episode_0051

The Saintess was there.

The knightess, abandoned for the sin of challenging the traditions and authority that this country, the Holy Kingdom, was meant to uphold. That was her sin. Whether she wished for it or not.

“Jeanne-nim……”

Only then did a tremor enter Charlotte’s expression, which had seemed unwavering even before the 《Black Serpent》. King Charles the Bald’s face was also paler than ever. I said nothing, waiting for her answer there.

“……”

She said nothing. But the silence didn’t last long.

“Commander.”

At the end of the silence, she spoke. In a calm and unwavering voice, no different from usual.

“Give me an order.”

Without anger or agitation, without even sadness, calmly. She truly asked back calmly.

“What should I do now?”

“That depends on what you wish for.”

“What I wish for……”

The woman once called the Saintess trailed off. After trailing off, she simply smiled.

“I wanted to shine.”

She still loved the light.

“To grow up as a maiden in an unremarkable rural village, marry a man from a neighboring village, have children, not live such an unremarkable life……”

Jeanne said. It was the wish of a girl named Jeanne, not a Serpent nor a Saintess.

“I wanted to live a life more brilliant and beautiful than anyone in the world—shining like a star.”

I didn’t answer. No one could answer.

“So when I heard the ‘Goddess-nim’s voice,’ I thought my prayers had been answered.”

There was no unnecessarily seductive and elaborate dress like before.

Except for a few jeweled adornments, like stars embroidered into the dark 《Black Serpent》 uniform, shining like the Milky Way in the night sky.

It was the trace of a new light she loved.

The countless lights that humans come to love in various forms as they live their lives.

“……It wasn’t.”

She said that and smiled, feigning blindness, like Aria whose eyes were covered with a black bandage.

“Jeanne-nim—”

Charlotte, the princess of the Holy Kingdom, trailed off. In the brief silence, she continued.

“Did you come all this way for revenge? Reborn as a member of the 《Black Serpent》?”

“……”

“Now, I won’t ask you to forgive me. I have neither the right nor the power to do so.”

As if no excuses or justifications were needed.

As the unwavering princess of this nation, it was a fitting demeanor.

In this situation, she looked several times more ‘kingly’ than her foolish father, who was pale and helpless.

“I never imagined the Commander of the 《Black Serpent》 would personally reach out to Jeanne-nim.”

Charlotte muttered bitterly.

That was a mistake the Holy Kingdom had failed to calculate.

Commander of the Serpent. That name again. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, no matter how far away I was, that inescapable name was heard here too.

—Rain Grey.

The Saintess Jeanne did not answer.

Only the jewels embroidered on the jet-black uniform she wore emitted a unique radiance like stars.

The dark, vivid crimson of a ruby, like spilled blood—.

Slice!

“……”

Immediately after, King Charles the Bald’s severed head rolled across the floor. Charlotte’s expression hardened. Along with it, the knights who were supposed to protect the king belatedly put their hands on their sword hilts, but it was already too late.

“Hah, this isn’t even a warm-up!”

Simultaneously, Wolf Fang Sandalphon, who had been silent, moved. His swinging claws tore through the knight’s breastplate in an instant, and blood gushed out like a fountain.

Blood splattered in all directions across the throne room where the king of the Holy Kingdom, the Land of Stars, sat.

A utterly meaningless annihilation.

Covered in the scattered blood, the kingdom’s only surviving princess bit her lip.

“—Charlotte.”

I called out to the kingdom’s only surviving princess.

“……”

Leaving the slaughtered king’s corpse behind, Charlotte did not answer. There was no sign of sadness even as her father was murdered before her eyes. Instead, there was only a ‘ruler’ calmly assessing this hopeless situation and resigning herself to it.

“This country is finished.”

Nevertheless, nothing changed. When I calmly spoke the truth, Charlotte bit her lip tightly. Red drops of blood welled from beneath her bitten lip.

“……I suppose so.”

After biting, she answered self-mockingly.

“At the hands of none other than you, the 《Black Serpent》.”

In her voice, there was a faint, undeniable hint of hatred.

“What… what exactly is your purpose?”

Charlotte asked again, her voice laced with unconcealed hatred.

“With the power to destroy a nation if you so choose, what exactly have you been plotting, hidden in the shadows until now?”

“Do I have an obligation to answer?”

I asked back.

“Because you deliberately chose not to kill me and kept me alive.”

Charlotte replied.

“Surely, you must think I have some use.”

“That’s right.”

I answered as if it were none of my business. It was then.

“……Commander.”

The Saintess, who had been silently standing by, covered in blood over her jet-black uniform, approached me.

“Commander, Commander, Commander……”

Repeating the same word as if a baby were babbling.

“My Commander, no—”

The Saintess Jeanne knelt on one knee on the blood-splattered floor, assuming a posture of submission. The slave’s mark, once etched onto her body, shone once more.

“My…… Master-nim.”

Jeanne said with a smile. It was an innocent, truly unsullied, pure white smile, like a child’s.

“Truly, the one and only Master-nim whom I must serve.”

Without any trace of pride directed at me, Jeanne knelt and whispered. Her tone was no longer that of an equal facing an equal.

“Please forgive the disrespect I have shown until now.”

Proclaiming herself a slave, she caressed the chains that bound her and the symbol of submission as if they were beloved.

“Because thanks to the hand you extended to me that day, I am alive like this.”

“……”

“In this world where I had no place, only you created a place for me.”

As if her place before me was the destination she, who once loved light, had arrived at.

I couldn’t say anything. I only knew that the almost blind loyalty she displayed was no different from what the Serpent members had shown until now.

And the 《Black Serpent》, which shows me such almost blind loyalty, is truly all that remains for me in this world.

Nothing changed. Not a single thing.

“Do you wish to protect this country?”

Thus, I asked Charlotte.

As Rain Grey, the Commander of the 《Black Serpent》.

As the leader of a villainous group and someone who claims to be the mastermind behind this world.

“If you wish to protect it, then follow my words from now on.”

“What do you……!”

“I have no interest in what happens to this country’s fate. If you cooperate smoothly, I promise to preserve its current system and national form.”

At that question, Charlotte bit her lip again. There was no choice from the beginning.

“I underst…… and.”

After biting, she answered hesitantly. I heard her answer and silently turned my head away.

From the start, the stories of nations like the Holy Kingdom or the Duchy of Germania had nothing to do with me. However, in the face of the objective I had to accomplish, they were no longer irrelevant.

Plunging the world into chaos is, in short, like plunging a nation into disorder. Coincidentally, the Holy Kingdom and the Duchy possessed ideal conditions for that.

“After we leave, reveal the full truth of everything that happened here.”

The full truth of everything that happened here.

At my words, Charlotte momentarily swallowed her breath with a bewildered expression.

“That the Saintess abandoned by your hands assassinated the Holy King for revenge—”

“!”

“If necessary, you may even speak the name of the 《Black Serpent》. That she became a Serpent member and achieved her revenge.”

“W-Wait a moment! If you reveal such content to the people……!”

They would face an irreversible catastrophe. I didn’t answer. There was no need to.

“As I said, the decision is yours.”

All I want from her is the truth as it is. At the same time, it is merely a segment of truth, easily manipulated to my liking.

The moment that segment is revealed, irreversible chaos will sweep over this country.

With this, all conditions were met.

Whether they wished for it or not, the maelstrom of chaos that would engulf this country and the continent was now near.

And in the chaos that sweeps in, humans will, as always, wish for one thing.

Peace.