Chapter : 175

Golden had become the foremost merchant group in the Empire.

Not just one of the top ten, but the largest driving force that kept the Empire’s economy flowing.

It had reached a position that even the Emperor of the Empire could not easily remove, yet Mordegar himself suffered from a terrible emptiness.

Iris’s dream was fulfilled. So why did he feel empty?

They were days of suffering from an unknown void.

He handed over gloves, stained bright red with blood, that had lost their original white color.

Iris, taking them, gave a slight nod.

“Take care of it.”

“Yes, Master.”

Mordegar flicked his fingers lightly.

Flames erupted, and the body whose breath had ceased was instantly incinerated, leaving only ashes, and the trace of a person’s existence vanished.

Iris smiled gently at the young Lerwon, who watched the scene, pinned in place.

A gentle demeanor, not at all like someone who had just ended a person’s life.

Lerwon’s body trembled helplessly, feeling fear in that dissonance.

“You no longer ask why they have to die?”

No answer.

Iris wiped a small spatter of blood from Lerwon’s cheek, leaving a smear, and coldly prompted him.

“Answer.”

“Because… asking won’t change anything anyway.”

Asking for the reason would only torment him.

At Lerwon’s small mumble, Iris smiled in satisfaction.

Iris had meticulously broken Lerwon.

However, it was less like the mindset of a mother cherishing her son, and more like the craftsmanship of a tailor who unreservedly cuts away useless parts to create a perfect garment.

For a more perfect monster.

“Clever boy.”

Smiling contentedly, Iris stroked the child’s head.

“I suppose I can leave the next disposal to you.”

With those words, Iris left the underground prison.

“Will he be able to handle it?”

“Well, he’ll manage.”

Iris gave a slight nod.

What was she thinking? Mordegar didn’t ask either.

He simply slowly recalled the name of the traitor he had burned with his own magic.

So many. And if the day ever came when he betrayed Iris, if that happened—

“Master.”

“What?”

“If I die, could you kill me with your own hands?”

“With my own hands?”

“Yes.”

It had been a very long time since Mordegar had requested something from Iris.

A tool does not make demands of its master.

To this unusual request, Iris willingly answered.

“Alright, I’ll kill you painlessly with my own hands.”

“Yes, Master.”

As if to mock the request he had just made, Mordegar’s expression was inorganic.

Seeing this, Iris said no more.

The ‘Iris’ and ‘Mordin’ who once had endless, unbroken conversations were no more.

Only the Master of Gold and her tool existed.

* * *

“I’m sending Lerwon to the Academy.”

Mordegar flinched.

Did she mean Lapis Academy?

“Are you intending to entrust him with the search for the Golden Elixir?”

“Yes, this is the last time.”

Iris periodically sponsored children entering the Academy.

The goal was to find the Golden Elixir.

For that alone, Iris was not only wasting her fortune but also planning to send Lerwon.

“Wouldn’t that be the same as letting Lerwon go?”

Even as he asked, Mordegar thought his own words were absurd.

Could Lerwon even betray Iris? That child who had given up everything? It was laughable.

“I have added an unnecessary word.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Iris spoke leisurely as if she didn’t care.

Lerwon could not betray Iris. To Mordegar, that was like a truth. And so, he let his guard down.

The person Iris Viden was most wary of.

Count Evan Lisitoel.

His son, who had fallen into a coma due to an unknown chronic illness, one day opened his eyes again and ended up snatching away Iris’s toy. He dared to commit such an act.

“Incompetent fools.”

At the sound of Iris’s voice harshly blaming her subordinates, Mordegar bowed his head.

“Mordegar.”

“Yes, Master.”

There was a thick smell of blood.

No one here had shed blood. The smell of blood Mordegar currently sensed was likely the smell of blood yet to be shed.

“You haven’t become so incompetent that I have to punish you myself, have you?”

Iris asked with an expressionless face.

Mordegar knelt and, without hesitation, slammed his head against the floor.

Thud, thud, thud!

The sound of his head cracking was clear.

But, Iris watched Mordegar bow his head to her without blinking an eye.

“Everything is as the Master of Gold wills it.”

“Yes, everything is as I will it.”

In the end, the final victor would be Iris.

Because Iris never entered a battle she couldn’t win.

Iris left, and his vision turned red.

Lerwon was gone.

Maybe it was for the best.

Mordegar thought so as he ordered the cleanup.

* * *

‘He’s crying?’

Due to the contract, it was difficult for Iris to approach Lerwon directly, but there was no clause against observing him through others, so she sent Mordegar to watch over him.

Of course, she didn’t just stand by and watch.

The Flowering Festival’s medal award ceremony.

Mordegar, watching Lerwon on the podium, was momentarily flustered.

What poured out in the silence was not jeers and criticism, but encouraging applause.

That scene made Mordegar’s heart feel strange.

The feeling he used to get when he saw Iris’s smile as a child.

An emotion he hadn’t felt for decades washed over him like a tide.

“It’s just my imagination.”

Mordegar thought so and turned away from the scene itself.

It was too blasphemous for him, who was destined for hell, to watch, so he averted his gaze.

How much time had passed since then?

Iris’s sleep increased.

The Master of Gold’s sleeping hours were short, and even that sleep was not deep.

She would wake up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway even before someone entered her room, to the point that Mordegar had to reduce the number of servants himself just to increase Iris’s sleep time, even by a little.

Seeing Iris spend half her day sleeping, he sensed that an unforeseen event that should not be happening was occurring.

Mordegar immediately began to investigate.

There were no particular clues. But, Mordegar was the one who managed all of Golden’s information.

Even after mobilizing all the information networks spread throughout the Empire, he could not find out about Iris’s strange condition.

Why? For what reason? What should he do? Mordegar was shaken like never before, lost and wandering.

In the midst of that, a piece of information came in by chance. The moment he saw it, his vision went dark.

“Ouroboros. The snake that bites its own tail, swallowing the world.”

The monster Iris was trying to become. The moment this was born into the world, the world would end.

With a sensation beyond shock, Mordegar slowly exhaled.

A clear act of heresy. The moment this was revealed, Golden, Iris’s empire built on the blood of countless people, would collapse.

“Ah.”

That, at least, could not happen.

Golden, the Viden Merchant Group, was the dream and hope of the young Iris.

The one and only purpose that made him, who wouldn’t mind dying right away, live. Iris and Golden.

“I have to stop—”

The thought continued, then was abruptly cut off.

“I will follow.”

What Mordegar followed was Golden and ‘Iris’.

If Iris wished to become Ouroboros, then all he had to do was follow again.

He just had to follow…

“I returned a senior who was becoming an Ouroboros back to a human.”

Since the day he learned of Ouroboros, the first hope bloomed and quickly withered.

Theo Lisitoel must die.

Under that thought, Mordegar burned everything.

‘Why?’

It was a question.

Theo Lisitoel was aghast as he watched Mordegar collapse.

Before his life’s breath completely ended, what he wished for desperately, more desperately than anything—

‘I don’t want to die.’

It was laughable that he, who had taken the lives of so many people with his own hands, who had just tried to kill a person, did not want to die himself.

But, he truly, genuinely did not want to die.

I want to live, I want to live. I don’t want to die! I don’t want to end it like this!

Mordegar felt like he would cry from the fear of death.

Not yet, let me live.

God, please, I want to live.

But his prayers would not reach God.

Mordegar closed his eyes. Eternal darkness came.

…The darkness that should have come was not there.

At some point, Mordegar, no, Mordin opened his eyes.

“Keoheok!”

Blood spurted out as if his body was broken, and his whole body twisted.

A pain continued, one he couldn’t tell if it was from being alive or from being in hell after death, and when he intermittently came to his senses, he was lying in the ruins he had created.

“I’m alive?”

He, who should have died with his heart torn out by Iris’s hand, was perfectly alive.

Mordin blinked blankly.

* * *

“Looks like Mordegar pushed you quite hard.”

Even after using alchemy potions and healing magic, why wasn’t he recovering?

Iris repeatedly poked Theo’s head and let go, watching Theo Lisitoel having a seizure.

Even with alchemy potions, he should have been able to reach a level just below Artemia’s, if not as good, yet he couldn’t recover.

“Well, I guess it’s natural.”

He must have pushed himself to win against Mordegar.

As his direct student, he was no ordinary opponent.

“How should I dispose of him.”

Being a dungeon, bugs will soon swarm.

“Hmm.”

Iris tapped her foot, watching Theo, who was writhing in pain.

What should I do with this.

“Let’s leave it to fate.”

Iris, who used her last healing magic by tapping his forehead, leisurely walked away.

Still, seeing the corpse of her disciple and faithful right-hand man covered in bugs wouldn’t be a pleasant sight.

The magic to burn a corpse was simple.

Iris walked at a leisurely pace towards the place where the fierce battle had just taken place.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t think Mordegar was his real name.’

She remembered it was an alias, but she couldn’t remember his real name.

What was it? She couldn’t remember, but she didn’t want to make an effort to remember either.

It seemed like it was more precious in the past, but she couldn’t even remember that.

Was there something precious? Hmm, I don’t know about that either.

“It’s not important.”

What was important was that Iris would soon become a greedy monster that would swallow the world.

When she became that monster that was said to have destroyed the ancient world, she would swallow everything.

Hehe, Iris, who was walking with a smile, could no longer smile.

“Huh?”

Mordegar’s body, which had been there just a moment ago, was gone.

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