Even in the midst of pain that felt like I would stop breathing, I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes again.

Axel Mirmord’s smiling face, revealing his teeth, seemed excessively sinister. I didn’t want to show him my flustered and suffering state.

Axel looked at me and chuckled.

“Yes, you’re calm now. It was quite interesting, Siyan Mirmord.”

“…”

Although I tried to respond as if it were obvious, my body wouldn’t listen. Axel continued speaking.

“Foolish and young.”

“…”

“Do you think your father will come to save you?”

I coughed violently as if my throat had dried up after a long time.

After coughing for a long time, I fixed my gaze with bloody eyes.

“Well…no.”

I didn’t want to give him any hints. As if ignoring the throbbing pain in my throat, I lowered my gaze.

“The target of these people is not me, it’s our father. So, all I have to do is endure. Without dying. Then everything will go according to my plan.”

After my coughing fit finally subsided, I quickly organized my thoughts and replied in a hoarse voice.

“My father won’t come to take me back. Because…my father hates me.”

Axel laughed heartily.

His laughter, like a scream that could pierce the ears, lasted for almost a minute. When I glared at him, feeling like my ears were about to burst, Axel whispered.

“Siyan… It’s not even funny. Your father hates you so much that he sent you to the demon realm.”

“…”

I widened my eyes. I couldn’t understand the sentence, “He hates you so much that he sent you to the demon realm.”

Aware that I looked at him dazedly, Axel began to chuckle as if he had seen an extraordinary comedy.

“Hahaha, it’s unbelievably amusing. Well, yeah. Trash like them also raises pure lilies in their arms. If not, they can’t survive.”

Even as I watched Axel Mirmord laughing so uproariously, I couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying.

Of course, from his perspective, our father was ‘trash.’ But Axel’s anger seemed excessively exaggerated. It felt like the anger directed at someone who had thrown his entire life into the gutter.

However, from what I knew, our father was not such a person.

“You’ll play such a dog-like role for him, probably.”

In a husky voice that had become even rougher, I murmured.

“…No.”
Matthias Mirmord is trash. He’s a despicable piece of trash known to all imperial citizens. You might feel like I’m a madman, but your father is the real garbage, using all sorts of things, including being a murderer.”

In response to this absurd story, I glared at him with a burning gaze.

“Our father… He’s not like that. To you, he might seem like trash just because you see him that way.”

I didn’t want to show any emotional turmoil. However, I couldn’t endure provocations using my father.

“Get lost.”

I mocked Axel, spitting out saliva. Due to the burst in my mouth, the blood-mixed saliva fell to the ground.

However, despite my rebuttal and mockery, Axel remained largely unfazed. He simply looked at me as if finding it amusing.

“If you think so, the truth will be revealed soon.”

After uttering these words with a sinister smile, a door opened behind him. Looking at the faint light flowing in from outside, I fell into a daze.

A man wearing the attire of a pope was entering. Trying to focus on the pope and forget Axel’s taunting remarks, I thought blankly.

“Hmm, is this guy the pope? Then this must be the central temple.”

The man presumed to be the pope raised the corner of his mouth, speaking as if mocking me.

“Oh, dear. You’ve seen my face? What a pity. Doing such unpleasant things and showing my face.”

He snapped his fingers lightly. Then my vision was once again plunged into darkness.

This time, it wasn’t like wearing a blindfold, so he probably temporarily blinded me with divine power.

“These bastards!”

No matter how much I thought about it, it seemed like there were no human rights declarations for captives in this world.

I became genuinely curious about what ‘unpleasant thing’ the pope was going to do.

I don’t know how long I remained blind.

Since I couldn’t see, I couldn’t know what the pope and Axel were doing in front of me. I sat still, trying to organize my thoughts.

“They’re probably up to no good, right?”

Feeling a subtle breath around me, it seemed like the pope was approaching me.

Trying to endure without breathing, I heard a muffled voice in my ears.

“You’re a good boy. I’ll release you now.”

It was the pope. I retorted rhythmically.

“Pretending to be gentle, how unlucky.”

“Oh, our child is truly an unruly little one, isn’t he?”

With the sound of clapping, the view brightened again. Blinking my eyes to readjust, the pope opened his mouth, murmuring an unfamiliar incantation.

“Rune.”

I didn’t know exactly what a rune was, but around him, a sudden white light appeared. It was a sparkling light like fireflies, but subtly uncomfortable.

As the sticky sensation was felt on the back of my hand, runic characters began to be drawn on the back of my hand. I mumbled with narrowed eyes.

“Mental… Restraint?”

“Hehe. You know how to read rune characters.”

The pope laughed satisfactorily, tapping my head lightly.

A white light emanated from his fingertips. The light wrapped around my entire body as if washing it away and disappeared in an instant.

‘What are you trying to accomplish? Even if you look at me, you already know all the dirty things about me.’

Surprise filled his eyes. Silently cursing the pope in my mind, I recalled the deeds the pope had done so far.

He was garbage who callously sacrificed orphanage children, a murderer who killed priests, and, as a result, a guy who deserved to be torn apart by evil.

The astonished pope muttered with dry laughter.

“Oh… Now you understand?”

I don’t know what he’s talking about right now.

But…
“I’m saying that I now know how you became a special child.”

The pope, who seemed to have read all my thoughts, chuckled ominously and raised his chin.

“Reincarnator, Cien Mirmord.”

At this moment, it was clear that he had learned my secret.