Chapter 64
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: The Only One Who Understands (3)
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1 hour later.
The deepest part of the palace. The room adorned with Prince Rasen's portrait.
- Clack, clack.
King Rio heard the all-too-familiar footsteps approaching slowly.
And before long,
- Bang, slam!
The door flew open violently, the sound echoing brutally through the quiet room.
Without even lifting his gaze from the documents he was reading, he spoke.
"I clearly told you not to come here, Helena."
His wife and the queen of the Crossroad Kingdom.
Helena Castor stormed into the private chamber, breathing heavily.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Her face was a storm of anger, confusion, and desperation. She had even thrown aside the fan she always clutched in her hand.
Only then did the king raise his head to look at the queen.
"Incanserth must have delivered my intent properly."
Seeing her fury boiling over, he quietly gathered his thoughts.
'By now, the situation should already be resolved.'
She had likely spoken with all those leech-like priests from the church by this point.
"Truly, Your Majesty... you ordered the proxy to do that?"
The sudden shift in address made the king's eyes narrow.
Fortunately, no one else was there to hear.
This private chamber was accessible only to the proxy and the king himself, so it was fine for Helena to revert to the familiar form of address they used when alone.
"Yes."
"How could you... No. That child nearly brought the castle down. Exile alone isn't enough!"
"Then what did you want?"
"It's an emotional issue, so we need to suppress her even more harshly!"
The queen cried out in a trembling voice.
"That damned letter—if not for the Central Officer, none of this would have happened!"
"Even after this mess from the fallout, you insist on the same approach."
King Rio rebuffed her bluntly.
"Stubborn even after witnessing the worst outcome."
"Then what if you send her outside the palace!? That won't change a thing..."
It was then.
The queen's face twisted in horrified realization, as if struck by a sudden thought.
"Wait... are you trying to separate Ilein from me...?"
"..."
Silence.
Already in a panic, Helena barreled on without waiting for a reply.
"Ilein killed our son. How... how can you forgive that!?"
Her scream, nearly a wail, reverberated through the room.
But King Rio cut her off sharply.
"You're wrong. The princess didn't kill Rasen, Queen."
"What?"
He rose slowly from his seat.
"God did."
With his son's beaming portrait at his back, he looked down at his wife.
"The day Rasen died, I buried two children in my heart, Helena."
The first time he had ever voiced his inner feelings.
"It wasn't just Rasen who fell that day. That day! The day that cursed god scorned us!"
He knew.
"...Ilein died too."
The day his son vanished by his daughter's hand, his daughter had died as well.
A death of the body and a death of the soul.
His green-eyed son's eyes had closed, and his daughter's had lost their light.
"Yet you clung to that loathsome entity, desperately seeking answers."
His face contorted in revulsion.
"Wagging your tail at the very being that killed our son and its vermin worshippers!"
But Helena had her own retort.
Suppressing the hateful tears welling up, she shouted.
"...You're one to talk. You've been holed up in this room for fifteen years!"
It struck right at the core.
"You never once visited your daughter, and now you pretend to care."
Her words brimmed with years of pent-up resentment.
"I looked after Ilein. I held this country together. I shouldered everything!"
Contradictions and truths spilled out in a jumble.
"Without me, you would've been dragged from the throne long ago. You know that!?"
"..."
Rio offered no reply to the barbed truth.
He could not deny that much.
He had fled.
From his duties as king and as a father.
Unable to bear the grief, despair, and resentment.
That void had to be filled by Helena and the retainers.
The Dark Ages.
The grim term hung palpably in the air.
The brilliant Golden Age had faded, and the kingdom now trudged through darkness.
All because Rio himself had abandoned everything and turned away.
In a somber voice, he said,
"...I won't deny it."
A clear fault.
"But no longer, Queen."
Not anymore.
Now that the truth was laid bare, his eyes were open.
The existence of god.
God's intervention.
And the emergence of one who received its favor.
King Rio spoke lowly.
"Sever ties with the church."
"What?"
"You know now what state the pope was in during the trial. Purge them."
He glanced at the list of hundreds of names atop the documents.
"We must excise the cancerous tumors clinging to this land."
The king sat back down.
His gaze toward his wife was resolute, as if he had made a grave decision.
"This may be the last warning I give you."
Cancerous tumors.
At the chilling term, the queen asked in astonishment.
"What... what exactly are you planning?"
"..."
Rio did not answer.
It was far too early to reveal his plans.
Like a predator falling utterly silent just before tearing into its prey, the little beast said nothing.
That silence unnerved Helena even more.
Sinister rumors were already circulating in the palace.
Rumors that the finance minister and audit minister had been summoned by the king and were engaged in some activity.
'Now that I think about it, they haven't come to see me lately.'
She had been so preoccupied that she had momentarily forgotten.
Those men, who used to fawn over her every few days to secure their interests, had not met with her once since the king awoke.
Suddenly, a memory surfaced: words King Rio had uttered while repelling the First Holy Crusade.
[Our blades are enough to destroy us!]
Back then, it had been a declaration to defend the kingdom.
But now, those cold eyes of his conveyed something entirely different.
It would be no gentle plan.
In that moment, Helena recalled the most fundamental question.
"Why... did you send Ilein to the Central Officer?"
Same time, palace entrance.
Events were unfolding at a rapid pace.
The princess's ability rampage had been publicly attributed to an "earthquake from volcanic activity in the western region."
Repairs on the heavily damaged corridor had already begun.
Ilein and Hanna were packing to depart for the southern border.
Only Nathan and Incanserth waited at the palace entrance for the two.
"..."
"..."
The proxy, face shrouded in a veil, stared fixedly at Nathan, while the Central Officer stood at a distance, desperately pretending not to notice.
In that bizarre gap, the two men had stood in silence for nearly an hour.
"Um, Proxy sir."
The Central Officer broke the silence first.
He finally turned his head to face the dragonkin and spoke.
"Is... this truly my punishment? Escorting Her Highness back to the southern border..."
He voiced the question he hadn't dared ask for the past hour.
"I thought punishment for insubordination normally involves suspension and severe penalties."
His tone betrayed utter incomprehension.
But the proxy severed the doubt with a single stroke.
"Do not question the purpose of the king's command."
"...Yes."
His head drooped once more, face ashen.
Incanserth watched him steadily.
'Central Officer...'
A truly peculiar man.
Incanserth thought so.
When the king had requested documents from the intelligence department, he too had reviewed a great deal of material.
Among them, naturally, was information on the Central Officer—the figure the king paid closest attention to.
A lowly, ordinary man with nothing outstanding about him.
One who received god's love yet rejected god.
One who staked his life on principles over personal safety.
A man broken by a single loss.
Yet one who rose again, determined never to break twice.
'Why does His Majesty concern himself with this man?'
The answer was obvious.
Because he received the favor of the god he despised above all.
But that alone didn't fully explain it.
If that were all, a death sentence in the trial would have ended it.
'Yet His Majesty did no such thing.'
He merely observed him intently.
And as the Central Officer had said, this royal command was highly irregular.
Why the southern border? Why specifically designate this Central Officer to take charge of the princess?
'The southern border currently shelters the former saintess in temporary exile. And the god-favored Central Officer is there.'
Why send the princess—who had manifested her talent and whose powers had rampaged—there?
It could hardly be out of goodwill or for his daughter's sake.
A king who hated god.
Perhaps this was a test.
To place the princess, the former saintess, and the Central Officer together and see what transpired.
That probationary period: exactly two months.
It matched the former saintess's temporary exile precisely.
As his thoughts reached that point, the proxy realized the king's intentions behind the order.
'Rio... you're trying to cross the line you must not cross.'
For the first time in decades, Incanserth murmured his old friend's name.
The end of sorrow brings rage; the end of rage brings destruction.
And Rio was heading toward the end of rage.
He had seen the fierce blaze subside, replaced by a cold, quiet resolve.
A quiet resolve.
'Rio wants to erase god's very existence from this land entirely.'
He was preparing a purge.
To execute anyone even remotely tied to the church, even slightly.
For revenge against the entity that had let his son die.
The only way to blaspheme, mock, and defile god.
Thus the frenzy of intelligence gathering, the secret missions to the finance minister and audit minister.
'This path will surely demand blood.'
Chaos would come.
Chaos to rebuild everything anew.
But not from without—from within.
And as a final chance, the last opportunity to halt his decision, he had sent the princess to Nathan.
To another man who rejected god.
In hopes he would find another path.
'If that is your will...'
He could not let his reawakened friend stray down the wrong path again.
Incanserth made his resolve.
"Central Officer Nathan Kell."
The dragonkin's large hand slowly lifted the veil covering his face.
"...!!! Pro-Proxy sir!"
Nathan startled, gasping in shock.
From beneath the veil emerged blazing crimson eyes that met his black pupils.
For the proxy to bare his face held grave significance.
In this moment, it meant he spoke not as the king's proxy, but as one individual to another.
A gesture of setting aside decades of duty to share words.
The dragonkin slowly opened his mouth.
"I hope you will find the path for us."
"...Pardon?"
Incanserth was the king's proxy.
He could not break the oath sworn as a dragonkin.
- I, Incanserth Vermotem, pledge my life for you and this land.
If the king sought ruin, then to ruin they must go; if rebirth, he must stand by his side.
That was the duty, obligation, and loyalty of the proxy.
'I cannot stop my friend. But this man might.'
It was possible.
This man who had defied the pope, rejected god, and chosen to remain human.
Despite standing in direct opposition to Rio, he shared startling similarities.
Thus,
Here, he forged another oath.
"I, Incanserth Vermotem, trust Central Officer Nathan Kell."
Just as his old friend had staked everything on the gamble of a purge.
So too did he stake his own.
- Crunch.
Incanserth clashed his teeth and pressed his large hand to his heart.
The ritual unique to dragonkin when swearing oaths.
The Central Officer grasped its meaning and froze in place.
A dragonkin's oath was as binding as their heart.
Incanserth now trusted the Central Officer.
He would harbor no doubts from any words and would support him fully.
This bond would not break until the Central Officer betrayed him.
"I trust you."
To pull the king from his cold resolve.
To heal the princess's wounds.
To present this land another path—not one of blood and carnage, but of dialogue.
I will believe.
60 days.
The final deadline, the last remaining line.
"Go and carry out your will. I will block all interference from the palace and the queen."
"Wa-wait, please hold on, Proxy sir! What do you mean!?"
The Central Officer raised his voice in confusion at the abrupt oath.
"What do you expect of me? Trust!? Trust what, and why!?"
The proxy gave no answer.
Instead, he drew the veil over his face once more.
And placed a hand on the Central Officer's shoulder.
"Find it."
Find the answer.
The true path that all others had failed to discover.
So that his friend's rage and fervor might find new direction.
"Central Officer, we're here!"
And by the time the princess and Hanna finally arrived at the palace entrance, dragging their heavy luggage, the proxy had already vanished down the distant corridor.