Nothing could hinder Eugene’s steps on his return to Kiehl.
Noir had stepped in front of him once during his sudden departure from Giabella Park. However, before Eugene could even open his mouth to say something, Noir had backed off on her own.
Even Noir understood that she shouldn’t try to get in Eugene’s way right now. She still wanted to fight to the death with Eugene someday, but she didn’t want that day to be today.
‘I shouldn’t do anything, not here at any rate,’ Noir thought as she stared at Eugene’s back, watching him leave without saying a word.
If she tried to get in Eugene’s way when he was like this… she felt like she would never again be able to have an idle conversation with that man. She also felt like she wouldn’t be able to expect him to feel any emotions other than hate for her, and Noir would even have to give up on her fantasy of him hesitating at the last moment.
That was just how strong and single-minded Eugene’s emotions were at this moment. Even if it was Noir, she felt she would be swept aside if she got in his way while Eugene was overcome with such emotion.
If that happened… then all the emotions she had worked so hard to build up between them until this point would go to waste.
Noir didn’t want that to happen. Even if it was just to make the days until the time came for them to finally kill each other just that little bit sweeter, Noir didn’t want to spoil the fun[1].
As such, Noir allowed Eugene to leave. Just like how Eugene wanted it, she even used her Demoneye of Fantasy so that Eugene could pass through Giabella Park as fast as possible on his way to the warp-gate.
“Though he probably won’t see this as a favor from me,” Noir said with a giggle as she slowly deactivated her Demoneye of Fantasy.
Giabella Park, the city without a night, should be raucous with noise even now, in the wee hours of the morning, but it was currently filled to the brim with silence. This was because the three Giabella-Faces floating above the city had pulled the whole city into a dream solely for Eugene’s sake.
“Still, I wanted to do this favor for you. Whether or not you accept it as one, it’s just what I wanted to do,” Noir whispered as she sank into her plush chair.
Resting her chin on one hand, Noir focused on the screen in front of her.
Usually, no one should be able to look up the last coordinates used by a warp-gate, but this was Giabella City. In this city, the only one who could decide whether or not something was impossible was Noir.
‘He used secret coordinates that aren’t publicly registered. These are for… I see, the Black Lion Castle,’ Noir mused.
Seeing how Hamel moved to leave right away without hiding his turbulent emotions, there was no doubt that there was something unusual going on at the Black Lion Castle. What on earth could have happened? Noir tilted her head to the side as she became lost in thought.
“...No way,” Noir suddenly gasped.
Earlier today, Hamel’s Death Knight had made a brief appearance before disappearing once more.
Noir hadn’t informed Hamel of the Death Knight’s appearance. That was because the Death Knight hadn’t shown any sign of hostility, and his attitude as a whole was… ambiguous.
Although the encounter had been brief, Noir didn’t think that the Death Knight… no, the fake who could no longer be called a Death Knight was still interested in being Hamel’s enemy. Regardless of the power, ominousness, sense of danger, or any other suspicious things about it, the fake seemed completely devoid of any murderous intent towards Hamel.
‘...Instead, it seemed like he was more concerned with me,’ or at least that was what Noir had intuited.
However… what if she had been mistaken? Considering the circumstances, there was no doubt that something had occurred at Black Lion Castle. Noir couldn’t tell for sure, but perhaps… that unknown incident may have been caused by the fake.
But why?
Noir couldn’t see any reason for the fake to do something so drastic.
‘It’s not my fault, is it?’ Noir thought in concern.
At the same time, she was secretly annoyed that she hadn’t captured the fake even though she’d had the chance to do so.
* * *
Eugene had received the news from Sienna in the early hours of the morning and had immediately sprung into action. He felt that seeing what had happened with his own eyes would make for a clearer picture than listening to someone talk about all the details.
It would also allow Eugene to get a hold of his emotions.
He just needed some time to prepare his heart. Before departing, Eugene had already been informed of the general situation by Sienna.
Fortunately, no one had died. Although the severity of their wounds varied from person to person, none of the injuries had been fatal. No one had been crippled either.
But even so, that didn’t change the fact that there had been an assault.
While forcing himself to accept this fact, Eugene did his best to calm his emotions. After all, he couldn’t allow the red mist to cloud his eyes[2] and go on a rampage when he arrived at the scene.
Craaack.
Fortunately, his efforts to calm his emotions weren’t completely fruitless, as he didn’t show any unsightly losses of control, such as stamping his feet on the ground, swinging his fists around, or throwing whatever he could get his hands on.
Instead, Eugene just gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. His teeth were pressed together so hard that some of them had shattered, and he could taste blood in his mind. And his fists were so tightly clenched that his fingers were broken. The pain resulting from these injuries proved quite helpful for Eugene to keep his head straight.
“...,” Eugene silently brooded.
Perhaps because his head was so heated, Eugene even forgot to breathe for a moment.
Eventually, Eugene let out the long, breathless sigh that he had been holding back and shook his head. The wizards of the Black Lion Knights, who had been unable to breathe while being suppressed by Eugene’s dark mook and oppressive aura, barely managed to keep themselves from gasping for breath.
“...This damage…,” Eugene muttered through gritted teeth.
“There’s nothing critical,” the wizards hurried to reassure him.
He waved them off, not wanting to hear the full list of damages in advance. While getting a firm hold of his breathing, Eugene lifted his head.
Although there wasn’t much he could actually see from here, Eugene could tell that a corner of the towering Black Lion Castle, which wasn’t all that far from the warp-gate, was crumbling. He could also detect various sounds and smells coming from the distance thanks to his sharply honed senses.
There were the moans of people enduring great pain accompanied by the smell of blood. Eugene’s gray hair began to rise from his head as the mana within him grew active.
Kristina, who had been looking at Eugene with worried and nervous eyes, urgently grabbed hold of Eugene’s wrist.
“I’m fine,” Eugene grunted.
“Please don’t tell me such an obvious lie,” Kristina retorted before Anise could even step forward in reprimand.
Kristina rubbed the corners of Eugene’s mouth with hands that had been enveloped in her divine power, regenerating his shattered teeth and torn gums.
“The enemy has already left,” Kristina reminded him, “so just what has got you so enraged, Sir Eugene?”
“Myself,” Eugene said with a sigh as he carefully pulled himself free from Kristina’s hands and wiped away the blood that had leaked from his lips. “I’m just mad at myself.”
Kristina and Anise couldn’t say anything in response to these words. The rage that Eugene was currently feeling was all because of his self-reproach. This guy had always been overly strict when it came to things like feelings of responsibility.
[After all, he’s an idiot who would choose to commit suicide after arbitrarily deciding that he was being a burden,] Anise grumbled.
Meanwhile, Eugene had already begun to head forward.
Inside his cloak, Mer and Raimira were embracing each other while trembling. For a moment, Eugene felt a pang of apology towards the two children. Last night, he had told them to pick where they were going to play tomorrow. Since they had been planning to leave Giabella Park in about two days anyway, Eugene had decided to allow the kids to do whatever they wanted to do before they all had to leave.
“Please don’t worry about something like that. Do you really think of us as kids?” Mer, who had read Eugene’s thoughts, muttered with a pout. Mer hesitated for a few moments before she stretched her hand out from the cloak and said, “I know that you can’t help but be angry in this situation, Sir Eugene. But even so… please promise me that you won’t get all scary like you do when you’re in a rage.”
“I can’t promise that,” Eugene replied without a second thought.
Yet even so, he didn’t completely ignore Mer’s wishes. While still grinding his teeth, he gently grabbed hold of Mer’s hand. Once he had done so, Mer pulled his hand into the cloak.
“Benefactor…,” Raimira sobbed as she also held onto Eugene’s hand.
The children’s four hands eagerly massaged Eugene’s broken fingers. A soft warmth was conveyed to Eugene through their touch.
This didn’t alter his current emotions. His blood was boiling red-hot in a way that couldn’t be compared to the soft warmth of their touch. Still, that didn’t mean the children’s meager efforts were absolutely meaningless. Because of their constant comfort, Eugene wasn’t able to clench the hand inside of the cloak into a fist.
They passed through the forest. No, there was no way that this place could still be called a forest. It had been turned into a completely empty field.
Eugene couldn’t sense any traces of dark power. In fact, he couldn’t sense any dark power at all. After the intruder had put on such a show of power, there should have been at least a little dark power left behind, so Eugene felt it was slightly odd that absolutely nothing had remained for him to detect.
Eugene sniffed the air, ‘Blood.’
Leaping up, Eugene rapidly ascended the hill, climbing towards the castle. On his way there, he tried to set his head straight once more. So Eugene felt ready to accept whatever he might end up seeing.
But he still failed. If he wasn’t careful, Eugene might have even ended up crushing the children’s hands in a newly clenched fist.
Eugene immediately pulled his hand back out of the cloak. Then he took a few deep breaths. The sound of his pounding heart filled his ears. At the same time, a ringing noise had replaced all thoughts in his head.
“That son of a bitch,” Eugene’s lips seemed to spit out the words all by themselves.
His mana began to move in response to Eugene’s emotions. Black flames fluttered around him like a lion’s mane.
When he arrived at the castle, Eugene saw many figures treating their wounds using potions. There were many others who were covered in bandages. Fortunately, Black Lion Castle was fully supplied with potions for treating all sorts of injuries. Having received support from the nearest church, priests who could use healing magic were also on standby.
However, it was difficult to treat hundreds of injured people all at the same time. It wasn’t just the severity of their injuries; as the wounds were permeated with dark power, it made them even harder to heal.
That was why battles against demonfolk and black wizards were such terrible affairs. Even minor scratches were slow to heal.
Thanks to that, the smell of blood was still strong in the air here. Even though large amounts of potions had already been poured onto them, the wounds still weren’t easily treated. The pain of these wounds was so severe that even if the wounds weren’t immediately fatal, they could become fatal if they were left untreated for too long.
Eugene had been told who was responsible for all this. It was the Death Knight made from his, from Hamel’s corpse. The one with a personality created from Hamel’s memories.
That was why he found it difficult to understand.
If the Death Knight really did claim to be Hamel, and if he really thought of himself as Hamel….
‘If it was me,’ Eugene thought regretfully.
…then this kind of thing shouldn’t have happened.
Although he didn’t want to put any trust in that fake bastard, Eugene… he had wanted to have at least a little faith in the personality pieced together from Hamel’s remnants. No matter what bullshit the Death Knight had spouted from his slack-jawed mouth, that guy, if he really was a byproduct of Hamel’s memories… then he shouldn’t have attacked Black Lion Castle, where Vermouth’s descendants were stationed.
No matter how clouded his eyes were by rage and a desire for vengeance, now that three hundred years had passed, he shouldn’t have attacked Vermouth’s descendants, who were only living peacefully in the present era.
~
—When I was resurrected like this, do you know what my very first thought was?
—I wanted to destroy all the seeds that that bastard, Vermouth, has left behind.
~
That was what the fake bastard had said when they met in the Samar Rainforest. So, could that really be why he had done something like this?
“...,” Eugene silently frowned.
He had fought with the Death Knight. They had clashed swords. Although he hadn’t killed that guy, Eugene had beaten the Death Knight into a state close to death. At that moment, there was an instant where he had felt something within the Death Knight. The memories of Hamel’s suicide may have been replaced with memories of a fake betrayal, but that guy, even though he was a fake… it had felt like that guy did, at least to some extent, resemble Hamel.
If it were him, he would never do something like this.
Eugene hated the version of himself from the past who had had this thought. In the end, the Death Knight was just a fake bastard, so why had he made his own plans based on that mistaken belief.
That guy wasn’t Hamel. Even though Eugene obviously knew that fact, why had he expected the Death Knight to behave like Hamel?
“...,” Eugene’s frown deepened.
All that said….
‘It’s strange,’ Eugene realized.
No one had died. There hadn’t been any fatal injuries. If treatment was slow and the wounds were left untended, then someone could still die, but while that might have been a concern if this had taken place in the middle of the Devildom three hundred years ago, this was the Black Lion Castle. Moreover, the Death Knight hadn’t even destroyed the warp-gate.
Even at this very moment, high-ranking priests from Ruhr were probably already on their way here. In fact, there wasn’t even any need for them to come here, as from the moment the Saint had arrived, the death of any of these wounded had been prevented.
‘So why didn’t he kill anyone?’ Eugene wondered.
Eugene knew that the Death Knight had a desire for revenge against Vermouth, so he had initially believed that the Death Knight had come here to fulfill the declaration he had made in the Rainforest. Or at least that was what he had thought until he had seen this scene in person.
However, now that he was taking in everything directly, there were so many strange points about all this. The fake had attacked Black Lion Castle. That much was a clear fact. However, that fake… didn’t seem to have had any intention of killing anyone.
But why?
“Hey,” a voice suddenly spoke out from behind Eugene, but he didn’t show any signs of being startled by it.
Eugene let out a sigh as he turned his head.
“Lady Sienna,” Eugene said in greeting.
They might have kept in frequent contact, but it had been almost a year since they had last seen each other face-to-face like this. Although it hadn’t felt like it had been all that long ago… contrary to what he expected, it felt like Sienna had changed a lot in that time. However, the changes didn’t have anything to do with her face or clothes.
It was more her atmosphere. Or perhaps, her strength level? Eugene didn’t know how to describe the vague changes he felt coming from her.
But that wasn’t what was important right now.
“Where did that bastard go?” Eugene demanded.
Sienna didn’t feel any disappointment at hearing these words from Eugene. If it were Sienna in the same situation as Eugene, that was the first question she would have asked as well.
That was why Sienna was upset that there was only one response she could give him right now, “We don’t know.”
Even though the Death Knight had been right in front of her… she had still lost him. His method of escape definitely couldn’t have been any type of spell. However, it hadn’t been black magic either.
“He appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as suddenly,” Sienna explained.
Sienna had managed to land quite a few attacks on the Death Knight. She had hoped to trace the mana she had planted on the Death Knight through those attacks, but even that attempt had failed.
She could roughly guess the reason for that failure. The power that the Death Knight had used came from the dark power of Destruction. In the end, it seemed that all the mana she had carefully applied onto the Death Knight with her attacks had been destroyed.
Sienna hesitated for a few moments before eventually saying, “...I’m sorry,”
Eugene’s eyebrows rose in surprise at this unexpected apology, “What do you—. I mean, why should you have anything to apologize about, Lady Sienna?”
“I… if I had just arrived sooner…,” Sienna said regretfully.
“Please don’t say such things. That isn't something you should feel guilty about, Lady Sienna,” Eugene said firmly as he shook his head.
Eugene had been so agitated that he had almost made a mistake. With so many people around them, if he had been caught speaking so familiarly to Sienna, he would be sure to receive unwanted attention.
“I’m the one who should feel guilty,” Eugene confessed. “It’s not like I really didn’t have any suspicions that that stupid bastard might pull something like this, but I was foolish and didn’t make any thorough prepara—”
“No,” this time, it wasn’t Sienna interrupting Eugene, but a different voice.
Eugene jolted in surprise and turned his head.
Carmen was staggering over towards Eugene, her arms splinted and bandaged.
“This isn’t something you should feel guilty about,” Carmen insisted.
“...Lady Carmen,” Eugene belatedly greeted her.
“Eugene, it’s not like you alone make up the whole Lionheart clan,” Carmen stated firmly.
Carmen wasn’t biting on a cigar like she usually did. The bandages on her arm weren’t done just for style either.
Staggering over, Carmen came to a halt in front of Eugene and shook her head, “So why should you feel guilty about the Lionhearts being attacked while you were gone?”
Their opponent was a true mystery. They knew nothing about him. However, his strength had been so terrible that it had even made Carmen look down on the Demon King she had once fought.
But could you use the fact that your opponent was stronger than you imagined as an excuse for your defeat? Of course not. Carmen, at least, didn’t want to use that as an excuse. No matter how much stronger their opponent had been, their utter defeat still caused Carmen to experience so much regret that it felt as if her heart was being torn into pieces.
“...I understand,” Eugene eventually replied, clenching and unclenching his fists.
It was impossible to completely shake off his feelings of guilt. But even so, the anger and humiliation that Carmen felt after being defeated in this place of all places was greater than anything that Eugene might be feeling.
“...We don’t know who the enemy was,” Carmen revealed as she let out a long sigh and placed her hand on Eugene’s shoulder. “It wasn’t the Demon King of Incarceration, so… we believe that our enemy… might have been a different Demon King. The dark power he possessed makes it impossible to suspect anything else.”
“...Yes,” Eugene nodded guiltily.
“That guy also had something to say to us,” Carmen added.
Squeeze.
Carmen’s grip on his shoulder tightened. She seemed to be trying to calm her own emotions, but it wasn’t working out the way she wanted it to.
Remembering what that man had said, his voice, the way he had spoken in a calm tone without much emotion….
Carmen growled, “He said that he came here to enrage us.”
In all of her life, Carmen had never heard anything as humiliating as those words.
“...Rage?” Eugene slowly repeated.
Eugene didn’t know what that fake bastard might have been thinking or hoping for when he said something like that.
“He said that he came here to enrage us?” Eugene asked once more.
But if that bastard was in front of him right now, then Eugene would have wanted to inform him with all his heart that he had succeeded.
* * *
Having left Black Lion Castle, the specter thought about heading to Nahama.
He hadn’t expected to end up fighting with Sienna, but even so….
‘This much should be enough,’ the specter thought to himself.
Nothing else unexpected had happened. Just like how he had first intended, no one, not a single person, had died.
Instead, what he had done to them was something worse than death.
“They’ll probably be furious,” the specter muttered.
Everyone there would know that he could have easily killed them, but for some reason he hadn’t. Sienna would also realize this, and the one who would be arriving soon… Eugene Lionheart… would also figure it out.
The specter hoped that their suspicions about his behavior would just provoke them to feel even more rage. In that sense, he felt that it was fortunate that Ivatar Jahav and the warriors of the Zoran Tribe had also been present at Black Lion Castle. As a result of their presence, the flames of rage would not only be fiercely burning within the Lionhearts but they would also be ignited in the hearts of the Great Tribe that had managed to unify the entire Rainforest for the first time in history.
Naturally, this rage would spread to Kiehl as well. The Empire’s territory, one of its most secure borders at that, had been invaded. Setting aside any rage he might feel due to this situation, the Emperor of Kiehl would need to be proactive, if only for the sake of protecting his imperial dignity.
Their previously weak casus belli would now be made firm.
This would allow the war that Eugene had been planning for to erupt quickly.
‘With this, things should be in order,’ the specter thought with relief.
Now, the only thing left for the specter to do was simple.
He needed to go over to Nahama and support Amelia Merwin. While doing so… he just needed to provide timely support for the war. The Black Lions and the Zoran Tribe’s warriors had already been brought to their knees. As such, an enraged Eugene would be sure to come and attack them soon.
‘I don’t know why you want a war. However, if that’s what you want… it must be because you need it,’ the specter speculated.
The specter didn’t know that Eugene and Hamel were reincarnations of Agaroth. So, it was impossible for him to even guess that Eugene’s intention was to make a name for himself and establish his divinity through this war.
However, since a war was what Eugene wanted….
‘Because this is something that only I can do,’ the specter thought with some satisfaction.
He wanted to help Eugene in a way that only he could. Because he wasn’t Hamel, but despite knowing that, he wanted to be like Hamel.
Even if it took doing something like this, if it was for the sake of becoming Hamel, he would do whatever was necessary.
As he was planning his return to Nahama, just as the specter saw a sandstorm whirling in the desert below, he heard a voice say, “Is that so?”
The specter raised his head in surprise.
“So this is the meaning of your existence that you were looking for?” the voice continued.
He looked up to see the Demon King of Incarceration standing there in the pitch-black darkness of the night.
1. The original text uses the Korean idiom of ‘scattering ashes,’ as in scattering ashes onto food to render it inedible. ☜
2. The original Korean text uses the Korean idiom of ‘eyes rolling back into his head’ to depict someone losing control of themself in a rage. ☜