Chapter 38. Brat with No Sense of Decorum

2023.11.07.

That day was the second day of the hunting festival regularly hosted by Emperor Alexei, Clade Euphris’s father.

The week-long monster hunting festival was held to capture monsters and fierce beasts that occasionally crept into the northern regions during winter.

It was quite a large-scale event of national importance, so the imperial couple always attended, making it a gathering where major nobles showed up in full force to demonstrate their loyalty.

Whoever could prove they had captured the most monsters or beasts attacking civilians in dangerous forests and ravines would receive a massive reward.

Depending on circumstances, one could even obtain not only gold but also fertile land owned by the imperial family, so the enthusiasm for the hunting festival was immense every year.

“Father!”

Emperor Alexei Euphris, pierced by a vicious-looking arrow meant for hunting monsters, was carried back to the palace without even being able to pull it out. Clade saw his father lying there, sweating coldly and groaning, surrounded by physicians gathered from across the nation.

“Your Highness.”

Marquis Rev gripped his nephew’s shoulder tightly and swallowed hard.

“The Empress…”

Clade stared at Marquis Rev as he lowered his head and began to cry like a child.

“Empress Eleonore has passed away.”

If the Emperor oversaw the hunting festival itself, then it was the Empress who took charge of the banquet hall at the entrance, welcoming the families of participants.

His mother had died on the way back to the palace after being poisoned while sharing refreshments with noblewomen, ladies, and young nobles in attendance.

“For now, His Imperial Highness’s paternal uncle, Grand Duke Igor, has agreed to oversee state affairs, so please don’t worry and get some rest.”

After hearing the news of his mother’s death, Clade had stayed awake by his father’s side without sleep.

State affairs meant nothing to a 14-year-old boy. Someone else could always take care of that.

But staying by his father’s side was different.

“How can I possibly sleep?”

He couldn’t let his father go the same way his mother had—passing without even leaving a final word to Apollini.

Clade remained by his father’s side as he wandered near death, groaning in pain.

Each time he briefly dozed off, unable to fight off overwhelming sleep, he woke up from dreams of his father dying.

Each time, terrified and panicked, he would press his ear to his father’s chest to hear the faint heartbeat before finally breaking into tears and calming down.

“Don’t worry, Clade. Don’t you have your old uncle here?”

His uncle finally appeared after a week had passed, saying just that.

Clade merely nodded, without much response. He had no room in his heart for words.

“…Brat with no sense of decorum.”

He looked up in surprise at his uncle’s voice, unusually cold and sharp.

This was not the voice of the man who always laughed kindly and warmly.

That night.

Inside the Emperor’s bedroom, surrounded by court physicians and doctors from all over the country.

The benevolent Emperor Alexei Euphris breathed his last, ending his short life.

***

“Is the hunting festival over? Then why haven’t Mother and Father come back?”

“Go to sleep quickly, Apollini. I’ll sing you a lullaby.”

“You won’t even let me go outside. It’s so suffocating, Brother.”

“…Tomorrow, I’ll show you the garden.”

The death of the imperial couple had been kept secret from Apollini, who was only ten years old.

Clade left Apollini in the princess’s palace and attended the funeral with his uncle, whose demeanor had changed completely.

Uncle Igor told Clade he could rest for a while at the red-brick mansion in Roxenhardt, as if granting him a vacation.

After putting the still-ignorant Apollini to sleep in the red-brick mansion, and giving a fragile, near-breaking smile to Margaret, the nursemaid whose eyes were full of worry,

Young Clade finally returned to his own bedroom and collapsed.

He clung to the rocking chair his father had personally crafted and his mother had personally polished, and wept bitterly.

The treasure of the Euphris family, beloved by the people of the Empire.

It was the night just a few days before Clade Euphris was officially scheduled to ascend the throne at the young age of 14.

Snow had been falling heavily since the burial, piling deep in the garden, and a fierce blizzard beat against the windows as the gaping emptiness in his chest ached bitterly.

Then, a wave calling itself a rebellion swept over the imperial palace in the capital, Cielo.

And that wave reached even the red-brick mansion where Clade was trying to gather his shattered heart.

The warmth vanished from Nurse Margaret’s face as she was about to pour warm cocoa for him.

“Your Highness, Your Highness, hurry!”

Already exhausted from crying, Clade opened his swollen, blurry eyes to see the nursemaid’s distorted face.

Despair. When he realized that emotion had appeared on Margaret’s face—the woman who had been like a second mother to him—he was instantly seized by terror.

“Nurse…”

Margaret quickly threw a cloak over herself and lifted him onto her back.

With superhuman strength, she carried Clade’s heavy body—too much for a middle-aged woman—and desperately fled the mansion, praying that Marquis Rev would hear the news and come to find them.

The mansion was already ablaze, fire spreading rapidly from the east wing toward the main building. The snow did nothing to extinguish it, and the blizzard seemed to fuel the cursed flames.

“Brother! Take me with you!”

At the faint voice, Clade twitched his limp body in Margaret’s arms.

From a distance, Apollini’s voice echoed, calling from the window of the west wing lit by flames.

“Her Highness the Princess!”

“Madam, please flee quickly! We’ll handle this!”

Margaret bit her lips until they bled, adjusting her grip on Clade, who was weakly mumbling Apollini’s name.

They were after Clade, the heir to the throne.

“Brother! Take me too! Don’t leave me behind!”

“We’ll do our best to escort Her Highness safely. We’ve already sent word to Marquis Rev—reinforcements will arrive!”

Arrows suddenly began flying from somewhere.

“Brother! Nurse! Please don’t abandon me!”

With the help of the few remaining guards, Margaret ran toward the back gate, her heart bleeding.

“Brother! O…”

Clade, hearing the nursemaid’s sobbing and Apollini’s faint cries, finally lost the last thread of consciousness he had been clinging to.

***

Clade jolted awake as if falling off a cliff, startled by cold water splashing on his face.

A dark room.

A snowy night.

Everything was exactly as it had been before he fell asleep. Yet it felt like he had just woken from a horrifying nightmare.

Before he could fully regain his senses, he found himself roughly forced to his knees, and right before his eyes, a very familiar face was rolling on the floor.

“Clade Euphris.”

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Clade stared at the dead nursemaid’s face without blinking, and only after a long while did he finally lift his head.

The one casting a massive shadow was his paternal uncle.

Grand Duke Igor Euphris, ruler of the North.

…He was laughing.

“I’ve been waiting for this day.”

The cold west wing.

The place where he had grown up, where Apollini had cried out not to be left behind.

Clade looked at the horribly burned interior and felt a chill run down his spine.

“Apollini…”

“Your father, Alexei Euphris, took everything I loved from me.”

Clade’s mind didn’t register his uncle’s murmured words at all.

His despairing gaze darted rapidly and obsessively, searching for any trace of Apollini.

“Everything Alexei Euphris loved will die.”

Clade couldn’t bear to look at the man before him and instead stared again at the lifeless eyes of the nursemaid.

She must have died protecting him.

His entire body trembled violently with rage and fear.

The place where Apollini had been was completely burned. Apollini was gone.

“Looking for Apollini? She’s dead. She died pathetically, begging me to spare her. I even considered keeping the girl alive since she was just a child, but I absolutely hate noisy things.”

He felt an intense murderous intent, yet at the same time, he felt his body and soul crushed under an overwhelming force pressing down on him.

An agony as if his soul were being torn apart clawed at his insides.

He quickly raised his bloodshot eyes and stared at the pitch-black sword his uncle held like a treasure.

Dark red blood dripped from the tip, soaking the carpet.

“Now, only you and this mansion remain among the things Alexei loved. The mansion is burning, and you…”

Among the things beloved by the late Emperor Alexei, only this mansion and Clade Euphris remained.

The mansion was already ablaze, and the beautiful prince, known as the treasure of the Euphris family, was about to be torn apart.

The same sword that had killed Apollini.

Now it was his turn to be pierced.

“The treasure of Euphris. The treasure of Alexei. What about Clade Euphris? Will you beg me? If you beg well enough, I might let you live.”

Instead of answering, Clade raised his bloodshot eyes and glared at his uncle.

“…Brat with no sense of decorum.”

Before he could even think of resisting,

Clade’s arms were roughly bound by heavily armored knights.

Grand Duke Igor Euphris struck his nephew without a shred of hesitation.

The sword slicing through the air rippled with black energy, cleaving the young body in two.

It was a one-sided, brutal murder scene.

***

Yuan tightly hugged her trembling arms.

“I remember it clearly.”

Hena, younger than Yuan, continued in a surprisingly calm tone.

“I saw my master’s face through the gap in the floor where I was hiding—his face that never bowed.”

Hena strained to recall that day, frowning.

While fleeing, her parents saw the princess meet her end in front of the west wing. They hastily pried open the wooden floor, hid Hena inside, and died fighting against Grand Duke Igor.

Yuan instinctively gripped Hena’s hand tightly, not even realizing she was trembling more than Hena.

“I clearly saw that sword cut the prince in half.”

Hena had seen it distinctly.

The long shadow of the sword reaching toward Clade.

“But the prince wasn’t split apart. Instead, the rippling black energy from the sword seemed to be sucked into him…”

“And he became as he is now.”

Yuan shut her eyes tightly, unable to bear imagining the horrifying sight.

Hena began pouring out memories as if possessed.

“The mad Emperor, seeing that sight, looked as if his eyes would pop out. He stared at that cursed black sword for a long time, then looked at Prince Clade, whose body had turned completely black as if burned, and laughed even more grotesquely. ‘If there’s a fate worse than death, this must be it! The treasure of Euphris has become a crow!’ he said.”