Black Badger

There are limits even to desecrating the dead...

Ah. Not dead.

But close enough to it. It would not be easy to call that state “alive.”

I studied the one who had been shaved down and shaved down again by this world until nothing remained but a hollow shell.

If this were the first time I had faced such a situation, the shock would have been overwhelming.

But I had already rehearsed it once before, through a similar case.

“Jaeyeon.”

I called out to Jaeyeon, who was whispering something into the ear of the Emperor standing there vacantly.

“Stop doing something stupid and just tell me how to get out. Sorry, but it’s a card you’ve already played once. The effect’s dulled.”

“Ah.”

Jaeyeon laughed and turned her head.

She looked down at me from the slope, the corners of her lips curling upward.

“The Empire’s gone, no one’s watching anymore, so you’re just saying you’ll get rid of an annoying bastard, huh?”

“I don’t think kneeling in front of him would end ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) with him lifting my chin and praising me.”

“Oh my, don’t be so certain. You never know what kind of attitude His Majesty might show.”

“So only the Emperor fell here.”

Instead of answering her question, I muttered darkly.

Jaeyeon did not seem inclined to present anyone else to me. The only one who had rolled down here was the Emperor. Or perhaps the others had all died and crumbled away.

Kysis didn’t seem to be here either.

If Kysis had been present, there was no way she wouldn’t have put him forward. But beside Jaeyeon stood only the Emperor.

Relief washed over me.

Better death than that.

Whether it was Kysis, Grand Duke Jacques, a prince or a princess—better to choose death than end up like that.

Ah, the princess... I wasn’t sure about her. She had been the most rational of those who remained at the end.

If breath still lingered, she might have believed there would one day be a chance to rise again.

But the others would have chosen death. I knew that.

Your Majesty!

Please wait just a little longer.

I will let you rest in peace.

Beheading would be excessive—better to pierce the heart.

“You’re thinking you should let the Emperor rest peacefully too, something along those lines.”

“Yeah.”

I admitted it readily at Jaeyeon’s words, spoken as though she had read my thoughts.

“Let’s begin. I’m sick of this kind of conversation.”

“Begin what? What, you think His Majesty will suddenly attack you?”

“You brainwashed him, didn’t you.”

She was a being who could swallow another’s memories whole.

The Emperor must have fallen here already in a weakened state. There was no way he could resist Jaeyeon’s voice prying gently at his complexes.

His body had not been sound even when we were still in the Empire.

The palace had hushed it up, so details were scarce. If not for Kysis, we all would have burned together with the world.

Compared to his sharpness of old, his judgment had clearly declined.

“You brought me here because you thought two against one gave you better odds, didn’t you?”

I’m getting tired of explaining this.

You didn’t drag me here to sit down and have tea.

I flicked my wrist and swung my sword once, loosening it.

“That’s true,” Jaeyeon replied. “But the illness the Emperor was suffering from—it doesn’t progress here.”

“Really? Did his body recover too?”

“To some extent.”

She pushed the Emperor’s chin up with the back of her hand. The bowed head of my lord lifted.

It was a sight difficult to endure—yet not entirely unfamiliar.

Perhaps because I had often entered to face him as his illness worsened. Each time his condition deteriorated, he called for me. I still remembered the stench of sickness that pierced my nose the moment I stepped into his bedchamber. The way he could not even raise his upper body from the bed by himself.

After patting the shoulders of the knights on guard, I would wet my hands with the holy water brought by the servants.

When the Emperor’s maid dried my hands with a cloth woven from golden lamb’s wool, only then would I step inside.

Whether he was conscious or not, I always knelt faithfully before him.

If even a sliver of reason remained, the Emperor would lightly lift my chin where I knelt at his bedside.

Those sky-blue eyes that grew clouded more and more often.

We did not even know how to treat it. It was the first time such a disease had ever been seen in the Empire.

No matter how many times we transferred tissue, inflammation returned.

Fever burned. The muscles of his entire body sagged. After cutting away the blackened, rotting flesh caused by the inflammation, new tissue had to be transferred again and again. He slipped into unconsciousness as if fainting. Very occasionally he muttered incomprehensible words.

From some point onward, the Emperor’s bedchamber always smelled of blood, decaying flesh, and musk mingled together.

After coming to Earth and encountering advanced medical knowledge, I sometimes wondered what his illness might have been.

I never found the answer.

At some point I stopped trying. What would it change now?

Sometimes I simply remembered my lord dragging his frail body forward to deploy the dimensional transfer circle.

If he had crumbled to ash back then, he would not have needed to endure this humiliation.

Whatever the course of events, the ending would have been beautiful—“He was a wise and virtuous ruler!”—and that would have been that.

I should finish it here, so that it may become so.

Still gripping my sword, I began walking across the floor of ash.

As always, a faint wind brushing lightly against my skin.

Spheres of light in the distance, made from scattered memories.

「Hildebert.」

A familiar voice fell.

「My knight.」

Sky-blue eyes.

The Emperor looked down at me with a faint smile.

「You survived.」

My knees nearly buckled.

Even though his bright eyes did not hold the same fullness of reason as before, I was certain—that was my lord’s voice.

Strange. When Jaeyeon had imitated the Emperor, I had not felt this overwhelming weight.

Now I had to struggle not to kneel.

「Your Majesty.」

I addressed him with a weight different from before.

「I will finish this quickly.」

He did not ask what I meant.

He simply gazed down at me as I approached.

As I walked toward him, I recalled those sky-blue eyes I had met beside his sickbed.

His mind was not whole. That much was certain.

Having served him for so long, I knew it instinctively.

「I apologize for coming to you so late.」

「Hilde.」

He used the name he spoke when calling me gently.

Then he added words that were entirely like him.

「I heard that because of my illness, I forgot to grant you the reward you deserved.」

It was not a greeting, not a question, not a reprimand for my presumptuous approach.

He simply moved straight to the point.

As he always had.

「Though it is long overdue, it is proper to bestow it now.」

What?

Jaeyeon must have filled him with nonsense.

Yet reflexively, I felt the familiar fear of failing to understand a royal decree at once.

Would I be punished if I asked?

No—better to ask than to misinterpret and ruin it.

Such thoughts flickered before I snapped back to myself.

At that moment, my lord was raising the hand bearing his ring.

「Your Majesty!」

I have to stop him.

If he used magic to erase my memory, or sent me elsewhere, there would be no answer.

Kill him before that.

I braced myself and kicked off the ground.

Closed the distance in a single breath.

The tip of my sword aimed at the heart of the one to whom I had sworn loyalty—

***

“Hilde.”

Huh?

“Where the hell have you been?”

I blinked.

A crushing headache surged through me. I had never experienced pain like this before. Instinctively, I grabbed one side of my head.

My vision blurred for a moment, then slowly sharpened.

My throat was parched. I cleared it and tried to remember what had happened.

Just now—

No, not just now. Yesterday—

“Ha—!”

I remembered!

And at the same time, fear swallowed me whole.

I thrust both palms toward Rei, who was staring at me with furrowed brows.

“Ah—what—me, the banquet hall! I passed out behind the banquet hall and just woke up.”

“Behind the banquet hall?”

Kyle suddenly appeared from behind Rei.

My proud friend who had ascended to the position of Knight Commander only a few months ago.

Yesterday, when I took that seat, he had become my peer again instead of my senior.

He raised a brow.

“I checked there. You weren’t there.”

“...You looked for me?”

“You disappeared in the middle of it!”

Rei answered instead.

Dressed in a white silk shirt fit for nobles, shoes polished to a shine, he glared at me, breathing hard.

“We said the three of us would drink separately afterward! Did you forget that already!”

“Right. We did. I’m really sorry. It’s been a while since I drank plum wine like that....”

“I saw Kysis holding onto you halfway through.”

I had to make a serious effort not to flinch.

I failed to control my expression, though, and Kyle seemed to catch it. His golden eyes narrowed as if spotting something suspicious.

“Don’t tell me that’s the reason.”

“It’s not... probably. No, really, I’m sorry. I’ll treat next time. Just let this one slide.”

“Bring out that apple liquor you’ve been hiding.”

Kyle grinned crookedly.

“You think we don’t know you stashed it away?”

“I even smuggled out a premium bottle from my family’s vault because I was looking forward to last night. You remember that liquor made by dissolving Dragon’s Tear crystals? Do you know how much I was looking forward to opening it!”

“Ah, seriously, I’m sorry—ugh.”

Just thinking about alcohol made nausea rise in my throat.

When I clamped a hand over my mouth and turned away, Rei’s eyes widened and Kyle burst out laughing.

“First time with a hangover?”

“...This is a hangover?”

“I told you to drink water with lemon slices.”

Kyle smiled coolly and thumped my back.

Meanwhile Rei, brows drawn tight, examined my complexion and scolded me.

“It would’ve helped a lot.”

“Lemon’s sour.”

I walked toward a nearby tree, bracing a hand against its trunk, muttering.

“I hate sour stuff....”

Back then, ■■ told me lemon shrimp was delicious and urged me to try it.

I never did.

Even though she swore it wasn’t sour at all...

When ■■■■ gave me sour jelly once, my tongue practically curled up.

Just thinking about it makes my tongue—

......

Huh?

......

...Who was ■■?

And ■■■■?

Which region was lemon shrimp from again?

“Hilde?”

Rei’s puzzled voice reached me.

“What’s with that look?”

“Guess he remembered something awful from last night.”

Kyle’s voice too.

When I turned my head slightly, I saw him standing there with arms crossed, answering cheerfully.

“So where exactly did you wake up?”

***

「The memory of when he was happiest.」

Jaeyeon looked down at the one who had collapsed to his knees before the Emperor.

He still gripped his sword tightly.

She wanted to remove it, but she knew she must not.

As the Emperor’s memories and her own experience taught her—one wakes too easily from a happy dream.

But in this world, there is no external stimulus.

No biological response either.

Jaeyeon smiled sadly.

「If he rests inside it, after a long time passes, he will come to fetch us.」

It was Colton’s final gamble.

That Hildebert would bury himself in time and memory.

A dream of perfect happiness is difficult to wake from by one’s own will.

A small shove from the outside would rouse him at once, but neither Jaeyeon nor the Emperor intended to disturb his deep sleep.

If only what had been shaved away and broken could be picked back up.

「If he chooses to awaken and return to hell, then we lose.」

「It is an easy dream to wake from.」

Looking down at Hildebert, the Emperor responded to Jaeyeon’s murmur.

「And at the same time, the hardest dream to wake from.」

Jaeyeon had read the Emperor’s memories—memories even the citizens of the Empire had not perceived.

Thus she was the only one among current users of the Imperial language who understood the flow of his thoughts.

The Emperor would not wake Hildebert.

Unless he awakened on his own, he would keep his knight in a happy dream forever.

「Because his loyalty cannot belong elsewhere.」

Even broken in one place, the Emperor was still the Emperor.

Jaeyeon prepared herself for a long wait and sat down on the ashen stone.

Then she buried her face in her drawn-up knees and waited for the outcome.