I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 86

Caught in a completely unexpected situation, Evan hurriedly reached into his pocket and touched the wallet holding his emergency money.

The amount inside the wallet was only 400 gold. Exactly 400 gold, neither more nor less. He was certain, because he’d counted it again and again before leaving the house.

That was all the money he had to his name.

‘Ah, what should I do. I don’t have enough money to buy the necklace….’

Cold sweat ran down his back. His mouth went dry with anxiety, and his toes kept wriggling inside his shoes.

Even though he knew he should put the necklace down and look for another gift, his feet wouldn’t move.

‘If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve saved money harder. Then I could’ve bought it without worrying.’

But no matter how much he regretted it, money that didn’t exist wasn’t about to suddenly spring out of his wallet.

As Evan stood there frozen, pale-faced and sweating nervously, the merchant spoke to him.

“What’s wrong? You don’t look well. Are you feeling sick?”

“I’m not sick, but….”

He couldn’t bring himself to say that he didn’t have enough money. Asking for a discount was even harder.

When Evan trailed off awkwardly, the merchant seemed to roughly grasp his situation. He glanced around briefly, then lowered his voice and asked, “Sir. About how much money do you have on you right now?”

“…Sorry?”

“Ah, I’m asking how much you have in total.”

Startled by the abrupt question, Evan asked back, and the merchant frowned sharply and pressed him.

Overwhelmed, Evan blurted out the amount in his wallet without understanding why.

“Um… 400 gold.”

At that, the merchant relaxed his expression and replied casually, as if nothing had happened, “Then I’ll take just that. Go ahead and take the necklace you chose.”

“…You’re selling the necklace for 400 gold?”

When Evan finally understood what he meant and asked, the merchant silently nodded. He really meant he’d sell the 500 gold item for 400 gold.

Unable to understand his behavior, Evan asked in confusion, “But you said it was 500 gold just a moment ago. Why are you suddenly selling it for 400 gold?”

“You said it’s a gift for your fiancée, didn’t you?”

“….”

“Looks like you came all the way here to buy a gift because there’s a special day coming up. I’ll sell it to you at that price, just for you, wishing you a long and happy life with the one you love.”

“Ah… thank you.”

Receiving kindness he hadn’t expected, Evan bowed his head in thanks, still feeling dazed.

One hundred gold wasn’t a small amount, yet the merchant had readily lowered the price because it was a gift for his fiancée. Evan was grateful, and he handed over the money he’d saved for this day.

As the merchant took the money, he cautioned him repeatedly, “Don’t ever tell anyone I sold it to you for 400 gold. If you do, I’ll have to give everyone else the same price, and that’ll cause trouble for me. Understood?”

“Yes. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you for promising. Then come again next time!”

After even making a promise with the merchant, Evan finally obtained the necklace and was able to return to the village.

On the way back, worried he might lose the gift for Lucia, he not only held it tightly in his hand but also kept his hand tucked into his pocket.

The road back to the village was long, but thinking of how happy Lucia would be when she received the necklace made his steps endlessly light.

‘I hope Lucia likes it….’

Filled with anticipation, Evan hummed to himself as he headed back to the village.

Then, at midnight on the day Lucia turned nineteen, Lucia disappeared.

***

At an hour when everyone was asleep, lights lit up all at once in the village, which should’ve been sunk in deep darkness.

At first, only one or two houses lit their lights, but as time passed, there wasn’t a single house left without a light on.

The reason the entire village woke from sleep and lit their lights was simple.

Lucia, who had definitely been at home until before everyone went to bed, had suddenly vanished without a trace.

The villagers, Evan included, grabbed torches and went out to search for Lucia. But no matter where they looked, they couldn’t find any sign of her.

As time passed and Lucia’s absence grew longer, her family’s hearts burned with worry, and Evan’s heart burned as well.

Fearing she might have been dragged off somewhere dark or abducted, they gathered people and even searched the mountain behind the village, but there were no results at all.

She had disappeared as if she had evaporated.

As the search dragged on, Lucia’s disappearance became an unsolved mystery.

‘Where on earth did you go, Lucia….’

Today was her birthday. Her nineteenth birthday, the day she came of age.

All that remained was for the two of them to get married and live happily together. He hadn’t even been able to give her the birthday gift he’d bought after walking a round trip of more than six hours and spending all the money he’d saved.

Yet the person who should have received the gift was nowhere to be found.

It felt as if his chest were burning black from the inside. It was unbearable that something like this had happened on Lucia’s birthday, and he was terrified that he might never find her.

Terrified that he might never see Lucia again.

‘Let’s think again about places Lucia might go. There must be somewhere I missed. A place we never searched….’

Leaving behind the villagers gathered together and repeatedly holding serious discussions, Evan anxiously reviewed the situation.

According to her family, she wasn’t at home, and none of her belongings were missing. The small box where she kept her savings was still exactly where it had been, and there was no sign that she’d packed a bag.

The only things missing were one set of clothes suitable for going out and a pair of shoes she must have worn.

‘She definitely went outside. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to change clothes and put on shoes.’

But no matter how thoroughly they searched the entire village, there was no trace of Lucia anywhere. The mountain behind the village was the same.

Together with the villagers, they combed through every alley for hours and searched the entire mountain as if turning it upside down. They searched every place she could possibly be.

Even so, the fact that she wasn’t anywhere meant that at the very least, she wasn’t in the village.

‘If that’s the case, then she left the village. But where on earth would she go in the middle of the night?’

There was nowhere outside the village that Lucia could go. She didn’t have relatives living elsewhere, and her fiancé, Evan, lived in the same village.

Most of Lucia’s relationships existed within the village. The only place outside the village she ever went was the magic school she attended together with Evan.

‘The magic school…?’

The moment that thought reached him, Evan suddenly recalled something Lucia had said a week earlier.

“But if, hypothetically, someone offered you all the money to go to the capital and live there, and to study in a good place too, on the condition that you’d have to part forever from me, your family, and the people of the village, what would you do?”

‘Why is that something she said back then suddenly coming to mind now?’

It had only been a meaningless hypothetical.

What you’d do if you suddenly got a large sum of money, or what you’d do if you found out that you, whom you’d thought was an ordinary commoner, were actually the child of a noble family and ended up living in a massive mansion.

It was nothing more than one of those useless but pleasant hypotheticals everyone thinks about at least once in their life. Yet for Evan, those insignificant words weighed heavily on his mind.

Because abandoning him, her family, and the people of the village and going off somewhere else resembled the current situation far too closely.

And if Lucia had truly abandoned all of that and left, a strong conviction welled up inside him that the magic school would, in some way, definitely be involved.

At that moment, Evan threw the torch he was holding to the ground and bolted straight out of the village, kicking off hard from the ground.

“Evan? Evan! Where are you going?!”

He heard voices calling after him from behind, but he couldn’t stop his steps.

Evan ran through the deeply settled darkness along the path he walked together with Lucia every day.

The scenery, melted into the darkness and looking like a single mass, swept past him rapidly.

‘Please… please….’

Evan ran in a daze, unable to tell whether he was hoping Lucia would be at the school or not, whether he wanted to confirm with his own eyes that what he’d thought was right or not.

As he ran, he prayed.

No matter what happened, please let Lucia be safe. And please let her not have chosen to abandon him, her family, and the village.

Please let all of his worries, anxieties, and ominous premonitions be false.

Packing all the complex emotions surging in his heart into a single sentence, Evan clung to it like a lifeline and ran along the night road.

With every step, his legs screamed, and the ragged breaths filling his chest pounded against his ears. The thundering sound of his heart felt as if it might shake the entire world.

His body was screaming that it had reached its limit, but Evan couldn’t rest. Some unseen force was forcefully pushing him onward.

“Gasp, gasp….”

And only after finally arriving at the magic school did Evan barely manage to stop, bracing himself against the outer wall as he struggled to catch his breath.

He had run that long distance without stopping even once. His entire body was drenched in sweat, his stomach churned, and it felt as though his lungs, stomach, and every other organ had shriveled up.

Nausea surged up, but Evan clenched his teeth and endured it. Then he lifted his lowered head and staggered forward.

“Lucia…!”

Before dawn, while the school lay submerged in pitch-black shadows, Evan wandered around it, calling out Lucia’s name with difficulty.

With no one around, the surroundings were utterly silent, and only his own voice rang out clearly.

“Lucia…! If you can hear me, answer! Lucia…!”

Repeating the words he’d shouted until his throat was hoarse in the village, Evan moved through every corner of the school.

The small practice grounds, the old classroom where they’d taken lessons together, the toilets located outside the building, and the storage shed where magic tools were kept….

But Lucia was nowhere to be found. No answer came back either.

‘Where on earth did you go, Lucia….’

Feeling anxious that the Lucia he’d thought would be here wasn’t anywhere in sight, he also felt, at the same time, a strange sense of relief that she hadn’t abandoned him and left.

Amid that turmoil, Evan finally headed to the back of the school, the place Lucia went every time she skipped class.

If she wasn’t there either, then it would be certain that Lucia hadn’t come to the school at all.

It was just as the vast open field behind the school came into view.

Amid the scenery painted pitch black without a single point of light, a tiny speck of light caught his eye.