Chapter 143: Plaudite!

About an hour earlier, Cruel inspected his sword.

He seemed quite determined, not just checking his sword but also strapping several daggers to his thigh. The sight of him repeatedly drawing and sheathing them caused Senze, his subordinate, who had been quietly observing him from a corner, to speak softly.

“Are you leaving, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I will accompany you.”

“No.”

Click. Having finished his preparations, Cruel turned to him with an expressionless face. His subordinate, who was always there like a shadow, silently supporting him, was looking at him.

How long had it been since they met? They had been together since before he joined the Duke, so he was certain it wasn’t a short time.

A subordinate he trusted enough to leave things to, even if he didn’t show it outwardly – or rather, had trusted.

Thanks to him, Cruel had learned one thing.

“Senze.”

“Yes.”

“Since when did you stop calling me ‘my lord’?”

The measure of betrayal wasn’t proportional to the time spent together.

He pondered. How did the Duke get the note? A slight broadening of his perspective quickly provided the answer.

Cruel slowly closed his eyes. His pupils seemed to wander beneath the trembling eyelids.

“Just when did it start?”

The price of the revealed truth was his life, yet the answer was more pathetic than he could have imagined.

“You became the Duke’s eyes, didn’t you?”

He swallowed down the despair he couldn’t bear to show.

There was no one else who could know the note’s existence and route and intercept it. Senze was always watching Cruel’s back as he did things.

Even if they weren’t together 24/7, Senze would have noticed the content of Cruel’s request, just as he had pieced together the situation and reported to the Duke when Cruel participated in the hunting competition to save Deon Hart without actually being there to see it. So, he must have reported this time too.

“…Does that matter?”

Senze raised his gaze, which had been lowered for a moment, and met Cruel’s eyes. A confident gaze that left the beholder speechless stared straight into his green eyes.

“…No.”

As if he had never betrayed any agitation, his green eyes were calm again.

Now was not the time to waste energy on things that couldn’t be undone. Cruel skillfully turned away.

“I will not permit you to follow.”

“But I…”

He knew. He had to monitor him under the Duke’s orders.

But why should he accommodate him?

“I’m not so lenient as to keep a traitor by my side during important matters.”

“……”

“If I fail, you can just kill me. Is there a need for you to follow and watch? There must be others hiding and watching me besides you.”

“…Understood.”

As soon as suspicious signs appeared, the watchers would move.

Senze readily nodded and stepped back.

***

Plop. Something cold landed on the tip of his nose.

“Ah, snow…”

The snow, which had just started falling, filled the sky and his vision as if it had been snowing for hours. In stark contrast to the pure white snow, his insides felt like they were burning black.

Damn his fate. War was going to be tough. Judging by the thick snowflakes, it looked like it would pile up quite a bit…

‘Anyway, where the hell is this bastard trying to drag me?’

He glared at the thick-knuckled hand that was pulling his wrist with a disgruntled expression.

He should have felt his sharp gaze, but the hand that hadn’t let go even when he struggled and cursed earlier wasn’t going to release its grip for something like this. Having already exhausted himself with the previous outburst, he soon gave up and moved along as the guy led him, recalling the earlier situation.

After narrowly escaping the demons’ trap, getting lost, and then encountering another group of demons, he somehow managed to survive that hellish situation and return.

Honestly, he didn’t remember the return very well. His limbs ached like crazy, and his body wouldn’t move, so he was too busy focusing on his own condition. He remembered those crazy dogs carrying him… Anyway, he was sure he had returned safely.

And he became a hero! Well, he was already a hero, but still…!

‘Damn it. Who knew that was a supply route.’

The demons he encountered were the ones carrying supplies.

‘It looks like the internal enemies I already had are going to increase…’

As usual, the closer one got to power, the more agitated those who couldn’t stand to see someone else succeed became.

The checks would become more severe. The number of attackers would definitely increase.

Already, there was talk about how he had recklessly cut off a path that could have been used.

Of course, it was nonsense that no one listened to, but it was still unfair. It wasn’t his intention.

‘How was I supposed to know those crazy dogs would cause a landslide and block it…’

He almost died, so he remembered that much clearly. He thought that place would be their grave.

Even while desperately running away, he was a cumbersome burden, but the fact that they didn’t drop him and took good care of him was a little touching. Still, those were the same guys who almost got him killed, so he didn’t have many kind words for them.

‘Still, I got better quickly and I’m moving around like this, so I guess I should be grateful.’

As soon as the crazy dogs arrived, they shouted for a physician, so he was doing okay. There weren’t any major problems with his body, just that his muscles were badly strained from the excessive movement. Oh, and his leg bone was slightly dislocated, so they had to reset it.

He heard that their capable Lien had barely found their way back.

‘Finding the way, controlling the crazy dogs… Sir Lien must have suffered…’

Anyway.

He looked ahead. The back of a black head walking ahead caught his eye.

He had barely finished his treatment and was resting in his assigned barracks when this guy suddenly barged in, dragged him out, and had been walking aimlessly like this.

“What do you want to say? I told you I don’t want to hear it.”

“……”

“…Damn it.”

Damn Cruel Hart.

He spat out the curse, loaded with emotion. It was then that Cruel’s steps, which hadn’t stopped the entire time they were moving, finally halted.

“…Deon.”

Clang!

It was good that he released his wrist, but Cruel drew his sword.

…I just cursed a little, is that really something to draw a sword over?

With the familiar mountain range entrance as a backdrop, he held a sword in one hand and approached, looking quite menacing. Deon faltered, stepping back, but Cruel closed the distance in large strides and raised his bandaged hand to grab his shoulder.

A small voice whispered.

“…There are those who want to kill you.”

“That’s…”

“They’re really going all out this time. Sending enough troops to kill a hero, and even me.”

“……”

The usual ‘it’s always been like this’ was left unsaid.

Enough troops to kill a hero was one thing, but they sent Cruel? To kill him?

‘…Crazy.’

He knew Cruel’s skills very well.

Was he trying to kill him by deliberately bringing him to a deserted place? But it didn’t make sense that they’d move so far and for so long just for that…

Was his sense dulled by Cruel’s incomprehensible actions? He should push this hand away and create some distance, but even though they were this close, he felt an odd lack of killing intent.

As he hesitated, Cruel turned his body and nudged his shoulder towards the mountain range.

“Go ‘that way’.”

“……!”

The familiar mountain range entrance, the fact that they had moved this far, and Cruel pushing him in that direction.

He grasped the situation quickly.

“Go, and never come back.”

Cruel knew he traveled to and from the Demon Realm.

He needed to question this. His voice sounded strangely strained, causing him to hesitate for a moment, but he dismissed it as a misunderstanding and steeled his resolve.

“You…”

But before he could finish his sentence, a dagger flew in from somewhere.

Cruel, with lightning speed, swung his sword to knock away the dagger aimed precisely at his left eye and looked back at him as if urging him on. Facing his unusually emotional eyes, he took a step back, gripped by an unknown terror like someone facing the unknown.

‘But… I can’t just cross the mountain range border like this…’

This border was one that neither the Demon King nor the Emperor deliberately acknowledged. Carelessly crossing it could lead the hidden attackers right to him.

‘Wouldn’t the Demon King kill me if that happened?’

He was moving to survive, but he might end up in a situation where he’d die instead…!

As if they considered Cruel, who had protected him, an enemy as well, numerous daggers flew through the snowflakes. They rained down on both of them, threatening to turn them into pincushions.

The snow made it difficult to pinpoint the exact locations of the daggers.

He laughed hollowly.

‘Yeah, looks like today’s the day I die, one way or another.’

At least he wouldn’t die from exhaustion trying to cross the mountain range. It wasn’t the worst way to go, he supposed.

He had received treatment and could move, but strenuous activity like fighting was still difficult, so he had half given up and was standing there when Cruel pulled him and swung his sword.

Clang! Thud!

…Thud?

“You…!”

He felt no pain in his body. That meant he wasn’t the one who was hit. A slight turn of his head revealed a dagger embedded in Cruel’s right arm, something that wasn’t there before.

His left hand was bandaged, and now his right arm too… He was a mess.

Was it because he was doing it for him? The sarcasm couldn’t escape his lips.

“Why….”

Blood seeped out in droplets, dyeing his clothes red and slowly flowing down his sleeve like a hallucination. It was incomprehensible.

He had shielded him and only allowed a single attack. If Cruel had been alone, he would have been able to deflect and dodge all of them. So why?

‘Why did Cruel take the hit for me?’

Wasn’t Cruel trying to abandon him? Since when had he cared this much about him? Could it be….

“Don’t think.”

His vision darkened.

A low voice cut off his rapidly forming thoughts.

“As always, rationalize and ignore it.”

Clang, chaeng! Thud! Slash!

His vision was blocked, sharpening his hearing, which caught the sounds of metal clashing and flesh being cut and torn. Was it because his hand was bandaged? The large hand covering his eyes was as cold as a corpse.

“But…”

His body turned, and his vision cleared. Cruel and the attackers seemed to be on the opposite side of his vision; all he could see was the entrance to the mountain range, now closer than before.

Cruel, with his hand on his shoulder from behind, spoke slowly.

“If you really want to open your eyes.”

The background was still filled with chilling sounds. Thud! Right behind him, he heard the sound of someone being stabbed with a blade.

He tried to turn around quickly, but the hand on his shoulder pressed down firmly, stopping him. Instead, a low, calm voice, no different from usual, echoed in his ear, assuring him that he was alright.

“Before that, face everything you’ve done so far.”

“……”

“Now, go.”

Hurry.

***

On the day his only brother’s hands stained the Count’s estate with blood, Cruel stood at a crossroads.

Should he kill Deon for revenge, or should he protect him, the only blood relative he had left?

Cruel’s choice was the latter.

He knew his brother had misunderstood something that led to this. He also knew it was connected to the eight-year war.

In that situation, taking revenge by killing the boy would only leave him with an immense sense of loss.

Cruel wasn’t sure he could keep himself from turning the sword on himself within that overwhelming feeling of loss.

He was going to die whether he took revenge or not, so he decided to pour his efforts into his brother instead.

‘Move.’

He realized there was someone behind the reason Deon had participated in the eight-year war.

However, his family had already died at the hands of the misguided Deon. He decided to hide the truth, fearing that the boy, upon learning it, would be consumed by guilt and revenge, wielding his sword wildly and eventually taking his own life.

‘Further.’

He knew Duke Starbe Illuster was targeting Deon.

He volunteered to stay by the Duke’s side to distort and soften his orders.

‘What should I do?’

Cruel Hart became bait.

He focused Deon’s anger on himself, preventing him from questioning the circumstances of his participation in the eight-year war, and acted as a filter, shielding Deon from the Duke’s murderous intent. Erasing any evidence that might raise Deon’s suspicions was a bonus.

Maybe that’s why the sorcerer said that back then.

[If you think you’re going to die anyway, kill that boy and die.]

He knew.

If he died, sooner or later, the boy would learn the truth.

He knew that he would be weighed down by guilt and sharpen the blade of revenge, and that the sword drawn for revenge might end up seeking a target to wield it against, changing the situation entirely. He knew all of it.

But.