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Chapter 36: Firewood

The first thought that crossed my mind was simple: Why?

Isabel would never forgive me for blaming Lucas.

Therefore, I assumed her anger would never subside.

And yet, somehow, her anger was clearly fading.

‘What am I missing?’

I couldn’t figure it out.

The third act centers on Nikita.

So I had focused only on Nikita’s situation, overlooking Isabel entirely.

“Isabel.”

In that case, I might as well...

“Weren’t you the one who proudly declared you’d take me down for condemning your friend? Where’s all that fire gone now?”

It’s better to be blunt.

Circling around the issue wouldn’t lead to any answers.

I fixed Isabel with a stern look.

Her fist clenched tightly but loosened almost immediately.

I squinted my eyes slightly at the sight.

"Yes, that's right,"

Isabel admitted, her voice calm as she stared down at her now-open hand.

A hollow laugh escaped her lips.

“But then, all of a sudden, I started thinking.”

The light in Isabel's eyes began to fade.

“I started to wonder if I even have the right to condemn you for tarnishing Lucas’s name.”

Anger can set a person ablaze with enough intensity to live a second life.

But sometimes, a fire burns so fiercely that a single trivial trigger can extinguish it entirely.

“After Lucas died, I did nothing.”

Isabel looked down at her empty hands and trembled slowly.

Her tightly clenched lips quivered.

When she heard the news of Lucas's death, she had been so deeply shocked that she let go of everything.

Even her own life was no exception.

Like a sunflower deprived of the sun, she was withering away.

“I just... I couldn’t accept reality. I did nothing but sit there, blankly. No, that’s not right.”

Isabel’s hollow eyes rose to meet mine.

“It’s just like you said before. I was going to die following Lucas.”

She had lost the person dearest to her in the world.

Parting ways forever with a friend she had grown up with her entire life shattered her existence.

She stopped eating, drinking, or sleeping.

She repeated days of emptiness.

“I just wanted to die like that.”

But as time passed, she realized something.

“That kind of person... Me…”

Isabel had truly wished for death.

“What right do I have...”

Clinging to life despite wanting to die,

she had pretended to speak on behalf of Lucas.

Only now did she understand what a mistake that was.

Lucas had died facing the apostles to save others.

No one knew this better than Isabel.

Lucas had died to save others.

But Isabel, unable to accept his death, had tried to follow him into the grave.

It was the very choice Lucas would have hated most and grieved over.

Isabel had almost become the worst kind of friend to Lucas—a friend who followed him to death.

She buried her face in her hands, clutching her own head as if to claw it apart, and released a wail of anguish.

“How could I...?”

Tears streamed from Isabel's eyes, falling heavily to the ground.

“I tried to do that... to Lucas.”

Unable to endure the pain burning inside her chest, Isabel sank to her knees.

The one who had suffered most was Lucas, the one who had died.

Yet she had been about to heap even more pain upon him.

The realization crushed her.

“How... could I?”

Isabel spiraled into self-loathing.

Self-loathing is poison.

It gnaws away at a person, leaving not even a trace behind.

Anger had snapped Isabel back to reality.

Through that, she had reexamined the mistake she had almost made, realizing just how disgraceful it was.

Once that realization set in,

there was no going back.

‘As long as she’s burning with fury, she won’t think of dying.’

She must have replayed my words over and over.

And through that process, she came to understand.

The Isabel who lived by fueling herself with anger for Lucas...

Even that was just an excuse to keep living.

Realizing how pathetic it was to live fueled only by rage, she began crumbling all over again.

“...So you’re saying that even if someone insults your dead friend, you’ll just sit there and do nothing?”

Isabel cherished Lucas more than anyone.

I asked her: would she let someone insult Lucas and do nothing, simply because of her self-loathing?

Isabel stayed silent.

Seeing that, I pressed my lips into a firm line and asked again.

“Isabel Luna.”

I took a step closer as I called her full name.

The Isabel I knew had always been like a radiant sun.

Even if she burned brightly with anger,

she was never someone who let self-loathing turn her into a mere flicker of a candle.

“Is that all your feelings for your friend amount to?”

“Then what?!”

Isabel screamed, her voice raw.

Her face bore marks from her own nails.

“Then what do you expect me to do?! I was going to die following Lucas!

And then I got so furious about him being insulted that I clung to training, to fighting!

All the while, I was the one insulting Lucas the most, without even realizing it!”

Her hands pressed down hard on the stone floor of the fortress.

So forcefully that her nails cracked, blood seeping out.

“And yet, you—who I thought belittled Lucas—you were doing exactly what Lucas would have wanted...”

And at last, I understood why Isabel had changed.

On the day I awoke in the Gray Forest,

Isabel had overlapped Lucas, who sacrificed himself to save others, with me.

That’s why she avoided my gaze.

Looking at me reminded her of Lucas.

And remembering Lucas made her confront what she had almost done to him.

“I was just a selfish woman, lost in my own rage over Lucas being insulted, and I went into the abyss because of it...”

Her emotions had become increasingly unstable.

So, she threw herself into training as if she were fleeing.

She desperately tried to learn swordsmanship from Ban, as if to overcome her feelings of self-loathing.

But as a result of her relentless focus, all she heard around her was, "Are you dating Ban?"

It had only been a few months since Isabel had experienced the death of Lucas.

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The thought that she, someone grieving a dear friend, appeared happy enough to be dating someone sent Isabel plummeting into an even deeper abyss.

And so, she lashed out in anger at her friends.

The sword she believed she wielded for Lucas turned out to be an unworthy one.

To others, that sword, meant for Lucas, seemed as though she wielded it for her own happiness.

Seeing her like this—

"What's so wrong about being selfish?"

I asked her what nonsense she was spouting.

Isabel slowly lifted her head.

"People can't live their whole lives for others. It's only natural for anyone to live for themselves. That includes me."

It's only natural for anyone to prioritize themselves.

"It's human nature, and it’s a completely natural thing to do."

My eyes locked with Isabel's as she began to listen closely to my words.

And so—

"Isabel, let me tell you something. What you're doing right now is just pretending to be kind."

"...What?"

This is where I hit her with the truth.

"You said you wanted to die for your dead friend. Then, you said you're leaving your friend to be slandered because you don’t feel you have the right to defend them. What kind of absurd, idiotic excuse is that? Decide: are you pretending to be kind or choosing to be selfish? Pick one!"

I stepped closer to Isabel, irritation evident in my tone.

The blazing sun was directly overhead, casting a shadow over me.

My red eyes glowed from within the shade.

"Your friend is dead. The dead can't speak. Even if you die, all you'll become is another silent corpse alongside them. That won't make your friend sad—because the dead can't feel sadness."

Isabel was trapped in the chains of Lucas's ghost.

If I was going to save her now,

I had to use that ghost, Lucas, as leverage.

"On the other hand, if you died and Lucas overheard someone speaking ill of you, do you think he’d sit idly by and say the same thing you’re saying?"

Isabel's shoulders flinched.

We both knew the answer to that.

Absolutely not.

If it were Lucas, he wouldn't have let anyone tarnish Isabel's memory, no matter what.

"You said you didn’t want your friend to be insulted anymore."

I coldly stated,

"But isn't what you're doing now the worst insult to your friend?"

Standing by while her precious friend's memory was tarnished, saying she lacked the right to defend them—

That, more than anything, was the greatest betrayal to Lucas.

Isabel's gaze trembled violently.

"I still believe Lucas's death stained the history of Zerion Academy and set a poor example for its students."

I reignited the spark within her by repeating the words that had angered her before.

"Isabel, what about you?"

Her tear-streaked face showed her biting her lip tightly.

Her hands, bloodied from her clenched fists, trembled as she looked up at me again.

In her once-dull eyes,

a faint but unmistakable spark of determination began to flicker once more.

"...No. Lucas gave his all to save others. No one has the right to undermine that."

Isabel began to rebuild her resolve,

not on the shaky foundations of her past,

but on a firm base of determination she could stand on.

"I won't let what happened to your friend happen again. His death is a stain on Zerion Academy's history, and it must be erased."

Isabel firmly countered,

"Lucas's death was a noble sacrifice. His will, sacrificed for others, is an example everyone should follow."

Our views clashed.

At some point, Isabel had risen to her feet.

On the day I first met Isabel, I had made up my mind.

I couldn’t become the sun that Lucas was to Isabel.

So, at the very least, I decided to become her moon.

Even if the moonlight was mistaken for sunlight,

I would make sure the sunflower raised its head.

"Isabel, I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye. You’re exactly the kind of person I can’t stand."

"The feeling’s mutual. I don’t like you either."

Just as on the day I first met her,

her eyes glared at me fiercely.

For now, that was enough.

With Lucas's ghost binding her,

Isabel would live on, if only to uphold his will.

"Fine. Let’s see whose view prevails in the end."

I wasn’t here to console Isabel or to help her back on her feet.

In her story,

my role was to be the rival and adversary she had to overcome.

My part was done.

From below the fortress wall, I saw her friends rushing toward her.

Among them was Sharin, her closest companion.

They would listen to her story and support her.

I turned to leave.

"...Hanon Irey, let me ask you one thing."

Just then, Isabel called me by my name for the first time as I walked away.

"...Have you ever met Lucas before?"

Perhaps something in our conversation had stirred her suspicions.

I looked at Isabel briefly, then turned my gaze away.

"I don’t know. Maybe we crossed paths somewhere."

It was better to leave her with questions than to deny it outright and arouse suspicion.

With that, I left Isabel behind.

Even after I was gone,

she simply stood there, watching me disappear below the fortress wall.

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