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Chapter 168: The Sealed Room
“…….”
Breaths rasp in and out.
Maybe it’s because they are underground.
Maybe it’s the tension—hard to tell.
Isaac can feel the sword slick in his palm, sweat threatening to make the blade slip at any second.
The Giant’s request couldn’t be clearer:
Give meaning to the life and years he has endured.
He wants to believe he reached this place for one reason only—to grant Isaac a moment of enlightenment.
Pressed by that desperate wish, Isaac finally raised his sword.
“Wait a moment.”
Marlin stepped between them. She understood the heart of the conversation, even sympathized—but—
“No matter what, this is the time to stay cool-headed.”
Calmly, Marlin laid it out:
“I understand how you both feel, but look at the situation first. Even if you could cut down everything you’ve worked toward in an instant—”
If Isaac truly managed to strike the Giant here…
“We’ll be crushed to death.”
“…….”
“…….”
Isaac and the Giant fell silent. Her words were unflinchingly realistic.
Cut the Giant for the sake of his dream—then what?
The Giant already seems one breath from death; if he takes a deeper wound now, everyone bracing beneath him will be buried alive.
Anyone can see this is a moment to favor reality over dreams, Marlin urged.
But the two men thought differently.
“Mm, Marlin….”
Searching for the right words, the Giant let out a low chuckle, trying to reassure her.
“Do not worry, little one.”
“Pardon?”
“By the time Isaac reaches the insight needed to cut me down, you will all have escaped safely.”
Marlin stared, blank, unable to grasp where even to start questioning him.
Isaac only gave a faint laugh and lifted his sword again.
After all, what better moment to challenge the impossible?
With a cynical smile, Isaac began to swing the blade once more.
* * *
Claaang!
The hardest part of being swallowed by darkness was not knowing how many hours had slipped by.
Stifling, damp air… sweat sliding down without pause… and a ruined sword.
“……Looks like this one’s done for.”
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Isaac dropped the blade—snapped clean in two—onto the floor. It had only been a practice sword he’d borrowed for a moment; now it wasn’t fit to serve as a walking stick.
“Are you ready?”
The Giant asked, but answering felt impossible. However long it had been, Isaac’s body ached with bone-deep fatigue. After days of hammering at the Giant’s thick hide, the blisters on his hands kept bursting and reforming.
His palms throbbed—raw, slick. He’d thought it was just sweat and broken blisters, yet a glance showed them smeared with blood.
“Huu-uuh.”
He steadied his breathing. His heart pounded; every part of him wanted to collapse.
“Please rest a little.”
Marlin no longer questioned anything. She simply obeyed the words of the Giant and Isaac, convinced the two of them were seeing something she could not.
She caught Isaac by the shoulders and tugged lightly; that was all it took for him to pitch against her, muscles drained of strength.
Cradling him, Marlin eased him to the ground, knelt, supported his head, and offered the last of their water and a sandwich.
“Please eat.”
“You don’t understand, do you?”
“P-pardon?”
Startled, Marlin answered at once, but Isaac smiled faintly, as though he already knew.
“Of course you don’t. Right now, we need to conserve every scrap of strength we can.”
Aren’t they stranded? Swinging a sword in the middle of a disaster—any sane man would call it madness.
Marlin had been holding her questions back, yet with Isaac opening the door, she spoke cautiously.
“Honestly… I still don’t understand.”
“Hmm.”
The Giant let out a small chuckle—as if to say it wasn’t her fault.
“But if Isaac-nim says so, I’ll accept it.”
“…….”
Isaac lifted his head slowly to meet her gaze. Even in the gloom, her blue eyes shone clear.
“If I tell you to accept it, you will?”
“Yes.”
The near-blind devotion made Isaac’s brow crease; his eyes wavered, looking at her.
After a breath, he spoke.
“Do you remember what I said back then?”
“You told me to speak up. If I keep hiding what I really think, nothing will ever change.”
Isaac nodded. He’d said it because seeing Marlin had reminded him of Rihanna, who always sealed her lips and never shared her story.
“If you have something to say, say it. You don’t have to tiptoe around me and let everything slide.”
After all, her life was on the line too. They did need to ration food and water until the Tower mages came to rescue them.
“I am, in truth, going with the flow.”
Marlin dipped her head, matter-of-fact. She couldn’t explain it any other way—she didn’t understand, so she’d ridden the current.
“But even that flow is something I chose.”
Unlike before, Marlin had chosen to follow the current. She hadn’t simply been swept along; she’d agreed of her own will.
“Everything now is my choice. Giving Baron Logan water and provisions, merely watching your training, staking my life on your attempt at the impossible—every bit of it.”
“…….”
Isaac fell silent. There was something he wanted to say, but it felt awkward to voice.
Marlin spoke the words for him, evenly.
“Yes. I hold Baron Logan in my heart.”
“…….”
A sudden breathless pause seized him, the air inside the sealed room turning a shade hotter at Marlin’s fearless yet matter-of-fact confession.
“That is why I support you. And as for the Baron Logan, I know—”
After letting the words hang, Marlin pushed on, cheeks burning but striking straight at the heart of it.
“Surely you’d already sensed my feelings for you, hadn’t you?”
“…….”
“Ho-oh.”
Two sharp gazes—Marlin’s and the Giant’s—fixed on Isaac. Even the Giant seemed amused, as though the light chatter helped him forget his pain for a moment.
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
Her voice was as level as ever, yet it pressed on him like a weight.
-You knew I cared for you, didn’t you?
“Huu… yes, I did.”
A man as handsome as Isaac couldn’t help but grow alert to such things—especially a woman’s affection for him. So he’d pretended not to notice or kept his distance.
“But Marlin—”
“I’m already aware there is no place for me in the Baron’s heart.”
Confessing is hard? Isaac understood that all too well. But refusing a confession could be just as burdensome.
Marlin seemed determined to shoulder all the fallout alone. She knew her confession had no practical meaning, and she wanted Isaac to feel as little pressure as possible.
“So please, don’t worry. I’ll simply bury my feelings and move on.”
And the result was what you saw: she bared her heart quickly, right here and now.
Confession and rejection—Marlin handled both herself, and Isaac let out a helpless laugh.
She’s remarkable in more ways than one.
She was following his old advice to the letter; it nearly left him speechless.
If only Rihanna had spoken so plainly…
Though at the moment, Marlin might be speaking a little too much, which posed its own trouble. The memory of Rihanna surfaced even here, and a bitter smile tugged at his lips.
‘I’m sorry.’
She was probably crying a lot—Rihanna, and not only her. The Grandmaster and Sharen would be grieving too. Wanting to see daylight quickly, Isaac drew the shortsword at his belt.
Cutting through… pressing forward.
Life after his regression had been like this from the start—doing what looked impossible, and doing it again now.
“Have you reached enlightenment?” the Giant asked.
Isaac answered with a small smile. “My master always said: it isn’t enlightenment—it’s Attainment.”
Sudden flashes of insight don’t simply appear.
You work, you prepare, again and again, piling effort upon effort until at last you attain.
From outside, the rumblings had begun to fade. Perhaps the Mage Tower had finally started the rescue?
Hoping so, Isaac placed a hand on his blade—
“I heard we look alike.”
Marlin’s urgent voice came from behind. Her face was blank, but a faint anxiety trembled in her words.
“You said I resemble Rihanna Helmut…”
“I did.”
He had thought the matter wrapped up.
“But what if,” Marlin continued—she herself seemed unsure why she needed to ask again—“truly what if…”
To Isaac, it was only natural. Emotions were not as easy to sever as Marlin claimed—least of all when it was love.
“If I had met you the way she did—would I have had a chance?”
A question heavy with regret. Anxiety and embarrassment glimmered at the corners of her eyes.
“The reason I loved her—”
Isaac replied, calm but unmistakably firm.
“—was because she was Rihanna.”
Resemblance cannot replace the real thing.
It wasn’t her personality that made him love her; he loved her, and so even her difficult traits appeared endearing.
At his answer, Marlin quietly closed her eyes. A single tear gathered at the corner, slid down her cheek—
“That’s a fine answer.”
—and, in hush-like stillness, Marlin accepted her heartbreak.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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