Ludville sometimes had that dream.
A dream where tomorrow never came.
The sun never set, time never passed, and no matter how far he moved forward, he remained trapped in the same place.
Before his eyes stretched an endless pool of rotten river water.
Ludville knew.
That water was him.
Every day, it grew darker and murkier, its stench spreading farther, yet no one ever noticed.
Unable to flow anywhere.
Unable even to dry up and die.
It was a dream in which he simply continued to rot.
A horrible stench came from his body, and no matter what he did, he could never get rid of it.
Outside the water, she was always standing there.
Her entire silhouette was blurred beyond recognition, but her blue eyes remained crystal clear.
Unlike him, she always stood on dry land.
In the dream, he tried to run toward her.
He reached out his hand, but he could never touch her.
Every time, she collapsed in the same way.
She coughed up blood, her breathing slowly grew weaker, and she looked at him with sorrowful eyes before collapsing like a doll with its strings cut.
He couldn’t move.
The water was too deep and too murky, clinging to his ankles like thick mud and holding him back.
Covered in that terrible stench, he could only stand there and stare at the blue-eyed woman.
From the closest distance possible, utterly helpless and unable to do anything.
“Lu, save me. Please……”
“I don’t want to be in pain. I can’t keep holding on.”
“Hold my hand…… I don’t want to disappear.”
“I…… I can’t breathe properly…….”
She was always crying.
With a fragile voice that sounded as though it might break at any moment, she begged him to save her.
Someone he had to protect.
Someone he had to keep alive, no matter what.
But the harder he struggled, the crueler death the world seemed to inflict upon her, as though it were mocking him.
“…….”
Whenever he woke from that dream, he sometimes had a thought.
Maybe this was already hell.
Maybe he was already dead, and this was simply his punishment, forcing him to relive it over and over again.
When he looked at the clock, barely an hour had passed.
Yet he felt as though he had been trapped in that dream for eternity and had only just managed to wake up, leaving him struggling to breathe.
Ludville slowly sat up.
His head felt heavy.
The remnants of the nightmare still clung to his shoulders like lingering thoughts, refusing to fade.
He habitually opened the bedside table.
He took a cigarette from the silver case and placed it between his lips.
As the flame touched the tip, smoke drifted out with his dry breath.
The moment he took his first drag, his consciousness slowly began to settle.
Everything around him blurred, and his wildly pounding heartbeat gradually calmed.
The growing numbness in his fingertips was a common side effect of Normallin.
“Just having you by my side is enough. You don’t have to say anything.”
“I thought I was finally okay. I guess I wasn’t.”
“I want to live. With you…… I just want to stay with you a little longer…….”
The fragile voice of a woman, wet with tears, slowly faded away.
He casually swept back his hair, damp with cold sweat, and stared blankly out the window before quietly exhaling smoke.
****
And then he simply began another ordinary day, just like any other.
Except there was one thing that was different.
As he walked down the hallway in his usual hazy state that morning, he sensed something.
Whenever he moved, small footsteps followed behind him.
She seemed to be doing her best to hide her presence……
Ludville narrowed his eyes. Even through his foggy mind, irritation suddenly surged.
‘What on earth is she trying to do?’
Unable to stand it any longer, Ludville stopped walking and turned around.
Odely was awkwardly poking out from behind a decorative piece, having failed to hide herself in time.
Realizing she had been caught, she slowly stepped out from beside it.
She didn’t even look embarrassed.
“……Why do you keep following me?”
“You told me yesterday. You said I should prove that you need me.”
Odely answered calmly.
Her shameless expression seemed to ask why she wouldn’t stick close to him if she wanted to prove that.
Ludville narrowed his eyes.
His memory was hazy.
What had I said yesterday?
“Did I say that?”
“…….”
Odely stared up at him for a moment, as if checking his condition, then rose onto her tiptoes and placed a hand against his forehead.
It was that thing again.
A golden light, like a tiny piece of sunlight, spread from her hand.
Soon, the memories that had been hazy from the side effects of Normallin became clear again.
“You even said you were looking forward to it.”
“…….”
“Do you remember now?”
Odely quietly added.
At her words, Ludville remained silent for a moment.
“……Yes. I remember.”
She wasn’t wrong.
He had been the one to seek her out first, show his interest, and provoke her. She had merely responded to his provocation.
But more importantly……
“What exactly is that ability? A healing ability? It doesn’t seem to be divine power.”
Could such an all-powerful ability really exist?
When Odely proposed a contract marriage, she had instantly cured Ludville’s headaches.
It was something no medicine and no person had ever been able to accomplish.
Even the High Priest had said, “There is nothing we can do about pain that has no physical cause.”
Yet not only had she cured those headaches in an instant, she had now even restored memories he had lost due to the effects of the drug.
“Is it ancient magic? But I heard that’s an ability only the head of the family and the heir can use.”
“…….”
Odely had, in truth, considered simply brushing him off with a lie.
‘Ludville can’t remember anything about me, but he does know that the blue-eyed woman had an unhappy life.’
If she revealed her ability, he might be able to figure out what had happened to her in House Kardel, or even connect it to her ancient power.
It would be a problem if he realized that Odely was the blue-eyed woman he had been searching for.
And if he somehow regained all his memories……
“It seems you have no intention of explaining. Fine. I have no intention of pressing you. Not yet, anyway.”
“……No.”
If Odely wanted to keep using this ability on Ludville, she needed to give him at least some explanation.
It would be even more troublesome if she hesitated while trying to gauge the situation and made him suspicious.
Odely gave him the explanation she had prepared in advance.
“It isn’t a healing ability like divine power. It’s a ‘purification ability.’ Simply put, it makes negative things harmless. Like removing poison from a pufferfish before cooking it.”
“A purification ability?”
“That is what I call it for convenience.”
“Then you mean it’s your unique ability?”
“That’s right.”
Because only one Purifier was born in each generation.
Odely answered while cleverly hiding a great truth behind a small one.
“Last time, I purified the headaches you were suffering from. This time, I purified the symptoms of drug poisoning. That’s all.”
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