“I will follow your command, Your Majesty.”

Baso bowed his head, glanced at Himierd, then turned around. Himierd, who had been watching Baso’s retreating figure with an incredulous look, finally stepped forward, turning pale blue.

“Your Majesty! You cannot do this!”

However, Ord remained calm. The smile on his face gave an eerie feeling.

“Consider yourself fortunate that I ended it at this, and go back to reflect. If you say one more word, I will have your head chopped off, no matter who you are.”

Himierd’s body trembled. Blood seeped from her tightly bitten lips. An intense murderous intent overflowed, wanting to die or kill due to the unbearable humiliation.

The only incomprehensible thing was that Ord had the same expression as Himierd.

There was no sense of victory from finally crushing the traitor who was desperate to bring him down. He looked more exhausted than ever. It seemed his soul was weary rather than his body in pain.

Ord’s bony hand gripped the rim of the wheelchair wheel. As he slowly began to turn the wheel to turn his back on Himierd, it happened.

“Rather, cut off my head.”

The onlookers collectively held their breath as they looked at Himierd. They felt even greater fear because they could not sense any emotion or intonation in her words.

Ord raised his dark face and glared at Himierd.

“What did you say?”

An icy silence fell. Ord stared for a moment at Himierd’s trembling lips pressed together, her pale face.

If Himierd had persisted to the end, Ord might have really killed her.

If only she had screamed to cut off her head and rushed at him. He regretted that she didn’t. It was fortunate that she remained silent. He felt contempt and pity at the same time. It was a confusing emotion.

Not once had he ever looked at her with personal feelings, but at that moment it was different.

As if he had hated and loved Himierd for a hundred years, as if he had finally cut it off, an angry sense of emptiness mocked and clawed at Ord’s sick body.

“Go back.”

Ord spoke in a voice that seemed to forcibly suppress his boiling emotions, looking around with gleaming eyes.

“Everyone go back!”

At his shout, the people closest to the exit were the first to hurriedly turn around.

Even Baron Iena and Count Tommen, who had been shocked by the unbelievable event unfolding before their eyes, slowly turned around. But Himierd stood still in her place. She remained motionless like a statue.

Ord nodded to Baso, who had brought the order. Baso held out the silk-bound order rolled up on both sides to Himierd, but when she didn’t even look at it, he carefully placed it on the table.

The wheelchair began to move. When the sound of the wheel axle rotating and creaking continued for a while and then could no longer be heard, Himierd slowly closed her eyes as if to extinguish all the light in the world.

No sooner had she finished saying “I need to go to the city” than Muge began bustling around the room, taking out unknown things and piling them on the table.

Her room was sparse, and what little furniture there was seemed to be all packed away in boxes whose contents couldn’t be seen, but Muge must have remembered the exact location of every piece of junk.

“Even if we take the nearest portal to the city of magicians, it’ll take three or four days of walking. Of course, you can’t expect a bed near the lake. We’ll have to camp out.”

Eustar turned to look at Laila.

“Will you be alright, Laila?”

She had never slept outdoors before. Not only when she was in Rizikers, but also after coming to the royal palace. Tracking fast-moving magical beasts for days was not Laila’s specialty.

However, Laila answered without hesitation.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Eustar still looked uneasy as he lightly hugged Laila’s shoulders. Seeing this, Muge made a face as if she had lost her appetite—although she didn’t eat human food—and said,

“Pitiful, so pitiful.”

“What is?”

“Your unrequited love.”

As Muge clicked her tongue, Eustar let out a disbelieving laugh.

“It’s not unrequited love.”

“That seems to be just your opinion? Look at her expression.”

Eustar quickly tilted his head to look down at Laila’s face. Her expression was as impassive as usual, but he gently shook Laila, whom he was holding, as if to wake her from sleep.

“I’m not in unrequited love with you, right Laila? Tell me that’s not true.”

Laila stared blankly at Eustar’s face, which was putting on a rather pitiful expression. When she didn’t answer, Eustar pretended to look shocked, and Muge clicked her tongue with a giggle.

“I knew it.”

She disappeared behind the wall lined with shelves. There was a rustling sound and… Eustar stared at Laila with an expression that said ‘How could you do this?’

Laila said,

“You always tease me. I just tried teasing you back.”

Then she slightly frowned her lips and bowed her head a little. It was an expression like someone who only understood ‘smiling’ intellectually and had never smiled once in their life.

Eustar lightly bit Laila’s pursed lips and said,

“See? Revenge only begets revenge.”

“Are you saying you’re taking revenge on me now?”

“You hurt my feelings, didn’t you?”

Eustar’s arms holding her tightened firmly. As he supported Laila’s waist and was about to tilt his head, Muge, who was coming out from behind the wall with something like a small backpack, said in a disinterested voice,

“Let me know when you’re done. So we can leave.”

When Ord returned to his bedroom, the servant was dusting the curtains.

The window had been opened for cleaning while he was away, and the fading sunlight filled the room, with countless dust particles sparkling and floating in the light.

“Get out.”

At the harsh command, the servant hurriedly closed the window, drew the curtains, then tucked the feather duster under his arm and quickly bowed.

Then he ran out as if fleeing. He was so flustered that the sound of his pounding footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Ord, who had been glaring at the servant fleeing so pitifully as if escaping from the clutches of a robber, suddenly started chuckling.

His upper body, which had been leaning against the hard backrest of the wheelchair, tilted, and the laughter grew louder. He laughed and laughed as if greatly amused.

“Cough…!”

The sound of laughter that had been raging like a madman ceased with a handful of blood. As he bent over coughing, Baso swiftly and habitually brought him a handkerchief and then a small bottle of tincture.

It was the medicine that Laila had Mel make last time. It was more effective in stopping coughs than any medicine made by the court physicians.

“Your Majesty.”

As Baso held out a small silver spoon, Ord opened his mouth while clutching his chest and trembling.

The intense bitter taste momentarily numbed his throat and nasal passages, and then the painful cough that had been rising incessantly stopped as if by magic. The wheezing sound like there was a hole in his lungs also disappeared.

However, Ord looked extremely tired. It was as if his life force burst out with every cough.

“Help me lie down.”

Ord said. Baso pulled the wheelchair close to the bed and then carefully lifted Ord’s skeletal body and laid him on the bed. Ord’s eyes flickered unsteadily as he breathed out hot breaths mixed with the smell of sickness, pain, and groans.

“Where… is Eustar?”

Baso, who was tidying up the wheelchair, approached him and said,

“He is away on Tentinella business, Your Majesty.”

“I see…”

There was no life in Ord’s eyes. They were precarious and faint like a candle about to go out.

Ord could feel his soul gradually shriveling up miserably, being crumpled like useless paper.

After being crumpled and crumpled like this, when it finally became so small as to be unrecognizable, that would be when his life would finally come to an end.

“When I…”

Ord said. His eyes, which had seemed about to close, now had a little light in them.

“When I appointed Eustar as the chief of Tentinella, everyone… criticized me. Some even said the sick king feared his healthy younger brother and sent him to his death. Didn’t I behead all those who said such things and bury them under the plum tree in the palace garden?”

Ord muttered and then laughed in a low voice. His words were not true.

He had not beheaded them, nor buried them under the plum tree. But it was true that no one ever saw them again. Because he had locked them in a tower where not even light enters in winter.

“I.”

Ord, who was about to continue speaking, tilted his head back and swallowed with difficulty. His throat burned and ached, but he stubbornly opened his mouth again.

“Do you know why I entrusted such a task to Eustar?”

Baso answered,

“I know better than anyone that Your Majesty’s love for the prince is sincere. Whatever Your Majesty’s intention was in doing such a thing, it must have been for the prince’s sake.”

“That is so. I had to… send Eustar, that child, outside. To a place teeming with magical beasts and ghosts. To a place… full of dangers that could strike at any moment.”

Ord’s eyes, which had seemed extinguished, blazed.

“Because if he stays here, Eustar will be in even greater danger.”

Baso did not answer. He thought Ord was just speaking whatever came to mind out of exhaustion and strain.

“Baso.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“What do you think of me?”

Baso blinked silently and bowed loyally.

“You are the wise and strong king of Sierou.”

“Is that so? Heh heh…”

A low laugh was heard for a moment. Baso observed Ord’s condition carefully, yet thoroughly, with an attitude that seemed frustratingly sincere as always. Like an observation.

Baso also knew that nothing had changed. He knew. Ord would never regain his former self again.

The young man who was once strong, intelligent, and full of vitality, perhaps even a boy, would never come back to life again.

Ord knew that too. He knew it better than anyone. He was not living because of hope, or relying on medicine.

He knew that his life had long since been extinguished, but he was still alive only because someone would not let go of it, that damaged and defiled tattered thing.

Ord smiled like a beast and stared at Baso, saying,

“Do I still look appetizing to you?”