“Why the hell would they do something like that?”
Feeling stifled and frustrated, Rita raked her fingers through her hair with an exasperated groan. Katrin frowned at the sight but chose not to comment. The issue right now wasn’t just Rita’s disheveled appearance.
Everyone gathered here looked less put together than usual. The hero’s disappearance was an unprecedented, wholly unexpected event. No wonder everyone seemed out of sorts.
Edward was no different. In his rush to get ready and come out, he hadn’t even realized his collar was flipped until just moments ago and quickly fixed it.
The Guard Captain, as if recalling something, turned to Edward and asked,
“Did the Hero say anything unusual yesterday?”
Most of the staff at the state guesthouse already knew Edward had come to see Satin late last night.
Meeting their expectant gazes, Edward sighed and replied,
“He didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. When I said we should meet today, he just agreed. I doubt Mr. Satin would’ve left on his own…”
Uncharacteristically, Edward let his words trail off. He couldn’t bring himself to speak with confidence.
Satin had always been a bit of an odd one. Edward had been through enough with him to believe he wasn’t a bad person, but that didn’t erase the strange, hard-to-pin-down aspects of him.
He was like a tree with no roots. He had a clear sense of conviction, but it was impossible to tell where that conviction came from.
‘Memory is the root of a person.’
Not being strong-willed didn’t automatically make someone indecisive. Satin was a prime example. Compared to Rita or Cain, his temperament was clearly gentler, but he never drifted aimlessly without resolve.
Satin often voiced his opinions, and they were usually reasonable. He knew what he could do—and just as importantly, what he couldn’t. He approached everything with sound judgment.
But where did that judgment come from? With no memory, how did Satin discern right from wrong? On what grounds did he decide something must be done, even when he knew he couldn’t do it?
Was it truly impossible that Satin had chosen to leave on his own?
Edward decided against voicing that doubt aloud—it would only cause unnecessary confusion.
“For now, let’s focus on finding Mr. Satin. Even if he left of his own accord, we deserve to know why.”
“I’m going out to look for him, too.”
Rita shot up from her seat. With a sigh, Katrin stood as well. The others who had come with Rita followed her out of the parlor in a rush.
Seeing that there was nothing more to do here, Edward also rose from his seat.
“I’ll take my leave as well. Please let me know if any new information comes in.”
One by one, the Guard Captain, the Commissioner of Order, and everyone else who had gathered hastily for the meeting returned to their own duties.
In the carriage headed back to the Grand Temple, Edward sat deep in thought.
‘Why today, of all days, did he disappear?’
The royal banquets and prayer ceremonies over the past two days had been lavish affairs. Satin had clearly been overwhelmed by all the attention. He’d been so nervous he could barely drink water.
In contrast, today’s schedule was extremely light. No need to meet a crowd, no complicated preparations. It wouldn’t even take much time.
Of course, from Edward’s perspective, today’s event was the most important of all. As a priest, what could be more sacred than entering the Chamber of Whispers?
But Satin wasn’t a priest. He didn’t even seem to grasp the significance of entering the Chamber of Whispers.
‘He said it was the first time he’d ever heard of it.’
To put it a bit blasphemously, today was a day of reward for Satin. He hadn’t avoided all the other tedious events, so why disappear on the very day he was meant to be honored?
Surely it wasn’t because he didn’t know what to wish for.
‘Cain probably knows something.’
By the time Rita and Edward returned to the state guesthouse, Cain was already gone. They were told he had gone out to search for Satin. The Guard Captain looked visibly troubled as he explained that he’d asked Cain to stay put until the situation was clearer, only to be flatly ignored.
‘Good thing that’s all that happened.’
If the Guard Captain had tried to forcibly stop him, the guesthouse might very well have been reduced to ash by now. Cain was more than capable of that.
Edward found himself torn—he doubted Cain would go that far, yet at the same time, he couldn’t be entirely sure he wouldn’t.
There were stretches of time between Satin and Cain that Edward knew nothing about. More precisely, not even Satin remembered them—but to Cain, they were moments of immense value. Cain treated those memories like sacred doctrine.
If Satin had truly left of his own volition…
‘Wouldn’t he have realized that Cain would inevitably follow?’
***
Cain had never been hunting before, but he understood what it was. No complicated explanation needed—hunting meant choosing a target, tracking it, and catching it.
If you didn’t limit the prey to animals, then yes—Cain had been a hunter before.
The first and only person Cain ever hunted was a mage named Kernel, who worked for the Bureau of Order in Cloverland, specializing in magical incidents. Kernel had already passed sixty at the time of his death.
Cain observed Kernel for over a year. He noted when he left home, which shops he visited, who he met. Soon enough, he knew what clothes Kernel wore most often and even the expressions he frequently used.
And the surveillance didn’t stop at surface-level observation. Kernel wasn’t some sluggish old bear—he quickly caught on that someone was watching him.
But realizing it didn’t mean he could do anything about it.
Kernel loved to flaunt his status as a mage wherever he went, but none of the magic he knew could uncover Cain’s presence. That fire spell he used to reduce a little forest school to ash was entirely useless for detecting people.
Kernel believed the anonymous threatening letters were targeting him. He mistook the strange presence in his bedroom at night for Black Magic. He suspected that his missing belongings, which vanished on the street, were being used as vessels for curses.
‘Isn’t that what they call neurosis?’
If you were to point to a direct cause of death, Cain didn’t technically kill Kernel. He never laid a finger on him.
‘Well, there was that one time they spoke…’
After nearly a year of suffering from insomnia, Kernel one night fell into a deep, unshakable sleep. Even the sound of a window creaking open or the chorus of insects outside couldn’t wake him. Cain stood silently by his bedside, watching.
‘How should I kill him?’
‘Would it be fitting for a man who loved showing off to die like a fool in front of an audience? Should I burn him alive with that fire magic he was so proud of? Make him suffer a slow death in front of his family? Or maybe dig up every shameful thing from his past until he offs himself in disgrace?’
Before Cain could make a choice, Kernel stirred. His lips cracked open, parched, and his eyes fluttered weakly. His dazed gaze drifted through the darkness until it landed on Cain. No scream—just a silent gasp as he woke.
Cain expected him to roar and cast a spell. But no.
“P-please… just leave me alone…”
The old mage wept like a child.
“I won’t do it again. Please, don’t show yourself. Just stop already… please…”
Maybe he thought he was dreaming. Maybe he believed the man before him was no longer among the living—perhaps the ghost of someone he’d killed.
Cain had no intention of forgiving the pleading old man. But strangely, he no longer felt the urge to kill him right then and there. The old man looked truly exhausted—and Cain found that rather satisfying.
Cain whispered with a smile.
“I’ll always be by your side. Hiding among the people you know. Wherever you go, whatever you do. Whether you’re alone, or with your family—don’t forget I’m always there.”
Kernel died not long after. A slow death, worn down by paranoia and suspicion, undone by his own anxious temperament.
It was a long, drawn-out death—a fitting end for a man with no patience.
During that long indirect murder, Cain learned how to track human traces. And now, he applied that experience to predict Satin’s movements—imagining where he might go, how he might act.
The possibility that Satin had been kidnapped didn’t even register. Not even a sliver of a doubt.
‘I should’ve known this would happen.’
Cain had always known that Satin wasn’t attached to his lost memories. To say he simply wasn’t attached might be an understatement—he seemed actively reluctant to recover them.
Cain had thought Satin’s unease was just nerves, never considering it might stem from fear. He’d assumed the discomfort was trivial.
‘Idiot.’
For most people, memories aren’t something you lose and then go looking for. The same went for Satin.
Over the past four years, Satin hadn’t lived as someone who’d lost his memory. His missing past simply was. As natural as having black hair or slender fingers. That absence had become his norm.
Cain hadn’t fully considered how Satin would feel when someone else forcibly reconnected him with a forgotten past.
People don’t change easily. Satin with no memory was no different from the old Satin. But it wasn’t Cain who had to believe that—it was Satin himself.
‘Of course he’d be scared.’
To come face-to-face with a version of yourself you didn’t know. To have what used to be a void become a tangible presence. Anyone would be terrified by that—so why hadn’t Cain realized it?
‘Because Satin never said he was scared.’
Satin had once thrown himself down a staircase. Another time, he appeared through flames. He played the part of an ordinary man while never once expressing ordinary fear.
And so Cain had mistaken him for someone incapable of fear.
‘But that’s not possible.’
People might fear different things. They might not be afraid of what others fear. But no one is without fear. If someone truly had none, there would be something deeply wrong with them.
Cain was afraid too. That fear had only begun after meeting Satin again.
Before then, Cain had been the one who was broken.
Now the chasing arc begins dum dum duummm
Thanks for the chapter