Chapter 154
The infirmary was covered in shadows.
After a flash of light burned away the darkness, the ashes of brilliantly shattered shadows embroidered the space.
A scenery resembling a night sky without a single cloud.
Starlight was that beautiful.
Before they knew it, the ceiling was a world of stars punctuated with white jade.
In the world that flowed down, a complete primordial state breathed.
The landscape painting went astray for a moment.
As time passed like that.
"......"
The emperor opened his eyes.
His consciousness that had been cut off during treatment returned.
Valkaros groaned while pressing his brow, then soon slowly raised his body from the hospital bed.
Only after a moment did he realize he had been asleep.
How much time had passed?
"Ugh..."
"Your Majesty."
While catching his breath for a moment.
The boy waiting beside spoke to him.
"You've woken up."
Yuda Snakers.
He was still guarding the infirmary.
Judging by the other children remaining in place too, he could tell not much time had passed.
At most about 30 minutes perhaps.
It was a strange feeling.
It felt like he had slept for nearly 10 years.
He turned his thoughts to the lingering stiffness for no reason.
Valkaros rolled his eyes.
'Was the treatment successful? What happened to the Second Imperial Princess?'
He had to examine the situation first.
The emperor gathered his hazy vision, and raised his head along with a dry face wash.
Right then. There was a sense of incongruity brushing Valkaros's spine.
His shoulders involuntarily stopped.
"...?"
His body felt strangely light.
More precisely, the process of waking from sleep wasn't painful at all.
The headache that would have already come in normal times didn't even show signs.
At first he thought his senses were faint because he had just woken up, but rather the painlessness became clearer as his consciousness cleared.
The emperor was perplexed.
'Why.'
Had there been a time like this?
10 years ago.
Since receiving the disease from the rose, there hadn't been a single day free from pain.
Because the shackles of the curse were a fate that could never be undone.
For Valkaros, pain was proof and a brand of being chosen.
The fact that it was gone meant...
"...No way."
The emperor muttering quietly.
He then turned to look at the boy beside with a dumbfounded expression.
Yuda was gazing at Valkaros with a triumphant smile.
Perhaps he read the question from the man's eyes?
The boy threw out a word as if he had been waiting.
"Your Majesty's thoughts are correct."
"......"
"It ended successfully."
What.
It was meaningless to even add such a question.
The sense of incongruity circling his whole body supported the hypothesis.
For the first time in nearly 10 years, his body felt refreshed.
The sensation of each blood vessel tearing whenever he moved his body.
The dazed consciousness due to excessively applied pain-relieving magic.
Muscles twisting every moment, his head throbbing as if about to burst, hallucinations lingering in his ears.
His fists that were always tightly clenched due to pain difficult to endure despite that.
All of that was gone.
"Ah..."
Valkaros who had been dazed for a while.
Soon as if remembering something, he looked at the hospital bed on the opposite side.
At the end where his gaze touched, a red-haired girl was in place.
It seemed she had regained consciousness before him.
"I'm so glad..."
"Hic... I'm so happy Your Highness is better..."
"Stop crying, both of you. I'm fine."
"But Elise is crying too."
"This is just... ugh, suddenly big sister and Tanya are clinging to me."
Elise.
Charlotte and Tanya were beside her.
Had they already gone through a sea of tears?
The girls were leaning on each other, and the corners of their eyes were redder than autumn foliage.
If there was one thing such a scene implied, it was only one.
'The end.'
A period was put.
Spring had finally come even to winter that seemed eternal.
The world full of curses had already broken.
Valkaros muttered blankly.
'What was determined to be impossible.'
Contextually, he had left the treatment to the boy but.
As emperor, he hadn't had any expectations.
There was a reason the mere disease had the name 'God's curse' attached.
Though he had sought an answer for nearly 10 years, the conclusion drawn was only a few cold words that there was no way.
Therefore, he abandoned faith.
But.
'The circulation of mana...'
The man circulated the mana in his whole body several times.
The blood that had been completely blocked until just a few hours ago.
Originally it should have been accompanied by pain of cutting, tearing, twisting, but now only a smooth flow continued.
The mana transmitted to every corner cleared his mind and boosted vitality at the same time.
There wasn't even a sense of incongruity in his inner self calm like a stream.
Such signals were proving his body's unprecedentedly healthy state.
Valkaros couldn't close his mouth.
'A miracle.'
Yes.
The man was witnessing a miracle.
The common sense he had built up so far shattered.
The boy's lies were a complete denial of the providence of life.
But the steps of the miracle didn't stop there.
-Remember, Valkaros.
Suddenly.
A certain woman's voice brushing his ear.
The emperor momentarily held his breath.
-The fact that I'm always by your side.
His heart was cut.
It felt like a sharp awl was piercing through his lungs.
Unfamiliar.
It was a different feeling from the pain due to the curse.
It was something much more clumsy, fundamental, and emotional than that.
The man involuntarily stiffened at the unfamiliar sensation.
Meanwhile, the auditory hallucination continued.
-I was happy loving you.
Empress.
It was the voice of the empress he had lived forgetting for a long time.
The turmoil in his heart increased further.
'Why.'
Something was strange.
His clear vision suddenly blurred hazily.
The corners of both eyes stung, then soon the world reflected in water droplets caused ripples.
The foam breaking in globules became transparent paint and flowed down.
Drip drip-.
Raindrops were falling on his cheeks.
The heavenly water that repeatedly accumulated and overflowed was suffering an unknown high fever, so after long water marks formed, it was hot as if burned.
Letters divided into pieces scattered.
His heart surged then felt like it would spill over.
The man was dizzy.
Thump thump-.
Some heartbeat roughly shouting it was alive.
His throat choked up as if lukewarm flour dough was stuck.
Though he was clearly inhaling air, he couldn't breathe.
It was due to the sleet.
-Valkaros.
It hurt.
Valkaros's eyes hurt.
Therefore, rain continued to fall in his world.
His vision showed no sign of clearing.
Thud-.
His heart sank.
No. Was it his heart?
Perhaps it was something else.
But it didn't matter to the current Valkaros.
Eyes resembling leaves wavered.
"......"
The emperor's gaze still remained on the imperial princesses.
Towards the platinum blonde and red hair.
-Even if I'm gone... please take care of the children.
Continuing chest pain.
Following the image settled in his pupils, the formless pain only became clearer.
Nevertheless, Valkaros couldn't take his eyes away.
'You've grown a lot.'
The children before his eyes were safe.
At some point they had grown up, becoming proper ladies.
Why did such things concern him so much?
It was the reason for the pain that had continued since earlier.
'This is.'
His heart felt as if pierced by flames.
The reflected world was unprecedentedly dilute.
Pupils containing raindrops, the white waves rising in those water scales resembling some spring day.
Tightly clenched fists not hurting.
Though all those things were overwhelming.
It was turbulent to the extent of almost bursting into sobs.
Valkaros knew the name of this pain.
Moments of past years brushed by as if turning pages with a 'swoosh' sound.
His wrinkled lips pronounced language he hadn't known for a long time.
He pronounced language he had forgotten long ago.
'...Love.'
Yes.
It was love.
Among the countless charnel houses of letters, one buried word raised its head.
Though he thought it had been completely lost.
It was in his heart.
"How is it?"
A voice cutting in just then.
The boy was smiling faintly towards this side.
"The emotion you're feeling after a long time."
"......"
The emperor couldn't answer.
He just hesitated, repeatedly opening and closing his mouth.
Because complete thought couldn't be formed.
The arrangement of letters rolling around in his mouth was so delicate, when he tried to place them on his tongue, they crumbled finely.
Fragments that couldn't quite become sentences flowed down softly like sand grains.
Spring rain didn't stop in his clear vision.
A chorus of winter and spring.
As he hesitated for a moment at the flower petals spreading, the boy behind gently pushed his back.
It was a push without any formality.
Push-.
"Let's go. Isn't this the moment you longed for so much?"
Valkaros moved forward in a daze.