“Even so, the fact that you can’t kill me doesn’t change. How long do you think you can drag this out? It’s obvious this behavior is only temporary, how can you be so dull…?”

“Unfortunately, I have no intention of killing you.”

“Speak properly. It’s not that you don’t intend to kill me, but that you can’t kill me, isn’t it? How many opportunities have there been until now, right?”

At that moment, Ian, who had been kneeling before me trembling, suddenly stood up and rushed at the Emperor. However, mana flowed out from the magical tool the Emperor was holding and pierced Ian’s body squarely.

Ian fell to the floor without even managing to scratch the Emperor with the dagger he had received from Reus. The Emperor picked up the fallen dagger and roughly grabbed Ian’s head.

“To think this is all you could come up with. Did you think this could do what you couldn’t? You’ve really become stupid after being confined to the castle because of the Grand Duchess.”

The Emperor lifted Ian’s head higher, and soon, Ian’s neck was perfectly exposed to the air.

“Y-Your Majesty… I, I was just pretending… The Duke said he would spare me if I did this…”

Ian couldn’t string his words together properly due to the impact he had just received. Regardless, the Emperor had no interest in a faithful servant who had already served its purpose.

Yes, this is a long time of use. Thinking so, he moved the dagger without hesitation.

But something felt a bit strange. The dagger had clearly slashed across Ian’s neck. So the person bleeding should have been Ian. But the person clutching their throat was not Ian, but the Emperor.

To be precise, it was the Emperor’s body, and soon Ian dropped the sword.

“What is this…!”

The dagger Reus had given to Ian was one of the heirlooms passed down in the Rochette family.

It was created for the purpose of safely escaping when faced with dangerous situations, as people of the Rochette family had been under many threats in the past.

The method of use was simple. When stabbing the opponent with the knife, their soul flows into that body, and the wound is also transferred to the switched soul.

Therefore, it was a magical tool designed so that the switched body could recover using the power of the Rochette family imbued in the knife, allowing for a safe escape.

Reus, who knew from the start that Ian wouldn’t be able to touch a hair on the Emperor’s head, had instead induced the Emperor to use that knife.

Soon, the Emperor, who had come to his senses, raised his voice and started pointing at Reus.

“Y-You…! You madman! Put me back right now! Do you think you’ll be safe after this? How dare you! How dare someone like you!”

“I thought I clearly said earlier that I had no intention of killing you.”

The revenge shouldn’t end like this. So the Emperor shouldn’t die either.

Reus let out a mocking laugh and suddenly disappeared.

And just then, countless footsteps could be heard from outside. The Imperial Knights led by the Imperial Princess, Iris, had arrived.

The firmly closed door was miserably broken down by the knights, and soon the inside of the bedroom was fully revealed.

“Your Majesty…!”

Iris rushed past Ian, who had been subdued in an instant, to the Emperor who had become a cold corpse.

“You crazy fools! How dare you lay hands on my body? Let go of this! How dare you, you bastards, to His Majesty-!”

Thud-! With a strong impact, the Emperor clutched his stomach.

“Just because you received some trust from His Majesty, do you think you’ve become the Emperor? You’re nothing but an assassin stripped of your position as Captain of the Imperial Guard from this moment on. Know your place, tsk.”

The Emperor, who was kicked in the stomach once again, lost consciousness not long after, shocked by the situation that had befallen him rather than from the pain.

People were enraged by the news that the Captain of the Imperial Guard, who had attempted to commit treason by killing the Emperor, had died in the underground prison.

Since almost no one in the Imperial Palace knew the Emperor’s true nature, everyone except Iris and the Empress fell into grief.

Because of this, the Emperor’s funeral was also held very grandly.

Although there was no need to go that far, they held the largest memorial service among all imperial funerals for the person who would hear the news in prison.

People might think it was for the Emperor’s rest, but that was a big misunderstanding. It was nothing more than celebrating the Emperor’s new beginning and the end of revenge.

The Emperor, who had been tied up tightly with ropes and abandoned somewhere in the forest, opened his eyes in Ian’s body again today.

Although he was in a state of half-madness due to severe torture, it seemed that he still had enough consciousness left to discern. The Emperor visibly relaxed, relieved to confirm that he was no longer in the underground prison.

However, he still couldn’t move his body freely because his arms were tied behind his back.

Just as he was trying to raise his body after struggling like that, someone kicked the Emperor’s back. The Emperor, who couldn’t even let out a groan, fell face-first onto the ground.

Through the blurry vision filled with dirt, someone’s shoes came into view. As he slowly raised his head, he saw Reus, whom he had hated and tormented for trivial reasons.

Although the Emperor was weakened by severe torture, as soon as he saw Reus, he began to move his body frantically and scream.

“You, crazy bastard! How dare you humiliate me! How dare someone like you!”

He couldn’t contain his anger at seeing the toy he always kept on his palm looking down at him.

But unfortunately, Den was no longer the Emperor, and even the status of his imperfect body was nothing more or less than a criminal.

Reus casually kicked the Emperor and stepped on his back, pressing down hard.

“You still haven’t come to your senses. You still think you’re the Emperor, it seems.”

“Ugh-! Urgh…”

The Emperor struggled, his breath choked as his face was pushed into the ground again.

“No matter how much you struggle, you’re nothing but a worm, not even fit to be a slave.”

Reus only removed his foot just before the Emperor was about to completely lose his breath, and personally lowered his body.

Then he grabbed the Emperor’s hair tightly and made him meet his gaze.

“If you sincerely repent for your wrongdoings, I might show mercy once.”

At those words, the Emperor’s face twitched. It was a face that said he absolutely couldn’t say sorry, even if it was a lie.

Although he always faced him with a smiling face, he knew that he wasn’t treated as a human being, so it wasn’t a surprising reaction.

As expected, the Emperor didn’t disappoint.

“You’re just a pitiful bastard who lost both parents and the woman you loved… You’re nothing, you worm-like bastard…”

When Reus let go of his hand, the Emperor’s head fell down again.

“How unfortunate. To reject even the last mercy.”

“Do you think killing me will make you great?”

The Emperor cackled madly and hurled all kinds of curses at Reus. Then Reus, who had been listening to the Emperor’s last struggle, spoke in a calm tone.

“Why should I kill you?”

“What?”

“As I said before, I have no intention of killing you.”

“…”

“Who would benefit from me killing you? You must never die.”

You must live and suffer in terrible pain for the rest of your life.

Feeling ominous, the Emperor struggled like a madman. Reus ignored the Emperor and stood up.

“Rather, aren’t you curious? Why I bothered to smuggle you out when you were supposed to rot in the underground prison for life.”

Soon, at the words that flowed from Reus’s mouth, the Emperor had no choice but to stop moving.

“The shadows you subjugated.”

“…”

“They all became free when you died.”

Although the Emperor treated Reus like his pet dog, he still recognized Reus as a person like himself.

But he never thought of the shadows as people in the first place. To the Emperor, they were beings not even worthy of being called filth.

“I heard that thanks to you taming them with black magic, the shadows are also proficient in black magic.”

“Ugh… Kuhk, kuu…”

“I think they might be able to inflict pain more excruciating than any torture you’ve experienced.”

The Emperor writhed bizarrely, trying to move away from Reus. Reus didn’t stop the Emperor anymore and just watched quietly.

It was a miserable sight.

The one who had been at the pinnacle of the Imperial Palace until recently was now struggling, trapped in the body of a criminal he had killed. In a way, it was no different from returning exactly what the Emperor had done.

At least when the Emperor came down to the same position as himself, he thought he would feel relieved. But he couldn’t feel any sense of satisfaction at all.

Even seeing the Emperor fallen into a worse abyss, he felt only emptiness. At the end of revenge, there was neither the freedom nor the destruction he had imagined.

There was nothing at the end of the path he had walked his entire life.

Reus disappeared just like that.

The Emperor, who had been constantly looking back, realized that Reus was no longer chasing him and completely relaxed his body. He had struggled so much that cold sweat poured like rain.

But no sooner had he felt relieved than the sound of rustling footsteps came from all directions. And soon he could identify what they were. One of the shadows that soon blocked Den’s path called out to the Emperor as before.

“Your Majesty.”

Unlike how he had acted boldly in front of Reus earlier, the Emperor trembled all over and made strange noises.

Even the torture inflicted by the Imperial Knights had exceeded what humans could endure. But even so, it could be said to be humane compared to the shadows he had personally trampled and raised.

If the shadows set out to torment a person, there probably wouldn’t be any limits.

“S-Save me. Please, I, I’ll beg like this…! D-Don’t come near!”

The Emperor showed clear fear. And now he finally understood perfectly what Reus meant when he said he would show the last mercy.

“No, rather kill me! Kill me! I said kill me!”

The shadows let out a nasty laugh at the Emperor’s vacillating behavior.

“Didn’t you hear what the Duke said directly? How dare you try to die on your own accord, Your Majesty.”

“I swore I would never set foot in the capital again and received you. So you must not die.”

“Your shell is ours from now on.”

They cackled, taking the Emperor’s screams filled with despair as amusement.

The shadows, who had never lived a human-like life anyway, were destined to not be able to live among ordinary humans doing ordinary things, so they disappeared into the dark places of the empire by their own will.

The Emperor still did not die.

But no one knew where or how he lived.