Chapter 276
There once was a girl. She had the noblest blood in the Empire but a part of her blood was that of an insignificant bloodline. Her mother was just one of the Emperor’s many concubines.
Maybe she hadn’t realized it before in her childhood, but now, the constant threats against her life were apparent. Her enemies would grin and offer her their hand and then, out of nowhere, throw a knife at her. She repeatedly ingested poisons as part of her regular diet, thankfully overcoming death each time.
That was the life the girl knew, ever since she learned how to walk. She lost her emotions before her tenth birthday.
She always wondered if this was really life. Like a moth, she never knew whether she’d live to see the next day or not. She existed entirely within the palace under strict conditions for the sake of her personal safety.
That wasn’t all.
She knew what her fate would be after finally becoming an adult after suffering through all that. Once she came to a marriageable age, she would be sold off to a high-ranking aristocrat or tossed into an arranged marriage to a foreign noble from a neighboring country.
“I want to die,” she mumbled the day before her coming-of-age ceremony. Unlike her lush beauty and beautiful outfit, her voice was indifferent and dull.
The girl truly did not want to live anymore. If someone told her that they could kill her without causing any pain, she had a feeling that she would answer quite quickly.
Perhaps God had heard the poor girl’s prayers?
Then, things went crazy.
Shick!
“Keugh!”
The knight who had loyally guarded the girl her entire life let out a desperate scream and collapsed.
“Pri… Ru… I’m… sor—”
Her guardian trembled for a minute before his body lost strength. His heart had been pierced.
“....”
The girl wordlessly raised her eyes from her knight. People wearing black masks had killed all of the knights who were escorting her.
Except for herself, everyone was dead. And now it was her turn.
“…Are you going to kill me?”
As she stared up at the black-clad figures, her voice couldn’t help but tremble as it slipped from her lips.
This was definitely not what she’d wanted.
But why? Why did the one emotion that she had sealed deep in her heart suddenly rise up?
Eventually, as one of the figures approached her, the girl muttered softly:
“I want to live…”
After that, the girl lost consciousness.
***
“Haah!”
The woman suddenly awoke and sat up in the bed. Her back was damp with cold sweat.
“Why is that old dream coming back?”
She mumbled in a daze as she swept up her sea-blue hair with her hands. The moonlight pouring through the window told her that it was still the middle of the night.
“Recently, I’ve been having nightmares about that time…”
She bit her soft lips. She had started having those dreams again after a long period of quiet; it was probably because of the news about Joshua from days ago.
The woman stood up with a determined look in her eyes. She appeared to have made up her mind on something.
“I need to find out.”
Knock, knock.
The woman was suddenly startled by someone knocking on her door. For a second, she felt guilty, like she was planning on doing something she shouldn’t. But who had come looking for her at such an hour?
"No way…?”
She was staring at the door when a thought crossed her mind; her eyes widened.
Although he had a variety of trials that she could never even begin to understand, he was a child who put his mother before himself. Not only that, he always surprised his mother with miracles, so maybe—
She didn’t think about it for long. Lucia quickly approached the door and roughly pulled on the doorknob.
Her face fell with disappointment when she saw who was on the other side of the door.
Although they were similar in height, the knight in uniform was not her son.
The problem was, not only was she disappointed, but she also recognized the knight.
“I… Sir Chiffon… What brings you…?”
Chiffon, Vanessa’s closest aid, was the one behind the door. He was supposed to be at the main house, so Lucia’s question was natural.
“It’s been a long time.”
Chiffon bowed lightly.
“Ah… Yes…”
Lucia pulled herself out of her stiff stupor and bowed lightly in return.
“I have something to tell you,” Sir Chiffon informed her.
“At this hour?”
“Yes. It must be now.”
“....”
“Will you please walk with me?”
After Chiffon asked the question, silence filled the room.
‘What did he want to talk about?’
There were few people nearby, given the hour. Even if she had once been a maid, that wasn’t the case anymore. No matter who was asked, they would all agree that his actions were very disrespectful.
Lucia unconsciously clenched her fists and opened her mouth to clearly express her refusal.
“It involves the Young Master.”
Lucia froze.
“Wh-What do you—”
“Duchess Vanessa would like to see you.”
Lucia’s eyes widened in shock.
“Are… Are you saying that he’s here?”
“Not in the mansion, but in Arcadia.”
“Outside…? You mean we need to go out,” Lugia moaned, still petrified.
“Also, he told me not to force you. But as you know, if you need something, then you need to act…”
Lucia eyed Chiffon with conflicted emotions.
It may be a trap. No, the possibility of that was quite strong. Even so, she couldn't help but fret.
Life had a way of creating situations that demanded action, even when it was obviously wrong. For Lucia, this was one of those moments. Vanessa was no doubt planning on it.
While she was deep in thought, Chiffon quietly whispered to her.
“Ms. Asiru…”
“Wait,” Lucia casually answered. “I need to think—”
Her eyes suddenly widened.
Chiffon stared deep into her eyes. The look he gave her said that he already knew everything.
“You haven’t lost your memory, have you?”
A suffocating silence engulfed the room.
***
The god of fate seemed to voice his anger. Pure white lightning fell endlessly from the cloudless sky.
Where the lightning struck, the ground broke out into a sea of fire, forming into a perfectly straight line like a road made from flames. Even from quite far away, the tremendous heat was enough to make exposed skin tingle and smart.
“Oh my g…”
The mages belonging to the Magic Tower were split to the left and right of the inferno, too afraid to even dare to approach it.
As if he were a god, one figure stood alone in the middle of that crimson road.
[You're pretty good at using both Bronto and Magma at the same time now.]
“...”
[Anyway, wow. The Great Plain of Aiyash. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.]
Joshua had been walking along that road of flames, but he paused at Lugia’s words.
“Do you know this place?”
[Everyone knows. Oh, and you know that it humans weren't the ones to build this, right?]
“....”
Joshua started walking again.
Whoosh
The flames obediently split to the sides, opening a path ahead of him.
“He’s… not human!”
“To think that a person could use the elements without knowing magic!”
“He’s a god, a god!”
Joshua laughed after hearing them instantly change him from a “dragon” to a “god.”
“...?”
It seemed like fate was, once again, playing a prank on him
Why was it that the piece of paper protruding from his chest pocket happened to come into his field of vision now of all times?
“It definitely came from Serciarin,” Joshua murmured as he entered the first floor of the Tower of Trials.
The mages were no longer visible. The flames that seemed to sear the flesh even from far away were gathered in one place as they blocked the entrance. The eternal flame of annihilation, Magma—even without any power, the Primordial Stone’s flames would last for an entire day.
[Why don’t you read it?]
“....”
[It must be a love letter, right? Are you really a man if you make a girl wait?]
Some people would immediately stop wanting to do something as soon as someone told them to do it, but that was not the case for Joshua.
Even without Lugia’s egging, Joshua had been planning on reading it immediately because there was something that he kept thinking about.
“....”
Joshua's expression constantly changed as he read the letter from the Princess. After he had read all of its contents, he abruptly clenched his fist around the paper.
Joshua closed his eyes with a serious expression.
[Oh my… Is that the letter that the blind Princess gave you?]
Lugia shared Joshua’s senses.
[Figures… She’s different from the rest since she’s not originally human.]
Lugia was referring to Secsiarin’s Eyes of Truth.
[So, what are you going to do now?]
Lugia’s question seemed to come out of the blue, but the demon quickly clarified:
[By human standards, both emperor and duke are high positions, aren’t they? You have the ‘justification’ that you humans all like, so it seems that the only thing left is to make your choice.]
“....”
In the silence, Lugia’s words were the only thing that Joshua could think about.
Joshua finally opened his eyes and slowly opened his mouth.
“For now, I want to finish this.”
[Oh?]
“And...” Joshua smiled coldly, his dark eyes flashing with darkness deeper still. “Do I really need to choose?”
[HUH?]
“I am greedy.”
[....]
“What’s mine should always be mine. No one can take them from me,” Joshua muttered into the empty room.
He savored his final words before he spoke.
“If there are two choices, I just have to take both.”
1. She wanted to die a painless death after all
2. The original phrase used here was ‘Was the thief admitting that their feet hurt.’ but the meaning has been translated instead
3. The proverb used here was ?? ??? ??? ?? ? which can be directly translated as ‘The one who is thirsty will dig the well.’ It means that the person who needs it will eventually do the work.
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