Though evening had passed, the long summer day hadn’t yet given way to full darkness.
Tezette stood in front of the temple, bathed in the golden light of the sunset.
He wore a simple shirt, and that effortless outfit only served to highlight his striking face even more.
Not only passing priestesses and female attendants, but even male priests stole glances at him.
Tezette was well aware of all those stares—but he didn’t care.
In the past, and still now, people’s eyes had always followed him wherever he went. Though the reasons had changed over time.
Yet, among all the passersby, there was one who did catch his attention.
“Hmm.”
A small boy—around six or seven years old, dressed in apprentice priest robes—had been hovering nearby for a while now.
With half-lidded eyes, the child scanned him up and down, pacing side to side.
“……”
Tezette quietly observed the boy, who didn’t even try to hide his curiosity.
After watching him for a while, the boy pointed a finger at him and began to mutter seriously.
“He’s tall.”
The small finger dropped to point at Tezette’s face.
“Black hair, pale face.”
Next came the eyes.
“Green eyes, and a handsome big brother.”
“……”
So that’s why he was circling him all that time? Just to confirm that?
‘As if those features aren’t obvious from across the courtyard.’
The thought crossed Tezette’s mind, but as always, he had little interest in other people.
Just then, as he turned his gaze toward the women’s dormitory building where Elsez was staying, the child came trotting up and handed him a small note.
“Pretty lady told me to give this to you.”
Tezette immediately knew that the “lady” was Elsez.
“Bye then.”
The boy waved his tiny hand at Tezette and strolled off with the air of a job well done.
Tezette unfolded the note.
Your Grace,
I’m really sorry, but something urgent came up and I have to go.
Let’s go to the dessert shop another time. As an apology, it’s on me! I’m sorry again.
The handwriting was rushed, as if written hastily.
Tezette folded the note and tucked it into his pocket, then turned and headed somewhere else.
****
The long summer day had finally ended, and darkness settled over the streets.
People, who had hidden from the scorching sun, began to come out one by one to enjoy the warm summer night.
Among them was Priest Baylor, who had just slipped out of the temple.
He entered a narrow alley near the plaza. Deep within was a house that held a portal to a hidden refuge.
As always, he stood outside the house and lit a cigarette.
‘Damn it… how did things get so screwed up?’
Though he’d avoided punishment by convincing the higher-ups that Henry still had value, he couldn’t keep living with the fear that Henry might betray him.
He needed to eliminate Henry somehow—to remove that risk.
‘To do that, I need to find the guy’s helper.’
Henry couldn’t have decrypted the documents alone. That meant someone inside the temple was helping him.
‘Not many people interact with him. It’s only a matter of time.’
It wouldn’t take long. If someone in the temple was close enough to talk with Henry, they were probably a priest.
He’d find the helper, dig up a reason to expel them, and then take care of Henry.
‘Even if he resists, the temple is under my authority.’
Resolving himself, Baylor flicked away his half-smoked cigarette, looked around, then put on the white mask he carried and stepped inside.
He had no idea there was already an intruder waiting.
Just as he approached the portal inside the empty house—
“You walk so slow, Priest. I almost fell asleep waiting.”
Startled, Baylor spun around at the sudden voice behind him.
Standing there was Elsez.
“How did you…?”
“You stopped by a jewelry shop, a bakery, a general store… you were very busy trying not to look suspicious.”
Baylor flinched.
Elsez listed every single place he’d stopped on his way here.
As if answering his unspoken question of how she knew, Elsez gave him a sly smile and held up the tracker in her hand.
The blinking light clearly showed his position.
“But… I changed clothes every time…”
Baylor frantically checked his pockets, but all he found inside his clothes were—
“It’s not about clothes. You just have to stick it to something a smoker never lets go of.”
—His cigarettes, and the magic lighter.
Baylor finally realized that Elsez had planted the tracker on his magic lighter.
And at the same time—he realized she was Henry’s accomplice.
His face turned pale as he asked,
“…What do you want?”
“What else would a hero want?”
As Elsez replied casually, Baylor began inching backward toward the portal.
“Peace for this world—”
The moment his heel touched the portal, it activated.
But there was no way Elsez wouldn’t notice a last-minute escape attempt.
“—and justice!”
She grabbed him by the collar and slammed him to the floor before he could be swallowed by the portal’s light.
“Ghk!”
Climbing on top of him, she quickly pulled a rope from her inventory and tied him up, then checked his neck and ears—no necklace or earrings.
‘So the portal pass isn’t jewelry.’
She tried tossing his cigarettes, lighter, and the mask he’d been wearing into the portal—
Nothing happened.
Watching all this, Baylor sneered.
“Do whatever you want. The portal only responds to me, and it can’t transfer more than one person at a time.”
“Oh yeah? That makes this simple.”
Elsez yanked out a handful of his hair.
“What the—?!”
When she tossed it into the portal, the light flared to life.
The portal responded to the mana in his body. Baylor’s smug words had given her the clue she needed.
Seeing the portal activate, Elsez’s lips curved into a grin.
She walked toward Baylor, her expression sweet—and wicked.
“Hand over more. I’ll need it to get back.”
****
After crossing through the portal, Elsez immediately took a defensive stance—but there was no one in sight.
‘No one being here… is even more suspicious.’
She stepped down from the portal platform and scanned her surroundings.
Contrary to what she had expected—some crude underground tunnel—the inside of the hideout was built from dark, solid bricks.
Ahead of her stretched a dim corridor, illuminated by torches mounted along the walls.
Elsez pulled out a piece of parchment from her inventory and unfolded it.
It was a map drawn by Jack and Perse after several days of tracking Baylor’s movements through the tracker.
‘If I follow this hallway, I’ll reach a large circular chamber. And if I take the corridor directly opposite this one, there’s another exit…’
Though the areas Baylor hadn’t visited were unknown, based on the rough layout, the place was structured like flower petals branching out from a large central circle.
Elsez asked Reti, hidden under her robe,
“Reti, do you sense any lifeforms up ahead?”
“Hmm… no, I don’t think so.”
Elsez pulled up her hood and put on the white mask she had taken from Baylor, then walked down the hallway.
After a short while, a faint light came into view—then the space opened up.
Ten meters below where she stood stretched a vast open chamber, surrounded by numerous identical doors.
‘Looks like a maze.’
While Elsez was assessing the area, Reti suddenly whispered urgently.
“Human—someone’s coming.”
Sure enough, someone wearing a white mask was approaching from one of the corridors leading into the central chamber.
Instead of turning her back or trying to hide, Elsez faced them directly and offered a slight, polite nod.
‘If I turned and ran at close range, that would be even more suspicious.’
As she expected, the person passed by her calmly, without a hint of suspicion, accepting her as one of their own.
As the footsteps faded away, Elsez let out a small breath of relief.
‘Before I run into anyone else, I should duck into one of those rooms.’
Recalling the layout she’d studied earlier, she headed toward the closest door—one Baylor had visited frequently.
What was unusual about this room, though, was that it didn’t have a door—it had a portal.
‘What on earth is inside here…?’
Elsez dropped a few strands of Baylor’s hair onto the portal.
As expected, the portal activated.
Inside the dim room were magical devices and round tanks filled with water, resembling containment chambers.
But inside the tanks—there was nothing.
She passed them and walked deeper into the room.
And then, when she finally reached the very back—
Elsez found a large tank, placed at the center.
Inside the water-filled tank was…
‘…A child?’
A girl who looked no older than ten, eyes closed, as if lifeless.
Her body was attached to all sorts of magical devices.
‘Who is this kid? Should I rescue her?’
Elsez raised her hand to tap on the tank—but paused.
‘What if this child is an enemy?’
In movies and comics, it was always the ones who woke the wrong kid that got totally screwed.
But that hesitation didn’t last long.
‘She’s trapped. What does it matter?’
Rescue first. Think later.
To check if the girl was conscious, Elsez reached to tap the glass.
But before she could, her hand froze.
‘That symbol…’
On the girl’s forehead was a familiar mark— The exact same one engraved into the heirloom ring of the House of Rohen.
At the same time, a passage she’d read in a book about the Kingdom of Eurian came to mind:
“Children who inherit the power of their ancestors are born with a symbol on their foreheads. The stronger the power, the more vivid the mark.”
Why was a descendant of a kingdom that was destroyed 800 years ago… here?
And not just any royal child—but her own bloodline.
Elsez’s eyes trembled as she stared at the child inside the tank.
But what threw her into even deeper confusion… was Reti’s next words.
“That… is my body.”
The shimmer of Reti’s spirit flickered with a quiet, sorrowful light as she looked at the child in the tank.
Comments (0)