“Carlos. Let me go.”

She looked determined, as if she had really found a way.

Was it an act? She was very good at pretending. What if I let her go and she takes her own life?

Carlos became confused, unsure whether he should grant her request or not.

He had caused her to change like this, and now he had tripped over his own feet.

“…Mel. Can you… promise not to die?”

“Yes. I promise. I’ll even undo the dagger. So let me go.”

Mercedes quickly called back the magic that had bound him and made it disappear.

“…Alright.”

He let her go for now, as she seemed sincere.

Carlos truly didn’t know how to react, so he just helplessly stared at her.

Mercedes, her face all wet and messy with tears, had a more alert look in her eyes than ever before. She was beautiful.

“I think I saw you when I was young.”

Carlos answered, flustered by her sudden change.

“You? Me? Ah. I heard you lived as a wanderer in Room.”

“Yes. I lived as a wanderer in the back alleys with my mother. Then when I was about ten, I was taken by the Count. Though memories before that are faint. I remember.”

“Back alleys… Around that time, I was starting to show my talents and often received death threats from the Empress Dowager. I experienced overload for the first time after learning about aura, and also… I frequented the back alleys of the capital. I had a lot of information to gather from the Imperial citizens. There’s a chance we could have crossed paths.”

Carlos reflected on his own past as he responded to Mercedes’ story.

Mercedes nodded.

“Yes. We definitely met, Carlos. And I know how to cure you. My mother… my mother healed you.”

What came from her mouth was a very hopeful and surprising story.

Mercedes’ eyes filled with joy and delight met Carlos’ eyes, dazed with disbelief after a lifetime of suffering from the curse.

“You don’t remember? Well, you were unconscious then… Oh my. You were a boy with such an arrogant face even while unconscious. I can’t believe I could have forgotten that.”

Carlos nodded blankly.

And Mercedes spoke once more, as if emphasizing with certainty.

“It’s a faint memory I could only just recall now. But my mother, she healed you once.”

“You said it was a faint memory. How can you be so sure?”

“Mother tried to heal you, saying you were a child despite being so tall and adult-like. But as you know, our power isn’t a healing power. Even if mother could use magic, it wouldn’t have worked on you. My recovery magic didn’t either. But she still healed you…”

Mercedes’ story continued.

And in Carlos’ mind too, a faint memory from his very young days slowly surfaced.

* * *

Was it when he was thirteen… fourteen?

It was around the time his shoulders were starting to broaden and he was growing so fast that he suffered from growing pains every night.

Carlos Rivera matured early, and always tried to get his mother out of the separate palace.

Gritting his teeth through the pain of his bones expanding as he grew, he continued his studies while wielding a sword every day.

And at some point.

He caught the eye of the previous emperor.

The eyes of the fourteen-year-old child were clearer than those of many knighted individuals, and his physique was impressive.

Whether he was born with the ability to use a sword or not, his skills grew quickly enough to rival the imperial guard without even being given a teacher.

The previous emperor began to openly favor him, and from that time on, he began to study tactics little by little and prepare to wander the battlefields.

Then he awakened his aura.

Aura was not something that could be easily used, and when overloaded, one had to lie down for a while.

It took a long time to practice for operation, and during that time, the curse began to build up.

“Carlos.”

His mother tried to stop her son. Saying this separate palace was fine. That if he would just come visit her here from the prince’s palace, she would be content to stay here.

“Don’t take up the sword.”

But Carlos didn’t want to hear that.

The more he studied, the more he saw. Thanks to growing up as an insignificant prince ignored in the imperial palace, he was able to move around freely, and he tried to find out information from the outside world for his mother’s sake.

At first, that was all. But as he went out and wandered around, going through various back alleys, he also learned about the lives of the imperial citizens.

And naturally, a sense of justice blossomed in Carlos’ heart.

It was true that it was for his mother, but he could see that if the Crown Prince, who was first in the line of succession, ascended to the imperial throne as things were, the people would suffer.

For someone who had been able to observe the imperial citizens sufficiently, that future seemed truly terrible.

Because he too loved Room, loved humanity.

“…Mother. I find it unjust that you have to live like this, that those fools will fight over the line of succession while the imperial citizens suffer.”

“Are you saying it’s right to sacrifice yourself to resolve your resentment?”

“I am not being sacrificed.”

“I’ve told you about that curse many times.”

“Even so, I cannot just stand by and watch.”

From some point on, he was always in tense opposition with his mother.

The mother worried because she knew her son was righteous and overflowing with talent, and the son knew his mother’s worries were valid, so their relationship didn’t worsen.

They just worried about each other, over and over.

The problem arose when the previous emperor began to call for him frequently, slowly bringing his existence to the surface.

He earnestly asked the previous emperor to divert all his guards to his mother’s separate palace and acted alone.

As a result, he often became an easy target for assassins.

It was obvious.

Those sent by the Empress Dowager, who was the Empress at that time, were quite skilled, while those sent by other concubines could be easily dealt with.

So the Empress was always a headache for him. Though now as an adult he might consider their skills insignificant, back then he had just awakened his aura and was still growing.

“There he is, catch him!”

Frequenting the back alleys was to gather information and to observe people.

He went out knowing it was dangerous. No matter how much the previous emperor favored him, he couldn’t know how the world was turning from within the narrow imperial palace.

It was easier to know in the back alleys than in the imperial palace how precarious the Crown Prince’s position as first in line for succession was, and whether he was losing ground to him.

That day was like that too.

He knew it was dangerous. Nevertheless, he diverted his guards and alone, late at night, climbed over the imperial palace walls and headed for the information guild.

Was that the problem?

Was it arrogance to have confidence that he could defeat adults despite his not fully grown body?

That day, the number of assassins following him was particularly large and very persistent.

Several times, he had to suffer wounds that barely missed vital points and had to run endlessly. He felt pain as if his lungs would burst as he chased and was chased.

The night streets were quiet.

He couldn’t hide anywhere or blend in among passersby.

Dressed in black from head to toe, how did they find him in the darkness?

Countless swords and daggers flew at him.

Dodging, running, hiding and then ambushing to end the opponent’s breath.

How many times did he repeat this?

Having overused his aura not long after properly mastering it, he finally collapsed in some unknown deep alley.

He was too young.

It was fortunate that he had used his aura widely enough to find and eliminate all the assassins before collapsing.

“Ugh… huk.”

A pain he had never felt before came over him.

A pain as if his whole body was stiffening.

It was a pain that made him think he might die like this.

Was it cold? Or hot? Even the weather was vague and his thoughts were gradually disappearing.

In the alley where Carlos had fainted, a girl in a worn robe and a tall woman carefully looked around as they approached Carlos.

“Mom. Where are you going?”

“Shh, Medi. Be good. We have to be quiet.”

“Mmm… Okay.”

It was Mercedes and her mother.

“Oh. Mom. I think that big brother is dead.”

If she had been an ordinary young child, she might have been scared of death and startled at the sight of the bloodied Carlos.

But the two were somehow surviving in the harsh back alleys of the capital. All sorts of things happened in the back alleys.

It wasn’t uncommon to see bodies frozen to death in winter, and poor people would search those bodies for anything of value. Mercedes had grown up doing such things.

That’s why Mercedes wasn’t afraid when she saw the blood-covered Carlos.

Rather, she just poked his cheek repeatedly.

“He seems to be alive… Mom. This big brother’s clothes look expensive. Should we search him?”

“Medi. Come behind mom for a moment.”

The woman who had been quietly observing the unconscious boy sat down and examined Carlos.

“…I thought he was a full-grown adult just looking at his size, but he’s a child.”

“Huh? A child? Medi’s friend?”

“Well. He seems more like a big brother than our Medi.”

“Right? He’s so big.”

“But, he’s a child. Small and weak like you.”

Mercedes’ mother held Mercedes tightly in her arms as she stroked the fallen Carlos’ cheek.

“A child… He should survive.”

“Mmm. He looks like he’s in so much pain.”

Mercedes quietly looked at Carlos and then squeezed her hand for no reason. His hand was as cold as a corpse.

“…This child, he doesn’t seem to be an ordinary child.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Medi. Can you stay quietly by mom’s side for a moment?”

“Okay!”

Young Mercedes, with a bright expression despite her disheveled appearance, nodded with her chubby cheeks.

The mother patted her head and then quietly took Carlos’ hand.

“…That’s right.”

Unlike Mercedes, the mother had already consumed several lives to store power in order to survive with her child.

She hadn’t attacked anyone, only absorbing the lives of those in the back alleys who seemed about to breathe their last.

That’s why she was sometimes called the witch of the back alleys. Mercedes didn’t understand well the light her mother emitted or the actions she took.

Because her mother didn’t tell her. She just told her to hide, that she didn’t need to use it, and only stepped forward herself.

Her experience of surviving like that had grown. So Mercedes’ mother quickly realized that Carlos had a unique constitution, that the life force she had been stealing was fundamentally accumulated within him.

“Recovery magic won’t work…”

‘He didn’t collapse because of injuries.’

She became a bit anxious. The boy’s body was stiffening.

‘He won’t die right away, but… he’ll die faster than he originally would have.’

Mercedes’ mother couldn’t leave the boy alone.

Whether it was because of the familiarity she felt in his power, or because as a mother with a child her heart ached, she herself didn’t know well.

In any case, wanting to save the boy, she placed her hand on the boy’s heart, betting on a possibility.

And… she absorbed life force.