“......I’m sorry, Master’s father.”

Marbas spoke with his lion ears lowered.

“What is there to be sorry about?”

Tesetan answered in a dry voice.

Looking back on it now, it had been a disaster waiting to happen.

“It was my mistake. Everything happened because I misjudged things.”

A foreign country where the only people he could rely on were neighbors.

And all the while, Tie continued growing up there.

There was no sign of a way back to Tallocium, and Tesetan could no longer bear the impatience consuming him.

Especially whenever he saw the child growing older without him there.

“......It was irresponsible. I should not have died like that.”

Marbas lowered his eyes uneasily.

Ardiana silently watched Tesetan.

And at that moment, Bale cut in.

“Enough already. It’s not like you went there planning to die.”

Tesetan lifted his head and looked at Bale.

“What else could you have done? I would’ve done the same thing, Vice Captain. To survive with a little kid in a place like that.......”

Silence settled over the room.

Tesetan stayed quiet for a while, his lips pressed tightly together, before muttering softly,

“......Yeah. Regretting it now won’t change anything.”

“Exactly! What matters more is what happened afterward!”

Marbas carefully inserted himself into the conversation.

“After that incident in Jongno, the young lady found something among the belongings left behind by her father. A black stone. I believe it even had a string attached at first, like a pendant?”

Tesetan frowned.

“......Yes. I tied the string onto it so Tie wouldn’t touch it with her hands. I always carried it with me.”

Tesetan believed Tie should never touch the necklace.

Because the moment they crossed over into Korea still lingered vividly in his memory.

After a brief hesitation, he continued.

“That stone... in the end, Lucarion saved the child. But......”

“But he also destroyed all of Tregava. Killed me, Allerik, the rest of the squad, every last one of us. After seeing that, how could you possibly let the young lady keep something like that in her hands?”

Ribia stepped forward from where she had been leaning against the doorframe.

Just as she said, Lucarion was the being who had wiped out an entire mercenary squad.

And Tesetan had never known that the massacre happened because Lucarion lost control.

So his suspicion had been natural.

“I decided it was a dangerous factor. That the child should not be involved with it.”

Marbas nodded.

“I understand you completely.”

But the truth had been different.

After opening the spatial passage, Lucarion lost all of his memories and fell asleep inside the Magic Crystal.

And to awaken him, a special sacred power was required.

“Most likely the sacred power of the World Tree, his master and the source of all his strength.”

A short breath escaped Ardiana’s lips.

Looking at Tie, who appeared calmer now, she asked,

“......So when the child touched the stone, Lucarion awakened?”

Marbas nodded.

“Exactly. And most likely, the moment he awakened, Lucarion developed an overwhelming attachment to the young lady. Which is only natural. The young lady is the future World Tree. And Lucarion, as her servant, cannot help but obey her.”

Basto silently closed his mouth.

The image of Lucarion constantly following beside Tie during their mercenary squad activities rose before his eyes.

Lucarion’s entire world revolved around Tie.

He obeyed only her commands and listened only to her words.

“And the reason Lucarion opened the spatial passage again was because of that.”

When Lucarion first awakened in the Bed of Repose—

Tie had been crying after losing her father.

And there was very little Lucarion could do for a child left completely alone in an unfamiliar place.

“There was only one thing the young lady wanted from Lucarion.”

“.......”

“To see her dead father again. To erase all of that despair and loss. To turn time back to when her father was still alive.”

Marbas began speaking faster.

“And so Lucarion opened the spatial passage one more time. Completely exhausting the power he had slowly been recovering within the Bed of Repose. Along with the temporal power granted by the young lady. That was how he managed to send the young lady back into Tallocium’s past.”

Marbas looked around at each squad member in turn.

“He probably no longer had the strength to find a more suitable time or location for the transfer. Think about it yourselves.”

“.......”

“His final memories of Tallocium. Fragments of things seen and heard within the Bed of Repose. The existence of the young lady forcing him onward. Everything was tangled together. In that state, how could he possibly make the optimal choice?”

Allerik nodded.

“......That’s why he reacted like that back then. When Ribia remembered everything first.”

The underground ruins of the ancient palace.

After receiving Tie’s sacred power and recovering her memories, Ribia pointed her sword at Lucarion the moment she saw him.

“What exactly did you do to the young lady?! It was you back then! The one who destroyed us on the plains of Elderin......!”

To her, everything had finally become clear.

But Lucarion never once tried to resist.

He merely listened to her in confusion until the very end, then spoke a single sentence.

“I cannot live without Astie.”

“That is the only answer I can give.”

“He meant it sincerely.”

Marbas muttered quietly.

“Because that is what it means to be someone’s servant.”

And the reason Krazar called Astie his mother and followed her.

And the reason Seradin, whom they encountered in Pearlcity, treated Tie kindly.

In the end, all of it stemmed from the same cause.

“The problem is that when the young lady and Lucarion returned to this world, Papa noticed something.”

At the word “Papa,” the atmosphere in the room grew heavier.

“Papa had been pursuing Lucarion this entire time. The World Tree had weakened, and he most likely intended to completely subjugate it by cutting off even its arms and legs. But.”

As Marbas’s eyes glowed red, the forest of Brioude spread out before them.

Tie, newly arrived in Tallocium, wandered through the dense forest alongside Lucarion.

“And then one day, the energy trail of Lucarion, which he had pursued for so long, suddenly vanished.”

Though Tie carried the seed of the World Tree within her chest, she was still ultimately an ordinary child.

Because her body was human.

But Lucarion was different.

“Lucarion is a being on the level of a demigod. He is fundamentally different from mortals. Unless something extraordinary happens, beings like him live forever. So even after crossing through a temporal Rift into the past, his existence did not split apart.”

If it had split—

there should have been two Lucarions now.

The one who originally existed in the past.

And the one who returned from the future alongside Tie.

But since only one Lucarion remained—

“Damn, this is complicated as hell, but I think I get it.”

Bale narrowed his eyes.

“The Kkamani who should’ve originally existed got replaced by the future Kkamani, and from Papa’s perspective, it looked like Kkamani’s energy just disappeared?”

“Exactly!”

Complicated magical formulas and runic symbols flashed before Marbas’s eyes.

“When the World Tree created the seed, the thing it spent the most power on was hiding it perfectly. So thoroughly that even Papa could not fully trace the seed. And by staying beside the young lady, Lucarion received that same protection!”

The seed ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) of the World Tree hidden inside Tie concealed its own power.

And that was why Papa could not find them sooner.

“Luciano must have realized something had gone wrong! Lucarion vanished. And in his place appeared the King of the Dead, wielding magic with an unprecedented attribute.”

Bale and Basto exchanged glances.

Groaning, Marbas rubbed at his temple.

“If my guess is correct, that man definitely placed spies or informants around the young lady. He needed to confirm whether she truly was just an ordinary mage.”

“.......”

“And beyond that, he was likely trying to determine whether the young lady was connected to Lucarion or the World Tree. But since there has not been much movement until now, that means......”

“There was. There was movement.”

Basto, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“There was. From the moment Tie first arrived here until recently...... there was always someone by her side watching her.”

Basto slowly lifted his gaze.

And just as he was about to say the name—

“Grandpa......?”

A quiet voice came from the bed.

Everyone abruptly turned around.

Tie had risen from the bed and was staring blankly at the blanket.

“Grandpa Nordix.......”

The little girl’s lips pressed tightly together.

Her eyelashes trembled, and tears welled up in her large eyes.

“It was Grandpa.......”

“.......”

“That’s why he suddenly disappeared.......”