Crown of Thorns

CHAPTER 10

Translator & editor : Cuties

I was crouching in the dark, thinking of countless things. It was unbecoming of me who always tried to kill my thoughts, my mind, and my time. But now that I have something more important than that, I couldn’t help it.

It was the young warrior whom I suddenly met again.

I couldn’t get myself together for a while because the boy I thought I’d never see again appeared in front of me. There was no distinction between what was a dream and what was real. It was too long and clear before to be a dream, and it is too vivid now to be a dream now.

The inside of the damp, dark tower was the same as it has been before I met the boy. There was nothing but a few items that were covered in cobwebs and dust and smelled bad with rotten blood, and the rotting and ragged furniture.

There was no trace of the food, books, daily necessities, and water that the boy had been regularly bringing with him in his spare moments as he grew to a young man. Not that they had disappeared, but as if they had never existed in the first place. The time I spent with the boy disappeared into thin air.

I can’t read my future, nor can I know how it changes following the choices I make, but I don’t understand why I’ve come to experience such an ordeal. The bell still rang at the same time every day and I wondered whether it was an echo from an old memory, or if I was hearing it for the first time.

But I soon came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter.

I wanted to see the boy’s red eyes and white hair. I was sad that I could never see him again. It was heartbreaking to know that he would not come even if I waited and waited. I resent the boy for telling me to wait and then leaving.

And I regretted having been too afraid to remember how to feel that I pushed him away. I kept my distance from him in order not to regret it but I ended up having regrets anyway which distressed me greatly.

Just as the boy turned into a young man and was swallowed by the darkness, it seems that I also was embraced by the light while watching him. No, in fact, from the first time we met, the witch’s darkness was dispersed by light. I couldn’t forget the white hair and red eyes. I tried to turn away, but it was hard.

I kept thinking about the boy without knowing and eventually waited. The more I met the boy, the more I tried to ignore him, the more the light grew.

So shouldn’t I be glad to be able to face the red eyes of the boy whom I thought would never see again, no matter whether I had a precognitive dream, a return to the past, or a very vivid imagination?

Of course, the young man who shook the dead witch all over became a young boy again, but human time was so fast that it was certain that he would grow in an instant. It was rather a pleasure to be able to stand by and protect him while also closely regarding his changes which I haven’t fully taken note of before.

What I’m worried about now isn’t whether this is a dream or not, the present or the past. It’s about how I should protect the young warrior from being swallowed by darkness and facing a miserable fate. How am I supposed to protect the young warrior while trapped in a tower?

I’m not actually locked up. I can always get away if I want. However, I am not confident in facing the world again and facing all the memories and yearnings that I have buried.

Most of all, how can a warrior trust and follow me? Not the young man you said he loved me. A young warrior who hates witches without knowing anything. The time the boy spent with me vanished into thin air and his feelings remained as the same the day we first met.

He was the young warrior who held out the sword with his trembling little hand, saying, “The reason I lost my precious one is because of the witch’s curse.”

To keep such a young warrior by my side as a witch? How can that be? And what is the way to grow the light inside him without having him get swallowed up by darkness?

I took out my cards because I felt frustrated with the questions that I couldn’t answer. This, too, was better than staying still, although it did not show details. Each card that flipped over had the same thing as if warning me not to cross into the realm of deities, but that didn’t bother me.

“What are you doing?”

I turned my head to the direction or the sudden voice. The young warrior is leaning against the wall and looking at me. I’m so used to the look. The boy, who has grown a little taller and a little beefier, comes close, frowning his eyebrows, as if he doesn’t like me looking at him without answering. I still couldn’t find anything to do about the situation, but so much of the boy’s time was already gone. My mind is in a hurry. I know there’s still a lot of time left, but his time is too fast for me.

“What are you doing now?”

The boy’s white hair stretched out like a snowfield as he bent down in front of me. I tucked the hair blocking my view and scanned his sun-white face and red eyes. The boy looked at me, too, as if my reaction was strange to him, but I did not avoid the flaming red-eye. When I continuously stared, the boy hurriedly turned his eyes.

I thought maybe he wouldn’t come. Having embraced the boy who had come visit me for the first time and then crying so much, I thought he might have been frightened by the strange and bizarre look of the witch, but the young warrior appeared just like the imagination I had drawn.

Still looked like an angel who came down to punish me.

The boy fiddled with the cards with an awkward look, perhaps ashamed of me staring at him. Only then did I recall that he had asked me a question. I’ve kept my gaze on him for a long time because I’ve never actually seen him properly.

“I’m reading tarot.”

The boy asked me the same question again.

“Can we see the future with this?”

The boy’s blooming red flower-like, hot-boiling blood-like, sunset-like eyes that embrace the world affectionately fixed me, but I answered, not avoiding it.

“If it were your future.”

The boy was still as curious as I remembered him. No, he must have just looked curious to me because I’ve long since forgot about human interactions.

“My future? How is it?”

I answered.

“You are the light that will save the world.”

The boy’s eyes were wide open as if my words were surprising. It may be natural to distrust a witch who tells a warrior that he’s going to save the world. Especially coming from the same witch that the world is after.

“Lies.”

I answered as I arranged the cards.

“It’s true. You drive out the darkness and save the world.”

“Why would you tell me that? Then it’s bad for you.”

The boy’s question made my hand hesitate to organize the cards. It’s not a bad thing. I deserve to be happy. But the young warrior now did not know that I was desperate for death. Because I never begged to be killed before him. Yet.

If he finds out that I desperately want to die, he will either stop me like before or turn away, saying, “I can’t do anything good for a witch.”

But the little boy understood what I meant.

“You are the darkness; you’re talking about me killing you, right now. Why are you telling me that?”

I couldn’t answer for a long time before I managed to open my mouth.

“Because the world needs light. Because it’s time to stop.”

I continued to stare at the boy who, by his turn, cast bewildered eyes in my direction.

“I need you, young warrior.”

Changing the present changes the future. The fact that I wanted death, that my death was solely in the hands of the warrior, showed the concealed bright future of the young warrior. Instead of the death the cards foresaw as his future, I told the future of the warrior I will make it.

The boy turned away after a silent stare for a while as if he thought the witch was crazy. I looked down at the cards I was holding. And flipped the card that meant death at the top.

The light the divination signifies must be this boy. He was a warrior who would drive out the darkness and give me eternal rest. I’ll change the present of the young warrior. So the future I saw would prove that it was just a nightmare.

The witch will be the shadow of the young warrior and stay by his side.

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T/N : We started volume 2 everyone yay! It has 20 something chapters. Happy reading!