Bones

“Shasha shasha shasha…”

The rain poured down relentlessly, as if the heavens were dumping all the rainwater at once onto the land.

The continent looked calm on the surface, yet undercurrents surged beneath, unnoticed by the people.

After all, life still had to go on.

“Boom—”

With a flash of lightning arriving first, a few seconds later came the deep rumble of thunder.

This was the stifling thunder of summer.

A-Lian stared at the backyard garden in boredom.

The pebble-paved path was surrounded by dense shrubs, once full of wild charm.

In the past, A-Lian liked to sit there with a charcoal pencil, slowly recording every detail of the plants to pass the time.

But now, with rain battering the banana leaves, all beauty was swallowed by the downpour.

Today was a special day.

It was A-Lian’s birthday.

Yet no one knew it—only she herself did.

What the owners of this estate remembered instead was another important day.

Golia’s memorial day.

That is, A-Lian’s mother.

She looked toward the end of the garden, where a small crowd dressed in black gathered.

They were mourners in black robes and skirts.

It was as if even the heavens felt sorrow for Golia.

The heavy rain was perfectly fitting.

She pulled a chair out from the desk, dragged it to the window, and leaned over the sill to observe the scene.

“Golia…”

A-Lian murmured softly.

She couldn’t quite feel sorrow.

Yet in such an atmosphere, she couldn’t help but feel heavy-hearted.

A crushing weight pressed down on her.

She felt deeply uncomfortable.

But this did not change her principle.

She would never cry.

She saw her father, Mana.

He sat silently beside the gravestone, as if reporting household matters to the deceased resting beneath it.

His temples were streaked with gray, and the sorrow on his face made him look even older.

He took out a flask from his clothes.

Ignoring the rain pounding down on him, he drank quietly.

Everyone else had already dispersed.

Only he remained, placing his umbrella aside in silence.

He drank and spoke, as if reminiscing.

At times he laughed.

At times he looked sorrowful.

But more often than not, he sat there dazed, like a wooden statue.

Suddenly, he stood up.

He raised the silver flask high above his head and poured it down over himself.

He opened his mouth, letting the strong liquor mix with rainwater and flow straight down his throat.

He then stood in the rain for a while longer.

Then, he took something out of his pocket and looked at it.

He fell silent again.

He gazed at the object quietly in the rain for a long time.

Finally, he casually placed it on the gravestone.

Then he dug a small pit in the ground with his hands.

He put the object inside, covered it with soil, and carefully flattened the earth.

Only then did he give the gravestone a gentle look.

With a long sigh, the sorrow in his heart seemed to vanish.

He looked like a different person.

As if he had been redeemed.

He slowly picked up his umbrella and left.

A-Lian didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand why her father was so grief-stricken, only to look redeemed in the end.

She wanted to know what lay beneath that gravestone.

What was buried there, that he couldn’t bear to part with.

There were no umbrellas in the library.

A-Lian didn’t want to wait for the rain to stop before digging.

She plunged into the rain without hesitation.

Following the pebble path she had seen earlier, she passed flowers battered by rain, their beauty faded.

She hurried toward the low gravestone.

Beneath it lay her mother, whom she had never met.

She looked at her mother’s grave without feeling sorrow.

Instead, she secretly blamed the person buried there.

Her own life of hardship was indirectly caused by her.

But more than that, A-Lian hated herself.

She was the one who destroyed a perfect and happy family.

Her father had once been young and promising.

Her mother had been intelligent and virtuous.

Her older brothers had grown up bathed in parental love, destined to become the future of the nation.

And her appearance shattered it all in an instant…

A-Lian sorrowfully blamed herself.

If only she had never existed in this world…

She looked at the body she had gradually grown accustomed to.

A bitter smile spread across her face.

She didn’t care anymore.

Like her father, she sat before her mother’s grave and began praying softly.

After finishing her prayer, she remained seated.

If she had alcohol, she might have taken small sips like her father.

But she didn’t drink.

She simply stared quietly.

Nearby was the greenhouse.

A-Lian thought of something.

She jogged into the flower house and carefully picked a blooming flower.

Holding it, she hurried back to the gravestone.

She placed the flower gently on the stone slab in front of the grave.

It was her small offering as a child.

After that, she sat down on the ground again.

Wet mud clung to her clothes, making them even heavier than before.

A-Lian looked at the small pit Mana had dug.

She hesitated.

A strange premonition rose within her.

She didn’t want to take that thing out.

Yet she was deeply curious.

She wanted to know what Mana had hidden so carefully.

After a struggle, curiosity won out.

She began digging forcefully at the spot.

Before long, the object saw daylight again.

It was a mithril pendant.

Covered in soil, she couldn’t see what was engraved on it.

She rinsed the pendant with rainwater.

But it didn’t help much.

Then she remembered the watering pump in the greenhouse.

Without hesitation, she ran back, activated the magic device, and carefully washed the pendant.

Soon, its true form was revealed.

It was a chain made of imitation mithril.

Because it was fake, it had long lost its luster.

She couldn’t understand why a duke’s pendant would use fake mithril.

Hanging from the chain was a coin from the era of Emperor Louis II.

Due to certain circumstances at the time, the coin was unusually large.

A-Lian stared at the coin, which predated two emperors.

She rubbed it firmly and realized there was something hidden.

The coin had been split into two halves from left to right.

One side was fixed with a small knob.

With a gentle push, the coin opened.

In that moment, A-Lian was utterly shaken by what was inside.

One side contained a tiny photo-scroll protected by crystal inlay.

On it was her mother, Golia, whom she had never met.

She sat on a chair beside her father, looking small and unprepared.

She smiled, glancing sideways at Mana.

Mana, meanwhile, forced himself to look calmly toward the direction of the spell.

This moment had been captured by the image spell.

And her father had never thrown it away.

She smiled beautifully.

Standing beside her young father, they looked perfect together.

A match made in heaven.

Only those words could describe them.

Yet she would forever lie beneath that gravestone.

On the other side, A-Lian saw a little boy with facial features resembling Golia.

His hair, like hers, was a soft golden color.

Not the lion-like brilliance of Mana’s gold.

He looked confused, turning back toward the scroll.

That was her, when she was “him.”

Excitement and sorrow surged back and forth within her.

She finally understood.

Her father had never truly ignored her.

She had always held a place in his heart.

At one point, her place had even been equal to Golia’s.

He just couldn’t accept it.

He couldn’t accept that “he” had caused her death.

So he did everything he could to forget A-Lian.

Yet “he” had always remained in his heart.

She was deeply moved.

So moved that she almost cried.

But knowing the truth only made her sadder.

Golia was dead.

“A-Lian” was also dead.

The people in both scrolls she carried were gone from this world.

This coin could only bear the meaning of things remaining while people were gone.

He had kept this pendant for three more years.

But time erodes everything.

Just like flowers in a storm.

Beaten until they wither.

Beaten until they die.

At that moment, A-Lian understood Mana’s silence.

He had concluded that “A-Lian” was truly dead.

Burying these pendants was his hope that the earth would swallow this grief forever.

That long sigh meant he had finally laid down the burden on his back.

He had chosen to forget.

Thinking of this, A-Lian could no longer suppress her sorrow.

Like the stifling heat before a storm, it burst forth in an instant.

She lost control and broke down into loud sobs.

She tried to restrain herself.

But her tears poured out like a flood.

She desperately wiped them away.

Yet new tears kept falling.

The more she tried to endure, the more uncontrollable they became.

Her breathing grew rapid.

“Cough… sob… cough cough… waaah…!”

Had her father truly believed she was completely dead…?

The thought made her even more sorrowful.

She cried.

And cried.

Until she could cry no more.

Her tears seemed completely drained.

Something in her mind felt missing…

“A-Lian” was dead…

……………………

“One general’s success leaves ten thousand bones to rot…

Those bones are still piled around my demon castle…”

Lilith muttered to herself.

Was the first castle lord truly a twisted madman…?

No.

He only wanted to protect those he cared for.

He captured all kinds of races for experiments.

In the end, he found a way to revive corpses.

But when he “revived” the one he wanted to protect, he burned her body to ashes without hesitation.

She revived.

But she became an undead.

A demon.

She could see her soul struggling, begging him to kill her once more.

Because she wanted to devour his flesh and blood…

She pleaded desperately for death.

And in the end, he gave her release without hesitation.

He was—Salazar.

The first lord of the Demon Castle.

That secret incantation became forbidden magic.

“O bones sleeping beneath the earth!

Hear my summons…

Guided by my blood, utterly crush them!”

Lilith chanted.

She slit her palm with the dagger A-Lian once used.

Blood splashed into the air.

The bones slumbering underground rose like starving wolves.

They crawled out one by one from the flower fields outside the demon castle walls.

They climbed over the walls.

And entered the inner courtyard of the Demon Castle…