Chapter 6
Silence lingered in the corridor.
What broke the silence was the archer’s groan.
“Keu-urk…?”
A small hole was pierced in the archer’s forehead.
It was a hole the size of a pinky nail, but it had properly penetrated the archer’s head.
Cleanly through the skull and brain.
The archer lost his life without even knowing why he was collapsing.
“…?”
Sarah, who had been prepared for death, turned around with a puzzled expression upon feeling no pain.
And she couldn’t hide her shock upon seeing the collapsed archer.
“Wha-what is this…?”
Sarah rapidly blinked her eyes.
However, more than the archer’s death, more than her own life, Elonia’s safety came first.
After confirming everything from whether Elonia was blinking properly, breathing, to if her pulse was normal, Sarah held Elonia tightly to her chest as if she would disappear.
“Ah, Princess! Thank goodness you’re safe…!”
Elonia wanted to console the crying Sarah with her little hand, but Elonia wasn’t in a state to comfort others right now.
‘Ah, I feel dizzy. I feel like throwing up.’
As expected, the baby’s body couldn’t endure even the tiniest bit of mana operation and seemed to have suffered internal injuries.
Elonia glanced at the archer’s corpse and reproached herself.
‘I thought I’d live a bit cleaner in this life. Killing a person before even saying my first words.’
On top of that, the target was someone from Heilan whom she had wanted to protect in the past.
Although it was to save Sarah, she felt disgusted by her own fickle self.
How long had she been like that?
Belatedly, the sound of knights rushing over from far away was heard.
“Princess, Miss Fortrun!”
“Are you alright!”
We survived.
Sarah, who had been shrinking her body at the sound of friction from the armor, shouted with all her strength in a relieved expression as soon as she confirmed their identities as Ravanta’s knights.
“Sirs! O-over here! Here!”
“Miss Fortrun! Is the princess safe?”
“She’s safe!”
Sarah kept nodding her head while holding Elonia to her chest.
One of the knights helped Sarah stand up, while another couldn’t hide his surprised expression upon seeing the corpse.
“Damn it, the guy we were searching for was here…! Are you really unharmed, Miss Fortrun?”
“Could it be that this archer was by Miss Fortrun…?”
Sarah, who had never held a sword since birth, naturally shook her head.
“No. It wasn’t me who killed him. This man was about to stab me when he suddenly collapsed.”
“Wait a moment, this wound… It seems like his head was pierced by something. Could there be a mage nearby?”
“But the mages have only just left the magic tower. The ones assigned to the princess palace haven’t yet…”
The knights examined the corpse.
Elonia desperately held onto her fading consciousness and played dumb as much as possible.
‘It would be big trouble if it becomes known that a baby like this already used magic to kill someone.’
If it had been before Heilan’s invasion, the situation would have been different, but she didn’t want her power to be discovered when Heilan was struggling like now.
‘I don’t want to repeat the mistake I made in Heilan.’
Fortunately, the knights didn’t notice Elonia’s condition.
“It may be the doing of an unidentified intruder. We need to relocate.”
“But isn’t there no place as safe as the princess palace even within the imperial palace?”
“Now’s not the time to say that when there are intruders like this. Moreover, we can’t let the princess continue to stay here where someone else might be hiding.”
The knights started arguing among themselves about needing to take shelter somewhere.
‘What if Heilan soldiers come in again while they’re doing this, these idiots.’
How can they all be so consistently stupid?
Elonia sighed, recalling when she was Cheron.
When their monarch is like that, the ones under him are exactly the same.
Elonia glared at the knights with rotten fish eyes.
It seemed like their pointless discussion would never end, but at that moment.
“What’s this commotion?”
A long sword with blood dripping from it.
Clothes splattered with blood.
Disheveled hair.
The knights hurriedly knelt down.
“We pay our respects to Your Majesty.”
Artius finally showed himself in the princess palace.
There was a faint smell of alcohol as if he had been drinking, and his clothes were a mess too.
Anyway, it seemed the cavalry had properly found him.
Seeing him for the first time in nearly two months, his face looked even more haggard than before.
As the knights and Sarah hastily paid their respects, Artius waved his hand as if it was bothersome and demanded an explanation of the situation.
“A Heilan soldier who snuck into the princess palace was attacked by an unidentified assailant. But that man was found here as a corpse—”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Why did a Heilan soldier sneak into the princess palace in the first place?”
How pathetic.
Artius muttered like that, then stomped on the neck of the archer sprawled at his feet and sheathed his sword.
Then, suddenly noticing the hole in the forehead, he spoke with a surprised expression.
“…There’s a hole in the head.”
“Yes. It has been confirmed that he is already dead, and the unidentified intruder who took out this man is presumed to be a mage.”
Upon hearing the knight’s report, Artius furrowed his brow.
And he raised one corner of his mouth and let out a scornful laugh.
“Hah. An unidentified intruder? Since when did the security of the imperial palace become so lax?”
“That, that is—”
“Moreover, presumed to be a mage? The mages of the magic tower would have just come out earlier?”
“We, we also don’t know the reason—”
“You don’t know the reason? To have such a complacent attitude because the war is over. If someone saw this, they wouldn’t think you’re the knights of the princess palace.”
“We, we are terribly sorry.”
“We have no face to show.”
‘What, these bastards. They were the knights belonging to the princess palace?’
They acted too much like it was someone else’s business to belong to the princess palace, so she thought they were knights from the main palace.
‘But that son of a bitch isn’t one to blame others either. He was in the empress palace drinking until now and then came out.’
Elonia glared at Artius with axe eyes.
Everyone knows that Artius spends his nights killing time in the empty empress palace.
Heilan also knew that information, which is why they dared to attempt a surprise attack.
‘The only one who truly cares about me is Sarah after all.’
Even in a situation where she might die, Sarah was angry at the one who insulted Elonia and tried to protect Elonia with her life on the line.
Sarah’s love for Elonia stood out even more because everyone around was so trashy.
“Anyway, this guy is the last one.”
“By that, you mean…”
“The Heilan soldiers have all been annihilated with this. They were gathered on the path leading to the princess palace.”
The fact that they were gathered on the path to the princess palace meant that the knights of the princess palace hadn’t done their job properly.
The knights’ complexions turned pale.
Elonia pushed aside the unpleasant feelings she had towards him for a moment and obediently admired him.
‘Even as a child’s father, his skills are the same as ever.’
She had thought it wouldn’t take long to subdue the Heilan soldiers, but to think he would finish it already.
Indeed, he was worthy of being praised as the hero who beheaded the notorious continental war demon.
“So, you said the one who took out this man was a mage?”
“Yes, yes! That’s right!”
Artius examined the traces of mana remaining in the corpse’s head.
Elonia was flustered.
‘No, wait. Oh no!’
Not only was she flustered, but she hadn’t thought Artius would directly examine the corpse, so she used magic.
But to think he would investigate it himself.
People all have different mana, so Elonia didn’t possess the exact same mana as when she was Cheron, but it was still worrisome.
They had fought for a whole 5 years.
Even if the mana had changed, habits like that remained the same as when she was Cheron.
Her body couldn’t keep up, so she hadn’t even thought of erasing traces like that.
Just as Elonia knew Artius’s sword habits well, Artius knew Cheron’s sword habits very well, as well as her habits when using magic.
Even now, it was obvious that Artius would notice Cheron’s trivial habits.
“…!”
Artius’s eyes suddenly became clear as if realizing something while checking the mana.
Elonia prayed for him to overlook it.
“What. For a good-for-nothing princess, she knows how to use magic.”
“Let’s report this to His Majesty the King as well. It’s a good thing since her mother’s side was a dud anyway.”
Suddenly, that incident from the past came to mind.
‘I can’t be found out.’
It’s one thing to be discovered by him in the past, but it’s dangerous to be discovered by the current Artius.
If he, who hates me now, finds out, I don’t know what will happen to me.
‘If I’m found out, it will be like back then.’
I’ll end up receiving the same miserable treatment as back then.
I’ll end up living as the war demon again.
That incident from the past began to disrupt Elonia’s breathing and strangle her throat.
“…!”
At that moment, her eyes met Artius’s.
It felt like time had stopped for a moment.
It felt like all the blood was draining from her body.
Those eerie purple eyes.
They were eyes that seemed to have seen through everything.
“…Princess.”
Artius approached Elonia slowly with an unbelieving face.
‘No, I hate it.’
I won’t go back to that time again.
I’d rather die than live like that again.
The knights and Sarah didn’t know what was going on and didn’t know what to do.
“Your, Your Majesty…?”
“Is, is there a problem with the princess?”
Artius didn’t answer.
His eyes were clearer and sharper than ever as if he had woken up from sleep, but they had a strange glint to them.
He also looked confused.
Elonia fell into a panic with each step Artius took closer.
‘No, don’t come.’
Artius’s eyes shone like a beast’s.
Even while believing that the Artius she had seen for 5 years wouldn’t do that, an insane sense of unease welled up.
‘I don’t want to return to the battlefield again.’
Artius slowly reached out his hand.
It was to check Elonia’s mana.
‘No, I said no!’
Artius’s hand completely filled Elonia’s vision.
His fingers touched her forehead.
‘Ah.’
Now it’s all over.
Her body had already suffered internal injuries.
But with the added stress greater than that, her mind signaled that it had reached its limit.
“Pri-Princess!”
Sarah was the first to notice Elonia’s condition and shouted as if screaming.
Her vision was hazy.
Even so, she clearly saw Artius hurriedly withdrawing his hand from her with a surprised face.
‘Please go away.’
Don’t forget my will.
Don’t make my death meaningless.
Don’t betray your promise to me.
Thinking like that, Elonia slowly closed her heavy eyelids.
Wishing for Artius, who was making that stupid expression, to quickly get lost.
* * *
Cheron Heilan’s first murder was when she was only ten years old.
It took place not long after she lost her mother.
The princess born from a concubine of slave origin, chosen directly by the Calamity God as an apostle.
The princess born with the power to bring calamity, befitting the daughter of the Calamity God’s apostle.
King Vermon’s long-awaited slave who would control the power of calamity.
So it was only natural for this kind of end to await her.
“The 1st Army will be led by Princess Cheron.”
With a single word from the King of Heilan, the young girl was deployed.
Blood-soaked clothes and the foul smell of iron from swords.
Endless screams and the ugliness of humans laid bare.
To survive in that, Cheron committed murder just like them.
Cheron thought then that it would have been better if she had died there.
But Cheron Heilan was a once-in-a-thousand-years calamity among calamities.
She wasn’t someone who would easily die to small fries on such a small battlefield.
At first, she used a very large power without knowing anything, thinking she might die.
And she regretted it.
“Ah… Ah, aaahh!”
Seeing a human being burst open and die, at only ten years old.
That was when she first realized humans were so fragile.
It wasn’t a sight a young child could endure.
So Cheron flew away as if running away, very high.
And she killed the enemies in an instant with an even greater magic than before.
Looking down from the sky, the horrible scene of the battlefield was a bit better.
She couldn’t smell the blood, and it felt more like killing insects than people.
No, even the sight of small insects gathered and trampled to death side by side wasn’t very pleasant to see.
Somehow, it felt even more revolting.
The long, long war ended in an instant at the hands of a mere ten-year-old girl.
Receiving the gazes of fearful soldiers all over her body, Cheron struggled to pull herself together and returned home.
She hoped it would be over now.
But that was a futile wish.
“Still, there was a point in giving birth to you. Good work. Prepare for the next war.”
Those were the words Cheron heard from her father as soon as she returned home victorious.
It was the first praise she heard and the first words of expectation, but it wasn’t pleasant at all.
“Bleh, uegh. Cough. Hic.”
That night, Cheron couldn’t sleep at all, vomiting her disgusting insides until dawn.
She even vomited blood.
She only found out later that it was internal injury.
There was something harder than the physical pain.
No matter how much she washed until her skin peeled off, it felt like the smell of the battlefield lingered on her body.
“She showed no change in expression even after killing people.”
“Is it because she’s a child and can’t feel guilt for killing people?”
“I don’t want to get close to her. It feels like she’ll smell like a corpse…”
Wherever Cheron went in the royal palace, piercing gazes stabbed into her.
The whispers continued to torment Cheron.
Due to the King’s order to never be looked down upon by people, Cheron always had to pretend to be composed, and when she really couldn’t endure it, she shut herself in her room.
But whenever she confined herself alone in a dark room with no one around, the screams from the battlefield invariably seemed to ring out.
“I hate it, it’s disgusting… Ugh, sob… Mother…”
Cheron suffered from severe insomnia and after-effects due to the horrible scenes of the battlefield that kept appearing even when she closed her eyes.
For several years, until the horrible scenes of the battlefield became more familiar than the peaceful scenery of the royal palace.