Chapter 71: I know you won’t do it
Roger’s face was a distorted canvas reflecting the aftermath of what had transpired with him. His clothes, which had once signaled the dignity of his position as a minister, had become tattered, granting him an appearance that provoked both pity and disdain at once.
Exhaustion was gnawing at his body and soul, yet he was barring his mind from acknowledging it, terrified that the mere thought of fatigue would throw him to the ground and cause his body to completely collapse. Yes, he was in the direst need of convincing himself that he was fine, that his strength had not depleted, and that everything would return to normal.
The imperial capital was indeed vast, its streets twisting like serpents, yet it was not wide enough to contain the roaring rage and overwhelming guilt that were squeezing his heart and suffocating his breath.
He did not know where to go, nor what to do. He moved mechanically through the crowds, buffeted by bodies and colliding with passersby without paying them any mind, feeling that his powers of resistance were fading and gradually collapsing.
It seemed that the capital’s nightlife was proceeding in its natural course, calm and indifferent, as though a fiercely raging battle had not taken place shortly before, and no blood had been shed or souls claimed. This deadly calm doubled his sense of futility, making him feel that everything he had gone through was merely a heavy nightmare or a crude, frightening joke.
He, who had always been the epitome of cowardice and hesitation, calculating the consequences of his actions a hundred times before taking a single step—how had he transformed into this monstrosity of brutality and coldness? How had he come to possess this icy tone, utterly indifferent to the repercussions of his destructive deeds?
This person was not him. Roger had always weighed matters with the scale of reason and self-interest. Undoubtedly, this fight would not be the last with the scoundrels of the Transmigrators Organization; for they were extremely powerful, possessing immense influence and long arms across the entire world.
And he, certainly, could not fight now in this wretched state of weakness and exhaustion. He even believed with cynical certainty that if a small child were to stab him with a rusty kitchen knife, he would only be able to take the hit and fall in silence.
He did not know where to search in the midst of this chaos. The roads were many and branching, and the people were numerous and looked alike. Where should he begin? In the end, he did not possess a single thread to lead him to her. Yet, in the depth of this wandering, he had one clearly defined objective: he must find her.
Due to his wretched mental state and the exhaustion overwhelming his senses, his mind began to trick him, painting random images of girls who appeared to him, in a moment of madness, to resemble his mistress.
After an hour of moving between shops, exhaustive searching, and constant questioning—and being subjected to expulsion, insults, and attempts to deceive him by fraudsters who coveted his golden bracelets—he found nothing.
He believed that this was the inevitable end to his cowardice and negligence; he believed that in this manner, he would never find her, and that he had betrayed her with a betrayal harsher and deeper than anything he had perpetrated in the past.
It was confirmed in his sick mind that this Cain had imprisoned her soul and sealed it within the body of his biological daughter as part of his despicable and mysterious schemes—the schemes of that accursed organization.
His mistress had been magnificent and extremely powerful, but that did not mean it was impossible to deceive her and delude her into thinking everything was natural. She is certainly deceived... so Roger thought in despair.
He thought that his mistress was undoubtedly deceived by Cain because she possessed a profound, buried desire for a family—a desire to have a true family that loved her. And this was certainly the thing Cain was brilliantly exploiting to control her and harness her power for his benefit.
Yet the enraged and broken Roger possessed no solution to this lethal riddle. He could not fight Cain now; he was far too weak. Even with his maximum power that he possessed an hour ago, he was nothing but an insect at most before a monster like Cain. He wouldn’t last a single second against him.
But was not retreating now tantamount to an act of high treason? To leave his mistress now in Cain’s clutches—was this not considered abandonment and betrayal... a betrayal... of that child in whose body the soul of his mistress and mentor sheltered?
Searching for her now, no matter how desperate, was a thousand times better than a lifetime of futile regret and heartbreak. He needed to hasten the search... if he failed, he would be a traitor.
In the dark streets of the capital, Roger walked slowly and quietly, his eyes scanning the roads with eagerness and despair. The lights of the shops in that district were dim and faint, frequented by the homeless and the outcasts; hence, those who came here rarely scrutinized individuals like him.
He was walking completely off-balance, his body swaying right and left, his mind sinking into hallucinations.
"My Lady... I am not a traitor..."
He was muttering incomprehensible words. The dim lights, combined with the effect of the fog that began to shroud his vision, made sight in this place exceptionally difficult.
Roger was walking through the streets, detached from reality...
And unexpectedly...
He collided with a man wearing an elegant black suit and a dark black hat in the darkness that completely covered his face.
Thud!
The man’s chest was solid as rock, knocking Roger backward to the ground from the force of the impact.
"I am sorry... forgive me..." Roger muttered in panic as he tried to stand.
Yet Roger faintly noticed, amidst the thick fog in his eyes, the calm smile etched across the face of the man, who slightly lifted his hat and extended his hand to Roger.
Roger grasped the hand of the man, who smiled in his face with a strange look—a look whose meaning he could not discern.
"It doesn’t matter..." the man said in a quiet, low voice.
But when Roger looked at the man’s face clearly, the cells of his body froze, and his face hardened as if he had been struck by lightning.
"Heh... Ahh... You!"
The man looked at Roger with an affected look of wonder and a mysterious smile.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Roger?"
Roger swallowed hard with difficulty, trying to open his eyes and look precisely at the man’s features.
"...It’s just... you resemble me so much... your voice... it resembles me too... This is a terrifying surprise... You know me."
The mysterious man smiled, gripping Roger’s hand and pulling him back, lifting him with a strength strange for his slender frame.
"Certainly... Isn’t it strange to see someone who resembles you... after you have made the worst decision of your life? Have you never thought before, what would happen if you thought more logically to alter the decisions of the future?"
Roger was on the verge of losing his mind at what this person was saying; for his words carried ambiguous and dangerous meanings.
"What do you mean? What do you want from me?" Roger cried out with eagerness and despair.
"Yo, yo, man... you look to be in a terrible state. I am telling you this from the reality of a painful personal experience: logical decisions are the solution to all problems. Clinging to emotion brings nothing but destruction."
Roger still understood nothing; his mind was in a state of total bewilderment and lack of comprehension. The matter seemed entirely ambiguous and mysterious.
"You do not understand my suffering... you do not understand the pain of losing someone completely unless you have gone through it," Roger muttered with deep sorrow.
Yet the man standing before him kept smiling amidst the darkness and the dim light, with no one nearby to overhear their secret dialogue.
"Mr. Roger... you certainly do not know the pain of someone who lost his wife an eternity ago. You won’t understand it... you won’t understand it until you see her die twice before your eyes. But certainly, you are the only one who can fix everything. Act logically... stop searching."
The man’s eyes had begun to look... completely dead. Despite his smiling expressions, if someone were to look into his eyes, they would find nothing but an abyss of blackness and total emptiness.
"Though I know you won’t do it..."