Chapter 77
Chapter 77
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 77
Chapter Title: The Birth of the Iron Mask
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Crunch, crunch.
It sounded like someone chewing on a cracker.
This was the hallway leading to Iron Mask's office.
The men standing on either side of the hall fixed their gazes in the direction of the sound.
Crunch, crunch.
The sound came from the sheet draped over a man.
It was an emergency blanket, coated with aluminum on the inside to preserve body heat. It crinkled with every step the man took.
Two men flanked him.
Less to support him and more to keep watch.
“You need to take it off now.”
Crunch.
The man nodded, the blanket rustling again, and one of the men beside him pulled it away.
And so, the man's face was revealed.
Gaunt and haggard.
Though his wet clothes had been changed and he had been dried off, the man still looked like a drowned rat.
Lento.
Iron Mask's son, who had survived his encounter with Kanghyeok only because he was crushed by debris and pulled into the sea.
A defeated soldier, rescued from the brink of death.
Knock, knock.
The man knocking on the office door thought the surviving Lento was both detestable and pathetic.
*‘It would have been better if he had died.’*
Then he wouldn't have had to go through this.
The moment Iron Mask heard Lento had been rescued, he had ordered him brought back alive at all costs. As a result, Lento now stood before the office, having received only the most minimal of care.
“We’ve brought your son.”
“Send him in.”
The old man's voice carried a quiet rage, like a smoldering wildfire.
The subordinate bowed his head and opened the door.
Then, as if sending him to his doom, he ushered Lento into the office.
Inside the office, Lento, his face pale, opened his trembling lips.
“Father.”
“All of you, get out.”
At the old man’s command from his rocking chair, the men in the office exited.
Thud.
The old man pushed himself up from the rocking chair with his cane.
He walked past the trembling Lento without a glance and stood before the door.
Click.
Never had the sound of a locking door been so chilling.
Lento's eyes followed his father's movements.
He wasn't looking at him.
Thud, thud.
He was simply walking to one side of the room, leaning on his cane.
“Strange. That you alone would survive again.”
He continued, his steps slow as he passed the lit fireplace, a mirror, and the displayed art and armor.
“In the scriptures, there is the temptation in the wilderness. The Devil’s silver tongue, tempting and trying to drag one to ruin.”
“…”
“Every time I read that passage, I grow angry. To dare interfere with such a noble cause. It is so detestable, so disgusting, I cannot bear it.”
Thud.
The old man stopped in front of a shelf and cast an emotionless gaze at Lento.
“Just like you.”
It was not the way a person looks at another person.
Nor was it the way a father looks at his son.
It was the look one gives a ghost, an obstacle, a nuisance.
As Lento lowered his head at the unfamiliar gaze, the old man reached out a gaunt hand and picked up a glass vial.
The liquid inside sloshed lightly, creating ominous ripples.
“Many more of my men have died. My cruise ship, my property, is now at the bottom of the ocean.”
Thud, thud.
The sound of the cane approached Lento.
Lento, head still bowed, trembled violently.
Slosh, slosh.
The sound of the liquid in the vial seemed to foretell what was about to happen to him.
Death wasn't what he feared, but the approach of that liquid was terrifying.
There was only one reason to use that liquid as punishment.
To eliminate a traitor.
“The ship and the men are of no great loss. But trust has been eroded, and my reputation has suffered. Recovering from this will take a long time.”
Thud.
The cane entered Lento’s downcast field of vision.
“Let me tell you what I saw…”
“No.”
Cutting off any chance for an excuse, the old man lifted Lento’s chin with the handle of his cane.
“I will no longer believe anything that comes out of your mouth.”
Feeling his world go dark, Lento mumbled like a groan.
“Father.”
“How dare you!”
Clack!
The old man suddenly raised his voice, striking the floor with his cane.
“A failure like you has no right to call me father.”
Lento’s face turned white, as if doused with ice water.
“…What?”
“I called you a failure, you incompetent fool.”
Lento’s eyes wavered at the contempt in his father’s gaze.
He had known.
That he wasn’t a precious son to him.
But knowing it and hearing it with his own two ears were worlds apart.
He felt like he was sinking into an abyss, and a long-suppressed emotion began to stir and crawl out from the depths of his heart.
“I should never have trusted you from the start. No, I should never have even created you.”
All this time, Lento had trained under his father's orders.
He had struggled, desperate for his approval.
And all of it was being denied.
As his vision darkened, his father's voice reached him.
“I would have been better off choosing a successor from among my men. I wasted time and money because of the likes of you.”
Pop.
The vial was uncorked.
And Lento,
Thump.
for the first time in his life, resisted his father.
“…What is this?”
The old man’s face contorted with displeasure as Lento grabbed his wrist.
“Ugh!”
As Lento’s grip tightened, the old man dropped the vial. The liquid spilled out, soaking into the carpet, and Lento spoke in a trembling voice.
“Why would you say such things?”
“You, insolent…”
Lento’s eyes were contorted and wet with tears.
He glanced down at the vial, some liquid still inside, then looked up at his father fiercely.
“Why that? Why.”
If it had been a gun, he would have died willingly.
If he hadn't been called a failure, he would have gladly accepted death.
But the old man had held the vial as if executing a subordinate and had denied his very existence.
He couldn't bear it.
Lento, his face vacant like someone who had lost everything, spoke in a hoarse voice.
“All I ever wanted was…”
“Can’t you let go? Let go! You piece of trash!”
As the old man’s voice grew louder, a knock came from the door.
Facing him, Lento let out a voice filled with anguish.
“Only your approval!”
It was right after that.
Thwack!
Lento struck his father's face.
His nose collapsed, and blood splattered onto the floor, distorting the face of the father he had once revered.
“Cough, gurgle!”
Lento stood over his father, fist raised.
The strong, respected father was gone, replaced by a frail, broken old man lying on the floor.
Was this pathetic thing really what I feared?
Lento's face twisted as he laughed and cried.
Now, Lento knew what true fear was.
It was the man in the black suit who chased him into the sea with a gun.
Compared to the terror that man had shown him, this was nothing.
Thwack!
Striking his father's face again, Lento shed tears.
The tears falling onto his father's blood felt utterly alien.
Not understanding why he was crying, Lento struck his father's face again and again.
Thwack! Thwack! Crunch!
“Gaaaaah!”
A scream echoed, and the pounding on the door grew more frantic.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Are you all right in there!”
“Something’s happened inside! Open the door, quick!”
“Get a gun! Hurry!”
“Bring anything!”
At the shouts of his men trying to open the door, Lento shifted his gaze.
Then, his eyes fell on a mirror and froze.
The reflection in the antique, beautiful bronze mirror was surely him, but it looked unfamiliar.
Wild eyes.
A contorted face.
The gaze of a demon.
Bared gums and clenched teeth.
Is this really me?
As Lento froze at his own horrifying appearance, his father fumbled along the floor with a wrinkled hand.
And what he grasped was the vial.
The vial containing the chemical meant for the cruise ship, the same liquid that had killed many traitors in grotesque ways.
The father swung it at his son.
Smash!
The vial shattered against Lento’s face, splashing the chemical all over him.
“Kraaaaaaah!”
Lento clutched his face and collapsed beside his father.
“Aaargh! Aaaaaaaaargh!”
The agony of his flesh melting away.
The chemical, having seeped into his mouth, felt like it was viciously tearing at his face from both inside and out.
“Hhuk! Hhuk!”
His hands, clutching his face, came away covered in something hot and slippery.
Lento looked down at the hands he’d pulled from his face.
Chunks of red flesh clung to them like mud.
“Huk, huk.”
Even when he blinked, thread-like debris only slightly obscured his vision; he could still see.
When he touched his nose, it felt like mush. When he touched his cheek, his fingertips met his melted gums and teeth through the hole.
Crash! Crack!
An axe broke through the door.
In the middle of the room, where the candles flickered in the draft from the opening, Lento looked at the mirror again.
In it was…
“Hideous… just like you…”
The old man murmured, mocking the monstrous Lento, who unconsciously nodded.
In the mirror was a monster Lento had never seen before.
A monster with half its face melted away, revealing crimson muscle, a monster that had tried to kill its father, was meeting its own eyes in the mirror.
Drip, drip, drop.
Tears mixed with melted flesh dripped to the floor, and the frantic chopping of the axe at the door assaulted his ears.
It all felt like he was in someone else's dream.
But it was strangely, intensely real.
As if he had finally woken from a long dream.
As if he had finally shed his illusions.
As if he had finally opened his eyes.
Lento staggered to his feet.
He moved toward the wall and grasped the hilt of a sword from a displayed suit of medieval armor.
Shing.
The gleaming blue blade reflected the candlelight and fireplace, shining with a crimson hue.
Bang! Crash! Crack!
The axe blade shattered the door, creating a large hole.
As if possessed, Lento approached his father, sword in hand.
At this, his father looked at Lento and twisted his lips into a smile.
“Now… finally. You have… useful… eyes…”
Lento raised the longsword high above his father.
When his father closed his eyes, Lento swung the longsword without hesitation.
Thwack!
The sound of the axe breaking the door and the sword severing the neck overlapped.
Crack!
A hand reached through the broken door, fumbling for the lock inside.
Lento stared blankly at his father’s corpse before his gaze shifted back to the mirror.
The monster with the hideously melted face was looking back at him.
A son who had killed his father, a hideous monster that could never be shown to anyone.
Lento touched his face, then looked away from the mirror.
“Máscara de Hierro! Are you all right!”
“Open the door! Hurry!”
Clang.
Lento dropped the longsword and walked back to the suit of armor.
“The hole is too small!”
“Keep chopping!”
Crash! Crash!
Hearing the growing noise and the shouts of the men, Lento stood before the armor.
He picked up the helmet and slowly put it on.
Creaaak! Clank!
An arm reached through the widened hole and unlocked the door.
The men who entered were struck speechless by the gruesome scene in the office.
The smell of flesh melted by chemicals.
The smell of blood and their master, his neck severed.
And as they took in the sight of Lento wearing the iron mask, the men couldn't even breathe.
“My God.”
“Máscara de Hierro is…”
“Th-the son…”
Seeing the dark red blood dripping from under the iron mask, the men frantically called for the medical team.
Some men, desperate to leave, fled to fetch the medics, while those who remained at the door stared at Lento with faces full of despair.
No one said a word.
Yet they all shared a common thought.
“Máscara de Hierro (The Iron Mask).”
Someone muttered, looking at Lento.
A name that had been a symbol, a metaphor.
The thought that it had now passed to Lento, that the true Iron Mask had been born, was firmly planted in everyone's mind.