“Ha, haha…….”
The adrenaline that had made my blood boil like mad—the explosive excitement and frenzy that had seemed as if it would burn my brain to ash—cut off as if it had all been a lie.
In my ears, the rupturing sounds of dozens of bodies bursting apart and Cassian’s screams still buzzed like tinnitus. Only a few minutes ago, I had been roaring with laughter like a madwoman, turning people into lumps of meat with my own hands. My fingertips still remembered the horrific sensation of tearing human beings apart, yet the world before my eyes was chillingly quiet and peaceful.
That dreadful cognitive dissonance.
As if a switch had been flipped, the nerves that had been stretched taut with survival instinct and murderous intent suddenly went slack. In the space where that extreme exhilaration receded like the tide, an inexplicable, grotesque chill and nausea flooded in.
Instead of the sickening stench of burning flesh, the musty smell of an old room pricked my nose. Instead of the sight of crimson blood spurting like fountains, there was the pale face of a girl reflected in the mirror.
My brain was screaming that I had killed dozens of people and died with my head cut off, yet my body was breathing, perfectly intact. That extreme sense of estrangement twisted my insides without mercy. The senses that had been severed came rushing back at an abnormal speed, bringing with them a terrible urge to vomit.
“Uuugh!”
I staggered away from the mirror and collapsed facedown on the floor, retching as I squeezed my empty stomach. It was a wretched bout of dry heaving that could not even bring up proper bile. In the burning pain that felt as if my esophagus were being scorched, one question kept circling endlessly through my mind.
What the hell did I do wrong?
What terrible crime had I committed in a past life, to be dragged into this insane world and forced to suffer such awful pain?
Whether I closed my eyes or opened them again, all I saw was red blood. Scarlet’s head, plunging to the floor. The final look in that child’s empty red eyes as they fixed on me was branded onto my retinas as if seared there by a hot iron, refusing to disappear.
And then came the horrific phantom pain.
The cold touch of metal digging into my neck, that bizarre sense of severance as bone shattered and flesh parted. Agonizing pain climbed my spine, choking off my breath.
Fuck. Fuck. I feel like I’m going insane.
I raised my trembling hand and groped at my neck. It was smooth. Not a single drop of blood stained it, and there wasn’t even a trace of a cut. That perfection only came upon me as a terrible fear that squeezed my throat shut. If there was a hell worse than death, it had to be this endless cycle where I could not even end death on my own terms.
“Fuck…… Fuck, fuck! What kind of bullshit is this!”
The trembling that began at my fingertips spread through my entire body. My teeth clacked together, and the muscles in my legs spasmed on their own. The dam I had barely managed to hold together to preserve my reason collapsed completely.
“You fucking bastard!!!”
I screamed like a beast. The shriek I tore from my throat rang savagely through the cramped solitary room.
As if in a fit, I ran to the bookshelf. The books I had skimmed carelessly on the first day I possessed this body. Somewhere among them was that damned book—the source of this insane world, the one that had mocked my death with something like a settlement report. I had to find that book.
I pulled out every book my hands touched and flipped through the pages like a lunatic. But the books were nothing more than old, foul-smelling scraps of paper. Not even the shadow of those damned letters that had laughed at me was there. As if I had gone mad all by myself and seen hallucinations.
“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I hurled the book in my hand at the wall. With a thud, its spine broke, and pages scattered through the air.
Even that did not relieve me. No, this was less anger than desperate flailing. I began throwing and smashing everything in the room that I could get my hands on. I kicked over the old chair and smashed the dishes on the table against the wall, shattering them to pieces.
Crash!
Shards flew everywhere, and blood dripped from my torn palm, but compared to the phantom pain of my neck being cut off, that much pain did not even register.
“What is going on!”
At the terrible commotion, the firmly shut iron door of the solitary room rattled and was flung open roughly. It was an imperial knight who had been standing guard outside.
For an instant, it felt as if time had stopped.
The moment the silver armor of the knight who opened the door and entered came into view, the sense of reality I had barely been clinging to was utterly shattered. The man standing before my eyes was not an ordinary knight who had come to stop me. The faces of the dozens of knights who had burst apart under my hands, and the knight who, drenched in madness amid the flames, had swung his greatsword down toward my neck, overlapped perfectly with the man before me.
Clink. The tiny metallic sound of the startled knight unconsciously placing his hand on the sword at his waist. To my eardrums, that sound rang out like a death sentence.
‘He’s going to kill me.’
The horrific arc of the sword cleaving through the air and coming down was drawn vividly before my eyes once more. A cold lump of metal was rushing toward my neck. Blood splattered, my vision overturned, and the ash-gray world descended upon me.
“Ah, aaah…… Aaaah!”
I could not breathe. My vision flickered violently. I tried to step back, but my legs, frozen stiff with terror, betrayed my will.
My entire body went rigid as violent spasms seized me. My breathing twisted grotesquely, and only a wheezing sound scraped out of my throat.
“Are you all right!”
The sight of the knight reaching out in alarm as he approached looked to me like a reaper charging in to cut off my head.
“D-don’t come……!”
I desperately flailed my hands at empty air and stumbled backward, only to lose my balance and crash to the floor. The muscles throughout my body lost control and jerked. Clutching madly at the nape of my neck that had been severed, I rolled across the floor, convulsing as if in a seizure.
The afterimage of death had become an ash-gray phantom, binding me like a beast once again.
#
“Lady Iliana suddenly had a fit and collapsed!”
The moment she heard that urgent message, Scarlet dropped the teacup she was holding to the floor. She did not even hear the sound of the expensive porcelain shattering. Forgetting all decorum, she seized the hem of her skirt and ran hastily down the corridor.
Scarlet’s mind had gone completely white, leaving her unable to think.
It had already been a month since Emperor Cassian’s bloody coronation. Throughout that hellish month, Iliana had been locked in a cold solitary room where not even sunlight properly entered.
‘Poor Sister…….’
Scarlet bit her lip. During the entire time she had been imprisoned, Iliana had been as quiet as the dead. Without any rebellion or demands, she had merely grown pale and thin, acting like a person who had given up. Someone who had endured a month in silence without incident had suddenly smashed everything in the room, suffered a fit, and collapsed.
It felt as if her heart dropped. By the time Scarlet’s breath had risen raggedly to her throat, she finally saw the heavy iron door of the solitary room where Iliana was confined.
“Stop.”
The two imperial knights firmly guarding the entrance crossed their spears and blocked Scarlet’s path. The keen blades came close enough to touch her nose, but Scarlet did not so much as blink.
“Move.”
“No one may enter this place without His Majesty’s command.”
“If you stop me from even confirming what happened inside, and something happens to Lady Iliana, will you take responsibility?”
At Scarlet’s cold, forceful voice, the knights’ eyes wavered.
“If there is a problem, I, as the head maid who oversees the imperial palace, will take full responsibility. Open the door. Now.”
It was a decisive command. Pressed down by her momentum, the knights eventually withdrew their spears and stepped back.
Until very recently, this would have been unimaginable. Scarlet had originally been nothing more than the insignificant young lady of an obscure viscount family. She had entered the confinement palace as a low-ranking maid, burdened with every kind of menial task.
But once Cassian ascended the throne, the situation reversed completely. Scarlet’s position rose sharply, and mere knights could not ignore the warning of the head maid, who was practically one of the emperor’s closest aides.
Creeeak! The door opened with a dull scrape. Scarlet rushed inside and sucked in a breath at the dreadful sight.
The room was a mess, as though a storm had swept through it. A broken chair, dishes shattered to pieces, and torn pages scattered everywhere. In the middle of that miserable ruin, Iliana was curled up.
“Sister……!”
Scarlet cried out urgently and approached.
Iliana, who had been sitting on the floor with her face buried in her knees, slowly raised her head. As if cut by broken shards, red blood was dripping from her white hands.
But Iliana’s expression was strange. The moment her eyes met Scarlet’s, Iliana’s red eyes widened as if they were about to burst. Her face, utterly drained of blood, was colored with shock, like someone facing a ghost who had returned alive from hell.
“S-Sister? You’re bleeding. Good heavens, what on earth happened…….”
Just as Scarlet approached with a worried face and was about to reach out her hand—
“Scarlet……!”
Iliana let out a beastlike sob and flung herself forward.
“Ah!”
Scarlet fell helplessly to the floor. Iliana wrapped her arms around Scarlet’s neck and shoulders so tightly it felt as if she would crush them. She held her so hard that Scarlet’s bones ached.
“Thank God, thank God……. You’re alive…….”
Iliana’s body was trembling like an aspen leaf. With her face buried against the nape of Scarlet’s neck, she muttered incomprehensible words like a madwoman in a voice that sounded as if she were about to stop breathing. The hot blood flowing from her hand stained Scarlet’s clothes red, but Iliana paid it no mind and clung to Scarlet even more desperately, as if trying to confirm her warmth.
‘Why on earth is she acting like this……?’
Bewildered, Scarlet’s hand hesitated in midair.
The Iliana she knew was not this kind of person. She had always been cold as frost, upright to the point of arrogance, and a cool woman who never revealed her emotions on the surface. Though Scarlet had followed her blindly and stayed by her side, Iliana had never once been the first to pour out her feelings so fiercely and openly while embracing her like this.
It was a gesture so desperate and sorrowful, as if Scarlet herself had just died horribly before her eyes moments ago.
Scarlet stared into space with confused eyes, then carefully patted Iliana’s trembling back. Whatever had happened in this cramped solitary room did not matter. What mattered was that she needed her.