Chapter 07

My One and Only Guide

Ciel entered the hall alongside the Crown Prince, lost in his own thoughts.

The place where he had first met that woman had been none other than his coming-of-age ceremony.

It was practically the moment she crossed dimensions and came to the empire that everything began.

Back then, he had obeyed everything she said.

He had even believed that listening to her was the will of God.

And it wasn’t only him who thought that way.

After all, everyone in the Stern Empire worshipped the God Asteras and loved the temple.

When the Saintess, who was said to be the daughter of such a god, arrived, how could they not revere her?

But now, his thoughts were different.

He knew that his regression had happened because of God’s will, but he found it difficult to suppress the desire that came before even that.

There was only one reason he was deliberately seeking out the Saintess, even though meeting her now did nothing but make him uncomfortable.

He had to cross dimensions and return to Korea.

Only then could he meet Seohyun.

My wife……

My one and only Guide……

If he could meet her alive, he didn’t care even if he could never return to the empire again.

Thirst surged through him.

Just looking at the countless people filling the hall exhausted him, and his throat felt so tightly constricted that he could barely breathe properly.

He knew very well by now that these were symptoms caused by not receiving Guiding.

But the Saintess’s Guiding could no longer fill him.

Only Seohyun……

Only she could quench his thirst and calm the Esper ability that violently surged within him.

This time, no matter what happened, he would never leave her alone.

Even if doing so led them both down the path of destruction.

“Your complexion is terrible. Did Aiden cause trouble again?”

The Crown Prince, Jace, had been Ciel’s friend since childhood.

They were also master and servant, but whenever they met privately, Jace had been closer to him than anyone else.

Yet Ciel couldn’t understand why he had hated him so much in the past.

He couldn’t deny that he had been jealous of Jace because Seoyoon had shown interest in him.

But that had only been before he knew Seoyoon’s true intentions.

By the time he learned the truth, it had already been far too late.

“Aiden……”

Ciel muttered the name of his younger brother.

His younger brother was sickly and timid, and he was the sort of child who became irritated at even the slightest disturbance.

That was why, before his regression, Ciel had never been particularly fond of him.

“Of course, I understand how you feel…… Tsk, your face looks terrible. Come by my room later. I have some holy water I received from the temple this time. Its effects are incomparable to the holy water we’ve had before.”

The holy water he was talking about was probably the holy water intended for the few Espers in the empire.

It was certainly something to celebrate that Espers, whose existence had nearly disappeared from the world, had begun appearing again.

But their counterparts—the Guides—had not appeared.

Without a Guide, an Esper lived as though walking across scorching sand from the moment their ability awakened.

They spent their entire lives walking across hot, sinking sand while suffering from unbearable thirst.

So how delicious had the first Guiding he ever tasted been?

It had been so sweet that it felt as though his teeth would melt.

Ciel entered a private area after passing through the crowd.

He sat on the sofa before the Crown Prince and drank the ice water that had been prepared for him.

He mercilessly crunched on the ice as he thought about Seoyoon.

The Guiding she provided was practically poison.

He desperately racked his brain, wondering how he could gain her trust while avoiding her Guiding.

Jace sat down on the sofa opposite him without showing any reaction to Ciel’s attitude, which could easily have been considered disrespectful.

“Shall I have the holy water brought now?”

“……Your Highness.”

“Why are you calling me that? Is something really wrong?”

Jace stared directly at Ciel’s stiff expression.

Ciel was an Esper like him and one of the few people who had been allowed to enter the Imperial Palace freely since childhood, so Jace cherished him greatly.

But one day, Ciel’s entire atmosphere had suddenly changed.

The moment Jace saw the changed Ciel for the first time, he couldn’t speak.

A menacing aura surrounded him, and his naturally sharp eyes had become so fierce that they seemed almost savage.

Where had the arrogant and elegant bearing befitting a grand noble gone?

Despite his relaxed posture, the raw and ominous expression on his face was chilling simply to look at.

“I apologize, but could I receive more holy water?”

“Don’t tell me…… Are you in an incomplete state?”

Ciel understood what Jace meant.

In an empire without Guides, saying that an Esper was in an incomplete state meant there was a possibility of a rampage.

After all, there was no way an Esper without a Guide could truly be complete.

If Jace received Guiding from Seoyoon, he would be able to understand what Ciel was feeling now.

But at present, there was no way he could understand.

Ciel had no intention of receiving Guiding from Seoyoon.

There was no one in the Stern Empire who could satisfy him.

Therefore, if he wanted to endure without going berserk, he had no choice but to drink holy water.

And as he thought about it, Ciel realized something.

His condition was definitely different from before his regression.

Before he regressed, he had not been in such an incomplete state, and the Esper ability raging inside him had also been weaker than it was now.

It was similar to the state he had been in when he received Seohyun’s Guiding in Korea.

His wife’s Guiding had been small in quantity, but its purity had been extraordinarily high.

Their compatibility had been so perfect that one might even think she had been born for him.

That was why their 99% matching rate had made the relationship between the two of them seem almost perfect.

But their circumstances had never been on their side.

“Is it really that bad?”

Jace asked worriedly, looking at Ciel, who had momentarily become lost in the past.

At that moment, a servant arrived and announced the Saintess’s arrival.

With an expression full of curiosity, Jace took Ciel outside.

Ciel watched Seoyoon as she calmly walked between the people who parted to make way for them.

“Of all things, why did your name have to be similar?”

Seohyun and Seoyoon.

Their names were almost identical, differing by only one syllable.

Yet the souls contained within them were perfect opposites.

Setting everything else aside, Ciel couldn’t take his eyes off Seoyoon’s black hair and black eyes because they reminded him of Seohyun.

Even that alone was enough to make him feel as though he would go mad from longing.

As he stared at the Saintess while sinking slowly into a swamp whose bottom he couldn’t see, a tiny voice flew into his ear.

It was so quiet that an ordinary person could never have heard it.

But the moment was exceptionally silent, and as an Esper, Ciel’s hearing caught it perfectly.

“……Seoyoon?”

A woman’s voice calling the Saintess by a name that had not yet even been publicly revealed to the Emperor struck his ears and mind like lightning from a clear sky.

It was very…… suspicious.

And strange.

The star named Irene was the highest and brightest of all the stars, a great star that shone brilliantly.

It was a beautiful star that could only be seen in midsummer.

That star only displayed its full brilliance after midnight.

That was why the highlight of the coming-of-age ceremony was looking at Irene and praying.

I looked up at the stars that were gradually filling the entire sky and felt mesmerized.

The vast sight, so beautiful and magnificent that it seemed impossible to reach with my hands, was breathtaking……

Perhaps it felt even more beautiful because I wasn’t alone, but was watching it together with my family.

I held Mom’s hand tightly and approached the edge of the balcony.

There were still many people spending time inside the hall, so the balcony was relatively quiet.

“Our daughter is going to become an adult soon.”

Mom looked at me with a face full of affection and pride.

Even when I wasn’t doing anything in particular, Mom always looked at me with such a loving expression.

Every time she did, I felt ticklish and awkward inside, so I habitually bit my lower lip.

“To think she’s becoming an adult. She’s still such a baby……”

Dad stood beside Mom and looked at me tenderly as he spoke.

Mom shot him a look and scolded him.

“She isn’t a baby anymore. She’s become such a beautiful young lady. Don’t you know saying that is rude to a lady?”

“Heh heh. Is that so?”

At that moment, my brother gently placed a hand against the small of my back and moved closer.

He was a head taller than me, so I had to tilt my chin up to look at him.

“I agree with Father. Even to me, she’s still just my little sister. And yet she’s already having her coming-of-age ceremony…… It makes me feel rather bad to realize how old I’ve become.”

Dad burst out laughing at my brother’s joke, while Mom looked as though she’d finally found the perfect opportunity and began lecturing him with me standing between them.

“You need to start meeting potential partners too. Every time the subject of marriage comes up, you run away to the guard unit! If you get married first, then Irene can follow your example and start meeting people too!”

Of course, I had no intention of doing that either, but I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire for no reason, so I quietly tried to step backward.

But my brother was faster.

He tightened the hand resting against my lower back and blocked my escape route.

“Haha, Mother really is something……”

“Don’t you dare ignore what I’m saying again. This time, I will absolutely make you sit down for a marriage meeting.”

At Mom’s unusually firm declaration, my brother lowered the corners of his eyes and barely managed to lift the corners of his lips.

His expression was no different from the one he’d worn as a child whenever he’d gotten into trouble and been scolded.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.

Ah, I’m truly happy.

For the first time, I felt as though I could accurately explain what happiness was.