Ch.204Chapter 204. The Disaster Born of a Wise Ruler

“……I see.”

How much time had passed since my anguish erupted?

At the end of the silence, the Knight of Death finally spoke…

Baudouin Britannia, seemingly having regained his composure, looked directly at me and opened his mouth.

“I wondered why I sensed an aura similar to the Red Knight from you… So you had already inherited her personality even before confronting her.”

The Red Knight of War. Another version of myself with whom I had once engaged in bloody combat.

Having recognized my identity through this sense of déjà vu, he proceeded to ask me a question.

“Then let me ask you this. Are you now Hyoseong Woo, or are you Tachia?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Will you claim to be Tachia, who has already departed from this world in my presence? Or will you claim to be a living person who has merely inherited her memories?”

“……”

“…Yes, you are Hyoseong Woo, not Tachia.”

Baudouin bowed his head, accepting my silence as confirmation.

His empty eye sockets were now fixed on his own skeletal hands.

“And I too.”

And in that state, his hollow voice continued.

“I too am ultimately nothing more than a replica in a copied body. A replica created by someone’s longing, love, worship… and the need to find something to depend on.”

Those were words I never expected to hear from the mouth of an Undead.

The Undead are beings who are revived by lingering attachments and roam the world of the living in corpse bodies to resolve their unfinished business.

For an Undead who absolutely pursues such purposes, feeling doubtful about one’s own existence would seem utterly incongruous.

“Baudouin, you…..”

“If you wish for an explanation from someone like me, follow me. I will show you what happened in this land.”

But before I could comment on this incongruity, he had already risen from his throne and was heading somewhere.

His back view appeared extremely shabby, and there was no vitality in his steps.

As if he had become a completely different person from the virtuous ruler who had once passionately governed his people.

*****

Baudouin Britannia.

In Tachia’s memory, he was known as a virtuous ruler who uniquely strove for peaceful politics in an era when humans waged war against each other.

Of course, in times of war, he might have been considered merely an ally.

But regardless of such evaluations, Tachia had always believed that such an ally was the only monarch who could accept her.

Even in the flashbacks before her death.

And even now, having inherited those memories, that feeling remained unchanged.

‘Your appearance, what happened?’

‘I apologize, Your Majesty. I detected an enemy raid just before my audience with you, and after handling the matter, I came here forgetting even to clean myself up.’

‘I apologize for displeasing you by appearing for an audience in such a state.’

Yes, from their first meeting, he showed a different attitude compared to other leaders.

While previous employers had kept their distance from mercenaries, considering them dirty and barbaric, he even descended from his throne to wipe the blood from her face.

‘Your Majesty, you will get dirty.’

‘What does dirt matter when a hero who protected this land stands before me? Do not hesitate. I am merely doing what I should as one who is grateful to you.’

‘I only did what I should as a mercenary. You are too precious to concern yourself with this humble body. There are many watching, Your Majesty. Please maintain your dignity.’

‘If maintaining dignity means refusing to accept dirt, then I would set aside my crown to embrace that dirt. If being a leader means turning away from those who serve you, I would gladly surrender this position and choose to stand beside someone like you.’

‘……Your Majesty.’

‘If you find me foolish, you may leave. I will respect that choice and not hold you back.’

Someone who cared for people above all else and never withheld gratitude and love for all who served him.

Though perhaps the worst kind of leader for wartime, it was precisely because of this quality that Tachia felt drawn to him.

For someone seeking to escape countless hours of slaughter, what she needed was someone who would see her as a human being, not just a weapon.

‘It’s all due to my inadequacy.’

This feeling grew stronger with each gesture he showed her, right up until they went to hunt the dragon.

‘If I had been more capable, someone like you wouldn’t have had to be stained with blood. Please forgive me, forgive me who can do nothing more than wipe the blood from your body.’

She even found herself genuinely wanting to support this pitiful leader whose only crime was being born in the wrong era.

‘And despite my shamelessness, I make this request. I will support you with everything in my power… Please use your strength for the sake of humanity.’

Despite being in a position where he could use and discard her, he treated her as a human being as she departed for dangerous territory.

‘Please preserve your life and return, become the hope for everyone, including myself.’

She even felt regret for not having sworn complete loyalty with her life and heart to him—the one who genuinely wished for her safe return.

****

“That day, objects of unknown origin fell upon this land from the split in the sky.”

I learned about the incident that led to such a person’s trace being revived as the dead and turning against humanity when we arrived at a temple after leaving the castle.

“I do not know exactly what they were. I only managed to understand one thing through a scholar who served me… that they were substances that did not exist in this world.”

After arriving there, Baudouin’s gaze shifted forward.

Reflected in his eyes, where blue currents swirled, was a massive altar at the center of the temple.

Despite deserving to be abandoned after the catastrophe that destroyed this prosperous nation, it was the only structure still maintained without a speck of dust.

I immediately realized that this was due to the dead who moved through lingering attachments, seeing the corpses praying before it.

“There was no time to celebrate the disappearance of the dragon calamity, nor to mourn the death of the hero who fought it. The disaster suddenly covered this land and spread instantly to everyone here.”

The dead cleaned the altar and gathered materials to repair collapsed sections.

After completing their tasks, they gathered before the altar, knelt down, clasped their hands together, and repeatedly offered prayers.

As if teaching that this was the strongest lingering attachment they felt in life.

As if teaching that they were revived through these records and could only repeat this action.

“The people infected by this strange power all had their bodies twisted, rotting, and bleeding from every orifice. The clergy tried desperately to heal this plague, but… they eventually suffered the same fate.”

When faced with a calamity of unknown origin, what can mere humans do besides pray to the gods?

If even the panacea created from such faith doesn’t work, all that remains is despair.

Yet the reason these dead before us continue to pray without despair must be because they found hope in something other than the gods.

“…All I could do was descend from my throne and comfort the sick.”

I immediately understood what that hope was.

From the moment he entered this temple, the attention of all the praying dead shifted to him.

“Until my last breath, all I could do was hold the hands of the sick, comfort them, and share their final moments.”

The king, just as in life, firmly held the hands of the sick reaching out to him.

As if feeling their lingering attachments being resolved, faint smiles began to form on their faces covered with rotting skin.

As if that alone was enough.

As if they felt salvation through his presence alone, even in this moment of recalling life’s most desperate moment.

“…I.”

But his voice, facing his people’s final moments, was utterly miserable.

“The fourth ruler of this land who passed his memories to me was someone who simply wished for a beautiful world.”

He was a king who considered even wars he didn’t wage as his own sins.

For such a person, a natural disaster he couldn’t overcome would surely be seen as a result of his own powerlessness.

“He believed that if the world was cruel, he should work to make it even a little more beautiful… A foolish, foolish king who pursued only that ideal, planting hope in his followers and making them suffer for that hope.”

This self-deprecation is too extreme.

No matter how good a person he was, what befell this land was an unavoidable disaster.

Who would blame a leader for failing to properly manage a plague that began when the sky split open and led to the nation’s downfall?

“Great, King.”

The dead present here proved that such thinking was not wrong.

“Most noble King… Please rest peacefully in this place.”

The dead surrounding him and continuing their prayers showed that even in the desperate moment of the nation’s downfall, there was comfort in their final moments.

“We shall preserve your legacy until the end. We shall continue to preserve that you existed, that you were the greatest king…”

“King, may you be eternal…”

Despite the miserable end that came after a long life, and despite the lingering attachment to leave his righteousness on this land even after death…

Why does he, as a leader, look so miserable in this moment facing the traces of his people?

“…If there had been no such hope.”

The reason soon began to leak from his parted lips.

“If I hadn’t given them hope as a painkiller… Perhaps everyone who followed me, including her, would have accepted their deaths properly.”

The Lord of Corpses.

He was genuinely expressing sorrow toward his companion who had risen as the greatest calamity in this world, with the ambition to endlessly revive the dead and turn the entire world into a world of the dead.

“If the disaster that befell us soon spreads to the entire world, at least the traces of when the world was beautiful should remain… If she had continued such ideals even in death and revived me, there would have been no insult to the lives of the living by continuing hope.”

And such understanding soon returns as a dagger aimed at himself.

Being the most righteous king, he feels responsible for the calamities caused by those rooted in him.

“It’s all my fault. Because I was a foolish leader, I ended up defiling even the afterlife of those who followed me.”

“That’s not true.”

I firmly deny such self-loathing.

Tachia’s personality within me was asserting this.

And Hyoseong Woo as well.

I couldn’t consider him the source of all evil—the one who taught the preciousness of life that even the living couldn’t teach.

“This is too large to blame on any one person. The problem is that the world became like this, not that the hearts of those who followed you should be denied just because the situation was bad.”

I wanted to believe that.

Even though I wasn’t present at the scene, I wanted to believe that people who should have died miserably faced death with hope.

I hoped that the harshness of this world wouldn’t deny even the life of the leader I sincerely wanted to serve.

“…Then you.”

But such desperate cries seemed not to reach his heart, as his empty eyes turned toward me.

“Do you think that even the actions committed by those who inherited his righteous spirit can be forgiven?”

The voice from his lips, directed at me with such eyes, conveyed only despair—different from when he spoke of life’s beauty.

“In this world that will continue to crumble beyond this land… do you think that taking away life itself in order to remember life’s beauty can be forgiven?”

Perhaps in such a world, this is the best option.

All the actions taken with such a mindset completely collapsed after the disappearance of his companion, who remembered his teachings and even rose to the position of ruler.

“…That’s.”

What should I, who sympathizes with him, say here?

To this foolish virtuous ruler who only wished for a beautiful world even in times of war,

To this pitiful dead who ultimately despaired after consecutive disasters that made such wishes seem futile,

What comfort should I, who sincerely respected him, offer?

“He-Hero! Hero Hyoseong Woo, where are you?!”

Just as I was about to reluctantly speak, a familiar voice burst in.

Realizing it was Samson, who should be with the refugees on the ark, I quickly turned toward the source of the sound.

The sound came not from the road but from the sky…

Samson, who had flown here holding onto a birdman’s legs, quickly landed before me and grabbed my hands.

“He-Hero. You must come quickly.”

“Wait, Samson. What’s happening…?”

“Ga-Garam. Hero Garam…!”

The news that came from Samson’s mouth, who had come so urgently, was something I couldn’t calmly accept with my troubled mind.

“Hero Garam is not breathing right now!”

Despair came upon me at an unexpected moment.

In the worst possible form.

******

(This is not part of the main text, just something I wanted to show off)