# Chapter 28
(Episodes 28-33 are from the author’s perspective.)
After leaving the noisy coronation ceremony behind, Kadilen entered the palace and pressed his throbbing head. He had just dealt with numerous nobles who didn’t even seem to try to hide their shallow schemes. He realized once again why he considered himself a person far from power. There were still, ridiculously, many things that needed to be exchanged between people, and grasping those chaotic flows was overwhelming. Kadilen closed his eyes and thought of the temple.
The green leaves shining in the sunlight, and the fresh mountain breeze that whisked through them. This was the most difficult thing to give up when making his big decision. After all, it was a temple he had built with his own hands, together with his people, laying each stone himself. He remembered when he and Wimu first discovered the place.
‘This is it. A place with few people and full of old trees.’
‘Yes, Kadilen. As you said, it’s the perfect place.’
It was all thanks to the peace that place provided that he could hold together his tattered heart after the war. All the people who sought him out were, like him, tired and weak. Those who had suffered long from harsh lives were, with their sorrowful stories, still rough and unrefined, like stones.
He embraced each stone with affection as he continued his training. As more people followed him, Kadilen felt as if the blood that had flowed in his place was being washed away. Though his breath always caught when he looked at the candles filling the building, he gained strength from the temple soldiers who comforted him. They considered him their master, but in reality, they were each other’s masters.
He knew that anger always occupied a corner of their hearts. He too had once not hesitated to commit murder for the ruling class that the soldiers so despised. It was too shameful and painful a memory to dismiss as a thing of the past. Because there were people who had been hurt by his misdeeds, he understood the soldiers who couldn’t easily control their rising anger. Although he wasn’t directly responsible for their hardships, Kadilen’s embracing of them was, in fact, also an atonement for his past.
‘Why do you keep him in the temple?’
‘It’s a royal order. It’s not something I can decide comfortably.’
‘He’s an abandoned prince anyway. Lord Luan’s power is strong now. His Majesty doesn’t even look at him after placing him here.’
‘Yesterday, he was swinging his sword randomly in the middle of the courtyard, drunk.’
‘He wasn’t even in a state to harm anyone.’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
The atmosphere had changed a bit since Ludin came to the temple. Though they thought they had calmed their burning desire for revenge through training, the memories of discrimination and oppression that the soldiers had received before coming to the temple couldn’t easily disappear.
An abandoned prince who behaved madly. He was the perfect target for their anger. The pretext and situation aligned perfectly. Even those who had been cautious, knowing his high status, gradually couldn’t contain their leaking hatred and acted on it.
Kadilen was not unaware of this fact. At first, he was worried about both sides. He watched with concerned eyes both the hatred of the soldiers that burst forth due to Ludin’s appearance, which they had tried hard to suppress, and Ludin’s wandering for reasons unknown. So he tried to help Ludin.
But it was difficult to continually bestow kindness on someone who gritted their teeth and pushed away affection. He was constantly disappointed in Ludin. He wondered what the problem was after seeing his hand rejected again and again. While the pain of the soldiers was easy to understand, Ludin’s actions were hard to comprehend. He repeatedly asked him the reason.
‘What pains you so much?’
‘What? I’m just having fun. If it’s such a headache, leave me alone. That’s easier for you too, isn’t it?’
On a night when layers of misunderstanding completely obscured his vision, Kadilen completely gave up on Ludin. The soldiers, noticing the atmosphere between the two, began to secretly torment Ludin. Kadilen, who had reprimanded them once or twice, at some point began to ignore their harassment. The temple was his domain, and he was only careful not to let it reach Zendal’s ears. The soldiers’ anger grew day by day, and Kadilen understood their feelings as well. Ludin was someone who deliberately ruined everything.
When he understood the cause of his behavior, an even greater and heavier disappointment overwhelmed him than before. All of Ludin’s footsteps, which had been incomprehensible, became understandable in an instant.
Zendal’s curse.
The circumstances that had been misaligned no matter what explanation was attached now fit perfectly. It was easy to make a decision in the next moment. It felt as if something that had been troubling him for a long time suddenly disappeared.
‘We will strike the kingdom.’
When he voiced his long-contemplated decision to Wimu, he even felt elation. It felt like finding the right path for the first time after hiding in a cave out of fear. It seemed like fate that Ludin had entered his temple carrying the curse. In the end, the trigger for making this choice had rolled into his hand.
There was some rightness in Zendal’s thinking. When Kadilen stepped out of his temple, he had a clear purpose.
* * *
Victory continued.
There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in Kadilen’s steps, but his inner self wasn’t always solid. His heart became more complex whenever Ludin’s schemes wedged into his confusion. But each time, direct words from the soldiers who had endured difficult moments by relying on each other followed.
Kadilen was a person without greed. In the end, his desire to become king was not due to his own ambition but to protect his people. There were too many variables on his path toward power, and when the moment of choice came, what Kadilen relied on could only be the opinions of his soldiers.
The result of that choice was success. Kadilen entered Zendal’s room, feeling an indescribable emotion.
The room, having lost its master, exuded a cold atmosphere despite being filled with expensive furniture. He carefully looked around. A disgusting perfume smell wafted. He thought it was a room he could never become attached to as he sat down on a chair with a frowning face. But if he had pursued comfort, he wouldn’t have chosen rebellion in the first place. Since he had rushed forward believing it was the right path, settling in this room full of luxury was also a task he had to accomplish.
“Oh, Your Majesty. I didn’t know you had entered…”
A servant who had entered to clean the room discovered Kadilen sitting and hurriedly bowed his head. Kadilen, seeing the servant’s extremely tense appearance, relaxed his furrowed expression and gestured to him. Somewhat relieved, the servant entered the room and continued with the remaining cleaning.
“What is that?”
“It was deep in the drawer, so I hadn’t seen it. It’s Zendal’s storage box.”
The golden box held by the servant caught Kadilen’s eye as he was lost in thought, silently following the servant’s actions. The golden box, full of all kinds of decorations, stimulated his curiosity. The servant, seeing Kadilen staring at him intently, became frightened and wondered if something was wrong. But the next moment, Kadilen smiled gently and extended his hand to him.
“Leave it here. I’m curious about what’s inside.”
“Yes. It’s just papers.”
The box was handed to Kadilen. The contents checked by the servant were just dozens of paper bundles. For someone barely literate like him, it didn’t seem particularly important content. There was no royal emblem, so he had been about to throw it away, thinking it was just something Zendal had scribbled privately. But Kadilen, who had received the box and was examining its contents, sparkled with interest.
“I understand. Thank you. You may withdraw.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Kadilen focused on the items in the box, not even noticing the servant carefully leaving the room. They were letters collected by Zendal. Since Zendal’s name was written in the sender’s position, they were not letters he had received but ones he had written and not yet sent. It might be an opportunity to identify Zendal’s final forces that had not yet been discovered.
Rumors were circulating that Luan had safely escaped the palace. Though there wasn’t much doubt since he had personally confirmed his corpse, there was a need to make everything certain due to rumors leaking from various places.
Kadilen, who was checking the papers one by one with an interested face, paused momentarily at a familiar name. Though there was no date written, it was a text that could be guessed accurately enough.
<Ludin. It’s already been three months since you left for the temple. I hope you understand that my sending you there contained an opportunity. In the past, you were my most excellent servant. Kadilen’s actions at that place…>
There was no need to read further. Roughly flipping the paper, Kadilen grimaced at the memory that came to mind. Not only did he carry the curse, but he was also tasked with monitoring his actions. As he finally confirmed everything in print, he gritted his teeth even more. It was a moment when the time he had spent trying to help him briefly scattered like foam.
After crumpling and throwing it away carelessly, he unfolded the next letter. It was Ludin again.
The next one too, and the one after that.
All that remained were writings from Zendal to his first son.
As Kadilen was about to close the box in irritation, the sentence written on the last paper caught his eye.
<…Can’t you tell me why you did such a thing? This is both a royal command and a father’s earnest request.>
He doubted his eyes.
Something was strange. It would have been Zendal himself who deliberately instructed him to act as he pleased to maximize the curse. There was no reason for him to ask Ludin for explanations and feel frustrated. Kadilen quickly opened another paper.
<…What reason do you have to hide even from your father? Luan is also greatly disappointed in your actions. If I had heard a clear reason, I wouldn’t have felt this troubled…>
Hadn’t Zendal regarded his son merely as a comrade who had traversed the battlefield together and a loyal servant? That’s why he thought he could transport the curse in his son’s body as a tool to protect his power. But this writing was as if…
<I can no longer have expectations for you, Ludin. Your actions at the temple seem to have completely missed the intention to carefully observe that place.>
Kadilen’s hand holding the paper trembled slightly.
Even after frantically reading all the remaining letters, questions kept arising one after another.
It wasn’t easy to judge what all this meant. Kadilen, unaware that his hands were trembling, repeatedly read and reread the writings with a confused face. In the end, having dropped all the papers and sitting down in a daze, he couldn’t draw any conclusions from the contradictory situation.
The surroundings were filled with Zendal’s heartfelt letters calling for Ludin. Surrounded by those suffocating papers, Kadilen, lost in thought, rose to call Wimu. His legs had lost strength, causing him to stagger greatly with each step.
Strangely, at this moment, the first thing that came to mind was the gaze that had collapsed under his sword and looked at him helplessly. It was the day when he had mercilessly driven Ludin to confirm his body, weakened by the curse, using personal training as an excuse. The emotion he read from those eyes was singular. The feeling he had thought was disgusting while trembling at the time.
Incomprehensibly, that feeling kept coming to mind.
* * *
Wimu saw his master speaking so unstably for the first time.
Even after hearing everything, he couldn’t grasp what these facts meant. It felt as if something fearful and large was slowly approaching him. There was only one way to confirm.
Wimu, who had rushed out to the stable like a madman, found it empty. The soldiers he had instructed to guard the place had all disappeared, saying they had received other orders. He had never given them any orders other than to protect Ludin. Someone had used a trick to extract Ludin.
Wimu’s voice, half out of his senses, trembled.
“…Capture him immediately.”
“But how…”
“You must find him even if you have to run to the edge of the kingdom. Understand!”
The soldiers held their breath at Wimu’s disheveled appearance, who was usually composed in everything. Watching the soldiers promptly finding their places, Wimu painfully clenched his fists. He reassured himself that nothing could be certain yet. But an irresistibly overwhelming emotion rose up.
If all of it had been a wrong judgment, where did it start?
