Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

By chance, we had managed to join up with a merchant guild, which allowed us to return to the family estate by carriage. Thanks to their consideration, we were able to split into separate carriages, so Cecil, Attica, and I rented one for ourselves.

Come to think of it, the remaining horses had probably all run off because of Attica. Then what exactly was pulling this carriage now?

Ah, I remembered.

I had seen it earlier.

Right, it was a slime. A slime.

Wasn’t it fascinating? They had used the slime’s ability to copy appearances to prepare for emergencies by replicating the form of a horse in advance.

Wait a second.

If the theory holds true, and if we could prepare a few slimes and copy the Demon King...

Wouldn’t that be the strongest force imaginable?

World domination? Continental unification? Maybe not that hard after all.

“Young Master...? Are you alright?”

“Ah, I’m fine.”

“Your complexion doesn’t look good.”

“It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something. Sorry, but could you not talk to me for a bit?”

“…Understood.”

The whole time I was in the carriage, this was the kind of nonsense running through my head. A kind of stream of consciousness.

To be honest, I knew.

I knew that my mind, overwhelmed and chaotic, kept trying to fill itself with stupid thoughts like this.

But escapism like this didn’t help me at all.

Right.

It was time to face reality again.

I recalled the woman’s face I had seen earlier.

Brown hair, green eyes.

It had definitely been Bestia’s face.

But...

Why? Why was my instinct screaming that she wasn’t Bestia?

She clearly had her face.

The only noticeable difference was that she showed no expression at all.

It had been a hundred years since I died.

For an ordinary human, that would be more than enough time to have died. But martial artists who had reached a certain realm of mastery could live far beyond a normal lifespan.

And if one had reached the realm of transcendence...

‘It’s not impossible that she could still be alive.’

She had always been an incredibly gifted person, so perhaps she truly had reached that realm. If so, then maintaining a youthful appearance like that would make perfect sense.

But then why!

Why couldn’t I recognize that thing as Bestia?

Magic? A curse? A spell? An artifact that interferes with perception?

I had no idea.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t find an answer.

One thing was certain — this couldn’t just be a coincidence.

Fate’s prank? A fluke?

No such thing exists.

In a world where gods clearly exist, there was no room for such concepts. In my past life, I had already met two gods, and because of that, I’d started to wonder whether even our free will was truly our own.

Maybe everyone in this world was nothing more than puppets on a stage or pieces on a chessboard.

Ah, enough!

I needed to stop thinking like this.

Once I started digging into it, there was no end. Besides, I already knew that the gods weren’t the absolute beings I once imagined them to be.

Alright then, let’s go back to thinking about that human who looked exactly like Bestia.

Was that really Bestia?

If not, then why did someone with her exact face appear before me?

Is there any chance that someone else could be born with an identical face?

No.

I’d never heard of anything like that.

And all within just a hundred years?

No way... Could she be the daughter of Saladin and Bestia?

No. That didn’t make sense. To dismiss it as just a daughter was far too much of a stretch. She didn’t merely resemble Bestia—she was exactly the same.

A complete doppelgänger.

Wa...it a second.

Dop...pel...gänger?

Slime...

Doppelgänger.

Replication.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like my head was about to split open. I couldn’t tell anymore where the line was between speculation and wild delusion.

‘Shit. There were so many things I wanted to ask when I met her again… and here I am, stuck in this kind of useless thought spiral.’

Even though I’d finally encountered Bestia, the fact that my instincts told me she was someone else made it all the more frustrating.

Most of all, I didn’t feel any killing intent rising within me.

To be honest, if I ever met Bestia again—assuming she would actually answer my questions truthfully...

I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from killing her. That bastard Saladin went without saying.

As much as I was curious about why she had done what she did, my anger over her betrayal of me and my comrades burned just as fiercely.

“Haa... I don’t know anymore…”

Almost as if on cue, the carriage came to a stop. The caravan leader, who had stepped out first, shouted loudly.

“We’ll take a short break here!”

Relieved to get out of the stuffy carriage, I stepped down immediately. Now that I thought about it, I had felt mercenaries’ eyes on me for a while now—probably because I was walking around just fine.

They had eyes and ears of their own. They must have already heard rumors about me.

And then, as if lacking any sense—or maybe just stupidly brave—one of them approached and cautiously spoke to me.

“Are you… Lord Ran Winterbell by any chance?”

“That’s right. What is it?”

But what came out of his mouth was completely unexpected.

“Well, there’s this person, I guess you could call her a guest… or a companion… anyway, a woman has been desperately looking for you, Lord Ran.”

“She’s looking for me? Then why didn’t she come herself? Why send someone else?”

“Well… haa… how do I even explain this…”

The man sighed repeatedly with a troubled expression, then raised his hand to his temple and began twirling his finger.

“So… you’re saying she’s lost her mind?”

“…Something like that. To be honest, she’s not really capable of holding a conversation with anyone besides the caravan leader and our captain. But she keeps muttering to herself that she has to see you, Lord.”

What the hell.

So what he was saying… was that Bestia had gone insane?

No way. Shit.

Did she go senile or something? From living over a hundred years?

The absurdity of it all left me momentarily speechless, but in the end, I decided to confirm it with my own eyes. I had been planning to talk to her at least once anyway.

If she really was Bestia...

Then I had to secure her somehow, no matter what.

“Take me to her.”

“Thank you, Young Master! You’ll be blessed for this!”

“Shut up and go.”

“Yessir.”

I followed the rough-looking mercenary into the woods. For a moment, I imagined him suddenly turning around and shouting, ‘Actually, this is a trap to kill you!’ and calling his comrades out—but no such thing happened.

"She’s the woman leaning against that tree over there. I’ll be off now. Thank you for listening to the request of someone as lowly as me!”

He was more polite than I’d expected.

I turned my eyes toward the tree.

Even from a distance, it was unmistakable.

…It was Bestia.

But that same discomfort I’d felt earlier still lingered. My brain recognized her as Bestia, yet my heart was screaming that she wasn’t.

If the brain and the heart were to fight, which one would win?

I approached Bestia. She had been staring blankly into the air, but as I came closer, she looked at me. Then her small lips moved slightly.

“…Found you.”

What was that supposed to mean?

Was she saying she’d been searching for me all this time?

“Bes…tia?”

She nodded. At this point, it was no different from her admitting it herself.

“You’re really Bestia?”

“Yeah. My name’s Bestia. I’ve been looking… for you. Ran Winterbell.”

Everything except her appearance was completely different from the Bestia in my memories. For one, she never had that stiff expression. And she certainly didn’t speak in such a flat, awkward tone.

I leaned in closer and examined her more carefully. No matter how I looked at her, her appearance was a perfect replica of how she had looked back then.

‘Wait a second.’

Now that I thought about it, if her appearance alone wasn’t enough to confirm it, then I just needed another way.

The most certain method to verify if she was really Bestia.

Magic.

She had been a grand mage who had reached the 10th Circle, and the youngest person ever to receive the title of Blue.

If the woman standing in front of me was truly Bestia, she should have no trouble using at least 9th-tier magic.

“If you’re really Bestia, try using a 9th-tier spell.”

A significant wave of mana erupted from her entire body.

‘Is she… really Bestia!?’

But then, moments later—

What appeared before my eyes wasn’t a 9th-tier spell, but a basic, rudimentary one: ice creation.

Quite literally, a spell that generated ice crystals.

“……”

“……”

“What… was that supposed to be?”

“…I can’t use magic.”

“You can’t use magic?”

“Yeah. I don’t remember how.”

How could that even make sense? Bestia had been using magic even before she could walk. No matter how much of her memory she might’ve lost, forgetting how to use magic was impossible.

Think about it.

Has there ever been someone who, after getting amnesia, forgot how to breathe?

No. Not a single one.

You could scour this entire world and still find no such person.

At this point, the doubt I’d felt at the beginning was slowly solidifying into certainty.

The woman in front of me wasn’t Bestia. She was nothing more than an unknown being imitating her shell.

As soon as I reached that conclusion, I immediately drew Leviathan and pressed it to her nape. Then I focused my killing intent.

“You. What the hell are you?”

“…I’m Bestia.”

“If you spit out that bullshit one more time, I’ll cut you down without hesitation. If you want to live, speak honestly. What are you? And why did you come looking for me in the first place?”

“…Ran Winterbell. I have to deliver something. But I can’t remember. I have to tell you something… but when I try to remember, my head hurts… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The woman suddenly grabbed her head and began repeating the word ‘sorry.’

“Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.”

Watching her mumble the same words over and over with blank eyes sent a chill down my spine. This was the moment I realized the mercenary who brought her here had been telling the truth.

“The real one… that’s not me… I didn’t want to do it either… I didn’t want to do that to all of you… I have to save this world. Save me. I don’t want to do this either. It hurts. I’m scared. I’m exhausted. I want to die. But I can’t die. I miss you. Save me. Help me. Please. Save me.”

“……”

“I didn’t want to betray you. I have to deliver a message. That’s why I came here, but I can’t remember. I’m so frustrated I feel like I’m going insane, and then my head hurts, and when my head hurts I forget everything again, but I feel like there was definitely something I had to say, something I had to pass on, what was it, what was it, Saladin is—”

Her words suddenly stopped.

As I listened to her, I went back and forth thousands of times on whether I should kill her or not, but somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to ignore what she was saying.

“I didn’t want to either. Save me.”

“It hurts. I’m scared. It’s hard.”

Those words—for some reason—sounded exactly like something the real Bestia would say.

“She’s dead.”