<Episode 32>
***
bang-!
Ashamed exhaled harshly and destroyed a large block of hardened ice.
Cold ice cubes fluttered like stars.
The air cooled rapidly, and eventually freezing occurred again, and the ice continued to increase.
‘It is said that His Highness the Crown Prince’s fiancée has been chosen.’
‘ Who?’
‘I heard it’s princess Edith? Why, they say she is a great elementalist because she inherited the talents of His Excellency the Heilian Archduke. It looks like they are trying to revitalize the imperial bloodline.’
‘Ah… you heard that rumor too. There is a rumor that His Highness the Crown Prince did not actually receive the blessing of Master Phoenix, but rather received the blessing of a very small spirit, and has never once summoned a spirit at an official event.’
‘Maybe he didn’t even receive the blessing of the fire spirit… I don’t know.’
Ashamed exhaled angrily.
The Emperor decided to engage the crown prince and Edith and Grand Duke Heilian agreed to this.
The moment Ashamed heard the news, he felt an inexplicable anger.
His whole body was so hot that he couldn’t breathe properly.
It seemed like, with a pale face, he could burst into tears at any moment.
The image of the incompetent and helpless Valerian, who was easily frightened and timid every time he appeared in front of him, came to mind.
‘I think what’s more important than revenge is the happiness of the moment.’
‘Ultimately, I plan to take revenge, but I will live my life pursuing present happiness as much as possible. Even if the employees were a little arrogant, it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t particularly hurt. So that’s it. Enough is enough.’
Next, the image of a girl smiling innocently like a flower came to his mind.
…I couldn’t tolerate it.
No, I don’t even understand why I couldn’t tolerate it.
I was so angry that I felt like I couldn’t bear it.
I felt like I had to rip Valerian to pieces and destroy the emperor’s plan right away to be relieved.
“Shall I reveal my presence?”
Ashamed muttered softly
There was a method that he always used.
“……Wheelkassel.”
Without really understanding why he was doing this, the boy was overcome by impulse and took action.
***
The power of Wheelkassel was to distort perception into fear.
In other words, it was a hallucination that was completely unreal.
The road leading to the castle where Ashamed was imprisoned was a narrow and remote road that was completely different from the hallucinations in her vision, but Edith, possessed by Wheelkassel’s power, was filled with fear and walked steadily as Ashamed led her.
In the meantime, a bit of playfulness arose and he showed a hallucination of a vine in the shape of a human.1Oh my god 🤣 She lost half of her life because of her fear of this vine.
“-Ugh!”
“Poo.”
A desperate scream returned.
Even though he thought he shouldn’t do that, Ashamed kept laughing so hard that he felt like he was going to die.
“It’s cold.”
And finally, Edith arrived right in front of me.
……How long would it take before we meet again in person?
Ashamed turned his back to the door and opened his mouth, smiling for some unknown reason.
“Can you open the door?”
There was silence as if she hadn’t expected someone to be here.
He heard footsteps rushing backwards.
“You were the one who called me here, right?”
There was silence filled only with colorful, trembling breathing.
A voice full of doubt and caution asked a question.
Ashamed answered calmly.
“Yes. I called you.”
“By the way, have you forgotten what I asked you to do?”
Ashamed repeated with unusual kindness.
“I asked you to open this door.”
I had already seen the Emperor hand the relic to Edith.
So I waited for an answer, but something else happened.
“………”
I heard Edith retreating back, as if she was trying to run away again.
…You can’t do that.
“To where?”
I asked again, but there was no answer from Edith.
Oh yeah.
“…Then, I have no choice.”
Without noticing it himself, Ashamed felt a little sulky and strengthened the hallucination a little more.
Taddak–
“Hmm-!”
With a sound as if a scream was being suppressed, the spirit that had moved away came closer.
“Do you want to get caught by him? Otherwise, open this door.”
“I’ll open it, I’ll open it!”
With an urgent cry, the door rattled and shook slightly.
“……uh?”
Of course it couldn’t be opened.
A curious exclamation returned.
“…It won’t open?”
A truly embarrassed voice was heard.
If it could be opened that easily, there was no way I’d have been trapped here all this time.
Ashamed explained while laughing under his breath.
“It won’t open just like that. You have the pendant you received from the emperor, right?”
“…there it is…how do you know that?”
Ashamed calmly ignored Edith’s question and spoke.
“If you look closely at the door, you will see a groove identical to the phoenix engraved on the pendant. Place the pendant there and press firmly.”
“…….”
There was silence, as if she was lost in thought.
“Are you thinking about it now?”
Ashamed, thinking that he was getting angry at Edith’s repeated hesitation, controlled the hallucination’s movements more quickly.
“Aaaah!!”
A blood-curdling scream was heard.
Kiiiiing-
The next moment, a strange resonant sound struck my eardrums.
It was a familiar, and a horrifyingly hateful sound.
But now, while listening to that strange sound, I felt like something was filling my heart.
I didn’t think it was hatred.
What was it?
This feeling.
Kugung-
When the heavy door opened, a familiar-looking little girl was standing there with her eyes tightly closed.
Ashamed said, feeling very dissatisfied with that.
“Open your eyes.”
I was secretly surprised.
Because I realized that I wanted to look that girl in the eyes.
Her eyes were no different from the Heilian Archduke’s whom I hated so much, but why?
When he was questioning himself, the girl obediently followed his words.
The moment I carefully lifted my eyelids, I looked into the red-colored eyes full of confusion.
Oh yeah.
“Long time no see.”
The fact that she resembled the Heilian Archduke was not important.
I just wanted to look her in the eye again.
Ashamed greeted Edith with a quiet smile.
***
So we ended up here.
Ashamed caught the girl in front of him looking at him with a stern expression.
Now I knew what my feelings were called.
At first it was an interest born of malice, and then it was an unexpected sense of kinship.
After the days of watching as a mental body, a desire to face her as a tangible body arose.
At the thought of losing this girl to Valerian, I lost my temper and even brought her to this castle.
“……This is nonsense.”
At that moment I was in shock as I heard a trembling voice.
Ashamed belatedly realized the repercussions that his actions of revealing the whole story would bring and held his breath.
Until now, I had never told my story to anyone.
Because there was no one by Ashmed’s side.
The young boy was left alone in the cold, frozen ruins, and without even being taught that he should not harm life, he vented his built-up anger into violence.
However, the violence only returned as another pain, and Ashamed suffered endlessly without knowing what was wrong.
He went through that cycle repeatedly without even realizing that it was painful.
“Just because he was born with dark attributes… He locked his own son in a place like this?”
If the girl in front of me hadn’t appeared, that cycle would probably have lasted forever.
“This is wrong.”
From the moment his memories began, the Emperor had endlessly berated Ashamed.
He told Ashamed that he was the seed of disaster that Arkane sent to the Roshan Empire, and that his mother died because of him.
He poured out his hatred, saying that she died just to give birth to someone like him.
However, Edith completely denied everything the Emperor poured out to Ashamed.
A warm hand touched Ashmed’s cold, frozen hands.
Ashamed looked at the girl sitting across from him in confusion.
Edith, with strong eyes as if she had made up her mind, squeezed his hand and whispered a promise.
“I will help you.”
I will help you.
Two solid red eyes filled with shining brilliance stared at Ashamed.
Ashamed thought he couldn’t hold on any longer.
No, I didn’t want to hold on.
Ashamed licked his blood-dried lips.
It felt hot, as if something was being pushed into my throat.
Thus, the prince, who had been abandoned and imprisoned by his parent due to his birth, returned to the world, led by the hand of the girl who had taken it upon herself to relieve his hatred.
Finally, I was saved.
The second imprisoned prince
A healthy child twas treated as dead because he received the blessing of a dark attribute spirit.
A child who was only four years old was imprisoned in an abandoned castle.
Even if a child who had not received any education made a mistake, they did not even think about correcting their behavior and instead poured out terrible violence and verbal abuse.
“…If he is truely a parent, he shouldn’t have do that.”
Whatever evil deeds the dark elementals committed decades ago, what does that have to do with Ashamed?
They were just a shadow of the past, and Ashamed has nothing to do with them, he was just a child born into this world.
The person who brought that child down to that level was the Emperor who determined the child’s future based solely on his or her innate attributes and then cruelly abandoned him.
Now it all made sense.
The moment we first met, why did Ashamed try to kill the 2nd Prince and the Crown Prince.
…And why he looked up at the mural of the desolate castle and call it his tomb?
It was an environment in which even a normal person would have gone crazy.
But, that kid.
“……Ashamed.”
My face scrunched up as I recited the name I finally learned.
He was imprisoned when he was only four years old.
But how could he grow up s normally?2What is normal about him dear?
Although she had never liked the Emperor Oswald before, she now loathed him.
And the crown prince.
There was a change in my thinking that he was a child so innocent that it seemed a little absurd.
While trembling at the mere power of Ashamed, he actually watched without remorse as his own brother was abused.
Even if his father was his whole world and he closed his eyes out of guilt out of fear for his brother who threatened him, it was difficult for her to understand the crown prince’s choice when she fully knew the victim’s pain.
I kicked the stone in my site and twisted my lips.
He must be saved.
She had come to the imperial palace to gain imperial power for her grandfather’s rehabilitation, but she could not leave the child like this.
Out of human morality, she couldnot close her eyes and turn her head and pretend not to see.
However, it was clear that there was an oath that stated that spiritists with dark attributes must be executed as soon as they were discovered.
I had no idea how to save Ashamed.
If his existence was revealed to the world, Ashamed will die.
However, if he was left as he was, Ashamed will continue to live a life worse than death.
“……ha”
What should I do?
What kind of spite did the man called the Spirit King of Darkness commit to reach such a state?
“….ah”
At that moment, a flash of thought passed through my head.
Spirit King.
In this world, the Spirit Kings were worshiped as if they were a some divine beings.
And I have three spirit kings who promised to be completely on my side.
I smiled with joy.
A method occurred to me.
To save Ashamed, who was born with the dark attribute and was destined to die.
And a very appropriate way to gain imperial power.
I quickly went back the way I came out.
The engagement ceremony was only a week away.
Until then, I had to complete the plan with Ashamed.
***
The day of the title ceremony for the daughter of Roberick Arne Heilian, Edith Ronen Heilian, has dawned.
“She looks a lot like Lady Mariette Aydin Bastevan.”
“Well, given her natural talent, wouldn’t she be more like His Excellency the Heilian Archduke?”
“She got engaged to the Crown Prince as soon as she debuted, it seems like His Majesty the Emperor really didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”
The royal palace’s main hall was filled with the capital’s nobles.
Everyone unanimously agreed about today’s protagonist, Edith Ronen Heilian.
The ceremony was temporarily delayed due to concerns that if the summoning of spirits was prohibited on such an auspicious day, it might create the impression that the Emperor and the Crown Prince, who had received the blessing of the great Phoenix, were more fearful of the threat of an unknown person than necessary.
Thanks to this, the imperial palace was filled with various spirits for the first time in a long time, and their various powers were splendidly decorating the red castle.
“………”
The Grand Duchess sitting next to Grand Duke Heilian lowered her head in the pale daylight.
Next to him, the Grand Duchess’s daughter, princess Allea, was comforting her mother and constantly talking about something.
“May you shine with an everlasting flame, Your Majesty the Emperor and the Crown Prince of the Roshan Empire!”
The door to the main hall opened, revealing the Emperor and Crown Prince.
“Everyone stand up.”
The Emperor gestured with a relaxed look and walked toward the throne with long strides.
Priests wearing red crowns approached and brought items to be used in the engagement ceremony.
The Emperor stood in front of the throne, and the Crown Prince sat on a platform slightly below him.
“We will hold a ceremony to award the title of Grand Duchess to Edith Ronen Heilian and an engagement ceremony for Crown Prince Valerian Heine Ruairi.”
The moment the Emperor declared.
Kiii–
The entrance to the main hall opened, and countless eyes were focused on the little girl walking in with the bright light at her back.
The rumored princess was wearing a pure white lace dress that reached down to her ankles, and her light purple hair, just like her mother, was tied up and decorated with small drop-shaped diamonds.
Voices of admiration erupted from everywhere at her beautiful appearance, like a small spirit of spring.
Today’s protagonist, Edith Ronen Heilian, raised her head.
***
TL:
Who enjoyed Ashamed point of view?
If you find any mistakes please let me know.
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