“Cedric----!”
Peruan let go of the hand covering Ren’s mouth. No—Ren shook him off the moment the strength slipped from Peruan’s hand.
“Aaaaaah!”
“Wh-what is happening--!”
“Guards!”
“Aaaagh!”
“M-my God--! Wh-where are my knights?!”
“Racon! Racon! My escort!”
“R-run— urk.......”
“......!”
Starting with Ren’s scream, shrieks burst out from all across the audience.
Thud thud thud thud! The sound of people in the general seats jumping to their feet rang like thunder. The fleeing people tumbled and tangled together until they looked like one enormous mass.
It was utter chaos.
This place was hell.
Peruan’s face darkened. He rose from his seat and first broke the chain binding Ren’s wrist. When he gripped the link and exerted force, it snapped apart easily. Because he had prepared it in advance.
Clatter!
“Ren. Stay behind me and nowhere else.”
Ren looked as if he might leap down onto the stage at any moment. Peruan quickly caught him by the wrist.
“Ren! Please, if you go down there, you will only die for nothing!”
“You said you’d save everyone! You promised you’d save Cedric-!”
And now he was supposed to just stand here and watch?!
He was supposed to watch someone who had been moved to another wagon because he helped him?!
He would rather die with him-!
Ren knew he would be no help. He knew this anger was closer to lashing out.
But Ren did not want to run away alone. He did not know how to do that.
Throwing his body in and enduring the fear together was the foolish way Ren did things.
“I will go. So please, hide here.”
It was a hard command. Beneath that firm voice, there was a faint desperation. Peruan did not want Ren to be hurt.
Even now, blood was spraying across the stage.
Once they killed everyone they had dragged up there, where would they go next?
This audience would become their stage.
“I...”
I’m not putting anyone in front of me in my place.
Ren bit down hard on his lip.
It was stubborn. A burden. Even if he went down there, he might not even become a hostage. He might just be stabbed to death.
Far from confirming Cedric was safe, they might only brand each other’s dying faces into their hearts.
“Why are you trying to go that far! Is that person so precious to you?”
Ren shook his head. It wasn’t that.
“Then why? For what? Please leave this to me. This is because of my promise to you, yes, but it is also my mission.”
Peruan turned away.
“Stay still.”
Screams stretched out, echoing against the rounded ceiling like a round.
“Kindness.”
Ren murmured softly.
“Kindness?”
Peruan, who had been about to leap down below the stage, looked back at Ren.
A faint light was shining from Ren.
He could not understand it. Kindness? Just because of kindness?
Peruan’s eyes widened.
The light beginning from Ren’s hand swallowed Ren’s entire body.
“Ren......!”
Soft, clear light wrapped around Ren’s body and spread outward. It was such a beautiful and gentle light that even those screaming had their gazes stolen for an instant.
This was...
Ren blinked blankly. The peaceful energy almost made him feel as if he might drift off to sleep by mistake. The noise was pushed one step away.
The necklace.
The one the old apothecary gave me.
Was it a magical artifact?
He had worn it thinking of it like a lucky charm, but...
Did it activate when he was in danger?
The quiet around him seemed to press damply down on Ren. As if, if he simply fell asleep like this, everything would already be over when he woke...
‘No!’
Is it enough if only I’m safe?
His vision warped with light, blurring everything around him. As if telling him not to look!
‘No! I don’t want that!’
Before he realized it, Ren had risen from his seat and started running.
His slow steps gradually gained speed. The cluster of light that had seemed to tug him backward, as if trying to stop him, pushed him forward when Ren refused to give up.
The surroundings that had looked blurry grew clearer little by little, and the sounds that had moved away came close again.
“Ren--!”
Peruan called his name and hurried after him.
But catching up to Ren’s speed was not easy.
The people screaming tried to crawl down below the stage, but because they were tied together, they toppled over in a row. Those who slammed their faces into the spilled blood screamed and twisted. Yet before the swords of the masked people, their lives simply fell away in vain.
The people occupying the front row of the audience threw themselves onto the stage. As if offering themselves as human sacrifices. The swords cut them down without discrimination. Sword dance and blood droplets flew in a dizzying whirl.
Drops of blood splattered Ren’s pale face too.
“Ren! Ren-!”
He ran and ran. Dodging the people tangling together as they tried to flee, shoved back by the wave of bodies and then leaping over them, pulled by the power of light. No, dragging that power with him, he headed forward.
Found him.
Cedric.
Before him lay a path of death.
The streams of blood bursting out in surges drew a long road in front of Cedric. Then even the person sitting in front of him collapsed, and Cedric’s turn came.
He was just about to touch the sword.
Ren did not think he was too late.
Because right now, he was wrapped in light.
Not the evil light stretching out from the masks, but a warm, gentle light like Luman’s.
‘Ah. He told me not to do things like this.’
That dawn, when he had talked for a long time with Luman without knowing Luman would leave that day.
Golden eyes rose in his mind, waking his sleepy self as they earnestly asked him never to do something like that again.
‘But Luman. I don’t have a choice.’
Before he knew it, Ren thrust his body into that place and squeezed his eyes shut.
Because he knew the pain that was coming, he was even more afraid.
The wound near his heart, not yet fully healed, filled Ren with terror.
But.
He wanted to return even a small kindness.
I see.
That feeling was in Ren’s chest.
The kindness Cedric had given him was there, inside the wish to save Cedric.
‘Ah, then what am I supposed to do.......’
I don’t want to die.
He had not properly returned anything to Luman or Jepeto yet. He wanted to properly return the feelings they had taught him.
And so Ren did not want to die.
Not like this, leaving behind the faces he missed.
How ironic. His life was one that would not be strange to lose at any time, one that would not be a waste no matter where it was thrown away. That was what he had thought.
Life sometimes gives birth to attachment.
As Ren pushed his body into the sword, he desperately thought that he wanted to live.
Even as he laughed at his own contradiction, he wished for it with all his heart.
Ruuuumble.
At that moment, a vast dark-blue water swallowed the underground. The water poured out like an explosion and burst through the underground bunker. Cracks split the walls, and they began to cry out with a humming vibration.
Ren was not stabbed by the blade.
He had only been swallowed by an immense body of water. It felt strange. He should not be able to breathe underwater. Everyone else was bubbling out breath and clutching their throats, but Ren was completely fine.
Could this... be because of the necklace too?
Ren looked at the necklace wrapped around the hand floating in the water. The necklace shining eerily with dark-blue light.
O-old apothecary! Just how good of a necklace did you give me...!
W-wait! More importantly, this can’t happen! What if everyone dies! I don’t care about the bad guys, but the innocent people have to live......! How do I stop this thing!
Ren touched and rubbed the necklace desperately, but nothing happened.
His hair and clothes fluttered in ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) the water.
In the black water.
Ren felt his body floating quietly... then came back to his senses.
No. I have to break the magic.
Ren did not even know whether what had just unfolded was magic or not, but he did everything he could to break it.
Cedric, right in front of him, had opened his eyes wide and was clutching his throat too.
‘I have to break it!’
He touched this and that, squeezed hard, and who knew how many times he scraped at the decoration around the edges.
Then the jewel on the necklace scraped his skin. The moment the small bead of blood that welled up was diluted into the black water—
The water was sucked away in an instant and disappeared.
Cleanly.
Without leaving a single drop behind.
Ren sat collapsed on the floor with a dazed look on his face.
