When all the collateral relatives lost their lives, next the direct imperial family members who had lived together in the Imperial Palace began to fall. The guard knights also began to bleed one by one. Soon, as the earth shook, the altar that had been built high into the sky collapsed. People were too busy fleeing from that spot without exception.
In the party that had become a scene of carnage, there was no one to look after the mad Emperor. Not knowing where to go, the Emperor instinctively began running toward the Emperor’s palace.
It was a foolish thought. Everywhere light didn’t reach was all Shadow. There was no space where Shadow didn’t exist.
Brukisel carelessly tossed his fallen brother into one corner and chased after the Emperor. Unlike the Emperor running for his life, Brukisel’s steps were leisurely.
When the Emperor discovered Brukisel following him, he screamed as if he had seen the dead.
Brukisel was dumbfounded. Using the power of Shadow, everything was too easy. To think he had to endure such a torturous daily life because of this weakling of a human. What had that suffering been for? What had his mother’s death been for? It was futile.
Brukisel threw a blade at the Emperor’s feet. The dagger with elaborate decorations on the handle was one the Emperor had frequently used atop the altar.
‘I’m giving you a choice. Whether to die by my hand. Or…… to go into the Goddess’s embrace of your own will.’
The Emperor saw the Shadow approaching him. The prince who had returned alive from death had become a monster.
‘You’d better think carefully.’
It seemed like he would tear him to death right then and there. It didn’t seem like he would let him die peacefully. The Emperor picked up the blade with trembling hands.
According to the scriptures, those who took their own lives could not enter the Goddess’s paradise. Brukisel desperately hoped the Emperor would never be able to enter the place he had longed for his entire life.
The previous Emperor, whose Shadow power was weak, lost his life surprisingly easily once the poison spread.
‘Is this all?’
I suffered so much because of you. Is this all? It was hollow and empty. All the imperial family members had disappeared, and the nobles who had only stood by had also lost their lives. But even so, his mother wouldn’t come back to life. His own life wouldn’t regain its original peace.
‘Right.’
Brukisel decided with a twisted heart.
‘Following your dying wish, I’ll eliminate all the Shadows from the Empire. I’ll make you suffer in hell watching the Empire you loved so much disappear from the map.’
Thus, Brukisel resolved to die. That was the best revenge Brukisel could take.
* * *
Death.
What Brukisel desired was nothing other than death. He truly wished for the Empire to collapse with his death, to vanish from history.
Brukisel pushed the black bottle toward Rou. Rou slowly approached and tilted the bottle slightly to look. The sticky liquid inside was suspicious. Rou turned the cap and carefully smelled it, then startled and put the bottle back down. Just from briefly smelling it, the scent was stimulating enough to make the inside of his nose tingle.
If Rou hadn’t had resistance to poisons created by plants, it was a poison powerful enough that abnormalities would have immediately appeared in his body. Brukisel casually took the bottle back.
I see.
Brukisel was looking for a way to kill himself. He wanted to die anytime, even right now. Only then did Rou understand all the hatred Brukisel had shown.
‘I was foolish.’
To bestow the Goddess’s Blessing upon someone who hated Goddess Kaine and wanted to die because of her. Even if Rou had wanted to give the Blessing with good intentions, there was no way his sincerity could reach him. To someone who had resolved to die, blessing and happiness must have felt no different from mockery.
Rou’s head throbbed. He had thought Brukisel must have had an unhappy childhood. So he had wanted to give the greatest happiness to the grown him. And all of that had been his own arrogance.
He didn’t know how great the suffering Brukisel had experienced was. How great the sense of betrayal must have been when his own flesh and blood tried to kill him, the futility he must have felt when he learned his mother had taken her life unable to overcome that despair, the frustration he must have felt when prayers to the Goddess went unanswered time and time again—he couldn’t even dare to imagine.
Rou had lived as a bumblebee, but he had never experienced death, had never been betrayed by his own flesh and blood, and the Goddess had never failed to respond to Rou’s prayers.
Rou closed his mouth, not knowing what to say. Having realized how his hasty comfort would feel to him, no words came easily.
Brukisel silently dropped poison into his wine glass. The dark red wine took on an even deeper color. Rou looked up at Brukisel with worried eyes, knowing he had no right to dare stop him.
The red eyes gazed at the dark red wine, then took a sip. Rou watched Brukisel with trembling eyes and was relieved to confirm that the poison had no effect on Brukisel.
“Do you still think you can do something for me? There seems to be nothing you can give me.”
Brukisel spoke in an indifferent tone. Rou’s shoulders flinched and trembled.
It was as Brukisel said. And that fact made Rou sad.
The reason he had come down to this land against the Goddess’s opposition was because he wanted to repay Brukisel. But if Brukisel didn’t want happiness, if all he desired was merely death, what could he do for him?
It was a problem he had never once considered. For the first time, Rou felt a deep sense of powerlessness. The fact that no matter what he did, he couldn’t help Brukisel made him depressed.
‘Is there really nothing I can do for Brukisel?’
He felt so small and insignificant.
It was then. His breath caught. Suddenly standing on two legs felt too burdensome. Maintaining this body was too difficult. It felt like he needed to lay his body down somewhere soft and comfortable right away.
‘I feel like I’m going to transform into a bumblebee.’
Rou wasn’t accustomed to such negative emotions.
When he had been an ordinary bumblebee, it seemed he had felt hunger, fear of death, and loneliness like ordinary humans did. But during the five hundred years living as a Spirit, all of that had become hazy. For Rou, satiety rather than hunger, comfort rather than fear, the warmth the Goddess gave rather than loneliness—these were familiar.
Perhaps that’s why, whenever he felt cold by Brukisel’s side, whenever he felt powerless at being unable to help him, he felt like he would transform into a bumblebee.
The sensation he felt from his hands and feet was strange. His back was itchy, as if wings would sprout at any moment. If he stayed here, he would surely show Brukisel his transformed bumblebee form. He hated that more than anything.
Rou turned around as he was. Seized by the thought that he had to return to the temple immediately, he ran out as if fleeing without even greeting Brukisel.
Brukisel watched the back of the High Priest fleeing in a frenzy with a somewhat flustered expression. The High Priest’s face was pale as if terrified, and he was busy running away as if he wanted to get out of this place immediately.
How urgent must it have been that he ran without even properly closing the door? The sound of urgent footsteps gradually faded.
‘Well, running away like that is common sense after all.’
Perhaps because the High Priest always showed unexpected behavior, the sensible reaction felt strange instead. If it was the first time hearing the story of killing all one’s flesh and blood, reacting like that was normal. Brukisel quietly tilted his wine glass, then frowned.
—Crack.
The wine glass shattered in Brukisel’s grip just like that. Even as the sharp shards of broken glass dug into his palm, Brukisel didn’t blink an eye. Even as the wine and dark red blood mixed and soaked his sleeve, he didn’t wipe it off. He simply glared at the open doorway with fiercely sharpened eyes.
He felt so foul-tempered that he wanted to destroy whatever was in his grasp.
He wanted to immediately drag the High Priest back and punish him while mocking those frightened eyes. Brukisel considered checking from the window how far the High Priest had fled, then began to ponder, finding the emotion he was feeling strange.
‘Foul-tempered? Why on earth?’
There was always a reason for feeling displeased. Brukisel realized he was disappointed right now.
“Ha.”
Disappointment, of all things. What had he expected from that High Priest, from someone who served Goddess Kaine?
It seemed he had become accustomed to the High Priest’s unconventional attitude. Looking at those clear eyes, it felt like he would be understood no matter what he did. It felt like he would be forgiven. Deceived by that, he had thought that person wouldn’t care what kind of past he had.
“Ha, haha!”
Brukisel let out a scoff. He was in no position to dare mock the foolish and blind believers as stupid. It seemed he too had come to believe in that benevolent High Priest before he knew it. That’s why he had thoughtlessly revealed even his past. That fact enraged Brukisel to his very bones.
Brukisel abruptly stopped laughing. He quietly stood up and drew his sword hanging on the wall. It had been a long time since he had fed blood to his sword, having been peaceful without war for a while.
‘I should go to the northern edge.’
In that place too cold for humans to live, unknown beasts overflowed. It would be a satisfying hunt. Brukisel donned his robe and walked out, then opened the poison bottle on the desk. Even when he held it to the opening and smelled it, he couldn’t detect any scent.
It seemed this poison was gradually losing its effectiveness too. He emptied the bottle in one go and kicked open the door and left.
