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113
The feeling of consciousness returning suddenly, as if a fog had lifted from his mind, was quite unfamiliar. Thoughts that had been intermittent and disconnected now progressed slowly but steadily.
Nevertheless, the scene unfolding before his eyes remained unchanged. He couldn’t open his mouth to make a sound, nor could he let out even a small sigh.
There wasn’t much ‘Arpel’ could do here. He could only watch the execution being carried out, hear the cheers of the imperial citizens rejoicing at the criminal’s beheading… and take in the sight of the Emperor standing at the pinnacle of it all.
Time flowed quickly once again. The spectators gathered in front of the imperial palace dispersed, and the severed head of the criminal adorned the front of the city gates. The sun shining from behind cast long shadows in front of the palace.
After one day, two days… when enough time had passed for the corpse to rot, knights removed the criminal’s head. Immediately after, the vision before him began to distort.
“As food for stray dogs… No. No. There’s a better way.”
When his blurred vision fully regained its focus, what he saw was the massive imperial throne and the Emperor sitting on it with boredom. Perhaps because the gentleness that had always adorned his face had disappeared without a trace, the gleaming eyes that remained reminded one of a person endlessly craving something.
Shaking his head, a faint sneer appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Oscar.”
“Yes.”
Oscar, who had been guarding the Emperor’s side like a shadow next to the sole throne, stepped forward and prostrated himself at that brief call. The sound of several knights swallowing in response to his sharp presence was clearly audible.
“You will dispose of the criminals’ bodies.”
That was the end of the order. A calm dismissal followed, and those who had their backs to the setting sun left the audience chamber. The Emperor’s gaze, which had been quietly observing their retreating figures, fell on Oscar, or more precisely, on the corpse he had collected.
“You’ll never see the light of day again, so enjoy this moment.”
The farewell to the deceased who would never again rise to the surface echoed hollowly above the massive throne.
‘Arpel’ simply stood still, watching the Emperor’s monologue. Beneath the festival of numerous thoughts filling his mind, the irregularly scattered clues began to gather one by one.
A strange place where he could neither speak nor act freely… only able to ‘observe’. Even against his will, the perspective changed and time flowed at an unbelievable speed. As if there was something here that he absolutely had to see.
How many times had the sun set and risen again? Finally, ‘Arpel’ was able to realize the true nature of this bizarre space. Looking down at his semi-transparent hand, Arpel muttered.
‘A dream.’
No sound escaped from between his moving lips. Only the small shape of his mouth suggested what word he had uttered.
Eventually, one question arose.
‘Why…’
If this was truly a dream, why was he having this disjointed dream?
Was it showing fragments of a past that had already occurred? Or was it warning of a near future? His thoughts, branching out, created several hypotheses. It was then that the content of an unnamed novel he hadn’t recalled recently came back to life.
As if celebrating this small realization, simultaneously, his vision began to blur. When he opened his eyes again, an unfamiliar scene was right before him.
A terrible miasma that would make it impossible for those without divinely granted power to even breathe. Over the blue-tinged earth, spectral energy constantly rose, and corpses with rotting flesh walked that place, possessed by specters.
The large space, dyed in black and white, even rejected sunlight. Ash flew in the darkness all around, but its source was unknown. Fragments of plants that had withered and died from having their vitality sucked out, traces of a ‘village’ that had burned down completely… he could only speculate about such things.
On the outskirts of the Fides territory, Bemos Village, where people lived in seclusion worshipping their own god. In the novel, ‘Rohan’ was not involved in the tragedy that occurred in that village.
Focused solely on wandering the empire in search of the Salvation Church, blinded by revenge, he hadn’t received the revelation from the Demon God.
‘……’
The absence of Rohan and Leriana, who had been following him, led to tragic results. The scene unfolding before his eyes was only a part of it.
The black earth, which could be believed without doubt to be a new land of specters within the empire, was created in this way. Using as a stepping stone the deaths of ignorant people who believed the curse originating from specters to be punishment from their god, and ultimately accepted eternal sleep willingly.
Only then did Arpel realize the true nature of the sense of discomfort he had been feeling subconsciously since the moment he received the revelation from the Demon God.
If the Demon God’s revelation had appeared in the novel, it would have been an important turning point that changed the main course of the story. However, it was never mentioned, and although the temple side tried to resolve the matter, it ultimately ended in failure.
It was just one failure, but it resulted in numerous casualties. Not only were there civilian casualties, but the foundation of the temple was shaken, and power rapidly concentrated in the Emperor’s hands due to a large-scale purge of the Marquis Fides family, who had represented the noble faction.
The Emperor probably pinned various charges on them, using the excuse that this cursed land started from the ‘Fides territory’.
The unpleasant howls of specters clung to his ears. It seemed as if the screams of the dead, unable to escape their decaying bodies, were overlapping. Although he couldn’t feel the emotion of ‘horror’, if one were to embody that horror, wouldn’t it look like this?
This is just a terrible nightmare. So, I want to wake up from this dream now. As he thought this, suddenly…
‘…I want to see him.’
He desperately wanted to see the Rohan he knew, the one who always gave him a gentle smile. Was it this intense desire that finally broke the dream?
As if it were a lie, his vision blurred and his ears became muffled. The feeling of being dragged into a distant abyss wasn’t very pleasant, but Arpel obediently closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the fading consciousness.
He had no desire to continue watching a future without himself, or the untold story of the novel he hadn’t been aware of.
***
As soon as his submerged consciousness was pulled to the surface, the first thing Arpel felt was the touch of a hand firmly grasping him.
Then, color slowly filled his faded vision. The dim sunset light streaming through the window gap, the large statue fully receiving that light. As he gradually recognized the things visible before him, there was a voice resonating in the quiet prayer room.
“Arpel.”
Perhaps feeling the faint tremor from the sword, Rohan, who immediately noticed that Arpel had regained consciousness, opened his mouth. Whether it was because he hadn’t spoken for a long time, or because of the intense anxiety and impatience that had melted into it, the end of his cracked voice trembled nakedly.
<Rohan.>
“…Did you sleep well?”
Only after hearing the other’s voice did relief seep into his unstably wavering voice.
If it weren’t for the awkwardly smiling face, the ice-cold body temperature felt from the hand carefully stroking the sword blade, the eyes that hadn’t fully shed their worry… all of these things capturing his gaze, Arpel might have thought so too.
Perhaps he felt impatient at Rohan’s reaction. Despite having just woken up and not being very clear-headed, Arpel immediately gathered his strength. Is his body okay, is he feeling alright, is there anything uncomfortable? There was no time for Rohan to ask such things.
“Rohan.”
Once again, a clear voice emerged from Arpel’s mouth. Surrounded by a brief light for a moment, Arpel, who had already taken human form, reached out to Rohan. The straight and slender fingers gently caressing his cheek were quite careful.
The mysterious purple eyes met his gaze steadily. Rohan was frozen, as if captivated by that gaze. Thinking that the hand patting his cheek, the gaze firmly meeting his, felt like clumsy comfort.
“Are you okay?”
“…Haha.”
Finally, when he asked “Are you okay?”, a hollow laugh welled up in Rohan’s mouth. It was he who had just woken up after losing consciousness, yet why was he checking on his well-being?
Bitterness tinged his trembling lips. Even at times like this, he didn’t mind being worried about, and he found himself thinking that such an Arpel was lovable.
“I’m okay, I’ll be okay…”
He murmured, grasping Arpel’s other hand. He wasn’t okay, he felt like he might suffocate and die at any moment… but now that Arpel was here, he was okay. He would be okay. He firmly squeezed the hand he was holding.
“Is your body… alright?”
Eventually, Rohan’s hand moved. It touched Arpel’s arm, shoulder, neck… The touch that gradually moved up was so careful that it felt as if he was checking the other’s existence over and over again. In reality, it wasn’t much different.
“I’m fine.”
“…Really?”
“Yes.”
That calm answer was a kind of starting point. As if bursting everything that had been suppressed at once, numerous questions poured out. Was his head not hurting, was he not dizzy, was there no problem with his memory…
Although most of the questions were urgent and disorganized, Arpel diligently answered Rohan. With each answer to a question, the slow comfort of patting the back of his hand allowed Rohan to find stability faster than expected.
When the trembling of his eyes, which had been constantly shaking anxiously, finally subsided completely. Arpel, who had been carefully checking his physical condition as per Rohan’s words, suddenly felt a strange tightness.
Somehow his throat felt constricted and stuffy. The sensations he hadn’t been aware of because all his attention had been focused on Rohan began to return gradually. So, as he moved his hand to check if there was any problem with his neck…
“…?”
He discovered a strange cord attached to his neck.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
