Narcissi trapped in Eliya’s Mansion’s underground prison.
Three shadows appeared all at once.
A young man and a woman.
And a wizard.
The woman, Sara, grabbed the bars and shouted.
“Mom—!”
Inside, Lady Narcissi was bound hand and foot.
“Mom, what do I do….”
Sara stomped her feet anxiously.
Next to her, Aghan nervously tapped the bars.
“Open this door quickly!”
The wizard complied.
He melted the lock with fire and opened the door.
Aghan and Sara hurried toward Narcissi.
“Mom! It’s me, I’m here!”
“Open your eyes…. My goodness, what has happened to you….”
Narcissi’s body was so emaciated that her bones protruded.
Occasionally twisting and drooling, she moaned in pain, resembling a madwoman.
Her hollow eyes had no focus.
She didn’t even realize Aghan and Sara were right in front of her.
She simply mumbled in a vacant voice.
“Eliya…. Just let me see you once…. I’m sorry….”
Sara gritted her teeth.
“That crazy woman really…!”
“Let’s get her out of here first. Wizard! Move it…. Ugh?!”
Aghan collapsed, spitting blood.
“Brother?!”
A sword had thrust out from his throat.
Sara jumped back in shock to see the wizard who had pierced Aghan’s neck.
The very one who had brought them here.
“You, you…. What are you doing?!”
“Take this as an honor. You’ve become a sacrifice for a new era.”
“You knew it from the start…? Ugh…?!”
This time, the wizard’s sword plunged into Sara.
“Ah, Mom….”
Soon, Narcissi’s head fell.
The wizard held the sword and grinned wickedly.
“The beginning of the extermination of Bevel.”
With that, he vanished from the prison.
Just then, someone rushed down to the prison.
The wizard who had failed to assassinate Judas five years ago at Gaston’s behest.
It was Bolse.
He had been easy to manipulate, but the incident bothered him, and sometimes Eliya would give him the side-eye.
Anyway, he was on his way down after sensing some magical energy.
“There must be some magical phenomenon…. Huh?!”
Then he beheld the scene in the prison.
Dead Narcissi.
Her children, Aghan and Sara.
“This, this can’t be…! I need to inform the lady!”
However, Eliya was currently absent from the mansion.
This had all occurred just as she had left to find her dearest.
*
Bethany.
In that place, filled with all kinds of vile criminals, a group suddenly appeared.
At the center of the group stood a woman whose eyes glowed with a golden light.
She spoke.
“Scatter and search.”
Her voice was low but razor-sharp.
The group dispersed, scouring every corner of Bethany.
Meanwhile, the woman acted alone.
She approached a slumped figure on the roadside and asked outright.
“Where is Judas?”
“…Huh?”
The man blinked his tired eyes repeatedly.
Being abruptly woken from his sleep seemed surreal.
“Judas, where is he?”
“Wha….”
“Black hair, golden eyes. Tall and….”
The man listened idly, eyeing the woman up and down.
Then, with a wicked grin, he responded.
“Maybe I’ll tell you if you play with me….”
Thwack.
The man’s head separated from his body.
A golden whip that had risen from the ground had severed his neck.
The woman passed by the corpse without care.
She grabbed the next person and asked.
“Where is Judas?”
If the desired answer didn’t come, she would strike again.
There was no need to ask twice.
It became a gruesome cycle.
News spread quickly that a wizard, known as the reincarnation of myth, had appeared in Bethany.
*
“Where is Judas?”
“I-I don’t know…! I don’t know anything!”
After killing the frightened man, Eliya continued on her way.
She felt no guilt.
After all, those left in Bethany were nothing but wicked humans.
The man she had just killed was not much different.
He had been touching a captured female werewolf with filthy hands while roasting human flesh over a bonfire.
There was no luxury of caring about such things.
Only the safety of Judas mattered.
A maze of dilapidated shacks twisted through Bethany.
It looked just like a garbage dump.
The elite guards seemed unable to find any traces so far—it was quiet.
Just as she was about to seek her next interrogator.
Deng, deng, deng.
The sound of bells shook Bethany.
It was a warning of a demon’s invasion.
Eliya ascended to the sky.
A broad view opened up.
From the desolate northern lands, a swarm of black clouds was approaching.
A pack of werewolves, numbering several hundred, was charging forward.
Below, someone shouted urgently.
“Everyone up! Time to kill or be killed, you filthy bastards!”
“Wahaha! Shit, this time I want to catch a female too!”
Knights, soaked in alcohol and drugs, were rising.
Madmen surviving in an environment they couldn’t endure sober.
‘…How bothersome.’
She needed to find Judas, but an annoying situation had arisen.
She would kill anyone who stood in her way—be they human or demon.
Eliya decided to clear them out with magic.
Glancing at the mass of werewolves filling the ground, she raised one hand to the sky.
As if cradling something, she lowered her outstretched hand slowly.
She pointed her index finger at the horde of werewolves.
It had been weeks since she was separated from Judas.
Though she had tried to hold back on using magic, once the flame ignited, it wouldn’t extinguish.
Violence flared and rampaged within her.
It was the perfect environment to unleash it.
She cast a spell of that magnitude.
Light appeared over the werewolf horde.
At that moment, the people felt as if they heard a sharp sound.
A blinding light that could numb the eyes.
Yet the source of the light was smaller than the length of a pinky finger.
That tiny light, no bigger than a bug, began to fall slowly.
Everyone stopped to gaze at it.
Werewolves, knights, elite guards alike.
Mesmerized, they stared at the light.
The small light illuminated the dark evening of Bethany like it was midday.
As if it came from another world, it descended slowly until it touched the ground.
A gentle impact, like a raindrop falling.
Immediately after.
Kwang-!
An explosion erupted from the light source.
The ground shook, and a storm burst forth, covering everything in all directions.
Nearby knights stumbled to the ground or were swept away by the wind.
Where the light had exploded, the sun rose.
The sun half-buried in the ground.
A colossal sphere of light blazed there, incinerating hundreds of werewolves in an instant.
Biiiii-!
All living things in the vicinity suffered from a sharp ringing in their ears.
It was the foundation of a magical system she had honed, preparing for the day she would face Balak.
‘Sun Manifestation, Small-scale.’
Bethany brightened as if it were daytime.
Eliya chose not to verify the effects with her own eyes.
Like nothing had happened, she turned her back on the light and reentered Bethany.
Holding an elite guard blinded by the light, she asked in a mechanical voice.
“Where is Judas?”
*
“This way.”
She found Judas’s corpse.
Richard guided Eliya.
Her steps grew increasingly hurried and heavy.
What if.
What if Judas was truly dead, what then?
“Over there…”
Richard pointed.
Other elite guards were encircling a corpse.
All their expressions were grim.
Some couldn’t hold it and covered their faces.
Clack, clack.
Eliya approached the center.
Her knees trembled.
A single corpse lay there.
So charred it was hard to identify.
More like a charcoal figure than an actual body.
Yet there were a few clues to draw conjectures from.
Based on its skeleton, it was male.
And rather tall, the body sprawled sideways.
Just like Judas.
And a decisive clue.
The sword beside it.
The Moonstone.
The item Eliya had given the day of her coming-of-age ceremony and Judas’s installation ceremony.
Dillon explained in the most composed voice he could manage.
“There’s a wound pierced in the chest. Upon inspection, a poison was detected, identified as Ramek’s venom.”
“…….”
“It’s presumed he was killed by Ramek and then caught in the ensuing fire. They likely didn’t realize it was poisoning and tried to cook him for human flesh, leading to the blaze spreading.”
Indeed, traces of fire remained around Judas’s vicinity.
The Moonstone was also found far from Judas.
As if someone had dropped it while attempting to steal it.
Eliya knelt beside the corpse.
Her insane, blazing eyes scanned the body up and down.
The moment she looked at it, her wildly beating heart became still.
Unlike the elite guards beside her who sniffled or sighed in frustration, she remained calm.
After a brief observation, she reached a conclusion.
“This isn’t Judas.”
“…Pardon?”
Dillon asked back in shock.
All the elite guards turned to look at her.
She verified the corpse once more and confidently stated.
“This isn’t Judas.”
There was no material evidence.
Yet she felt certain.
Having been near him for so long, it was an instinctive area of knowing.
Not logic, but emotion told her.
That it’s not Judas.
She slowly lifted her head.
Muttering as if asking a distant presence.
“…Judas. Where are you?”
*
Eliya returned straight to the mansion.
Sitting on Judas’s bed, she quietly contemplated.
Cradling the Moonstone in her arms.
Compared to before she left, her heart was surprisingly calm.
She felt strange.
Like she had become another person.
‘That wasn’t Judas.’
Then what could it be?
The clues came to her easily.
The words she had said to Judas.
She had stabbed him with a sword engraved with the phrase wishing he would die if possible.
‘…So, it was a disguise.’
She couldn’t grasp the exact intent.
He might have fled because he wouldn’t want her to truly come and kill him someday.
Or perhaps it was to take revenge.
To show that he could indeed take that form because she had wished for it to happen.
Or maybe, a tantrum telling her never to seek him again.
It could very well be none of those.
Maybe there were no feelings or thoughts left, and he simply left behind a corpse to make sure he could escape.
‘In the end… it’s because of me.’
Eliya gently stroked the Moonstone with her slow fingers.
Softly gliding along the smooth side of the sword.
Why did her heart feel so calm?
She didn’t know.
Calm was too mild; it was closer to emptiness.
It felt as if the hole in her chest had grown and consumed her entire being.
As if her existence in this world had vanished, leaving a hollow calmness.
Yet why was a laugh escaping her lips?
Her shoulders shook.
Was she laughing, or was she about to cry? Eliya couldn’t be sure.
Yet one fact remained clear.
He had completely departed from her.
She would never see him again. Not ever….
Knock, knock. Just then, someone knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
A woman entered cautiously through the slightly opened door.
Hermis.
“Lady, did you call for me?”
Eliya regarded her intently.
Underneath her disheveled hair, the insane fire in her eyes flickered.
After a long pause, Eliya finally spoke.
“Sir Hermis.”
“Yes, Lady.”
“Before leaving, what did Judas say?”
“He wished you well.”
“…Really?”
Eliya tilted her head slightly.
As if speaking casually, downplaying its significance.
“There was a time a few days ago when he briefly left without saying anything. Why was that?”
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