The emotion I felt before joy was bewilderment. It was practically the same as if the Parallel World’s Ruvlian had come and stabbed it into his own heart rather than me doing it. Recalling the movements he’d shown until now, he definitely could have dodged. Even when I wasn’t around, hadn’t he been dodging all of Ruvlian’s staff attacks?
Moreover, he’d moved subtly toward where the sword’s tip would go, as if predicting its trajectory. That momentary sight entered my eyes. I stared blankly at the Parallel World’s Ruvlian sprawled on the floor at the sudden situation. He was breathing slowly with his eyes narrowed to slits.
“You, you……”
The words wouldn’t continue. My head went on strike, unable to comprehend what on earth this situation was. What awakened my head was a voice with a somewhat playful edge to it.
“Darling, get a hold of yourself. Why are you so out of it?”
Rather than truly not knowing why I was acting like this, it seemed his purpose was to make me come to my senses.
If he was going to die like this anyway, why on earth had he done all these things until now? Why had he continued the battle? His incomprehensible actions caused confusion.
“You being dazed is cute too…… But I don’t have much time.”
It was a miracle he was speaking like this. A normal person would have already died while spouting those words. With the mana sword still embedded in him, he grabbed my foot and slowly closed his eyes.
“If I was going to die, I wanted to die by your hands.”
“……”
“The choice is, haah, yours.”
As the slow-paced words ended, my head began to hurt. I couldn’t help but scream. It was worse than the remnants of the Parallel World’s Baek Sihyeon. My head was being flipped over, wrung out—it felt like I was being subjected to every possible torture. Soon, memories that weren’t mine filled me completely.
At that moment, with Ruvlian’s voice calling me as the finale, I lost consciousness.
_oOo_
When he learned to speak and became able to think properly to some degree. Eight-year-old Ruvlian Belitent often recalled one of the few memories from his infant days.
It was when he was rescued by a human named Rian who had dealt with the kidnapper, a Master of the Magic Tower who eventually met death.
Ruvlian Belitent hadn’t been very good at feeling emotions since he was young. Rather, he was numb even when someone was hurt, and if there was a dead bird on the ground, he’d just pass by without even the sentiment of feeling sorry for it.
To someone like him, the vivid anger Baek Sihyeon had shown back then was more unfamiliar and strange than his family’s affection, his nanny’s affection, or the servants’ affection.
‘How can someone get that angry for a complete stranger?’
His family, nanny, and servants had connections, but that person called Rian did not. He wondered what kind of life one had to live to express selfless anger for a complete stranger. It was a thought he could have because he didn’t know that anger had been directed at someone other than himself.
Anyway, that memory didn’t easily fade for him. If asked to pick out his most impressive memory, it had only been 8 years, but he would undoubtedly pick that memory without hesitation.
Eight-year-old Ruvlian Belitent’s first curiosity only grew larger. He was curious about the person called Rian. However, whether he asked his family, asked his nanny, or asked the servants. No answer came from anyone’s mouth. Everyone hushed up about the incident back then as if it had to be kept quiet.
When Ruvlian Belitent, pushed along by time like that, turned ten years old, the Magic Tower shamelessly offered him the position of Master of the Magic Tower. Despite having a kidnapping record and being thoroughly shaken down by the ducal house instead of war because of it. For a group gathering only mages said to be intelligent, it was a considerably futile and stupid ambition.
“These crazy mages……!”
“Dear, calm your anger. You know it’s not good for your body.”
“Delis! Aren’t you angry?! These crazy bastards who planned the kidnapping together, these accomplices are saying they’ll take our child, and if this isn’t crazy, what is!”
Ruvlian just leisurely watched his indignant mother like that. Since he originally couldn’t feel emotions well, his impression ended with the Magic Tower’s mages being tremendous idiots.
“I know. How could I not be angry? He’s our son. And our first and second sons are listening to those words right now, so that’s why.”
“Ah……”
Consideration was the same. With a small range of emotions, when various emotions could be glimpsed beyond his pupils, he only thought, how can they be like that? Ah. And sometimes the thought that people who live emotionally must be really bothersome. Thinking thus, Ruvlian slowly blinked his eyes and opened his mouth.
“Mother.”
“What is it?”
“I won’t go. Don’t be angry. Father’s right that anger is bad.”
It wasn’t sincere concern. He just didn’t want to see his mother make that sad face when he said things devoid of emotion. That face made him feel like there was something wrong with him.
Ruvlian opened his eyes wide, then shifted his gaze from his mother, who was burning with enthusiasm saying “That’s right, mom will overturn it all!” to his father. Languid blue eyes without a trace of madness crossed with eyes like three drops of green water dropped into blue water.
Eyes checking whether he was truly feeling the emotion of worry. Born not from discomfort but from worry about his first child who had a small range of emotions. Ruvlian, fluttering his golden eyelashes, subtly closed his eyes. It meant he was fine.
It wasn’t a lie. Ruvlian was really fine. There was no discomfort that came with the fact that he couldn’t feel emotions. Of course not, because regardless of the presence or absence of emotions, his family loved him unchangingly, and the servants had to serve him. Since he was in a position to receive consideration rather than give it, it was only comfortable.
“Hng. Big brother, where are you going?”
The entangled gazes broke because of his four-year-younger sibling’s young voice. Ludwig Belitent, now six years old, blinked his large eyes. At an age when he couldn’t concentrate well, he seemed not to have listened to the conversation properly. Looking at eyes that seemed to have copied his father’s eye color, Ruvlian shook his head.
“Not going. Stop crying.”
“Mm. Stop crying! But I wasn’t crying?”
He imitated everything then asked a stupid question. When his parents burst into laughter and fawned over his younger brother, Ruvlian Belitent smiled a smile like a painting. A smile that looked filled with splendid colors on the outside, but whose color before being layered over was likely achromatic.
His parents, whose attention was drawn to Ludwig, didn’t know that fact.
After that, the Magic Tower matter was concluded with submitting a petition to the Imperial Palace, causing an uproar. From that day as a starting point, time passed again as if swept away by currents. Attending successor lessons, hiring mages who weren’t from the Magic Tower for lessons, spending time with family. It was the year Ruvlian Belitent, who had experienced many things, turned eighteen.
A Hero appeared.
Ruvlian Belitent heard that news when a priest who had been dispatched to the ducal house that had ignored letters finally came.
It was a time when he’d already finished his successor lessons early with his exceptional mind and was helping his father organize documents. Knock knock, the sound of knocking was heard inside the office. When permission was granted, the butler, Bay, brought a letter from the Temple on a silver tray along with a paper knife.
“The Temple? What business would they have with us?”
The Duke picked up the letter with a suspicious face and skillfully used the paper knife to open it. Dignity could be felt in each gesture.
When Ruvlian saw his father’s hand holding the letter trembling, he realized something was wrong. Slowly retracing reasons why the Temple might anger his father, he minutely widened his eyes at his father’s fist suddenly striking the desk. It was the first time seeing his father, who would quietly digest anger no matter how angry he got, react this intensely.
“What kind of content would make you like this?”
His father, who had crumpled the letter to a degree where one couldn’t think it had originally been stiff, looked at him with a distorted face. Sadness and anger coexisted in his eyes.
“Why only to you of all people……”
“It seems content related to me is written. Give it to me.”
“No, no. I’ll ignore it, so don’t worry about it. You neither saw nor heard the fact that this letter arrived.”
His desperate hope that he would please do so was revealed. Another person might have been curious, but Ruvlian, even at eighteen, hadn’t broadened his range of emotions much. He’d only learned some emotions that couldn’t be called good.
“I’ll do that. Bay and Sleon should do so too.”
So he could indifferently let it pass without a single act of rebellion. He wasn’t curious in the first place. Just when he’d erased the fact that a letter had come from the Temple, a priest came. It was a day when not even a week had passed since the letter was sent.
“Would you send your child to that dangerous place if you were in our shoes? Ah. No, that’s not right. As servants who serve God, if God guides your child to the path of death, you’d send them there! I was thinking wrong!”
“Dear, you’re too excited. Calm down for a moment. And priest, we’ll never send our son, so why don’t you return to the Temple. No, return.”
His father, who had spoken in a suggestive form, corrected his words. Ruvlian, the person in question, sat in the drawing room leisurely taking a sip of tea while observing the fight between spear and shield, not even knowing what was going on.
“I fully understand the Duke and Duchess’s feelings, but it is a Divine Oracle. A Hero has appeared who will kill the Demon King who destroys places and releases monsters, and God is conveying that the Hero’s companion is the First Young Master, so how can I just leave?”
‘Ah. So that’s how it turned out.’
Ruvlian, who set down his tea on the table, swept over the wooden-faced priest, his younger brother with wide-open eyes, his mother deeply inhaling and exhaling, and lastly his stubborn father. Then he gave an answer that would make his family aghast.
“I’ll go, to the Temple.”
