Becoming the Terminally-Ill Villain Who Torments His Disciples - Chapter 81.2
“Please, save Cielo. I’d give my life if it meant keeping him alive. Take everything I have, just let him open his eyes.”
And then, as if by miracle, Cielo’s eyes fluttered open.
Yet the unease refused to fade.
“Even if he’s awake, there’s nothing I can do… But still, you never know.”
Oscar murmured as he channeled his healing energy. The violent ordeal would surely leave Cielo aching when he woke, so he mended his body in advance.
“Do as you please.”
Ryan replied dismissively, his gaze fixed on Cielo’s face. Like Oscar, he showed no intention of looking away.
“What did he mean back then?”
“Mean what?”
“…When he said, ‘I don’t want to die again.’”
At Ryan’s words, Oscar silently studied Cielo’s face.
They had suffered alongside him in his pain, grieved when his breath faltered, and then, once he awoke only to collapse back into sleep, there had been no time to think deeply.
But in Ryan’s mind, Cielo’s tearful plea was lodged like a dagger.
“No—ugh—no… I, I don’t wanna die again… Save me, please, please save me…”
Could someone truly misspeak in such agony? Would a person who had never once faced death cry out, “I don’t want to die again”?
To Ryan, it made no sense.
The closer one is to death, the more honest their words become. And for someone like Cielo, writhing in unbearable pain, he shouldn’t even remember what he had said.
So then… why?
“I’m not the person from your memories, the one from back then.”
Why did those words of Cielo’s linger in his mind?
“The me you first met and the me now are very different. So…”
Until now, the Cielo that Ryan had known never dwelled on his past.
After being struck by Eli, he claimed his memories were hazy—yet he fixated on one thing with unsettling persistence:
The insistence that he was no longer the same as before.
“What if…”
What if someone else was inside that body?
Of course, such things weren’t unheard of. There were cases where a person, once barely able to speak, suddenly changed overnight—or where a villain, steeped in cruelty, became righteous in a single evening.
Just like Cielo.
Records even mentioned that centuries ago, during the founding of the Astha Empire, the first empress consort had experienced something similar.
‘If you’re like that too…’
If that was the truth he had been agonizing over all along—if somewhere in his past, he had already experienced death once—
“If Master said, ‘I don’t want to die again,’ then all we have to do is make sure he never does.”
As Ryan steeled his resolve, Oscar muttered softly.
“Hm?”
“Don’t ask questions. Don’t wonder. Just give him what he wants.”
Oscar fiddled with Cielo’s hair as he spoke.
Having been by Cielo’s side longer than anyone, Oscar had been the first to notice the strangeness in him.
Even if memories were lost, the habits ingrained in a person’s nature remained unchanged.
Food preferences, tastes in clothing, favorite colors, hated scents—
Such small, intimate details never faded, no matter how much one forgot.
But Cielo had transformed in an instant.
As though he had become someone else entirely.
“Don’t overthink it, you and I.”
Whether the one inside Cielo’s body was the real “Cielo” or some nameless stranger, it didn’t matter to Oscar.
“Right now, all we need to think about is saving Master.”
If the person they loved had changed completely, that would be one thing—but having already fallen in love with the changed version, the past held no meaning.
His violet eyes, gleaming as if to ask “Am I wrong?”, locked onto Ryan.
Seeing that look, Ryan tugged up the corner of his mouth and answered.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
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