The Greatest Souvenir She Could Give
The mattress shot into the air like popcorn in one final, desperate burst of my pathetic nonsense, slammed into the ceiling with a thud, then shattered in the middle and collapsed in pieces. At the same moment, a scream-like rupture burst out from within it, accompanied by an intense silver radiance. The windows, unable to withstand the force, began to rattle and shriek.
“That’s…!” Cassian’s eyes bulged as if they might pop out.
“That thing—don’t tell me! Do you even know what that object that just popped out of the bed is? You little brat? Do you have any idea how dangerous that thing is right now?!”
Carlyle’s face had already frozen over colder than an arctic glacier. It seemed impossible for it to get any colder.
“E. Li. No. A. Lu. Cer. Ne.”
My brother spat out my name one syllable at a time, chewing each one.
“Look me straight in the eyes and answer. You hid that dangerous object—one that could blow up the entire mansion in a single strike—without any protective measures, right under the bed where you sleep? Without consulting a single one of us?”
“No, that’s not it! I bumped into someone at the shop and they handed it to me in the confusion. The situation wasn’t good enough to just throw it away. So I took it to the Eclipse guild first, but Cassian was there threatening to twist some guild member’s neck or something terrifying, so I got scared… I was terrified, so I brought it home for now.”
“You only use polite speech at times like this, huh? So it really is all my fault no matter what, you little brat?!”
Cassian shouted as if he’d been wronged, and I stomped my feet in frustration, expressing my own injustice with my entire body.
That was exactly when it happened.
Crack. Craaack!
The shattered mattress floating in the air turned to powder in an instant under some unknown force and scattered. The silver cylinder at its center was finally fully revealed in its grotesque form. With a metallic click, the densely engraved Thorn Crown crest protruded, flickered blood-red, and then began sucking in the surrounding power like a black hole.
The silver cylinder greedily absorbed ambient power on one side while simultaneously spewing an even thicker, more ominous black mist from the other.
In the blink of an eye, the situation turned critical. The sticky mist slithered along the walls as if alive, corroding the wallpaper pitch-black and slowly gnawing away even at the ice barrier Carlyle had set up.
“Crazy—this isn’t some simple information device!” Cassian shouted, veins bulging in his neck as if in agony.
“It appears to be a signal flare designed to absorb magic power, amplify it, and cause a reverse runaway. If coordinates were engraved and that follower from earlier was sent, then this situation is extremely disadvantageous for us,” Carlyle recited calmly.
My brother, who had been watching in dismay as his barrier was helplessly contaminated for the first time, shouted without hesitation.
“Cassian, gather the family knights immediately and seal off the mansion’s perimeter.”
Then the empire’s greatest famed sword, Liber, appeared at his side. The cold energy pouring from the blade momentarily froze the black mist.
“Elinor, it’s dangerous, so stay behind me. Your brother will protect you to the end.”
The moment my brother twisted his grip on the hilt, preparing to strike—
The silver cylinder, which had been trembling madly in midair, suddenly stopped moving, plummeted, and from within it came a bizarre and horrifying sound like nails scraping across a chalkboard, echoing all the way down the corridor.
It was not a voice a human could produce. It was so viciously ominous that it sounded as if ten thousand screams boiling from the abyss of hell had been crushed together.
Kwaaaaang—!
The moment horrifying goosebumps raced across my entire body from that terrible sound, a roar that swallowed the ominous voice erupted from the direction of the mansion’s front gate. This time it wasn’t the Lucerne family’s signature cold energy. It was the scorching heat of flames that threatened to reduce everything to ash.
“Duke Lucerne. Let’s skip the greetings.”
At the sight of the man who appeared through the thick smoke, the three of us froze once again—this time for an entirely different reason.
Blood-red eyes. Languidly tousled black hair. The empire’s one and only sun, Emperor Kaelus, walked toward us with magic power flickering in one hand.
“Your Majesty?! What brings you here?!” Cassian shouted in shock, but the emperor didn’t even pretend to hear him.
He stared with interest at the silver cylinder that had begun floating and vibrating again after the voice vanished, then turned his head and fixed his gaze on me.
“I believe I told you I lack patience. Do you not remember?”
He approached me with a sardonic smile.
“I came personally to receive the ‘top-class souvenir’ the young lady emphasized so strongly. Didn’t I tell you I’m rather impatient…? Still, this is quite a brutal souvenir. I had no idea the young lady’s tastes were this intense. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
Carlyle tried to step in front of me, but the overwhelming imperial magic power radiating from Kaelus instantly crushed my brother’s cold energy.
“Step aside, Duke. That is not something the power of House Lucerne can handle. You don’t even know what it is, do you? It is called the ‘Abyss of the Abyss.’ Only I, the empire’s sun, can tame it.”
When Kaelus reached out toward the silver cylinder, it fell silent as if by magic. Crazy or not, an emperor was still an emperor, I supposed. But my admiration lasted only a moment.
From inside the now-quiet cylinder, thick black liquid began pouring out like a flood, flowing terrifyingly down the back of his hand.
“Ugh…!”
The disgusting black liquid seeped into the emperor’s skin like a parasite, and his brow twisted in pain. Even for the emperor, it seemed the poison of the abyss was too much to endure.
I instinctively realized it. If that poison wasn’t purified right now, the emperor wouldn’t survive, and that would drag my family, the entire House Lucerne, straight into the abyss.
Whatever! Identity be damned—I’ll survive first!
Without hesitation, I ran forward and grabbed Kaelus’s hand tightly.
“Ellie! No!”
“Elinor! It’s dangerous!”
My brothers’ heart-wrenching screams rang out behind me, but it was fine. I didn’t stop.
The moment my palm touched the burning back of his hand, the platinum power inside me exploded as if it had been waiting for this.
Whooooosh—!
The bone-chilling cold of the abyss’s poison, the sun’s magic hot enough to incinerate all creation, and my own platinum light that seemed capable of embracing it all mixed together, ultimately forming a massive pillar of light that looked ready to pierce the mansion’s roof.
Kaelus looked at me with astonished eyes, experiencing this strange and mystical sensation for the first time in his life. I, too, gritted my teeth against the magical backlash that felt like it would shatter my entire body, then smiled brightly and murmured,
“With this… I’ve given you the greatest souvenir I promised, Your Majesty.”
In the dizzying whirlpool of light, someone snatched my body with crushing strength. It was Kaelus. The moment I was helplessly buried in his arms, his rough breathing against my ear came through crystal clear.
In this chaos where I couldn’t see even an inch ahead, my body somehow grew languid and the area around my heart tickled faintly.
How much time had passed? The radiance that had threatened to swallow everything slowly receded like the tide. And the first to regain his senses was him.
As the arms that had been holding me so tightly gradually loosened, a faint sense of regret unexpectedly crossed my mind.
In this utterly destroyed room, only a quiet stillness remained, as if the only sound was the beating of each other’s hearts.
As my vision slowly returned, what I discovered in the center of the room was not the shattered silver cylinder. It was a tiny black egg, no larger than a baby’s palm.
Kaelus walked over as if entranced and carefully picked up the black egg from the floor.
“I thought the Abyss of the Abyss would vanish immediately once purified, yet only the core remains. How fascinating. I’ve read records that fragments of Goddess Lucetia occasionally manifest as living beings, but I never imagined I’d see it with my own eyes.”
His voice was laced with undeniable wonder.
But that admiration lasted only a moment before Carlyle’s growling voice rang out.
“Your Majesty, please remove that ominous thing from my one and only little sister at once.”
Carlyle, as if he had no anger left to explode, spoke in a voice as rigid as stone and yanked me sharply toward him while glaring fiercely at the emperor.
“I believe the absurd events occurring right now in the Lucerne Ducal Mansion are not unrelated to Your Majesty standing here.”
His voice sank even lower.
“Please explain this ridiculous situation in a way that allows House Lucerne—which has devoted its loyalty to the Asterion Empire for generations—to understand without betraying its faith.”
It might have been a ridiculous thought, but I secretly hoped the emperor would simply keep his mouth shut. The moment those lips parted, a chilling premonition swept through me that not only I, but the entire family, would fall into an irreversible swamp.