Chapter 4

Embers

Isaac opened his eyes at the sound of hurried movement.
It was Hans.
His face was covered with scabs and wounds in various places.

“There shouldn’t be anything there…”

Isaac’s room was surrounded entirely by bricks made of Demegitrium.
Even if Isaac caused a mana explosion, the walls were built from the mineral most resistant to magic to prevent damage.
And yet—

Swoosh—

As Hans pulled open the curtains by the window, sunlight poured in.

“Ah, you’re awake, young master. You’ve been sweating a lot. Your complexion is pale as well. Did you have trouble sleeping?”

Isaac said nothing.
He didn’t know what to say.
Whether this was a dream or reality—

His reason kept insisting that this was nothing more than a dream, an illusion.

This was merely the brightest moment before sunset.
The instant when life burns its last before death arrives.
A memory of the time he missed the most… the time he most wished to return to.

“Young master? Are you alright? Did you have a bad dream?”

Hans asked again, his face filled with concern.

“……”

The clearer Hans’s voice sounded,
the sharper Isaac’s vision became, the more vividly he could see his face,
the more the details aligned with his memories—

the more Isaac’s expression twisted.

“Why… even at the very end, can I not escape the stains of my past?”

He shut his eyes tightly.
He wanted this dream to end quickly.
To fall into eternal sleep.
Into pitch-black darkness where nothing existed—
to find rest in a complete end.

“Are you unwell? Did you catch a cold?”

Flinch.

Isaac was startled when Hans placed the back of his hand on his forehead.
The sensation felt far too real.

“Thankfully, you don’t have a fever.”

“His Excellency and Madam are very worried. If there’s anything wrong at all, you must tell me.”

Isaac stared blankly at Hans.
The countless bruises and swellings scattered across his face—
all injuries caused by Isaac’s mana explosion.

It was around this time, wasn’t it?
The moment when Hans, saying it was nothing serious, telling him not to worry with a bold smile—
ended up truly dying.

Isaac clenched the bedsheet.
Even the texture of the velvet beneath his fingers felt real.

It was ominous.
If the sensations were this realistic, then the tragedy to come would also arrive just as vividly.

“Hans.”

If he stayed nearby, he might get caught up in it and be hurt again.
Suppressing his emotions with effort, Isaac spoke coldly.

“Yes, young master. If you need anything—”

“Get out.”

He didn’t want to have nightmares until the very end.

“Pardon?”

“I said get out! Disappear from my sight. Right now!”

Isaac snapped at the confused Hans.
His voice was still sharp and immature, not yet broken with age.

Anyone would have been offended, yet Hans simply smiled and nodded.

“Understood.”

As Hans turned to leave, he suddenly stopped.

“Don’t try to carry everything alone. Sometimes, it’s okay to rely on us.”

“……”

With those words, Hans left the room.

Isaac let out a bitter smile.
Those weren’t words he remembered.
Perhaps his subconscious had recreated what he wished to hear.

“…It’s too vivid.”

Isaac blankly looked around the room.
Everything was the same.

The bed, the coat rack,
his own portrait painted with his father’s affection,
the old wooden desk, bookshelf, storage chest, large mirror…

“It feels like I’ve returned to the past.”

He let out a sigh.
His rationality had not yet collapsed.
He wasn’t so senseless as to mistake a trick of the brain for reality.

He had clearly fallen into eternal sleep in front of his family’s graves.
His eyelids had grown unbearably heavy,
and he couldn’t even move a finger anymore.

Darkness had rushed in.

It was death.

Though it was his first and last time experiencing it,
it was unmistakably death.

A natural sensation that any living being would instinctively recognize.

“In other words… it’s like embers.”

The flames of life had long been extinguished.
Only faint embers remained, slowly fading away.

That was what Isaac believed.

A breeze flowed in through the open window.
It carried the scent of spring.

Without realizing it, Isaac walked toward the window.

Outside, he saw the garden in the central courtyard that his mother had lovingly tended.
At its center stood a massive tree that had been with Goethe for over two hundred years, sprouting fresh leaves.

“I used to hang from that tree and play with Jonas…”

Jonas climbing the tree to return a fallen chick to its nest—
then slipping and landing on his backside, bursting into tears.

The memory of his younger brother’s face came vividly to mind.

Chirp— chirp—

“……”

Looking closer at the tree, he saw a nest between the branches.
Inside, baby birds peeked out, crying.

“Ah…”

Isaac’s lips parted.
A sigh escaped like a groan.

He wished this were real.
He wished he had truly gone back in time.

If that were possible,
he would gladly endure any pain.

That was what he thought.

“Young master, it’s dangerous!”

A nursemaid shouted from the courtyard.

“…!”

Before he knew it, a small child was struggling as he climbed the tree.
The boy’s golden hair shimmered in the sunlight.

In this household, there was only one child of that age with such hair.

Jonas.

“Hyung!”

Sitting on a thick branch, Jonas waved toward Isaac at the window.

It’s a hallucination. A dream. An illusion.
The past has already passed.
It cannot be undone.
It’s already too late.
Regret is meaningless.

Isaac repeated to himself.

But without realizing it, he was already waving back at Jonas.

What was truly wavering was not his hand—
but his soul.

Whether it was a joke of God,
the mercy of the ferryman of hell,
an illusion, a dying vision, or the afterlife—

none of it mattered in this moment.

Just exchanging greetings with his younger brother from childhood…

It felt as though all the suffering and torment he had endured, trapped underground for over half a century,
had been repaid.

Like rust forming, like mold spreading, like moss growing—
the regrets that had clung to his soul were being washed clean.

As Jonas climbed down and disappeared somewhere,
and as the shadow of the great tree slowly tilted with time,

Isaac remained immersed in that feeling, that emotion.

He didn’t want to let it go.

And when he finally admitted to himself that he had enjoyed it enough—

“A traveler who begins the journey.
Are you lonely enough… to stand before infinity alone?”

Isaac quietly recited the verse he had once written.

The method he had tried the longest to control was meditation.
Whenever he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, yet countless worries rose up…
Whenever memories of the past tormented him…

He would take the lines he liked most from the research journals he had written like a diary,
weave them into poetry, and recite them.

If he did that—

He could recognize that
a nightmare is a nightmare,
a dream is a dream,
and memories are merely memories.

The illusion before his eyes would fade,
and what remained would be only himself, the present, and reality.

And now—
this was the final prayer to accept death.

“In a lonely world where only you exist before mana… you shall come to understand yourself.”

Isaac took a deep breath and continued the verse.

The sunlight is so radiant.
The wind is so refreshing.
The room is so warm.
His five senses are so vivid.

It was time to leave.
Time to completely disappear into the embrace of comfortable darkness.

“…Let go of thought.
Abandon the perspectives carved by life.
Escape the shackles of the past, and become yourself.”

Now everything would be erased.
This illusion as well.
Even his very existence.

Because that was what death was.

That was what Isaac believed.

But—

The baby birds were still chirping.
The sunlight was still radiant.
The wind was still refreshing.
The room was still warm.
His senses were still clear.

“…Why…?”

Isaac blinked several times.
He rubbed his eyes.
He closed them, counted to ten, and opened them again.

Smack—

He slapped his own cheek.

It hurt.

“…It hurts?”

He rubbed his stinging cheek and looked around again.

Where… am I?

He knew, of course.
This was his room.

But he wanted to know something more fundamental.
Where he truly was.

Yet that question soon vanished from his mind.

Because he saw the full-length mirror in the corner of the room.

That was Isaac.

It was Isaac—
but not the Isaac he knew.

Ash-gray hair like his mother’s.
Piercing blue eyes like his father’s.
Sharp gaze.
Straight nose.

Pale skin.

It was not the body of an old man who was no different from a living corpse.

Though thin and somewhat irritable in appearance,
a refined young boy stood before the mirror.

Isaac stared at his widened eyes.

He had completely forgotten.
There had been a time like this for him too.

Even for the old man who had been left with nothing but wretchedness and ugliness,
there had once been a time when he shone in his own way.

The boy in the mirror’s eyes deepened with regret.
At least the gaze remained the same—
it was still Isaac.

A sigh escaped his lips.

“Hyung!”

Suddenly, Jonas knocked on the door.
A voice different from his memory—
much younger, much cuter.

“Hyung, can I come in? Hyung?”

Isaac stared blankly at the door.

The desire to see Jonas,
and the thought that he must not—
collided within him.

The voice of reason saying this was nothing but a past memory,
and the voice of his soul asking how he could endure the longing,
clashed chaotically in his mind.

“Isaac? Hyung?”

Before Isaac could make a decision,
Jonas had already turned the doorknob and peeked inside.

He looked about ten years old.

Young Jonas looked quite different from the Jonas Isaac remembered last.
Curly blond hair, a lively face full of baby fat, sparkling eyes, a bright smile—

and most of all, his small right hand was still intact.

“Let’s play knights! Okay?”

Isaac just stared at him blankly.

Which one was the dream?

That final winter.
Jonas’s body, so frighteningly light.
His blunt right wrist.
Snow, corpses, ruins, frozen ground—

—I truly loved you… very much.

The voice of Jonas as an old man suddenly resurfaced in his mind.

“Hyung? Are you crying?”

At Jonas’s question, Isaac turned his head away.

“Leave.”

“Hyu—”

“Leave.”

Isaac spoke calmly, but firmly.

“I don’t have time to play with you right now.”

“Hyung…”

“I said leave!?”

As Isaac raised his voice, Jonas flinched.

“Okay… don’t be mad… I’ll go.”

Jonas walked toward the door, turning back several times,
but Isaac never once looked at him.

Isaac stood frozen in place like a statue, his fist clenched tightly.

He wanted to hug Jonas.
He wanted to ruffle his curly hair.

But the unstable resonance he felt within his body—
even the sensation of his vessel cracking—felt real.

Are there materials in the mansion to make a rune stone?

After a brief moment of thought, Isaac began to move.

In his mind lingered the method he had researched his entire life to overcome his abnormal constitution—
the method he had finally succeeded in.

Whether this is a dream or reality doesn’t matter.
The mana explosion must not happen.

Half a day passed.

In the laboratory of the annex,
Isaac held a rune stone in one hand.

And in the other—

Whoosh.

A flame burned.

What… is this…?

A chill ran down his spine.

This sensation—
different states of mana forming a structured pattern and manifesting a phenomenon—

was not something a dream or illusion could replicate.

A flame burning by consuming mana.
That flame reflected in Isaac’s blue eyes.

He was standing in undeniable reality.

The past had become the present.
And Isaac existed here.

Whoooosh—!

Suddenly, the flames surged as if they would devour everything.

“…!?”

At the same time, an unfamiliar sensation stimulated Isaac’s instincts.

The flow of mana, which had been a single stream,
began to branch into multiple pathways—

like using muscles he had never used before.

It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling.