Episode 627: The last drop of blood (1)
Line didn’t understand what Ludger was saying for a moment.
“What is that… ….”
“I know that even if you find out the truth, your feelings will not be resolved. Even if there is a story, I have no intention of justifying what I did. So, I am giving you a chance to avenge your mother.”
Line bit her lip.
The choice was the same as the one my mother made in Ludger’s memory.
“However, right now I have work to do. It may or may not end successfully. Still, if the whole journey ends… …then….”
“With those words, did you think I would forgive you?”
“I don’t ask for forgiveness. “This is simply necessary.”
Ludger’s words were sincere.
Liné pursed her lips, but couldn’t say anything more.
“What on earth do you plan to do, brother?”
“You might end up fighting the whole world.”
Ludger knows.
That he has reached a point where he can no longer turn back.
Since when did it start? Maybe it was from the moment I chose to walk this path.
So now all that was left was to move forward without stopping towards the end that was slowly visible.
“I told you my name.”
“My brother’s name is Heathcliff….”
“okay. But that is also just part of my name.”
Ludger told Line his real name.
“My real name is Heathcliff Van Bretus. “It is the flesh and blood of the Holy Kingdom of Bretus, the Holy Emperor, and another line of blood that he abandoned.”
Rine gaped at the unexpected truth.
I vaguely thought that Ludger was a high-ranking nobleman, but I never dreamed that he was royalty.
He is not just a royal family, but a prince of the Holy Kingdom of Bretus, the headquarters of the Lumensis Church that once dominated the world.
“And my goal is to destroy the Holy Kingdom of Bretus.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“well. “Maybe I just wanted someone to know this.”
Ludger headed outside the cabin with a faint smile tinged with bitterness.
Ludger said to Line who was reaching out to ask where she was going.
“I will go first. You can gather your thoughts here and get some rest. “A lot has happened in the past few days.”
Then why don’t you rest?
Line couldn’t ask that question.
Suddenly, Ludger’s body was covered with a black shadow, and he disappeared from his spot as if shrinking into a dot.
Leanne, left alone in the cabin, looked inside.
Now that she had regained her memories, she felt nostalgic at the cabin that preserved the scenery of the past.
The kitchen and dining table where we ate together with our family.
The bed where I fell asleep while reading a storybook with my mother.
The scenery outside the window showed a forest along with the meadow where Ludger and I played.
Everything was as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
Also, even if I stretched out my hand at the same time, I couldn’t catch it, so it felt like it was far away.
I regained memories of the past that I had long forgotten, but rather than feeling refreshed, I felt more confused.
To clear her mind, Line went into her room.
Liné, feeling familiar with the scene in the room that had not changed since her childhood, sat down on the bed.
Somehow, a warm feeling made me fall asleep.
Thinking of herself as a child, Line lay down on the bed, closed her eyes, and fell into sleep.
* * *
Lightly.
Liné opened her eyes.
It felt like I had a really good night’s sleep for the first time in a while.
A sleep so deep that I couldn’t even dream.
Line woke up to the blowing wind.
A wind blew through the faintly open window.
It was a wind that was cool yet warm, and also filled with a certain will.
Line opened the cabin door and went outside.
And when he saw the person standing there, he smiled faintly.
“hello. senior.”
“Rine.”
Freuden Ulburg.
He came to visit.
I don’t know how it came. However, looking at the wind blowing, it seemed as if Freuden had come riding this wind.
“You really are alive.”
“yes. “I’m fine now.”
“If you came this far, does it mean that all your memories have come back?”
“yes. Now it all came to mind. “My mother’s work, and playing with her senior.”
Freuden was purely happy about that fact, but his expression soon darkened.
“sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I knew everything. “I knew, but I couldn’t bear to tell you the truth while looking at you.”
Freuden reprimanded Ludger for hiding the truth from Line, but he thought that he himself was no different for doing the same thing.
“I also helped deceive you.”
Freuden fought to save Line for atonement.
“But you tried hard. “To protect me, they came all the way to that distant island and fought.”
“…Did you know?”
“I almost collapsed, but I could vaguely feel it. “Many people fought to save me.”
Line felt grateful for that feeling.
It was thanks to him that my mother was able to hold on without losing hope in life despite the terrible pain she must have once experienced.
Because there are people in this world who want you to live.
Freuden tried to say something, but instead burst into laughter.
A lot had happened.
He visits the family, has an honest conversation with his father, meets the spirit beast, and goes to Isla Machina with the spirit beast.
There, he got caught up in a fight he couldn’t believe, and came here with Youngsu’s help to find Rine, who disappeared after the fight.
The final destination was the past.
When I was a cocky kid who didn’t know anything.
Know people.
Know pleasure.
I knew love.
“okay. It did. “I went through a hard time to the point where I wondered if I had ever really gone through such hard work.”
“thank you. “For me.”
“I just did what I had to do.”
Words disappeared between the two for a moment.
Perhaps to fill that void, the wind blowing through the grass from a distant field blew across the two of them.
Freuden felt like the wind was telling him to be courageous.
So I decided to be brave.
“Rine. I am….”
“sorry. senior.”
The moment I was about to say the words I had kept in my head, Rine shook her head, indicating her refusal.
The moment Freuden saw that figure and expression, he couldn’t help but realize.
is it.
You knew it.
“How good my senior was to me, and why that was. I know everything now. So I’m grateful, but at the same time, I feel sorry. Because I… ….”
“…okay. I see.”
Freuden smiled bitterly.
I was finally able to be honest with myself.
This is the ending at the end.
Freuden felt like something in his heart was breaking.
I realized once again that this is the pain of heartbreak.
But Freuden did not cry, feel sad, or suffer.
Instead, he supported Line with a gentle smile that he would not normally show to others.
“I hope that your feelings will be repaid.”
“thank you. “Thanks to talking with my senior, my head became clearer.”
Line realized.
What are your feelings?
What should I do next based on this feeling?
“Okay, I’ll go.”
Line asked Freuden’s understanding and ran across the field.
The cabin on the hill slowly moved away, but Line did not look back.
The past is the past.
It was so sad that I didn’t want to remember it, but it was also so happy that I didn’t want to forget it.
It was all in the past.
So I decided to let it go.
Because he was living in reality, and the direction his steps were taking was toward the future.
Because I couldn’t be tied down by the past any longer.
“ha.”
Freuden sighed as he saw Line walking away.
Next to Freuden, a large wolf appeared out of thin air and stuck out its head as if to cheer up.
“Are you comforting me? thanks.”
Freuden looked at the cabin while being comforted by the spirit beast.
Where I stayed for about a month in the past.
At first, I thought it was such a cozy place, but as I stayed there, I became more attached to it than my home.
As Freuden approached the hut, he narrowed his eyes as he saw a new person appearing in the distance.
“How did you find out about this place?”
“I heard you disappeared, so I was wondering just in case. “I thought this was the only place to come.”
My friend with squinted eyes and orange ponytail tied at the nape of his neck.
Henry Presto.
The eldest son of Presto, a vassal family that has served the Ulburg family for a long time.
“Did you forget? “When you went missing as a child, who was the first to find you?”
“You didn’t find it, I called it.”
“I was the one closest to you at that time?”
“okay. I get it. you saved me it’s okay?”
“Hehe. This is true. “It’s hard to get recognition from a friend.”
Henry smiled and asked Freuden.
“So, what do you think?”
“what.”
“That handsome Freuden Ulburg confessed to a woman and got dumped. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was featured on the front page of Seorun’s class newspaper. If you think about the number of tears from girls who confessed to you and then got dumped, you could even make a lake. “Is this something like clearing up karma?”
“Thank you, it brings tears to my eyes. So, are you trying to make fun of me?”
“I was wondering if you would at least comfort me if you cried.”
Henry looked at Freuden’s lighter expression and shrugged his shoulders.
“It doesn’t seem necessary. “He has grown as a man.”
“It was unwanted growth, though.”
“That’s what it means to be an adult. “I never thought about it, and I didn’t want to, but at some point, when I came to my senses, I ended up becoming an adult.”
“Isn’t that what you would say?”
Even though we are the same age.
Henry let out a light laugh at Freuden’s point.
“Because, unlike you, I am acting responsibly. “You’re already an adult enough.”
“okay. “Good job.”
“Are you going back now?”
“I have to go back. To Seorn.”
“okay. “Let’s go.”
“How did you get here?”
“I came by car. I did not know? I know how to drive. “I don’t know who it is because of.”
“In times like that, I say it’s thanks to me.”
That time when the two were chatting like that.
Rine, who I thought had already left, came running panting from afar.
Henry and Freuden looked at Line with surprising eyes.
They clearly broke up well, but why did they suddenly come back?
Liné said with a red face and a shy smile because she was running so fast.
“I don’t know the way back to Seorn. Can you take me with you?”
“….”
* * *
“Are you here?”
After parting ways with Line, Ludger met Hans in a secluded place quite far from the forest.
“I was waiting.”
“You managed to come this far.”
“I like the money. “Because I can ride this expensive thing whenever I want.”
As Hans said that, he glanced back at the airship behind him.
The fact that he could now personally use a state-of-the-art airship, which he would never have dreamed of in the past, to go meet someone, made him deeply moved.
But the current situation was not very good to feel pleasure in such things.
“What is the situation now?”
“I’ll explain as we go.”
Ludger followed Hans onto the airship.
The airship headed towards Leather Velk.
Hans briefly explained to Ludger what had happened during his absence.
“Many things have happened since my brother suddenly disappeared to Isla Machina.”
Representatively, because of the incident caused by Nirva, the Holy Kingdom of Bretus dispatched a significant number of people to the empire.
The Holy Kingdom of Bretus expanded its power in earnest, as if to erase the long hiatus.
This was largely due to the fact that citizens’ antipathy towards him had decreased because he was not as aggressive as before.
But what Ludger was most worried about, and what was most important in the current situation, was not such trivial talk.
“Master.”
Hans, who had been chatting eagerly about the situation, closed his mouth.
“What happened to you, Master?”
“He….”
Hans swallowed.
“After you disappeared, after the Lumensis Church entered the city, your teacher went outside for the first time. And I came into contact with someone from the Lumensis Church.”
“Contacted? “Master?”
“It was Cardinal Patricio Romelo. “He came from the home country of Bretus and was one of the people with a successful suffrage.”
Hans recalled everything he remembered in as much detail as possible.
“The other day, a red flash rose high into the sky in Lederbelk. I knew it was the magic my brother’s teacher had unleashed. And after that, he disappeared. “As if it were an illusion, so convincingly.”
“Have you looked to see where he went?”
“I haven’t found it yet. However, I did find one strange trace.”
“What is that?”
“The majority of the elite combat paladins dispatched by the Holy Kingdom have moved somewhere. With Cardinal Patrick.”
