Chapter 111: Words I’d Never Heard (10) Part 2

This is a nightmare.

“Haah…! Haah…!”

There was no way this wasn’t a nightmare.

“Your Highness! This way! You need to come this way… Kuhek…!”

A knight collapses with an arrow embedded in his throat. He scraped the ground, making a sound like boiling blood.

The sight was so unreal,

It could only be thought of as a scene from a nightmare.

“Your Highness!!”

A knight pulled on Adolf’s arm, who was in a daze. An arrow whizzed past where Adolf’s head had been.

“Pull yourself together! We need to run!!”

Adolf ran through the forest again, half-dragged by the knight’s arm.

Looking at the sky that was beginning to turn blue, he thought, again and again.

This is all a nightmare.

A terrible, terrible nightmare.

Adolf’s limp hands swayed in the air.

.

.

.

“Here should be, huff…! Safe…!”

The knight finally released Adolf’s arm. Immediately, Adolf sat down on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Memories, accompanied by a pounding headache, flooded in.

The screams of the knights behind him.

The city gates suddenly flung wide open.

Baron Essier’s shouts, commanding his men to find and kill the prince.

Adolf’s eyes rested on his dirt-covered hands.

“Wh-What’s going on…?”

His trembling eyes turned to the knight.

“What… what the hell just happened…!”

“…I, I’m not sure either… Suddenly, Baron Barbaros’s knights…”

A crazed light flickered in his trembling eyes.

“…It was you.”

“Your Highness? What do you…”

Adolf ripped the earring from his ear. Before the knight could say anything, he stretched out his hand holding the earring toward the knight.

“_____!!”

“It was you!! You!! Traitor!! Did you think I wouldn’t know that you deceived me and led me here!!”

“_____!!”

“You!! You!!”

The knight’s frenzy was short-lived.

Tormented by repeated deaths, the knight eventually went limp. There was no more life left in his unfocused eyes.

“Haah… Traitor…! Haah… Traitor…”

After staring blankly at the dead knight for a moment, Adolf staggered to his feet.

“Not yet… It’s not over yet.”

As if guided by an invisible hand, a branch hidden in the shadows snagged Adolf’s luxurious clothes and ripped them.

The wind, carrying the first light of dawn, swept away the jewels that adorned his body.

Gradually, Adolf was transformed from a prince into a beggar in rags.

“These… these are what I earned… Do you think I’ll let them be taken away so easily…! I’m the Imperial Crown Prince… I…”

But no matter how much he denied it, and denied it again.

And in reality, life did not tolerate even his delusions.

*Thwip-*

Drops of blood wet Adolf’s cheek.

“Aaaaaaargh!!”

Adolf screamed, clutching his arrow-pierced hand.

“My hand…!! My haaaand…!!”

Barely swallowing his screams, Adolf raised his eyes.

His earring, which he must have dropped when he was hit by the arrow, lay among the fallen leaves.

Gritting his teeth, he crawled on his knees towards it.

That earring, the power of illusion, it was his last resort. He couldn’t afford to lose that too.

At least that…

“Ah…”

A boot stomps on the earring.

He looked up.

“Ahaha…”

Crimson hair, and red eyes that gleamed like a beast’s.

“Ahahahaha!!”

Adolf buried his face in the fallen leaves and laughed.

But it wasn’t a laugh of madness.

It was a laugh of joy.

God had not abandoned him.

“Rosalia…!”

Adolf’s gleaming eyes turned to Rosalia.

“You want revenge on me, don’t you? Right? You must. After all, I was the one who annihilated House Adrian. I’m sure you must hate me to death.”

Rosalia’s face was hidden in shadow and couldn’t be seen. But Adolf could easily imagine her face twisted with anger.

And the expression she would make when she heard these words.

“But I only carried out your revenge for you.”

“You’ve probably believed until now that it was bandits who burned down your village.”

Rosalia’s firm shoulders trembled slightly.

“But were they really bandits? Did you confirm their identities yourself?”

“Or did you simply believe what Count Adrian told you?”

It was the empire’s Grand Justice who told him that fact. Thoroughly drunk on wine, he had proudly blabbed about that story.

“Why do you think I bothered chasing you personally? Because I was scared of a mere stone? Because I was scared of being exposed as a fraud, not the Emperor’s son?”

Adolf let out a sharp laugh.

“Why would I be scared of such a thing? The Empire’s high-ranking officials were standing behind me. Rumors could simply be covered up with even bigger rumors!”

“Moreover, I wasn’t even telling a complete lie!”

His trembling hand reached out to Rosalia. Dripping blood, he pointed at her, laughing.

“The Emperor’s bastard child.”

Rosalia’s shoulders shook greatly. Matching that, Adolf’s laughter also grew louder.

“The rightful heir to this Empire.”

“It’s you, Rosalia. You are the Emperor’s daughter.”

“Your mother settled in a rural village to hide that fact. She seduced a suitably decent man and pretended to be a married couple.”

“But who do you think found out about it? Who considered your existence a threat? Enough to send knights to burn your village down?”

“The settled stone always fears the rolling stone.”

The man who became crown prince because all the Emperor’s children had died.

A man who, as a mere great-grandson of the Emperor, shouldn’t have even been able to dream of the throne.

Louis Andrique von Titanisch.

Adolf grinned.

“Do you understand now?”

And Adolf grabbed Rosalia’s leg with a trembling hand. With a voice that seemed as if he were possessed, he pleaded.

“I… I… I will make you Emperor.”

“We’ll have our revenge together! Together, we’ll impale that Louis bastard’s head on an iron skewer…”

“Rem.”

Adolf’s expression froze.

“…What?”

Rosalia tried to remember when she had first set out on this journey. She tried to remember what she had felt back then.

But it all seemed so distant now, everything blurred.

Instead, completely different memories surfaced.

The memory of arguing with Rem over trivial things.

The memory of drinking and laughing with him.

And the warmth she felt when he returned, when she embraced him again in her arms.

In the end, memories are what make up the soul.

Then what does a soul made up entirely of memories of one person yearn for?

Rosalia spoke with cold eyes.

“Where is Rem.”

First came bewilderment, then disbelief, and finally anger settled in.

“You crazy bitch!!”

Adolf screamed at the top of his lungs, forgetting even the pain from his hand.

“Haven’t you been listening to me all this time?! Louis killed your family! You yourself could become the emperor of the empire!! And yet…!!”

“I don’t care.”

Rosalia’s sword hangs over Adolf’s neck.

“That’s not what’s important to me now.”

“…”

“Where’s Rem.”

Realization finally dawned on Adolf.

He finally understood Rosalia.

“Uhahah…!”

Laughter burst from his lips, but tears flowed from his eyes. He clutched his head and muttered deliriously.

“That… such an idiotic woman… To think I considered this… this woman a threat… What… What have I been…”

Rosalia looked at him coldly and then drew her sword.

“If you don’t answer me now, I’ll cut off all your fingers…”

“Sister-in-law.”

Rosalia turned to look behind her.

“Brother-in-law…”

“I’ll take it from here.”

It wasn’t his usual lighthearted tone. His voice was flat, all emotion suppressed.

Rosalia hesitated for a moment, then quietly took a step back. Dorn nodded and walked towards Adolf.

“Do you remember my wife?”

A chilling voice. Adolf’s eyes turned toward Dorn.

With the brightening sky at his back, Dorn existed as a massive shadow. Only the dagger in his hand shone blue.

“You probably don’t.”

Adolf felt his body tremble.

A choking sensation gripped his throat.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s better for me that way.”

“Ugh… Ah…!”

His limbs stiffened, and a stupid sound escaped his lips.

“I’ll make you beg for death.”

Yes, just like back then.

His days at rock bottom, when poverty was his only friend.

The day he ate his mother because he was so hungry.

When the all-knowing witch came to him.

When she gave him the earring, promising to place the world in his hands.

That point when his life turned upside down.

But that instant that was so terrifying.

“Mo-Mother…”

Adolf muttered as he felt a blade pierce his eye.

***

Rosalia watched Dorn approach, dripping blood. Having finished his revenge, he looked more tired than relieved.

Or perhaps, lost in thought.

“…Brother-in-law.”

“…”

Had silence ever felt this ominous?

Rosalia grabbed Dorn’s collar and looked up at him.

“Rem…?”

But even so, Dorn did not answer. He only bit his lower lip and clenched his fist.

“Rem is, is alright, isn’t he? Nothing happened to him, right”

Again, silence.

Rosalia twisted her face and grabbed Dorn’s shoulder and arm.

“Brother-in-law! Answer me! What about Rem? What happened to Rem…!!”

Dorn’s lips finally parted. His words flowed slowly, like melting snow in early spring.

“…Follow me.”

.

.

.

Night was coming to an end.

The victors collected the corpses of the vanquished,

and the knights cleaned their swords stained with blood and fat.

The citizens, seeing the brightening sky, felt relief,

and the survivors shed tears for various reasons.

And morning was approaching for all of them.

Ruthlessly fair.

Rosalia knelt to the ground, tears streaming down her face.

Rem was sleeping under a tree with a peaceful expression. A faint smile on his face, he seemed to be having a happy dream.

“Ah… Ah… Ah…!”

Rosalia crawled toward Rem on her knees. She clutched her chest and reached out to touch his cheek.

“Uah.…! AaAAAh…!!”

Finally, her suppressed sobs burst forth. Rosalia, unable to contain her emotions, embraced Rem.

But he was too light.

The sun finally rose above the Essier Mountains, casting its warm light on everything.

The city walls,

The forest entering autumn,

The people starting their day, even after that terrible night.

And Rem’s dismembered body.

His arms hanging from branches,

His body tied to a tree trunk,

His heart in the unconscious Feya’s arms.

And his head in Rosalia’s.

“Aaaaaah…!! Aaaaaaargh…!!”

Rosalia screamed, clutching Rem’s head.

And so, Rem died.

***

‘They’, no, judging from the way she spoke, Rosalia, smiled at me.

“It’s a play I created. What do you think, Rem?”

I was momentarily speechless, lost for words. After opening and closing my mouth for a while, I finally grabbed her hand.

“Are you okay?”

‘They’ smiled faintly. Quietly resting her head on my shoulder, she said softly.

“I’m okay, Rem. Because I’m with you now.”

I felt her shoulder becoming wet.

“I’m alright now… because I’m by your side.”