Chapter 281

I fled.

Obro Denoebang, the White Lord, held back the entire West alone for my sake.

“…….”

With a hole in my heart, even walking was beyond my strength.

Yet, I had to walk.

Amethus was with me.

I felt something cold touch my cheek and lifted my head.

Raindrops were falling thick and fast onto my face.

“…This….”

A dazed murmur.

“…What is this? Just what on earth is this…. It was flawless. It was a plan I looked back on tens of thousands of times, anxious that something might go wrong, and yet it was flawless….”

“…….”

“…It went wrong.”

I felt a piercing pain.

“Even though it was flawless, it went wrong. Then from where…. Where on earth was I wrong…….”

It was a pain that ravaged my heart.

If asked who was ravaging, it was I who was ravaging myself.

I was squeezing out my remaining strength to tear my own heart into shreds.

“…Since when, from where…?”

I looked back.

“…Should I have stopped when Grand Duke Pret died? Or when Brother Secundus died?”

I tried to find an answer by looking back at my cold life.

Was this war the problem, or saving Obro and the Widow Queen, or fighting Niko and Nana?

Becoming Merion’s master?

Or escaping the Empire, or… if not even this…….

Was Regression the Problem?

Should I not have returned?

Should I have just accepted death?

Should I have turned away, saying I didn’t deserve another chance.

Should I have just harbored that piercing hatred alone and quietly sank.

Would that have been better.

Would I not have been stabbed in the heart and miserably running away.

“…Did I….”

I felt a cold pain.

“…Did I do that wrong? Was my obstinacy that bad? Even if I couldn’t explain everything, it was an unavoidable secret…. I didn’t want to be born as Great Emperor Continua’s son either, but was that fact a sin big enough to stab a knife in my heart without hesitation…….”

I wanted to hold onto something to stand up from the pain.

But there was nothing to hold.

I didn’t have the strength to hold on.

So I asked without knowing.

“…Should I live more, Amethus?”

“Shut up, Your Highness.”

Amethus spoke sharply.

He ran down the mountain path, almost carrying me.

“If you say that crap one more time, I will gag you.”

“…Oh. It’s raining. It’s coming down hard….”

I was talking nonsense.

It was because I was out of my mind.

Amethus held onto me even tighter.

It felt as if I would roll down into the mud right away if he relaxed his grip even a little.

I continued to murmur.

“Right… It was like this the day I escaped the capital Lutilium. It rained like this back then too….”

The day the Succession War ended.

Around the time Amethus started chasing me.

That day 7 years ago when I declared the secret that I would destroy the Empire.

“Pies, Nebulo…. Is this the price for killing you? You guys just lived your lives, am I paying the price for killing that now….”

“I told you to shut up, Your Highness!”

Amethus raised his voice.

“Stop acting like a dying person!”

Even in that situation, he took off his outer coat and covered me.

It was because he worried his dying master would lose body heat to the rain.

Amethus was very angry and nagged me.

“You are Shion! Shion of Merion! Shion Pollinglight!”

The always detestable secret-keeper Prince.

Even if Amethus chased him like that, even if the Whale of Hobel Bay crushed him, didn’t he always smile slyly and escape.

Tears flowed from the jade eyes.

It was thin enough to be mistaken for rain, but it was clearly tears.

I smiled bashfully without knowing.

It was strange to see my always cool-headed subordinate crying.

“Just because you made one mistake, why are you…! You just need to live first and think later!”

“…But Amethus….”

I twisted my mouth.

I tried to mimic a smile, but it didn’t work well.

So instead, I ended up with a face more miserable than ever.

“For what?”

Amethus dared not answer.

“For what must I live now? What was the meaning of my Regression?”

“…….”

“Until now, there was an answer. So it was a time I could endure. I… just wanted them to enjoy life more. I wanted them not to be hurt, to be peaceful…. Just a little more….”

The recitation was too painful.

Even Amethus, who was just listening, felt it piercingly deep in his heart.

“…But, they say my death is their peace. They say they wish I would die. But how can I….”

“…….”

Amethus fell into thought for a moment.

Then he spat out sharply.

“…You idiot.”

I looked at Amethus in surprise.

Amethus was still crying.

“…Please, please just try to live.”

His always cold jade eyes were pouring out streams of hot tears even beneath the rain today.

“Is that so hard? Be a little greedy. Everyone lives like that. Who in the world lives because they have a great reason…!”

“……Sorry.”

“Stop saying that kind of stuff!”

“……However, it hurts, Amethus.”

I continued speaking with difficulty.

“My life hurts me too much.”

I had many wounds.

Only the wounded know.

That wounds are not something easily talked about.

Even if they say it’s all healed, one learns piercingly that the moment is never easy.

A hole was pierced in my heart.

I gave my deepest and most precious thing foolishly again, and it was stabbed immediately.

I just wanted to protect myself.

I just wanted to stop the terrible future I knew.

But it was that, so hard.

Is it something that has to hurt this much?

The pain is severe.

I lived enduring.

Losing the reason to endure, I didn’t want to endure anymore.

Today’s pain alone is this agonizing, what about tomorrow’s pain?

Until when I must suffer and hurt.

“Even with a reason to live, my life is overwhelming to live… living with greed without reason is too, too overwhelming….”

Because it was Amethus who knew my life, he couldn’t speak anymore.

It seemed I thought I shouldn’t live without a reason to live.

It seemed I considered myself such an existence.

“Shut up, Shion….”

Amethus put strength in his hand.

He held me firmer as I was about to fall.

“…7 years ago, at Arete Island… you spoke to me so easily.”

Aretion and the Breath of Light.

Ferbias, having realized he was betrayed by his closest friend, was about to crumble.

He wanted to crumble.

When Shadi Shandor fell into a coma and Untes died because of him, it was truly, truly difficult beyond description.

But eventually, it passed.

Everything passes.

That passing is never easy, requires long waiting, and sometimes it hurts too much to speak easily, but Amethus had to speak.

“So I will speak easily too.”

He stood me up.

Holding the master who couldn’t stand by himself, he moved again.

The jade eyes were fierce.

“……Just try to live for now, you secret-keeper.”

***

No one from the West could chase them.

It was because Obro Denoebang blocked them.

‘…Where….’

Amethus fell into question.

‘…Where should we go?’

Even though he spoke plausibly, he didn’t know where to take me.

If the whole West became his enemy….

His heart, facing overwhelming despair, was about to break, losing strength.

But it didn’t break.

Amethus was not such a weak man.

‘……Good. It’s Merion. I must return to the Verchello family after all.’

He ran almost carrying me.

Every time he strode, the surrounding scenery pushed back.

The rain only got thicker.

It was blurry in front of his eyes but couldn’t cover the jade eyes.

‘There, get minimum preparations, and go to Hanchamus Islands. If he meets Lord Serena, Shion will come to his senses a little….’

Yes, it was Serena.

Shion needed Serena de Verchello.

Shion said he regressed for the whole West, but Amethus knew.

Actually, it was all because of Serena.

Shion loved her so much he wanted to protect the West she would live in, hated the Empire that killed her, and Regressed to meet her again.

Even if Shion pretended not to, it was a fact clearly visible to Amethus’s eyes.

Deciding the direction made his steps a little lighter.

Amethus continued to run.

He ran leaving everything behind.

Even while the whole world was blurring, his heart was full of light.

“…Oh….”

A groan flowed from behind.

I grabbed Amethus and pointed somewhere.

My soul was worn out from a long time, hole in heart, under pouring rain, I had almost lost my brilliance.

I pointed at one place like a madman and said.

“……Look, Amethus.”

I said.

I had discovered it.

There was a man who caught up to us even though Amethus ran so fast, leaping several times faster than an eagle.

I mumbled as if I had no energy to despair more.

“…My death is coming.”

“…Ah….”

Amethus’s face turned black.

A man was approaching us.

He persistently followed regardless of how fast we ran.

He walked without running, wearing thick steel armor on his whole body, yet he was getting closer.

“……God…….”

Amethus knew that man.

He couldn’t not know.

That steel armor.

Indescribable power.

Old man with a beard like a lion’s mane.

“……Deballo Debius.”

***

It smelled of blood.

Just by the old man coming close, the thick scent of blood vibrated.

The thumping sound approaching through the mountain darkness was goosebump-inducing.

“First time meeting you, Your Highness Zionis.”

He greeted me calmly.

“It is Deballo Debius.”

Deballo Debius, Great Emperor Continua’s confidant.

The fact that Kerenneus Cansella Caseptus is actually a thousand-year-old god ‘Last Minister’ points that Deballo Debius is also actually a thousand-year-old god, ‘Last General’.

How he caught up in this rain, why he chased us, he gave no trivial explanations.

Instead, he raised his weapon, the Cordis-style double-edged sword.

“There is nothing more to explain, I will take that neck.”

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