Welcome to the Café of the Dark Guild’s Successor - Chapter 189

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A café run by the Dark Guild’s heir.
Side Story — Chapter 2
Cayden — I’m back.
At first, there was nothing.
No sound, no light, not even sensation — he existed in a place devoid of it all.
He knew he wasn’t dead. If he were, his body wouldn’t be this heavy, this wracked with pain.
It was as though lead had been poured into his veins; even lifting a single finger required tremendous effort. His eyelids wouldn’t open. His throat wouldn’t make a sound.
In that state, countless memories surfaced.
The first was the Temple. The day Rosia first came to find him. When the café door opened and a stranger walked in, Cayden had watched without much hope.
Most people who came to this mountain were lost travelers, or sometimes people for reasons he couldn’t fathom.
Rosia belonged to neither category.
He had thought her eyes beautiful — the way they swept cautiously across the Temple interior.
And then the memory of a certain winter.
In front of the snow-covered café, Rosia was chasing Armstrong.
Where on earth the rooster was fleeing, Rosia’s breath rose in white clouds as she bounded about in her boots.
Cayden had laughed loudly watching her from the café threshold.
Later, when Rosia returned, breathless, she shot him a glare.
“Why didn’t you help?”
“You were doing fine.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to catch a fleeing chicken?”
“I do. That’s why I was watching.”
Rosia gave him a look of exasperation and smacked his shoulder.
The days they ate together in the café, the days they cleaned and made drinks side by side — all those small, accumulated moments of daily life kept surfacing, again and again.
The high priests of Hestanya had always asked Cayden the same questions.
How was his body, how much miasma had accumulated, how much longer could he endure. Worried questions, but each time he heard them, he found himself freshly aware of how much he was being consumed.
It felt like peering into an hourglass, checking how much sand remained.
But Rosia never asked such things.
Instead, she asked if he’d eaten, what the Temple had been like that day. She asked about his day, not his duty.
It took Cayden time to grow accustomed to that.
To answer a question about his day, he had to actually live one. Not endure the gaps between missions, but eat breakfast, spend the afternoon, greet the evening — truly live.
After meeting Rosia, Cayden began to live a day for the first time.
In another dream, he heard a voice urging him to flee.
“If you want to run away, I’ll run away with you.”
It was something Rosia had said once. The day he learned the truth about a Guardian’s fate, about the empty grave already prepared for him. Rosia had been furious.
It was the first time anyone had been angrier about his destiny than he was.
At the time, he had smiled and shaken his head, but he held onto those words.
Running away wasn’t possible. But the fact that someone had offered to run away with him made this fate feel somehow less lonely.
In another dream, he heard Desikan’s voice. Even in the dream, he felt the weight of a being who had lived sealed away for centuries.
Yet Cayden felt no fear.
From the moment he became a Guardian, he had sensed that such a moment would come.
He had read the ending in the records left by his predecessors, in the gaze of the high priests, in the stones of Hestanya’s cemetery.
Only one thing had changed. He wanted to live.
It was the first time. Since becoming a Guardian, it was the first time he felt there was still something left to do.
It wasn’t for any grand reason. Not to achieve something or possess something.
He simply wanted to stay. In that café, on that mountain, near Rosia.
The sound of the café door opening in the morning. Rosia watering the garden. Armstrong crossing the yard. He wanted to be where those sounds existed.
So he drifted through memories, struggling not to disappear into the vast darkness.
Between the dreams, he heard someone’s voice.
At first, it was unclear — a distant sound with only outline, no substance.
But gradually it drew nearer, and the voice became clear.
The high priest of Hestanya called to him every day, with steady insistence.
“Cayden, are you hearing me? Wake up now. Everyone is waiting.”
One day, he heard these words:
“The Temple has demanded too much of you without question. I’ve done the same. I’m sorry, Cayden.”
He had never heard such a thing before.
He didn’t think this was a place where a Guardian’s apology should be heard.
Fulfilling missions and being consumed was the natural role. His predecessors had done so, and Cayden had accepted it.
But hearing an apology, strangely, the area behind his eyelids grew hot.
‘I want to wake up.’
He hadn’t known that having only sensation while his body wouldn’t obey could be this painful.
Rosia’s voice came just once.
“Come back to me. I’ll wait.”
That was all, yet that single phrase lingered longer than everything else.
The promise to wait. That meant Cayden had a place to return to.
Not the Temple, not a duty — a place where a person waited for him.
Cayden tried to move while replaying that voice in his mind.
Then he felt his finger twitch.
Only barely. A strength so small he could barely touch a single thread — but it moved.
How much time had passed?
When Cayden opened his eyes, he saw a ceiling.
A white ceiling. The treatment room of Hestanya.
Light streamed through the window. He couldn’t tell if it was morning or afternoon, but it was bright.
The high priest was beside him. She stiffened the moment she saw his eyes open, then reached out and took his hand.
“Finally… you’ve finally awakened!”
He tried to respond, but his throat was locked.
“Take your time. I’ll bring water.”
After drinking the water the high priest brought, Cayden asked his first question.
“How is Rosia?”
“She’s doing well. She’s at Alein Mountain now.”
Cayden closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again.
“What happened to Desikan?”
“He’s been annihilated. Thanks to you, Cayden.”
The meaning of the high priest’s words slowly sank in.
If Desikan was annihilated, his duty as a Guardian was complete. It meant Cayden no longer had to exist for this purpose.
“What becomes of me now?”
“Rest well, eat properly, and recover. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. The duty is finished.”
For a long time, Cayden couldn’t speak.
It didn’t feel real somehow.
Since becoming a Guardian, he had never imagined a state without duty. There was always the next Purification, the next Barrier Inspection, the next demonic beast to dispatch.
But now nothing bound him with responsibility.
“Can I go now? There’s someone I want to see.”
The high priest gave a slight, awkward laugh.
“After you’ve recovered.”
His body had absorbed too much miasma; recovery would take longer than expected.
He improved a little each day. His hands first, then his feet, then his whole body began to obey again.
During recovery, Cayden let time simply pass for the first time.
He walked through Hestanya’s courtyard, spoke with the high priests, or simply gazed out the window.
Not feeling guilty about doing nothing — that was a first.
One day, while walking the courtyard, he stopped before the cemetery. It was where he had been meant to be buried.
The high priest came to stand beside him as he gazed quietly at the gravestones.
“We’ll remove your marker now.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s a stone I’ll need someday anyway.”
The high priest looked at him in surprise.
Cayden kept his gaze on the gravestone as he spoke.
“Just not now. That will be very far in the future.”
He thought it would be awkward to express the will to live in words, but it came out matter-of-factly.
The high priest beside him gave a small nod.
“I’m grateful to hear you say that.”
Days later, Cayden arrived at Alein Mountain.
As he rode up the mountain path on horseback, he felt the air change.
This mountain’s air was always peculiar, no matter when you came. Not heavy, not light — something like the scent of ancient things mingled together.
He dismounted in front of the café. The door was closed.
In the yard, Armstrong led the chicks, wandering freely.
At the sound of Cayden dismounting, the café door opened.
Rosia, wearing an apron, came out as if from washing dishes, her hands full of foam.
“You….”
Rosia froze, her eyes wide open.
It was a face he had seen dozens of times in dreams. Seeing it in reality was different. In dreams it was always slightly blurred, but now it was vivid.
Sunlight fell warm across Rosia’s shoulders.
Cayden broke into a bright smile and rushed toward her.
“Is the café open?”
Rosia reached out and gently touched his hair, as if confirming that this wasn’t a dream.
“…It’s really you.”
“Yes.”
“When did you wake up?”
“Not long ago.”
“You should have recovered more.”
“I wanted to see you, Rosia.”
During recovery, many things had been resolved. What to say and what didn’t need to be spoken.
After death had come so close, there was less reason to hold back words.
“…Come inside first.”
Rosia turned, her voice slightly thick.
Cayden followed her in.
The café was exactly as he remembered. Everything in its place. The herbs hanging to dry by the window, the small flower vase on the counter, the menu board hanging in back — all unchanged.
The fact that familiar things remained untouched — he hadn’t known something could bring such joy.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Sit here.”
Rosia went into the kitchen.
Soon she returned with a bowl, setting it before him. Warm steam rose from it.
“It’s soup. Start with this.”
“It doesn’t have much in it?”
“I ran out of ingredients… and now I have to make enough for two, so I need to go shopping soon. Is there anything you want tomorrow?”
Cayden paused as he lifted his spoon.
“Can I stay the night?”
“Of course. Did you think you’d leave right away? You should see grandfather too, and check on the Temple.”
Rosia spoke matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious that he would stay here.
The fact that tomorrow existed. That tomorrow’s meal was already calculated to include him — it was almost unbearably warm.
Cayden lifted his spoon again, keeping his reddened eyes hidden. The broth went down warm.
“How’s the taste?”
“It’s delicious. But starting tomorrow, I’ll make it.”
“Ha. Well, fine.”
Rosia laughed lightly, as if exasperated.
Seeing that laugh, Cayden smiled too.
Through the window, the mountain was visible. The tree in front of the café was sprouting tender green leaves, and he could see that from here.
Cayden gazed at that tree for a long time.
“Cayden.”
“Yes, Rosia.”
“Welcome home.”
Rosia spoke while looking at her own bowl.
She affected indifference, but her voice wavered slightly at the end.
Cayden heard that tremor quietly.
“…I’m back.”
The fact that there was a place where he could say those words. That was the whole reason he had wanted to live.
Outside, Armstrong called loudly. The chicks chirped and peeped. More sunlight crept inside.
Cayden lifted his spoon again.
From today, a day that was both familiar and new began again.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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