I Start with a Bad Hand!

I always had a lingering question.

‘Why does he, a prince, always follow me?’

It was as if he had no life of his own. Except for the times when he went on expeditions or was called away for royal duties, Icarus always followed me around. To be blunt, his daily life didn’t resemble that of an eighteen-year-old boy. A boy who had nothing in his world except the royal family and a girl he liked.

In other words, he was too lonely. And that was the problem. It was something I couldn’t just ignore.

As Hayden once mentioned in passing, loneliness leaves marks that make it inevitable for those with similar marks to recognize each other. Before coming here, I wouldn’t have known about such marks, but at some point, I began to notice and recognize them.

The clues started to come together when I began studying theological language. While organizing the essential vocabulary for basic theology classes, a familiar name caught my eye.

Elius.

“Elius is a theological term. It means… sun.”

My pen, which had been swiftly jotting down notes, came to a sudden halt. …Could parents really name their child this blatantly?

Of course, a name doesn’t explain everything about a person. However, the fact that parents would give such a meaningful name to one of their only two children seemed to explain a lot about them.

A knight so renowned that his fame spread to neighboring countries, even before he graduated from the academy. Yet, the second prince of the empire could spend days without a guard in a remote estate, and no one would come looking for him.

I couldn’t understand the intentions of the royal family, who would take him away to the battlefield whenever there was an exam period, a festival, or a friendly match, but whatever their intentions, it left Icarus isolated.

‘How could I suddenly distance myself from someone like that without saying anything…?’

Agnes and Irene have families and friends. So even if one friend disappears, many people will still be around them. Since I met them at the academy, our relationship is more genuinely mine than Dietrich’s.

But Icarus’s situation is different. Icarus already knew the real Dietrich, and our relationship wouldn’t have formed if not for the real Dietrich.

‘So the least I can do is be honest with him. It might be tough now, but in the long run, it’s better.’

I wasn’t going to say it for the rest of my life here, but that’s not the case. Especially when I might suddenly lose this body at any moment. If that happens, Icarus will have to let go of someone he cherished without knowing the reason why.

I already know how painful an unprepared farewell can be.

After a long silence with no further answers, the priest didn’t ask more questions. Watching me as I poked at the completely burned proof papers, the priest paused for a moment before speaking to me in a cautious tone.

“There was something I didn’t get to ask you back then.”

“Yes…?”

“You said you would return even without a body.”

Ah.

Caught up in the immediate events piling up one after another, I had momentarily forgotten about the most important issue—my own situation.

“I have to.”

“…Are you serious?”

“My feelings haven’t changed. If I manage to remove all the remaining pieces of the original soul from this body, then I will return to where I originally lived.”

“…Do you fully understand what that means? Returning to a place without a body, with only your soul…”

“I know.”

I am aware that this sounds insane to some people.

“I know. Without a body, I wouldn’t be able to do anything there.”

“You know that, and yet…”

“Priest.”

After taking a long, dry swallow, I spoke to the priest. A sudden wave of fatigue washed over me.

“But this… this isn’t my life.”

The conclusion was always the same. The problem wasn’t that I was possessed by ‘Dietrich’s’ life. No matter whose body I was in, I would want to return to my original life.

The reason is simple. Because this isn’t my life.

“My family, friends, achievements… Even this body, nothing is remembered in my name. What can I hope for, living here?”

There is nothing left for me to expect here. What remains are just my goals and duties, and I do my best to fulfill them.

“People create expectations. To give up life for such reasons…”

I sat down next to the priest again. How could I make someone else understand this point? What could be explained in a single name to people from my world seemed to require a lengthy explanation to the priest in this world.

“There was a book I read when I was young about someone who extended their life by latching onto the back of a disciple or a subordinate. I can’t reveal the name, but anyway.”

“What does that have to do with your situation?”

The priest’s response indicated that he found my story irrelevant.

“Just listen. This person was a dark lord who lived by parasitizing others’ bodies to extend his life. To live longer.”

Then he was defeated by kids around thirteen or fourteen years old. A person who had lived for so long.

The priest, still looking puzzled by my seemingly aimless story, listened quietly.

“When I first read it, I was very young. But even then, I thought that living like that was pathetic.”

Living by parasitizing someone else’s body. When I said that, the priest seemed to understand what I was trying to convey.

“I feel like I’m that person right now. Of course, this wasn’t my choice….

Sometimes living like this feels unbearably miserable. Living a life I thought was pathetic.

However, the priest seemed to disagree with me.

“You know there’s a fundamental difference between you and that dark lord from your story. Unlike him, you didn’t choose to come here of your own will. What happened to you was an accident.”

The priest spoke softly but firmly. Seeing someone I thought was always weak and frail speak like that felt new.

“No one can blame a person who’s struggling to survive after an accident. This is true for you as well.”

“I’ve never blamed myself.”

“Giving up on life without making any effort is no different from punishing yourself. Think again. I will also look for ways to maintain the body even after removing all the soul fragments.”

However, I didn’t want to back down either.

“I don’t like it here.”

Should I even say this? I hesitated for a moment. To this priest who seems to love the god who created this world, and thus seems to love this world.

“It’s not that I don’t want to live; it’s that I don’t want to live here.”

At that, the priest’s fervor stopped abruptly.

“I don’t like it here. It bothers me that I have to be constantly anxious about a social hierarchy I can’t change, and the medical system where I have to rely entirely on priests to heal any illness or injury. I can’t get used to it, but since it’s the way things are here, I just endure it… But thinking that this is the place I have to live my whole life makes me feel dreadful.”

There was more I could say, but I stopped the stream of words I had spat out without taking a breath. The priest looked pale and shocked.

“And… even the lyrics of the song I loved are known and remembered only by me here.”

The tale of the warrior Arneb, known to everyone here. The song that everyone sang along with naturally. I knew none of it.

I used to have people to share such things with.

“It’s lonely.”

At some point, I could no longer recall the first sentence of my favorite book. I can’t remember who it was that asked me how I managed to memorize it. I get confused about whether a scene in my mind was from a movie, a drama, a comic, an ad, or a painting, and when I realized there was no one to ask, I knew that everything that made me who I was would vanish without ever being replenished.

And when that all disappears, what will I have left?

“I’ll be going now. Thank you.”

Leaving the speechless priest behind, I exited the temple.

***

“Please take me to Rymus Street.”

I sighed deeply as I sat in the carriage. Agnes had said there weren’t many casualties, but that didn’t mean there were none. And selfishly, I hoped that the few casualties didn’t include the people I had met. It wasn’t that others’ lives were less important, but I couldn’t help feeling this way.

“…Mister. You’re safe?”

When I saw the drunken painter, now with his scruffy beard and hair neatly trimmed, on that street, I felt an unexpected sense of relief that had always been lurking somewhere in my mind.

“Oh, of course, I’m here because I’m safe.”

The fact that his sarcastic response was welcome showed how glad I was to see him. Though his body bore a few scars and burns that seemed to come from the fire, overall, he looked fine.

“There was a big fire… I was worried you might have been hurt.”

The painter, who had been looking me up and down, suddenly spoke.

“Why did you cut your hair?”

“What?”

“You should’ve cut it more nicely. This… this…”

…The worry I had felt disappeared in an instant. What is this? How can someone’s feelings change so quickly? It was as if a long-lost relative had possessed the painter’s body, as he began to critique Dietrich’s appearance with unsolicited advice.

I half-listened to the drunken painter’s ramblings about aesthetic principles while replying absentmindedly.

“Ah, yes…”

Some relationships are better with just brief encounters. I realized that too late.

‘I should just worry about my own remaining life, why am I here listening to this?’

Seeing that he was safe, I figured it was time to leave. I nodded vaguely and was about to move away when he glanced around and beckoned me closer with a gesture. What now, another lecture?

Reluctantly, I trudged back towards him. The painter lowered his voice.

“But the day the fire broke out… something was very strange.”

I took a step back and looked at him. He always did this—sharing intriguing stories just when I was about to leave.

“What was strange about it?”

“Do you know the wig shop down the road?”

“Yes, but why…?”

“The fire started there.”

My heart sank again.

“So, the owner of the wig shop…”

“Yeah…”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask further. Wait a minute.

‘But Agnes said she got the information about the note from the wig shop owner.’

What’s going on here? Could one of them be lying? I looked at the painter. He nodded with a complicated expression.

“They’re safe.”

…Oh! How frustrating! Why does he always phrase things like this?

“But why is that strange?”

“That place can’t catch fire.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Fires don’t choose where to start. Especially in this dusty, smelly area with mostly wooden buildings. Seeing my skeptical face, the painter continued.

“The owner lost their child in a fire.”

“Their child?”

“They lived like a recluse for a long time. Since then, they haven’t allowed anything that could start a fire. They don’t even light lamps in the evening. They close the shop and go inside as soon as it gets dark.”

Or they go out and solicit customers under someone else’s lights.

“That’s why there were no casualties despite the fire. They evacuated people first. So, while the building and shop were destroyed, the people were safe.”

“And the reason valuable items were stored in fireproof places was because that owner nagged everyone to do so.”

Clearing his throat, the painter leaned in closer to whisper.

“This is what I told the imperial investigators.”

“…What?”

He lowered his voice even more.

“I saw something else. I was heading home after a drink… an arrow came flying from the bushes near that house.”

An arrow.

“It was on fire.”