* * *

When he opened his eyes again, Cadel realized he was in a cave. Blinking hard, he felt his entire body drenched in sweat. As the sweat cooled, his body temperature dropped, but he didn’t get a chill, because of the presence behind him.

The Scarlet Dragon was sitting behind Cadel, pulling him into a hug. Coincidentally, they were both topless. Cadel instinctively squirmed at the feel of hard muscle against his bare back, but the Scarlet Dragon’s hand on his chest restrained him.

“I’m circulating energy through your body, so don’t move. It’s a pesky power, so there’s a lot to worry about.”

“Energy……?”

His voice cracked badly as he retorted. Cadel frowned at the sound of his own voice. It seemed unlikely that his strangely deteriorating condition was merely a coincidence.

‘I think I’d be more comfortable fighting back and forth.’

The longer he stayed with the Scarlet Dragon, the more he felt his body heat up. It wasn’t just warm, it was like boiling water was being poured over his body. He tried not to make a sound of pain, but a gasp escaped his lips.

“Hang in there.”

The Scarlet Dragon’s low voice rang in Cadel’s ears, and it was an outrageous request for a man who had already endured enough pain to make his knuckles white.

But the next moment.

“Cough……!”

Like a flaming skewer piercing his body, the intense heat and pain shot through his entire body at once. The Scarlet Dragon arched his back and pinned Cadel’s flailing upper body to keep him from sprawling on the floor.

Cadel, who had been struggling for a while with his eyes rolling back in his head, gasped in pain that gradually subsided just before he lost consciousness again. His body shook with the afterglow of the terrible pain. His face was a mess of physiologic tears and saliva, but it didn’t occur to him to wipe it away.

“Now that you have all your powers under control, you won’t be bothered by just talking with me.”

The Scarlet Dragon released Cadel from his swaying form and rose to his feet. Drained of strength, Cadel leaned against the cave wall and followed the Scarlet Dragon’s movements with his eyes.

His stride was unimpeded by the vastness of the cave, which was of immeasurable depth. Traversing the cave as if he were at home, the Scarlet Dragon entered a shadowy cavity and returned with something.

“This is the only thing to drink, and there is no human being who doesn’t like it, so drink it.”

Cadel barely caught what the Scarlet Dragon tossed up and peered at it. It was a liquid in a clear crystal bottle. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed the liquid, then gulped.

“……It’s alcohol.”

He didn’t want to drink in this condition, but he felt like his throat was going to tear up from thirst if he didn’t get something to drink right away. After a short deliberation, Cadel tilted the bottle and took a swig. Contrary to his expectations, the liquor was quite cool and flavorful. It was like drinking a nice cup of tea.

As Cadel downed half the bottle in one swift gulp, the Scarlet Dragon, now in front of him, crossed his arms and looked down at him.

“Now I’d like you to start answering questions because I have a lot of time on my hands, but you’re human, and every minute is precious.”

Perhaps thanks to the Scarlet Dragon’s energy, I no longer felt nauseous or dizzy when I faced him. Instead of answering right away, Cadel found his clothes lying nearby and slowly put them on. Scarlet Dragon crouched in front of Cadel and watched the entire process. Perhaps because of his large size, his hunched posture felt threatening.

He stared at Cadel as if urging him to answer, and Cadel pondered his question, tracing back vague memories. But all the answers that came to mind were dissatisfactory.

“I know nothing.”

“……What does that mean?”

“Literally. I don’t have any information to answer. Rather, I would like to ask this question. What is this soul that I devoured?”

The Scarlet Dragon stared into Cadel’s eyes, as if trying to gauge whether he was sincere or not, and then sat down fully on the floor with a sickening smile.

“Humans do not seem to consider ignorance a sin, but for this one that knows many things, ignorance is a sin.”

Propping himself up on one knee and draping an arm over it in a rather cocky stance, the Scarlet Dragon swept Cadel with a pointed gaze. Then he spoke as if to state a very simple fact.

“I have determined that there is another soul within you, a soul from this world. Through your cursed power, you suppressed this child’s soul and took control of his body.”

“……What?”

“The body has been taken, but the soul is not yet dead. It’s not alive, but it’s not withered either. It has a clear sense of self.”

There was another soul within him. If such a thing were possible, the owner of that soul would be none other than ‘Cadel Lytos’. But that meant.

“Wait, wait a minute. So you’re saying that there’s another soul inside of me that has an ego, and that means…… That soul is watching everything right now, inside of me, this whole reality that I’m taking over his body and living in his place?”

The words came out slurred, like a man unable to compose himself after a sudden shock. Cadel stiffened, trying to force himself to accept the objective facts, but it was impossible.

Where had the soul of the man he’d stolen, Cadel Lytos, gone? He had vaguely imagined it. In his imagination, that soul was either in the system’s vault, in the body of an unconscious Shin Yeohwan, or he had been extinguished and no longer existed.

But it had never occurred to him that they might be sharing the same body, because that would be too terrible.

The Scarlet Dragon tilted his head and rubbed his chin. There was a hint of caution in his gaze as he appraised Cadel as if appraising a precious object.

“He can’t watch it. Because you are the owner of his body. What you see and feel about this world is yours alone. But that guy is tangled up with your inner self.”

“Inner self……?”

“Interfering with your thoughts and behavior. Let me give you an easy example. For someone from another world, you must have adapted to this one pretty quickly. You didn’t have much trouble dealing with people, did you?”

Cadel swallowed dryly and lowered his eyes. He wanted to say no, that he was having a hard time adjusting, but, well. Everything felt foreign to him, but he was less hesitant to act on it. He wondered if he was this strong in times of crisis, but he had to admit he was impressed.

When Cadel didn’t answer, the Scarlet Dragon continued.

“Things you wouldn’t have done, feelings you wouldn’t have felt, decisions you wouldn’t have made. The soul is interfering in all of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s his will or not. I’m more surprised you haven’t noticed anything odd before now.”

“……Does that mean that the thoughts I’m having, the feelings and emotions I’m having…… might not be entirely mine?”

“From a certain point of view, yes. Maybe even this situation of having just learned the truth will be quickly accepted by you because the soul was already aware of everything.”

It was as if his thought circuitry had snapped, and he couldn’t think anymore. He was over capacity. Cadel belatedly realized that his hand holding the bottle was shaking. It was the same even if he held it with both hands.

What he was thinking, how he was feeling. He became afraid of feeling clearly. He was afraid that Cadel Lytos’ will, which was not his, would intervene. Even if he intervened right away, he wasn’t confident that he would be able to distinguish it. There was no way he would be able to do what he had never done before.

Wasn’t this fear also the emotion of Cadel Lytos? He began to doubt everything. Then, he suddenly came to a question that he couldn’t shake off.

“Then…… The emotions I feel when I look at someone may not be mine…….”

Unable to finish his sentence, he glanced at the Scarlet Dragon, who tugged at the corner of his mouth smoothly, as if he found Cadel interesting.

“Correct. What I’m saying is that if you fall in love with someone, it could be your love, it could be the love of another soul in you, or it could be a bubbly love created by the merging of two souls with the right amount of attraction.”

Through the battles he’d fought, Cadel realized he had a reckless side. Even if it was to complete a quest, even if it was a difficult situation in which he couldn’t return to the original world if he didn’t clear it. He couldn’t deny that he had acted like he had multiple lives.

He had never fought a battle so dangerous before. He had never experienced it, nor had he ever experienced it, so he assumed that the actions of naturally making reckless decisions during his first battle were part of his hidden nature that had never been revealed before.

But it wasn’t.

‘If I think about it, the real Cadel was truly a reckless bastard.’

The real Cadel Lytos seen in Van’s recruitment story. That man could truly be said to be reckless. He was a man who had no hesitation in putting himself on fire for the sake of others.

Didn’t he think about it then? He said he couldn’t do it like Cadel Lytos. He said that risking his life to save others’ lives was not for him. And in truth, he had risked his life many times over.

In the end, he was influenced by Cadel Lytos from the beginning. The unexpected side he found in himself was not the discovery of a precious new self, but merely something he borrowed from someone else for a while.

And for all the unexpectedness, it was still Cadel Lytos who was the protagonist of this world, because Cadel Lytos was the one who had gotten him through so many obstacles. He was nothing more than a thief trying to steal Cadel Lytos’ spot and his credits.

‘……How can this be?’

The system told him nothing. It gave him two choices and said nothing about the fact that he had stolen someone else’s body.

For Cadel Lytos, the system would have been a disaster. So what about him, the man who rode that wave of disaster and swallowed Cadel Lytos whole? Was he a messenger from hell, or maybe hell itself?

The realization that he had plundered someone’s life had never hit him as hard as it did now. It finally hit him. Every moment of taking what was Cadel Lytos’ and laughing about it, even if it was unwillingly, felt sickening.

“I think I’ve explained enough. I’ve told you a lot, now tell me everything you know.”

The Scarlet Dragon urged him on, unconcerned by all the confusion Cadel must be feeling. He was curious as to what method Cadel had used to cross the dimension of another world. His curiosity about a world he did not know seemed to awaken his long-dormant senses.

Cadel swiped a hand across his flushed face and cleared his throat. His breathing was ragged, like a man about to collapse, but his eyes were clear as if he were trying to pull himself together somehow.

He drew out a dry voice and began to recount what had happened. He couldn’t trust the system anymore. He needed someone to tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth.