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Once again, the surroundings darkened.

The shouts and screams of the Imperial Army completely ceased, leaving only the sound of sobbing in the darkness.

“Ah… Ugh…”

Ariel wept uncontrollably after confirming Kyle’s end.

She had thought Kyle had died fighting demons, but she now realized he had been branded a traitor and killed by the Imperial Army.

Luna’s face turned pale, almost ashen. Having witnessed the Empire’s dark past, she was just as shocked as Ariel.

Even though it happened before she was born, she couldn’t help but feel a heavy sense of responsibility and guilt for the atrocities committed by her father, Maxime Meikhael.

Luna simply covered her face with her hands, unable to speak.

“This is too much…”

Wendy was crying, covering her mouth.

“This is too… too cruel…”

As she said, the past was unbearably cruel. William’s past, having witnessed the death of his only friend and benefactor, Kyle, was tragic by anyone’s standards.

Now I understood why this was a trial of despair.

Just watching was painful, but due to the resonance, I was forced to feel William’s emotions. Though I managed to suppress some of it with ‘Patience,’ I couldn’t completely block the mental exhaustion.

My head throbbed.

If it weren’t for ‘Patience,’ I would have been consumed by overwhelming sorrow.

I wanted to run away from this trial right now.

But the trial wasn’t over yet. Not all of the past had been revealed. Most importantly, the reason Kyle had met such a gruesome end remained unclear.

I guessed that the Kyle we saw earlier had already been killed by someone.

He was being controlled by a mysterious magic formula. The despicable method of manipulating the dead was all too familiar.

The mastermind was predictable, and it seemed William had already guessed it too.

Yes, no matter how painful, I had to move forward.

I took a deep breath.

To get closer to the darkness behind all this, I had to endure this trial.

Then, like a lightbulb turning on, the lights illuminated a dark room.

“Who’s there!?”

William, battered and bruised, faced a group of Imperial soldiers.

“There was still a rebel hiding!”

“Hey, judging by his condition, he must’ve been captured and escaped, right?”

“Hey! I won’t waste words. Surrender.”

“……”

William calmly drew his sword, but his hand trembled due to severe injuries.

The soldiers laughed at the sight.

“Pfft… What do you think you can do in that state? Fight us?”

“Surrender while we’re being nice. Young master. We’ll make it quick… Gahk!?”

In an instant, William closed the distance and pierced a soldier’s chest. The soldier collapsed, spurting blood.

“Th-this guy!?”

The soldiers, who hadn’t expected the injured William to be capable of such a move, were slow to draw their swords. But William mercilessly cut them down before they could act.

“No time…”

William didn’t even glance at the dead soldiers as he limped away.

“Huff… Huff…”

Breathing heavily, William moved to the next room. The lights followed him, illuminating new rooms as he went.

How long had he been wandering? He didn’t know which room he was in, but William, dragging his injured body, was desperately searching for something.

“It’s not here… Why…”

William muttered with an anxious voice. He was searching for Kyle’s child.

Had it not been in the wardrobe Kyle mentioned?

It seemed he hadn’t found Kyle’s child despite searching the castle’s rooms.

“Kuh…!”

Still, William didn’t give up and continued searching. Kyle had given his life to buy him time. William couldn’t stop moving, determined to save Kyle’s child from this chaos as quickly as possible. Whipping his injured body, he searched every corner of the castle.

‘Wait… something’s off.’

Watching his desperate state, I suddenly noticed something strange. The rooms William was passing through were all in disarray. Items were scattered everywhere, and bloodstains were abundant. These were clearly the traces of the Imperial Army’s ruthless rampage through the castle.

But among these traces, the ‘corpses’ that should have been there were missing.

“Where… where are they…?”

William, too frantic, seemed not to have noticed this. His mind was entirely focused on finding Kyle’s child.

“?! Cough, cough…!”

Suddenly, William began coughing violently.

Black smoke was slowly filling the hallway where he stood.

Had the Imperial Army set the castle on fire? If so, this was a disaster.

“Cough! The fire… I have to put it out…”

William, thinking the same, covered his mouth and nose and descended the stairs. He stumbled occasionally due to his injured leg, but he showed no sign of pain as he moved forward.

It was a scene too painful to watch.

There wasn’t a single part of his body unharmed. Yet, William pressed on, driven by his promise to Kyle.

How long had he walked?

William arrived at the first floor of the Duke’s castle.

Whoosh.

The source of the smoke was the large reception room we had seen upon entering the Duke’s castle.

“…!?”

Instantly, I frowned.

As soon as we entered the reception room, a foul smell, like burning hair, hit me.

Since Wendy, Ariel, and Luna seemed unaffected, it was likely that only I, through William’s senses, could smell it.

What kind of smell could be this revolting?

In the center of the reception room, flames were raging. Soldiers were lounging around, warming themselves by the fire.

Fortunately, it seemed they hadn’t set the entire castle ablaze.

“Ugh, it’s cold. So cold. Hey! Throw in more firewood!”

The soldiers, in pairs, were carrying logs and tossing them into the fire. The logs, one by one, were consumed by the flames, which grew fiercer.

But William, staring at the flames, froze like a stone. It was as if he was seeing something that shouldn’t be seen.

Thump.

Suddenly, my heart began to race.

[You resonate with the trial!]

[Your resonance level is 70%!]

William’s eyes, reflecting the flames, were shaking uncontrollably.

“Huh…?”

Wendy, sensing something was wrong, tried to move closer to the fire.

“What’s that…?”

“Don’t look!”

“Eek!?”

I hurriedly covered Wendy’s eyes.

“C-Count!?”

“From now on, you mustn’t look at anything.”

“O-okay?”

“Those damn bastards…”

I couldn’t help but curse.

I had realized what the ‘firewood’ burning in the flames really was.

“Ah…”

William’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.

The ‘firewood’ the soldiers were throwing in were corpses.

Likely the remains of the Roelgreen family and their servants, the ‘firewood’ was being consumed by the flames one by one.

The revolting smell I had sensed through William’s senses was the stench of their burning bodies.

No one could move in the face of such a horrific scene.

Especially William, who had lived with the Roelgreen family here, was in shock, unable to stand. His heart sank into the depths of despair as he saw Kyle’s family, brutally murdered under the false accusation of rebellion.

The resonance level had reached 70%. At this point, I had to actively use ‘Patience’ to suppress it, or I wouldn’t be able to endure.

“Who’s there!”

“Grab him!”

Even as he was caught and dragged away by the soldiers, William couldn’t tear his eyes away from the flames.

“Well, well. Isn’t this Sir William? I thought you’d escaped long ago. What brings you here?”

“……”

William, forced to kneel before Dolan, was in no state to converse. Exhausted from the relentless cruelty, he was already at his limit.

“Well, no matter. But what’s with that monster that looks like Sir Kyle? No matter how many arrows we shot, it wouldn’t fall…”

“What happened to Brother Kyle…?”

In response to William’s question, Dolan waved his right hand. Where his right hand should have been, there was only a bandaged stump. Likely severed by Kyle’s sword.

“I almost died too. That monster kept swinging its sword, cutting off fingers, arms, everything. Yet it kept cutting down soldiers. Though in the end, it turned to sand.”

“……”

William bowed his head. Despite Kyle’s last stand, he couldn’t fulfill his promise, and the frustration and despair were palpable.

“Commander! The purge of the rebels is complete.”

“Huh? Oh, already?”

“It’s… over?”

“See over there?”

Dolan pointed to a red window… no, beyond it was a village burning.

“As you can see, the cleanup of those who rebelled is done.”

“You even killed innocent villagers…”

“Huh? What are you talking about? They were all complicit in the Duke’s rebellion. No matter how much we tried to persuade them, they hid Sir Kyle instead of handing him over. We couldn’t spare a single one.”

“You…”

“Don’t worry. You’ll soon join them, Sir William. Ugh, my wound hurts. Hey! Throw in more firewood!”

“Yes, sir!”

Since the corpses alone weren’t burning well, the soldiers began bringing furniture from the castle to fuel the fire.

Whoosh.

As the soldiers threw in the firewood, the flames grew larger. William, staring blankly at the scene, widened his eyes.

Thump.

His emotions resonated, and my chest began to race.

“That’s…”

“Huh? Oh, you mean ‘this’?”

The firewood Dolan was about to throw in was a wooden cradle. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the cradle where Kyle’s child had been peacefully sleeping. But the white blanket that should have covered the baby… was soaked in blood.

“No… no… please…”

Ariel, recognizing the cradle, collapsed again. She desperately covered her eyes, trying to hold back the tears, trying to deny the unbearable reality.

“…This can’t be.”

William also found it hard to accept.

“What crime did a baby commit…”

But Dolan’s next words shattered any remaining hope.

“You’re being weak. We naturally purged every single rebel ‘without exception.’”

“……”

William bowed his head. His shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

[You resonate with the trial!]

[Your resonance level is 90%!]

Instantly, a pain so intense it felt like my chest was melting made me kneel.

Even with ‘Patience,’ I couldn’t suppress the emotions, and my vision blurred.

An indescribable feeling boiled inside me, a sensation of endlessly falling into an abyss.

Crack.

I felt something inside me break.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to spew words of hatred.

If I could, I wanted to destroy everything in this world.

This must be what William was feeling. But he didn’t act on it. He only muttered softly.

“…I was going to be that child’s godfather.”

William slowly raised his head.

“I was going to care for that child as if it were my own, in place of my only friend.”

His face was expressionless. All emotion seemed erased as he looked up at Dolan.

“That was the only way I could atone to him.”

Then, I felt a hot sensation in my eyes.

Tears? Wiping them with my hand, I realized it wasn’t tears.

“Blood…”

My palm was stained bright red with blood.

And from William’s eyes, bloody tears were streaming down.

“But now… I can never atone for my sins.”

His blood-soaked hand clenched into a fist.

Even as he did so, William’s expression remained unchanged.

The face of someone devoid of something essential. It was almost identical to the William I had seen in Tristan’s past.

“Pfft…”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Man, I’m so scared.”

The Imperial soldiers, momentarily stunned by the ominous atmosphere, burst into laughter.

“What did you expect? Did you think we’d spare the foolish rebels who dared to defy His Majesty the Emperor?”

Dolan shouted at William.

“Fools deserve to die.”

“…Is that so?”

“Yes. Those who are of no use to this country and His Majesty the Emperor don’t deserve to live. No, they have no right to live.”

“……”

As if resigned, William closed his mouth.

“Ah! Commander, by the way, when we return, we’ll have to deal with that woman too.”

“That woman?”

“Ah, the Duke’s wife. She was quite pretty for a married woman. We’ll hurry back and finish her off-.”

Crunch.

A soft, squelching sound was heard.

The soldier who had been about to make a vulgar remark looked down at his chest, where the sound had come from.

“Huh…?”

There, a hand had pierced through his chest, crushing his heart. Someone with inhuman strength had struck before anyone could react, and the soldier was already dead.

“Who, who’s there!?!”

“Everyone, be on guard!”

Dolan, being the commander, quickly distanced himself and prepared to face the sudden attackers.

When had they appeared?

The bright bonfire illuminated figures clad in pitch-black military coats. They had appeared silently, all wearing steel lion masks.

“Ah, Aslan…”

The soldiers groaned as they recognized them. The private soldiers of the Ruelberta Family, known for their ruthlessness, were infamous even in this country.

But the soldiers’ tension wasn’t just because of that.

“H-how did so many of them appear all of a sudden…”

It wasn’t just a dozen or so, but over a hundred Aslan members standing by William’s side. They must have arrived in a hurry, yet they showed no signs of fatigue or movement. Moreover, the Roelgreen Castle was completely occupied by the Imperial Army. For such a large force to break through the Imperial Army’s encirclement and reach here was almost unbelievable.

The situation had completely reversed.

Realizing the disadvantage, Dolan immediately shouted.

“W-wait! Sir William! We have no desire to fight the Ruelberta Family! W-we apologize for threatening your life. We got carried away… I must’ve gone mad.”

“……”

“But we’ve already wiped out the rebels, so we’ll be returning to the capital soon. The battle is over. There’s no reason for us, as allies, to fight.”

“I see. There’s no reason for us to fight.”

William, who had been silently listening to Dolan, slowly nodded.

“Indeed, there’s no benefit for me in fighting you now.”

“Y-yes! You’re so wise.”

“So die.”

“…Huh?”

Dolan, who had been bowing his head, suddenly looked up. There, he saw William’s face.

“There’s no reason for us to fight. Only a reason for me to kill you.”

“W-wait… listen to me…”

“Didn’t you say it earlier, Dolan?”

William’s face was devoid of sorrow or hatred, just an expressionless mask as he spoke.

“Fools deserve to die. And those who are of no use don’t deserve to live and have no right to live.”

“Th-that’s…”

“So die.”

William’s eyes were dark and murky. Looking at him, I realized.

The William who once aspired to be a hero alongside Kyle was gone.

“You’re of no use to me alive.”

“Ugh…!?”

Dolan, peering into William’s abyss, broke out in a cold sweat.

“Y-you kill us, and His Majesty won’t stand idly by!”

“No. He’ll have no choice but to stay silent.”

“Huh?”

“The dead can’t be of any use.”

“?!”

Dolan was speechless. Ignoring him, William turned around. He gave an order to those waiting for his command.

“Kill them all.”

Just before disappearing into the dark abyss, William added briefly.

“Everything.”

 

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