Chapter2

The massive screen lit up. The first excerpted memory took place on the third day after Arthur's death.

My sixteen-year-old self was bound tight, dragged to the Heroic Soul-Cleansing Tower as upperclassmen formed a tight circle around me.

"Speak! Who is that monster?!"

I remained silent. A heavy kick landed on my back, sending my forehead crashing into the cold stone steps. Blood streamed down my face.

"Lord Arthur died to save us, and you protect that monster! How can you face him?!"

Someone yanked my hair backward, while another ground their boot fiercely into the back of my hand. I gritted my teeth, broke free from the iron ropes, scrambled up, and sprinted entirely toward the dormitory. Figures using acceleration magic chased closely behind me. But as I pushed the door open, tongues of fire were already licking out of the windows.

"Burn the demon-sympathizer's doghouse! Burn it all!"

I was pressed viciously into the dirt. The acrid smell of burning filled my nose as I watched my room collapse inch by inch—my star map manuscripts, the very first magic circle Arthur ever taught me to draw, the hair tie Chloe had left under my pillow—all reduced to ash.

Homeless, I took my shadow familiar "Twilight," who was my only companion, and hid in the Confinement Woods. But they still found us. An inquisitor apprentice kicked and broke two of my ribs, then snared Twilight's neck with a holy light chain.

"Shadow creatures are born evil—purify it!"

Holy fire exploded across Twilight’s body. It writhed and convulsed, its amber eyes staring at me loyally until it turned completely to ash. With broken ribs, I couldn't stand. I could only crawl, dragging myself across the mud to reach out for that handful of ashes, letting out a raw, desperate scream.

Outside the light screen.

Chloe laughed coldly. "Erin, didn't you deserve all of this? You are the absolute last person in this world who gets to feel wronged!"

The crowd below instantly echoed her.

"She actually has the nerve to cry over a shadow beast?"

"Lord Arthur lost his damn life! Chloe lost her fiancé! Who didn't suffer a thousand times worse than she did!"

Suddenly, a boy's bright, clear laughter echoed from the light screen. "Erin, Chloe! Come look!"

The scene shifted to the academy's flowerbed, blooming with a garden full of silvery-white moonflowers. Arthur crouched among the blossoms, plucked the largest one, and tucked it behind Chloe's ear. "I grew these exclusively for you guys."

Chloe blushed, snatched the flower back, and shoved it down his collar. "You're playing favorites!"

Arthur chuckled, snapped off another flower, and handed it to me. I felt the warmth of his fingertips as I took it. I tucked that blossom safely into my cuff, and upon returning to my room, I secretly pressed it into the very last page of my notebook.

"Arthur... my boy!" Bart quietly sobbed at the edge of the crowd.

The projection flickered again. My sixteen-year-old self knelt entirely alone before the academy's Sage statue, my hands clasped in prayer. "May the Sage protect us... I pray that Arthur and Chloe remain safe forever."

Chloe fiercely gripped her staff, her eyes bloodshot. "You hypocritical liar! You left Arthur in the bloody mud, and you still had the nerve to pray to the Sage?!"

The screen morphed once more. In the library attic, Arthur handed me a holy magic notebook. "This holds my aura. Keep it."

I knew my body violently rejected holy magic, yet I smiled and accepted it anyway, thanking him profusely—I simply didn't want to disappoint him. Late that night, I sat entirely alone on a rock, tearing that notebook apart page by page and tossing it into a fire.

The plaza erupted in outrage.

"Lord Arthur wrote that himself, and she burned it?!"

"Ungrateful snake!"

Up on the high platform, Chloe’s gaze swept across my palms. My fingertips were covered entirely in old burn scars—the physical toll a shadow-affinity body took when touching holy magic. She knew I couldn't touch his gift, but she remained completely silent.

"Ignore this! Increase the mana output! I want to see the demon's true face!"

The screen flashed violently. It was the morning Arthur's corpse was delivered to the infirmary. His lifeless shell lay perfectly still on the stone slab. Chloe threw herself onto him, screaming natively. "Arthur—! Don't die—!"

In the memory, my past self knelt quietly beside the slab, trying to gently pry open his half-clenched, frozen fingers. They were too stiff. I couldn't open them. I secretly left a lingering kiss on his rigid hand, rested my forehead against his knuckles, and let my shoulders tremble.

The scene cut abruptly to the shadow water dungeon. I curled tightly into a corner, resting my forehead against my knees.

"Arthur... why did you have to do this..."

That crushing grief bled right through the light screen. The relentless cursing from the crowd came to a sudden, eerie halt.

"Why did she cry with such devastation? That kind of agony... she couldn't possibly fake it, right?"

Chloe slammed her palm violently against the console and roared. "Deceitful tears! Keep turning through her memories!"