The Orion Empire was the last land to retain its na within the human territory.
Although it was said to be in crisis, the capital and the Imperial Family were so well protected that the crisis was not felt, which ant there would be no obstruction to the leader’s plans to be implented with the empire at its core.
This ant that the future she prophesied was highly likely to be implented.
Therefore, before that future would co, there was one thing she had to do: et and persuade the witch.
“Oh, found you, Airi~”
She encountered a familiar face just before heading to the library where she was waiting.
As she stopped for a mont and turned to the side, Airi spotted a woman with short white hair approaching, wearing a black cloak.
“rilyn?”
“Hehe. I heard about it, but you really ca to the Imperial Family~ Do you know how much I looked for you as soon as I heard the news?”
As soon as she appeared, rilyn expressed her joy.
Although she usually found her rival annoying and botherso, when Airi actually faced her, she felt a sense of anticipation.
She thought that maybe the person in front of her had co here for her sake.
“Could it be that you ca all the way here to rescue ?”
“No, I ca here on my own.”
“I knew it, you damn demon!”
No matter how much she fell in love with a human, her nature was still that of a demon.
She wouldn’t act out of an altruistic heart to help soone, would she?
“…rilyn, what on earth were you thinking coming here?”
“Hehe, who knows? I think you, Airi, would understand without having to explain…”
rilyn just responded with her characteristic sly smile to her question.
Although it grated on her nerves, Airi didn’t care and focused on reading her movents.
Before parting with her partner, she t another of the Four Heavenly Kings and was led to the Imperial Family.
“The Demon King… Are you serious?”
The look of shock on Airi’s face as she recalled all those events was an expected reaction.
rilyn just shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly despite the reaction.
“Well, I don’t know either. What was I thinking getting involved in this?”
“Don’t dodge the question; answer properly. What you’re trying to do now is…”
“It’s a necessary task.”
A single word that cut off emotional questioning.
As Airi felt at a loss for words and stared at her fixedly, rilyn gave a bitter smile and quietly placed her fingers on the strings of the lute she was holding.
“To test how strong my love is… I should be prepared to jump into the fire myself, shouldn’t I?”
“…Even if that decision turns this land into a sea of fire?”
“Honestly, there are things that bother . I don’t care what happens to humanity or the world… but it would be sad if the place he returns to is burned down.”
rilyn also knew what would happen on this land in the future.
Still, the reason she had given in to her deceitful kin and joined this plan was simple.
“But it turns out that much of it was already in motion by the ti I realized it. And it seems the Crown Prince has made up his mind, too.”
Even if she didn’t take action, it was sothing that would eventually happen.
Feeling that one of the people who caused this was watching the conversation, rilyn drew a bitter smile and plucked the strings.
“If it is a fate destined to flow uncontrollably, then perhaps it is right to ride the current rather than resist it…”
Dding~
“Airi, isn’t that why you voluntarily ca here?”
As if to say that Airi was no different from her and had no right to criticize, rrilyn’s gaze pierced her.
Just as Airi placed her hands over her pregnant belly, Seis, who had been watching the situation unfold, intervened between the two.
“Shall we stop the conversation here?”
“Hehe, of course. The great leader shouldn’t waste ti with a lowly jester. Then, I shall excuse myself.”
With a light bow, rilyn left Seis’s side.
Then she brought her lips to her rival’s ear and whispered softly.
“Hyo-sung will be sad when he returns.”
Even without the gift of prophecy, she knew.
She already knew what she had co here for and what she had prepared for.
Indeed, just as rrilyn had said, the world they knew was heading toward destruction.
The Crown Prince’s plan was to prepare for such destruction, and Airi had already decided to participate in it.
If she had truly received all of her clan’s power for that purpose and if it was ant to lead to a future connected with him…
‘But not this child.’
Yes, not the child in her womb.
She, as the last descendant of the Goddess of Destruction, was the one who should bear that burden—not her child, who would inherit the future.
This was the reason she sought to et the witch.
By eting the central figure in person, she hoped to rewrite the future she did not want.
“Wh-who are you?”
But what she encountered when she steeled herself was not what she expected—a shabby-looking woman in pajamas, trembling amidst piles of books in the library.
“…Vivian.”
“Wh-where am I? I… I…”
“Vivian, can you hear ?”
“Uh… uh… ah…”
Vivian looked around with trembling eyes even at Seis’s call.
No, even that was only for a mont.
What flowed from her mouth as she collapsed to the floor was deep despair.
“Wh-what is this? Where am I? Wh-why am I here…? M-Mom… Wh-where are you?”
To so, she was a mass murderer who had slaughtered people like they were trash. To others, she was a symbol of hope who could save humanity. To those who knew the distant past, she was the most terrible disaster of all.
But now, there was no trace of any of those aspects in her current state.
“M-Mom? Did I have a mom? N-no…”
“Who was I to begin with?”
Her voice was as empty as her mind.
Unable to bear it, the woman grabbed her head and began to sob deeply.
“N-nothing cos to m-mind. N-nothing cos to m-mind…!”
She wanted soone, anyone, to give her a clear answer.
As her desperate cry echoed in the library, Airi’s face, listening to her sobs, began to turn pale.
“Your Highness, is that person…?”
“If I say it’s the curse of forgetfulness, does that make sense?”
Forgetfulness.
The word itself perfectly described her state.
“It’s a type of magic used by vampires. To vampires who treat their subordinates like livestock, human mories are unnecessary.”
“You an they used that on her?”
“She was once the most dangerous being in the world, but a witch with erased mories can be a convenient tool to control as desired…”
Seis the Crown Prince paused after saying that.
When he took off his mask, his bare face showed the complex emotions he felt towards her.
“Although I learned all that after I grew up.”
Did he an that he had nothing to do with it?
Even though he had already prepared to inherit the empire and was working with the vampires to utilize her powers?
‘No, that’s not enough.’
But what Airi was concerned about wasn’t the dark side of the empire or the Crown Prince’s psychology, but that Vivian’s past, which she needed to read, was unclear.
‘The past is the traces that person left behind… Individual mories are just part of the expression of those traces.’
Even if soone’s personal mories are lost, the mories of others who witnessed them remain.
Likewise, the mories she read from others were not sothing that could be easily erased by a simple curse of forgetfulness.
If she couldn’t read the past of the person in front of her, it ant that sothing even more complex was entwined.
“Vivian.”
Seis, the Crown Prince, passed by Airi, who was trying to gauge what it was, and began to close the distance to Vivian, calling her na.
“Vi-Vivi…?”
“Do you rember the na Woo Hyo-sung?”
And then he spoke another na.
For soone suffering from the curse of forgetfulness, it was a na she should have forgotten even at this mont.
“W-Woo Hyo…?”
But was there sothing that caught her with that na?
Vivian tilted her head and then began to look up at the Crown Prince with wide eyes.
“W-Woo Hyo, th-the housekeeper…”
“…You seem to rember.”
“Yes. I rember. I’ve never forgotten.”
Yes, it was a na she had never forgotten, even for a mont.
As Vivian realized this and began to smile, the Crown Prince put on his mask again and prepared to leave the library.
And quietly looked back at Airi and said.
“Handle the rest yourself.”
He was leaving her without any further control.
Was it because he trusted her that much? Or did he believe she wouldn’t interfere with his plans since she had co this far anyway?
“Thank you.”
No matter what, he had given her the opportunity to lead the future straight.
Airi, who expressed her minimal gratitude, then faced Vivian, who was sitting in the library after the Crown Prince had left.
“Nice to et you, Vivian. My na is Airi… I’m the wife of the person you’re indebted to.”
“The wife… of Woo Hyo?”
“Yes. The child inside is his.”
Airi cautiously showed her belly to her.
Now, nearly half a year after conceiving life, her belly was visibly swollen.
“The housekeeper’s child.”
Vivian stared blankly at her belly.
As she watched her nervously, a bright smile began to form on Vivian’s lips.
“Can I… touch it?”
“Yes, of course.”
The prophecy hadn’t shown itself yet.
Not yet.
“Sothing, sothing’s moving…”
“It’s fetal movent. The child in my belly is happy to see you.”
“Really? Happy to see ?”
“Yes. Really.”
Gradually, there was a glimpse of tenderness in her gaze at her belly.
Airi’s expression, hinting that this feeling might be forgotten again due to the curse of forgetfulness, began to darken.
‘Don’t worry, Hyo-sung…’
But it was still too early for that ti to co.
During the remaining period, she had the duty to persuade her, who relied on his mory, and lead her to a straight future.
‘No matter what, I will protect this child.’
Everything was for the path where love and mission coexisted.
Airi, who had resolved that again, firmly grasped the back of Vivian’s hand, which was stroking her belly.
And, half a year later.
Roooooooaaaarrr!!!
The Linnea Great Forest located in the west of the empire.
At the fierce roar that echoed through the vast forest, the expedition mbers traversing the area began to tremble in fear.
“Hero! It’s finally appeared!”
“The ruler of the Great Forest, Linnea Saurus… It’s the monster listed on the wanted poster.”
The expedition mbers guarding the surroundings cried out in tension.
Their attention was focused on a giant reptilian monster with a long neck that could not be hidden by the forest trees.
As its na suggested, it was a creature beyond a re monster, fitting the na ‘dinosaur.’
There must have been a reason why a wanted poster was issued for a monster created by the distortion of dinsions.
“Wow… I thought it was just a rumor, but there really is a dinosaur living in the forest.”
While all the expedition mbers hid upon recognizing the great monster, only one hero in black armor quietly advanced toward it.
Despite facing a creature dozens of tis larger than himself, he showed no fear.
“B-be careful! Hero! They say the breath from that monster’s mouth is powerful enough to turn everything to dust!”
“Haha, that’s perfect.”
As the monster began to inhale, the hero leisurely raised his spear in front of it.
Soon, he sharpened his gaze and focused all his attention on the monster’s mouth, which was about to launch an attack at him.
“The fact that the opponent is strong ans there’s a lot to take advantage of.”
The weak’s way of fighting starts by using the opponent’s strength against them.
Kwaaahhh!!
As he recalled that teaching, compressed air began to burst out of the monster’s mouth towards him.
The compressed air, equal to the height of the monster’s neck rising above the trees, was released.
Its power was so formidable that it swept away everything in its path, but the hero swung his spear fiercely along its trajectory without hesitation.
Calmly, without a hint of wavering.
He created a path for the incoming attack with the mana flowing through his body, channeling the flow from himself to the opponent. He prepared to return the attack precisely.
Swiiish!!
The stronger the attack he intended to return, the more dangerous the skill, as even the slightest mistake could result in his body being shattered.
But he didn’t worry.
The spirits that followed his presence would guide the power he couldn’t fully control to a straight path.
Kwaaaah!!!
The pressure cannon that returned along the trajectory of the swung spear hit the monster’s neck along with the full-force thrown spear.
When its neck was torn and its body separated from its head, the expedition mbers cheered.
“H-he did it! The hero did it!!!”
Hero Woo Hyo-sung.
The hero who made the most contributions during the subjugation mission ahead of the Crown Prince’s succession ceremony.
His achievents would be highlighted today by taking the head of the tyrant who ruled the Great Forest.
Reviews
All reviews (0)