When Eliya was living in her family’s estate, she signed a document.
Massacre of Batrahem.
What was the reason again?
I can’t remember.
But I know Narcissi’s intention.
By ordering the destruction of a village close to where Eliya used to live in her name, she intended to suppress her spirit.
At that time, I was scared and didn’t want to get hit, so I signed it in a daze.
However, Judas is from that village.
I killed Judas’s family and neighbors.
That Judas was raised as an assassin destined to kill Maria and me.
He had every right to kill me.
‘…….’
Eliya saw Judas curled up in the wardrobe.
She felt pity and remorse.
It hurt, like a knife growing from her heart.
How scared must he have been in there?
And how angry must he have been, waiting to come to her?
I can’t even begin to imagine.
She wanted to hug him.
Even if this is a fake world manifested from his memory.
Even if it’s an illusion.
But…
‘…Who is this kid?’
It looks like Judas, but it doesn’t feel like him.
He looks the same.
After all, the owner of this memory is Judas, so this boy should be Judas.
But this is not the Judas I know. I’m sure of it.
There’s no evidence.
Just instinct.
‘What is this…? I don’t know. He’s not Judas. It’s strange…’
Suddenly, Judas’s words came to mind.
He said he was not the real Judas but someone who crossed over from another world.
‘He came from another world… So then, what is this memory? Who is this kid? Doesn’t that mean…?’
It was a question without a solution, no matter how much she pondered.
Leaving behind a lingering unease, Eliya slipped away into another memory.
She became even more curious about the past.
*
Batrahem, a village near the city of Selene, was peaceful and cozy.
Quaint wooden houses gathered snugly to create a pastoral landscape.
Judas’s father, David, was a shepherd in that village.
Judas helped his father with his work.
It was a future destined to inherit the family business someday.
A peaceful routine simply involved looking after the sheep, which were huddled together like dirty clouds.
There were no wild animals around capable of devouring sheep.
The herding dog that went along with them was the fiercest beast in the area, so there was nothing more to say.
It was a seemingly endless peace.
What he lived in was like the paradise described by the priests to Judas.
Judas was on his way home after gathering the sheep into the pen.
A group of kids his age came rushing from the edge of the village.
“Judas! The adults are going to see the witch in the forest!”
“It’s not a witch; it’s a fairy!”
In the forest near Batrahem, a mother and daughter lived.
He didn’t know the whole story.
Judas had heard that a couple fled to this village around the time he was born.
The woman was heavily pregnant at the time.
The villagers hurriedly welcomed the guests.
In such a rush, the woman was forced to give birth in the stable.
The girl born at that time lay in an empty horse trough, surrounded by straw and cloth, crying for the first time, welcomed by the villagers.
Anyway, it was said that the girl and her mother were hiding in the forest of the village.
For some reason, the man had left.
No one knew why, and the adults kept the details a secret, leaving the kids in the dark.
Judas only knew about it from hearsay.
The only other thing he knew was that she was born in the same year as him.
He had never actually seen her and wasn’t particularly curious.
The kids spun all sorts of fantasies about the mother and daughter.
A witch living in the woods, a fleeing dark wizard, the village’s guardian spirit, or a mysterious fairy, etc.
“Let’s sneak along too!”
The kids suggested, their eyes shining, but Judas wasn’t really interested.
“You guys go ahead. I’m just going to rest.”
The boy with golden eyes was typically lethargic about everything.
His relationships with his peers were decent, and his family life was quite good.
His parents were both fine and kind to him.
Yet for Judas, every moment felt dull.
However, he didn’t have the desire to seek out new stimulation.
It seemed he would live like this forever in this dazed peace, and while it was boring, it wasn’t bad either.
He just wanted to let things flow by like that.
In his dull paradise, leisurely.
And then, tragedy came without warning.
It was more horrific than any natural disaster.
It happened while he was playing hide and seek with the village kids.
He didn’t particularly want to, but because they insisted on needing more players, he reluctantly joined in.
Judas hid in his wardrobe at that time.
Soon, the kid who was “it” would come searching, and he assumed his mother would say he wasn’t home.
That was what he thought.
But the visitor who came was not a child but a knight in black armor.
“Who…?”
Before his mother could say a word, the knight thrust his sword.
It was truly a bizarre sight.
The sword piercing through a person’s body.
“Ah…?”
He met his mother’s eyes.
Judas clamped his mouth shut.
His mother’s gaze desperately turned elsewhere.
She was trying to hide his presence from the enemy.
“Who are you! What do you want?”
David shouted while pointing a pitchfork, his voice loud.
He instinctively grabbed a tool, but he couldn’t fight.
The opponent was a knight.
There was no way to win.
“I’ll give you anything…! If it’s money you want, I’ll give you as much as you need! So please spare my life…”
At that moment, the knight removed his helmet.
Short blonde hair and indifferent red eyes were revealed.
Showing his face in this situation meant he intended to kill.
The blonde knight casually swung his sword.
David was cut down.
Judas held his breath, watching from the wardrobe.
He engraved the memory in his brain.
The glistening blade.
His parents’ dying breath.
The splattering blood, and the sight of them dying.
And the knight with red eyes and golden hair.
After surely killing his parents, he set the house on fire before leaving.
The acrid smoke seeped into the wardrobe.
Judas remained curled up.
Before his body froze, screams continued to echo outside.
It seemed the attacker was not just that one knight.
From various directions, countless screams of people kept pouring in.
He covered his ears and trembled.
Even that was not easy.
Breathing became increasingly difficult.
By that time, the screams outside began to fade.
Judas cautiously left the house, covering his mouth and nose.
Just after he stepped out, the pillar of the house collapsed.
Startled, Judas fell and looked at his home.
His house was engulfed in flames.
The whole village was burning down.
The pastoral and boring paradise was gone now.
*
For days, Judas wandered around the village.
He walked through the ruins aimlessly.
He didn’t know where to go.
Or what to do.
He just walked through the village, where he was the only living being.
Then, he spotted someone at the edge of the village.
The man wearing a white robe prayed at the collapsed houses, wishing for salvation.
When that man noticed him, he approached.
Judas’s murky golden eyes looked up at him.
He spoke.
“So, there was a survivor.”
“…….”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
The man gazed down at him, seemingly observing his eyes.
After a moment, the man nodded.
“You seem to have potential. Those eyes. They symbolize you will be one of the Children of Revelation.”
Children of Revelation.
It was an unfamiliar term.
Even if it was a word he knew, he probably wouldn’t have reacted.
Everything about this situation felt strange to Judas.
“Let’s take revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“Yes. Revenge. We must retaliate against the world so that they can never make you sad again.”
Judas remembered the moment his parents died.
The black armored figure.
The glowing pattern engraved on its chest.
It seemed impossible to surpass the poised figure that slaughtered people like they were crops.
“I… don’t know. How?”
“I will help you.”
“Who are you, sir?”
Then he smiled lightly.
A reassuring, gentle smile that meant he could relax.
“I am Angra. I’m the bishop of the Molsin Church.”
Bishop Angra.
Judas had heard that name before.
It was mentioned by the priests who occasionally visited the village.
He recalled being told he was a very devout man.
“And I know who made you and this village like this.”
He said while extending his hand.
“Come with me. I’ll help you.”
Everything seemed like it would go well.
It felt like he would find what he wanted and fulfill it.
With an angelic and soothing voice, Angra led Judas to follow him.
“I will.”
*
Judas abruptly opened his eyes.
He had said he would follow Angra, but suddenly lost consciousness.
It’s a strange place.
Very dark and musty, smelling like mold.
It was unpleasant.
The basement was not a place fit for human habitation.
It felt like a grave or a prison.
He looked around.
He saw children trapped in iron bars.
Many kids who looked similar in age to him.
Boys and girls gathered indiscriminately.
The common trait they all shared was their golden eyes.
However, none of them had eyes as clear as his.
Green, yellow, brown, orange.
Children with eyes that were similar to golden.
As he trembled with anxiety, someone approached the iron bars.
It was Angra.
“Bishop! Where… where is this place…?”
“This is where you will be staying from now on.”
“What… this kind of place?”
“Yes. And by the way, this is the very center of the demon realm. It’s best for you and me if you don’t even dream of escaping.”
“The, the demon realm…? Why am I in a place like this…?”
He seemed uninterested in Judas’s anxiety or concerns.
He only stated what he wanted to say.
The warmth he showed when he first brought Judas was nowhere to be found.
“Are you curious about who made your village like that?”
“Uh? Ah, yes…”
“The one responsible is a girl named Eliya. Have you heard of her?”
“No.”
“Oh, dear. You’ve been terribly deceived. There must have been a little cabin near your village where a mother and daughter lived.”
Judas nodded.
“Her name is Eliya, and she is the daughter of the Bevel Family.”
He had heard of the Bevel Family too.
Since Batrahem is part of the Bevel Principality, he couldn’t not know.
“That girl deceived you all from the beginning and intended to kill you while living there. And now, after completing her rites of passage, she has returned to her family estate for training.”
Angra continued to speak.
Judas listened anxiously but patiently.
A dangerous place in the heart of the demon realm.
A prison-like solitary cell.
It was dark and frightening.
He couldn’t even begin to think about how he would survive here.
Would he die like this?
The demon realm, where all sorts of monsters and even scarier dark wizards roamed.
In this isolated environment, the only person Judas knew was Angra.
He had no one else to rely on.
Feeling anxious, he decided to listen to Angra’s words.
It seemed like he would only survive by listening to him.
Then Angra began to pour out derogatory words about Eliya.
Saying she inherited the blood of Balak and had a nasty temperament, that she inherited the power of a wizard and was a dangerous existence.
And that power wasn’t merely the talent of an ordinary wizard but the insane power of fire.
He claimed that power, resembling a warped sun, was extremely dangerous.
“A seed that will one day bring about the ruin of the world. Just look! Didn’t she massacre your innocent village that had once treated her kindly? Don’t you agree?”
“Yes…”
Before long, Judas completely fell into Angra’s words.
Eliya had burned down his village, slaughtered its people, and killed his parents.
Eliya de Bevel.
A firm goal took root in his heart.
He must kill Eliya.
“That wicked girl will return home and live happily without the slightest sense of guilt after killing your family and neighbors. Ah, how lamentable! Can you accept such a reality?!”
Even under the high-handed rebuke, Judas didn’t shrink back.
On the contrary, he was excited and elevated by his words.
He was angry.
Recalled the moment of his helplessness when he could only watch his parents die.
“You must be justly repaid and establish true justice.”
“Yes.”
“Your task is simple and yet great. Take your revenge. Then, the world will be saved.”
Angra smiled as he looked at Judas.
Having no one to rely on, the young Judas nodded solemnly.
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