Andro couldn’t withstand the intense torture and lost consciousness again.

Askan unconsciously clicked his tongue. He had a splendid record as a former mercenary, and it was pathetic that he couldn’t endure this level of torture.

Mercenaries were different from knights. Knights had pride, but mercenaries, driven purely by money, had no loyalty to their employers.

While Askan expected it to be relatively easy to extract information from Andro, it was even easier than he had anticipated.

With a smart knock, a thick iron door opened, revealing Kaltin, a massive figure like a bear.

“Commander, leave it to me and take a break for a moment.”

Askan nodded as he glanced at the unconscious Andro, “Fine. Don’t wake him up until I return.”

“Understood.”

Having entrusted Andro to Kaltin, Askan stood up and left the torture chamber.

Though the iron door of the torture chamber closed again with a heavy sound, to Askan, who had excellent hearing, the sound of Kaltin waking up Andro by splashing water on him faintly echoed.

Askan, with an expressionless face, headed towards the stairs leading out of the underground torture chamber.

Outwardly, everything seemed normal, but internally, his state of mind was quite complex.

He had wondered about the time he forgot when he first realized he had lost his memory.

However, after leaving the lab along with Helcyon, witnessing the deaths of the children who underwent experiments made him forget about such curiosity.

Since then, he had been too busy living. There was no time to look elsewhere. With revenge being a task that required attention, it wasn’t just one or two things to deal with.

However, ever since he met Tanashia, the time he couldn’t remember bothered him.

‘What kind of memories could make Tanashia remember me for ten years?’

He knew that Tanashia occasionally reminisced about the past.

He didn’t want to be entangled in a past he couldn’t remember, but the genuine affection she showed him aroused his interest.

However, as Tanashia’s feelings for him grew stronger…

The jealousy about himself that he couldn’t remember intensified.

─Do you like herbal tea?

─…Yes, I do. I used to enjoy it.

─I like it too, so I often drink it. But seeing you bringing tea like this, it seems the butler asked you.

─Right, after having dinner and returning, I met Bishop… sigh.

He didn’t understand why Tanashia was crying while drinking herbal tea.

And that wasn’t the only thing.

─Well, we had kissed before because we had matching lips… something like that.

─Are you saying that we kissed during the time I don’t remember?

─Yes.

Tanashia remembered their first kiss, while Askan couldn’t recall it.

For Askan, there were countless emotions Tanashia expressed that he couldn’t empathize with one by one.
Tanasia was the eldest daughter of the Brellop family and the continent’s top weaponsmith.

One could feel that she had kept Askan, who lacked nothing, in her heart for a long time, even when he was just a slave.

Why exactly?

How could that be?

As the realization that her feelings were rooted in the past settled in, an uneasy feeling rushed through her as if her heart was tightening.

‘What about me now… What happens if the past is missing?’

People are bound to change. Moreover, ten years have passed.

Askan was no longer the boy from back then. But if what Tanasia desired was the boy from that time, he didn’t know what to do.

He couldn’t figure out by what means the past stole her heart.

He despised that the first emotion she showed him stemmed from the past.

‘Maybe Tanasia’s feelings now…’

Unconsciously, Askan clenched his fist tightly.

While it seemed absurd to feel jealousy toward himself, he couldn’t accept Tanasia’s feelings for the Askan he couldn’t remember.

It felt more challenging to surpass than any other adversary.

“If you know anything about me, tell me everything.”

“I… I only know simple information they told me in the lab… Flower! You seemed to like flowers. You cherished dried flower petals.”

The reason Andro meticulously extracted the events from ten years ago was singular: he wanted to glimpse the memories between Askan and Tanasia.

Certainly, Tanasia showed affection toward him, so why was she so devoted as if she were the only one in an unrequited love?

Suddenly, he saw his face reflected in a transparent glass window.

For an instant, the boyhood face overlapped with his current one. Askan seemed to be smiling brightly, whispering as if through the glass.

‘Tanasia is mine.’

Crack!

Askan struck the glass window reflecting his face with his fist. As a result, the large glass shattered into pieces.

Askan stared at his distorted face reflected in the broken glass and muttered.

“…Ghost of the past.”

A few days later, I headed to the underground interrogation room of the guard unit with Askan.

Even indoors, there was an inexplicable chill. As I huddled my shoulders, Askan, somehow knowing, asked in a low voice.

“Feeling cold?”

“No, it’s not that…”