Chapter 371 - Looking into the dark past! (3)

The tension that had gripped the square fractured the instant Luca saw him.

Professor Aldric.

For a heartbeat, the noise dulled. The murmurs, the shifting boots, the unease hanging in the air—all of it faded as Luca’s lips curved into a genuine, relieved smile. His chest loosened, warmth blooming where dread had sat for far too long.

He made it...

Aldric stood at the far end of the hall, night-worn cloak still clinging to his shoulders, silver-threaded hair slightly disheveled as if he had come in haste. Yet despite that, his presence alone grounded the space. Solid. Familiar. Safe.

Luca exhaled slowly.

Around him, confusion rippled.

Seraphina tilted her head, crimson eyes narrowing slightly. "That’s... Professor Aldric?"

Halreth folded his arms, brow furrowing. "He looks like he ran straight through hell to get here."

They didn’t have long to speculate.

Seraphina took a step forward, voice cutting clearly through the air.

"Where were you, Professor Aldric?"

Halreth followed immediately, sharper. "Do you have any idea what kind of situation you walked into?"

Aldric didn’t answer.

He didn’t even look at them.

He walked past Luca.

Each step slowed—then stopped.

His gaze had fixed on someone standing just behind Luca.

A girl.

She looked small in that moment, almost painfully so, as if the weight of the world had pressed down on her shoulders for years without mercy. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her eyes—those gentle, fractured eyes—stared at Aldric as though she were afraid he might vanish if she blinked.

Her lips parted.

"...Father..."

The word barely escaped her throat.

Aldric’s breath hitched.

For the first time since he arrived, something in his expression cracked. The stern composure he wore like armor fractured, and his eyes glistened, moisture gathering faster than he could suppress it.

"...My child," he whispered, the words breaking around the edges.

Luca turned sharply, heart slamming.

Now.

He stepped forward before the moment could shatter completely.

"Professor," Luca asked, voice steady despite the storm in his chest. "Did you find it?"

Aldric tore his gaze away with visible effort. He looked at Luca—then away from him.

At Bishop Truce.

Silence fell like a guillotine.

"I have some questions for you, Bishop Truce," Aldric said quietly.

The calm in his voice was worse than anger.

Bishop Truce stiffened. His face twisted—first with confusion, then with poorly concealed fury.

"What is the meaning of this?" he snapped. "You barge in unannounced, ignore direct questions, and now you accuse me without explanation? Have you forgotten your place, Aldric?"

A murmur surged through the hall.

Luca didn’t listen.

He turned slowly.

The Saintess stood before him.

Their eyes met—and his heart clenched.

There was fear there. Confusion. Hope. And something fragile that looked too much like trust.

"I’m sorry," Luca said softly.

Her brows knit together. "Luca...?"

"If I had a choice," he continued, voice low, heavy with regret, "I wouldn’t have wanted you to know this."

He reached out, taking her hands before she could pull away.

They were cold.

Carefully—almost reverently—he pressed the brooch into her palms.

The moment it touched her skin, pain flared.

She gasped, fingers curling reflexively around the metal as a sharp cry escaped her lips. "Ah—!"

Darkness stirred.

Not sudden. Not violent.

It spread.

Shadows bled from the edges of the brooch, crawling over her hands like living ink, seeping into the space between her fingers, swallowing the light around them.

The air grew heavy.

Flags flickered. Mana warped.

The Saintess cried out again, softer this time, as the darkness surged—

and the world around them began to fall away.

Darkness.

Endless, soundless, weightless.

Luca drifted within it, awareness returning in fragments. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above—only an infinite void that cradled him like a familiar abyss.

His eyes opened slowly.

"...Did it work?" he murmured.

The words felt small, swallowed almost instantly by the emptiness around him. He lifted his hand instinctively—no resistance, no sensation of air, only the faint pull of something unseen, like a current in deep water.

This feeling...

His brow furrowed.

"The sensation is familiar..." he whispered to himself. "But I still couldn’t control time and space."

A breath escaped him—half laugh, half sigh.

"I just took a gamble. Based on my past experiences."

Images flickered at the edges of his mind. Other descents. Other timelines. Other moments where he had trusted instinct over certainty and leapt anyway.

"The place should be the same," he continued quietly, grounding himself through logic. "The brooch can act as a medium..."

His fingers curled reflexively, as if he could still feel the cold metal pressed between the Saintess’s palms.

"...Let’s just hope."

For a moment longer, there was nothing.

Then—

Light tore through the darkness.

Not gently.

It ripped, like a blade slicing open a curtain of shadow. The void fractured, cracks of blinding gold-white radiating outward as sound rushed back all at once—voices, bells, wind, life.

Luca shielded his eyes.

And the world appeared.

Stone streets stretched beneath a radiant sky, bathed in warm sunlight that carried the faint scent of incense and blooming flowers. Towering spires of white and gold rose proudly, engraved with divine scripture and winged motifs that glimmered as if blessed themselves.

The Holy Kingdom.

But not the one he knew.

This one breathed differently.

The air felt lighter—less rigid, less suffocating. People filled the streets: merchants calling out cheerfully, children running with laughter echoing between buildings, knights in polished armor standing not as enforcers, but protectors. Their expressions were calm. Devout—but not afraid.

Church bells rang in the distance, their tones harmonious rather than oppressive.

Faith here felt... alive.

Luca slowly lowered his hand, eyes scanning the scene with dawning realization.

"...Twenty years ago," he whispered.

Before the rot had fully set in....or just hadn’t opened its eyes..

Before doctrine hardened into chains.

Before faith was weaponized.

The Holy Kingdom of the past unfolded before him—bright, proud, and tragically unaware of the darkness that would one day consume it.

A soft movement drew Luca’s attention.

To his side, upon the pale stone ground, lay a girl wrapped in a dusty white cloak. Lavender-silver hair spilled across the surface beneath her, strands lifting and settling gently with the passing wind. For a moment, she looked almost unreal—like a memory given form.

Her lashes trembled.

Then slowly, her eyes opened.

She inhaled sharply and pushed herself up onto her elbows, confusion clouding her expression as she turned her head from side to side, taking in the unfamiliar-yet-familiar surroundings.

"W-what happened...?" she asked weakly. "Where are we?"

Her gaze stopped.

Locked onto Luca.

He didn’t answer immediately. He simply looked at her—really looked—making sure she was conscious, grounded, here. Only then did he speak.

"We’re in the Holy Kingdom."

She blinked, then turned again, scanning the streets, the spires, the people passing by as if nothing were amiss. Her brows drew together slowly.

"...I can sense the familiarity," she murmured. "But it’s not quite the same."

Luca nodded once.

"That’s because we’re in the Holy Kingdom from twenty years ago."

Her breath caught.

Eyes widening, she turned back to him, disbelief and realization colliding in her expression.

"Y-your ability...?"

He inclined his head in confirmation.

Silence stretched for a beat before she swallowed and asked the question that had clearly been clawing its way to the surface.

"But... why are we here?"

Luca’s gaze drifted past her, over the bright streets and untouched faith of the past, over a world standing on the edge of a tragedy it didn’t yet know was coming.

"To give you the answer to your question," he said quietly.

The Saintess fell silent.

She sat there, eyes drifting once more over the sunlit streets, the white spires, the people passing by—ordinary, unknowing, alive. Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of her cloak, as if grounding herself in the moment.

Luca watched her from the side.

After a pause, he spoke, trying to sound lighter than he felt.

"What? You don’t want it now?"

She flinched, then puffed her cheeks faintly, turning toward him with a small huff.

"Hmph... what do you know..."

Her voice softened mid-sentence.

"I’m meeting my parents for the first time," she continued, gaze lowering. "It’s... I don’t know how to explain it..."

Each word struck Luca like an arrow to the chest.

Once.

Twice.

Again and again.

He understood far too well what it meant to know someone only through absence—through stories, regrets, and echoes left behind. And because he understood, he didn’t know what to say.

So he said nothing.

Instead, he straightened and took a step forward.

"Let’s... go."

Before he could move any farther, her hand caught his.

Warm. Gentle. Firm enough to stop him.

He turned back, surprised.

She smiled.

Not the distant, composed smile of a Saintess—but a bright, genuine one, fragile and sincere.

"Thank you," she said softly. "For doing this much... for me."

Something twisted violently in Luca’s chest.

He returned the smile faintly—but his other hand clenched at his side, fingers digging into his palm with desperate force.

Too tight.

Pain bloomed—sharp and real.

A thin line of blood slipped between his fingers and dripped silently onto the pale stone below.