Fearlessly (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 16
Kelita opened the carriage door and stepped outside.
The south, where the capital of the Periat Empire lay, hadn’t seen snow in a very long time.
Compared to the north, this place experienced almost no weather changes, so even after Bercheria’s protection vanished, it hadn’t faced any major problems.
“I’ve never seen so much snow in my life.”
Kelita’s cheeks flushed red from the cold as she marveled.
She spread her hand out, watching snowflakes settle onto her palm.
She watched the clear white crystals appear vividly, then instantly melt into tiny droplets.
Smiling faintly, Kelita pulled her palm toward her and touched the droplet with the tip of her tongue.
And at that moment—
A man was walking toward her within the scenery caught at her fingertips.
“Oh.”
Tall with lean muscles. Glossy black hair that swayed as if making a rustling sound with every step.
A straight nose and crimson lips, combined with striking eyes, occasionally left her breathless.
“Lakrahan.”
The man who would soon become her husband and love her forever.
Kelita’s feet, eager to rush forward to meet him, stuck fast to the ground.
As Lakrahan’s silhouette grew slightly clearer, she realized he wasn’t alone.
Wyatt, standing right beside her, pressed the edge of his hand against his brow in exasperation and muttered,
“What on earth is that?”
Lakrahan was walking toward them, carrying some woman on his back.
“No, seriously—after all this waiting, is that woman really daring to ride on His Grace the Duke’s back?”
Utterly flustered, Wyatt alternated his gaze between Kelita and Lakrahan before charging toward Lakrahan like a warrior.
Berche.
Every time she heard her mother’s voice, Bercheria felt as if her insides were twisting.
It felt as though her guts were tearing and her blood flowed backward.
Even though she’d clearly seen with her own eyes the tower vanish and the staff absorb into her body, the anxiety ingrained in her over a lifetime wouldn’t easily disappear.
‘Please, please just go away.’
When she’d planned to return to the tower with Lakrahan, meeting her mother hadn’t been part of that plan.
From the moment of her birth, Bercheria’s world had contained only her mother.
‘What was the reason? I mean the reason this tower exists at all.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘The reason you were imprisoned here. The reason the staff was turned into a tower. The reason your power was gradually made to fade.’
Her stomach churned.
Since she’d lived in the tower from birth as if it were perfectly natural, she’d never questioned it.
She hadn’t even considered that she should.
After all, the tower’s summit—reachable in just a few steps—had been her entire world.
But the moment she decided she had to escape was when she met the man now standing before her.
She only realized that fact much later.
Was it about ten years ago?
Though it came to her belatedly, Bercheria already recognized the man’s pale hand pressing firmly against her lips.
At first, she couldn’t have imagined it.
When she’d first seen Lakrahan, he’d been a less mature boy, unlike now.
To glimpse the outside world, Bercheria would always stand on tiptoe, clinging to the railing as she watched Lakrahan.
Sometimes with his father, other times with a brother much taller and broader-shouldered than him.
And sometimes with his mother, passing beneath the tower.
Born a goddess, Bercheria possessed senses far beyond those of humans, allowing her to observe everything near the tower in minute detail.
Thus, she understood.
Just how happily he lived—a life so different from her own.
Then suddenly, they stopped appearing.
She’d been waiting, it seemed.
After all, he’d been the only person who ever passed by the tower.
Then, about ten years ago, he returned.
Alone, having lost everyone.
But this time, companions who’d joined him on the hunt walked beside him.
While his hunting companions, eyes blazing, ruthlessly took the lives of their prey, he alone followed behind them as if leisurely strolling.
For ten years, Bercheria had never once seen blood on Lakrahan’s hands or witnessed him carrying a dead animal on his horse.
So she felt relieved.
Even though the people around him had changed, his essence didn’t seem to have.
‘If I could be with someone like him, I wouldn’t have to worry about being whipped or begging through tears.’
One day, she’d drooled, curious about the taste of the jerky he chewed noisily; another day, she’d grown sad knowing that if the rain kept falling, she wouldn’t see anyone for a while.
If only she’d fully possessed her weather-controlling ability back then, rain would have fallen only when absolutely necessary.
If only she’d still had all the powers her mother had stolen, she would have left this tower long ago.
Not escaped in such agony.
“Ugh!”
Bercheria couldn’t suppress the sudden wave of nausea.
Immediately, the footsteps circling nearby stopped.
“……!”
Lakrahan looked straight at Bercheria as if to reassure her, his hand dropping to his waist to grip his sword.
He stood ready, as if prepared to draw his long blade and strike down anyone at once.
Berche
At the voice sounding right beside her, Bercheria’s eyes flew wide open.
Her mother must have pinpointed their location from the sound of her retching.
So you were here!
Through the moonlit bushes, she sensed her mother’s body swiftly leaning in.
The moment her head dipped toward them, pressed flat against the ground, Lakrahan’s sword slid from its sheath.
“……!”
Bercheria instantly felt the air grow colder.
The moment their eyes met, she knew intuitively.
Her mother’s eyes, her mother’s pupils—undeniably hers, yet utterly different.
There was no cold murderous intent in her gaze.
Instead, it resembled the obedient look of someone who moved only upon another’s command.
Her mother had never looked at people with such eyes.
Butterfly of Parallels.
Someone else was mimicking her mother using divine artifacts.
Bercheria shouted toward Lakrahan.
“Lakrahan! That’s not my mother!”
The instant she cried out, the woman’s hand suddenly thrust through the bushes, intruding.
Just as Lakrahan swung his sword to sever that hand—
A massive snowball piled atop the tree directly above them crashed down with a rumble.
“Ugh!”
“……!”
Instinctively, Lakrahan shifted direction and wrapped his body around Bercheria.
Snow poured over them like a great curtain, and the woman beside them—her supposed mother—was instantly flattened beneath the snow.
With no bushes to shield her, she didn’t even resist once and seemed to lose consciousness.
“Hah.”
Bercheria stared at her mother, frozen in place with arms outstretched.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Hah. What a truly dreadful day, isn’t it.”
Bercheria smiled weakly.
Before them, the hand of the woman they’d believed to be her mother began to change.
It transformed into that of a man—thick and knobby.
“So it’s clearly the Butterfly of Parallels after all.”
Bercheria clenched her trembling body and bit down hard on her lip.
She prayed it wasn’t true.
Please, anything but the Butterfly of Parallels.
“Are you afraid?”
At Lakrahan’s voice, Bercheria murmured, staring at the thick hand.
“I am. Because I can’t even guess when, where, or in what form my mother might appear next.”
“Let’s talk while we move.”
As Lakrahan tensed his body to stand, Bercheria let out a groan.
“What’s wrong?”
When he turned his head, he saw her foot twisted backward.
Startled, Lakrahan quickly pulled away from her.
“How on earth did this happen? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Bercheria lifted her head and looked down at her own foot.
“I didn’t realize. And even if I was hurt, I thought it would heal quickly anyway…”
Lakrahan removed Bercheria’s shoe.
The new dress and shoes she’d worn instead of the dirty clothes from the tower were once again covered in dust.
Yet to Lakrahan, it didn’t matter at all.
“What are you doing!”
“Have you ever had a broken bone heal before?”
Bercheria tightly bit her lip and shook her head.
Just because wounds healed quickly didn’t mean they were painless.
“Try to endure the pain. Even with your strong healing ability, a broken bone probably won’t realign and fuse properly on its own.”
He lifted Bercheria’s foot up to chest height.
Placing one knee on the ground and setting her foot atop his opposite thigh, he looked at Bercheria.
“Since the person they sent hasn’t returned, they’ll show up themselves. For now, let’s just focus on getting away.”
“Yes.”
Even buried in snow, Lakrahan’s hand holding her foot felt scorching hot.
Bercheria watched him carefully examining her foot.
“Are you always like this?”
Lakrahan raised one eyebrow.
As if urging her to continue.
“Is your body temperature always this high?”
She thought it was a trivial question, but Lakrahan’s expression changed strangely.
He looked like a child who’d just been asked an impossibly difficult question.
‘Mom loves our Lakrahan because he’s warm. All Edkins men are cold, after all. Our plump, adorable Lakrahan.’
He closed his eyes, suppressing memories that surged up without warning.
Ever since coming to the north, he’d desperately tried not to think of his family.
Because the more he remembered, the more he hurt himself.
But suddenly, hearing those words from Bercheria made all that struggling feel pathetic.
This woman had endured a life dozens of times more painful than his own, yet she hadn’t run—she’d faced it head-on.
While he was still just avoiding everything.
Body temperature? What was so special about that?
“What’s wrong?”
Facing Bercheria’s repeated question, Lakrahan fixed his long, drawn eyes on her.
“That question… my mother used to say that often.”
“The one with the lovely smile.”
Lakrahan’s hand stilled.
“What?”
“…I saw you from the tower. Walking together with your mother.”
“Oh.”
“And your father and brother too.”
“…I didn’t know you were watching.”
“Watching you was my only joy.”
Lakrahan raised his eyebrows, then slowly lowered them with a long exhale.
“I see. So that’s how it was.”
He grasped Bercheria’s slender ankle and briefly met her gaze.
“It’ll hurt. Try not to cry out.”
“Yes.”
Lakrahan applied firm pressure in one swift motion, resetting her ankle into place.
Though he’d expected it, seeing her endure without a single groan, he smiled gently as he helped her back into her shoe.
“You always defy my expectations, you know.”
“Likewise.”
Bercheria tried to sit up, but swayed from the pain in her foot.
Lakrahan caught her arm as if to support her, then immediately hoisted her onto his back.
“W-what are you doing!”
“I’m carrying you.”
“I can walk on my own.”
As Lakrahan turned his head backward, the newly risen sun cast an orange glow over his sharp nose.
Male lead reborn without memories — but he still falls for her.
The person he finds displeasing in this life turns out to be his cherished wife-master in previous life…
Xie Zhi and Fang Xianxing who had known each other for less than three days through a blind date sat in the same car in front of the civil affairs bureau. They had a disagreement and failed to get married.
Xie Zhi immediately took out his phone, slid through his contacts, and randomly selected the next marriage candidate.
The woman snatched his phone and hung up. Looking at his phone wallpaper, she awkwardly changed the subject: “An ancient painting, eh? It looks pretty good, it’s just that the person in the painting looks a bit like me.”
When he heard this, he sarcastically mocked her for being so delusional, completely unaware that, the person in front of him was the reincarnation of Wen Ru, the famous prime minister of Yuan Shun whom he most admired…
The female CEO who doesn’t want to get married with a divorce agreement in hand × The male archaeological researcher who will only get married if he’s sure he can get divorced
I have a inkling that Lione is probably Berche’s ‘Mother’?