Chapter 12
“Bl, Blai, uh…”
The crowd’s eyes widened as they saw the arrow pierce the Grand General’s back. Aaron screamed in a shrill voice. It felt utterly surreal. That Grand General, hit by an arrow?
If he had been wearing armor, the damage would have been less severe, but Blair was wearing only a light uniform for hunting. The thin fabric did nothing to stop the arrow or the poison coating it.
“Blair!”
Kyle caught Blair with trembling hands as he collapsed into his arms. Blair’s face was drained of color, terribly pale. The soldiers who had been dragging the enormous tiger—as large as two grown men combined—and all the nobles gathered around Blair.
Everyone was in shock.
“Seize them!”
Kyle shouted meaninglessly as he carefully laid Blair down. The knights who received the order hurriedly ran in the direction the arrow had come from. With shaking hands, Kyle grabbed the arrow shaft embedded in Blair’s back. Whatever cursed poison had been applied, the skin around the wound was already turning black with necrosis.
With trembling hands, Kyle pulled out the arrow in one swift motion. Black, dead blood dripped along the shaft. The arrow tore through flesh as it was removed, but the poison was already racing through Blair’s entire body.
“Blair! Wake up!”
Aaron, who had rushed over, slapped Blair’s cheek hard to wake him. Coming to his senses from the impact, Blair smiled faintly as his eyes met Aaron’s.
“What the hell are you smiling for, you crazy bastard?!”
Aaron ranted in disbelief. I don’t even have the strength to speak. Blair coughed violently. In that brief moment, the poison had already rotted his internal organs, causing black blood to spray out. Dead blood trickled down from the corner of his mouth.
“Blair!”
Witnessing this bloodshed—truly a sign of impending death—Kyle let out a heart-rending scream. Knights ran to call for the doctor they had brought along, but Blair could feel himself truly dying.
Ah, so today is really the end. Could it be the Namana poison that’s said to kill even elephants? Or perhaps the rattlesnake venom that kills a person before they can take seven steps?
That vicious bitch. Blair gritted his teeth as he recalled Empress Kalshon’s brown hair and face. I should have wrung her neck back then. Never thought she’d stab me in the back now.
She couldn’t take the Emperor Kyle’s life, but she’d claimed the life of Blair, who had achieved glorious military victories and personally placed Kyle on the imperial throne. Not such a bad trade-off for her, then.
Shit. I never thought I’d die like this, in a place like this.
When arrows rained down and swords flashed on the battlefield, death had seemed imminent every day. He’d thought he might not survive until tomorrow, that he wouldn’t be alive a week later, so he always carried a will. Even when leaving camp to engage with enemy forces, he always felt the god of death hovering nearby. When he had to break through enemy lines alone at the battlefield of Ropnur, he naturally felt the threat of death.
So death wasn’t particularly unfamiliar to Blair. On the battlefield, he always kept in mind that he could perish at any moment. He slept with his sword sheath as a pillow and never once had a deep sleep. Blair had often imagined himself among the countless deaths on the battlefield.
But he’d never once imagined dying right before everything was about to be concluded. If he’d been shot by an arrow and died on the battlefield, he wouldn’t have felt this resentful. But to die just as he was about to retire after wrapping everything up—what kind of joke was this?
A sense of injustice welled up inside him. The fact that he felt this indignation meant his mind was still intact. He found it amusing. But contrary to his inner thoughts, Blair’s face couldn’t form even the slightest smile. His facial muscles wouldn’t obey him.
“Blair! Please! Wake up!”
Kyle shouted noisily. Kyle. Please shut up, for God’s sake. Blair grumbled inwardly. I can’t concentrate.
A genuine feeling of injustice rose within him. Why now, of all times, damn it? The rumors of my retirement must have already spread throughout Crassia. If this had happened after I retired, it would have been better for everyone. If only they’d done this next year, or when I wasn’t around, when I couldn’t see it. Then I wouldn’t have jumped in front of that damned arrow.
His language became cruder as death approached. Blair, with his extensive experience as a soldier on the battlefield, actually had quite a foul mouth. Though he had restrained himself as much as possible after returning to the capital to maintain his dignity as Grand General, in truth, Blair was just as adept at colorful curses as Aaron.
Just wait till I catch you. I’ll pull out your intestines and make you jump rope with them ten thousand times. Even as his breath faltered, Blair continued to curse the remnants of Empress Kalshon’s faction in his mind.
“Grand General! Please stay conscious.”
The imperial physician flipped Blair’s body over, and he felt his skin being cut open. But even that sensation was strange. He couldn’t feel any pain. It felt as if someone else’s body was being torn and cut. It seemed his spirit had already separated from his body.
“Blair, please… please.”
Kyle had now started crying like a madman. Even as Blair struggled to keep his eyes open, clinging to his last bit of consciousness through blurred vision, he still thought Kyle’s face was beautiful like a holy icon. I’m truly sick. Taking an arrow for this bastard and dying, yet still thinking like this. Get a grip, you idiot. Blair grumbled to himself.
The truly irritating thing was that despite knowing this would happen, he had jumped in front of Kyle to take the arrow. Even while complaining that they could have planned the assassination a month after he was gone, Blair had leapt in front of him and taken the arrow instead. Probably, even if the same situation repeated countless times, Blair would have done exactly the same thing. Knowing this made him genuinely exasperated and resentful.
Damn it, not only have I devoted half my life to that bastard, now I’m giving up my life for him too. You stupid tiger-nosed fool. You deserve to die. Blair cursed himself.
“Blair…”
Kyle’s tears fell onto Blair’s cheek. The deathly pallor had already settled on his face with a bluish-black tint. The beautiful crimson color had disappeared from his lips. Kyle reached out to hold Blair’s cheek. There was no warmth to be felt. The god of death was hastening Blair’s departure.
No, perhaps it was our fate to end up misaligned and in disarray to the very end.
Blair’s mouth, which had been smiling as if painted, convulsed and then suddenly stopped. The slow heartbeat also ceased. All breath stopped.
“Blair? Blair!”
Kyle shook Blair’s body, which he had been gripping tightly as if it were a lifeline. Gradually, the warmth drained from his body.
“AAAAARGH!”
A cry that seemed to tear lungs apart was heard from the carriage returning to the palace, raising dust in its wake. It was a sound of utter despair, like that of a monkey mother whose entrails were said to split open after losing her child. No sadder sound existed in this world.
[To be continued in the next chapter…]
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
