Welcome to the Café of the Dark Guild’s Successor - Chapter 53

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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 Heir to the Dark Guild.
53
Biedler’s breathing suddenly became audible to me. I’d been too absorbed in the book to notice, but at some point we’d drawn close enough to feel each other’s breath.
“……Is that really true?”
In the depths of Biedler’s eyes, I found the image of his childhood self—wounded, curled inward.
He who had fled here to hide alone. He, scarred and raw, barricaded in a corner away from everyone, drowning himself in books and crying silently.
The adult Biedler had long since left this place, but that child remained here still, weeping.
‘Everyone carries a version of themselves they’d rather hide.’
Suddenly, words Cayden had spoken came back to me. In Biedler, whom I’d thought existed in a different world entirely, I recognized a kinship with myself.
“I’m certain of it.”
“It helped, a little. Thank you.”
Biedler’s voice rang out low, brushing against my ear.
My lips had gone dry. I swallowed, and in the profound silence of the Library, even that sound seemed loud enough for Biedler to hear.
For some time now, a heartbeat—I couldn’t tell whose—had been pounding loudly, making my head spin.
‘It’s so narrow.’
When I’d first entered, the Library interior had seemed sprawling and vast. Now it felt cramped, suffocating. All because of Biedler.
I was just thinking I should stand up when Biedler tilted his head toward me.
We were so close I almost touched, and I started—my eyes widening with shock.
Biedler gazed down at me intently, his expression turning skeptical.
“Have we met before somewhere?”
I forced my eyes wide and denied it as calmly as I could.
“We’ve been seeing each other this whole time.”
“No, I mean before that. Before we first met at my Villa.”
Biedler’s eyes narrowed. As if grasping at a memory, he reached out his palm toward my jaw.
‘No, not like this!’
The thought that he might remember me as I was in my time as Prince struck panic through me. I lurched upward to escape, and my back hit the bookshelf.
There was a sound of impact, and my body pitched forward. I nearly tumbled over Biedler’s head, but fortunately he turned to catch me—though our cheeks brushed in the process.
“Let’s… look for another book. That shelf over there.”
“Perhaps we should.”
Flustered, we both spun away sharply and bolted upright, our gazes fleeing from each other.
I tried to calm my racing heart as I scanned the shelves.
Running my eyes along the upper portion of the shelf the Construct had indicated, I noticed there were several books on the Sealed War.
⌜The Unfinished War and Truth⌟
I reached for a book with that compelling title, but it was too high.
Biedler smirked at me from beside me and stretched up, but even when he extended his arm fully, he couldn’t reach it either.
“……We’ll need a ladder.”
I scoffed quietly, just as Biedler had, and dragged a ladder over from the side.
The ladder was sturdy, so I climbed without hesitation and reached the book I wanted. I pulled it down at once and opened it—the table of contents proved quite intriguing.
The war that I’d thought had already ended was actually only a ceasefire. The book claimed it wouldn’t be strange if the Dimensional Gate opened again at any moment—content that read almost like fiction.
“This is……”
“Is that the book you were looking for?”
“Not quite, but something’s wrong.”
I furrowed my brow as I flipped through the pages, but apart from the opening section, the content was completely blank.
I flipped rapidly through the pages in confusion, then froze and rifled through the book again. Yet the text appeared only on the first pages.
“There’s no content.”
“What do you mean?”
I climbed down the ladder, holding the book to show Biedler, when suddenly a searing pain shot through my shoulder.
The agony—like being struck with a white-hot brand—startled me so violently that I dropped the book and lost my footing, tumbling from the ladder.
“Rosia!”
Fortunately, Biedler caught me immediately, so I didn’t hit the ground hard, but my shoulder throbbed mercilessly.
I clenched my teeth against the pain as Biedler set me carefully on the floor, his expression growing grave.
“Where are you hurt?”
I’d thought the medication I’d been taking was helping, that I was healing. Apparently not.
A searing heat rose from deep within the bone, and my vision swam. I’d never felt such agony before, and cold sweat began to bead on my skin.
“We need to go to the Imperial physician.”
“No. I have medicine at home. I need to take that.”
I couldn’t predict how the Imperial physician would react to seeing the wounds from a Demonic Beast, and I wasn’t willing to risk exposure.
“Ugh.”
The pain intensified, and I clamped my jaw shut to bear it.
“Can you make it home in that condition?”
“Yes.”
“Always so stubborn.”
Biedler clicked his tongue disapprovingly at me, then lifted my curled form effortlessly into his arms.
“……?!”
I rarely panic, but this left me no choice.
I’d never been held like this by anyone, and now it was by a prince?
The situation was absurd enough that I wanted to protest, but my body had no strength to resist.
“You can’t see a physician because of your circumstances—I understand that. But this, I’ll do as I see fit. Stay still. The more you move, the heavier you become.”
“……I’ll be seen like this.”
“The guards here are trustworthy. No unnecessary rumors will spread.”
I had no energy left to argue.
The fact that I was being held by Biedler had become irrelevant—my condition was deteriorating rapidly.
‘Gods, am I going to die like this?’
The thought actually occurred to me.
I couldn’t remember ever hurting this badly. It was a different magnitude from when I’d collapsed before.
As my vision blurred, Biedler’s long eyelashes and sharp, distinctive nose came into focus.
Sensing my gaze, Biedler looked down at me, then cradled the back of my head in his palm and turned my face toward his chest.
My face ended up buried against his chest, and I heard his heartbeat. It was racing rapidly.
‘So it wasn’t mine after all.’
Realizing that the sound I’d heard earlier had been his, I concentrated on it to keep myself from losing consciousness.
Thanks to Biedler’s long legs carrying us down the stairs swiftly, we descended in moments and reached the carriage waiting below.
I leaned against the carriage wall, breathing roughly, and gripped a fold of Biedler’s clothing.
“Your Highness…… the book. The book.”
“The book?”
“Yes. At least what we saw last. Can’t you do something?”
“Sigh. Wait here.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about those blank pages.
Though it was in the Forbidden Section, it was only the second floor, and as a prince, Biedler should be able to borrow a single volume.
Biedler gave me a look of exasperation, then released a heavy sigh and rushed back into the Library.
While waiting for him, I lowered my tunic to check the wound.
The shoulder area had turned completely black. The miasma was spreading not just from the wound itself but up to my neck.
“I’ll need different medicine.”
I was thinking that the medicine and herbs Cayden had brought weren’t enough, when Biedler returned and climbed into the carriage.
I quickly pulled my tunic back up to cover my shoulder, but Biedler had already seen the wound.
He immediately shut the carriage door and moved close beside me.
“Move your hand.”
“That is……”
“Pardon me.”
Before I could protest, he gripped my shoulder and pulled down the fabric on the injured side.
When Biedler saw the black miasma contrasted against my pale neck, his expression turned glacial.
“What is this? Were you trying to find a related book because you were wounded by a Demonic Beast?”
Biedler’s eyes flashed with intensity. The fingers touching my shoulder were cold, and the intense heat that had been constant until now receded slightly.
“You’re half right.”
“We should go to the Temple. Miasma must be purified with Holy Power.”
“I already tried that—it didn’t work. Please, just take me home first.”
Biedler started to say something, but my eyes fell shut. An irresistible drowsiness overtook me, and I fell asleep as if collapsing.
…….
How much time had passed?
I was walking down a dark, damp path. Or rather, my younger self was. It was a memory connected to my previous dream.
‘Where is this?’
A strange space where dead and living plants stood in equal proportion.
It was as if the sky and earth had been inverted, and the sky burned red.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from this incredible sight I’d never seen before, when suddenly a voice emerged from the darkness.
“Finally, you’ve come.”
“……Who are you?”
“I called to you. You crossed the barrier following my voice, didn’t you?”
At the beautiful, celestial sound of that voice, my lips parted wide.
“Come here, dear child.”
The ball that my younger self had dropped rolled forward across the ground, clickety-clack.
I followed that ball deeper into the pitch-black darkness. The earth beneath my feet was damp, and a foul smell filled my nostrils.
“I’ve waited so very long. Such a very long time it’s been.”
As I continued to hear that whispered voice, I couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a woman or a man.
After walking for some distance, the thickets that had crowded around me vanished, revealing an empty Garden.
The ball was gone, and now I followed only the singing voice that continued to draw me onward.
In the Garden stood an enormous tree. I gasped at its size—so vast it seemed to bridge sky and earth.
But there was something on the tree. More precisely, something that, entangled with the tree’s branches, appeared to be one with it.
As I drew nearer, what it was became clear. An immense, colossal mass of ice. And something was trapped inside it.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do. You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you. Come closer. Look at me.”
The owner of the voice that had been calling to me all this time—it was this very being trapped in the ice.
I didn’t understand how I could hear its voice, but dread suddenly gripped me alongside confusion.

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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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