The Closing
"To think a piece of needless, fawning perjury would manufacture a tiresome occasion such as this..."
Years had eaten wrinkles deep into his face, yet the peculiar spirit of the house had not left him. The elder of House Alfred opened his snake's eyes and glared at the corpse of the dead Ciel Midford.
Ferzen's expression did not change. He turned his back and walked to Euphemia.
"Euphemia."
"..."
She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, bit her lip hard so the sob would not escape, and looked up at him.
"Go on to the mansion ahead of me."
"You... um..."
"Do you even have the strength left to spare a thought for me..."
He let the words fall on a thin sigh, as if in rebuke, and Euphemia dropped her head without strength. He was right. If she stayed any longer, she would only wear away at Ferzen's dignity.
And yet—why was it.
Her mouth was ready to answer yes. Her hand, though, had already closed softly around the hem of his clothes.
No.
She had only meant to.
"I'll... go on ahead..."
The hand that never reached him stopped in the empty air and fell, with a soft rustle, like a leaf.
"Ah..."
But Ferzen, who had been watching in silence, caught that hand and gently set in order the hair that had spilled down. Affection was engraved in his fingertips. Whether it was false or true, she could not tell...
Euphemia felt the tears might burst from her at any moment.
"I will correct myself."
"..."
"Euphemia."
"..."
"Wait for me."
"..."
"I shall return before it grows late..."
It was a small difference.
"Yes..."
And yet so much was different.
"I'll wait..."
The mansion in the capital. His correction meant that place was her nest now.
No. It was not.
Ferzen von Schweig Ruerug—the man who shared her name. He had become the place to which she returned. Yes. The cage had become her home. The warmest, most comfortable home in all the world...
Watching Euphemia's back as she went on ahead, I moved and came once more to stand before Ciel Midford.
"Count."
"Yes."
"If there is nothing in particular you desire, we shall incinerate him as he is."
The corpse of an Aura Knight was certainly a rare thing. But the realm he had reached in life, together with the damage the burns had done to the flesh, put its value on the low side. The blessing of the Five Blessing Gods did not hold after death. There was also the matter of his having tried to assassinate blood of Brutein, and so, if I did not claim ownership, the Emperor looked ready to dispose of the body at once.
"I will take ownership."
"Hm..."
The Emperor of the Ernes Empire. The King of the Kingdom of Robelium. The elder of House Alfred. The head of Brutein, my elder brother. Every one of them wore the look of a man who had not expected this.
Well. They would not have. Down the long length of its history, Brutein had preserved in the finest condition the corpses of former heads who had awakened their mana, and those corpses had been handed on. They might harbor doubts. Not one of them raised an objection.
No. They could not.
The man the criminal had tried to kill had made his choice. On what pretext could a third party dare to intrude?
"Then... let it be so."
"Yes."
I enslaved the corpse of Ciel Midford and raised it where it lay. Then I stroked the ring on my left hand—my altar—opened the subspace, made the body enter of its own accord, and severed the connection. After that I turned on my special ability, Quantification, set straight the ring that had gone slightly askew, and quietly breathed out a sigh soaked in a sentiment I could not name.
With this, the execution of the criminal Ciel Midford is concluded. His master, Inas den Preussen Robelium, shall carry out the matters demanded of him within three weeks of his immediate return to the kingdom.
At the words of His Majesty the Emperor, sun of the Ernes Empire, Prince Inas—kneeling beside the King of Robelium—ducked his head low and opened a trembling mouth.
"I shall do so..."
And so, on the twenty-third of May, the execution of Ciel Midford came to an end.
"With this, for the time being... there should be no further business."
Leaving the Imperial Palace in quiet, I spoke to Jeremiah as if only in passing.
"Yes. I imagine so."
He, the head of Brutein, was a busy man, and once I returned to ordinary days I would not have the leisure to go up to Brutein myself.
"Are you going up at once?"
"I have left my seat empty far too long... I ought to, should I not?"
In the carriage yard within the Imperial Palace, Jeremiah climbed into the carriage marked with the crest of House Brutein, a faint smile on his face.
"Ferzen."
"Yes."
"Your birthday will be upon us before long."
"Do not go sending anything like a gift. I am past the age for that."
"I was thinking it might be all right, even now, to grow a little childish."
"..."
"Yes, I understand. Then... I shall send things for the baby. That is neither childish nor impractical, is it? Children grow in no time, so I could send them on every birthday of yours without having to fret."
"If it is only that much..."
"Of course, as for whether you are making any effort toward an heir..."
"I am applying myself diligently, so you, Brother, ought to marry soon as well."
Jeremiah was still unmarried.
"Haha... it seems that is not a thing that goes as I please."
"I..."
Ferzen's self gave a faint spasm. I pressed it down and spoke with sincerity.
"If she is a woman you love, Brother, I will pay no mind to her station. A person's character does not follow their blood every time."
At words that might even have been called self-reflection, Jeremiah's eyes opened wide.
"In all sorts of ways... you have all but become a mutant."
"Please say that I have matured."
"Very well, then. Ferzen... my beloved little brother."
"..."
Past embarrassment and well into a cringe, I could not meet his eyes at that form of address, and I looked away.
"Let us see each other again, next time."
"Yes... Go safely. It was a pleasure to see you."
"And... I was glad."
...Brother.
He flinched.
In the instant the carriage door was about to close, those last words of mine sounded low, and Jeremiah turned his head. Then, wearing a kindly smile, he departed at his ease for Brutein.
Immediately afterward I went the other way from the gate he would be passing and left the capital. I still had something left to do.
The road had been laid wide and clean, so carriages might pass with ease. I left its verge and walked into a lonely wood where there was no sign of anyone.
Around here ought to be enough...
Even if I burned a corpse, the only things drawn by that peculiar smell would be beasts and birds. Certain of it, I stroked the ring on my left hand, opened the subspace, and set Ciel Midford down before my eyes.
Burns covered his whole body, and the armor fused to him had left a hideous shape. Even as an empty courtesy, it was hard to say he was in any good condition. I looked at the protagonist of this world—the man who stood at the opposite pole of my fate—and opened my mouth as if only in passing.
"Ciel Midford."
"..."
As expected, there was no chance of an answer. I carefully radiated mana, enslaved his corpse, and went through the work of drawing Feedback, one step at a time.
If the enemy had possessed any sense, they would not have shown Ciel Midford a clue by which they might be identified. Even so, I could not let it pass without a check, and I held his corpse for a long while. In the end, the clues I succeeded in drawing stopped, of course, at the level I had already vaguely guessed.
The perjury that dragged House Alfred into this was help received from a man whose identity could not be known...
That was all of it.
"Ha..."
With an empty laugh I brought out the coffin that held the corpse of the twenty-seventh head, Bayern von Griel Brutain.
"Forgive the discourtesy."
I enslaved him, set a cigarette between my teeth, and put a flame to its end.
A flutter of wings. A bird that had been sitting quietly nearby caught the smell, startled, and flew up into the sky.
The enemy...
What intention had they held?
Had they arranged the execution by drug, then meant to snatch the body in the moment it was moved to the crematorium for disposal? No. Grant that a spy switching the drug lay just barely inside what could be done. Stealing the corpse of a criminal who had tried to assassinate blood of Brutein, and carrying it off without being caught, was close to impossible.
Then, naturally, a single hypothesis remained. The only explanation was that they had aimed at the slim chance I myself would take Ciel Midford's corpse away.
How had the commoner students of Education Hall B—the ones with a talent for black magic—met their deaths when the attack came? The corpses assigned to them had risen and laid blades against their throats. What the enemy had intended was to hope I would die in just that fashion.
"Truly... what a fucked, ill-starred fate."
Putting an unbecomingly vulgar phrase in my mouth, I breathed out the smoke.
"Do you not think so, Ciel Midford..."
"..."
"The heroine stolen by the villain. Defeated by that same villain. Then, unafraid even of death, you burned your own life away—and in the end even your death was counterfeited, and you were made a plaything for someone else..."
"Haha...!"
"In all sincerity, a protagonist who lives a life as pitiful and shitty as yours... this is the first I have ever seen."
"..."
That being called an author—with what thought had they given birth to you? And with what thought had they shut me inside this body?
For a while I simply held my place. If the hour when the injected drug let him return from death fell sometime tonight, I wanted to wait, and at least make certain he knew by whose hand he was killed.
Euphemia... I made a promise I cannot keep.
I had told her I would return before it grew late. It seemed I would be very late indeed.
And so the sun slowly sank, the sunset spread and settled, and night came. But even past midnight—past the hour of twelve—Ciel Midford showed no sign of waking.
"..."
The last line of the patience I could spare him ended here. I put out the final cigarette of the chain I had been smoking and reached a hand into the subspace.
"I—no. The memories of Lee Seojin liked you. As a character."
Surviving with desperate stubbornness had been Ciel Midford's story from the very beginning. Lee Seojin, a reader, had felt the interest of that life, and its charm, and so had raged together with him at the villain who stole the heroine. The result had ended like this. Even so...
The cork came free with a pop. I drew it from the wine and poured over Ciel Midford's head, and a pleasant, sharp fragrance spread, faint and clean.
"Ciel Midford."
"..."
"Reincarnation exists in this world..."
So.
"Next time, dream a dream that cannot be achieved."
And achieve it.
"Fight an enemy who cannot be defeated."
And take the victory.
"Love a love that cannot be fulfilled."
And seize it in your hands.
"Endure a pain that cannot be endured..."
And take even that star in the sky—the one that cannot be caught.
Flame roared up.
Enslaving the twenty-seventh head, I converted mana into fire and burned Ciel Midford's body. I watched him burn amid the unpleasant smell, tipped out the rest of the wine that remained in the bottle, and set between his lips the cigarette I had put out while it was still half left.
A crackle.
And so Ciel Midford—the protagonist who had stood at the opposite pole of the villain—slowly became ash. The wind took up his remains, and they set out on a journey.
Watching that, I murmured.
"Even though you are dead..."
This world does not end.
The wind still blew. Stars glittered in the sky. The moon lit the dark. All of it kept turning just as it was, with no regard for the death of the protagonist. This was proof, was it not, that the world was an unmistakable reality.
A crackle.
At last what little ash remained was blown away as well. I looked over the grass, where only a blackened trace was left, and closed my eyes.
The mana within my body was stirring. At the rank of Euclid, the qualitative ceiling of my mana had been four faces. To advance into a solid, two faces more had been required—and that empty place filled, and became a complete solid.
Yes. Devouring the destined fortune of the protagonist who stood at the opposite pole, I, the villain, had become a black magician of the rank of Apollyon.
"..."
In the wind that blew, the jacket of my suit flapped. For a while I felt an aftertaste at once bitter and exalted, and then I rose from the place where I had sat so long.
No one else will know the true last moment of your death.
But...
I, the villain, would be unable for all my life to forget your death. Yours—the protagonist's.
And so I left that place.
Afterward, as if nothing had ever been in that empty place, only a cool night wind came blowing quietly, and tickled the grass that had grown there.
"..."
The lights were on. Brightly, at that. Had Euphemia not slept, even at this hour?
Feeling a considerable fatigue of body and of mind, I passed the main gate and opened the door of the mansion.
"Ah! Master...!"
A maid came running, her face unable to settle. But my eyes went past her, to the physician standing behind.
"Master!"
I ignored even her call, went quickly up, and opened the door of the bedchamber. It banged wide.
"..."
But Euphemia was unharmed. She sat quietly on the bed, reading a dull book. No—she seemed to be pretending to read. Her gaze was turned toward the pages, but her eyes were not moving.
"Ah..."
Far too late, she found me, let out a small sound, and stirred.
"Are you ill somewhere."
"N-no..."
She quietly shook her head.
"I saw a physician downstairs. Do not think of lying."
"I'm not... sick..."
"Euphemia."
"It isn't that I'm sick..."
Carefully, her face dazed, she stroked her own belly.
"They said I'm pregnant... that I... that I'm carrying your child..."
"..."
"The physician said so."
As if she had no sense of what was real, in a tone a little lost, Euphemia went on murmuring.
"Here... inside my belly, your seed... is growing..."
"..."
At those words I did not hesitate. I did not doubt. I did not say a single word. Quietly, kindly, gently, I drew her into my arms.
"Hah... hah...!"
After that, the maids and the physician who had followed me up brought me the news. The third week of pregnancy.
Yes. Euphemia El Lorraine Ruerug. She was carrying my child. She had become the mother of my child.