Chapter 240
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Ferda was unaware of what was happening in reality.
He merely gazed up at the sky while sunk in a place like a deep reservoir.
Unable to breathe, Ferda was held down below by pressure squeezing him from every direction.
“I have to do something…….’
How?
This was his consciousness.
He wanted to escape, but had no strength to struggle.
All he could do was reach toward the light he could not grasp.
Helplessness enveloped Ferda.
‘Valdrova.’
The farther she drifted away, the closer her face became.
Ferda asked himself.
Why had he come to love her?
At first, it was a sense of kinship.
She was what he had longed for when he was young.
That curiosity drew him toward her.
That was how he came to know Valdrova in earnest.
She was foolish.
Foolish, but warm.
He was soaked in that warmth.
As they said, there was no right answer to love, so he thought that was simply how it was.
-She wanted to become someone like a bonfire.
A voice suddenly reached him.
The scenery that had looked like the bottom of a reservoir transformed into a dim place.
A man stood there.
-But before the primordial chaos, such a bonfire was like a candle before the wind. She had to burn herself up. Everyone saw those tears.
It was a deep voice he had never heard before.
He continued speaking as though monologuing to someone.
-I burdened her with that duty.
-But she is not carrying out that duty. Because she loves everything. Because she loves everything, she leaves them alone.
Silence fell, as though he were deep in thought.
Then he opened his mouth again.
-I will not allow that.
-Birth and death are the natural order, and it is her role to guide things along that order.
At that moment, the darkness vanished and flames rose.
It was a village.
At a glance, it was large enough to resemble Hestia Village.
The crackling of flames and brutal screams rang out at the same time.
Ferda sensed someone’s presence and turned his head.
Valdrova was there.
Though she was a dragon known as the Aspect of Fire and Power, she was now an utterly powerless woman.
She was shedding tears of blood from her hollow eyes.
Her mouth was forming words over and over.
Why?
Ferda could not understand what was happening.
Yet his body moved against his will, and so did his lips.
“Now, look, Valdrova.”
He said it in an exceptionally gentle voice.
“This is what it looks like when the things you wanted to protect disappear.”
His consciousness receded.
Once again, Ferda was sucked into the reservoir of the abyss.
He could not breathe.
His chest felt even more stifled.
‘That…… isn’t me.’
That was not Ferda.
There was no way he would hurt her.
That was why he was afraid.
If he remained trapped in this abyss like this,
did that mean he would become someone like that?
Would he hurt her again?
‘No.’
Then kill me instead.
He hurled a silent scream toward the unreachable light.
He begged it to show him that much mercy, since he would not ask for salvation.
-Regent Ferda?
Someone’s voice.
It was unfamiliar, but he had definitely heard it once before.
-Can you hear me?
He wanted to answer somehow, but he could not.
He could only pray that they would not pass him by like this.
-It seems your consciousness has gone beyond, somehow. Still, you should be able to hear my voice, so I don’t think it’s too late yet.
She seemed to understand Ferda’s condition.
-From now on, I’ll be working on bringing Regent Ferda out of this state of consciousness. You probably want to thank me, but that’s as far as my work goes. We’re being pursued, you see.
Anyone would do.
In a situation where he did not even know what was happening, he would grasp even a rotten straw if it could bring him back to his senses.
-I’ve rambled on long enough. Then I’ll begin.
At that moment, he felt something descending from the light.
Its form was unclear.
If he looked at it as a rope, it seemed like a rope, and if he thought of it as a long hand, it looked like a hand.
It felt as though he could interpret it however he wished.
Ferda carefully grasped that hand.
At that moment, the long hand gripped Ferda’s hand tightly and lifted him up.
Ferda knew this sensation.
The place that had been like a reservoir in the abyss instantly filled with light and transformed.
This was Valdrova Castle.
The place had been brimming with life during the Beginning-of-Spring Festival.
Among it all, Ferda had made exactly one mistake.
The step he had tangled up because of his panic.
That moment when she had skillfully guided him, saving him from humiliation.
He remembered.
“You…….”
But the face covered in freckles was different from then.
She had the face of an extremely innocent woman.
It was an ordinary face, the sort one might see on one out of every ten people in a village.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Angrem. I am Sierra’s saintess, also called the Saintess of Mercy, though I am more commonly known as Sierra’s Chain.”
“A chain?”
“If you want to catch a wolf, you need a sturdy collar, don’t you?”
As though her role were complete, she unclasped her hands and released Ferda.
“We’ll meet before long. Let’s exchange proper greetings then.”
When Ferda was left alone in the ballroom, he finally realized he was back in reality.
“Urgh……!”
He awoke from a cruel dream and returned to a reality that could not have been more harrowing.
Ferda was kneeling.
His mind was so confused that all sorts of words spun around inside it.
Sierra’s Chain, the burning village, and Valdrova shedding tears of blood.
His head hurt.
His consciousness had returned to his body, leaving him no time to think about anything else.
‘The most important thing first…….’
Ferda reflexively checked his priorities.
What was it?
Rolling his eyes, he searched for the object most closely connected to it.
Then the black book caught his eye.
‘Yes, that one.’
Gamigin’s Legion.
That object called Gamigin’s utopia, which had ultimately succeeded in the human world.
‘I have to destroy it.’
Ferda tried to draw up mana.
But none remained.
Both the Dark Circle and the Red Circle had been squeezed dry to their limits.
He gathered what he could, feeling as though he were trying to squeeze even the moisture from dried meat, but he still could not reach it.
Ferda carefully tried to rise from his place.
His legs trembled, so in the end he decided to crawl.
His body told him that it needed to rest.
Ferda tried to persuade that body with all his strength.
At the very least, that book.
He had to burn even that book before he could close his eyes.
With that single-minded determination, Ferda crawled forward slowly.
Just as Ferda was reaching out toward it,
the book floated into the air.
He thought it was magic, but someone had picked up the book.
Ferda forcibly raised his head to see who it was.
The first thing he saw was a large boot.
Zed, Arwen, or perhaps Luri, who had lost her shoes somewhere and come wearing a large boot someone had discarded.
He hoped it was one of them.
But Ferda’s wish was cruelly torn apart by reality.
“This must be the thing.”
Eugene Hudret.
He had carefully destroyed the sources of all power one by one and arrived after everything had come to an end.
This was the worst.
Of all things, it had to fall into that bastard’s hands…….
Ferda looked up at him.
“Looks like there was quite a fierce battle. I heard from the mage outside that the power had vanished, and the castle is about to collapse along with it.”
“…….”
“Well, this doesn’t seem to be the source either. I suppose that’s because that fellow called Alberto and your attendant are so formidable. We should get out quickly. What will you do?”
He asked with a smile.
The fact that he was asking despite the obvious answer felt ominous.
Ferda barely opened his mouth.
“The book…….”
“Hm?”
“Hand over that book…….”
Ferda was no less insistent.
King Hudret glanced at the black book and asked,
“Do you covet this object? Well, as a mage, your pursuit of power must be unlike anyone else’s.”
“It must…… be destroyed.”
King Hudret silently looked down at Ferda while holding the book.
He had no expression.
That made him difficult to read.
What reaction was this man showing to the temptation the other kings had faced—and that he himself had faced?
Ferda wanted to believe that Hudret had not been tempted.
With his physical abilities, Ferda had no way to defeat Hudret.
“If you look at it…… it will show you the desire you harbor.”
“Desire?”
“The kings were devoured by that desire. And…… they killed one another.”
“Hmm…… so that was why?”
King Hudret touched his chin.
It was a skeptical reaction, but one that suggested he did not think the story entirely unfounded.
“It makes you believe it can bring to fruition things that should end as mere delusions—and must remain that way. So please…… you must destroy it.”
“You’re saying that if I look at this, I’ll be devoured by the book?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm…….”
The subtle reaction continued.
If his body had been healthy, Ferda would have ambushed him at once, but now he had become so frail that he could not defeat even a child.
After looking down at him for quite some time, King Hudret chuckled.
“I’ll ask you one question.”
King Hudret extended his index finger and asked,
“What do you think of an emperor?”
“An emperor……?”
“My father wanted to become an emperor. He tried to instill that dream in his children, and I became its vessel.”
“…….”
“But the greater the dream, the weaker the bond of family became. Rather than helping one another, we did nothing but attempt assassinations and repeatedly frame each other. I regretted it, and I was disappointed.”
“…….”
“As a result, I naturally developed a certain kind of eye.”
He pointed to his own eye.
“Was it called insight? I call it the Emperor’s Eye. I came to have a rough idea of what was on the minds of people who overreached their station.”
His eyes were ordinary brown eyes.
That insight was by no means a magical construct.
“So it made it easy to filter out people I thought were up to pointless nonsense. But it wasn’t omnipotent.”
He crouched down and touched Ferda’s forehead.
“I learned that after meeting you. You possessed the greatest ambition of any human I’d ever seen. And yet you were different from the other kings. I found that truly fascinating.”
His smile disappeared.
He continued in a more serious voice.
“Ferda Valdrova. Tyrant, the man who became Valdrova’s husband. So let me ask you once more. What do you think of an emperor?”
Ferda answered him.
“An emperor is nothing more than a human being who will die someday.”
They say the higher one climbs, the harder the wind blows.
“Then why are you in such a lofty position and still trying to climb higher?”
The answer was simple.
“Because my fiancée is there.”
The words that followed were not Ferda’s.
“Because she’s struggling, unable to figure out how to come down from that position.”
He did not understand why he had said that.
Perhaps he had uttered nonsense because his mind was hazy.
Upon hearing it, Hudret grinned.
“Let’s find out.”
Hudret eventually opened the book.
At that moment, his eyes widened.
He looked like an explorer who had discovered treasure.
Like a farmer feeling gentle rain at the end of a long drought.
“Indeed…… these are fascinating things.”
He saw it clearly.
He saw himself becoming the ruler of the continent.
He saw everyone bowing beneath him.
He saw the utopia every would-be king dreamed of.
“Though it’s a petty thing.”
Hudret quickly lost interest.
Without the slightest hesitation, he burned the black book with his own hands.
Ferda could not hide his astonishment as he watched.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I find it quite unpleasant, as though you were looking down on me.”
“How…….”
“I’m not blind. If I have my eyes open to reality, why would I let myself be swayed by that piece of trash?”
He jerked his chin toward where the kings’ corpses lay.
“When those who pursued the ideal it showed have ended up sprawled out like this?”
Every word was true.
He watched it burn to the very end, then pressed down on the ashes.
“Those who walk the path of an emperor need firm conviction. With resolve, and without haste.”
The book vanished without a trace.
His eyes turned toward Ferda.
“So instead, I’d like to ask you. How did you resist even after seeing this book?”
Ferda thought of the illusion it had shown him.
But what shone even more vividly than that was red.
“Valdrova.”
His utterly foolish woman came to mind.
That woman, whom no dream or delusion could replace, remained in reality.
“So that was it.”
King Hudret nodded as though he finally understood.
“I wondered why I found you so likable, and now I know—it was because of that.”
“…….”
“It’s because you don’t have the dream of becoming an emperor. Since you’re not someone who will become one, why would you need to fight?”
Hudret sheathed his sword, grabbed Ferda’s arm, and slung him over his shoulder.
“Rest. I’ll personally deliver your body to your attendant.”
The position was extremely humiliating, but Ferda had no strength to protest.
As Hudret had said, he had to rest now.
The Kingdom of Heinkel began to collapse around its fortress.
The area that had lost its mana crumbled as though built of sand, while the cheers of soldiers who knew nothing rang out everywhere as though proclaiming victory.