episode_0062

Asher stretched out his legs across the land covered with a deep blue sky.

“Let’s keep going like this…!”

For the first time in a long time, sunlight enveloped Asher’s entire body. Was the light shining down from outside ever this warm? Asher unconsciously trembled at the sensation of the sunlight touching her skin.

Sabak, sabak.

Every time I walked on the lawn, an unfamiliar sound tickled my ears. It was a world of difference from when I walked on the solid marble floor of the mansion. It was so unfamiliar that I wondered if the ground was this soft.

It was only for a moment that I was distracted by this change.

Asher’s consciousness suddenly returned.

“The butler is…?”

Unlike Hayley and Mirelda, the butler did not become a saint. He had just been pressuring Asher to death.

That was rather the reason why Asher left the mansion with peace of mind. No matter what happened, as long as the butler continued to stay in the mansion, he could come back anytime.

So, Asher planned to plan a future where he would find a way to completely free them from the mansion and their grudge.

‘Lastly… wouldn’t it be okay to see your face just once?’

They had not yet been able to properly reconcile after arguing. He, who was already a victim beyond compare, sincerely helped Ashe, who had been chosen as another victim. He consistently worried and was concerned about her.

So, before the long separation, Asher wanted to at least say his final goodbyes.

At that moment, Inyoung appeared beyond the front door of the mansion.

The butler and Letia. The two of them were holding hands and looking at Ashe who had gone outside.

“Butler…! Me…!! Definitely…!!!”

Just as Asher was about to make his pledge.

Her surroundings changed drastically.

Srrr…

The beautifully maintained garden had dried up and become withered. Not only had it completely lost its vitality, it had completely rotted away and collapsed.

“… Huh?”

The changes didn’t end there.

Urrr…

Cracks began to appear in the exterior walls of the mansion. At first they were just thin lines, but soon they spread into thick lines, eating away at the mansion.

The mansion, which was comparable to the imperial palace in no way, was slowly collapsing from the outskirts.

“This, this… why…?”

Asher waved her hand in shock. She rolled her eyes and looked at the entrance of the mansion again.

There, the butler, who had been holding Letia’s hand tightly, was kneeling on one knee and having a conversation with his parents.

After a while, the butler hugged Letia deeply into his arms. Then he slowly stepped back and stepped outside the mansion.

“Hey, butler… hey…?”

At that moment.

puck!

The butler lost his balance and fell down limply.

Looking closely, it was as if his calf had been cut off above his ankle. Not only that, but it was steadily being cut away as if something was eroding it with each passing moment.

The butler, who had lost his human appearance and become a ghost, was not discouraged by this.

Swoop.

Stretch out your arms.

chin.

Pull it back and move forward.

Sigh, chin.

Sigh, chin.

The butler’s advance soon came to an end.

The entire torso, including the arms and waist, was completely weathered, completely blocking movement.

But after desperate efforts, he succeeded in reaching Asher’s feet.

“… Ash.”

“Hey, butler…? Why, why are you like that… Why is the mansion collapsing, and you…!”

“It’s okay. It was meant to be like this.”

He says.

“Even though I got caught up in it, I felt sorry for swinging my sword directly at Ashe.”

“Is this the time to be saying something like that?! Oh, what should I do… What should I do…! If I could just go back to the mansion now…!”

Whoosh!

Asher immediately turned her gaze to the mansion. However, her meager plan was in vain, and the mansion’s patience was drying up.

Kugugugugugugu!

The mansion began to completely collapse.

Letia’s tears scattered like noise amidst the countless falling debris.

Letia took a step back, staring outside, and then disappeared into the mass of materials.

“Ah… Ah…! I, I wished for something like this…”

“It’s not… Asher’s… fault… Asher’s not… fault…”

In the midst of my absentmindedness, my gaze is once again drawn to the butler. Now, even his voice is becoming more and more merciless.

“… Ash.”

“Huh? Yeah. Butler, tell me…! Quickly! What should I do? Tell me like you usually do…!!! Quickly!!!”

The butler leaves his last words to Ashe, whose face has turned pale and whose eyes are red.

“Don’t hate yourself too much.”

“Butler…!!!”

“And… this will be the last gift I can give you.”

“No need! Whatever it is…!”

Although Asher stubbornly refused, the butler’s actions were firm. As always, he gave Asher a reward for overcoming the ordeal.

A piece of a star.

The final loot seeps through Ashe’s veins.

“Butler… Please…! I, I still… haven’t even apologized properly…!”

Asher desperately tried to grab the butler, but it was no use. The clammy skin and hem of the clothes Asher had touched were all weathered and disappeared in the breeze.

Now, the only life left in the mansion was Ashe.

“I couldn’t… do it…”

After Asher’s ramblings ceased, a long silence descended upon the dead mansion.

The mansion that had been a surprise when he visited met a miserable end, just like what he had witnessed in the past when it was destroyed. Ashe was unable to believe this fact and denied the reality.

Look at it now.

The leather pouch I received from the mansion and the items inside it are all vividly displayed…

The most vivid elements have disappeared without a trace.

It was a strange feeling.

I’m sad, but I don’t cry. I feel ashamed, but I don’t even think about pulling out my hair.

It was so unrealistic, it felt like a midsummer night’s dream.

It was a sudden pain that brought Asher back to reality.

Kuung!

“Oh my…!”

Asher’s forehead touched the bare ground. The pain was so intense that he didn’t care about such humiliation.

Thump, thud, thud thud!

“Ahhh…! Ouch, AAAHHHH…!!!”

The muscles in my entire body were twisted. My bones were being shredded and reassembled. It felt like my veins were being torn apart and forcibly sewn together.

The blood flow was dozens of times faster than usual, bursting Ashe’s veins, and the scattered fragments of the veins gathered themselves and reattached themselves.

The Star Fragment was a reward created under the premise that Ashe escaped the mansion safely.

By absorbing three star fragments, you will gain powers greater than those of the 500-year-old Holy Artifact known as the Star of the Empire.

The pain Asher went through was the process of rebuilding his body for this purpose.

The Star Fragments are not simply a reward for your trials.

It was the real power to change the empire that was granted to Ashe who escaped the mansion safely. Therefore, the star fragment was also a reward that contained the mansion’s long-held intention to fulfill its long-held wish.

since.

The moment when the sun crawls across the sky and the red sunset struggles against the darkness.

The excruciating pain Asher was experiencing was subsiding.

“Ugh… Haa… Huh…”

As her body was being rebuilt, Asher felt how much she had changed in a short period of time.

I realized that I had evolved one step beyond the limitations of the human species.

Asher thought about it all the while his body was being rebuilt. His thoughts were burning and he came to one conclusion.

‘I… am chosen.’

He gives trials and rewards to the children of original sin who visit the mansion across hundreds of years of time.

To spread the truth hidden in the mysterious mansion to the world.

Ashe concluded that he was the one chosen as the atonement for that.

“This empire doesn’t deserve to exist.”

There is no need for a royal family and a country that can only survive by pushing away women and ordinary boys.

It would be better to tear everything down and build anew.

For that, first of all.

“I have to go back to the palace…”

The transcendent red eyes mercilessly devoured the sunset.

‘… hmm?’

At that moment, as she was leaving the main gate of Arkaden, she sensed a sense of unease.

A sharp sense that transcends humans has caught foreign substances inside the clothes.

Asher rummaged through his pockets and took out an unfamiliar object.

“… What is it?”

It was an [old key].

Why was a key of unknown purpose hidden in a clothes pocket?

There’s no need to ask questions.

Trying to find a use for it now is a waste of time.

Asher threw the old key into the grass and walked away.

The time has come to accomplish the mission.

◇

Later, books recording history describe Asher thus:

One day, the youngest princess, who was thought to be dead, returned to the palace and started a rebellion alone.

The power that brought to mind a legend from 500 years ago turned the power structure upside down in an instant.

A rebellion that started with just one person brought all the royal family, direct and collateral, to their knees.

Anyone with royal blood had to ask for forgiveness in front of a portrait of a beautiful lady without exception. Even if they asked for forgiveness, they were reduced to commoners and persecuted.

Some people condemned her for her bizarre behavior, but even the proud ministers bowed their heads when they saw her icy red eyes.

The heavens of the newly crowned empire thus began to completely erase all traces of the previous imperial family.

The new empress took the name Arcela Arkaden, and the first remnant of the previous imperial family she changed was the national flower.

White lotuses, which were selected as the new national flower, were abundant throughout the vast palace.

The first Emperor of Arkaden lived in solitude.

He hated the blood of the former imperial family and did not even hold a state wedding. Instead, he raised a capable man of commoner origin to be a prime minister and granted him the surname and the right of succession.

With this, the link between the current royal family and the former royal family was completely severed.

After she abdicated the throne, she suddenly disappeared.

His whereabouts after disappearing are unknown.

However, it is said that her body was found in the ruins of the Imperial Palace, which had been designated as a forbidden area.

A desolate land with traces of a garden. And an ominous place with the remains of a collapsed building.

The old woman of Arshela Arkaden was leaning against the remains of the mansion, seemingly asleep there.

The emperor, who was born lonely, was alone even at the end of his life.