Chapter 83: The Non-Human Monster

"Are you still not ready to speak?"

"I... cannot..."

The top floor of the northern spire.

There, Commander Drake of the Bertion Knights and Empress Emilia were alone together.

Drake visited her every day.

He was determined to find out what she had witnessed the day the jailer was murdered.

The crime scene was far from ordinary, and he judged that failing to uncover the truth would surely bring grave consequences in the future.

But it had already been several days.

Emilia showed no intention of opening her mouth.

"What is it that terrifies Your Majesty so much?"

Drake let out a sigh and rose from his chair.

'Another failure today.'

The clatter of his armored suit echoed through the cold cell.

"I will return at this hour tomorrow. I hope you will be ready to speak then."

Just as he turned to leave.

Step, step.

Someone appeared at the end of the corridor.

Drake's eyes widened slightly, and then he immediately fell to his knees.

"Your Majesty."

Seated, Emilia's head snapped up.

"Why are you here, Your Majesty...?"

"Emilia."

Beltar's face looked healthier than before.

His complexion had improved, and his eyes shone with clarity.

Emilia let out a bitter smile at the sight.

"I hear you've reconciled with Empress Amanda. You must be quite happy now."

"Is that truly all you have to say to me after so long?"

At Beltar's disappointed gaze, Emilia lowered her head.

"Then what do you wish to hear, that you've come all the way up to this high place?"

"Emilia."

Beltar stood close to Emilia and sat on the makeshift chair Drake had occupied just before.

"Why do you think I spared the life of the daughter of a traitorous family?"

"You wanted me to suffer for the rest of my life, I suppose. In this prison with nothing, where the nights chill my bones and even food is scarce. To make me live shedding tears of repentance."

"You foolish woman."

Beltar shook his head.

"That is not it. I could not kill you, so I locked you here. You are the mother of Elliott and Noah, are you not?"

At his words, Emilia let out a hollow laugh.

"Yes, I heard. That because I gave birth to a prince and princess, I was imprisoned here instead of killed."

"..."

Beltar silently gazed into Emilia's eyes for a long while.

The silence in the cell settled even colder than the frigid air.

"You must never have seen Elliott weep himself to sleep."

Beltar spoke quietly.

Emilia's eyebrows twitched ever so slightly.

"You must not have heard the words he mumbles alone, longing for his mother. That child, made the son of a traitor, cannot even say he misses you to anyone. Have you ever considered what he must be feeling as he lives on?"

Emilia turned her head away.

She lowered her gaze, struggling not to reveal her rising emotions.

"Noah is the same. The child abandoned by her mother from birth will spend her whole life wondering about your face if you die."

At that, Emilia's hand trembled.

The feelings she had suppressed resurfaced, brushing her ear like a whisper.

The faces of her children vividly appeared before her.

"The reason I did not kill you was not only for the Imperial Family's honor. It is because you are still their mother. That fact has never changed. The children have not forgotten you. They still long for you."

Beltar had originally despised the entire Fabian family.

Emilia, too, deserved death for the crime of treason, but he had not chosen that.

It was not out of pity or lingering affection for Emilia.

It was solely for the sake of his own young son and daughter, just beginning to grow up.

"So you must live, Emilia. And you must tell us. What danger you have faced, and what has happened here."

Beltar's eyes shone with clarity.

"If you truly care for the children, that is."

"...Your Majesty."

Emilia bit her lip hard.

She opened her mouth to speak several times before finally managing, her expression pained.

"My father is... no longer human."

"What do you mean by that?"

Beltar's eyes widened slightly.

"It was my father who killed the jailer this time. But the horrific figure I saw was nothing... that could be called human."

Emilia could no longer hold back her tears.

"It was grotesque, reeking of stench. Black shadows writhed like tangled vines all around. Yet the voice was unmistakably my father's."

"What did he say to you?"

"He told me to wait. To stay quiet and alive. That when he returned, he would take the life of every being in this land."

"..."

"He threatened that if I acted recklessly, he would kill me as well, then vanished. That is why... sob..."

Emilia wiped away her tears.

Beltar and Drake exchanged glances.

Then Beltar stood and ordered Drake.

"Have the Empress's quarters moved elsewhere."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Emilia."

"..."

Beltar placed a hand on her emaciated shoulder.

"Thank you for being honest with me."

Among the Empresses, Emilia was the youngest.

So she was often called childish.

Beltar knew she had only become hardened to survive her own father.

"I want to see the children... please, just once..."

The longing she had held back for so long suddenly overflowed.

Above all, she desperately wanted to hold her daughter Noah—who had been cast aside for the sole reason of being a 'dark star'—just once in her arms.

"Please, even just once..."

She pleaded with both hands clasped, and Beltar was silent for a moment before he spoke.

"The day will come, someday. So... you must stay strong and survive."

With that, Beltar left the top of the tower.

"Please wait here. I will come fetch you soon."

Drake also left, following Beltar and leaving Emilia behind.

"Sob, huff..."

Emilia's hot tears soaked the cold stone floor of her cell.

---

A young Beltar stood, gripping a bloodstained sword.

Before him, his brother Amot's corpse lay in a pool of blood.

"It is all over now, Your Highness."

From the darkness, Kazin stepped out.

He was smiling.

"What... have you done to me?"

Beltar's hands were shaking.

He had only meant to vie for power, never to kill his brother.

"I merely borrowed Your Highness's darkness for a moment. The desire coiled deep within your heart."

"No, that's not possible."

Clang!

The sword fell to the floor, and Beltar staggered back.

A terrible stench emanated from his entire body.

"This... wasn't me!"

His brother had summoned him for a private talk, so Beltar had set out with Kazin.

But when he came to his senses, his brother lay dead by his own hand.

"It's too late to deny it now, Your Highness. Your darkness has already claimed your brother's life."

"Y-you..."

Beltar's bloodstained hands trembled.

He could not find the words to speak.

It felt like he had done it, but he could not believe it.

From that day.

After that incident, Kazin had held Beltar firmly in his grasp.

Taking advantage of the fact that only he knew who had killed Beltar's brother.

---

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty?"

Drake's voice pulled Beltar back to reality.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I was just recalling the past for a moment."

It had been a mistake to take Kazin's hand back then.

In his youthful ambition to become Emperor at any cost, and his prideful wish to bring Amanda back as a proper Empress.

'I made the wrong choice.'

Beltar's fist clenched tightly, and he stopped walking.

"She said he was not human. Does that mean it's some magical power?"

"It may not be a complete lie."

It was not an easy story to believe.

A shadowy vine killing a jailer, with Kazin's voice?

"If what she says is true... then Schubert may already be exposed to an unknown danger."

"I will question the scholars, knights, and wandering mercenaries throughout the nation to see if anyone has seen or heard of something similar."

"We must investigate by every means possible."

Beltar did not dismiss Emilia's words as mere nonsense.

The jailer's mysterious death. The traces left behind.

Most of all, the same stench as that which had emanated from him the day his brother died.

"Let the investigation be handled by the others. You are to go to Silbaren as a special envoy."

"To Silbaren...?"

Drake asked, clearly unsettled.

A special envoy, not a mere letter?

He worried whether Silbaren would even accept him.

"Kazin is using some kind of magic. To find out the source of that power, we need Silbaren's help."

Drake nodded, as if understanding dawned.

"Understood, Your Majesty. Drake, at your command."

---

Meanwhile.

Rohan was in the World Tree's realm, conversing with it.

[The terrible sights you witnessed all occurred after your death.]

Rohan's gaze wavered.

A dull, heavy thud resonated from somewhere deep in his chest.

"Then... you mean that after I died, the continent descended into ruin?"

His voice was dry, but suppressed anger and regret simmered beneath it.

[Yes. After your death, Fabian seized the throne and began a full-scale war.]

Yggdrasil's voice resounded with a gravity as deep and vast as the earth itself.

[He had hidden countless shadow legions, and the warriors of the Prana Confederation fought alongside humans to drive them back.]

"...The shadow legion."

Rohan clenched his teeth.

The destruction of Holimey Village, the fall of the Cocoon Kingdom, the ruin of Aizenca, Retina losing her arm... all were the aftermath of that shadow legion.

"Then what you showed me... was not the future, but a realized past?"

[More precisely, a 'different future.']

Yggdrasil smiled.

[You did not return to the past. You simply awoke in another dimension of a ruined world.]

"...!"

[The only reason you awoke here again was by your own will.]

"By my will?"

Yggdrasil placed a hand over Rohan's left chest.

[Because your will was infused into my protection, marked by Nas.]

"Ah!"

His meeting with Nas in his previous life, and the mysterious light that bloomed over his own death just now.

Now the pieces finally connected in his mind.

[I could only watch as the world was destroyed. My anger and sorrow became the seeds of darkness, and I witnessed countless lives perish.]

Yggdrasil gently stroked Rohan's head.

[Yet you, with the memories of that ruined world, have returned. That must mean there is still hope.]

"..."

[We have a failed past, but we also have a fate that can be overturned. More than anything, you possess what others do not.]

"And what is that?"

[The power of memory.]

Yggdrasil slowly faded away.

[Go north, Rohan. Your nemesis now coils there, awaiting you.]

"...!"