Chapter 174
The name that slipped from his lips felt strangely foreign to her.
Hailon rarely ever called Chesha by her first name.
Only when absolutely necessary would he add the family name and address her as “Chesha Basilian.”
Along with that unfamiliarity came a small, pleasant flutter in her chest.
Chesha drew in a deep breath, and the tip of her nose stung with emotion.
Only now did she recognize the feeling she had failed to notice before.
*I missed Hailon.*
He was the one who had followed her all the way to the Fairy Kingdom.
When she had slipped through time, wandered the past, and returned to reality a year later,
she had unconsciously hoped he would come find her.
She hadn’t even been aware of it herself, yet deep inside she had carried that quiet wish.
Because… he had always come.
This time too, she had believed he would appear as though it were the most natural thing in the world, wearing that indifferent face of his, and pull her out of this hopeless situation.
But Hailon, now branded a traitor to the Holy Empire, could not come to her.
She had told herself it was only to be expected and tried to let it go.
In truth, she had missed him terribly.
Emotions that had lain submerged beneath the surface now surged up all at once.
Biting her small lips, Chesha reached out to him.
The man who had stood like a statue, soul seemingly gone, crumpled his face in anguish.
With a completely broken expression, he rushed toward her.
He was in such desperate haste that he—who had never stumbled once in his life—tripped and staggered.
“Ah, of all moments…”
Ishuel grumbled openly, wrinkling his nose in clear displeasure at having gotten in the way.
Even so, he obediently released the Chesha he had been holding.
Her small body was instantly enveloped in Hailon’s broad, generous embrace.
“…….”
Hailon said nothing. He simply drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
Only after filling his lungs again and again with the faint floral scent that clung to Chesha did he finally manage to speak, his voice strained.
“…Why.”
The arm around her twitched once, sharply.
For a long moment he could not continue. When he tried again, the sentence broke off unfinished once more.
“How did you end up…….”
Chesha hugged him back with all her strength and whispered,
“I missed you.”
At her honest confession, Hailon fell silent again.
Then, without a word, he gently rested his face against hers.
Unfamiliar black hair slid down softly, tickling her cheek.
Questions she had stored away—how he had vanished, why he had appeared only now—were countless.
Yet every one of them melted away like snow in sunlight at those three simple words.
Hailon answered in a low voice.
“…Me too.”
Throughout his life, he had never yearned for anything.
Except for one thing.
Hailon, who had merely existed because he had been born, had come to harbor fierce, burning emotions entirely because of her.
Watching him suffer, Daren—who knew the whole story—had once spoken with skepticism.
“It might have been better if you had never met her.”
“Sometimes I wonder… perhaps her very existence is a curse upon you, my lord…….”
It was blunt advice, offered as both subordinate and friend.
He was not wrong.
Clearly, Lichesia had never been a blessing in Hailon’s life.
Yet because she existed, Hailon existed.
It was not some soft, fragile sentiment.
It was the fundamental logic of the world that had shaped him.
“…….”
A sharp headache pierced his skull, and Hailon frowned faintly.
When had he last slept properly?
It had been so long he could barely remember.
Now fatigue felt like a natural state of being.
Yet he had no desire to rest.
On the contrary, he welcomed pushing himself to the brink.
If the pain ever stopped, enduring would become far harder.
He wanted to drown the agony of his mind beneath the pain of his body.
Chesha Basilian had disappeared.
It had happened because the winner of the Little Saints’ Prayer Assembly had handed the Fairy Queen’s crown to a child.
At the time, Hailon had already been dragged beyond the borders of the Holy Empire.
In the circular assembly hall, during the holy trial, he had been sentenced to death for violating sacred regulations and for uttering blasphemous words.
“Pope Sianor Hilderd has conducted cruel experiments on fairies in his pursuit of eternal life.”
“Though fairies are deemed heretical, they too are living beings created by God.”
“I revealed myself as an inquisitor solely to stop acts that defile the name of God. Therefore, I have broken no regulations.”
There was not a single flaw in Hailon’s argument.
He had spoken only the truth.
But it was the perfect opportunity to remove the head of the inquisitors.
The holy priests seized the chance and pressed their attack without mercy. Some holy knights, repulsed by the idea of accusing the pope himself, turned their backs on Hailon.
In the end, by majority vote, the death sentence was passed.
Hailon was taken outside the Holy Empire for execution.
The pope abandoned even the congratulations for the winner of the Little Saints’ Prayer Assembly and followed in person.
Ostensibly, the reason was to recover the holy relic in Hailon’s possession.
In reality, the pope could not bear to let Hailon—who had absorbed every drop of his divine power—die so easily.
If death was unavoidable, he at least wanted to extract the sacred power dwelling within him.
Hailon was locked inside an iron cage designed to suppress divine power, limbs bound by restraints, eyes blindfolded, and transported out of Hilderd.
The place chosen for the execution was a remote snowfield in the north.
The nameless expanse was nothing but snow and ice.
Amid the howling blizzard, the pope looked down at Hailon with an arrogant face.
Forced to his knees in the snow, Hailon silently met his gaze.
“Hailon.”
The pope coaxed him in a deliberately tender voice.
“I wish to give you one last chance.”
“You were once the most devout child of all… how did it come to this…….”
With feigned sorrow, he stroked Hailon’s head with his prosthetic hand.
The touch of ice-cold metal, chilled by the northern frost, was chilling.
To the pope who treated him like a mere child, Hailon answered quietly.
“I, too, will give you one last chance.”
“Where have you hidden the fairies?”
The pope’s cheek twitched.
The man who had been feigning benevolence could no longer hide his true nature; his eyes widened in fury.
“You have been deeply corrupted by heretical thought. There is no sign of repentance.”
The pope stretched out his hand and commanded,
“Execute the sentence!”
At his order, the holy knights advanced.
Ordinarily, the punishment of high-ranking figures was carried out by inquisitors.
This time, however, the knight commanders themselves stepped forward—an unusual measure.
Since every inquisitor belonged to Hailon, the pope had deliberately excluded them and summoned only those he could still somewhat trust.
He had also emptied the papal treasury of its strongest restraints, bringing even the most powerful ones.
With restraints of holy-relic grade, they believed that not even Hailon could escape death.
But it was the pope’s fatal miscalculation.
Staring at the approaching holy knights, Hailon turned his gaze back to the pope.
“The one to whom I offered my flesh and soul is not you, Sianor.”
His silver hair whipped wildly in the snow-laden wind.
The casual use of the pope’s personal name stunned everyone for a moment.
The brief silence shattered with his next words.
“Furthermore, every action I have taken has remained within the regulations granted by God.”
“I merely condemn all that is impure.”
Clang!
A terrifying sound of shattering rang across the snowfield.
A sharp, continuous crack.
The chains binding Hailon, the shackles, the cuffs—everything broke at once.
Pure white holy chains, white as snow, shot outward in every direction.
In a world blanketed entirely in white, only his piercingly vivid blue eyes burned with savage light.
“In the name of God, I shall condemn you.”
