47.
A shadow stretched across the doorway. However, the owner of the shadow was not the reinforcement the young man had so desperately wanted.
“You.”
Jinhyeon laughed softly. Standing there with a blood-stained sword, just like him, was Keith.
“Where’s Yu Jin?”
Keith asked Jinhyeon in a calm tone. However, Jinhyeon could read the terrible anger beneath it.
“Over there.”
As Jinhyeon nodded his head, Keith’s gaze followed. Yu Jin was enduring, curled up with his eyes tightly shut, just as Jinhyeon had instructed.
“I owe you one this time.”
Keith said, raising his sword again.
“W-wait, are you crazy?! Do you know who I am? I’m from the Granadan family! You’re prepared for the consequences of this, right?”
To the young man’s words, Keith calmly replied.
“You don’t need to worry about the consequences.”
“What?”
“Dead people can’t worry.”
The young man’s face turned pale as he realized the meaning of those words.
“You can’t mean-!”
Realizing the danger, the young man threw away what little dignity he had left and crawled on the floor.
“P-protect me! Protect me!”
At his desperate cry, the surviving guard rushed over, but he only managed to extend the young man’s life briefly. The surviving guards soon met the same fate as the others. When Keith created an opening, Jinhyeon’s sword slashed their throats. Because of this, if they focused on Jinhyeon, Keith would stab them from behind. For their first time working together, the two were quite in sync.
Whether the sword is flashy or calm, it’s all the same. No matter how it’s swung, if it hits a vital point, a person dies. But even such an easy death was too good for the young man. That’s why Jinhyeon tortured someone for the first time. He had seen and heard about it, but never done it himself, and it seemed he had a talent for this too. With Keith’s help, he managed to keep the young man alive until dawn.
‘As I thought, he was that kind of person.’
Ordinary people didn’t know how to torture someone. If someone knew, they would have learned through repeated experience or been taught by others. Well, thanks to this, Jinhyeon was able to learn more details about the human body.
“J-just k-kill me.”
The young man, who had been begging for his life at first, started asking to be killed at some point. However, neither Jinhyeon nor Keith budged at his words. If you were planning to torment someone, you should have also considered the situation where you might be tormented yourself. After the young man died, Jinhyeon threw away the sword he was holding. Then he went to Yu Jin, who had been carefully moved to another room before the torture began. Haruna was standing there with a gloomy face.
“Is it over?”
Jinhyeon nodded at Haruna’s question and tore down a nearby curtain. There was too much blood on his entire body to just hold Yu Jin. Yu Jin seemed to open his eyes for a moment, mumbled something, and then went limp.
“Go outside. If you go to the back door, there should be a carriage waiting.”
Haruna said calmly, pointing to the door.
“What about you?”
“Keith and I need to stay. Given how things turned out, we need to clean up.”
“Can this even be cleaned up?”
How many people had died here? Among them, there were probably several nobles mixed in. At least the young man who just died was definitely a noble. Haruna smiled bitterly at his words.
“I couldn’t do it, but Keith probably can.”
Only then did Jinhyeon realize that there were things about Keith that even Haruna didn’t know. What kind of secrets would one keep even from their twin? He thought about it for a moment before stopping. Right now, Yu Jin was more important.
“Hurry and go. Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen.”
Haruna said that and then fell silent. Then Keith entered through the open door.
“You’re still here.”
Keith confirmed Yu Jin in Jinhyeon’s arms and then turned his gaze to Haruna. Then, without a word, he went back outside. It seemed he was going to clean up as Haruna had mentioned. Jinhyeon shrugged and moved his steps while carrying Yu Jin. As he went out the back door, there was a small, worn-out carriage waiting, just as Haruna had said. The driver, with his hat pulled low, didn’t ask Jinhyeon anything.
Finally, as the horse started to run, the carriage left the mansion.
Yu Jin screamed in pain as his body was jostled. However, no matter how much he screamed, no sound escaped his throat. Even when he clawed at his throat in agony, all he could hear was the sound of his breathing.
After a while, when he came to his senses, he found himself standing alone in a dark space with nothing around. As he stood there blankly, something strange started to flow down from the air. He didn’t know what it was, but it was terrifying. Yu Jin opened his mouth again. And as he writhed in pain, a familiar voice was heard.
“…Jin!”
Who is it?
“Yu Jin!”
Ah, I see. This voice belonged to the person who saved him at the end. At that point, Yu Jin’s eyes flew open. His blurry vision started to clear after blinking a few times. Right in front of him was Jinhyeon’s face.
“Are you okay?”
After recognizing the voice, he next realized that Jinhyeon was holding him. Unlike other people’s hands which had felt so creepy, strangely, this didn’t bother him at all.
“…Why?”
Unlike in the dream, his voice came out now. Although it was low and rough due to his parched throat, Yu Jin was relieved just by the fact that he could speak. Yu Jin looked at Jinhyeon and tried to recall his recent memories. It was a painful memory, but he couldn’t just bury it. Because he knew what Jinhyeon had done.
‘He killed people.’
Through his ears that he couldn’t block, he heard screams and the sound of clashing metal, and there was a strong smell of blood. Even in his jumbled memories, that scene stood out vividly. Yu Jin tried to get up urgently but fell back again.
“Why are you getting up?”
Why am I getting up? Is he really asking that because he doesn’t know? What kind of situation is this? He needed to get up right away to check who had died and clean up. Yu Jin tried to get up again, but Jinhyeon gently pressed down on his chest.
“Patients need more rest.”
Then he brought a glass of water to Yu Jin’s lips. Yu Jin obediently drank the water because his throat was dry, but he was confused.
“What happened?”
Even to Yu Jin’s question, Jinhyeon acted as he pleased. He put his hand on Yu Jin’s forehead, then wiped his sweat-soaked face with a wet towel. And his touch was quite gentle.
“How…”
As he was about to ask again, Jinhyeon put his finger on Yu Jin’s lips.
“First, recover. I’ll tell you after you recover.”
I don’t know what nonsense that is. How can I wait until I recover when I don’t know what’s going to happen right now? As Yu Jin was about to protest, the door opened and Keith entered. He rushed over urgently when he saw that Yu Jin was awake.
“Yu Jin!”
“…Brother.”
Now he could get a proper answer. Yu Jin let out a sigh of relief.
“What on earth happened?”
Keith hesitated for a moment but, unlike Jinhyeon, explained the situation.
“On the day you were invited to the Granadan family’s third son’s place, there was an incident.”
Can you really call that an incident? Well, I guess people dying is an incident too. Yu Jin urged Keith to continue with his eyes.
“How should I explain this.”
Keith lowered his eyes and calmly explained the situation.
“The third son of the Granadan family got involved with a forbidden herb.”
“Forbidden herb?”
Yu Jin recalled the smoke that had filled the large space. It seemed that’s what he was talking about.
“It’s complicated if I explain in detail.”
“It’s fine, please continue.”
“In the process of obtaining the forbidden herb, it seems he accidentally angered someone else.”
“Someone else? Who?”
Is it me? No, that’s not right. There was a problem with Ferdin, but it was strange to express that as having angered someone. Listening to Keith’s words, it felt like the other party was even higher than the Granadan family. In terms of family status, Yu Jin was indeed higher, but it wasn’t him. What power would a rogue disowned by his family have? As he was thinking this, a single word flowed from Keith’s mouth.
“Leviathan.”
Leviathan? Yu Jin knew that name. It was the name of the organization that had been the biggest obstacle when Jinhyeon, the protagonist of the novel, was taking control of the continent.
Because the goal of this organization, named after the most vicious and enormous monster, was to rule the continent, they had interfered with Jinhyeon at every turn after he had established himself to some extent.
In other words, they were future enemies to Jinhyeon.
‘But why are they appearing here?’
They weren’t supposed to reveal themselves to Jinhyeon until much further in the future. It’s too early for them to appear now. Moreover, the place where they appeared happened to be the mansion where the third son of Granadan lived.
‘Something’s not right.’
It’s too strange. I don’t understand how things are unfolding. So Yu Jin asked Keith again.
“Did they really kill the people in the mansion?”
“Yes.”
Keith answered nonchalantly, but Yu Jin knew that the person who actually carried out the massacre was Jinhyeon, who was right beside him. Yet Keith says it was done by Leviathan. In this confusion, Yu Jin had many questions he wanted to ask.
