Imperial Domain
Imperial Domain
The City of Pleasure no longer overflowed with delight and happiness.
The dead were beyond counting. Countless people had lost their families, their friends, their lovers. Aslan could read that truth in the streets.
The city was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Death and the reek of blood were scrawled across every corner. The collapsed buildings held things that were no longer human, or had been twisted into shapes worse than human.
How many had died? Aslan closed his eyes, opened them again.
Half the city. Perhaps more. He chewed his lip at the cold calculation settling in his chest and let out a breath.
He was unsettled.
And not only because of the city's state.
What kind of existence was the Flock, to bring this about? What had Tormule seen in the Flock that made his death so absurdly empty? Aslan couldn't grasp any of it.
That uncertainty drove the unease deeper.
Even after twelve years of struggle, after all his desperate fighting just to find his way home, he still couldn't shake the sensation of standing alone in the dark.
The Twilight Flock. Something that could crush, without effort, a being powerful enough to sweep away half a city on its own. What did it truly want from him? What was it?
He had found no answers.
And yet, what pulled his mood down hardest was simply the view before him.
Even through the churn of confusion and ignorance, he could not look away from the scene, and a bitter guilt rose on his tongue, twisting his face.
None of this was his fault, of course. Whatever the Flock desired, Tormule was moving against its wishes.
Tormule had been hunting Rumel. Even without Aslan here, everything would have played out the same way.
And there was nothing he could have done. Neither Tiyamal nor Fay—the two with the sharpest senses among his companions—had noticed anything. There had been no chance to stop it. The city's fate had been sealed long before Aslan ever crossed paths with Rumel.
Still.
He regretted. If he'd been stronger, maybe the outcome could have been different.
If he'd simply walked the streets instead of getting thrown into prison, perhaps he might have sensed the rot before it grew this deep.
Maybe he could have dragged Tormule outside the walls and kept the damage to a minimum.
Pointless regrets swirled through his skull, and Aslan did his best to keep the gloom from showing on his face.
If he had noticed the city's sickness earlier.
If he had grasped the full picture sooner and acted.
If he'd possessed the power to end Tormule before the creature devoured the city whole.
If he'd known of a way to restore the people Tormule had swallowed.
If any of that had been true, this many people would not have died.
Regret was meaningless. He knew that well. But Aslan couldn't stop himself from regretting.
Regret was a habit he had never broken.
He swallowed the regrets that rose against his will and let them drain out with a sigh.
To say it once more: regret meant nothing.
It was just a glance at the ground before stepping forward, something that should never become more than that.
A man who does nothing but regret cannot move ahead. He cannot grow. Regret itself never provides the strength to rise. If you look only at your feet and never at what lies ahead, you will only trip again.
So Aslan set it aside. Resignation was a method of survival he had learned after he stopped being Lee Hyun-woo.
And that resignation was clear for anyone to see. Even the guards who had held faint resentment toward him fell silent at the sight of his face.
He stood gazing out at the dark clouds gathered at the sun's edge, his expression steeped in melancholy. The guards watching him sank into their own private thoughts.
Rumel was among them.
Unlike the companions Aslan had dispatched on various errands, she had been allowed to rest—Aslan's consideration, offered on the grounds that she was deeply exhausted.
Looking at the city, she had wanted to say that the situation, however bleak, was not the worst. That much, she thought, was something to be thankful for.
She had meant to tell him that they had kept the city, after all. That they had fought and won.
But she couldn't. The man standing before her wore an air that did not permit such words.
The melancholy in his eyes. The regret bleeding faintly beneath the surface. The bitterness of a man forcing himself upright while still carrying the weight.
She could feel it all, and she knew at once that "thankful" was not a word that fit Aslan.
Rumel clasped her hands, twisting her fingers together.
'Should I comfort him? Or just... sympathize? Or make excuses...?'
Would comfort mean anything to him? Aslan, as far as she could tell, was a man who had already endured wounds beyond counting.
The mood he wore now, and what she had glimpsed in the tomb where they'd been trapped together—that alone was enough to tell her as much.
What words could possibly carry weight for a man like that?
Would justifying his actions give him peace?
Probably not.
Sympathy—could she truly sympathize with what that man was going through?
She didn't know that either.
Rumel had no idea what to do. While she wrestled with the question, the distance between them closed, and she found herself standing near enough to touch, still agonizing.
How did the novels handle this?
How, in the stories, did one comfort a suffering lover? Reaching for an answer, she stretched out her hand without thinking, fumbling through the small bag at her side, trying to pull out a book—and dropped it.
"Ah."
A dazed little sound escaped her along with the falling book. Aslan turned his head and watched it strike the ground.
It hit the dirt and fell open, dust clinging to the pages. Rumel's cheeks flushed—from embarrassment, maybe.
"S-sorry. Sir Aslan...."
"It's nothing."
She bent to retrieve it. Aslan, carefully keeping his eyes averted from the way her chest shifted with gravity, managed a smile and picked up the book first.
He held it out to her, his expression deliberately soft.
"Here you are."
"...Thank you."
She took the book and looked at his face.
That gentle smile—it was the smile of someone who, despite his own pain, still wanted to offer comfort to another.
Rumel's voice caught. She didn't think she could smile like that if she were hurting the way he hurt.
"...Lady Rumel? Are you all right?"
Book in hand, she had fallen strangely silent. Aslan blinked at her.
"Are you injured? Or... ah."
Guessing that her silence was somehow about him, Aslan's smile turned rueful.
He thought she was this way because she hadn't been able to take her revenge on Tormule.
"I'm sorry. This must be difficult for you. It was your last chance for vengeance, and I... took it from you without meaning to."
He spoke the apology with that bitter smile and lowered his head. Rumel, flustered at the sight, murmured no, no, not at all, and reached out to cup his cheek and lift his head.
When Aslan finally raised his eyes and met her gaze, she fell silent again.
Aslan didn't understand the silence. He meant to ask again—was she truly all right, was she upset about the dust on her book—
But before he could, Rumel moved the hand on his cheek in a soft caress, brushing over his face.
"The one who should be asked if he's all right... is you, Sir Aslan. Are you truly all right?"
She asked it with a face full of entreaty. Aslan was taken aback.
He meant to answer that he was fine, but the look in her eyes sealed his mouth shut.
Lying had never been one of his talents.
From the emotions swirling in that gaze, Aslan understood that Rumel possessed the most sensitive heart of anyone in his company.
And really, that was only natural.
Until quite recently, she had been a noble. The daughter of a baronial house. A young lady who loved adventure novels.
Aslan's lips moved as he tried to decide what to say, and her eyes trembled faintly at the sight.
At last, he spoke, and the words came with a heavy sigh, as if he were setting down a burden.
"Yes. As you can see, I am not all right."
"Then...."
"But... I have to be."
Her face crumpled toward tears. Thinking about what an emotional soul she was, Aslan let out a quiet laugh, and Rumel, finding that smile a little irritating, pinched his cheek.
Aslan felt the dull ache of the pinch spread across his skin and answered her.
"Because I am Aslan."
She tilted her head. He took her hand and gently drew it away from his face.
"There are too many things in this world that only I can do. And if I step back from what only I can do, no one else will be able to do it. So I have to be all right."
She frowned at that, a sad expression settling over her features. Aslan released her hand with a soft smile, though she squeezed it for a moment longer, reluctant to let go.
She had seen his stubbornness. She had seen his will. Cheap platitudes didn't suit Aslan. So Rumel stayed silent, and Aslan gave her a smile that crinkled his eyes.
"Still, thank you for the comfort."
The gratitude came with a slight tilt of his head. That gentle expression. Rumel smiled back, quietly pleased that she had at least helped him set down a small piece of his burden.
Her face was faintly flushed.
"This much is... what one does for a lover."
"Right. That's— what?"
Aslan stopped mid-sentence. Rumel's eyes went wide at the sight of his own startled expression. Her damp brown eyes caught the light as they reflected his image.
'Did I mishear?'
No. His hearing was still perfectly sound. Aslan knew there was no chance he had misheard. So he stared at her, and she read the question in his gaze.
"What's the matter?"
Aslan opened and closed his mouth several times. Tilting his head, he asked carefully.
"What... did you just say? I thought I might have misheard...."
It was only then that Rumel replayed her own words and flushed crimson.
After all, there hadn't been any proper declaration, had there?
And now he was asking her to confirm it—she twisted her body, caught between delight and mortification.
"I, uh, do I really, really have to say it again?"
Her reaction confirmed that he had heard correctly, and what she said next shut the door on any possibility of correcting that impression.
"This is... what one should do... for a... lover, I thought...."
Her face burned red, and her eyes curved into a strange, bewitching shape. Aslan squeezed his own eyes shut.
Everything clicked into place.
The reason Rumel had acted that way toward Ereta. The starting point of every warmly biased reaction she had shown him—he had found it.
What was he supposed to say now? His thoughts sank into troubled waters. Rumel was beginning to register the shift in the air with confusion when footsteps approached from a distance.
"Aslan! We're back..."
His party, composed almost entirely of Masters.
Angie stopped talking the moment she noticed the strange atmosphere between Aslan and Rumel. Ereta glared at that atmosphere as if she meant to incinerate it with her eyes and strode forward.
She halted right in front of them, and Rumel closed her mouth and returned a guarded look.
'How did I not notice this?'
A silent sigh leaked out of Aslan as he pressed his fingers to his brow. Before Rumel could say anything, he spoke.
"Lady Rumel."
"...Ah, yes. Sir Aslan."
Rumel's eyes were warm as she answered. Ereta stood beside him looking sullen, and Aslan forced a smile.
"Um, forgive me, but... I believe there may have been a misunderstanding. Let me ask one thing to be sure."
Rumel tilted her head. Aslan hesitated as though the words were difficult to get out, then spoke haltingly.
"When... did you begin to think we were... lovers?"
The question hung in the air. The nuance behind it made Rumel's expression stiffen and her lips press together.
Rumel.
She was the cherished daughter of Baron Holne. A young woman who loved novels.
Whenever a tale of tender romance drifted through the fief, she would pester her maids to tell her the details. She'd walk the gardens, imagining what kind of love her own future might hold.
In the process, she had cultivated a considerable inclination toward fantasy.
She was perfectly aware of this problem herself.
Before she'd become a mercenary, that tendency had made things awkward for her more times than she could count.
So it was only natural that her face turned crimson.
Her cheeks flushed a red so vivid they looked ready to burst. Even Ereta, who had been shooting daggers moments before, and Aslan, who wore a troubled expression, both dropped their guard in surprise.
As if she couldn't bear all the eyes on her, Rumel pulled her braid in front of her face and cast her tear-brimmed gaze downward.
Those tears had nothing to do with regret over a lost chance.
They were tears born from a bottomless, mortifying shame so overwhelming she wanted to die.
"I'm sorry... for the misunderstanding...."
The words came out as though she'd bitten her tongue. Her braid didn't do much to hide her face; beyond it, her humiliation was painfully clear.
*
While the guards secured the surviving citizens, gathered people together, and sent requests for aid to other cities in the Imperial Direct Territory, the group reunited in the prison beneath the guard post.
The prison was the only building still largely intact.
By the time they'd tossed Tiyamal into a cell and the Dragon-kin had sprawled out inside it like he owned the place, Rumel spoke.
"I'm sorry.... You got caught up in all of this because of me, and I upset you with my presumptuous misunderstanding...."
"No— well, I can't say I wasn't upset, but... look, it's fine now...."
In the very place where they had faced each other ready to kill not long ago, Rumel now bowed deeply to Ereta, apologizing.
Ereta looked a little disgruntled, but the fact that she had Aslan to herself again seemed to put her in a generous mood.
"I have... this habit of getting lost in delusions. I want to fix it, but it isn't easy.... Please, if you see me doing it again... just tell me."
Rumel spoke gravely, though the furious red in her cheeks had mostly faded. Ereta waved her off as if it were nothing. Tiyamal, lying on his side, kept flicking his tail.
Angie still wore the blank expression of someone who couldn't quite follow what had happened. Fay plainly didn't care.
Even Aslan wore a gentle smile, so Rumel finally dared to lift her head.
From Ereta's perspective, Rumel had looked like nothing more than a brazen, ill-mannered woman.
But now that same Rumel was bowing desperately, apologizing with her whole body, Ereta's mood improved. It was a remnant of her priestly days—a taste for sadism.
"I accept your apology. Let's get along from now on."
"Thank you... Lady Ereta...!"
Personal inclinations aside, there was no reason to rebuff a Master of the Spear who could help Aslan's cause. Ereta's forgiveness came easily, and Rumel straightened up, then bowed again and again, her expression on the verge of tears.
Angie, who had been quietly watching Rumel rub at her eyes, glanced over at Ereta's satisfied face and asked,
"Why are you going that far? I mean, it doesn't really matter if you two don't get along...."
"Sir Aslan saved my life. I didn't want... to be hated by Lady Ereta, who is... so close to him."
Angie's question exposed her own obliviousness, but Rumel must have had her own reasons—the answer came easily.
And it was exactly the kind of answer that would delight Ereta.
Ereta's eyes went wide, and then she giggled.
"So close to him? That's how we look?"
Ereta was practically beaming. She sidled up to Aslan, ready to wrap herself around him with a coquettish "Aslaaan," but Aslan gave her head a few pats and shook his head.
"Lady Rumel, let me correct one more thing. Ereta and I are not in that kind of relationship. To me, each of you is a precious companion. I have no intention of showing special favor to any single member of the group."
"Aww, you're supposed to play along when I do that."
Ereta grumbled under her breath, but her reaction was mild—as if she'd expected exactly that from Aslan.
Rumel, however, watched Aslan with an odd expression, as though picking up on something deeper.
With her keen sensitivity, she sensed the shadow hidden in the word "favor" and her mind began to drift into fantasy once more.
That perhaps he had once taken a wife. That he had lost her.
That Aslan, broken and gasping from grief over a wife he'd lost, had learned a lesson: if he lost someone again, he would never be able to stand back up.
The fancy swept through her thoughts—that in order to finish his mission, to keep from falling to his knees before it was done, he was pushing people away.
What pulled her out was Fay, who had been quiet all this time. Fay jabbed Rumel in the ribs with an elbow, and Rumel flinched back to reality.
"Rumel, you're thinking weird things again, aren't you?"
Fay asked with an innocent smile, and Rumel twitched and went red.
"Ah, uh, w-well...."
Her face burned scarlet. Rumel tried to cover her eyes with her braid as if that would keep her delusions from being discovered, but it mostly just made her look oddly suggestive.
"Uuuuugh...."
A low, pained noise leaked out of her. Aslan chuckled quietly at the sight.
"What was it? What were you thinking? Tell me too!"
"No...."
"Aww, c'mon, I'm curious!"
Angie looked openly disappointed, and Rumel's ears blazed red. While the rest of the group laughed at the exchange, Rumel suddenly looked at Aslan, her face still flushed, and asked,
"So... you and Lady Ereta... are nothing more than that, is that right?"
What a question. Aslan blinked, then smiled.
"Yes, we are companions."
"Am I... also a companion?"
Her brown eyes peered at Aslan from beside the hair she held close to her nose. In those eyes glimmered a desire that Aslan didn't recognize—a desire that carried a note of earnest longing.
"Yes. Lady Rumel, you are also my companion."
Aslan answered without catching on. Rumel let out a breathy, damp sigh against her reddened face.
"That's a relief...."
The intent hidden inside that relief was perfectly transparent to Ereta. Ereta's face hardened with a sense of threat, and Rumel smiled at her with luminous clarity.