episode_0149

The heavy body, like a boulder sinking into the black waves, continued to sink endlessly.

Am I dead? I didn’t think I could say for sure since it was a phenomenon I had never experienced before.

But somehow it felt familiar, because I’ve always lived as if I were dead.

How far had it sunk? Instead of black waves, I saw the scenery of my beloved mansion.

“… Is this a revolving lantern?”

This was definitely my office. Surrounded by squares within squares within squares, looking at squares while working, the traces of that day when I was living while dead were too vivid. So vivid that it hurt my eyes.

“Long time no see, Count.”

I knew the owner of that creepy voice.

“I guess this is the afterlife.”

“It could be the afterlife, or the boundary, or it could be nothing more than an illusion. But what’s the point in such a hypothesis?”

“If you ruined the country, don’t even bother going to hell and repent, you worst emperor.”

“I guess you’ve lost your manners now.”

“There is simply no reason to show respect to beasts.”

I tried to swing my staff while aiming for the preemptive strike.

Because when I thought about the disaster that guy had brought, I didn’t think killing him several times would be enough.

“That looks really pathetic, Count.”

“……”

“You who lost your lover and gave yourself over to anger, or the Demon King who couldn’t overcome despair and gave himself over to madness, or Jim who couldn’t overcome illness and gave himself over to pleasure. They’re not that different, right? In the end, if you look at them all, they’re all the same.”

“That’s not worth responding to.”

It was all a result of this guy. If it weren’t for this guy, most of the misfortunes wouldn’t have happened.

Yes. The seeds of all these misfortunes were sown by this man.

“Haha… That sharp gaze until the end… It’s quite amusing. Who knew he’d still be able to provide such entertainment even after death?

I stabbed Seonje in the chest with my staff, and Seonje scattered into a handful of sand.

He was someone who really didn’t want to understand until the end. Even though he didn’t think he could understand.

As I opened the tightly closed door and went outside, an empty and lonely hallway of the mansion came into view.

It was a familiar place. Not because it was where I lived, but because I had been waiting endlessly in front of my mother’s room for that small door to open.

Why on earth was I born from such a cursed seed?

Most of my misfortunes probably stem from there.

It felt like my very existence was going to be distorted. Why on earth was I born like that? If I had been born from my father. My childhood would not have been filled with my mother’s love. Such meaningless pictures were drawn.

The colorless hallway began to fill with such paintings, and I found myself surrounded by them.

I saw my mother hugging me tightly as a child.

I saw my mother praising my drawings from when I was a child.

I saw my mother warmly nursing me when I was sick.

And I reached out to it. I felt like I couldn’t hold back the feelings that were about to spill out, and there was no reason to hold them back now that I was dead.

“Why on earth…”

So that you can kill it by breaking its neck.

To kill it and cool down these surging emotions.

I decided to put strength into my right hand.

“What makes you different…!”

It was all me. If only my father had been different, I could be this happy.

I hated the other me who was happier than me. If I were to judge only by the depth of my hatred, it was worse than that of the Demon King or the Emperor.

“You enjoy it differently from me…!”

The moment I was about to twist it completely, a warm hand wrapped around my wrist.

“Stop it.”

It was a voice that was so familiar, but the atmosphere was so different that I let it go without realizing it.

“… Father.”

“You know it’s pointless to vent your anger on meaningless things. I prayed so much that you wouldn’t end up like your mother.”

“Why on earth did I have to live like this?”

It was a question I wanted to ask over and over again.

My father was the Sage of the Empire, the smartest man in the Empire, so I thought he would know the answer.

I believed that He would resolve the unpleasant and uncomfortable feeling that was clumping in my heart.

“I asked myself the question every single day. I worked hard for this empire, for my family, for everyone, so why did I have to be so unhappy? ”

I reconciled with my mother and with Liesel.

But the time I lost did not come back.

What I’m saying is that even if you pull out the stake in my heart, the hole won’t be filled.

Rather, the wind blowing through the gap in the hole was cold and unpleasant because the stake had been pulled out.

“Is it because I am not my father’s son? Was it because I did not try hard enough? I don’t know. Even though they presented numerous possibilities, there was no clear answer…! What on earth is the answer… Why do I have to suffer like this…”

“Raul…”

And then my father’s fist struck the crown of my head.

Although I wasn’t in pain, I felt like my mind had suddenly come to me and I raised my head without realizing it.

“… Father?”

“Don’t try to find the reason for your unhappiness or resentment in other things. The more you try to find it, the more unhappy you become.”

“What should I do…”

“You should just live as Raoul Bergé. That’s your answer.”

“… I don’t know. How I live as myself. The concept of what is the right answer. ”

My father thought for a moment, then asked a seemingly pointless question.

“Raoul. When I teased your mother, I used to call her a woman stuck to the ground. One day, I even threatened to draw my sword if I called her that again. Do you know what I said then?”

“……”

“A woman far from the sky.”

“…………”

“It was a joke that was quite clever. This is disappointing.”

My father patted my shoulder and smiled brightly.

“Anyway, it’s a similar story. Anything can be said and thought about. You don’t know. There’s just so much more to learn. Raoul Bergé is such a vast and wonderful person.”

“I am… not great.”

This hand, which had been stained with blood, seemed to still have a bloody smell.

Can the words tragedy and anger really cover up the acts I committed while giving in to my anger?

But could I have protected the person I loved with these hands? Not to mention Leila, I ended up leaving the worst enemy, the Demon King, to my friends.

“I’m just a fool who has never properly protected anyone… or anyone I love.”

There was no visible direction to go forward.

It felt like I was crossing a dark sea where morning would never come, relying on a small sailboat.

I was a navigator who couldn’t figure out whether I was headed in the right direction, whether I was going backwards, or whether I was moving in the right direction in the first place.

“I don’t want to do anything anymore. I just want to give up and sit down. I’ve tried enough. If someone like me tries any harder…”

“Didn’t you promise? You said you’d go back.”

“What would those promises mean to me now that I’m dead?”

“You have to try.”

“I really don’t know anymore… I think I’ve forgotten the reason to move forward… and the way to move forward… Teach me, Father…”

“Unfortunately.”

A warm hand passed over me and disappeared into light.

“I don’t think I’m the one teaching you that. The person teaching you that… The person who’s been waiting for you the longest… seems to be somewhere else. In the saddest and most beautiful place.”

In this way, the father disappeared into the light and the mansion also disappeared.

And the next thing that appeared after the mansion was the battlefield.

In the countless battlefields I have been through, countless corpses of ‘me’ were strewn about.

I was a weakling who couldn’t hide my true nature even if I tried to show off. Because every time I took a life, I had to kill a part of myself. The self-harm that I called guilt generally felt like that.

Every time I cut off the enemy’s neck, it felt like I was cutting off my own neck. That’s why war was no different from an act of killing myself to me.

I walked and walked along with the countless selves that I had killed. This is proof of the pain I had suffered, but it is also proof of the pain I had given.

Looking at this long road, I felt like I probably wouldn’t be able to go to heaven. After all, it would be unconscionable to want to go to heaven after killing so many lives.

“Whatever lies beyond this must be hell.”

Beyond that path was a small door.

A small white door that exists without any walls surrounding it.

“It’s pretty small for a gate to hell.”

I opened the door and went in.

And what appeared was a garden with a huge tree.

When I noticed the identity of the giant tree, I tried to run away.

Because I wasn’t so stupid as to not know what this space where it exists meant.

I didn’t want to face this space. I didn’t want to face this shameful lump of filth.

The moment I grabbed the doorknob and tried to run away,

An ivory arrow flew in from somewhere and shattered the doorknob.

“Fuck…”

At the moment when I was wondering if there was any way to escape,

A voice so beautiful that it made my heart ache was heard.

“Hello.”