Empress Aileen did not understand what Ludger had just said for a moment.
It was extremely unexpected that the person who spoke the words “the execution of the Demon King Heathcliff” was Ludger himself.
“Are you serious?”
“Are you doubting the true meaning of my words. It was not particularly a joke.”
Aileen shook her head, as if her temples ached.
“I would rather it were a joke. If you are genuinely telling me to kill your own self, that would be an even bigger problem.”
“I suppose it could look that way. I would appreciate it if you understood. It has been three years since I have met anyone and held a conversation.”
“What a ridiculous excuse. That is not something a person who could live alone on an uninhabited island for over ten years without a problem would say.”
“Right. That part was a joke.”
“.......”
Aileen thought that Ludger had truly changed.
It was not a bad thing.
Rather, since he had thrown away the mask and grown closer to his original self, it was good to see.
It was just that circumstances had not aligned favorably.
“If you said something like that, you must have a reason. What exactly is it?”
“You have changed as well. Back when you were the First Princess, you would have tried to circle around my intentions indirectly and pry them out somehow.”
“If that is what you want, I can still do it now. But the situation does not allow it at the moment, so I have no choice but to be a bit more straightforward.”
“To begin with, what I said is exactly as it is. The execution of Heathcliff. There is not a speck of falsehood.”
“That is precisely why I do not understand. Do you not want to clear your injustice? Do you not want to cast off the false stigma the world has placed on you?”
If things continued like this, Ludger would remain a great villain recorded in history.
He already was. Only a faint chance remained to overturn it in some way.
Aileen tried to keep that opportunity alive, but Ludger did not think that way.
“How much time and effort would it take to accomplish that. And in the process, how much ideological conflict would arise.”
“Is that important?”
“From an individual’s perspective, no. But you are now the Empress. A ruler’s decisions must not be swayed by personal ideology.”
“Sigh. This is troublesome. Even when someone is finally trying to show goodwill, you refuse to accept it.”
Aileen was not unaware of why Ludger spoke that way.
The method Ludger was thinking of was also the very first possibility Aileen herself had considered.
But simply thinking of it and choosing it were two different things.
The execution of the Demon King Heathcliff.
To heap all sins committed during the holy war three years ago onto a single person, and by executing that one person, to achieve complete peace.
From the perspective of the greater good, that was correct.
If one calmly unraveled the truth, cause and effect were tangled as intricately as a spiderweb, but would people truly want each strand untangled one by one?
One could simply cut the knot in a single stroke.
Most people preferred simplicity and clarity over complexity.
But Aileen did not say this aloud.
Asking the person before her to “die for the peace of the continent” was not something you said to their face.
‘I may have softened as well.’
Aileen was the Empress.
If it was for the benefit of the Empire, she could endure causing loss or harm to others as much as necessary.
Yet she could not bring herself to do so to Ludger, because she owed him too much.
At this moment, she was not Aileen the Empress.
She was Aileen who had shared a long connection with the man named Ludger Cherish.
On that day, when she had been a powerless girl wandering the alleys with nowhere to lean.
When she met that man by pure chance at the edge of a cliff—her weak, fragile self at that time.
She had thought she killed that weakness when she became Empress, but meeting Ludger again after three years made her realize how mistaken she had been.
The weak self had not died.
Rather, it had survived even more vividly than before.
“Are you agonizing over your human side. That the self that is not the Empress, but simply one person, is not such a bad thing.”
Seeing her like that, Ludger murmured.
Aileen flinched without realizing it.
She had hidden her emotions, yet Ludger penetrated them effortlessly.
“How did you.......”
Normally, Aileen would have brushed it aside lightly, but now she could not respond properly.
When she faced Ludger’s blue eyes, she realized that no matter how much she wanted to hide, she could not.
“For the past three years. In imaginary space, I repeatedly asked myself. What I would do, what I could do.”
Ludger let out a small laugh.
“But it was useless. I could not escape imaginary space on my own. The only thing I could rely on was someone coming to save me. The situation was far from one where I could think about the future.”
But Ludger was a human, and also a mage.
They were beings who endlessly explored and contemplated.
As he looked toward the future, Ludger also turned his eyes to the present.
“So I chose to adapt to imaginary space. It was not easy, but it was not impossible either. Do you know? At the very bottom of imaginary space, there are unidentified substances. They are as white and fine as beach sand, and they feel the same. Though their base composition is completely different.”
Looking at the present, Ludger’s next decision was only one.
To reflect on the past.
He retraced his life, recalling each person he had met.
And to not forget them, Ludger drew.
On plates he carved by scraping the floor of imaginary space, he drew each person who came to mind.
It held no special meaning.
He simply felt that, after running forward for so long, it would be all right to look back just once.
Thus Ludger examined his past, and he was able to understand people more closely.
Aileen was no exception.
“To keep from forgetting those who were precious to me. And to understand them even a little more. Inside imaginary space, I repeated that process of tracing back and remembering.”
“......Then what about me?”
“A girl who armed herself with strength and coldness, and yet still possessed warmth. The Aileen the First Princess I first met was such a person.”
She had the authority to rule as an emperor, and yet also a heart that cherished her family dearly.
A fatal flaw for a ruler, but an incomparable virtue as one individual.
“Even after three years, you have not changed.”
“.......”
Ludger’s insight into Aileen came not from some extraordinary intuition.
It was simply because he believed that the Aileen he knew had not changed.
No reason, no logic, no calculation.
Only pure belief.
“Because of that belief?”
“Because of that belief, I was able to endure.”
People think that to become something great, one must discard their emotions.
The moment you are swayed by trivial things, you can never rise to a high position.
But Ludger knew.
Emotion is not something to discard. It is something to overcome.
Throwing away weakness is weakness.
It was not the pursuit of strength.
It was running away, choosing an easier path.
If one truly pursued strength, one had to embrace even the weak parts of oneself.
Only by accepting and overcoming them could one truly be reborn as a superhuman.
“That is not the mindset a ruler should have. A leader must be perfect.”
Bearing weakness and overcoming it was not perfection.
Perfection was the ultimate limit one was born with. The mere existence of something to overcome became a flaw.
“Correct. Only those born perfect can be perfect.”
Perfect and immaculate. What a beautiful phrase it was.
Many would pursue it.
Perhaps it was the ultimate symbol of intelligent beings.
“But I prefer not being born perfect. I prefer being born imperfect and overcoming it.”
“Why?”
“Because that is more admirable.”
“.......”
Aileen wore a stunned expression for a brief moment, then let out a weary laugh.
“You are the same as ever. No—perhaps you have grown even more.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“By your logic, I should declare you the enemy of the continent and have you executed. Are you truly fine with that?”
“Yes. I have nothing to regret.”
His life lived as Heathcliff had not been short, but there had been lives more important than that.
He had lived under many names and identities thus far.
Even if they had been masks made out of necessity, he had always done his best while living under each of those names.
Thus he held no regrets.
“The story of Heathcliff needs to end here.”
“If you yourself insist on the execution, then I have nothing to say.”
Of course, that did not mean she would simply kill the Ludger standing before her.
Both Ludger and Aileen knew—
The execution of Heathcliff did not mean Ludger’s death.
It meant erasing the very existence called Heathcliff.
“I suppose we must find a substitute. We can simply throw a hood over any death-row inmate and execute him. People will not know whether he is the real Heathcliff. No, perhaps the truth will not matter at all.”
“I trust you will handle it well.”
With the Demon King’s execution, the turbulent continent would once again regain stability.
“Then what will you do now? If your name and existence are erased, will you begin a new life under a new identity?”
“There is no need. I already have one.”
Ludger looked at Aileen, who raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
“Ludger Cherish. That is the real me.”
At Ludger’s smile filled with pride, Aileen found no words to say.
* * *
After Aileen left, night fell.
Ludger looked up at the sky beyond the window.
It was far too luxurious a space to be called a prison.
Even here, he could easily look up at the sky.
But the sky was full of clouds, revealing nothing.
Even so, Ludger stared beyond them.
Perhaps in answer to his silent waiting, the clouds began to part, and bluish moonlight spread out like a curtain.
But Ludger knew.
That was no natural phenomenon.
‘No. Strictly speaking, if we are measuring scale, perhaps it is fine to call it a natural phenomenon.’
Ludger let out a faint laugh, then slowly closed and opened his eyes.
Beyond the window, where nothing should have been, a shadow floated.
The shadow’s red eyes curved like a crescent moon as it grinned slyly.
“It has been a while.”
“Yes. It has been a while, Teacher.”
Grander stretched out a white, slender finger.
The tightly locked window opened on its own.
She did not ask for permission.
She stepped inside, her bare white feet landing lightly on the floor.
“If you had returned, you should have said so. Must your teacher be forced to come find you herself?”
“As you can see, the situation was not very convenient.”
“Hmph. An excuse. If you set your mind to it, you could escape from a °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° place like this whenever you pleased.”
Grander shot him a glare.
Rather than being happy that her disciple had survived imaginary space and returned, she seemed to be in a bad mood about something.
Ludger thought for a moment about why she might be acting like this.
She had always been unpredictable, and even for Ludger, who had spent many years with her, understanding her motives was difficult.
“Were you worried about me?”
“Worried? Hardly. If something had happened, I was planning to discipline you myself. I did not raise you to be that weak.”
“For someone saying that, you seem quite displeased.”
“That is because.......”
Grander started to say something, then stopped.
Instead, she kept shooting him sideways glances full of complaint.
Ah. This was the reaction she showed when she was truly upset but too prideful to say so.
Ludger smiled gently at her.
“I am sorry for being so late. Mother.”
“.......”
It was the correct answer.
The expression full of dissatisfaction melted like spring snow.
“......Far, far too late.”
“Yes. The kind of thing an unfilial son would do.”
“But it is enough that you understand.”
Grander minced over to the sofa and buried herself in it.
“Is your body all right?”
“You are worrying about me now? You are a hundred years too early.”
“It is only natural for a son to worry about his mother.”
“......Compared to my prime, I am still lacking. But I have recovered a great deal. You need not worry.”
“That is a relief.”
Grander’s body was intact, but her soul had not yet completely recovered.
Even so, her strength—her very existence—had not diminished.
A lion did not become helpless because it had lost a few teeth or claws.
Time would resolve the rest.
“So what have you been doing until now.”
Grander could not hide her curiosity.
Ludger explained everything that had happened after the holy war, even the part about crossing dimensions and going to Earth.
At that moment, Grander’s expression turned cold.
“Wait.”
“Yes.”
“‘Mother,’ you say? Did I hear wrong?”
“No. You heard correctly.”
“......I knew you were extraordinary. I understood you were arranged as a vessel of a god. But I have never heard you had a mother.”
“I was once human. Having a biological mother is only natural.”
“That place—you called it Earth?”
“Yes.”
“I shall go there.”
And I shall meet her.
This woman who is the mother of my son.