Unable to do anything else, Ord returned to the crown prince’s quarters, but he couldn’t focus on anything.

‘That’s how you become an excellent crown prince. Of course.’

His mother’s words rang in his ears, and her whispering lips flickered in his vision. Thinking of his mother’s lips gleaming red as if oiled, Ord suddenly felt like he might vomit.

“Your Highness, are you alright?”

Seeing his face turn pale, Baso approached with a frown and asked. Ord tried to calm his churning stomach while covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’m fine, Baso.”

No. Ord thought. He wasn’t fine. Now he couldn’t hear his mother’s voice anymore.

But another sound filled his head. It was Eustar’s crying. His young, weak brother, twisting and struggling as if trying to escape from the marchioness’s arms.

‘Nothing will happen.’

Ord thought. The hand holding the pen trembled.

‘Nothing at all…’

There was a sharp sound. The pen nib snapped and ink splattered everywhere. Staring at the shape of the ink spreading outwards, Ord could no longer bear it and abruptly stood up.

“Baso, do you know who Father and Mother are meeting with today?”

“His Majesty and Her Majesty…? No, I don’t know anything. Why do you ask, Your Highness?”

Ord bit his lip hard and lowered his head. His heart felt like it would burst out of his body… He seemed to keep hearing Eustar’s cries. Constantly, constantly, constantly…

“Your Highness!”

Baso’s urgent voice followed as Ord threw down his pen and ran out. Ord sprinted down the corridor without even checking if anyone was following him.

Please. Ord thought. Please, please!

A blurry face appeared in the running boy’s vision. It was the face of a baby he had been vaguely forgetting.

Three years ago, when Ord was eleven, his mother gave birth to a baby. It was the third child born after losing the previous baby, and the one before that.

It was a girl. Ord recalled how pretty his baby sister wrapped in swaddling clothes had been. With long eyelashes and curly newborn hair, she was as cute as a doll.

That baby died without even being named. She died without a blessing.

Ord had stayed by his sister’s bedside constantly, but while he dozed off briefly, his sister returned dead. When he grabbed his mother and asked why his sister had died, his mother said without any sign of sadness:

— The baby died because she had too much fever, Crown Prince.

He couldn’t understand. If she had too much fever, what were the doctors doing? Why didn’t his mother look sad? Why did his father seem uninterested in the baby’s death?

The maids carried away the dead baby’s body in a coffin. It was so shabby for a princess’s coffin that it would be more fitting to call it a box.

Holding back tears as he watched, Ord saw something drip through the gaps of the roughly assembled wooden coffin.

“Mother!”

Ord shouted as he flung open the closed door of the queen’s chambers. But the boy’s clear voice only echoed hollowly off the corners of the empty space, with no one answering. There was no sign of anyone.

“Mother!”

There was no one. Ord ran into the quarters. In the bedroom stood one maid. He didn’t know her name but had seen her occasionally.

“Where is Mother?”

Ord approached her with threatening steps and asked in an intimidating voice.

At that moment, the maid’s eyes momentarily flickered towards the back of the bed. Ord knew what was there. Behind the tapestry, there was a door.

As Ord tried to run over, the maid grabbed his wrist.

“How dare you! Let go!”

“You mustn’t go, Your Highness. The Queen and His Majesty are in an important meeting…”

“I said let go!”

Ord shouted angrily and pushed the maid with all his strength. Before the maid who had fallen some distance away could rush back, Ord quickly pulled aside the tapestry and flung open the door behind it.

“Your Highness, you can’t!”

Beyond the door were stairs. Not a corridor… but stairs leading down. A faint humming sound came from below.

“I’ll kill you if you try to stop me.”

Glaring at the maid with bloodshot eyes, Ord stepped onto the stairs with trembling lips. One step, then another… It was endlessly dark. There was a faint light, but it was of no help.

‘It feels like I’m walking into hell.’

Ord thought. No, maybe that was right. Hell must be down there.

The humming noise grew louder. The darkness deepened, and now even the light seemed to cower, buried in darkness.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Ord saw another door at the end of a long passage. A streak of red light showed through the slightly open gap.

The noise made his ears ring and his head spin. Struggling to maintain his consciousness and body that felt about to faint at any moment, he took one step forward, then another. He thought he could faintly hear crying…

When Ord flung open the door, everyone there turned their heads towards him. It was an eerie sight incomparable to anything else.

Shadowed eyes of people wearing black hoods stared at Ord. They seemed to have forgotten even to be surprised…

In the midst of melted, misshapen candles lay Eustar, naked. Without swaddling clothes, without any clothes, he was flailing and crying on the cold bare floor.

At that moment, something like dark red smoke exploded and enveloped everyone in the room.

“Ugh…!”

Knocked back by the shock, Ord’s head hit the hard floor. With a ringing pain, his vision flashed white.

He couldn’t regain his senses and felt like the world was spinning. He heard crying and screaming… He also heard something soft bursting. And a sound like forcefully stepping on and breaking a hard branch.

Ord opened his eyes wide and rolled over. But he couldn’t get up. Even the slightest movement made his stomach clench and nausea rise.

He crawled towards the door. The bizarre sounds he had never heard even in his worst nightmares continued, then suddenly stopped. It seemed as if the whole world had gone silent.

“Eustar…”

Ord’s eyes bulged as he opened the door. The floor beneath his palms was hot and damp. It was a sea of blood. Disgusting lumps and shredded cloth pieces were scattered about.

The dark red smoke swirled and gathered in one place, then a long, bright red, skeletal arm stretched out from it. The hand, open like a beast’s maw, tried to grab Eustar.

“Stop—!”

As Ord screamed, the hand floating in the air flinched to a stop. Eustar, reacting to his brother’s voice, started crying frantically again.

The smoke writhed. As a gap opened in the creeping smoke, two burning eyes stared at Ord.

Even long after, Ord couldn’t find the right words to express the terror and fear he felt at that moment. He never encountered such horror again in his life.

I’d rather die than feel this terror. Ord thought. In fact, he was on the verge of strangling himself with his own hands.

At that moment, Eustar let out a piercing wail. Ord, who had been tilting his head back trying to strangle himself, inhaled sharply and opened his eyes wide.

— What is this insignificant thing?

The dark red smoke rippled, and a cackling voice flowed out from within.

Though feeling chilled to the bone, Ord slowly got up. His whole body was covered in blood. The hot, disgusting smell of blood seemed like it would never go away.

“…I am Crown Prince Ord Hyanmorik.”

The smoke rippled and shook. Ord thought it was ‘laughing’. Laughing at him… Giggling. Laughing hysterically.

The smoke rose with a whoosh. It looked as if it was wrapping around an invisible pillar.

After it disappeared, an immaculate shod foot lightly stepped onto the blood-soaked floor. Ord, captivated by the dancer-like graceful movement, gaped blankly.

This isn’t human. Ord thought. It was a form that couldn’t be called human. It was vicious and beautiful. A mysterious flower with deadly poison. Ord saw flames flickering in his eyes.

“Hyanmorik.”

It giggled.

“Yes, a foolish descendant of Hyanmorik. There was another besides this one.”

Eustar cried louder. Ord, clenching his chest that felt about to burst, bravely took a step towards it.

“Get… away from my brother.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Get away! If you dare lay a hand on even a hair of my brother’s head… I swear I’ll destroy you, demon!”

“Look at this impudent little brat.”

The Deceptor waved his long fingers. At the same time, Ord’s knees buckled. Pain overwhelmed him as if all the bones in his body were crumbling and every nerve was being ripped out.

“Ah, ugh…! Agh—!”

“If I touch your brother, what could a thing like you do? You insignificant human brat, how dare you…”

The Deceptor’s gleeful chatter suddenly stopped. His head, which had been lowered to mock Ord, tilted at an impossible angle.

“Well, look at this.”

A curious voice sprang from the Deceptor’s mouth.

This young human, who shouldn’t even know what true pain is, was enduring the ‘punishment’ he had inflicted. Without begging for mercy or submitting, he was glaring with bloodshot eyes.

“If you touch my brother… cough! I’ll kill you!”

The Deceptor’s lips stretched sideways into a grin.

“What is it you want?”

“Ugh, hnngh…! Agh…”

“Tell me before I increase the pain. What is it you want? To save all of these?”

Ord’s bloodshot eyes followed the Deceptor’s gesture. He was pointing at the blood-soaked basement.

Torn clothes, mashed lumps… Ord thought he would never forget that sight. Never, no matter what.

“…No.”

Ord gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. The lukewarm blood made a splashing sound.

“No? Then?”

Ord’s face was pale as he raised his head stiffly through the bone-breaking pain.

“My brother… Give me back my brother.”