# Chapter 44
“If I hadn’t killed them, they wouldn’t have died.”
“No, they would have died.”
“No. I… I killed them…”
Raziel firmly interrupted Levi’s frightened voice.
“When war breaks out, they can’t die peacefully either.”
Raziel cradled Levi’s right hand with his own black hand. Levi’s attention was immediately drawn to the black hand that resembled his own.
“Rather, it’s fortunate they died by your hand, which brings peace.”
This was incomprehensible to Levi. Was he saying that it was better for those people to die by his hand?
Raziel stared at Levi’s black hand, at the rippling red pattern engraved on his palm. Then he slowly looked around the bedroom.
Flowerpots were placed throughout the bright and spacious bedroom, but every single one was completely withered and twisted. Some had even turned black.
‘A state of oversaturation of nourishment.’
Raziel, who recognized that Levi’s black hand was the cause just by observing the condition of the surrounding plants, realized that Levi was thinking exactly the same thing as him.
Levi instinctively knew that his black hand had taken so much nourishment that he couldn’t control its unique energy for a while. He knew that not only by touch, but if someone stayed in the same space for a certain amount of time, they would develop abnormalities as if poison were building up in their body, and eventually die.
That’s why he was anxious. He feared the same might happen to the person in front of him.
But this person, who seemed to know everything about him and his black hand, stroked his head and assured him that he would be fine.
“There’s nothing to worry about. I won’t die.”
In the remnants of his vague memories, the gentle touch of a young boy overlapped with his.
Raziel’s right hand grasped Levi’s right hand.
“And from now on, you don’t have to kill anyone.”
At his words, Levi jerked his head up. His round eyes trembled as if asking again, but soon settled down.
“To avoid killing someone, I must die.”
Levi, lowering his eyes, took Raziel’s black hand and brought it to his collarbone.
“I can’t kill myself. So please kill me.”
Though he possessed the power to kill all living beings, he couldn’t turn that end upon himself. It was an instinct, perhaps a spell-like brainwashing deeply rooted in Levi from ancient times.
Raziel, looking at the empty eyes that seemed to have resigned to everything, covered Levi’s collarbone with his hand. Levi’s heartbeat transmitted through the black hand seemed to tap against Raziel’s palm.
“I don’t want to eat nourishment anymore.”
A faint tremor mixed in Levi’s seemingly calm voice.
“I just don’t want… to eat anything. I want to give up.”
“Give up…”
Raziel, murmuring Levi’s words, slid his hand up and gently wrapped it around Levi’s neck, which was so pale it was almost white. It contrasted starkly with the black hand completely encircling it.
“Even if you give up and let go, when you open your eyes again, you’ll directly seek nourishment with that hand.”
He knew that even if he died right now, if the core remained, he would regenerate. Levi knew this too, but wanting to give up and let go of everything right now, he couldn’t think any deeper.
“I still want to die. …I want to die. I must die.”
Because the black hand was his own, he could understand. That the nourishment contained within his hand was so abundant that it would take nearly half a year for the current oversaturation to subside.
‘If I’ll end up killing everyone regardless of my will for half a year, it’s better for me to die.’
The boy’s words still echoed in his mind. His words saying that killing people was wrong.
Perhaps it was because he was ruminating on the boy’s voice.
Even though another’s black hand gripped his neck as if to block his breath, his mind was at peace.
Raziel, after looking at Levi like this for a while, soon removed his hand. A cool breeze seemed to brush across the empty nape of his neck.
“I don’t want you to die.”
A hint of bitterness briefly passed over Raziel’s expressionless face.
“You’re my only ‘older brother’ whom I’ve finally found. I can’t let someone like that die.”
Levi’s chest fluttered finely. The word ‘older brother’ was something he had never even considered until now.
Raziel claimed to be Levi’s ‘younger brother.’ He also said that he too had a ‘black hand,’ but only the form remained, and it was impossible for him to actually take life with that hand.
However, as if to prove that he shared the same power as Levi, Raziel did not die when touched by the black hand. That alone was enough reason for Levi to trust Raziel.
Moreover, he knew more about Levi’s abilities than Levi himself did. Things that Levi only instinctively realized through direct experience, Raziel had known all along, as if he had read some related book.
Though he appeared to be in his early twenties on the outside, Raziel looked easily more than a decade older than Levi, but he occasionally called him ‘older brother.’ As if trying to make them aware of their bond.
“As long as you want to die, I won’t let you leave this room. Also, I’m the only one who can enter this room.”
In his current state, Levi could easily entrust his life to others. That’s why Raziel wanted to control him.
“Don’t die for my sake, but stay alive. If you do that, I’ll help you recover everything you’ve forgotten.”
At those words, Levi unconsciously parted his lips.
Everything?
He would help him recover everything?
Levi’s heart began to beat faster.
Just because he had met someone claiming to be his brother, he never thought that he would have had parents like humans. He knew from the beginning that the body created around the core was merely modeled after humans, not the same kind of existence. His instincts had repeatedly commanded him to ‘pretend to be human’ to hide this fact.
Nevertheless, the reason Levi couldn’t ignore Raziel calling him brother was that, although there might not be parents who gave birth to him, there might be beings born the same way as him. Just as Raziel’s right hand was identical to his own.
And even if that wasn’t the case, Raziel was currently Levi’s only support. He was someone who knew more about Levi than Levi himself did, and as he had said, due to limiting the humans he met, Raziel was almost the only face he could see.
Perhaps that’s why he had expectations.
The promise to help him recover what he had forgotten.
“Then…”
The memories Levi wanted to recover, wanted to know, were set.
“Can you also help me recover my memories of that person?”
The voice of the young boy that frequently occupied his mind.
He wanted to remember who owned that gentle voice that was like light dust sprinkled in pitch-black darkness, and what the moments spent with him were like.
“I want to remember that person.”
He knew it was greedy.
It was a brazen request to help him remember the owner of the voice that had supported and guided him, despite having massacred countless people with his black hand’s ability.
He knew this, but he still desperately wanted to remember the owner of that voice. He disliked following someone like Kalvern who resembled his voice, and he was growing tired of just endlessly longing.
“…”
Raziel, who heard Levi’s desperate words, did not answer immediately. Instead, he gently rubbed the collarbone area where Levi’s core was located.
“Stay alive somehow. If there’s something you want, you must live.”
As Raziel spoke these words, a significant light circled in his eyes.
That night.
From somewhere, the faint sound of something breaking was heard.
Levi, who had trouble falling asleep despite wanting to due to the abundance of nourishment to the point of overflow and the occasional haunting memories of massacre scenes, raised his upper body upon hearing the sound.
“Raziel…?”
The sound came from the next room.
Levi knew that the only room adjacent to his was Raziel’s bedroom. It could have been the sound of something accidentally breaking, but following the loud sound of a window breaking, he quickly got out of bed.
Approaching the bedroom door, Levi hesitated for a moment.
Raziel had locked the door so that no one could enter this room. He had been told to speak only through the door to the guards outside if he needed something or if they needed him. He had never tried calling them, but according to those words, there should be guards outside.
“Hey, person outside.”
Not knowing what to call them, he addressed the guard as ‘person outside.’ Perhaps because of this, there was no response from outside.
“Person outside, there was a sound from the next room. It’s Raziel’s room.”
Still no answer.
While pondering what to do, Levi suddenly noticed a strange smell. He could immediately tell that it was the scent of blood.
At that moment, Levi felt his heart pounding unpleasantly. As the pungent smell of blood lingered at the tip of his nose, he couldn’t help but immediately grab the door handle. Though he clearly remembered Raziel locking the door when he left, for some reason, it opened too easily.
Clunk—
The door half-opened and then stopped, caught on something.
Peering outside, Levi furrowed his brow as he saw the leg of a guard caught in the door and a pool of blood.
