“Juhwaimayo?”

“Yes, this kid.”

The ambassador added in a sighing tone.

“Though it’s fortunate we discovered it early, most importantly, you’ve lived through it as a child. You’re relatively unharmed because your history is still minimal.”

I blinked my eyes blankly.

‘So that’s what it feels like to be possessed.’

The chills I felt until vomiting blood, the sensation of tampering with something I shouldn’t have, the feeling that ‘something’ inside me was erupting, all of it….

“Stop! Stop thinking. Don’t think.”

“Ah.”

The ambassador shouted with an even more menacing face than before and took out an acupuncture needle from his sleeve.

“…I don’t like needles.”

“Shh. Don’t speak.”

I tried complaining for the sake of it. Of course, it was to no avail.

Starting from my forehead, needles pierced my neck, shoulders, arms, and various parts of my body. It didn’t hurt, but it felt a little strange, as if I had been pinned like a butterfly specimen. Only after the ambassador pulled out the needles did I regain the right to speak.

I finally remembered the priest whom I had seen vomiting and staggering.

“What about Ha Hyun? He must have been surprised.”

“Yes, that kid also drank some herbal medicine and left. He couldn’t calm down.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry. I reassured him and sent him away.”

Indeed, now is really the time to worry about myself….

Thinking back to the moments just before I collapsed, I hesitated to recall them, since the ambassador had pierced me with a needle, telling me to stop thinking about it.

But keeping this to myself is foolish.

This isn’t something I can solve on my own. The correct solution is to confide in someone more experienced and knowledgeable than me and seek their help.

I turned to the ambassador and reassured myself internally.

‘I am 13 years old, but this person is an adult, an elder of the family, and my ambassador.’

I have enough reason to speak.

“Ambassador.”

“Speak.”

“There’s something odd. About what happened earlier.”

“Wait, let’s refrain from discussing that for now…”

“If it feels strange, I’ll stop talking. But Ambassador, I think I should tell you while the memory is still vivid.”

My seriousness made the ambassador’s expression grave as well. He adjusted his posture, leaning slightly toward me. I carefully chose my words.

“…So, I felt a sense of incongruity.”

That’s how I opened my mouth.
The Archbishop listened intently without interrupting. I spoke in a somewhat hurried tone, almost mumbling.

“Actually, since last year, I’ve occasionally thought something was odd. Every morning before the morning chants, I meditate, and during those times, I often felt uneasy. I couldn’t pinpoint the source. But I thought deep contemplation would bring no good, so I always pretended not to notice….”

I casually moved the hand under the blanket a bit. It moved fine.

“Today, suddenly, I realized for the first time that it feels like there’s some sort of… veil over my mind. It was always there, but I just noticed it. It felt not like it was protecting me, but as if it would take root in me any moment. I thought it might be related to the unease I’ve been feeling, so impulsively, I touched it and…”

Just then, a hand suddenly appeared before my eyes and covered my mouth. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes wide.

“Stop talking. You’ll only agitate yourself again.”

The Archbishop spoke softly with a serious face.

Once I blinked a few times to show that I understood, he finally removed his hand and laid me back down. The blanket was pulled up to my chin.

“I understand what you’re saying. From now on, I’ll look into it more. You just stop thinking and get some rest.”

“Is it a serious problem?”

“No. And I won’t let it become one, so you don’t need to worry.”

This time, the Archbishop’s hand covered my eyes.

I exhaled softly and slowly closed my eyes. Thanks to the warmth covering my eyelids, I felt a bit more at ease.

Whether it was due to exhaustion, I was soon able to fall asleep again.

I had a dream.

It felt as vivid as reality, but I knew clearly that this was my dream.

Because the perspective was strange.

I was ‘Ha Hyun,’ floating in the dream.

In the dream, the ‘Ha Hyun’ who was close to my age looked a bit older than my current body. The face reflected in the mirror seemed about fifteen or sixteen.

There was nothing extraordinary in his daily life.

Like me, he trained in the mystical arts and held a sword, but each time he did, he suffered from a body that wouldn’t move as he wished and felt regret for the elusive enlightenment.

Perhaps because it was a time when he was more obsessed with his master, whenever he encountered Ha Hyun from a distance, a flame-like hatred would flare up inside him.

‘…I understand having an inferiority complex, but this much?’
I had thought my obsession with my mentor was strange, but my feelings for Ha Hyun seemed to have also crossed the boundaries of rationality. Ha Hyun himself seemed tormented enough to struggle with his own emotions alone.

The dream continued.