Make Them Pay the Price
Make Them Pay the Price
Arno's pupils dilated.
The moment the wolf before him bared its fangs, he felt an instinctive terror.
Swallowing dryly, Arno shouted.
"Daniel Steiner! Do you even realize what you have just said? I am of the imperial bloodline! I am the rightful successor who has inherited the blood of my father, the late emperor!"
Daniel did not stop walking.
At that, Arno turned pale and raised his voice.
"Halt! I said do not come any closer! Daniel Steiner! I am granting you an opportunity right now! An opportunity to pull down that monster and place me, the true emperor, on the throne for the sake of this Empire!"
The closer Daniel drew, the more Arno, stricken with fear, broke out in a cold sweat.
Realizing that the situation was growing more dire by the second, Arno forced an awkward smile.
"Fine. I think I understand what your purpose is in acting this way. You are worried about what will happen after I become emperor, is that it? If so, you may rest easy. Because I am willing to follow your every instruction."
Arno's smile twisted.
"What do you say? If you join hands with me, this Empire is yours. You will no longer have to tiptoe around that monster Selvia! That is to say... your comrade. Yes! I shall become your trusted comrade!"
The desperate placation continued, but Daniel's expression remained impassive.
Fearful of that, Arno kept stepping backward until his back met the cold surface of the wall.
Thinking he could no longer run, Arno drew ragged breaths.
"Answer me... say something, I said!"
The dampness in his voice spoke for Arno's state of mind.
At that, Daniel stopped walking and stared intently at Arno.
"Arno. Do you consider yourself the rightful emperor?"
Arno nodded, dumbfounded.
"I want to hear why you think you are the rightful emperor."
Arno, gauging Daniel's mood, opened his mouth to speak.
"If you saw the record of the past, you would know as well. It is because I am the only one who has inherited my father's blood."
"Does blood make an emperor? If so, then I would think the responsibility that comes with that blood should be heavier than others, don't you agree?"
While Arno looked bewildered, Daniel took out a pair of leather gloves from his pocket.
"Before coming here, I had done a little digging into your past. It was so easy that it barely qualifies as an investigation. The director of the Inner Court Office, perhaps out of ill will toward you, told me everything about the misdeeds you committed in the past."
Arno could only stare blankly as Daniel pulled on the leather gloves.
"In the past, you killed a lady-in-waiting who served Selvia because she would not undress before you. Around the same time, an arson occurred on the outskirts of the capital, and an entire family lost their lives. Do you remember?"
Daniel, having donned the leather gloves, lightly clenched and unclenched his fist.
"The ones who lost their lives in that arson incident were the lady-in-waiting's family. The reason they died was only one: because they had displeased you."
Arno's eyes trembled faintly.
"However, you went unpunished. Because the late emperor, concerned that the authority of the Imperial Household would be greatly damaged if it became known that a prince was the lead instigator of arson, concealed the truth."
"That is..."
"Beyond that, you played with the lives of countless people at your whim. Every one of them was a crime too vile to even speak of. Yet they did not resist. No, they could not resist."
Daniel's cold gaze fell upon Arno.
"Because you had inherited the blood of the emperor."
Having been born the emperor's son, Arno could stand above the law.
Because no matter how many crimes he committed, the Imperial Household had always sided with Arno.
To punish Arno was to acknowledge the Imperial Household's own fault, so shielding him had been the natural course of action.
Moreover, with so many nobles backing Arno's enthronement as emperor, Bertram would have been unable to punish his son even if he wished to.
Because the moment he admitted his son's guilt, he would have effectively turned all the nobles on Arno's side into enemies.
Thanks to that, Arno had lived his life under the delusion that trampling on others was his natural right.
He had acted as though violating and destroying the inalienable rights of others was some sort of delightful game.
But Arno's pleasure could not last forever.
Because as soon as he lost the succession struggle, all the nobles who had protected Arno abandoned his side.
Duke Belvar was no exception.
Now that he had become useless, they no longer felt any need to cover for Arno's misdeeds.
And so Arno had come to hate Selvia even more than before.
Because he believed that Selvia had stolen all of his enjoyment.
That hatred had made him avert his eyes from reality.
Even though he had been perfectly defeated in the succession struggle, he refused to accept it and became obsessed with pulling Selvia down.
And so, having racked his brains searching desperately for Selvia's vulnerabilities, what he finally uncovered was the truth that 'Selvia is not the late emperor's bloodline.'
Never once considering that this truth would become the very noose around his own neck.
"Arno. The sole merit you, an incompetent and loathsome creature, possess is that you inherited the emperor's blood. You yourself must have known that this blood was what protected you."
Daniel reached inside his coat.
"However, you did not know how to be grateful for the blood flowing through your body. You did not know how grave the responsibility etched into that blood was."
When Daniel's hand emerged from his coat, it was holding a pistol.
"Therefore, on behalf of all those who have died at your hands, I shall carry out the law."
With a practiced motion, Daniel pulled back the pistol's slide and released it.
Cheolkeok─
Confirming that the pistol was loaded, Daniel aimed the muzzle at Arno's head.
"Do you have any last words?"
Arno's mouth fell open blankly.
At first, he had thought it was a simple threat.
He had judged it as a threat intended to gain the upper hand in a negotiation.
But Daniel Steiner really was trying to kill Arno.
Finding that absurd, Arno's trembling lips twitched.
"Are you in your right mind? Kill me? The last bloodline of the Imperial Household? That monster Selvia will turn this Empire—"
Daniel pulled the trigger.
Bang─
The flying bullet pierced through Arno's head.
From the back of Arno's skull, blood burst out and stained the mural.
Arno, wearing an expression of incomprehension, collapsed to his knees.
Then, slowly, his head bowed.
Daniel, who had been silently looking down at Arno, tossed the pistol.
The discarded pistol landed near Arno's hand.
Kwang!
Almost simultaneously, the cathedral doors flew open and Chief Superintendent Bent and his accompanying officer burst in.
"What happened!? Are you alright!?"
They had been stationed outside the cathedral and burst in upon hearing the gunshot.
Rushing to Daniel Steiner to assess the situation, Bent could not help but gasp in shock.
"This is..."
Because the imperial prince Arno lay dead, his back against the wall.
The saints depicted in the mural and the stained glass peering down at Arno felt eerie.
Seeing the flustered Bent at a loss for words, Daniel let out a low sigh.
"Prince Arno has chosen suicide."
"...Suicide, you say?"
"Yes. The moment I informed him of his implication in the crimes committed by the Labor Union Party, he displayed a pessimistic attitude and then made an extreme choice."
"Pardon? Even so, for Prince Arno to make such a choice..."
Bent, who had been muttering in disbelief, lifted his head and felt his body go rigid.
Because Daniel Steiner was silently looking down at him.
"It was suicide, Chief Superintendent."
A chill ran down his spine.
It was clear he was being told not to raise any questions, so Bent had no choice but to nod.
"...Understood."
Daniel patted Bent on the shoulder and then turned away.
Only then did Bent, releasing the breath he had been holding, approach Arno's body with his accompanying officer.
Though the shock lasted a while, the two soon collected themselves and each set about their tasks.
The accompanying officer, kneeling on one knee, was examining Arno's body in detail when a look of doubt crept onto his face.
"Chief, isn't something off here? In cases of suicide, they usually press the gun to the temple or inside the mouth and shoot, but Prince Arno has a gunshot wound to the forehead."
The accompanying officer's brows furrowed.
"Furthermore, if the shot was fired at contact range, soot from the gunpowder should remain around the gunshot wound. But look at this now. It won't be certain until we wipe away the blood, but isn't there no soot visible on the skin? No matter how you look at this, it's—"
"It is suicide."
Bent's voice, cutting off the accompanying officer, was trembling strangely.
Slowly lifting his head, the accompanying officer saw Bent wearing a ferocious expression.
"This is suicide. Do you understand?"
Hearing the intimidation in Bent's voice, the accompanying officer understood what it meant and nodded.
He feared what would happen the moment they failed to comply with Daniel Steiner's statement.
After all, Daniel Steiner was both a war hero and the one holding real power over the Empire.
In addition, he was said to be running a private organization, quietly and silently killing people, so it was only right that they be careful.
The accompanying officer, not wanting to die, turned his gaze back to Arno's body and spoke.
"...I understand. No matter how you look at this, it is clearly a suicide."
But why would Daniel Steiner have done something like this?
'No way. To perfectly grasp the Empire in his own hands?'
Unable to know the inside story of the incident, the accompanying officer was simply terrified.