I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 88

As Evan lay submerged in pitch-black unconsciousness, scenes flashed rapidly before his eyes. They were all memories related to Lucia.

When they were young, Lucia had been especially introverted and shy, hiding snugly behind her mother, only peeking her head out slightly to look at him.

Even though she was that bashful, when he held out his hand and suggested going to the back mountain with other older girls, boys, and younger children to pick berries, Lucia would hesitate but never refuse.

Though she wanted to play with the other children, she seemed nervous and couldn’t easily let go of his hand, clinging tightly to him with a tiny hand like a fern shoot.

Even after time passed and she grew much closer to the other children, Lucia still followed him especially well.

The year she turned fifteen, when she learned that he’d been born with mana, Lucia had been delighted and amazed as she watched him demonstrate a few spells he’d learned from a wizard relative.

And Lucia, admiring him and envying him, said she wished she had mana like him too.

Three years later, when Lucia turned fifteen, she came to his house at the crack of dawn, hopping around and saying that she had mana just like Evan, calling him older brother.

Since among children their age, only he and Lucia possessed mana, Lucia used the tree stump on the back mountain as their hideout, and together they practiced magic they’d heard about from his relative.

When she learned that classes teaching magic were held every weekend at a nearby monastery, Lucia’s eyes sparkled as she asked him to go together, saying she wanted to attend with him, his older brother.

Going to the monastery together like that, and then to the magic school together as well, Lucia had been happy and excited, chattering away.

That small, young child had grown so much before he knew it, and one day in his twenties, he suddenly realized that she’d become dazzlingly beautiful.

Even so, Lucia had been innocent and pure, completely unaware of the fact that she’d fallen for him.

Then one day, Lucia’s mother asked whether he might consider marrying her daughter, saying she was reaching the age to start thinking about marriage.

When he proposed, suddenly realizing that he didn’t want to marry anyone but Lucia, Lucia shyly nodded just like she had in their childhood.

Since she wasn’t yet an adult, they decided to become engaged first, but Lucia complained that adulthood was still far away and grumbled about how she was supposed to wait until then.

That Lucia….

All of those dazzling, shining memories were wiped away into pitch black, and the last image of Lucia he’d seen rose before his eyes.

The cold back view that didn’t give him even a single glance, even though she clearly knew he was calling her.

The cold voice that cut him off, saying definitively that he was a stranger.

Lucia, who climbed into a luxurious carriage and disappeared immediately, as if the village she’d been born and raised in were some filthy swamp or bog she needed to escape from.

Lucia, who left his side forever… forever.

Lucia Even….

In the midst of pain that felt like his heart was being torn apart, Evan silently opened his eyes.

He had clearly been rolling on the dirt under the pitch-black night sky before dawn, but when he opened his eyes, a familiar ceiling came into view.

‘Why am I at home? No one should’ve known that I went to the magic school.’

Because he had run off without telling anyone, no one should’ve known where he was.

So it would’ve made sense for him to have died of hypothermia, lying on the cold dirt ground. Not to be lying in his own bed.

“….”

Evan silently stared at the ceiling lit by orange light with eyes that felt no joy at all from being alive.

‘Why am I alive? Lucia has already left my side….’

He let her go without even managing to grab onto her once. He hadn’t even been able to give her the necklace he’d bought to celebrate her coming of age.

As that fact came to mind, tears welled up at the corners of Evan’s eyes. A painful sensation rose, as if his body were being torn apart in every direction.

Not knowing that Lucia would leave like this, the time when he’d been buoyed by happiness and chosen a gift for her felt utterly miserable, and he didn’t want to live. He wanted to die.

“Cough, cough…!”

Tormented by emotions boiling up like phlegm, Evan coughed.

Each time he coughed, his throat and lungs hurt as if they might tear apart. There was no strength in his body at all, and even the slightest movement made his head ring. It seemed he’d caught a severe cold.

Lying there limply after coughing, drawing in rough breaths, he sensed someone approaching nearby.

“…Just when I thought the coughing had finally stopped, it’s starting again.”

Through his dimming vision, his mother’s rough hands came into view as she pressed her palm against his forehead. She looked at him with worried eyes, then noticed his eyes fluttering and moving and spoke to him.

“Ah, you’re awake, Evan? Are you conscious now?”

“How did I… get home….”

Evan asked in a hoarse voice, broken and halting. He wanted to ask how he’d gotten home, but his throat burned and it was hard to get his voice out.

But his mother quickly understood what Evan was trying to ask and answered him, “The man from the house in front, Uncle Hans, saw you leaving the village and hurriedly followed after you, then found you collapsed by the roadside.”

“….”

“He couldn’t carry you to the village by himself and didn’t know what to do, but he asked the school for help and somehow managed to bring you back to the village. Since you’d been lying on the cold ground for quite a while, your body was burning like a furnace and it was urgent. It really was a relief.”

“….”

“You seem to have caught a very bad cold, so lie quietly in bed and rest until your fever goes down, Evan. And next time, if you’re going somewhere, tell other people beforehand. Do you know how shocked your mother was when you suddenly disappeared?”

“…What about Lucia?” Evan asked, having listened silently to his mother’s scolding, worried words.

Though he was deeply despairing and furious over the fact that Lucia had abandoned him, he was still curious about what had happened to her.

Why she had suddenly left the village, whether she truly intended to throw everything away, or whether there had been some other reason she had no choice but to leave. Where she was going after leaving here, when she’d received a noble’s backing.

And… while he’d lost consciousness and collapsed, whether Lucia had come back to check on him before leaving, whether she’d regretted abandoning him and returned again….

He couldn’t stop wondering about those things.

Evan knew that the possibility was extremely slim. Even so, he couldn’t help but cling to that sliver of hope.

However, at Evan’s question, his mother’s expression dimmed, and she naturally changed the subject.

“…For now, it’d be best for you to recover from your cold first, Evan. Your fever is burning up too much. Let’s talk after you sleep some more. Here, I’ll give you some medicine, so swallow it.”

His mother poured the syrup from the medicine bottle into a spoon and carefully slipped it between his lips.

Before Evan could ask anything further, he swallowed the sticky liquid with a strange sweetness.

It was cold medicine he’d taken since childhood, but even now that he was an adult, the taste was still just as strange.

“Don’t worry about anything and get a good rest, Evan.”

His mother pulled the blanket he was covered with up to his neck. Then she gently stroked his sweat-soaked forehead and hair and placed a cool, damp cloth on his forehead.

Before long, the medicine took effect and sleep came over him. His eyes began to droop against his will, and he soon fell asleep.

Several hours later, Evan opened his eyes.

It seemed dawn hadn’t yet broken, as the candle was still lighting the room. It didn’t seem like he’d slept for very long.

His physical condition felt much lighter than before he slept, but although his fever had gone down a little, the heaviness weighing down his body like water-soaked cotton and the sensation of swallowing coarse grains of sand every time he swallowed his saliva still remained.

‘Should I sleep a little more….’

Drowsy with something that could have been the medicine or lingering sleepiness, he was nodding off when suddenly the sound of his father and mother talking quietly reached Evan’s ears clearly.

“…That child too, it’s really hard to understand.”

“I know. To think she’d leave the village like this without saying a word.”

At that moment, Evan’s eyes flew open, and the foggy haze clouding his mind instantly cleared.

It was because he realized his parents were talking about Lucia.

Evan kept his eyes closed and quietly held his breath so his parents wouldn’t notice he was awake. Then he focused on their conversation and listened intently.

His mother continued in a voice tinged with a sigh.

“Exactly. What kind of bolt from the blue is this… I heard they found a letter she left behind at the house?”

“Yes. Apparently, there were a few books in her room, and when they looked between them, they found a piece of paper tucked inside. It turned out to be a letter.”

“What did the letter say? Why did she leave the village?”