What does this mean? Lucas stared at Iberis with confused eyes. He couldn’t understand the current situation.
Suddenly, he wondered if Iberis had figured out his true identity, but judging by his expression, it didn’t seem so.
If he had realized that Lucas himself was Lucas Lowell Blake, he would have interrogated him with a shocked face or angrily confronted him with a sense of betrayal, instead of making such an earnest request.
As that thought crossed his mind, Lucas felt his heart sink. He swallowed hard, trying to remain calm. For now, he needed to find out why Iberis wanted to see ‘Lucas Lowell Blake’.
However, his mouth felt frozen shut, unable to move. His stomach churned as if the tea he had just drunk was flowing back up.
“A few months ago, you know, you talked with Regina Lowell Blake. Aren’t you in frequent contact? I thought I heard you were close…”
As Lucas remained silent in shock, Iberis continued, watching his reaction. Back then, too, the Lieutenant had reacted sensitively about Regina Lowell Blake. It was because she was ill due to the aftermath of an accident and living as an unregistered ability user.
Knowing this, Iberis assumed Lucas’s inability to answer was due to surprise at his somewhat abrupt request. He began to worry about how much more shocked Lucas would be when he said that Viscount Blake might be his Name match.
“Viscount Blake doesn’t often appear in public, right? He only keeps in touch with a very small circle… So I thought going through you would be the fastest way.”
“Ah, yes… That’s right.”
Lucas finally came to his senses, still looking dazed. He now remembered brushing off the incident when he was caught talking to Regina on the phone, making up a lie about being a distant relative.
“…May I ask why?”
Lucas asked in a tense voice. He had noticed from that conversation that Iberis felt indebted to ‘Lucas Lowell Blake’, but he couldn’t understand why he suddenly wanted to meet him now.
But one thing was certain. This was the moment to reveal his true identity to Iberis.
Lucas unconsciously clenched his fist and bit his lower lip. After confessing to Iberis, he had imagined this moment countless times in his head.
In Lucas’s imagination, Iberis sometimes got angry at him, and sometimes brushed it off nonchalantly. It was hard to gauge how Iberis would react.
For this reason, Lucas had pondered hundreds, no, thousands of times about in what situation he should bring it up, how to broach the subject, and what to explain from where to where. But he couldn’t find the perfect way to do it.
The possibility that Iberis might be disappointed and turn his back on him when he learned the truth, the fear that the trust and faith they had built up could crumble in an instant, always held Lucas back.
In the end, Lucas had been putting it off, thinking he would confess his secret when Iberis opened his heart to him just a little more. But now he could no longer run away.
Although he hadn’t anticipated this exact situation in his countless imaginings, now that Iberis had expressed his desire to meet Lucas Lowell Blake, it was the perfect opportunity to reveal everything.
“Well, um…”
Iberis carefully chose his words as Lucas asked for the reason. Then he dropped an enormous bombshell.
“Viscount Blake might be my Name match.”
“…What?”
Name match? Who? Whose? Lucas wore a blank expression at the unexpected words. He looked at Iberis with disbelief. The shock hit his head like a blow to the back of the skull, making his brain ring. His heart, which had been beating out of sync until now, took a sudden plunge.
“Name… match?”
Lucas asked, squeezing his constricted throat. His voice cracked miserably at the end, he was so shocked. His trembling gaze moved to Iberis’s right foot hidden under the table.
Thump thump.
The sound of his heart beating violently buzzed in both his head and ears. For a moment, an intense dizziness came over him, and his vision turned black.
Creak.
Lucas suddenly felt a strong dizziness and grabbed the sofa armrest tightly. He gripped it so hard that the leather made a ripping sound. He worried that Iberis might find it strange, but he couldn’t help it. If he didn’t do this, he felt like he might jump up and rush to Iberis right away.
“Luke? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just a bit surprised.”
As expected, a concerned question came. Lucas answered while desperately suppressing the urge to immediately check Iberis’s ankle.
“Ah, well, that’s understandable. But it’s not certain, it’s just my guess.”
Iberis cleared his throat softly and calmly explained the whole story, as if telling Lucas to calm down.
“I mentioned it once before, right? That I had a connection with Viscount Blake’s parents. Actually, on the day Mr. and Mrs. Armand passed away… the Name ‘Lucas’ appeared on my leg. The timing coincided… so I’ve suspected he might be my Name match since then. But I didn’t dare to confirm it.”
“…”
“I mustered up the courage to go to the hospital where the Blake siblings were said to be hospitalized, but I was turned away. After that, I got busy and forgot about it. Later, when I found out his whereabouts, I couldn’t go to him because I was afraid he might be in danger because of me…”
Lucas sat dazed, listening to Iberis’s explanation. His mind was so distant that even Iberis’s voice sounded faint, as if coming from far away.
But Lucas’s brain didn’t miss a single word of Iberis’s. As his story continued, the surprise gradually turned into certainty.
The joke Winfried had once made about their matching rate rising at an unprecedented speed was true after all.
Suddenly, the area near his shoulder blades tingled and then stung as if being pricked by a needle. It felt like it was urging him to quickly confirm the Name engraved on Iberis’s body.
“To be honest, I hoped Viscount Blake wasn’t my Name match. I still do. So I’ve had people look for guides named Lucas from time to time, but it was all in vain. That made me curious now and then…”
“…”
“So I want you to connect me with Viscount Blake. I want to confirm if he really is my Name match.”
Is this such a shocking matter? Iberis wondered, seeing Lucas’s face turn pale after he finished speaking. Of course, he would have reacted similarly, but this seemed a bit excessive.
Then, as if realizing something, he let out an “Ah.” He noticed that to the Lieutenant, his desire to meet Viscount Blake might sound like he wanted to end their pairing. Iberis hurriedly opened his mouth.
“Oh, even if Lucas Lowell Blake turns out to be my Name match, I have no intention of receiving guiding from him. It’s just, well, I want to satisfy a curiosity I’ve had for a long time? Even if he’s not, as he’s Mr. Armand’s son, it would be meaningful to see his face once…”
“I’ll arrange for you to meet him.”
“Huh?”
Iberis, who had been earnestly explaining to prevent Lucas from misunderstanding, paused when Lucas interrupted him. He found it strange that Lucas agreed so readily after being so shocked earlier.
“Really? Can I see him right away? I’d like to arrange it before returning to N-zone…”
“Yes. It’s possible right now.”
“What?”
Possible right now? Iberis tilted his head at the strange answer. Then his eyes widened at Lucas’s next words.
“Because I am ‘Lucas Lowell Blake’.”
“…What?”
Now it was Iberis’s turn to be shocked. He looked at Lucas, who was rising from his seat, with a face that questioned if he had heard correctly. Deep confusion filled his round, silver-gray eyes.
“What… What did you just say? You’re who?”
“…Do you remember what I told you when I confessed to you before, Major?”
“If you mean what you told me…”
Iberis murmured in a trembling voice in response to Lucas’s question. At that time, the Lieutenant had said he enlisted in the defense force for a certain purpose and was inevitably deceiving those around him.
Iberis, who had been bothered by this all along, had planned to ask Lucas to tell him what he was hiding when he responded to his confession today.
Could it be…
His small lips parted slightly at a thought that crossed his mind. Iberis looked up blankly at Lucas approaching him, like someone in a daze.
Meanwhile, Lucas knelt on one knee in front of Iberis and gently placed his hand on top of Iberis’s. Then, like a sinner confessing before a priest, he voiced his secret.
“Although I’m living as Luke Illum, having enlisted in the defense force to avenge my parents… my real name is ‘Lucas Lowell Blake’.”
