Chapter 24
While Mari was lost in thought, the ribbon tied around the gift came undone in Helios’s grasp.
When he opened the lid, there was a small postcard resting atop a sheet of silver paper that concealed the contents. After reading it, he handed it to Mari with an unreadable expression.
“May you not forget that the root of literature lies in the living. —Enya Valencia.”
It was a tone that Enya Valencia would never use. Mari was a hundred percent certain Laila had written it—but Helios suddenly drew in a sharp breath, as if he had been deeply cut.
“Commander, could it be magic…?!”
Having witnessed Enya’s abilities firsthand, Mari immediately assumed there might be magic powerful enough to pierce even his divine power. She hurriedly stepped beside him to check the gift.
‘Damn.’
She almost bit her tongue.
The gift was none other than Wilderness. And not just any copy—it was the first-edition print she had seen in Laila’s room, bound in sheepskin as a hardcover.
Mari’s trembling gaze turned toward him. Helios, who had instantly recognized its value, looked as though he couldn’t contain his joy—yet at the same time, as if he had been burned by embers.
“Mari… did you… say something unnecessary to the Tower Master?”
“N-no! Absolutely not! I just noticed Wilderness in Laila’s room and mentioned that I knew it. It’s such a famous book—she must’ve just given it as a gift!”
Even in this situation, she instinctively filtered the truth. Under no circumstances could she reveal that Wilderness was Enya’s story.
As his sharp gaze scrutinized her for lies, Mari hurriedly bolted toward the door.
“I’ll go gather the others’ opinions! There’s a lot to say about the training plans—though mostly good things!”
Throwing out something like, “Enjoy your time!” she disappeared like the wind.
Helios remained frozen like a statue, dragging a hand over his face.
The gift itself was overwhelming—but what unsettled him even more was a schedule he had completely forgotten.
In two days, the faceless author would personally appear in the capital to announce new developments related to Wilderness.
Unlike typical events, this was a special publishing gathering where selected passionate readers would even get the chance to meet the author one-on-one. Selection was based on free-form essays, so Helios had been forced to carve out time wherever he could before reaching the capital.
At a roadside inn, he wrote while his horse drank water. By a stream, sitting on a rock. When he had no place to stay, he leaned against a cut tree stump, using his thigh as a desk to write.
Even obtaining paper had been difficult. He only learned of the event by chance after leaving his territory, and since he hadn’t prepared, he had to sell one of his few valuables just to get some.
Unable to waste the precious paper, he wrote drafts in the dirt, memorized them entirely, then transcribed them onto cloth before revising and finally copying them onto paper. When he tied it to a carrier pigeon, he even prayed for its safe arrival.
After all that effort, he had been selected.
Helios believed it was only natural—he was that devoted to Wilderness.
And yet, because he had been constantly dealing with Enya, he had completely forgotten about it.
Only two days left.
“Gloves…”
Muttering blankly, he immediately searched his drawer instead of picking up the book. He pulled out a spare pair of gloves and put them on, then carefully lifted Wilderness, brushing over its thick leather cover.
Good heavens.
The dead leather seemed to pulse in his grasp. Perhaps it was his own heartbeat.
Casting aside all sluggishness, he urgently—yet reverently—opened the book. He turned first to the preface he loved most.
“To the east of a fertile land no outsider may covet lies the blood-soaked Wilderness. It is a place I shall never forget.
It was a war begun with vain expectations and hope for success. But as its end approached, only pain like a broken dam remained. The war drove my mind to the very edge of the earth.”
His heart pounded as he read.
When he first went west, he had felt the same. Skilled with both sword and divine power, he believed killing anything would be easy. He had been full of reckless pride and anger, intending to stand proudly before the emperor after achieving success atop a mountain of blood.
But taking lives corrodes the soul and wears down the mind.
The preface of Wilderness had captured him from the very beginning. The sense of being understood—of being comforted by a shared pain—made it impossible not to love.
“At some point, when I had grown numb to killing, a comrade told me I must accept that I had become a monster. The declaration that I had lost my normalcy made my whole body tremble. My life still trembles with longing—how could I be a monster? I still shed tears—how could I be anything but human?”
“Even if I could not return, it did not mean I was lost. So I chose to move forward—to stake everything on a life without victory.”
When the first section ended, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He remained still, as if absorbing the words, then slowly opened them again. From the author’s note to the printing date, from the foreword to the epilogue, from editing to proofreading—he checked everything thoroughly on the spot.
The book wasn’t long, so it only took a few hours—but if Carpe had seen him, he would’ve mocked him as a hopeless obsessive.
Having devoured every word, he closed the book with satisfaction.
A true first edition.
Not a joke. Not a tease.
This was real.
The swelling emotion made his ribs feel like they were trembling.
Of course, Enya had probably given it to mock him—assuming that someone from the west like him had no appreciation for literature.
But she was wrong.
This gift was perfect.
And yet, even as he felt joy, he couldn’t like the fact that the source of something so precious—something he would pass down as a family heirloom—was her.
He had no intention of ever showing that he was pleased. But he felt he should give a proper return gift—something of equal value, something official, something that wouldn’t reveal his feelings.
Something worthy of a first edition of Wilderness.
“Reckless with your body…”
Muttering, he reached up to a high cabinet and retrieved a small, gold-plated box the size of his palm. At first glance, it looked like it contained a ring for a marriage proposal—but inside was a glass vial engraved with a laurel wreath.
A holy relic—Light of Haen.
Holy water maintained by the temple for over a century, named after Haen, the northern god of healing.
He had received it from the Grand Temple as a reward for defeating the Demon King shortly after arriving in the capital.
Whether one’s throat was cut or heart pierced, as long as one still lived, a single sip could heal most physical wounds.
Extremely rare—only enough for one dose.
‘This should be enough.’
If Mari saw it, she would faint, saying, “The Light of Haen is worth an entire palace.”
Helios, however, was satisfied.
A palace? Very fitting.
He wrapped the book carefully in a handkerchief and placed it deep inside his desk, away from sunlight.
He wanted to carry it with him all day, but the hardcover was too large to tuck into his coat like his previous copy.
To think this is in my hands…
Still bent over, staring at where he had placed it, he was suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Commander, what are you doing?”
“…Carpe.”
He had nearly slammed his head into the desk. Helios slowly straightened, his movements so perfect it was hard to believe he had just been hunched over moments ago.
Turning, he faced Carpe.
Carpe stood there grinning, his gaze flicking over Helios’s waist.
“You didn’t answer when I called. You weren’t… taking care of yourself, were you? That posture looked very…”
“Watch your mouth.”
“What’s wrong with that? I do it every day thinking about Mari.”
Still smiling, Carpe sat on the edge of the desk, tossing a dagger into the air and catching it. Helios casually shifted his body to block the desk as much as possible.
“Anyway, I heard the Tower Master of Morgenda—Enya Valencia—is coming to the temple soon. To coordinate training schedules, right?”
Enya had requested to meet in four days, and Helios had planned to accept.
“But I heard she’s already in the capital.”
“Carpe.”
Helios’s tone turned cold.
“Did you assign your ‘shadows’ to the Tower Master?”
“Yes. Hm? It’s what we always do. We should investigate before formal training begins.”
Carpe spun the dagger between his fingers. Though all those from the west bore the title of holy knight, each had a different role.
Carpe was the leader of Helios’s shadow unit—an information network specializing in gathering intelligence on nobles and specific individuals.
The reason he had entered through the window instead of the door was because of this. Shadows never used doors when meeting their master.
“The Tower Master’s past has a lot of blank spaces. Plenty of questionable points too. That’s what makes it interesting.”
“…Stop.”
“Excuse me?”
“Drop it. Once the subjugation ends, she’ll go into seclusion. She’s not a political asset—just a useless card.”
At Helios’s firm command, Carpe tilted his head in confusion.
“Commander, she killed her own master. Shouldn’t we at least confirm if she has ulterior motives—”
“Carpe.”
Even as he stopped him, Helios knew he was being unreasonable.
In a situation like this, investigating everyone thoroughly was the right thing to do.
But he didn’t want to investigate Enya.
Because she was nothing.
She wouldn’t significantly help him take the west, nor would she hinder him.
That was the reasonable explanation.
But the truth was simpler—
More than not wanting to know about her, he felt that he must not know.
It was something closer to instinct.
A survival instinct.
