Karma Comes Around (3)
A cathedral near the Imperial Capital.
The stone statue of the goddess Kariel gazed sternly down upon the guard below.
"Zzz… snore…"
The guard was asleep.
His duty was to watch the path leading down to the crypt beneath the cathedral — a burial ground where clergy and nobles who had donated vast sums to the church lay at rest.
"Snore… snore-snore."
He was neglecting his post in real time. Even the goddess Kariel's sharp stone eyes could not rouse him from his slumber.
The cathedral was small, too poor to hire professional guards. The staff took turns on night patrol in a rotating shift system. The man currently snoring against the wall was, by day, the doorkeeper who watched the front entrance. Door duty from morning, night watch after dark — no wonder he had nothing left in the tank.
"Snore… zzz."
He leaned against the wall and let the fatigue melt away. A place this modest had no golden chalices or silver candlesticks worth stealing. Thieves rarely bothered with it. Besides, two other guards were on duty besides him.
The others will keep watch just fine.
With that comforting thought, he closed his eyes without a care.
The problem was that the other guards had thought exactly the same thing.
"Snooore…"
Each of them trusted the others to do the job properly and went right to sleep. Too much mutual faith — that was the issue.
A dark night. A silent cathedral.
"Confirmed. All the guards are out cold. Move in."
"Understood."
Four thieves slipped into motion. Soft, careful steps. They infiltrated the cathedral as quietly as they could.
"You all know the target, right? Rebecca Robbins's sarcophagus."
"Yes. Everything's ready."
The grave robbers pressed deeper into the cathedral. In the crypt below, noble remains rested in stone coffins — and those coffins often held jewelry and valuables buried as grave goods.
Their target was Rebecca Robbins, one of Bardo Robbins's deceased former wives. In life she had donated so generously to the church that her body had been interred in the cathedral crypt. That was why the robbers had come.
Soft footfalls whispered through the halls.
"Zzz… snore…"
The guard assigned to the crypt slept on, dead to the world. The statue of the goddess Kariel proved equally useless at stopping grave robbers.
"Good. We're at the crypt. Find Rebecca Robbins's sarcophagus — fast."
"Yes, sir!"
At the leader's command, the other three moved in perfect coordination, darting through the dark like insects scuttling for cover — silent and swift.
"Found it!"
Someone hissed the words, and the whole crew converged on the spot.
"Let's begin."
The sarcophagus was sealed. The leader circled it, running his hands over the stone, feeling for the right places to break.
"Here, here, and over there. Smash those."
"Got it."
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Hammers and chisels shattered the lime mortar sealing the lid.
"Done. Now get the crowbars in and lift."
Three robbers lined up along the sarcophagus. They wedged long iron crowbars into the thin gaps where the mortar had cracked, then gripped them together.
"Hup!"
"Nngh—!"
"Urgh!"
They threw every ounce of their weight onto the bars.
Grrrnnnk.
The heavy stone lid rose by degrees. A hairline gap opened.
Thock—!
The leader drove an oiled wooden wedge into the opening, locking the lid ajar.
"Good. We keep repeating this."
They worked the crowbars and wedges again and again. After several rounds, the gap was wide enough for a man's arm to slip through.
"Skinny. You're up."
"Yes, sir. Starting now."
The thief with the thinnest arms stepped forward. He slid his hand into the open crack, groping for the jewelry draped over the noble corpse.
Fumbling in the dark.
"Hss. I've got hold of some jewelry, but it's caught on the body. Won't come free. Looks like I'll have to cut it off."
"Then cut it."
Skinny took a knife and reached back into the sarcophagus.
Saw. Saw.
He carved through the flesh where the jewelry was snagged.
Ugh. Why is this so tough?
He grumbled inwardly and kept cutting.
Snap.
Something gave way completely. He had severed the piece holding the jewelry. The moment he dragged the cut-off portion toward the open gap—
Their eyes met.
Rebecca Robbins was staring straight at him, both eyes wide open.
"AAAAAAAHHH!!!"
Crash!
Skinny tore his hand free and toppled backward.
"Y-you damn idiot!! Everyone run — now! The guards will have heard that!"
"Boss! Stay alive out there!"
The operation was a bust. The grave robbers fled as fast as their legs would carry them.
Before leaving, the leader veered back toward the sarcophagus one last time. He figured he might as well pocket the jewelry for himself while the others weren't looking.
He peered inside — and froze.
"Hah—!"
Even a professional grave robber flinched. Rebecca Robbins's corpse had not decayed at all. Her pale face stared up at him with open eyes, clear and unblinking.
Th-this is the devil's work!
He abandoned the jewelry and scrambled away in a panic.
"Make way! A criminal approaches!"
Sunlight poured brightly over the square as armed guards appeared among the throng of onlookers.
"What's going on?"
"Rumor has it some duke murdered his own wives."
"Wives? Plural?"
"Apparently it wasn't just one or two. He'd kill a wife, take a new one, kill her too, then marry another."
"Ugh. What a piece of human garbage."
The crowd murmured and jostled. The guards hauled a man with bound hands toward the center of the square and dragged him up onto a crudely built wooden scaffold.
Thud.
Bardo was forced to his knees atop the execution platform.
"This criminal poisoned three of his wives and staged a fourth's death as an accident."
A priest standing beside the scaffold recited Bardo's crimes.
"Murderer! Rot in hell!"
"Avenge those poor duchesses!"
The spectators jeered and howled. Amid the noise, one onlooker frowned in confusion.
"How did they even catch that killer? You're always up on the gossip — you must know."
"Ahem. It all started when some grave robbers got caught trying to loot a duchess's tomb…"
The know-it-all in the crowd launched into his explanation.
The robbers had failed to plunder Rebecca Robbins's grave — and as a result, the cathedral discovered her body, perfectly preserved and uncorrupted. A chilling anomaly. The church immediately gathered experts to determine the cause. Alchemists, priests, specialists of every kind examined the remains and concluded that a toxic substance had arrested the decay. Rebecca had died by poison.
Until then, everyone had believed she succumbed to illness.
When word reached Rebecca's birth family, they tore the city apart hunting for the culprit. They tracked down the physician who had signed her death certificate, pressed him hard, and forced a confession: he had taken a bribe to falsify the cause of death. He also named the man behind the bribe — Bardo Robbins.
The moment Rebecca's family denounced Bardo to the Imperial Court, Silvia Robbins appeared as if she had been waiting for exactly that instant. She submitted the poison used in the murders as evidence, then produced the secret correspondence Bardo had exchanged with the physician.
And so Bardo's crimes were laid bare for all the world to see.
"Criminal. Place your neck."
The priest beside the scaffold murmured the words. Bardo slowly set his neck upon the wooden block. Even with death moments away, he remained calm.
Hmm. If I'd known it would come to this, I should have killed that Leonore bitch and taken a new wife. What a shame.
To Bardo, death was an abstract concept that never quite landed. Once you were dead, everything was over, wasn't it? So what was there to fear?
He offered his neck with easy composure.
Whoosh.
The executioner raised a massive axe. When that blade fell, it would all be finished. A commoner would have faced hanging or burning — slow, agonizing ends.
But I am a noble. Nothing like those worthless commoners.
Nobles received a clean beheading — quick, painless, over in a single stroke. As a psychopath, Bardo found a painless death utterly unthreatening.
"Get it over with."
He issued the order in a bored, indifferent tone.
Whoosh—!
The executioner's axe swung down on command. Bardo closed his eyes in perfect calm. In a moment, his life would end in peace.
Thwack!
"Huh…?"
The word slipped from Bardo's mouth. The axe had definitely swung — and yet—
"Ghk—! Cough!"
Heat. A mouthful of scalding blood burst from his lips.
"Oh, shit."
The executioner stammered in panic. He had failed to finish the beheading in one blow — a critical error that could mean punishment. He had to kill the criminal as fast as possible.
Thud—! Thud—! Thud—!
In his panic, the executioner hacked wildly with the axe.
"Ghk— ghk-ghk-ghk— GYAAAAAH!!"
Agony crashed over him. Bardo screamed and thrashed through a pain he had never once experienced in his entire life — but with his neck half-severed, his body would not obey.
I-I don't want to die!
At the very last, in his final moment, Bardo finally understood the terror of death.
"S-spare meee—!! GYAAAAAH!!!"
He begged for his life in the most abject way imaginable, but the plea reached no one.
Thud—! Thud—!
Only the brutal axe strokes continued.
"AAAAAAAH—!!"
Snap. Thud.
His head fell with a final, ragged scream. To the very last instant of the blade cutting through, Bardo felt every ounce of the pain in full consciousness — and died in absolute terror.
Karma comes around.
Peace has no place at a villain's end.
It's been a while since Silvia went back to her family estate.
Things should have reached a conclusion by now. I was curious what kind of end Bardo had met.
Well, I'm sure it was the worst kind possible.
Yongwang-shin was quite the sadist. Bardo wouldn't have died comfortably.
I was staring into space with those thoughts when Hanna sidled up beside me.
"Young Master. A letter arrived for you."
"A letter?"
From Father, maybe? I took it and unfolded the page.
Dear Sir Rix,
I shall pay you a visit before long.
— Duchess Silvia Robbins
"What the hell is this."
I'd just received something that read like a phantom thief's advance notice of a heist.