Ch.15418100428 (1)

The infirmary was shrouded in shadows.

After a flash of light burned away the darkness, brilliantly shattered shadows adorned the space.

A scene resembling a night sky without a single cloud.

Starlight is so beautiful.

Before long, the ceiling became a paradise dotted with white light.

In this flowing world, the pure beginning breathes.

The landscape painting deviates for just a moment.

And so time passes.

“……”

The Emperor opens his eyes.

His consciousness, which had been cut off during treatment, had returned.

Valkaros groaned while pressing his brow, then slowly raised himself from the hospital bed.

Only after a moment did he realize he had been asleep.

How much time had passed?

“Ugh…”

“Your Majesty.”

While he was catching his breath.

The boy waiting beside him speaks.

“You’re awake.”

Judas Snakus.

He was still guarding the infirmary.

Judging by the fact that the other children remained in their places, it seemed not much time had passed.

Perhaps about 30 minutes at most.

It was a strange feeling.

It felt as though he had slept for nearly 10 years.

He diverts his thoughts from the lingering stiffness.

Valkaros rolls his eyes.

‘Was the treatment successful? What happened to the Second Princess?’

First, he needed to assess the situation.

The Emperor gathered his blurry vision, and with a dry face-wipe, lifted his head.

At that moment, a strange sensation ran down Valkaros’s spine.

He involuntarily flinched.

“…?”

His body felt strangely light.

More precisely, the process of waking up wasn’t painful at all.

The headache that would normally have arrived by now showed no sign of appearing.

At first, he thought it was because his senses were dulled right after waking, but the absence of pain only became clearer as his consciousness sharpened.

As Emperor, he was perplexed.

‘Why?’

Had this ever happened before?

Ten years ago.

Since contracting the disease from Rose, not a single day had been free from pain.

The shackles of the curse were a fate that could never be undone.

For Valkaros, pain was proof of being chosen, a brand.

For it to disappear meant…

“…Could it be.”

The Emperor mutters quietly.

He then turns to look at the boy beside him with a dumbfounded expression.

Judas was staring at Valkaros with a triumphant smile.

Perhaps he had read the question in the man’s eyes.

The boy drops a single remark as if he had been waiting.

“Your Majesty’s assumption is correct.”

“……”

“It ended successfully.”

What did.

Adding such a question was meaningless.

The strange sensation permeating his entire body supported the hypothesis.

For the first time in nearly ten years, his body felt refreshed.

The sensation of each blood vessel tearing whenever he moved.

The hazy consciousness due to excessive pain-relieving magic.

The twisting muscles at every moment, the throbbing head that felt like it would burst, the lingering auditory hallucinations.

The fist that was always clenched tight because of the unbearable pain.

All of it was gone.

“Ah…”

Valkaros, who had been lost in thought for a while.

As if suddenly remembering something, he looks at the hospital bed on the opposite side.

At the end of his gaze was a red-haired girl.

She seemed to have regained consciousness before him.

“I’m so glad…”

“Hic… I’m so happy Your Highness is better…”

“Both of you, stop crying. I’m fine.”

“But Elise is crying too.”

“This is just… ugh, because big sister and Tanya suddenly clung to me.”

Elise.

Sharlotte and Tanya were by her side.

Had they already gone through a flood of tears?

The girls were leaning against each other, and their eyes were redder than autumn leaves.

What such a scene implied was only one thing.

‘The end.’

A period had been placed.

Spring had finally arrived to the winter that seemed eternal.

The world full of curses had already shattered.

Valkaros blankly monologues.

‘What I had determined to be impossible.’

Contextually, he had left the treatment to the boy.

As Emperor, he had no expectations.

There was a reason why a mere disease was named “God’s Curse.”

Despite seeking an answer for nearly 10 years, the only conclusion drawn was the cold statement that there was no solution.

Because of that, he had abandoned faith.

But.

‘The circulation of mana…’

The man tried circulating mana throughout his body several times.

The blood that had been completely blocked until just a few hours ago.

Normally, it should have been accompanied by cutting, tearing, twisting pain, but now there was only a smooth flow.

The mana transmitted to every corner cleared his mind and boosted his vitality.

There was no sense of discomfort in his calm interior, like a gentle stream.

Such signals were proof of an exceptionally healthy body.

Valkaros couldn’t close his mouth.

‘A miracle.’

Yes.

The man was witnessing a miracle.

The common sense he had built up over the years was shattered.

The boy’s words were a complete denial of the principles of life.

But the steps of the miracle didn’t stop there.

-Remember, Valkaros.

Suddenly.

A woman’s voice brushing past his ear.

The Emperor momentarily holds his breath.

-The fact that I am always by your side.

His heart aches.

It felt as if a sharp awl was piercing through his lungs.

Unfamiliar.

It was a different feeling from the pain caused by the curse.

It was something much more clumsy, fundamental, and emotional.

The man automatically stiffens at the unfamiliar sensation.

Meanwhile, the auditory hallucination continues.

-I was happy to love you.

The Empress.

It was the voice of the Empress he had long forgotten.

The turmoil in his heart intensifies.

‘Why?’

Something was strange.

His clear vision suddenly blurs.

Both eyelids sting, and soon the world reflected in droplets creates a wave pattern.

The bubbling foam becomes transparent paint and flows down.

Drip, drip-.

Raindrops were falling on his cheeks.

The pooling and overflowing heavenly water causes an inexplicable high fever, making the long water marks feel as hot as burns.

Letters broken into pieces scatter.

His heart surges and feels like it might spill over.

The man felt dizzy.

Thump, thump-.

Roughly, a certain beating that shouts it’s alive.

His throat felt clogged as if with lukewarm flour dough.

Despite clearly inhaling air, he couldn’t breathe.

It was due to the sleet.

-Valkaros.

It hurt.

Valkaros’s eyes hurt.

Because of that, rain continued to fall in his world.

His vision showed no sign of clearing.

Thud-.

His heart sank.

No. Was it his heart?

Perhaps it was something else entirely.

But for Valkaros right now, it didn’t matter.

His eyes, resembling green leaves, trembled.

“……”

The Emperor’s gaze still lingered on the princesses.

Toward the platinum blonde and red hair.

-Even without me… please take care of the children.

The persistent chest pain.

Following the image formed in his pupils, the formless pain only becomes clearer.

Nevertheless, Valkaros couldn’t avert his eyes.

‘You’ve grown so much.’

The children before him were safe.

Having grown up considerably at some point, they had become proper ladies.

Why did such things concern him so much?

It was the reason for the pain that had been continuing all this time.

‘This is.’

His heart felt as if pierced by flames.

The reflected world was incredibly diluted.

The white waves in his tear-filled pupils resembled a spring day.

His tightly clenched fist didn’t hurt.

Despite all of this being overwhelming.

It was so turbulent that he might break into sobs.

Valkaros knew the name of this pain.

Moments from the past years flash by like pages turning with a “swoosh” sound.

His wrinkled lips pronounce a language he hadn’t known for a long time.

He pronounces a language he had forgotten long ago.

‘…Love.’

Yes.

It was love.

Among the countless ossuary of letters, one buried word raises its head.

Something he thought had been completely lost.

It was in his heart.

“How does it feel?”

A voice interrupts just then.

The boy was smiling faintly at him.

“To feel an emotion you haven’t felt in a long time.”

“……”

The Emperor couldn’t answer.

He merely hesitated, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly.

A complete thought couldn’t form.

The arrangement of letters rolling around in his mouth was so delicate that when he tried to place them on his tongue, they crumbled finely.

Fragments that couldn’t form sentences flowed down softly like grains of sand.

Spring rain didn’t stop in his clear vision.

A chorus of winter and spring.

As he hesitates for a moment amidst the abundant petals, the boy behind him gently pushes his back.

It was a push without any formality.

Thud-.

“Let’s go. Isn’t this the moment you’ve been longing for?”

Valkaros moves forward in a daze.