The Traitor's Last Stage
Plip. Plip.
Water droplets that had pooled on the ceiling from the damp fell to the floor, each one striking with a desolate sound. The lightless space rejected even the faintest trace of warmth—as if, in this empire, even that much was a luxury denied to the guilty.
The underground prison lay in the deepest reaches of the Imperial Palace. It was where those convicted of high treason had been confined for generations, awaiting nothing but their final trial.
That final trial took place in a courtroom—the last ground on which the condemned could stand upon their own two feet. The trial itself was nothing more than a hollow gesture of humanitarian decency. Nearly everyone thrown into this place received a sentence of death, and the execution was carried out immediately. The day one stood trial was, for all practical purposes, the day one's life ended.
From the moment they crossed the threshold, the prisoners understood without being told that their necks hung by a thread. And so most of them either raved that they were innocent or wailed in grief at their cruel fate.
But this one was different.
Quiet, isn't he.
The jailer shot a sidelong glance through the bars. In a cell barely wide enough for a single person to lie down, a young man sat curled up, utterly motionless. It had been two days already.
The jailer knew perfectly well who he was. Even in this damp, sunless dungeon, there was exactly one person in the entire palace whose hair had not lost its gleam—snow-white silver, luminous even in the dark.
Arendt von Eckhart—apprentice knight of the 3rd Knight Order, one of the three knight orders that formed the Emperor's personal guard.
The most glorious of orders, sworn to protect the Emperor. No one who lived within the Imperial Palace could possibly be ignorant of them. Each and every knight was celebrated, their names passed reverently from mouth to mouth.
But Arendt von Eckhart was famous in a rather different way.
Who was Arendt von Eckhart? Born into a fine house, gifted with looks that made anyone turn twice, and blessed with outstanding swordsmanship talent besides—a prodigy with every promise of brilliance. Amid the attention of all, he had joined the Imperial Knight Order as an apprentice the very year he turned twenty. The youngest on record since the order's founding.
It should have been an honor. Instead, it seemed to have convinced him that he was the finest thing the world had ever produced. Arendt, unable to contain that towering pride, began racking up one incident after another. Slipping out of the palace without permission to drink and throw fists was practically routine; he lorded over his fellow knights like a tyrant, and he even defied the words of his own commander.
And the result was this.
His crime came dangerously close to outright treason. He had sold the order's internal intelligence to a spy. Had the Knight Commander and the knights not caught on early, even the imperial family might have been endangered.
Flew too close to the sun, and this is what it got him.
The jailer suppressed the urge to click his tongue and looked away from Arendt. It was, no doubt, a punishment of his own making. But there was no point in mocking him. The man would be dead soon enough.
Arendt remained still, head bowed low. What thoughts occupied a young man facing death at the height of his youth? Was he offering a prayer of repentance to the gods? Whatever wretched life he had lived, only a few hours remained to him now. The jailer decided to grant him that much—silence shared between them.
Arendt's circumstances, however, were a little different from what the jailer imagined.
His legs were shaking up and down uncontrollably. Beneath that bowed head, cold sweat was dripping.
Exactly one thought dominated Arendt's mind.
Why isn't this a dream?
He had been certain it was a dream. There was no way it couldn't be. He had been alone, cleaning up the theater after closing. His last memory was wiping down the stage with a mop and staring, dazed, at the stage light hanging directly above his head.
Then he opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by gleaming, frost-cold blades.
At first he assumed the dream had started from the moment the light began its fall. Or perhaps he'd been knocked unconscious by the light, his body lying in a hospital bed somewhere while he was tormented by something like a hallucination.
But no matter how much time he killed, he never woke up.
Arendt's—or rather, Lee Su-hyeon's, wearing the shell of Arendt—pupils trembled again and again.
"So that means I'm Arendt von Eckhart……"
He'd already pieced together the general situation. The problem was that by every scrap of common sense he possessed, he simply could not accept it.
The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword.
That was the title of the novel Lee Su-hyeon had fallen head over heels for recently. Its protagonist was none other than the Knight Commander who had ordered him thrown into this very cell—Laios de Winfreed.
Laios had clawed his way through a brutal, impoverished childhood before entering the palace, and drawing on everything he had endured, he proved himself as a swordsman. The result: a seat as Commander of the Emperor's own 3rd Knight Order at a remarkably young age.
Part one covered Laios's growth; part two, his rise to Knight Commander. Part three was where the real story began—an epic tale unfolding around the Imperial Palace itself.
And it was Arendt's betrayal that announced part three's grand opening.
When suspicious currents began stirring through the empire, the Emperor ordered his knights to investigate. Laios launched the inquiry at once, and the one who got caught in its net was Arendt.
After the trial, Arendt would be executed by Laios's own blade. And then Laios would set out to confront the enemies truly threatening the empire—that was the broad sweep of the novel.
And now Lee Su-hyeon had been hurled into the very heart of that story.
Cast as the traitor whose head and body were soon to part ways.
Lee Su-hyeon's legs started rattling all over again. Even granting, a hundred times over, that this was real—that he really had died because of that goddamn stage light, and that through some unknown reason he had become the real Arendt—
Why THIS point in the story?! Why THIS bastard of all people?!
Rattle-rattle-rattle. His legs shook so violently that the iron shackles on his wrists began clanking along with them.
It was probably still a dream. But if it wasn't a dream, or a hallucination?
Then the situation was very serious indeed. Because his neck was about to fly off for a crime he had never committed.
Getting the back of his skull caved in by a decrepit stage light because maintenance had been skipped was already unjust enough to die of indignation. But having his head and body part ways forever? That, he flatly refused.
It looked like he'd really die if he didn't do something. So he had to find a way.
That was the conclusion he had barely reached after two days of rotting in this cell. From the novel, he already knew that no one was coming to save him. Which meant he had to claw his way out of this situation by his own power.
The one blessing within the misfortune: he had exactly one more chance.
"The trial……"
And one more thing besides—something that might yet prove a rather useful weapon.
Thanks to reading The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword over and over, nearly every detail of it remained intact in his head. Somehow, some way, he had to put it to work.
Having accepted the reality of everything, his brain began to move—slowly at first. The violently trembling legs gradually went quiet. His breathing, having regained its calm, steadied as well.
Dying means one thing: exit, stage left.
There is no encore after death. No seat reserved in his name. Surely there were other kinds of deaths—but at the very least, Arendt's death was that kind.
Which left exactly one thing to do.
Even if it meant twisting the story, he would carve out a role for himself—for Arendt—in the acts still to come.
Priority one: keep his head attached.
Determination began to well up in the sunken golden eyes of Lee Su-hyeon—of Arendt. It was a look no different from Lee Su-hyeon's, back in the day, just before stepping onto a stage.
More time slipped by, and just as the jailer was beginning to feel the weight of boredom, footsteps began to echo down from the entrance of the underground prison. The jailer snapped to attention at once.
Knights of the 3rd Knight Order, led by Laios himself, were descending the dungeon stairs. As they drew near, the jailer bowed his head deeply in salute.
"Commander Laios de Winfreed, sir."
"It is time," Laios said coldly.
His gaze stayed fixed on Arendt, who sat quietly within the cell. Even now, Arendt had not moved an inch, head still bowed.
Laios regarded him in silence for a moment before speaking again. "It is time to go."
Only then did Arendt slowly raise his head. Apart from the barest candlelight struggling to push back the dark, everything around them lay shrouded in shadow—and within that darkness, his golden eyes glinted with a chilling gleam.
The knights, catching sight of it, momentarily lost their words.
Arendt rose to his feet unhurried and looked them all dead in the eye. His gaze swept over the knights one by one before settling, with unnerving precision, on Laios. A moment later, the corner of his mouth curled into a faintly fishy smile.
Lips gone cracked and dry from days without a single drop of water finally parted.
"Well then. Let's be on our way."
"……"
Laios's face hardened to stone. The expressions of the knights standing behind him twisted as well.
All Arendt had uttered was a single short sentence—but it was more than enough.
Confined to a cell for committing high treason, and yet Arendt hadn't changed one bit.
The jailer, who had been watching warily from the sidelines, fished out his keys and unlocked the cell. With no need to drag him out, Arendt sauntered forward at his own leisurely pace until he stopped—directly in front of Laios.
With an unreadable, impassive expression, Arendt peered up quietly at his superior. "As it happens, I've had something of great importance to report to you."
Laios's face went rigid. "……So you still feel no remorse, I see."
"Who can say? Whether you or I will be the one discussing regret—well, I suppose we'll find out soon enough."
On the surface, the voice sounded perfectly composed. But Laios did not miss the chill that threaded through it. Nestled there was distrust—and loathing—aimed squarely at him.
At those insolent words, one of the knights behind Laios began to growl. "Quite the chatterbox, for a man about to die."
"……"
Arendt did not dignify it with a response. Laios held back the knight as he moved to step forward, then slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.
So he hasn't changed at all.
He had thought the boy might beg for forgiveness, at least once. That he might admit he'd been wrong—that it had all been youthful foolishness. If he had, Laios might even have been able to help him escape the harshest of punishments.
A trace of conflict crossed Laios's face as he looked down at Arendt.
The failing was mine.
Had he guided the boy properly, a talent like that would never have gone astray. Swallowing his turmoil, Laios took Arendt's arm and pulled him along, a little roughly. Now was no time to bare his feelings.
The knights surrounded Arendt and began moving toward the exit of the underground prison. A thunder of footfalls once more filled the dungeon. The knights glared at him with savage eyes, wary that Arendt might lunge at Laios at any moment.
Those knights could never have known what was actually going through the mind of the man they had surrounded.
Wow…… this is really something else. Method acting with your actual life on the line.
Even as he cursed inwardly, he moved along obediently as Laios escorted him. If he didn't, those knights looked ready to skewer him on the spot like a roast.
The sensation of his life hanging by a thread struck him with vivid, almost unbearable clarity. But this was only the beginning.
He slapped the iron mask back over his face and began brainwashing himself. No—immersing himself in the role. Born with a silver spoon and a gift for talent. High nobility from birth. Currently accused of betraying his own knight order. In the original story, he was a lunatic who believed, with iron conviction, that he'd done nothing wrong even after committing treason—but character interpretation, after all, changes depending on the actor playing the part.
Arendt's gait, which had faltered for just a breath, found its center once more.
The knights strode forward without hesitation.
Toward the courtroom where the traitor's final performance awaited.