Chapter 336 : Side Story (6)

Torrent.

Turbid muddy waters.

Amidst the precariousness of feeling like they would be swept away at any moment, Cheshih and Ferbias looked at each other.

Ferbias had saved Cheshih just before he died.

However, Cheshih found that fact utterly unbearable.

“Let go!”

He shouted, full of anger.

His beard, completely soaked in water, trembled.

“Let go, you dog-like bastard!”

“…Relax your strength.”

Ferbias silently held onto Cheshih and pulled him toward the land.

Regardless of whether the man he was saving was spitting out curses or not, he exerted his strength.

“The current is still strong. It is dangerous like this….”

“I said let go!”

Slap, a sound rang out.

It was clear even amidst the sound of water.

It was because Cheshih had slapped Ferbias’s cheek.

He didn’t stop but clenched his fist and pummeled Ferbias.

However, Ferbias’s forearm remained unshaken even while being hit.

Cheshih felt even more frustrated.

“To you!”

Cheshih’s eyes were sharp beyond measure.

Anger shimmered in them, unbelievable for someone who had just been about to drown.

“If it is a life saved by the likes of you! Dying, dying is better!”

“…….”

Ferbias, however, remained silent no matter what Cheshih babbled.

He was solely focused on saving him, holding Cheshih with one hand and the thick rope with the other.

His appearance was noble, like a messenger sent by God rather than a human.

So Cheshih felt even more, even more detestable.

He could not bear the fact that Ferbias Caseptus, the enemy of his family and homeland, was pretending to be noble.

No, perhaps thinking that he might really be becoming noble made him feel like his insides were twisting.

“…Fine….”

Cheshih ground his teeth.

He raised one of the two daggers remaining in his bosom.

“Fine, let’s die!”

The blade was blue.

“Let’s die together, Ferbias Caseptus!”

“……!”

Ferbias couldn’t just stay still either.

Watching Cheshih, who started to rampage unable to overcome his own rage, he clenched his teeth.

Soon Cheshih thrust the dagger.

Ferbias, whose hands were occupied, twisted his neck and barely avoided it.

However, a long cut remained on his cheek, and blood flowed.

“…….”

“Die. Please die!”

A man wielding a sword and a man dodging a sword.

But strangely, the one wielding the sword had a more pained face.

He had a face that went beyond crying, as if melting down.

“Please die, Ferbias Caseptus. I’m saying let’s die together here!”

“…Mr. Cheshih.”

Ferbias opened his mouth.

“It seems your foot is caught on a rock. I will pull you up at once, so be careful.”

“I said let go of my hand!”

Cheshih raised the sword.

Ferbias realized he wouldn’t be able to dodge this time.

However, a pebble bounced out from the midst of the torrent.

The pebble, bouncing at a fierce speed, hit the flat of the blade precisely, and Cheshih trembled his hand at the impact.

Although he somehow didn’t drop the sword, that was all.

“…Pulling up.”

Ferbias exerted his strength.

His forearm seemed to swell for a moment, and then Cheshih flew through the air.

Flying through the sky while gripping the dagger tightly, Cheshih realized he had been saved.

By the hand of the enemy he hated more than anyone.

***

The rain began to subside.

However, it had not stopped completely yet.

Cheshih gasped for breath outside the torrent.

And he looked at Ferbias Caseptus pulling himself out of the torrent, the man who had saved him.

It felt as if fire was catching on his temples.

In an instant, his whole body was engulfed in a ball of fire of hatred.

“…This….”

Ferbias Caseptus saved him.

The enemy of Nayar and Nadim and Dua, the enemy of his homeland Horm, the enemy of his lord Secundus Debius!

The enemy of enemies, the most hateful man in the world jumped into the torrent carrying a rope for him.

“…This…!”

He couldn’t endure, absolutely couldn’t endure it.

His heart instantly turned like a furnace, and began to melt his whole body in a very painful way.

Hateful.

Just hateful.

He hates that man, the person who took everything from him and now started pretending to be a good person, so much he cannot bear it!

“Mr. Cheshih.”

Don’t talk to me.

Don’t come near me.

“Are you unhurt? I am worried about your foot that was caught in the rock. Try moving it.”

“…Th, this….”

Look at that detestable bastard.

I even wielded a sword at him, and blood is trickling down his cheek because of it, yet isn’t he worrying about me.

How is that Ferbias?

How is that Ferbias Caseptus?

“…Th, thiiiiis!”

Cheshih clenched his teeth.

He constantly asked himself.

Yes. It seems so.

Ferbias Caseptus seems to have turned over a new leaf.

The despicable Emperor he knew has disappeared somewhere, and only a kind, kind Ferbias remains, caring for parentless children and jumping into a torrent to save a man trying to kill him.

He doesn’t know how it happened, but it seems such a thing has occurred.

“……This…….”

Then.

Then what about me?

What about everything I lost?

What about my life which couldn’t die even after losing everything?

“…….”

Tears flowed from Cheshih’s two eyes.

He couldn’t endure the sorrow.

If Ferbias has turned over a new leaf like that, what is to become of his anger?

If the changed Ferbias is reality, then Ferbias trampling his life was also reality.

The trampled marks are still vivid in his life.

He looked at his hand. There was a knife.

It was sharp enough to kill someone.

“……I see.”

Cheshih was a clever man.

He realized the world was throwing a question at him.

The question was simple.

[The 50th Emperor of the Cordis Empire, Ferbias, took everything from you.]

[However, the Ferbias you painstakingly found has turned over a new leaf and become a person kind enough to be noble.]

[But your life is still ruined like a rag.]

[At this time, find a way to resolve all situations with a single knife.]

The answer was also simple.

“So that was it.”

Cheshih giggled and looked at the sky.

It was still raining.

He raised the knife.

It was a very simple matter.

He could resolve everything with a single stroke of the knife.

Why hadn’t he known such an answer all along.

“This is the answer.”

He closed his eyes gently.

And then he thrust the knife into his own neck.

***

“……!!!”

Ferbias rushed forward.

He is a man possessing strength no less than a Commander of a Thousand.

Blink once and he was next to Cheshih, and before blinking again, he struck the blade away.

Cheshih’s second dagger broke in two without piercing its owner’s neck.

Only a slight wound remained on his neck.

“Stop!”

Ferbias could no longer suppress his anger either.

There is no way he could tolerate the life he saved with difficulty trying to harm itself.

“Stop it already, Mr. Cheshih!”

“-Shut up-!!”

Cheshih sprang up immediately.

Blood trickled from the neck he stabbed.

His two eyes were very bright red, the blood flowing from his neck was also bright red, and both his heart and life were red with the color of blood.

Enough to smell fishy even in the rain.

“-Shut up, you dog-like bastard-!!”

He was the First Scribe of Horm.

He was accustomed to etiquette and tone so old-fashioned they were elegant, and his cultured attitude was also his pride.

However, the current Cheshih spat out vulgarities without restraint like a boy who just learned curse words.

He had no choice but to do so.

“You damn bastard. How, how dare you, babble at me!”

“…….”

“You!”

He ground his teeth fiercely.

“You took everything away! The one who took away all my reasons to live is exactly you! But how dare you, to me…!”

“…….”

Ferbias had no words to answer.

He had to endure everything silently.

The pouring rain, the cooling body, and even the Horm person spitting out curses with bloodshot eyes.

It was all his share.

“Do you even know the names of my two children? What about my wife? My family who died because of you, would you even know their names?”

Cheshih let his grief flow out through his two eyes.

“You, you just live…!”

“…….”

“Live like that! Live happily while caring for the kids! For the sake of the children’s faces, I will not kill you!”

Bright red.

Everything seen was dyed bright red as if on fire.

It felt like the whole world smelled of blood.

“Instead, instead this wretched Cheshih will die! It is my life. Can I not even do this!”

“…You are saying you cannot live because you have no reason to live.”

“Yes…, yes! And I have no intention of living under the same sky as you.”

“Then.”

Ferbias opened his lips.

“Kill me now.”

There is no hesitation in his words.

“Kill me and please take care of the children.”

“…What…?”

“Actually, caring for kids doesn’t suit my aptitude.”

Ferbias found the broken dagger and placed it in Cheshih’s hand.

Then he slowly lowered his posture in front of him.

He looked like a prisoner walking into the execution ground on his own feet.

Cheshih looked at the dagger placed in his hand again with a bewildered face.

“But I heard you were a father of two children. Then you would be much better than me.”

“…Stop….”

“And Mr. Cheshih, it seems you have very many things you can teach the children. You wouldn’t have as many sins as me either.”

“…Stop, stop babbling.”

“So please.”

Ferbias smiled.

Having placed the knife in Cheshih’s hand and bowing his body in front of him.

Asking him to hurry and slice his neck, asking him to end it now.

The smiling appearance couldn’t be more miserable.

His face is full of wrinkles not befitting his age.

Grief and guilt were young in every single furrow.

Cheshih received the certainty that he himself just moments ago must have looked that miserable.

“Please kill me, and you at least….”

“…Don’t do it!”

“…Please, Mr. Cheshih….”

“Don’t!”

Ferbias finally began to kneel.

Regardless of Cheshih shouting, he lowered himself more, and more on his own.

“Even a guy like me, a worm like this, has lived on like this….”

Ferbias Caseptus felt as if his whole body was being hacked to pieces.

Because he realized the price of his sins, even asking for forgiveness is shameless.

With such trembling, with such a miserable crying appearance, he knelt before Cheshih and bowed his head.

“…Please, live longer….”

“I told you not to do it, you damn bastard….”

Cheshih cried.

“Don’t kneel, for my sake….”

The man bowing his head before him, the man who was once the Emperor of the Cordis Empire, the man begging Cheshih to live at least without even thinking of asking for forgiveness….

He could do nothing but cry in front of the man he hated so much yet absolutely couldn’t hate anymore.

“…….”

Cheshih let go of the dagger.

Although one dagger still remained in his bosom, the current him became empty-handed again.

In front of Ferbias kneeling and crying for Cheshih, he couldn’t hold the knife anymore.

“…Dog-like….”

Before he knew it, the rain stopped.

Like a lie, the sun rose.

“…Th, dog-like….”

Cheshih glared at the sun.

He let go of the dagger he absolutely couldn’t let go of once again.

The sun seemed to speak to him in that state.

As if asking if he isn’t comfortable now that he let go of the knife.

As if suggesting he let go of even the last one like that.

He muttered toward that sun which must have always watched everything.

“…God.”

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