Episode 75
"Irina... miss?"
Klana looked at Irina, who was in a panic, and asked with a trembling voice.
"Why... why are you calling Frey with such an expression?"
"Frey! Frey, where are you! Frey!!"
But Irina, pushing Klana aside, began frantically digging through the debris.
"Please... please! Please, please, please..."
"Irina... what's wrong with you...?"
Ariane, Irina's friend, approached her cautiously and asked with a trembling voice.
"A, Ariane... do you know where the man wearing the black hood is?"
Only then coming to her senses, Irina urgently corrected how she addressed Frey and asked.
"My last memory is..."
Ariane frowned and began to recall her memories.
"...So, I was escaping with Lulu from there when I was buried under a pillar of fire and lost consciousness. That was my last memory and the last moment I saw him."
Soon after she finished speaking, Irina urgently rose from her seat and began shouting at all the students.
"You all!! Do you know what happened to the man who was wearing the black hood!?"
"............"
Though Irina's voice was earnest and desperate, the students couldn't bring themselves to answer her.
Because they already knew the sad truth.
"...He jumped into the collapsing mansion to save Lady Perlotche."
Just when it seemed no one would step forward, suddenly a girl stepped forward and began to speak.
"And... he hasn't returned yet."
"What... did you say?"
As Irina sat down with a despairing expression upon hearing those words, the students beside the girl began to mutter with dark expressions.
"I don't know who he was, but he was incredibly brave..."
"That's right, if that person hadn't carried me and sent me out the window, I would have died from the poison gas..."
"I almost got hit by an intruder's sword... but that hooded man protected me and took the blade instead. Thanks to him I'm safe, but... he had a large wound on his back..."
"Wait, Lady Perlotche is alive, right? So... couldn't he also be alive in the basement?"
At the hopeful words of one of the students, the expressions of the surrounding students began to brighten.
"That's right! He went to save Lady Perlotche! And since Lady Perlotche is alive... he must be alive too!"
"Your Highness the Princess! Did you not see anyone else in the basement earlier?"
"Please let him be alive..."
Soon the students began speaking words of hope, praying, or asking questions to Klana, and Klana's expression as she looked at them grew increasingly pale.
"...Ugh."
Klana, with her pale face, blankly stared at the students full of expectation, then urgently began running toward the basement again.
- Shuuuu...
Soon after urgently absorbing the growing sphere back into her body, Klana examined Frey, whom she had confirmed dead, with a trembling expression.
"The hood..."
On his face, a black hood had been placed, having been removed by someone.
"You... did you save him?"
Only then realizing that Perlotche's words were true, Klana muttered with a pale, bewildered expression.
"Why, why? What reason did you have to save Perlotche... and all the students?"
Klana muttered thus and began quietly approaching Frey.
"You... you're a villain. I still remember the sensation of you piercing my heart. I was actually still alive until then."
Sitting beside Frey's tattered corpse, Klana muttered again with a blank expression.
"You... even when you pierced my heart, you smiled wickedly, didn't you? As if activating the magic circle that would bring destruction to the Empire was such an exciting thing, truly wickedly... hmm?"
As she had been muttering with a blank expression for a while, Klana realized that someone's hand was touching her shoulder.
"Your Highness the Princess, you've certainly made quite a mess of things?"
"...Eek!"
Startled by the voice, Klana fell forward and realized that the investigation team leader was staring right at her.
"Damaging a corpse... destroying a crime scene... this, this, even for the Third Princess, I don't think I can overlook this..."
The team leader, who had been scolding Klana with a grave voice, then raised the corner of his mouth and made a circle with his thumb and index finger as he finished speaking.
"...If you provide a little token of appreciation, I might be able to turn a blind eye."
After saying that and winking, the team leader spoke to the investigation members beside him.
"Carry him out carefully. Don't drop him on the ground like last time."
"Yes!!"
The members loaded Frey, who had been reduced to a wreck, onto a stretcher and began slowly exiting the basement.
"I'll send you the manual by mail soon! Cash payment would be preferred if possible... and if that's not convenient, gemstones would also... Your Highness the Princess? Are you listening?"
And leaving behind the team leader who was chattering away, Klana slowly began following them.
Though she still didn't understand well, she instinctively felt that something was going very wrong.
"...He, he's coming out!"
"He must be alive! Thank goodness!"
"Of course... he looked incredibly strong just looking at him, there's no way he would die that easily."
As Frey's ragged corpse emerged outside, the commoners began gathering one by one with bright expressions.
"Excuse me, could you tell me your name! Even if I have to work a part-time job, I will definitely repay..."
Among them, the orphanage staff member's younger sister, who had been saved by Frey when she was nearly dead, began speaking with the brightest expression.
...Hah!
But upon discovering Frey's wretched state, her face turned pale and she fell backward.
"F, Frey? Why is Frey...?"
As the girl muttered with a soulless expression, the gathered students also confirmed Frey's face one by one and began muttering with blank expressions.
"What? Why is Frey...?"
"He definitely went somewhere this morning... why is he in this state..."
"Wait, these clothes and hood... don't tell me...?"
As the students were slowly piecing together their deductions, Ariane, who had been quietly watching Frey, began muttering with a shocked expression.
"The one who saved everyone... was really you, Frey?"
At those words, all the surrounding students froze.
In truth, they had suspected it to some extent, but because Ariane had said outright what their brains had been refusing to conclude.
"Frey saved me...?"
"This can't be... why would that Frey...?"
"I don't understand... just yesterday he was mocking me. And yet he took a blade for me instead?"
While all the students were muttering in panic, someone began slowly approaching from afar.
"Frey... no. Frey. Open your eyes. Frey..."
Irina was approaching with a smile.
"Stop with the jokes and get up, Frey. Why are you playing pranks you used to do when you were little?"
Though her mouth was smiling, the students, overwhelmed by her expression with dead eyes, moved aside one by one from Frey's side. Irina sat beside Frey and began speaking.
"Alright, I lost, so stop it. Stop it and let's go eat fish. Okay? Frey?"
"Miss Irina..."
"Frey, I was wrong, so please stop. I'll do better from now on. I haven't even been able to apologize to you yet. So please..."
"...Mr. Frey is dead."
"No!! He's not dead!!!"
A student who couldn't bear to watch her tried to stop Irina, but when she shouted, the student flinched and stepped back.
"Frey... please, please open your eyes. I haven't apologized to you yet... and I haven't repaid my debt yet... please... please open your..."
"M, Miss Irina."
Irina continued to shake Frey and mutter, and Klana, who had momentarily stopped thinking at the bizarre situation, cautiously approached her and asked.
"H, how... how did this..."
"...Your Highness the Princess, let me ask you one thing."
Suddenly stopping her shaking of Frey, Irina glared at Klana and muttered in a low voice.
"You planned this, didn't you, Your Highness?"
"W, well..."
"I'm asking if you did."
When the princess stammered at her words, Irina spoke in a cold voice.
"Is it true what Frey said, that you were planning his assassination..."
"I, I..."
When Klana couldn't answer to the continued questioning, Irina created a giant meteor in the air and shouted.
"Tell me!!!!!!!!!!"
"Eek!"
As Klana stepped backward at the overwhelming sight and fell onto a rock, Irina, straining to maintain the meteor, began speaking with a soulless voice.
"Speak, Your Highness the Princess."
"Y, yes... I did it..."
When Klana, overwhelmed by Irina, finally answered in a small voice, Irina began staring at her blankly.
"Do you... know what you've just done?"
"W, what?"
Irina, who had been staring blankly at Klana for a while, spoke to her with a voice mixed with sorrow and anger.
"You just ended the world's only hope."
"The only hope...?"
"Frey was... Frey was..."
Irina, trembling as she maintained the meteor aimed at Klana, drove the meteor into the ground as she finished speaking.
"...the hero who was to defeat the Demon King."
- KUGWAGWANG!
At those words, the meteor that fell powerlessly to the ground crashed with a roar right beside Klana and began burning red.
Though she hated Klana terribly, Irina, who also knew her position well, had altered the meteor's trajectory at the last moment.
"Frey was... the hero?"
As Irina collapsed from using too much mana, Klana stood there blankly, chewing over Irina's words.
"Coo..."
"...Ah."
Turning her head at the sound, Klana slowly rose from her spot and began walking back to where Frey's corpse had been.
"Coo... coo..."
"This is..."
A white owl had placed a letter on Frey's chest and was gently tapping his face with its wings, with sad eyes.
- Why aren't you replying? I'm almost there. Please, please reply that you're alive.
"...Ah."
Seeing the familiar handwriting on the letter, Klana sat weakly on the ground and thought.
Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
.
"So... Frey threw himself in to save you all...?"
"Yes... though I don't know why he did that..."
"He did save us, but actually Mr. Frey's physical condition was the worst. But... he still saved students without resting."
Isollet, who had been in a daze for a while, came to her senses and began questioning the children.
Indescribable emotions were consuming her, but to know the truth. She needed to find out what was fact and what was fiction.
She continued her investigation without missing even the smallest clue.
"Frey... why, why did he do such a thing?"
After investigating for a while, Isollet reached one conclusion.
That Frey had saved everyone.
That was the single truth that all the testimonies and evidence pointed to.
'So... you weren't actually a villain?'
But Isollet couldn't deduce why Frey had done that.
It was true that he was her first disciple and a sore spot, and she did have compassion for him... but the current Frey was clearly a villain, enough that ordinary scoundrels couldn't even compare.
Yet, why did such a person save everyone and die?
Did his upright and pure spirit from childhood suddenly awaken?
Why, exactly?
'Young master! Young master!!!'
'Oppa!!!'
'...Kania?'
While she was deep in thought, suddenly desperate cries began to be heard from somewhere.
'Young master! Are you........'
'Oppa, what on earth is all this.......'
Kania and Aria, with pale faces, ran into the courtyard and froze at the sight of the collapsed mansion.
'...Ugh.'
Meanwhile, Klana, who had been kneeling blankly by Frey's side, began to turn blue at Kania's appearance.
If it was Kania, whom she thought had betrayed her and joined Frey, she would know what had happened.
And the moment she heard the truth she would speak, everything would become irreversible.
'Young.......master?'
'...Oppa?'
But one cannot cover the sun with their hand.
Kania, who had been frantically looking around, eventually found her master's corpse.
'...Young master.'
Staring blankly at Frey's corpse for a moment, Kania knelt on the spot and collapsed.
'H, how did this happen? How... what on earth happened! What on earth happened!!'
Meanwhile, Aria, looking at her brother's cold corpse in disbelief, began screaming at the people around her.
'Why, why did only our brother die!! Why!! Why our brother of all people!!!'
'Aria...'
Isollet, watching her, answered with a trembling voice.
'...Frey died saving everyone.'
'What?'
'Intruders who broke into the mansion released poison gas and set fire, and Frey fought against them while evacuating students one by one.'
Isollet pointed to the commoners surrounding Frey's corpse and continued.
'These children are all the children Frey saved. He saved every single one of them without exception.'
'O, oppa...? You're saying oppa...?'
When Aria asked with trembling eyes, a girl beside her confirmed Isollet's words.
'That's right, and when the fire started... he even threw all our luggage from the commoners' quarters outside. I told him not to and save himself first, but he said this is everything to the commoners...'
'O, oppa...'
As Aria began to sob, Isollet, watching her with a sad expression, quietly closed her eyes and finished speaking.
'While saving everyone, he went into the collapsing mansion to save Lady Perlotche who was left behind... and though he saved her, in order to restore the protective magic circle to protect her, he poured all his mana from outside the basement and... died using up all his strength...'
'Oppa!!!'
Aria, unable to listen to all of Isollet's words, burst into tears and hugged the tattered Frey, screaming loudly.
'Why... why did you do that!! Something you never did before... why!! Why on earth...'
'...Miss.'
'Kania! You, you know the truth, right? You know!!'
When Kania spoke with a trembling voice beside her, Aria grabbed Kania's collar and began pleading.
'Please! Tell me the truth!! Please...!'
'.........'
'Everything is over now!! The brother who had the secret is dead! The mansion has collapsed! So... please tell me the truth now!!'
Though Aria pleaded with tears streaming down, Kania remained silent.
She too was in great shock at seeing Frey before her eyes, because she didn't want to believe the death of the master of the same age she had come to love.
'...Kania, do you know something.'
As Kania remained silent, Isollet, who had been standing quietly beside her, spoke up.
'If you know something, please tell us the truth. I beg you.'
With an earnest expression, Isollet finished speaking and knelt before Kania, pleading.
'I... need to know the truth.'
'That's right! Please...! Please Kania... we can't just bury everything like this!!'
Then Aria also joined Isollet in pleading.
'E, excuse me...'
'...Huh?'
Just as Kania, who had been watching them with tears, was about to speak, someone beside her spoke to her.
'K, Kania... so...'
Turning her head at the familiar voice, Kania discovered Klana, who had been listening to their conversation, approaching her with a pale face trying to say something, and she hardened her expression and began walking toward her.
'...So, how do you feel about it?'
'I, I...'
When Kania asked with a cold expression, Klana, recalling Irina's earlier reaction, shrank and began speaking with a trembling voice.
'I... I want to know the truth...'
'Um... everyone, I think you need to see this.'
Just as Kania, who had been looking coldly at Klana, was about to say something, a student stepped forward and held out a paper envelope.
'...What is that?'
Isollet, with a wary expression, received the envelope the student held out, and then froze completely.
[Last Will and Testament - To be opened only if I die without defeating the Demon King.]
'This is... what...'
'Um... Mr. Frey told me before he went into the collapsing mansion that there was a will in his bag's secret pocket...'
'...What?'
'Mr. Frey's bag happened to be where the students' luggage was gathered, so... I looked through it...'
Isollet, listening blankly to the student's words, opened the envelope with trembling hands.
- Rustle...
Inside the envelope were several letters and one document.
'T, this is...'
Carefully taking them out, Isollet picked up a letter with an expression of disbelief.
- To Isollet noona
This was because she discovered her name written in familiar handwriting on the envelope containing the letter.
'Frey...'
With shaking hands, she tore open the envelope and read the contents, then collapsed to the ground.
'Frey...'
And began to sob in grief.
'...Ugh.'
Klana, watching this in shock, discovered an envelope that had fallen before her and began to groan.
'What... what is all this...'
Soon Klana, muttering in panic, began to reach for the envelope.
- Shuuuu......
'...Hah!'
Then her eyes filled with terror as black energy surged toward her.
'You... you killed the young master...'
'...Miss Kania?'
'Because of you... because of you...'
Before her stood Kania, who had fallen into despair while reading the letter addressed to her and had begun to rampage.
'...No, it's my fault too. No. This is my fault.'
'K... khh...'
'If I had been in the mansion today... if I had just received the treatment a little later... I, I...'
Caught off guard by the sudden attack, Klana tried to invoke the sun's mana, but the dark magic power emanating from Kania in despair was too thick and strong.
It was the moment when Kania's dark magic power, which had enough potential to swallow the continent, fully awakened in the worst direction.
'W, wait! Kania!'
'Miss Kania...!'
Thanks to Isollet and Perlotche who urgently rushed at Kania, Klana was barely able to escape the dark magic power.
'...Ah?'
Klana, blankly watching Kania screaming while being suppressed by Isollet and Perlotche, suddenly noticed that a letter had popped out from the envelope before her.
- To Klana
It was a letter Frey had left for her.
'Cough! Cough!!'
While coughing from the dark magic power still remaining around her, Klana picked up the letter with trembling hands and carefully tore open the envelope.
- I apologize for not keeping the promise from our childhood, Your Highness the Princess.
'Ah, ah...'
As Klana carefully read the first line of the letter, tears finally began to flow from her eyes.
- I wanted to make you Emperor with my own hands.
'No...'
The tears she shed were, cruelly, shining in the sunlight.