Dark Dad's Rebirth - Chapter 10. The Real Aria (12)

Chapter 10. The Real Aria (12)

He wanted to give Aria Bjorn because she was his child, and he didn’t need to tell her—he just knew it was where she wanted to be. Caelius believed that giving Aria Bjorn would make her happy.

Even though taking over the throne could be a life-or-death matter for some, Caelius didn’t see it that way. He had always succeeded in everything he set his mind to, so he thought rebelling would be no different. But soon, he realized he was wrong.

The Marquis of Berja betrayed him, and Goshen, his closest friend, died. That’s when Caelius understood that Chantal had failed. Amidst the feeling of despair, the only thing on his mind was the urgent need to save Aria.

Even if his own life was at stake, he believed he could still rescue Aria, being the mastermind behind the rebellion. Even if it meant giving up his imperial authority and facing exile, it would at least spare him from facing the guillotine. Even in a state of mental numbness, he found himself uttering words in Aria’s defense.

He claimed she was naive, unaware of her actions, and merely being manipulated by him. He claimed she had nothing to do with the betrayal and blamed her worthlessness for his failed mission. Deliberately, he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and threw her to the cold ground in front of Azekrisis, who raised his sword, ready to end her life.

As he stared into her golden eyes, filled with a mix of dark despair, fear, and betrayal, a wave of sickness engulfed him, and Caelius struggled to swallow the lump in his throat.

“Dad…!”

“Funny, I don’t love useless things.”

He feels disgusted with himself.

“I was just pretending to be a normal dad for a moment.”

This is not the future he envisioned for her.

The throne. Yes, the throne is nice.

But the future he truly wanted was… to be in the South, where it doesn’t snow all year, planting lots of her favorite roses, having the cat or dog or whatever she’s been begging him to let her have someday, and just living a normal life. Like everyone else.

Why couldn’t he have been more honest?

So much prestige, so much power, so much greed. How did it all lead them to that point?

She, he, and all of them.

Nothing can be undone; the water was spilled a long time ago.

Aria had expressed words of love, even as Caelius’s efforts had been dismissed and forsaken by him. Everything was at its worst.

* * *

When he saw Aria in the dungeon, numerous words swirled in his mind, desperate to be voiced out. Words of remorse for the past, apologies for involving her, realizations that everything she knew was a lie, and expressions of love. However, Caelius refrained from uttering any of it; he just kept quiet.

What good would it do to murmur such affectionate words now, especially when they’re on the brink of being executed side by side? He’ll bear all the blame; hold him accountable. He’s the one who entangled her in this mess, and he’s the one who brought her down.

For the first time, he regretted the years he had lived.

The karma he’d accumulated in his 37 years alone seemed to be piling up on her. He felt pathetic for being so arrogant and blinded by power. He was disgusted with himself for not understanding what Bjorn was talking about and for bringing her to this point.

The moment he saw her dragged away, a mangled mess, and placed on the guillotine, for the first time in his life, Caelius wanted to believe in a god he had never believed in before.

When he’d scoffed at the notion that gods didn’t exist and that they were nothing more than illusions created by the weak to cling to, he begged them now.

“If you give me one more chance, I won’t commit treason. If you give me one more chance, I’ll drop everything and just love her like everyone else. No, I’d do anything to save her.”

Even as his head was falling to the guillotine, he begged with a faint hope.

It didn’t matter that the blade was cutting off his breath.

All that mattered was Aria, Aria, Aria, Aria, all the time.

“If she’s unhappy because she’s tangled up with me, I’d rather she spend her next life where I’m not,” he begged like a dog.

Even on her deathbed, she mumbled something about being sorry she couldn’t put a crown on his head. Just a crown, just a scepter. All for nothing. He was too arrogant; he realized too late. He didn’t even know where to start. The first war he was half-forced to fight at the age of twelve. The banquet where he tore an enemy king alive for fun? The day he brutally exterminated enemy prisoners who screamed surrender? Well, maybe it was the fact that he was born ‘Crown Prince, Caelius von Biern.”

From the moment she first met Caelius, to the moment he and she, mangled and mangled, were dragged away and executed, Aria replayed it all in her dazed mind. All the scenes from the original play played out before her eyes as if they were real.

‘Is this a dream? or not a dream…’

Whatever it was, she didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to dig into an open wound like this. But something in her subconscious forced her to witness the original Aria and Caelius, as if she needed to remember every detail.

Her breath caught in her throat, like she was drowning.

‘S*cks…….’

‘No, I don’t want to see it. Why? Why don’t I want to see it?’

‘I don’t know, nothing, just an instinctive rejection.’

The spring they spent together was filled with the smell of flowers. The hot, breezy summers they spent in the South. The fall, when they’d play in piles of leaves and scream about bugs. The dreary winter, when they rarely went outside and spent all their time in front of the fireplace because her dad hated snow.

Countless days of crying, laughing, arguing, being sad, and throwing up.

After all the sweet, bitter, and upsetting moments, they reached the end.

She suddenly remembered.

The day her father, who always shone with nobility, was guillotined with eyes that held nothing.

The sun was uncharacteristically warm on their last day. The tickling spring breeze. The creepy sound of the iron falling. People are screaming like terminals. A pool of red blood. Her father’s neck was on the floor.

The moment she saw it, a maddening rage and anguish consumed her mind.

-“Please give us one more chance, even if it means losing all the imperial power I have left,” he begged and begged and begged. He begged and begged and begged. 

How had he forgotten?

-”You are not my descendant, and yet you dare to use its power as if it were your own.”

An unfamiliar voice he heard just before he died. At first, he thought it was just a hallucination, but…

-” It’s not enough that you fearlessly use the power of others; you’re also trying to break the flow of time.”

It wasn’t a hallucination. It was as if time had stopped. The blade of the guillotine that was supposed to fall on his neck did not fall, and he continued to hear a strange voice.

-”Those who are not masters of the power cannot use it for more than a trick, but…”

-”I don’t know who you are, but if you’re a god, please give us one more chance” he begged, pleaded, and begged, tears streaming down his face, even though he couldn’t even spit out words, because his body was too weak to speak.

-”My child agrees.”

And the golden aura that circled her as if in response to his wishes.

-”Would you trade that power for your…”

-”If I could see my father’s smiling face once more, I would give my life, my soul, and my everything.”

-”Be careful; there is no turning back.”

A somewhat stern voice, as if scolding, and then a sympathetic voice.

-”Snap, snap, snap. My vision is so narrow that all I can see is my child. How did it happen….…”

-”Yes, it was all your child’s fault that you were born that way.”

‘Alas, how could I have forgotten this?’

-”After 25 years, I will come to you once again.”

There was no such thing as an original.

-”If you make the same choices now, after seeing a new world, meeting new people, and expanding your poor horizons…”

He suddenly remembered everything.

-”Then I will give you another chance.”

From her first life to her second life in Korea. And now she’s back again.

Yeah, when she thinks about it, it was weird from the beginning.

Because if she is possessed, she should have an original hero and heroine, but there isn’t one throughout the entire story. In short, Caelius is a psychopath because he is black. That was exactly what she thought on impulse.

No, that’s not all; maybe she also wanted to think that Caelius wasn’t the right person for her.

Indeed, she did.

She didn’t think she could survive otherwise. She didn’t want to believe that she’d been abandoned when all she had was him. She couldn’t believe that so many of the days they had together were a lie. So she just chalked it up to him being the scumbag that she is because she felt like that was the only way she could breathe.

Sense drew the boundary. That’s the kind of man Caelius is—a very horrible man. He is just a helpless child who has been duped by a villain. He kept drawing, over and over. Why is it that way? He was unable to let go of her this time.

Her closed eyes opened. The first thing he saw was Caelius, sleeping on his back at the head of the bed, the man who had whispered his love so sweetly and abandoned her so cruelly.

“Daddy…….”

Her stomach churned. She wanted to feel his warm embrace once more, even as she felt like the floor was falling out from under her with resentment and betrayal.

She was sure he was fine. She thought that if she could sacrifice everything to save him, she could give it all up, so why was she so greedy? Now that she has a second chance, she wonders why she hates him so much for abandoning her.

“Dad… Dad… Dad… Dad…”

The cracked and locked voices leaked out one after another. No matter how desperately she called out to him, there was no answer. No wonder. What do you expect from a sleeping man?

“What was I to Daddy?”

A mere political tool?

The bored tone of her voice was unfamiliar.

She wanted to ask him, “Have you ever been true to me?” but the words didn’t come out of her mouth, afraid of the negative answer she might get from him in his sleep.

“If it’s so hard for you,” she said, “why don’t you just leave Caelius behind?” “Why, I still haven’t let him go.”

– “Darkness thrives in the presence of light, and I’ll be your light.”

– “The throne should have always been yours.”

-“I want to hold the sun within your hands.” Because even though you abandoned me, I still love you. Foolishly.