I Stole the Heroines' Tragedy Flags-Chapter 35: The Deal with the Coward

It rained. Like a shower.

The rain pooled, and puddles appeared sporadically on the path leading to the imperial palace.

...No, it was my mistake.

It wasn’t rain.

It was blood.

Puddles of blood covered the path to the imperial palace, laid out like a red carpet.

Countless corpses decorated it.

It was truly a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

All the bodies wore similar outfits.

The decorations and badges on their clothing were familiar.

The two knight orders symbolizing the emperor's power.

Sword and shield. They all wore badges symbolizing shields.

The Imperial Guard.

Why were they lying here?

The swords and shields adorned the graves of the corpses.

And I was walking among those graves.

I held a sword in my hand. The sword was stained with blood.

I didn’t need to ask whose blood it was.

The culprit was me.

Thud, thud.

With a weary stride, I moved forward.

The inside of the palace was quiet.

Then, a voice that shattered the silence came from behind me.

"Ain!!"

The voice was sharp, almost cutting.

Soon after, a huge wave of aura engulfed me.

Clang—!

A clear metallic sound echoed.

Her sword couldn’t reach me.

When I turned my head to glance, I saw Adel, trembling with her sword raised in mid-air.

"...You’re late, Adel."

It was the air, but it wasn’t.

She couldn’t see it, but I could.

'Lilith. Please take care of this for a moment.'

[...I see. I understand. Leave it to me.]

Lilith’s remnants blocked Adel’s sword.

As I moved forward again, she screamed at me.

"Stop right there, Ain! I will definitely kill you!!"

"..."

I couldn’t even respond to Adel’s furious roar.

Just like the others, I had left deep scars on her.

So many things had happened here as well.

I faced the 4th prince.

Another two years passed.

I realized the secrets I didn’t know and spent two years unraveling the imperial family’s hidden truths.

The 4th prince died.

I didn’t kill him, but... he died anyway.

The head of the Imperial Guard, the one closest to the Empire’s greatest swordsman, also died... I killed that bastard.

I also cleaned up the rats from the Vatican who had figured out my position.

Throughout that process, the blood of countless people was spilled.

I earned the hatred of many.

Adel was no different.

'It’s time to end this.'

I had turned 19.

At last, the end of the tutorial was approaching.

The day to go to the academy was near.

The stage was set.

The background was complete.

Now it was time to put the final punctuation.

Ignoring the loud noise coming from behind me, I moved toward the place where the coward was.

***

"...Hah."

I straightened my clothes once again.

It was a formality that no longer mattered, but it had become a habit, something I did automatically.

Was it worth doing this for the presence on the other side?

I stood in front of the grand door adorned with brilliant decorations.

Of all the doors I had seen, this one looked the most expensive.

It spoke of the value of the one who lived here.

Should I kick the door open to make a grand entrance?

Or should I knock first?

Such deliberations felt like an indulgence, so I simply opened the door and walked in.

Screech—thud.

The door opened and closed with a single motion.

The room revealed itself to be bright.

It was still early morning, yet the lights were on...

It seemed they had already anticipated my arrival.

I turned my gaze around the room.

As I walked, my steps led me to the bed.

And soon, my eyes were drawn forward.

A ridiculously large bed.

Lying on it, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes, was a man.

Despite being in his middle age, his frail body and the coughs he coughed told me of his condition.

'That was close.'

He probably wouldn’t have made it through the day.

If no action was taken, he would die.

If that happens, this coward would get what he wanted.

I sighed and met his gaze.

"...You’ve done well to avoid me all this time. Your Majesty."

"..."

"Are you that afraid of me? Or is it because of the mistakes you made?"

"..."

There was no response.

He only maintained his silence, sending me a sharp look.

Perhaps he had no strength left to answer.

But that wasn’t an excuse.

He simply kept his mouth shut because he was a coward.

It was pitiful resistance.

'I wish.'

I gathered my divine power.

And prayed.

To pull this coward back from his attempt at escape.

The prayer continued.

The number of sentences in my prayer grew.

Finally, with ten sentences, my prayer spell was complete.

Ten sentences.

A ten-star sacred spell.

A power that even the pope of the Vatican couldn’t wield, now reaching him.

By now, it was no longer just a prayer.

—Boom!

A dazzling light enveloped the room.

It spread beyond the room, throughout the entire imperial palace.

Soon, the light that stretched toward the sky brightened the darkened empire for a moment.

One second. Less than that.

In that brief instant, the empire, once in night, had met the morning.

And then, a miracle happened.

"Now speak. Thanks to my prayer, aren’t you feeling more alive? You can’t run anymore."

The emperor, bathed in light, was unchanged.

But vitality returned to his frail body. The labored breath he had been struggling with had calmed.

He was no longer pursued by death.

"...Truly a miraculous power."

"Too kind."

His voice, indifferent as always, evaluated my [N O V E L I G H T] work.

I responded in kind, indifferent as well.

Though, the cost had not been small.

Ten stars.

A divine spell beyond the current Vatican’s capabilities.

A mortal like me shouldn’t be able to use such a spell.

Not with the little karma I had accumulated.

But...

What if I were a hero? freewebnøvel.com

The original Demon King, the most powerful ever known.

There had been a hero who defeated that Demon King.

If I were to recall that power...

It would be a miracle I could recreate.

It wasn’t a power I had now.

But with a 'trick,' there was no reason I couldn’t summon it.

A little cost, a trick.

That’s all it took to pull something like this off.

Only with this could I twist the fate of this coward and return him to where he belonged.

With pain that felt like it might break me,

I continued, as if nothing was wrong.

"The cost of my prayer is not cheap."

"...I suppose so."

"Of course, before we discuss that, there’s something we need to address, right?"

"..."

At my question, he turned his gaze briefly toward the clock.

I too checked the time... There wasn’t much left.

I needed to get to the point quickly.

Zeleon. That bastard had said it.

The 4th prince had definitely said it.

He said the emperor had given him this secret.

So, where did the emperor get that information?

"I’ll be direct."

—Who is it?

The one who told you about fate?

"..."

"Silence is not an answer. Speak—"

"I don’t know either."

Finally, he spoke.

His voice was resigned, as if he had given up on everything.

"It was a long time ago."

One day, someone had come to visit him.

The figure, cloaked from head to toe, held a book in his hands.

He spoke.

—Do you wish to change your fate?

The voice was sweet.

Like a whisper from the devil.

He had been drawn to that offer, to uncover a secret.

"...The destruction of the empire I rule. The inevitable fate. I saw the future of the empire."

"..."

The book.

I instantly knew what it meant.

I had a book like that as well.

'...A fragment.'

The book I carried.

It was a half of a holy artifact.

More precisely, one of four pieces.

A key to the Akashic Records, where all the events of the world are written.

A key leading to the source where all fates and chains began.

Someone else, like me, possessed a fragment.

Who?

Why?

For what purpose?

What trick did they use to approach the emperor?

Questions flooded my mind.

But the emperor would not answer them.

So, I moved on to another question.

It was the question I most wanted to ask him.

"So why did you do it to Hella?"

"..."

"The person who killed Hella’s mother... turns out it was you."

"That—"

"Was it because you couldn’t resist the jealousy of another empress? Or did you think she was the source of your fate? Was it just to vent your anger? Or was it because she bore Hella?"

I always think.

Being born is not a crime.

The crime comes from the baseless judgment of cowards, like this bastard here.

The coward screamed in frustration.

"It’s because of that girl...! And the woman who gave birth to her! If I had gotten rid of them sooner... the empire would have survived longer!"

"Then why didn’t you cut them off from the beginning? It was your own doing, wasn’t it?"

"If she was the seed of disaster, I should never have met her...!"

The coward’s hand, clutching the blanket, trembled.

I stared at him.

'How pathetic. Is this really the leader of an empire, the one representing the continent?'

He had done nothing but watch.

Knowing his fate, he did nothing more than push death forward with his own hands.

Zeleon. Another member of the imperial family.

Trying to carve out his own fate by cutting off a painful limb like Hella.

Had it been a problem to see his fate?

Or had he always been this kind of person from the start?

There must have been a better choice.

Just a little more thought, and he should have realized how foolish this was.

'Did that cloaked bastard want this situation?'

I sighed.

I felt pathetic for expecting anything from this coward.

There was no point in continuing the conversation.

Time was running out.

"...Let’s end the conversation here. What’s left is the price of my prayer. Your life’s price."

Either way.

He had to survive.

He would want to survive too.

In exchange for turning a blind eye to this coward's mistakes,

I proposed a deal.

Ella Academy.

The words left my mouth.