In Yuli’s heart, a darkness like banked embers clung, scorched in place.
It was the wicked heart she had struggled to reject and deny. A cursed emotion she had buried at the very bottom, while emphasizing the code of a knight, while vowing to live by the sword and die by the sword.
Yuli knew all of it, however faintly.
She had known, and yet she had deceived herself by pretending not to.
……In the winters of Freyden, snow always fell. The night wind was cold, and sleet came rushing in as though to shatter the body.
Yuli endured that bitter cold alone.
A daughter born a sinner, who had killed her mother.
A remnant of bloodline with no right to the family, to whom nothing would ever be given.
Yuli accepted herself as that meaningless being.
At far too young an age, she accepted a life far too worthless.
“……Yuli. Would you like to try holding it?”
And yet, on one freezing winter day.
When a sword was placed in her small hands.
When she felt the mana dwelling in that blade, the blue crystals sprouting upon it, and the power drawing her in.
Yuli realized.
If there was any value to her existence, any reason for her to live, anything permitted to her alone as a Freyden—
It would be this single sword.
“……It is a severe wound. You will never be able to hold a sword again.”
That was why, when she heard those words one day.
Yuli felt as though her heart had shattered.
Her whole body trembled, and she resented it so much she could have gone mad.
Dozens, hundreds of times a day, she regretted it.
I should never have accepted Deculein’s mission.
I should never have protected him.
I should have abandoned him and run.
It was all because of that man…….
True emotions rising from the depths of humanity. Hatred with nowhere to go, long-festered grudges.
But Yuli rejected them, denied them, and trained with the sword. She blamed only herself.
She was accustomed to placing all fault upon herself.
She had lived that way until now, and she would continue to live that way.
“……It’s a miracle. The wound in your dantian is healing. Of course, the curse remains, but as long as you’re careful not to overuse your mana, you can hold a sword again…….”
Overcoming it was a miracle. On the day the elder of her family gave her that diagnosis, Yuli smiled more brightly than ever before.
Zeit patted her on the back and told her she had done well, and Josephine embraced her without a word.
At that moment, Yuli was certain.
Effort does not betray.
No, the sword does not betray me.
The dream given to me is still with me.
“……Yuli. The Yukline family is considering an engagement between you and Deculein. It is a good opportunity, so think carefully.”
During the days when she continued with the sword, on one clear spring day, Deculein appeared again.
Zeit called it a good opportunity, and the elders pushed her forward.
Yuli searched her own heart. She thought of the man she had once resented.
But there was no way she could refuse.
Because Zeit wanted it, and Freyden wanted it.
Because, for the first time in her life, the family had told her, “We need you.”
“……No more dangerous missions. Leave the Imperial Knights as well. I will give you the knights of Hadekain. Build your career there for three years or so, then live with me.”
At the betrothal meeting, Deculein made his demand.
Quit the knights, and live for your spouse. If she did, he would give her everything.
Yuli refused.
She had no choice but to.
For to tell her to put down her sword was the same as telling her to die.
“……Yuli. Sit this mission out. It’s dangerous. Your fiancé might come looking for us again.”
After that, Deculein bound her. He called it love as he tightened his grip around her throat. He thoroughly isolated her so that no one in the knights could approach her, and excluded her from dangerous missions as well.
In the end.
“……Yuli’s quitting? Good. If she stayed for no reason, we’d be the ones suffering.”
“Exactly. I really hope she just lives as a noble lady now. Hadekain is so nice, isn’t it? At that resort…….”
She lost her dream for the second time.
At that moment, she could not help but resent him. She could not help but recall the beginning. She could not help but murmur aloud.
……I should have let you die.
Emotions piled layer upon layer over a long time.
A crust of resentment, endlessly sedimented and hardened deep within.
An ill-fated bond that had gone terribly wrong from the very first button.
──And yet.
“I did that to you.”
……Returning to reality, Yuli looked at Igrise.
He said that the entire “beginning” had been his doing, correcting the cause of their wretched ill-fated bond from its origin, and slowly closed his eyes.
“From here, your world appears hazy. Everything feels so very distant. It seems not even a year has passed since my mind became this clear.”
The boundary between the afterlife and the living world. A place where souls who cannot quite die wander.
For a knight, merely existing so tenaciously in such an in-between place would be a disgrace.
“Yuli. I was the one who said a knight must not have lingering attachments, and yet here I am, still so attached that I became a ghost of the Imperial Palace.”
Igrise tilted his head slightly downward. He murmured as though sighing.
“However, my lingering attachment was not resentment over my death, but shame over my life.”
Whooo—
A faint wind swept in and shook the candle upon the wooden table.
“At that time, I was intoxicated with what I believed to be right. I thought I had to stop Decalane’s plan, and I used you for it.”
Yuli’s body did not move. Unable to think anything, unable to do anything, she simply hardened like wax…….
“Deculein knew that as well.”
“…….”
Yuli blankly lifted her eyes. A hot breath lingered in her throat.
Igrise, on the other hand, lowered his head.
“And yet, Deculein did not tell you.”
Igrise knew.
Why Deculein wanted Yuli to hate him.
And why Yuli’s healing was achieved through hatred.
He had come to realize it while watching him from this place.
“He merely tried to keep you alive.”
“…….”
“Yuli. You possess a special power. You may not know it, but your emotions govern it. More than anyone else in our family, you were born with the blood of Freyden running thick within you.”
The master of winter, Freyden.
Just as Yukline stirred before demons, and Iliade was swept up in ambition, Freyden too possessed a “proof of bloodline.”
“If you hate or loathe someone, your mana grows cold. Cold enough to freeze this world.”
That mana of bitter frost was even now holding back the curse circulating through her veins. It was sustaining her life.
“Because Deculein knew that, he asked for your hatred. Hoping that you would live.”
Suddenly, the candle on the wooden table flared fiercely.
“……Enduring becoming the object of hatred to the one he loved, accepting the agony of wounding you—Deculein has lived that way.”
That spark was reflected in Yuli’s pupils. Shadows flickered.
“For no reason other than the single wish that you remain alive.”
“…….”
Her body sagged weakly.
It felt as though she had suddenly fallen into the sea.
“Yuli. I am ashamed of myself. And I am ashamed of you as well.”
Igrise spoke of shame.
At that moment, something surged up violently inside Yuli.
Whether it was tears, or anger, she did not know——
“……Father.”
Yuli muttered so, clenching her fist.
“Did you truly never love me, not even once?”
Igrise did not avoid Yuli’s eyes as they glared at him. Rather, he met them directly and said,
“Yes. I always resented you. You, who killed my wife.”
Yuli’s breath stopped.
Her lips trembled.
A hollow laugh slipped out.
It felt as though her heart were collapsing.
“You should never have been born.”
All those emotions accumulated over a long time, that crust of thick years, in a single instant…….
So emptily.
“……Ah.”
Yuli stared blankly up at Igrise. A single stream of transparent tears flowed down. She let out a groan and clenched her teeth.
“Then why…… did you.”
She gripped the sword at her waist. With a distorted face, she glared at her father.
Thud─!
Yuli knocked over the chair and rose to her feet. She drew her sword.
As though mocking her, Igrise said,
“Not because I wanted it. Because your mother did. Your mother, whom you killed.”
“……!”
At that moment, boiling rage burned away her reason. Her eyes went bloodshot as though they would burst. The entire world was dyed crimson.
She raised her sword.
“───!”
Letting out a scream she herself did not recognize, she swung at her own father, who remained as a spirit…….
“……Why do you hesitate?”
But she could not bring it down. The blade stayed in midair, and the tip trembled like paper.
Yuli bowed her head and wept. Blood fell from her tightly bitten lip.
“I know…… that it is a lie.”
Igrise’s brow furrowed.
“A lie? How foolish. Yuli. When have I ever—”
“Even if it is not a lie, I will regard it as one. I…… if I do not do at least that…….”
Tap—!
In that instant, the sound of a cane rang against the ground.
The precarious atmosphere calmed at once, and Yuli and Igrise turned toward it at the same time.
“……Deculein.”
Igrise murmured lowly.
Yuli, her face slack like a doll’s, covered in blood and tears.
Deculein looked back and forth between the two of them, then shook his head.
“That is enough. It is over now.”
He approached slowly and lowered the sword held in Yuli’s hand. He embraced her as she staggered.
“Yuli will not harm you. That would not be Yuli. You know that, do you not?”
“…….”
Igrise silently let out a sigh.
In the room where the candle wavered within the darkness, a vermilion shadow spread across his face.
* * *
“……Hmph. What a complicatedly tangled fate.”
A cramped room in the old mansion.
Sophien was now watching Deculein and Yuli. It was a scene being projected through a crystal ball by another Deculein, that is, the “Professor within her memories.”
“Professor. Are you not disappointed? Deculein is with Yuli.”
Sophien asked the Deculein who was not Deculein. The Professor answered calmly.
“That was originally his share.”
“I am disappointed.”
Sophien shook her head. For no reason, her insides felt unsettled.
“Will those two not end up together like that?”
“They cannot. Your Majesty knows that as well.”
“…….”
Deculein loved Yuli.
However, he always kept the words he spoke. The ending Deculein had promised was a broken engagement and farewell.
Thus, those two were fated not to be together.
“The sun will rise soon.”
“Yes.”
Sophien looked out the window. The sun was slowly rising.
She asked the Professor,
“What do you intend to do now?”
He looked back at the Emperor.
“As I told you, I am a memory. Now, Your Majesty’s decision will be necessary.”
“……Decision?”
“Yes.”
The Professor pointed at the Deculein within the crystal ball.
“If I meet the Deculein there, our two sets of memories will connect. That Deculein will also come to possess the memories of being with Your Majesty inside the Demon’s Mirror.”
“…….”
For an instant, Sophien’s eyes widened. An emotion unlike her wavered within them.
“However, I myself do not know very well what will happen to the Deculein who remembers it.”
“……And that is my decision?”
“Yes. I am Your Majesty’s subject, so I will follow Your Majesty’s will.”
The Professor said so.
Yet his gaze, of all places, was fixed on Yuli within the crystal ball.
“Hey.”
Sophien tapped his shoulder.
The Professor cleared his throat—Ahem—and turned back to her.
“Therefore, now it is Your Majesty’s decision. Do you wish for me to remain with Your Majesty? Or…….”
It was at that moment.
────!
A roar resounded from every direction, and the window shattered. The ceiling came crashing down with a crack.
“They have found us even here. Those Altar bastards.”
Sophien smiled. The Professor also nodded silently.
“So it seems.”
“But continue speaking.”
Sophien loosened the muscles of her neck with a crack.
To begin with, she was not an emperor without martial force, so she had no intention of simply taking this. She would not be protected like some cripple.
Rather, now that she had trained in magic and swordsmanship with a fair amount of diligence, Sophien was curious about her own level.
“Professor, if you become one body with that Deculein, what will happen?”
The Professor also warmed up his mana. Facing the external threat directly, he said,
“Most likely, I will die.”
Die.
At that single word, Sophien’s face hardened. Yet Deculein was calm.
“Explain in detail. When you say you will die…….”
Kwaaaaaang──!
An entire wall of the room collapsed.
The forces of the Altar surged in like a wave.