~CHAPTER 34~
She was right in front of me.
He knew she was the kind of person who could throw away her own life for someone else, yet he had been careless.
Sian reached out, and she failed to grab her.
More than thirty minutes had passed since Serena disappeared, and by then he couldn’t see anything properly.
He tore through the temple like a madman, scattering holy power as if he would search every wall in the basement, but he couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of Serena.
Sir Sian, stop!
What is all this chaos!
The priests who had been inside the temple ran out in a panic to stop him, but Sian couldn’t hear any of it.
He knew full well that what he was doing now was something a Holy Knight, or anyone at all, should never do.
To destroy a temple was no different from insulting God and defiling a sacred place.
But Sian had no hesitation because he no longer had the reason left to think that far.
Sian began digging at a spot where he faintly felt Serena’s presence just as he was about to break open the prayer room floor.
Because Serena had used magic to connect to the child’s mind, he could barely sense the magic flowing beneath the floor.
“……!”
Without hesitation, Sian coated his sword in holy power and slammed it into the floor.
Bang! Bang!
Good grief, Sir Sian!
The priests went pale and tried desperately to pull him back, but Sian didn’t stop.
And finally, when he broke a hole through the floor and found Serena—
“Ha……”
He couldn’t describe the relief he felt when he saw her squinting as the sudden light from above hurt her eyes.
Holding Serena in his arms as she climbed up through the hole was not a conscious choice.
By the time he came to his senses, he was already doing it.
Warmth spread from Serena’s body into Sian’s hands.
And when he felt the faint but steady heartbeat, he could finally breathe properly again.
He thought he had lost her again.
“Sir Sian?”
Even though he had sworn to protect her.
And she had been right.
As if to mock him for believing the priests would never confine a child, the child had clearly been locked away and left to rot.
Sian wanted to punch himself for foolishly thinking such a thing could never happen.
If he thought about it, she had never once said anything absurd. He should have believed her.
Why did this woman make him feel such shame?
He squeezed Serena’s shoulders tightly with his eyes shut.
Sian silently vowed deep inside that he would never allow something like this to happen again.
“You all will explain yourselves properly.”
Sian’s gaze was on the child, even as he held Serena in his arms.
The priests knew his words were directed at them.
We’re doomed.
He wasn’t just anyone.
He was the Captain of the Holy Knights serving directly beside the High Priest.
They couldn’t threaten or coax him into letting this slide.
The priests swallowed hard.
Some felt genuinely wronged.
“I’m innocent!”
One of them even had the courage to speak.
A trainee priest collapsed to the floor, pleading his innocence, his face looking much younger than his title suggested.
“I just stayed still! The senior priests told me what to do, so what could I have done?”
“Y-yes, I’m innocent too!”
“M-me too… I swear I never harmed the child! I just pretended not to see…”
After one confessed, the others followed quickly.
The younger priests, all around the same age, dropped to their knees one by one, begging for understanding.
Only the older priests remained standing, their expressions dark.
It was impossible to tell whether it was betrayal they felt toward the younger ones or pity for them.
But in the end—
“Enough.”
None of that mattered.
Even if they were young, they were not too young to know this was wrong.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know.
They knew and still chose to ignore it, and that made their sin even heavier.
“You will regret this.”
Those words came from the priest who had guided Sian and Serena earlier.
With a visibly displeased expression, he pointed at the child.
“Sir Sian, do you even know what kind of creature you’re trying to save?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“A half-breed with a demon. A half-breed! And if she could go where that child was, then that woman must also—”
He couldn’t finish his sentence.
Sian pressed his blade to the priest’s throat.
The priest clearly valued his life, because he instantly shut his mouth and swallowed.
“I don’t care for excuses. No matter this child’s bloodline, you’ve committed a sin unworthy of being called priests.”
Sian clenched his teeth as he held the sword against him.
***
Sian sealed the entire temple with a holy barrier.
No one could enter or leave.
The temple itself had become a prison.
He looks so upset that I can’t even talk to him.
Holding the child silently in his arms, Sian accompanied me home before rushing off to contact the High Temple.
He could’ve just left the child with me and gone straight there.
That would’ve been faster.
The child, who had been struggling wildly when Sian pulled him from the hole, became completely quiet once in Sian’s arms.
Maybe the outside world was too unfamiliar after being confined for so long.
I figured that was why.
Earlier he seemed wary of me too, yet now he clung to my hand like it was a lifeline.
I held his hand and opened the door to my house.
The first to greet me was Ratia.
“Serena! What is that?”
“You shouldn’t call a person a ‘that.’ But weren’t you supposed to be sleeping…?”
“I couldn’t sleep!”
Ratia chirped cheerfully as she circled around me and the child.
“Uh… ah…”
The child looked uncomfortable with a stranger running circles around him.
He’s definitely the kid Ifrit was looking for.
Maybe I should’ve taken him to Ifrit first instead of coming home…
But Sian looked so upset earlier that I couldn’t get a word in and just followed him home.
A half-breed between a human and a demon…
No wonder the feeling was strange.
I sensed something like a demonic presence, but I never guessed he was a hybrid.
Demons were born already in adult form.
So I never imagined this tiny child could be one.
I just assumed he had some magical affinity.
But a hybrid…
A human and demon hybrid.
I had no idea what story could lead to that.
Sometimes I forgot, after living again and again, but this world was still based on a novel.
Were this child’s parents the protagonists or something?
A forbidden romance across races.
Like in those fantasy romances.
While I stared at the child, his appearance became clearer in the light.
And it was awful.
Arms and legs so thin they looked about to snap.
Skin pale as if he had never seen sunlight.
Eyes sunken deep with exhaustion.
He looked like someone who had been fed barely enough to avoid death and locked away for his entire life.
Growl…
The child’s stomach growled loudly, like thunder in a small body.
Come to think of it, he kept trying to gnaw on things earlier.
If I was going to feed him, I needed to go out.
No one capable of cooking properly was home right now.
I might as well feed him and show him to Ifrit at the same time.
I stopped Ratia from circling the child and took his hand again.
He quickly grabbed on, gripping tightly.
Like my hand was a rope he couldn’t afford to lose.
A strange warmth filled my chest.
He was a demon, yet the so-called Demon King hadn’t taken care of him at all.
It was pathetic.
How much pain had this child suffered in the cycles where I never found him?
Did anyone else ever find him?
Or did he die alone in that cold darkness?
My mood… was not good.
