"Will you become my enemy, Nier?"
His question still echoed in my ears, reverberating not like sound—but like the sting of wind carving into my chest.
But I didn't flinch.
I looked into his eyes—or what seemed to be eyes. I couldn't be sure. No one could ever be sure of what they saw when looking at that man. Not because his eyes were dark, but because… when you looked into them, you felt as if you were staring at what would be left of you once you ceased to exist.
"Not yet."
That's what I said, with a voice calm like a corpse refusing to decay.
He laughed.
His laugh was unlike anything human.
Not mockery. Not joy. Not sarcasm.
But the sound of something ending… something inside you.
"Well said," he uttered, as if granting me a medal.
Or a delayed execution.
He didn't move. Didn't speak further.
He just sat there—like a massive statue forged from pieces of souls. Like an ancient god forgotten by time, but one who had never forgotten the world.
---
Moments passed.
Then he averted his gaze from me, as if my presence no longer even deserved contempt.
"Leave."
Just one word.
But it was an order.
No, a banishment.
As if my very existence was being erased from the room.
He didn't shout. He didn't raise his hand. He didn't cast a spell.
But he expelled me.
And I was expelled.
---
I left.
I walked on the same ground, but my steps were different.
A moment ago, I had entered, prepared for death—or worse.
Now… I was outside.
Still breathing.
Oh, that doesn't mean I was "safe."
Only… "delayed."
Delayed execution.
---
I walked the corridors again. The servants who once avoided looking at me now glanced at me from the corners of their eyes before fleeing again.
They didn't know what had happened inside the throne room.
But they knew one thing:
Nier walked out. And he wasn't erased.
That… was unprecedented.
In the novel, anyone summoned by the Duke either returned broken, blind, insane—or didn't return at all.
But I came out.
With eyes intact.
With a mind that still screamed—but was still there.
Even nerves that somehow still functioned after what they'd endured.
---
Now I returned to my room.
I still hadn't gotten used to this body. Everything about it felt too light.
As if I were a spirit moving flesh it didn't recognize.
But I arrived.
The room of Nier Verton.
The Duke's son.
Dear god...
I'd read the description in the novel. But it had only been a few shallow lines about "Nier's elegance" and "the simplicity of the wealthy."
Reality?
I wasn't walking on carpet.
I was walking on fabric woven from pure silver threads.
The walls were carved from black marble streaked with veins of blood-red ruby.
The window—just one—but it was taller than my entire old apartment bedroom.
I stood by it, looking outside...
And the world lay beneath me.
Buildings stretched out like a sea of stone. Servants moved like specks of dust.
And at the top of everything—The Palace of Shadows.
And atop that palace… my room.
Nier's room.
---
I closed my eyes for a moment—then burst out laughing.
Loud, crude, shameless laughter.
"Hahahahahahaaaaaaa!"
God, this is ridiculous!
I, who once lived paycheck to paycheck in a rotting apartment above a fish shop, was now… Nier Verton.
Son of the most powerful man in the world.
Heir to a family that owned lands the size of a continent, commanded an army that could obliterate a kingdom, and possessed a library containing forbidden texts from ages not even recorded in history.
"Heh… if there's any upside to this—I'm rich!"
I said it out loud, trying to convince myself of this insane reality.
"Rich! A duke's son! I've got a palace! Servants! Bronze turtles for decoration! Even the damn pillows are inlaid with gemstones!"
I walked to the wardrobe… opened it…
And nearly passed out.
It was a room in its own right.
Each item worth more than a car.
Even the shoes—each displayed individually, with a small tag explaining the type of leather and the date of manufacture. Some made from rare magical beasts. One pair from "pure dragonhide," the tag read: "Killed in 487 by Verton the Elder."
Next to it—a cloak.
Black.
Simple in design… but incredibly heavy.
I picked it up. And as I brought it closer—
I felt something…
A pulse.
It was beating.
---
Wait.
This wasn't a cloak.
It was a living armor.
I quickly placed it back.
---
Then I sat.
Closed my eyes.
Suddenly, an image of my friend Lin flashed in my mind.
His face, when I tell him I'm rich. A duke's son. Inside the romance novel he once raved about!
I laughed again.
"He'll die. I swear to you—he'll die on the spot!"
His face, when he hears me say, "Oh, forgot to mention—I became Nier. Nier Verton."
He'll slap himself.
Scream.
Delete his account from every novel site.
Maybe… he'll even try to find a way to join me!
---
But the laughter faded quickly.
Silence came.
The cold.
It crept through the marble walls.
I remembered my father's eyes.
His silence.
He had banished me, yes.
But he said nothing.
And nothing… is more terrifying than silence in the presence of Verton.
---
I whispered to myself:
"I don't like this place."
But I was here.
And I would stay here.
---
I'll be rich, yes.
But I'll dissect this world—piece by piece.
And I'll learn:
Why didn't Nier ever talk about his father?
Why did the novel ignore the blood on these walls?
And why has the Verton family never once fallen from grace?
I'm here.
At the heart of the novel.
And I'm not Nier.
But I will make that name… into something else.
---
I didn't sleep.
I mean—the body did. But it wasn't rest.
My mind kept working, rummaging through fragments of memory, as if searching for a key lost in the depths of an ocean.
Trying to find what was never written.
Trying to understand what was never said.
---
The sky outside the window began to hint at dawn, yet darkness still ruled.
As if the palace itself didn't want the light to enter.
As if night here… was eternal.
---
I sat at the edge of the bed. It wasn't rest, but suffocation under luxury.
I looked at the mirror in front of me.
I saw my face.
Nier's face.
The problem wasn't that I didn't see me.
It's that… I didn't see Nier, either.
As if the body itself refused to acknowledge either of us.
---
Suddenly…
An image.
No—a memory?
Maybe.
But it wasn't mine.
It was… emptiness.
As if my mind tried to recall something specific—but hit a smooth wall with no cracks. No signs of anything ever being there.
---
"His mother."
I said the words out loud.
Where is Nier's mother?
---
I remembered the novel.
I read 400 chapters of that romantic, rose-tinted hell—400 chapters full of overdramatics, sobbing, stolen glances, and endless hollow dialogue.
But I never saw a single meaningful mention of Nier's mother.
Not even a shadow.
No scene of him thinking about her.
No moment of: "My mother used to..."
Or "She always told me..."
Even during his frequent emotional breakdowns, she was never a comfort. Or even a memory.
Not even a loss.
As if she never existed.
---
But wait.
I remembered something now.
Chapter 198.
Just a single line from a servant in the palace, when someone was admiring the beauty of the Verton bloodline.
The servant had said:
"Nier's mother was very beautiful… but she left years ago, when he was still a small child."
That was it.
One line.
And then she vanished forever.
Never mentioned again—by characters, in narration, not even in Nier's dreams.
---
That's strange.
Suspicious.
What kind of romance novel—which should be saturated in emotional backstory—completely erases the mother figure?
Even the Duke—Nier's father—never once expressed missing her or speaking of her.
As if...
"As if she was erased on purpose."
---
I got up.
Walked to the desk.
Sat.
Took a sheet of paper and a pen.
At the top, I wrote:
"Missing Pieces About Nier Verton"
And beneath it, I listed:
1. No emotions regarding his mother.
2. Never remembered her.
3. Never asked about her.
4. No memories of her appear.
5. The novel never mentioned her name.
6. No mention of her chamber in the palace.
7. No record of when exactly she left.
8. No portraits of her in the palace.
9. No one mentioned her again after that one sentence.
---
I drew a line below the points.
Then wrote:
"Either the novel is hiding something… or Nier himself refuses to remember her."
---
But why?
What could possibly make a five-year-old child erase his mother completely?
Even fleeting childhood memories cling to us.
A child who loses his mother… should retain her voice, her scent, her touch, her bedtime stories.
But Nier? Zero.
---
Then two possibilities struck me:
First possibility: Some of Nier's memories haven't reached me yet. Maybe there's a mental barrier. Maybe the body doesn't trust me. Or maybe there are seals—psychic locks—on parts of his mind.
Second possibility: The worse one…
That Nier himself erased her.
Or that someone else… erased her from him.
---
Who could do such a thing?
In this world, I mean.
If it involved magic, memory manipulation, or psychic alteration, there's only one family with that level of power…
The Vertons.
Nier's father.
His own father.
---
Impossible.
Could the Duke really have erased his son's memories of his mother?
Why?
For politics?
Because he found her guilty of betrayal?
Because she did something worthy of erasure?
Or maybe…
Maybe what she knew… was so terrifying, it couldn't be allowed to survive in anyone's mind?
---
I stood from my seat.
My heart pounding.
Something is wrong. Something is rotten.
And for the first time, I realized—this novel I once read with disdain… wasn't what it appeared to be.
What I once thought was just a poorly written love story…
Might have been a mask for something far deeper, darker, and full of meticulously hidden lies.
---
I returned to bed.
But I didn't sleep.
The window began to glow gradually.
Light slicing through the heavy black curtains like a blade.
A new day had begun.
But the question remained:
Where is Nier's mother?
And who wanted us all to forget her?