When a large, pitch-black hole appeared before his eyes, Sched realized this was a dream.

A familiar nightmare he’d had too often.

He hadn’t had it for a while, but it seemed old memories had been stirred up in his mind because of her.

Sched silently stared at the black hole.

At that moment, corpses soaked in blood rose up screaming from the pitch-black darkness.

“Save us, Sched!”

The faces of the humans reaching out their hands from the hole were too mangled to recognize.

Some stretched out arms with severed wrists, while others screamed with unnaturally twisted necks.

‘Damn it.’

Even though it was a nightmare he’d had countless times and grown numb to, his dream heart pounded as if it would burst.

He was sick of his heart pounding loudly with anxiety and fear.

‘If you’re dead, just leave me alone already.’

He wanted to tear out his damn heart.

Wasn’t it time to stop by now?

It had been 8 years, yet every time he dreamed, his throat closed up as if he would vomit.

Though he was already dry and felt no particular emotion, tears fell from his trembling eyes.

It was pathetically miserable, as if filming a melodrama.

He wanted to gouge out his tear ducts that kept shedding tears like they were broken.

As always, he hung his head.

At his feet was a broken guardian statue.

The small sculpture he had given to his brother.

“Sched, I told you to be careful!”

At that moment, a man who sprang out of the hole strangled his neck.

Though his face was too mangled to recognize, Sched knew who he was.

The man strangling him was his brother.

The only one he had trusted and followed, Parmen Lupus.

He screamed at the cowardly survivor with a voice full of hatred.

This is not a dream, but a memory.

The corpses of the Lupus piled in the black hole. His brother, friends, and comrades he thought were missing were too crushed to even recognize their forms.

He discovered the bodies of the missing Lupus in a huge pit on the back mountain of the Ideana Count’s estate.

The Count’s knights had buried the dead Lupus’ bodies in the pit like livestock.

Eight years ago on that day, Sched Lupus lost everything.

The falling tears still wouldn’t stop, and his heart ached as if stabbed with a knife.

But now, it’s boring.

There’s no interest, like a storybook read thousands of times.

‘It’s time to wake up now.’

Sched thought wearily as his dead brother strangled him.

The nightmare usually ends around here.

When he wakes up, he’ll probably stay up all night again in a foul mood.

But.

“As a Lupus, did you think you were worth anything?”

Suddenly the surroundings darkened, and she was before him.

Shining her dazzling golden hair and clear, transparent light green eyes.

Sched froze in place at her sudden appearance.

‘Why are you…’

This is a dream he’s never had before.

Louise Ideana stares at him blankly with a clear face.

Sched couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Afraid she would disappear like smoke the moment he looked away.

Instead, he opened and closed his mouth, forcing out a voice from his choked throat.

“Did you… know too?”

That my brother, my comrades were being slaughtered by the Ideana?

Tell me you didn’t know about all those deaths.

Louise Ideana answered his question with a smile he once loved.

“You’re just a Lupus, aren’t you?”

Her small head tilted slightly as she answered innocently.

Her voice was soft as if reciting poetry, and therefore more cruel.

To the Ideana, the Lupus were slaves, mere consumables.

“Louise!”

He rushed at her in anger.

But his outstretched hand did not reach her, and she disappeared in an instant like a mirage, as if mocking him.

No. If you disappear like this, what will become of my remaining anger, this despair…!

“Huk…!”

Sched bolted upright.

It was still pitch black around him, so he had trouble distinguishing whether he was still dreaming or awake.

Breathing heavily, he clenched his fist after checking the white blanket covering him.

“Damn it…!”

Veins bulged on the back of his hand.

It was a filthy dream.

Filthier than his usual nightmares.

His heart pounded as if he’d sprinted at full speed.

He lifted his head to look out the window.

It was still too early for the sun to rise. The deepest part of dawn.

Soon he would have to begin the long journey back to Ideana again.

Tonight would be the last time he could rest his eyes in a comfortable bed.

But because of the nightmare, he couldn’t fall back asleep.

He got up and poured water into an empty glass.

His Adam’s apple bobbed several times as he swallowed the water.

But the lukewarm water couldn’t ease the tightness deep in his chest.

He frowned, running his hand through his disheveled hair.

No matter how many times he took a deep breath, the anxiety wouldn’t go away.

He felt like he was missing something important.

Sched got up, put on a robe, and approached the window.

Even those who had been packing until late had gone to rest for the long journey ahead. The world was enveloped in suffocating silence. As if nothing had happened.

Nevertheless, one word shook his quiet dawn.

‘Ideana.’

That damn word was stuck in his mind like an arrowhead, refusing to come out.

He recalled that woman with her anxiously trembling light green eyes.

That woman who disappeared like smoke in his dream.

That woman who kept driving his anxiety.

“My lord, sometimes you’re really like a beast.”

Once, the fearless Hedrick had said this to him.

“How did you know the enemy was hiding there?”

It was the day he had located the enemy’s position by intuition alone, without any information.

That day, when he found and defeated the enemy troops without any intelligence, the knights looked at him as if they were seeing a magician.

Of course, it wasn’t magic. He just had excellent instincts.

Eclas called it “the result of rapid calculations based on long experience.”

From the time he was a slave, forcibly mobilized for hunting beasts and combat, days when he had to desperately survive on the brink of death each time, moments when he had to find a way out in the midst of terrible disasters. It was an ability that developed as he used his head to survive in those situations.

It doesn’t matter what name you give that ability. Whether it’s intuition, magic-like superpowers, or reasoning and calculation skills.

What’s important is that this sense has saved his life many times.

It was the same now.

Sched couldn’t ignore the cool current flowing through the air.

He put on his robe and went out into the hallway.

Everyone must have been asleep, as there was no one outside the bedrooms. The head butler Werner and the other knights seemed to be conserving energy for the long journey ahead when the sun rose.

Sched didn’t bother waking anyone else.

It was a simple matter of checking just one thing.

Besides, he felt he would only be at ease if he confirmed it with his own eyes.

Riana Serpens.

That new maid was said to be staying in a place slightly apart from the other maids.

They had apparently set up a temporary bed for her in a storage room since she was a sudden addition to the staff.

Sched headed towards the storage area.

The path leading to Riana’s room was pitch black.

With all the lamps turned off, he could only follow the path with eyes adjusted to the darkness.

In the darkness where moonlight barely filtered through the clouds, Sched recalled his ill-fated connection with Ideana.

‘Riana Serpens…’

He had repeated her name several times in the meantime.

No matter how much he thought about it, the name just wouldn’t stick.

Louise Ideana. That name was still familiar, and suited her well.

But if he called her by that name, he wouldn’t be able to keep her bound. After all, she was the only daughter of Count Felix Ideana, a traitor who researched black magic.

Louise Ideana was clearly a criminal and deserved to die.

‘I can’t let her die so easily.’

If Louise Ideana’s survival became known, she would be dragged away immediately, and the revenge he had been waiting for so long would once again be snatched away by careless hands.

He headed towards the storage room at the back of the mansion where laundry was gathered. It was a room smelling of soap, with freshly washed and folded sheets stacked up.

Sched paused briefly in front of the storage room door.

“Ha…”

He let out a short breath at the sight of himself, walking up confidently only to stop in front of the door.

It felt as if he had become a slave again, carefully waiting for permission before entering a lady’s room.

An old habit ingrained long ago popped out unconsciously, making his chest tighten with tension.

It had been 8 years. Now everything here belonged to him, and she was under him too.

Sched gritted his teeth at the damn habit and roughly yanked open the doorknob.

With the intention of not caring whether the maid Riana Serpens woke up or was startled.

The cold dawn breeze blew in through the widely opened door.

The wind swirled around the space Sched faced. A dark, narrow, empty space.

The wind that had blown around once covered him like a great void.

All he could see was a small cot just big enough for one person to curl up in.

On top of it was a white blanket folded so neatly it was detestable.

As if to prove his cold intuition.

That intuition soon turned to anger.

A cracking sound came from the doorknob crushed in his large hand.

He left the door to the empty storage room wide open and headed for the mansion.

“Carlyle!”

His booming voice echoed through the large hall in the dawn.

He went up to his room with impatient steps, put on his jacket and picked up the sword he always kept by his bedside. Unlike usual, loud and rough sounds clung to the end of his actions.

Meanwhile, the knight Carlyle came up to the room with his shirt buttons not even properly fastened.

“My lord, what’s the matter?”

Other knights besides Carlyle, as well as the butler Werner, had also come, worried there might have been an assassination attempt on Sched. But Sched’s bedroom looked clean without a drop of blood.

“Wake the horses and prepare them.”

Carlyle bowed his head before his lord’s bloodshot eyes.

Translation complete. 100% of original text translated.