehit just kept calling my name.

His voice sounded the same as always, but the end of it wavered slightly.