The lingering remnants of darkness were so intense that it made my skin crawl, and it felt like a warning for me to escape this place.
Unlike mana, the darkness diffused in the air was unable to dissolve into the world and instead lingered in the empty space.
It emanated a sense of being inherently alien to this world, evoking a feeling of disgust by its mere presence. Even though it was my first encounter with it today, I already knew what this darkness was.
The pagan cult.
It was a group that had caused various incidents in the novel and was said to have obtained and utilized such power from a God of another realm. Although they could be described as Elena's future adversaries, what mattered now was not that.
Elena had disappeared.
The fact alone seemed to turn my mind into a blank slate.
I had no time to contemplate why there were traces of the cult here. The most important thing for me right now was her safety and where she could be.
Clutching onto the fraying thread of reason, I continued to glare at the darkness that still made me uneasy.
Along with the emotions of disgust and abhorrence, an inexplicable sense of familiarity from the darkness furrowed my brow. It seemed I wasn't the only one who felt such a sensation. As the still darkness in the air detected my presence, it rushed toward me like a swarm of hungry beetles discovering prey.
When the darkness tried to cling to me, I conjured aura from within my body.
The aura extending from my heart instantly created a black wind, driving away the darkness.
No matter how powerful it claimed to be, it was merely residual, unable to withstand the wind created by a being in the realm of the extraordinary.
Eventually, the darkness was swallowed up by the aura, but the unpleasant sensation left behind by the darkness remained in this space.
It was the power of the Otherworld.
An absolute destruction that couldn't coexist with the world.
Its mere existence caused harm to the world.
Focusing my mind, I moved my aura towards the scars left by the darkness in the space.
I must find the owner of this power before the severed space was restored. My aura began to move, riding the distorted flow, trying to penetrate the space. However, the laws of the world did not tolerate it. The forcibly opened space began to close again, and I had no power to stop it.
In the end, my aura couldn't withstand the pressure and was crushed and shattered in the gaps of the space.
"Damn it!"
Every time I tried to resist, I only realized the limits of my own power, without anything changing.
The resulting sense of powerlessness eventually snapped the thread of reason.
Although I had thought that Elena would no longer be by my side, I had never thought of her death. Even if she were to become the Archmage who would come to this world in the future, Elena's time had not yet flowed sufficiently.
But now, thinking that the variable I created had taken her life, I could no longer maintain my composure.
An almost obsessive madness towards her, which had been suppressed until now, began to fill my mind. Uncontrolled emotions broke through the limits of power, and the body, boasting an overwhelming amount of aura, unleashed aura without restraint.
In the raging storm of my rampaging aura, what awakened my mind was a fact that emerged from the jumbled mess inside my head.
Theia.
She was still here.
As an ancient dragon who had lived for a thousand years, she would undoubtedly possess magical skills superior to any other mage currently on Earth. Surely she would have a way to bring me to Elena.
As hope seemed within reach, I suppressed the boiling emotions inside me.
Although the situation had reached a point where it could explode like a time bomb at any moment, I needed to regain my sanity now. Coincidentally, Theia also noticed the anomaly and was walking toward my location.
"Theia."
When I called her name, Theia looked at me with a surprised expression. Come to think of it, didn't she reveal her name when she spoke to me? I couldn't quite recall.
She had a face that seemed to demand an explanation, but I casually ignored her words and spoke.
"Theia. If it's you, you should be able to trace the remnants of the power left in this place. Please, take me to the source of that power."
"Wait a moment! Before that, the name! Explain about my name first!!"
"We don't have time. I'll tell you after everything is over. Hurry."
Upon hearing my words, Theia made a face as if she couldn't understand, but without saying anything, she immediately began casting magic.
What she summoned with her magic was a single butterfly.
As we passed exactly where the darkness had pooled, I couldn't take my eyes off the butterfly as it turned black. I was completely ignorant about magic, so I could only speculate that the butterfly would lead me to Elena's whereabouts. Naturally, I followed the movement of the butterfly with my eyes.
'Will I be able to find Elena if I continue like this?'
However, contrary to my thoughts, the butterfly disappeared without a trace in the air after a short while. I quickly turned to Theia, but she had a relieved expression on her face as if everything went well.
"Thank goodness. It seems that the source of power has disappeared."
Her words made me recall what I had said.
Her magic was meant to find the origin of the darkness, not to locate Elena. The fact that the entity that left traces here had been destroyed was undoubtedly good news, but what mattered now was where she was. The fact that the pagan was dead meant nothing to me.
In my attempt to find clues, I ended up realizing that the existing clues had become useless.
Now that the perpetrator had disappeared, the method to truly find her was gone. I felt like everything was becoming pitch black in front of me.
"Damian?"
Just as my vision was about to plunge back into the abyss, a familiar white light entered. At the same time, a voice calling my name made me quickly look ahead.
"…What the hell happened? Why are all the bookshelves broken like this-"
There stood the person I had been desperately searching for. Seeing her bewildered expression as she surveyed the chaotic surroundings, I felt my heart settle, and I shouted her name.
"Elena!"
***
A warm breeze fluttered around us.
Even without that, Elena's face was already flushed to the point where she couldn't hide it by covering it with her hands. Under normal circumstances, I might have drawn a line and let it go to some extent, but now I had no intention of letting go of her hand or being separated from her.
"Damian, you can let go now…"
"It's not possible."
I couldn't let go of her hand, fearing that she would disappear just like before.
"By the way, Elena, where were you?"
When I asked where she was, Elena silently lowered her head and pointed to a door beyond the broken bookshelves. Only then did she realize that I had a strange misunderstanding.
Of course, she must have been in the bathroom.
Ultimately, all my actions were nothing but futile gestures, but I couldn't undo the changes that had taken place in my heart. Although it might have been a misunderstanding this time, I couldn't guarantee that something like this wouldn't happen again in the future.
In the almost half-embrace we were in, I felt her warmth becoming even more intense. Elena's warmth, which seemed to be endlessly rising, served as evidence that she was by my side, so I approached her even closer.
"Ahem!"
A loud cough pierced my ears, and we turned our heads toward the source of the sound.
There, a small girl wearing a flipped hood stared at me with an annoyed look. The chaotic bookshelves that had been a mess, whether someone cast a spell or tidied up, had returned to their previous state.
Elena, upon seeing the flickering pupils of the girl, seemed to realize what kind of existence stood before her and was momentarily taken aback. She took a deep breath and quickly regained her composure.
"Hey, you. Don't you have something to say to me?"
"Ah."
"Ah? Ah????? Ah, what is it? Ah! How important is she that you forgot about it?"
"Ah, I'm sorry. She is more important to me."
In response to my words, Theia looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Come to think of it, was there any significance to the name Theia? I started feeling a bit uneasy seeing her react that way. Well, whatever the case, I had already thought of several possible responses to her answer, so I wasn't too worried. I could come up with an excuse in about five seconds.
However, she completely shattered my expectations and rendered all my preparations useless with completely different words.
"…No, never mind. You there, with that hair color and eye color. Are you an Edelweiss?"
"Ah yes.."
"Then could you do me a favor instead of that child?"
Rubbing her temple, she casually turned the conversation toward Elena. With such an action, I could tell that something was wrong. The connection between the girl in the novel and Elena began with fulfilling a 'certain' request, so I could guess what kind of favor she would ask of Elena now.
Before I could rush to stop Elena from responding, her mouth opened first.
"Okay."
"No, you can't… Elena! Wait a moment. Please wait. Elena, this is something that will end with just one answer from me. There's no need for you to fulfill her request."
"Oh, well. Didn't that child already say yes? But why are you trying to turn the conversation around?"
"You're the one turning it around!!!"
In this tangled situation, I felt a throbbing sensation in my head.
Elena didn't seem to have any intention of refusing, and Theia also seemed determined not to retract her words.
Two people who met at a time they weren't supposed to meet.
Because of that, I could sense how the butterfly effect was unfolding here. For the first time since possessing this world, I could fully feel that the story had completely twisted.
***
As soon as we sent a message to Winter Castle, a carriage was immediately sent to the front of the shop.
I boarded the carriage without letting go of her hand. It seemed like she had gotten used to it because she didn't say anything about my tightly held hand. To be precise, it was more accurate to say that she seemed unable to say anything as if she had no energy to do so.
When I got on the carriage, Elena leaned against me with a hazy face as if she was about to collapse.
Although it was getting quite late, Elena seemed more tired than usual. I adjusted my posture a bit and lowered my shoulder to allow her to lean comfortably against me.
As I looked at her, uncertain whether her eyes were closing or not, I lightly tapped Elena's nose and quietly asked her.
"Why were you like that earlier?"
"Um… what do you mean?"
"I'm talking about that dragon girl. Why did you insist on taking care of it when you could have just handed it over to me?"
In the end, despite my objections, Elena agreed to accept Theia's request. The request was not difficult. It was just a matter of finding a stone that was kept somewhere in the Tower of Dawn. But I felt a deep regret about it.
It was because I knew that the stone was actually her egg, and that Elena, who found it, awakened the egg, and that the relationship between her and Elena began.
It was a kind of fateful encounter that disappeared in just a trivial happening. Could one not feel regret? However, Elena didn't reveal that fact, so all I could do was send her a gaze of regret as I do now.
"You said you went through a lot because of me… with what happened earlier and everything. So, I think it's right for me to resolve this. Plus, it's an opportunity to forge a connection with the dragon from the legend, isn't it?"
"Still… it's just an exaggeration, isn't it? What kind of dragon has tears in her eyes just because she was slightly injured by an aura?"
Elena, perhaps recalling the moment when Theia showed her hand while shedding tears, covered her mouth and started smiling softly.
I saw it earlier, and although it did cut her, it was just a very slight cut. There wasn't even any blood, just like when one cut their hand with paper. I didn't know why she was making such a fuss about it.
If it had been anyone else, their finger might have been severed with such an injury. It seemed that dragon scales were incredibly strong. After all, among the family treasures, there was also armor made of dragon's leather.
I wanted to say something more to Elena, but suddenly she let out a soft breath and fell into a deep sleep.
Carefully, I moved as little as possible to remove my coat. I used the coat as a makeshift blanket to cover her, and then I held her hand again.
The soft texture and warmth of her skin were felt in my hand once more.
As I looked at her, peacefully asleep with a gentle smile, I couldn't help but smile too. However, even with this, there were still unanswered questions that couldn't be resolved just by getting through the day.
Was her disappearance from that spot really just a coincidence?
It was hard to understand how she vanished in that brief moment. But what use was it for me to dwell on this? After all, since every trace had been erased, finding the answer was impossible.
So, I decided not to dwell on this dilemma for too long.
While I might not know about other things, one thing I clearly realized from this incident is that what was important to me was having her by my side, and everything else was not as significant.
Accepting a separation, it truly couldn't be a more arrogant statement. To make such a fuss about her briefly disappearing in front of my eyes and even considering it as a separation from our relationship… It was ridiculous to think about it now.
Now, my previously incomplete heart was completely solidified. In fact, I should have reached this point much earlier. I couldn't help but feel that it was too late.
I tightened my grip on her hand and looked out the window.
The Winter City, with the moon shining brightly, looked particularly beautiful today.