“…”
Albert instinctively began to gasp for air, trying to clear the oppressive sensation in his chest and the dizziness in his head.
‘What… has happened… my memories…’
At some point, during his daily life, he began to notice his memories felt strange, as if they were distorting. Even then, though it had been unsettling, he hadn’t thought to take any action.
And then, at some unclear point, it was as though he had fallen into a deep sleep, or perhaps a dream. Even while he was clearly awake, he felt as though he were unable to control his own body—a life eerily similar to dreaming. When he finally came to his senses, he realized he was here, wherever “here” was.
In his current state of confusion, Albert suddenly noticed something odd about the sensations he felt in his hands.
“What is… going on…”
A bitter, metallic smell of bl**d was strong enough to make him instinctively wince.
And then…
‘There’s this… weight…’
Albert felt an uncomfortable weight pressing down on him. He assumed he may have been injured by something heavy falling on him, but after briefly considering it, he dismissed the thought. The dizziness aside, there was no specific pain. Besides, the heaviness wasn’t substantial enough to account for any severe injury.
Ultimately, he knew keeping his eyes closed wouldn’t change his situation.
Carefully, Albert opened his eyes and tried to assess what was happening.
Though his vision was blurry due to his disoriented mind, as soon as his eyes opened, he shuddered.
“Hair… strands…?”
Albert saw hair, matted and soaked in bl**d, in his field of vision.
The acrid smell filling his senses, the strange sensation in his hands, and the sight of the bloody hair all came together.
Albert’s body began to tremble uncontrollably.
“Impossible… it can’t… be…”
As much as he tried to deny what was happening within him, it didn’t change anything.
“A, ah… it’s not… true…”
Attempting to get up to immediately push away the girl lying on top of him, Albert found his hands stuck in something that felt unsettling and sticky, making it difficult to move.
Struggling with all his might to free his right hand, Albert soon realized it was futile. Shifting his focus, he used his left hand to lift himself up. The body of the girl lying above him went limp.
“Hiiik…!!”
As it went limp, the unpleasant sensation came back to his right hand.
Only then did Albert fully grasp what had happened.
What had transpired here, and what he was currently doing—it all became horrifyingly clear.
However, Albert didn’t want to understand the situation.
He feared he’d lose his sanity the moment he fully processed it.
“Ugh… ah…”
Albert looked down.
The limp form wasn’t just a girl—no, it was…
“S-saint…”
Aria’s face was pale.
Traces of vomited bl**d lingered at the corner of her mouth, her right arm was missing, and her clothing was torn to shreds, rendering it almost useless.
By contrast, his body, aside from his dizziness, felt completely fine, with no pain sensed anywhere.
The power of the saint was well-known to people—its effects being so shocking that many were aware of it. Albert, too, knew what kind of ability the saint possessed.
In the face of this situation, the stark difference between her grievously injured state and his own unharmed body meant only one thing.
“Ha… ha…”
Trembling, Albert stared at his hands.
To confirm the uncomfortable feeling he’d been sensing, he carefully pushed Aria’s body away.
The more he did so, the closer the reality he didn’t want to acknowledge came into view.
“Hiiik…”
The more he retrieved his hand, the more his expression morphed into one of anguish.
Eventually, when he looked at his hand, Albert froze.
“Uh… ghh…”
There, embedded in his hand, was a heart, pierced and stopped cold.
“Aaah… AAAH!!!”
Realizing what had emerged from Aria’s body, Albert panicked, screaming and flailing as he pushed her away, desperately trying to escape from the scene.
With nothing left to hold her up, Aria’s body collapsed to the ground.
Albert grabbed his head with his bl**d-soaked hands and began gasping for breath.
“It’s… it’s a dream… this has to be a nightmare…!!”
It couldn’t be true.
He couldn’t bring himself to believe he had killed the saint of this era with his own hands. Slowly, fragmented memories of what had just occurred began to rise.
The memories of himself transforming into a devil through magic, and the immense magical prowess that followed, leading to the brutal execution of Aria—those images came rushing back.
Albert’s trembling eyes scanned the room.
The walls around him were shattered, and both the broken walls and the floor were stained with dried bl**d. Surveying the scene in horror, he realized all these signs pointed to his own actions.
Overcome by the rising memories, he screamed in agony, holding his bl**d-soaked head.
He couldn’t believe his magical prowess—something he once regarded as more than a skill, almost a part of his identity—had been used to take the life of the saint.
It wasn’t just once or twice—numerous times he had struck her down with magic, and worse still, he remembered the final act of tearing out her heart while possessed by darkness.
If only he hadn’t known. If only Aria had merely condemned him for what he’d done, maybe the pain wouldn’t have been as excruciating.
“Ugh… eek… wheezing…”
What drove him to madness, above all, was the way she had acted while trying to turn him back into a human.
Even as he continued to d*e over and over, she approached him with a smile, determined to save him. Crawling toward him despite her pain, she embraced him in an effort to cleanse him of the evil consuming him.
Her gentle, reassured demeanor as she whispered “it will be okay” continued to haunt him.
‘Yet… this is all my doing. Every single thing…’
How could he have done that?
Albert felt as if he was losing his mind.
Perhaps, in reality, he already had.
The image of himself repeatedly using magic to k*ll the girl, culminating in the act of ripping out her heart, left him utterly disgusted.
He even doubted whether he was truly human again.
“Haa… haa… hahaha! Hahahahaha!”
A pool of bl**d formed around the fallen Aria.
The sight of her peaceful expression as she lay there with her eyes closed made him stop laughing.
Eventually, Albert shuffled toward the wall and collapsed into a sitting position.
“Haaa…”
He stopped laughing, pulling his body into himself and started to scratch uncontrollably.
The scratching tore through his clothes until his own bl**d began to seep from the wounds in his hands, but Albert didn’t care.
His thoughts were consumed by the idea that he should cease to exist in this world, continuously berating himself mentally for the atrocities committed through the magic handed down in his family.
If he had known this would happen—if only he hadn’t learned magic in the first place—if only he had died instead, he wouldn’t be feeling this torment now.
Why had he been saved?
Why had she sacrificed her life in an attempt to save him?
Despite his overwhelming desire to d*e, Albert wouldn’t consider s*icide.
He instinctively felt that killing himself would be a betrayal to Aria, who had sacrificed so much to save him.
Had he not thought this way, his magic would have ended his life already.
Still, even as he believed he couldn’t atone for his sins without living, and that Aria’s sacrifice would’ve been wasted—these thoughts couldn’t suppress his deep-seated desire to d*e.
“Haaa… heehee… hehehe…”
His body felt unbearably itchy.
It was as though he was wearing clothes that didn’t fit his body, or were made of the wrong material.
Though Albert knew the itch wasn’t physical, he continued scratching himself.
Even though he understood scratching would never give him relief, he couldn’t stop.
Amid the silence of the underground building, Albert continued to scratch himself, the bl**d dripping to the floor, as he waited for someone to come and find him.
