World’s Demise (3)
Eceline was a promising painter, a woman who captivated the hearts of the Libra Art School with her talent hailed as the genius of her generation.
Jade was a direct descendant of his family, the second son raised in Libra, a symbol of power and prestige.
A common cliché.
The nobleman loved the painter.
The painter was intimidated by the nobleman.
Jade was clumsy in love, and Eceline found his feelings burdenso.
A nobleman who lacked nothing and had never been denied anything sotis forgets a very obvious fact.
That people cannot be owned.
That they cannot even be the subject of ownership.
Jade was unaware of this fact.
─Ah, really.
In Jade’s mory, there were various landscapes.
Most were monochro, but occasionally there were brilliant canvases like watercolors.
Precious fras.
─You need to stay still.
Eceline, with her brush in hand, puffed her cheeks.
Jade faced her, struggling to contain a smile that seed about to escape.
─I am staying still. How much longer must I do this?
─At least six hours.
─Ha. You want to take six hours of my busy day?
Inside, he wanted to extend this ti as long as possible, but he wanted to convey that he was investing in her.
─I’ll try to finish it within four hours!
Jade sat in the sa spot, watching Eceline. Even her smallest expressions were vivid to him, like buds about to bloom.
─All done.
Soon, Eceline turned the easel around to show him his portrait. However, Jade did not recognize the likeness in the painting.
Eceline, smiling at him, was a more beautiful canvas than anything else…
─It’s Eceline. A renowned painter from the Libra Art School.
Jade rembered the day he took her to the social gathering. He had dressed her in the most beautiful gown and hadn’t even told her where they were going.
─…It’s Eceline.
Introducing herself at that place, to declare her as mine.
To boast of the most beautiful flower.
It was a wrong choice.
─There’s a lot of talk in the council these days. About the election issue too.
─Which family will produce the next chairman… indeed.
After the long and tedious social gathering, where nobles exchanged formal conversations and worried about the future of the country.
─Lord Jade…
On the way back, Eceline called him in a distant voice.
A hint delivered in a tiny voice.
─I am not an object.
That’s when Jade got angry.
I have never treated you as an object. I gave you the seat next to . You should be grateful instead. The privilege to be with is yours alone.
That’s how he responded.
From that day on, Eceline quietly drifted away. She lost her vitality whenever he approached, always showing discomfort.
Like a flower wilting away.
─What exactly is the problem!
Jade couldn’t contain it. He couldn’t suppress the rising anger.
The existence of a woman who wouldn’t bend to his will, to his desires,
To refuse to acknowledge that he, of all people in this world, actually loved such a pitiful woman,
He didn’t want to accept it.
─…I’m leaving. Please let go.
Eceline said she would leave.
Not just from Jade, but also from the Libra Art School, which was as much a part of her career as anything else. She was ready to put down everything she had received from Libra.
─No. You can’t leave.
Jade tried to hold her back. He forcibly grabbed her hand as she turned to leave.
And then…
Her arm was torn off.
Blood splattered over Jade’s entire body, and the shattered bone fragnts and torn muscles and blood vessels were violently scattered.
The screams of the woman he loved filled his ears.
Jade still rembers that day.
He could never forget it.
The day he realized that his love, his feelings, his entire heart, had beco a wound to her.
“……”
Jade quietly opened his eyes. From inside the car, far from the entrance of the ergency room, he looked at the farthest point of the hospital.
The na ‘Eceline’ appeared on his superhuman retina.
She had been admitted to Petra.
Her right arm was still missing.
Jade had once secretly sent soone to offer her a prosthetic arm, but she refused.
This arm is proof of your folly─ the evidence that you’ve forgotten ‘the most important thing,’ she had said.
Therefore, he cannot approach her.
He must not approach her.
The person who lost everything because of him.
Yet still, Jade cannot let go of the emotion called love.
He still doesn’t understand.
If my love for you was foolishness,
Then you must first realize that you are different from anyone else.
That you are worth hundreds of tis more than any holess person dying on the streets, any commoner living day to day, any of the tens of thousands of rotten nobles who only expect to be treated with disdain…
You must know your worth.
──Knock knock.
Soone knocked on the car window. Jade looked over.
It was Shion Ascal.
“……”
Without a word, he rolled down the window.
Shion spoke.
“She’s alive.”
Jade quietly nodded.
“……How is she doing compared to the other patients?”
“Is she also caught up in this indiscriminate death curse?”
“Yes. It’s almost certain.”
At Shion’s words, Jade silently tilted his head. A murderous intent crept into his silent eyes.
“Where is the sorcerer?”
“We are currently tracking them.”
“Tracking.”
“Yes.”
“Tracking is not enough.”
Jade glared at Shion, his gaze burning with intensity. There was a magical power woven into the re act of looking.
Shion t his eyes with difficulty and nodded.
“I will find them. Just give a little ti.”
The word ‘wait’ was burdenso to Jade. Even holding back was difficult.
He wanted to find and kill them right now.
“…Can you stake your life on it?”
“Yes. I will definitely find them and report back to Lord Jade.”
Shion answered with certainty.
Jade closed his eyes for a mont.
“…Wait.”
Barely holding onto his rationality, the thought circled in his mind.
If there was soone to trust, it was Shion Ascal.
* * *
The indiscriminate death curse spread across the continent. The Edsilla Council declared a temporary national disaster, and the situation was similar in other countries.
It was a frenzy.
Despite no evidence of an epidemic, those swept up in fear were killing patients suffering from the death curse first, forcibly confining them with their families, or burning them alive…
A chaos that transcended national boundaries ensued.
“From now on, regular broadcasts will be suspended, and only news related to the indiscriminate death curse will be urgently dispatched. We ask for viewers’ understanding.”
In the director’s office of Petra Hospital, where the TV news was playing, Elise stood facing Ken Petra.
“…You dissected the victims on your own accord? What kind of madness is that?”
Ken Petra furrowed his brow. Elise fidgeted with her fingers and said,
“I got consent from the families.”
“Don’t make a bad situation worse. The election is not far off.”
“…But-”
“Just stay put. If you fail by acting rashly, you’ll bear all the responsibility.”
Ken Petra closed the docunt. He pulled out a checkbook from his pocket and started writing numbers. Elise watched his actions in a daze.
“Tell the families to keep it a secret. This should be enough for consolation.”
At that mont, sothing in Elise’s mind slightly shook.
Confidentiality.
Consolation money.
She clenched her fist without realizing it. She glared at Ken Petra, her father, with his resolute eyes.
“The families didn’t hand over their loved ones’ bodies to in exchange for money.”
“…What?”
Ken Petra raised an eyebrow. It was the expression he showed when he was truly angry.
Elise didn’t back down.
“They entrusted their loved ones’ bodies to because they believe that I might have a way to slow down this death curse, even if just a little.”
“So what are you going to do? You’re just a kid.”
Ken leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand as he peered intently at Elise.
“…I’ve already researched the wave patterns. So I’m going to create a Barrier.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“It can’t fail.”
“Think of the worst-case scenario. If it doesn’t work? First off, you didn’t get permission for the dissection, so it’s illegal. However, illegal dissection itself is a re drop in the bucket.”
Ken discussed the reality of the situation.
“Let’s say you create a narrier in the hospital. The environnt of the Barrier could negatively affect all the patients in the hospital. What if other patients, who have nothing to do with the death curse, die because of it? Even if the Barrier isn’t the direct cause, what if you’re sued for it?”
Dozens of reasons why sitting still is better than standing up and making a scene.
“Can you handle that?”
“…”
Elise gritted her teeth and let out a quiet sigh.
Ken’s words were rational.
Thanks to that, she understood.
Why Ken Petra had fallen to such a state.
How the bravest knight had beco a puppet of the council.
The world had made it so.
The logic of being ‘realistic’ had turned her own father into a coward.
Elise spoke up.
“You be the one to endure, Father. Try enduring for once. Stop running away like a coward all the ti.”
“…”
For a mont, a crease ford between Ken’s brows.
“I’ll create a legacy for you.”
“You’re still-”
“Enough with the ‘still’!”
Bang!
Elise slamd her hands down on her father’s desk. Ken leaned back in his chair, his eyes drooping as he looked up at Elise and asked,
“…A legacy, you said?”
“Yes. I won’t fail. My barrier will aningfully extend the lives of those afflicted by the death curse, and you will gain their support.”
Elise looked at her father, scanning his large fra from top to bottom.
“Since when did you start backing down at the thought of failure?”
A hint of moisture glistened in her eyes.
“You obtained your position by stepping over dead bodies.”
“…”
Ken frowned.
“So…”
Elise took a deep breath and steeled herself.
“Let’s try to save so lives this ti.”
* * *
An empty, ancient house.
The place, filled with darkness, is an artificially created magical space. Therefore, although they can be in the sa place, once the magical space is dispelled, they will return to their original locations.
“…It would be nice if there were so furniture.”
Akane looked across at ‘Jude Velot.’
A tea table and two chairs were all there was. It was too plain.
“Anyway, don’t you think you’ve gone too far?”
─Too far?
Jude Velot asked back.
He takes on a human form, ‘on the outside.’
No, even the outside is quite unique. A giant of 2 ters 50 centiters.
But what’s inside is even more chilling.
For starters, there are no organs. No heart, no viscera; because there are no bodily organs at all, no one knows what he uses for energy to live.
“Yeah, you went too far. There are hundreds of thousands suffering from the death curse now.”
─Akane. Do you know where the ‘death curse’ cos from?
There is no change in Jude Velot’s expression. His voice is the sa. Just lifelessly monotonous.
“From curses, from human malice. Isn’t that too basic?”
─Who do you think listens to that malice?
“……”
Akane’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.
─Do you think this world grants those wishes?
It was then that Akane’s face took on a complex expression. Jude Velot continued rigidly.
─It was ‘I’ who granted them.
“You’re saying you are the curse?”
Jude Velot nodded.
─I oversee the curses of malice. It has been so for hundreds of years. But it has reached a tipping point. There is no end to human malice, as I had anticipated.
“…”
Akane let out a hollow laugh.
The idea that Jude Velot was in charge of the ‘concept’ of curses was more astounding than she had thought.
“So, you spread the malice that exceeded the threshold?”
─The malice of humans that seeped into my body returned to them. It’s their karma.
“Oh, so you’re not called ‘Demise’ for nothing.”
For a mont, a faint tremor crossed Jude Velot’s face.
─’Pretense’.
Even Akane felt a twinge of fear at this point.
‘Assuming a title beyond one’s status as one’s own na.’
There’s no way this creature didn’t understand the dictionary aning of ‘pretense.’
“Right.”
But, as Shion Ascal said.
Putting power into a na only increases fear.
─…Akane. I am Demise. Chaos will spread, and malice will grow. The malice that gathers in my flesh will soon annihilate the continent.
“I know. That’s why there are humans who want to negotiate with you.”
Akane deliberately crossed her legs. She also crossed her arms.
─There can be no negotiation with a phenonon. Akane, if you beco a ‘phenonon’ and co to , then I might consider it. You are the only one who can stand against .
“Do I have to? I’m telling you there are humans who want to negotiate with you.”
─That is human arrogance.
Jude Velot continued bleakly.
─No human can demand negotiation with a phenonon. A phenonon simply exists. It rely arrives. Just as I have co to this place.
“…”
In other words, he’s a stubborn one.
Akane sighed.
“But you’ll still make the eting happen, right? There’s a human who desperately wants to et the phenonon.”
─…
Jude Velot was silent. On that chilling visage, strange wrinkles spread like cracks in drought-stricken land.
“I don’t know their purpose. They might want to witness the phenonon firsthand and bow down to it.”
No movent.
Apparently, he seed indifferent to the act of bowing.
In that case.
“Or it could be soone who wants to destroy the phenonon entirely.”
─…Pitiful.
Jude Velot reacted. He looked at Akane and said,
─Humans are still foolish. Akane, you too should quickly free yourself from humanity.
“If you et with a human first, then I’ll consider it.”
─…
“You need to show what kind of creature you are, so I can decide whose side to join.”
Again, no response.
Akane was frustrated, but she soon picked up a pen and scrawled on a piece of paper.
“Here. Let’s et in this old house underground.”
She tossed it to him.
Jude Velot stared quietly at the note that had landed on his thigh. Then, he faintly nodded and released the magic space.
“…Sigh.”
The space transford.
Inside Jude Velot’s dark castle, they were back in [Selfless Coffin].
[Breaking news. Petra Hospital is constructing a barrier to slow down the progress of the curse…]
TV news. The continent was still in chaos due to indiscriminate killing.
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