“Why do you keep abandoning your memories?”
Lefanta Aegim turned his head toward the voice. A woman was looking at him, her chin resting on her palm. She had said her name was Ivansia.
“It’s to stay the same.”
“To stay the same?” the woman repeated, confused.
“Have you ever seen someone determined to live over a thousand years?”
Lefanta Aegim opened his diary and read the notes about the woman. Not a lot was written about her.
—She was originally a maid who tended the flower garden but is now a noble.
—She likes my face.
—She bore my child.
Lefanta Aegim’s gaze paused briefly on the last line. Child. Even now, the woman held a newborn on her lap. The infant reached out and cooed, and the woman moved her finger to play with the child.
She replied, “No. It’s not like we get heroes like you around here every day.”
“To live a thousand years, one needs an extraordinarily strong will. Everything in the world changes. Portraits painted to remember someone eventually fade. Swords forged to kill also rust. A thousand years is enough time to change. This applies to both what you wish to keep and kill.”
It was a note that Lefanta Aegim had written in his diary. Whenever he lost his memories, he read this note. Each time, he slowly nodded in acceptance.
“I’m weak. I have no faith that I can last a thousand years. There is no proof to believe that I can. That’s why I abandon my time. Even a thousand years becomes a second when I abandon it. If I fear change, then abandoning the time that can change me will fix it.”
The wind blew, mingling with the spring. The spring wind was different from the winter wind. It was more humid and curled softly around the tip of his nose. On the woman’s lap, the child waved his hands, trying to catch the wind.
Time melted away.
“This is my way.”
“That’s…”
The woman tried to say something, but Lefanta Aegim got up, rejecting the woman’s attempt to intervene on his time.
“You think I’m foolish, but change is a human’s privilege. I chose to stay human by bearing a child and starting a bloodline, yet I also abandon my memories. I try to be human while refusing to be one. It’s pure folly.”
The woman tried to speak once more, but Lefanta Aegim turned his back quicker than she could open her mouth.
“But it doesn’t matter.”
Though Lefanta Aegim couldn’t see her, the woman trembled. She felt something very foreign in his tone.
“Everyone deceives themselves into believing they’re human. As long as such people live in this world, I’ll always be more humane than them.”
The woman didn’t know that the foreign air she felt was the last trace left by someone named Kim Yul. Lefanta Aegim didn’t know either. As she watched him walking away, the woman barely managed to ask, “You’re leaving? Just like this?”
“Yes, the promise was that I would stay only until the baby could walk.”
“Why won’t you let anyone stay with you?”
Lefanta Aegim glanced back. “Because I don’t need them. Perhaps there was a time when I needed other people, too. If that’s the case, I can only tell you that it’s too late for that now. I know you used me to become a noble, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll just advise you to use your power for the weak while there’s still time.”
These words became the motto of the Ducal Family of Ivansia. There was no way the woman could have felt love or kindness for the people of the empire. She had merely found a way to satisfy her personal tastes and desire for power. However, why did Lefanta Aegim’s words become the family motto?
“I give up all the memories of Ivansia.”
With those final words, Lefanta Aegim walked out of the garden.
“Teleport me.”
The wind blew. Where spring had been, he no longer existed.