Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Wraiths Were Once Human
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“Hmm.”
As Lena sat there blankly, stroking her neck, Regina came down and lightly touched her collar.
“Eek!”
Lena recoiled in terror, swatting the hand away. Regina asked indifferently at the overreaction.
“Strangled to death again?”
“Not yet.”
Lena gritted her teeth in response. She was trying to act tough, but her face had gone pale.
“How long since the last drop?”
“A month…….”
“Before that, it was two weeks. Is there a bounty on your head or something?”
“Give me a break.”
Lena was scraping by on odd jobs for some lady of the house. The idea of a bounty on a girl like her was ridiculous.
“How else could you keep getting killed like this? Blaming the city watch only goes so far.”
But Regina was serious.
“What if your father tracked you down…….”
“No way.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He didn’t seem like the type to do errands like that.”
Lena spoke with a hint of misery.
“Everyone who came after me was out of their mind.”
Five attacks in the past. Three from the same person, two from others. But they were all insane. Their eyes were unfocused, like they were possessed, and they didn’t react even when Lena hit or bit them.
“Any other traits?”
“They kept hissing. Like snakes.”
“Insane.”
Regina let out a rough sigh. Lena flinched at the suddenly harsh tone, so Regina clicked her tongue and explained.
“I suspected that bastard had his eyes on you.”
Bastard? Eyes on her?
“Do you remember? The day you first fell—the one who said he’d make you his concubine.”
Lena’s eyes widened as she nodded. Of course she remembered. The particularly creepy King of the Dead who’d threatened to cut off her face if he couldn’t take her as a concubine.
“Looks like he made his move.”
“What do you…….”
“It’s his ability. Controlling other beings and manipulating them. He’s using humans to drag you down to the grave.”
***
“Is that even possible?”
At Rin’s question, Lena nodded calmly.
“The Kings of the Dead wield a lot of influence in the Empire. People just don’t know it.”
She added to the still skeptical man.
“Think about it. Doesn’t it seem weird? Why altars are crawling through the Empire’s back alleys.”
“You mean there’s intent behind it?”
“Why else would something so bizarre be wandering around? There’s a war raging with wraiths in the borderlands, yet altars roam the cities. Doesn’t it feel unnatural?”
Rin’s face grew even graver. As he pondered, Lena returned to the main story.
“Anyway, that king used people to drag me to the grave.”
“So what did you do?”
“I worked hard.”
“Worked hard?”
Lena summed up that time with the word “effort” and smiled. It was a shame she couldn’t tell Rin about Regina. Then she could explain that hellish period in detail. But Regina was a secret, so Lena continued with a bit of embellishment, as before.
***
“No way…….”
Lena felt like the sky was collapsing. How long had it been since her father abandoned her, and now some freakish thing was latching onto her?
“What did I do to deserve this…….”
“The world doesn’t care much about your rights or wrongs.”
“Shut up!”
Lena yelled at Regina, who was muttering innocently. Then she burst into sobs.
“If you want to choose now, say it. Die peacefully, or become a King of the Dead. Either’s better than this.”
Regina spoke, lying in midair.
“Of course, with me here, you won’t get dragged off by him, but if things stay like this, life on the surface will be hell.”
Lena glared at Regina, feeling even more wronged. But that lasted only a moment before fresh tears welled up and fell.
“I don’t want to die…….”
Rest, king—whatever pretty words you dressed it in, death was death. She’d face it someday, but not yet. Lena wanted more of her own time.
“If you really want to live, there’s only one way.”
As Lena kept crying, Regina sighed and said something dropped in front of her. It was a sword with a razor-sharp blade.
“Get strong. Stronger than them.”
“Stab people with this?”
“No, it’d be a problem if you learned from me and only fought humans.”
As Lena looked anxious, Regina grinned with her half-face.
“I’ll make you strong. Strong enough to tear a King of the Dead apart.”
That moment, Lena felt an odd premonition. A bad feeling that accepting this offer would lead to disaster. But she had no alternative. So she accepted Regina’s proposal and regretted it bitterly afterward. Still, in the end, three years in grave time later, Lena succeeded in taking down the King with Many Hearts.
***
“……Is that possible?”
“Anything works if you do it.”
Rin, stunned, asked the same question again, and Lena gazed into the distance as she answered. Her faintly smiling face was filled with an inexplicable regret. Regina had kept her word to make her strong. The method was brutally violent, but thanks to it, Lena became overflowing with power. So she crushed the King with Many Hearts by force. And for about half a year after, she hunted him down each time he revived and killed him again. The reason? Pure venting. All the grudges from what he did to her, what she suffered from Regina because of him, and even what her father did to her—she poured it all out without mercy. With so much pent up, Lena pursued him obsessively, and after killing him over twenty times, she stopped counting. Meanwhile, the King of the Dead was utterly bewildered by Lena’s sudden mad assaults. The day she first killed him, he writhed in agony, bellowing that he’d repay the humiliation double. But that bravado lasted only briefly; by the third death, he begged, and by the seventh, he cried. Then, after around thirty deaths, a strange change came over him, and he began submitting to Lena more and more. And finally, he confessed this.
“I knew only the pleasure of killing in life, but through you, I learned the pleasure of being killed.”
The king said that and even came to enjoy Lena coming to kill him. That didn’t erase his nature, though—he still tried to kill her now and then. So Lena thought, watching him die with an ecstatic face, that it was time to stop. Having lost interest in him, Lena returned to the surface. It had been three years and six months in grave time.
“The pleasure of being killed…….”
Rin mulled over Lena’s words with complicated feelings. It was bizarre in every way, but he was shocked that it was the king who’d dominated the East. He didn’t share some camaraderie, but the idea that his Eastern rival was such a freakish pervert was deeply unsettling.
“Are all Kings of the Dead like that?”
“In what sense?”
“Extremely weird but surprisingly casual…….”
Rin struggled for words and gave up. Then he complained in a dizzy haze.
“I didn’t expect to communicate normally with them.”
“Why not? It’s in Your Majesty’s chronicles.”
“That’s…….”
“No need to overthink it. Wraiths were once human. No, they still are. They’re just dead.”
Rin grudgingly accepted Lena’s explanation. Still, he felt blindsided. If anything, Lena was even more astonishing. He’d thought she knew oddly much about the grave, but to think she’d lived there for years. As Rin mulled that, he suddenly asked.
“So how old are you now?”
“Me?”
At Rin’s serious question, Lena feigned surprise. Then she answered proudly.
“I’m legally an adult now.”
“Besides that. Including time spent in the grave.”
“Hmm…….”
But Rin didn’t fall for the joking reply, and Lena narrowed her eyes sweetly again. Asking a lady’s age so casually. Normally she’d smack him, but this time she showed mercy.
“About seven years in the grave.”
Seven years. So Lena’s real age wasn’t eighteen but twenty-five, maybe more. Shocking, but Rin accepted it easily. Because of how she usually acted. Lena often—no, frequently—felt like an older woman. Rin, who’d inherited his dukedom young, was mature for his age too. Yet with Lena, he often followed her lead rather than taking charge. It wasn’t unwelcome. It was the first time since early childhood that someone led him, so with Lena, he could shed over half his usual burdens. It was comfortable, and that’s why he liked it. He’d often wondered how she did it. And sure enough.
‘She’s older.’
Realizing that, Rin secretly sighed at his own shallowness.
‘No wonder…….’
Really no wonder. Truth be told, Rin had felt something off while with Lena. He’d never told anyone, but every woman he’d liked so far was older. He hadn’t chosen by age on purpose. But whenever he was drawn to their reassuring composure, they always turned out older. So this time he’d wondered what was up, and lo and behold. Rin was baffled by his ridiculously picky taste. As he fell silent, Lena misunderstood and leaned in close, whispering.
“Why ask my age? Want to call me big sis?”
Rin furrowed his brow and pulled back slightly at her whisper. His heart ached inside and out. To feel this thrilled by the woman who’d broken his ribs—unspeakable. Rin steadied his fluttering heart and searched for an excuse.
“Big sis…….”
He started to speak, but Lena sighed and stood. Rin sensed something suspicious too. The bushes around the tree were rustling. By the time they noticed, they were surrounded again.
“Do we have to keep running?”
“There’s another way. Slaughter all the wraiths in this space first.”
Rin sighed and stood as well. Snakes big and small swarmed from all sides. But Lena wasn’t fazed at all. She seemed ready to actually massacre them first. That’s why he couldn’t help liking her. Rin entrusted his back to her, thinking that. And as before, they guarded each other. Their perfect coordination sliced through the snake wraiths effortlessly.
‘What?’
So Rin felt unease instead.
‘This is no different from before…….’
After getting wrecked like that, you’d think they’d change tactics or prepare countermeasures, but the snakes charged mindlessly just like last time. That matched what he’d seen of wraiths on the surface. But if a King of the Dead was here, and if that king had intelligence, there should be something different.
‘Draining our blood slowly? Or some other scheme?’
As Rin suspected the king’s intent.
“Guh……!”
A sudden impact pressed down on Rin’s shoulder. Mid-swing against a wraith, Rin dropped his sword and buckled at the knee. Lena turned at the sound, her panicked face visible. It was maddeningly erotic.
‘No…….’
Rin realized what was happening. Again. His mind was fading again.
“Rin……!”
Lena’s voice sounded endlessly distant. Instead, a foreign laugh rang in his ears. A raspy, snake-like cackle. In that instant, part of the mystery cleared. The snake king’s scheme—it was him, Rin. A new question arose. How did the snake king possess me……? Then his sinking eye level, nearly at the ground, began rising again. Fear gripped him. His body, moving on its own, seemed about to do something awful. Snakes kept pouring in, and amid them, Lena Rubel looked flustered. Already dire, and then another unbelievable event. A tower-like giant snake approached. Rin thought it would fly over and swallow them. But right after, with a roar, something unexpected happened. The massive snake thrashed its head, crushing all the other snakes.
‘What…….’
Lena and Rin both panicked at the unforeseen turn. Had its head been too heavy and it collapsed? No, the big snake’s momentum was fierce. It cleared the snakes surrounding Lena and Rin in one go, then bared huge fangs and bit at the air. The dense garden tore open with a rift. A crack shining red against the sky—the exit.
“Rin! Snap out of it!”
Spotting the exit, Lena grabbed Rin. She was ready to drag him if he rampaged. But Rin was already sane. The moment the snake bit the air, his mind cleared. He didn’t know why, but he bolted with Lena toward the rift.
“You dare!”
Then a roar echoed behind them. The voice of the King with Many Hearts. Lena and Rin glanced back briefly. The snakes collided, and the big snake that helped them was torn apart. Black smoke rose from its body. Dodging the poison, Lena and Rin threw themselves out of the rift. Rin, with a strange premonition, looked back again. Amid the torn snakes, something stood. A person. A woman. Rin’s heart sank. Simultaneously, an unbelievable voice echoed.
“If I’d known you were alive.”
The nightmarish voice he couldn’t escape rang in his mind, welcoming its master.
“No way…….”
Rin groaned, staring at the narrowing rift. He couldn’t fail to recognize the woman visible through the shrinking gap. She was Rin’s birth mother and the former Eastern Duke. Naza Aiterner Grasha.