The One Who Answers When I Call #3
“Pidea, are you awake?”
[Of course I am.]
As Emil walked toward the lord’s tower, he could feel his head slowly cooling down.
When was the last time he had steeled himself with the resolve to achieve something even at the cost of his life?
He swore he had never once felt that way.
Even now,
Emil was not burning with any passionate fervor.
He simply moved his feet because it was something that had to be done.
“Pidea, lend me your ‘eyes.’”
[Your eyes? You already used them last time. If you use them again, your body won’t be able to endure it. You’ll go blind from the flames of Sheol.]
“It’s fine. Just give them to me. Since when have you been so worried about me?”
[Emil…….]
Pidea hesitated for a moment before eventually doing as he asked.
A moment later, the expected agony struck.
His eyes burned as if they were on fire.
‘Ugh, ah, damn it!’
But Emil did not scream. He endured it in silence.
First, he had to reach the lord’s tower.
If he could get there, he would surely find some trace of Leni.
“Who are you?”
“It’s Sweb. I’ve come for the shift change.”
“Sweb? ……The shift change was a little while ago.”
“The captain of the guard called for me.”
The guard frowned.
“The captain called for you?”
“Yes.”
“I see. By the way, Sweb—since when did you start speaking so politely to that man?”
Damn it. Had he been caught?
Of all people, it had to be someone who knew the real guard. Shit!
The guard drew his sword and opened his mouth to shout.
“Hey, there’s a suspicious—”
“Pidea, give me your ‘arm’!”
It was a single instant cry, but Pidea understood immediately and lent Emil her ‘arm.’
Burning agony tore through his arm as well, but……Emil endured it and swung the limb with full force.
In that moment,
the guard’s lower jaw and upper jaw separated completely.
It wasn’t broken.
It had literally been severed and sent flying.
The top half of his head flew from the impact of Emil’s swing and slammed into the wall,
while the lower jaw and torso fell a beat later.
“Damn it, that hurts like hell.”
[Emil, borrowing not just one ‘eye’ but the ‘arm’ too……it’s too dangerous! The burden is enormous!]
“There was no other choice. If I hadn’t taken him out in one strike, the others would have come running after hearing that shout.”
Clenching his teeth, Emil climbed the lord’s tower.
The plan had changed.
Since he had already been discovered, there was no way to hide the corpse anyway.
“The demonic energy……seems to be coming from higher up.”
The eyes Pidea had lent him could see Leni’s demonic energy. Emil strode quickly up the tower.
Which floor?
It would be best if it was as low as possible……damn it.
“Hey, why are you wandering around here……”
He ran into other guards.
For a brief moment he considered making up another lie,
but gave up on the idea.
There was no guarantee it wouldn’t be exposed again,
and the soldiers who had just passed by would surely scream once they saw the corpse on the lower floor.
“—!”
Emil dashed straight into their midst and smashed the nearest guard’s helmet.
The helmet burst like a popped balloon, and the flesh and bone fragments inside scattered in all directions.
“Wh-what the—!”
Before the other soldiers could even finish screaming,
he swung his arm again.
Their heads burst in the same way.
“Ah, fuck. This feels awful.”
[Can’t be helped.]
The world as seen through Pidea’s arm felt like soft pudding.
A slight swing of the arm turned anything it touched into squishy fragments that flew everywhere.
[More importantly, Emil. Give the arm back now. And the eyes too. If you don’t, your arm will be crippled and you’ll go blind.]
Pidea spoke with clear worry in her voice.
“It’s fine. My right arm is only useful for shaking the thing between my legs up and down. Anyone can ask another woman to do that for them.”
[Emil, I’m not joking…….]
“Neither am I.”
Emil turned his head toward Pidea and sprinted up the stairs.
He ran into more guards,
and once again turned their skulls into lumps of meat paste.
He ran again,
met more enemies again,
and turned them into meat paste again.
In that manner, Emil finally reached the top of the tower.
The tower windows were narrow.
He had once thought that if he twisted his body just right, he might be able to squeeze through.
But in the end, he never tried.
Leni had no wings,
and if she fell, she would surely die.
‘Emil…….’
Beyond the iron door, footsteps continued to come and go.
The number of guards had neither decreased nor increased.
She felt neither the certainty that she would soon die nor the hope that someone would come to rescue her.
However, for a little while now, a strange sensation had been brushing across her chest.
Every time she breathed in, her chest felt tight.
It was an unfamiliar feeling.
“Sir Ayden.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Please speak.”
The middle-aged man, a loyal knight of the Romanden family, stood beside Leni as if guarding her.
He did not notice the slight tremble in her hand as it rested on the windowsill.
“The door……it won’t open, will it?”
“No, Your Highness. It has been locked from the outside.”
Just before she had been imprisoned, Leni had seen that the outer side of the door was made of thick, aged wood.
Three layers of metal bolts were fastened across it.
It was a structure that would be difficult to break even with a hammer.
She nodded.
“I thought so.”
The middle-aged knight was grieving over the rebellion that had taken place in this castle and the fact that the princess had ended up locked away like this.
The princess turned and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Sir Ayden.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much about you. Lady Cately knows you well, but……she doesn’t like me. Still, could you listen to my story for a moment?”
He looked puzzled but did not ask why.
Likewise, Leni muttered without paying attention to his reaction.
“When I was little, back when I was still in the capital.”
Leni said.
“I raised a bird in the garden. It was a sparrow with a broken wing.”
“Yes.”
“But even after it healed, it couldn’t fly. I thought it simply didn’t want to.”
Ayden looked at Leni.
Leni neither lowered her gaze nor turned her head.
“Later, I realized. The bird trapped inside the greenhouse had known it could never fly into the sky. It was smarter than I was.”
She lightly clenched and unclenched one hand.
Right now,
Leni was thinking of Emil.
More than ever, she wished he was by her side, and more than ever, she felt relieved that he was not.
According to Neil, Emil had already escaped Iredain first. That was fortunate…….
‘Still.’
For some reason, tears flowed from Leni’s eyes.
‘If I could just be held in Priest Emil’s arms one more time, I would be so happy……Priest.’
At that moment, the sound of something collapsing came from below.
The sound of metal being torn and stone shattering.
There were no screams.
Ayden immediately straightened his posture and stood in front of the door, shielding Leni.
“Your Highness, please step back.”
‘Who could it be?’
In that instant,
Leni had a truly absurd thought.
A ridiculous, childish fantasy too embarrassing to say out loud.
“Priest……Emil.”
Like a story from a fairy tale book,
she imagined a hero coming to rescue the princess trapped at the top of the tower.
Soon, a bursting sound came from beyond the door.
The sound of a helmet flying and smashing into the wall,
the sound of bones breaking and flesh exploding.
Before any screams, blood began to flow beneath the iron door.
“This……!”
“……”
Ayden stared at the door with a hardened face,
but Leni said nothing.
She was neither afraid nor relieved.
She simply stepped back quietly, turning her bare feet so they would not touch the spreading blood.
Then it happened.
Clank.
The sound of something breaking outside.
Probably the first of the three metal bolts.
She quietly drew in a breath.
‘Did Neil come to rescue me? Or Roen? Or has something even worse happened outside?’
Even as she thought such things,
Leni could not let go of her fairy-tale fantasy.
‘There’s no way. Priest…….’
The door shook.
And then—
the second bolt
splintered with a loud crack.
“Whoever you are beyond that door, identify yourself!”
Ayden shouted.
There was no answer.
Instead,
the sound of the final bolt breaking rang out.
‘No. There’s no way……what am I even hoping for? There’s no way…….’
And the one who pushed the door open was a man with blood smeared thickly across his face,
staring into the room with cold eyes.
Leni’s breath caught for a moment.
Her heart did not burst, and her lips did not tremble.
Her gaze simply moved on its own.
“……Priest?”
Leni said.
The man did not answer.
He simply nodded and walked toward her.
One hand was drenched in blood,
and his pupils burned a vivid red.
“Priest Emil, why……how?”
“You called for me, Princess.”
Emil’s eyes seemed to be growing dim,
and his arm, marked with burns as if scorched by something, was slowly cooling.
“Isn’t that right?”
Emil asked with difficulty.
Tears flowed from Leni’s eyes.
“Yes. Priest……I called for you.”
Then Emil let out a soft, faint laugh.
As if relieved.
“So I came, Princess.”