The human ‘Do Haeyeon’ wanted to be truly loved by anyone.
He suffered from endless loneliness, and so he clung to interactions with others.
Unfortunately, Do Haeyeon, who wanted love, couldn’t even share proper warmth with others and ultimately ended his life miserably.
Then in this life, he miraculously met someone who loved him completely.
Thanks to Seianes, who truly loved him with all his heart, he was happy beyond compare in this life.
‘I’ve finally met the one and only being who loves me.’
But he saw a future where he hurt such a person.
The image of his terrible future self, exploiting and tormenting the most precious Seianes under the name of love, wouldn’t leave his mind.
He didn’t want to hurt him. However, his deepest desire was whispering differently.
‘Continuously, continuously… I want to be loved… I’m so lonely.’
Abrisius, who grew up receiving love to his heart’s content, felt the pain of his previous life without love even more acutely.
It would have been better if he hadn’t known such emotions. Then it wouldn’t have been this painful.
“Abrisius. You are my mistake and my stain. Your dirty and ugly origins disturbed my land where milk and honey flowed, and filled it with your siblings’ blood. As the price for loving you, I lost both my siblings and my honor as the God of Earth.”
A voice came—whether it was a sentence from the novel he’d seen while experiencing the panorama, or an illusion he created himself from shock, he didn’t know.
With a voice exactly like Seianes’s, a sentence soaked in rage was asserting what Abrisius would commit in the future.
At that voice, Abrisius’s heart crumbled. He was afraid that someday he might really hear such words from him.
‘I don’t want to be abandoned.’
At the same time, he didn’t want to hurt him either.
‘But I want to be loved.’
He didn’t want to return to those terribly lonely times again. How good would it be if he could avoid this fate?
Chaotic emotions cried out noisily inside Abrisius.
Within the desire not to be abandoned, Amina’s power awakened the deep desire within him.
That power chose one among numerous possibilities in order to fulfill the most intense desire within Abrisius.
And it cunningly manipulated Abrisius’s mind.
‘Ah…’
His mind in a daze, Abrisius turned his head. Right behind him, Seianes’s temple was visible. The nest he had thought of as a warm home now felt frightening.
‘I have no right to go there.’
Toward Abrisius, who feared the future of being hated, desire whispered to run away from reality.
Entranced by desire, Abrisius looked at the forest on the opposite side. The forest overgrown with grass was clearly visible before his eyes.
If he stayed here like this, it would become like the future in the original work. He didn’t have the confidence to endure such a future.
‘Yes, rather than such a future.’
Because of the desire manipulating his inner self, he couldn’t make normal judgments. The deep desire to be loved rejected the very option that had the possibility of being hated.
With the thought ‘Then wouldn’t it be better to run away?’ as the last, Abrisius threw his body into the forest on the opposite side of the temple. He ran mindlessly through the deep and dark forest, not knowing what might be there.
‘I wanted to be loved. And I merely enjoyed that happiness.’
It was unfair and sad. Why was he born as such an existence?
This place was not where Abrisius should be.
The sun floating in the sky, the wind cutting through his skin, the grass blades he was stepping on, and all things on the surface were things that ‘Abrisius,’ born as a dark divine race, couldn’t enjoy.
Even if he hid everything and lived, only a cruel future awaited.
Abrisius’s thoughts were also being eroded by desire’s whispers.
‘Rather, if I could hide my appearance like this.’
He loathed his existence as Abrisius.
Satisfied with Abrisius’s self-loathing appearance, desire stirred within his heart. At the words ‘hide my appearance like this,’ the underground energy within Abrisius was covered by the desire that Amina had awakened.
A power strong enough to even erase the essential divine energy covered Abrisius’s original power and filled the inside with desire.
And desire began to change his appearance little by little. Whatever Abrisius wished for, desire, which had now become his power, began the work of changing him according to its master’s wish.
With each step he took, his body underwent slight changes. His slender two legs became hind legs, and his two hands that had been wiping his tear-soaked eyes became forelegs. How long had he run like that?
“Huff… huff…”
Having run for a long time and reached somewhere he didn’t know, Abrisius finally looked around.
‘Where is this?’
In the forest, lush trees blocked the sunlight, making it dark everywhere, so he couldn’t gauge his location.
‘Well, what does it matter if I don’t know where this is?’
The fear of the unfamiliar scenery he was seeing for the first time was brief. The fact that he could no longer return to Seianes like before made Abrisius resolute.
Having glimpsed the terrible previous life and future, Abrisius was no longer the small, cute child that Seianes loved.
‘Even if such things don’t happen because I don’t wish for it… Seianes will someday suffer just from my existence.’
To begin with, Abrisius’s origins were incompatible with Seianes. Though Seianes must have accepted all of that and personally raised and loved Abrisius…
At the end of it, only Seianes’s resentment would remain.
No matter how much he loved him, in the end he would hurt him, and then that love would also waver.
Though Seianes wouldn’t openly express resentment to Abrisius, who knew what he’d think inside?
Rather than seeing and experiencing that, it was better to leave Seianes.
After a long ordeal, thoroughly exhausted, Abrisius immediately lay down by the huge zelkova tree stump visible to his eyes.
However, what lay its body down on the tree stump while still sniffling was not a young boy.
As a result of desire randomly changing his appearance according to its master’s wish, Abrisius had transformed into a baby deer with black fur.
Unaware of this, Abrisius, who entrusted his body to the soft bushes, fell into a deep sleep under the tree.
Until the sun floating in the sky fell and the moon rose, the deer didn’t wake from sleep.
* * *
Late afternoon, only when the sun was getting dark did Seianes return to his temple.
“…Did I come back too late?”
Having spent all day scattering dust and dirt throughout the sea and sky, his return home was later than expected.
Though he still hadn’t found Eurysis’s location, he scattered dust containing his power to obstruct the vision of the sea and sky.
With this, other gods wouldn’t be able to easily find Eurysis.
‘No matter what happens, I must find her first.’
He could no longer live a life without Abrisius. Once more strengthening his resolve, Seianes stopped the chariot in front of the temple.
He was worried about the child who must have waited alone for a long time. Thinking he should indulge him even if he threw a tantrum today, Seianes entered the Greenhouse Garden.
“Abrisius, I came back too late, didn’t I? I’m sorry…”
However, what greeted Seianes when he opened the door was only cold silence. The child who should be jumping up calling for him was nowhere to be seen.
“Abrisius?”
At the situation in the Greenhouse Garden, which was different from his expectations, Seianes panicked.
Thinking perhaps the child had fallen asleep, he checked inside the tree stump, but inside there was only a small, empty nest with traces of Abrisius remaining.
“Baby?”
Seianes’s expression contorted.
“Abrisius. Come out here.”
Desperately suppressing his anxiety, Seianes called out desperately for Abrisius.
But he couldn’t see even his shadow, let alone hear the child’s voice. His heart sank with a thud.
“Abrisius. My baby, no. Let’s be calm… Be calm. He must be somewhere.”
Contrary to his words, Seianes’s heart grew increasingly anxious. While making a mess of the Greenhouse Garden he had worked hard to cultivate, he desperately searched for Abrisius.
“Abrisius, where are you? Please, come out!”
Tree roots were pulled out, and lush petals mixed into the pond, making a mess of the Greenhouse Garden. After turning everything upside down until there was nothing left to destroy, Seianes looked at the ruined Greenhouse Garden.
The child wasn’t inside the Greenhouse Garden.
Only then did Seianes’s gaze turn toward the door leading outside.
“Ah, surely not.”
By now, it would be pitch dark outside as night had fallen. Could the child have… gone outside?
At the horrifying thought alone, Seianes rushed outside without thinking.
“Kii?”
The deer that had been waiting for Seianes outside sensed something unusual and trembled with anxiety.
“Let’s go.”
However, he didn’t have the presence of mind to soothe them. Boarding the chariot again, Seianes began searching for Abrisius.
“Baby! Abrisius, where are you?”
His desperate voice cut through the night and echoed everywhere.
Becoming desperate, Seianes tried to find Abrisius using the power of the earth, but since he was hidden by the power of desire, he couldn’t feel any traces of Abrisius.
“Please…”
It felt like his whole body was growing cold.
His world collapsed at the fear that he might never see Abrisius again.
