Chapter 240 - The Makings of a Sovereign

Ferda was unaware of what was happening in reality. He could only gaze up at the sky, submerged in what felt like a deep reservoir. He could not breathe. Pressure closed in from every direction, holding him down in the depths.

'I have to do something...'

But how? This was his consciousness. He wanted to escape, but lacked even the strength to struggle. All he could do was reach toward a light he could never grasp. Helplessness enveloped him.

'Valdrova.'

The farther he drifted away, the closer her face became. Ferda asked himself why he had fallen in love with her.

At first, it had been a sense of kinship. Something he had yearned for as a child. That curiosity had drawn him toward her, and he had begun to truly know Valdrova.

She was foolish. Foolish, but warm. He had found himself steeped in that warmth. People said there was no right answer in love. He supposed that was what they meant.

"She wanted to be someone like a hearth fire."

A voice suddenly reached him. The scene, which had resembled the bottom of a reservoir, changed into a place of darkness. A man stood there.

"But before primordial chaos, such a fire was no more than a candle in the wind. She had to burn herself. Everyone saw her tears."

It was a deep voice Ferda had never heard before. The man continued, as though delivering a monologue to somewhere beyond him.

"And she was saddled with a duty."

"Yet she does not fulfill that duty. Because she loves everything. Because she loves everything, she leaves them be."

A silence followed, as though he were pondering something. Then he spoke again.

"I will not let it remain that way."

"To arise and fade is the natural order, and it is her role to guide things toward that order."

At that moment, the darkness vanished and flames rose. A village lay before him, large enough to resemble Hestia village at first glance. The crackling of fire mingled with harrowing screams.

Sensing someone nearby, Ferda turned. Valdrova was there. Though a dragon known as the Aspect of Fire and Power, she was now an utterly helpless woman. Bloody tears streamed from her hollow eyes. Her lips formed words over and over.

Why? Ferda could not understand what was happening. Yet his body moved regardless of his will, and so did his lips.

"Now, look, Valdrova."

He spoke in an exceedingly gentle voice.

"This is what it looks like when the things you wished to protect disappear."

His consciousness was pushed aside. Once more, Ferda was sucked into the abyssal reservoir. He could not breathe. His heart felt more suffocated still.

'That... isn't me.'

That had not been Ferda. He would never hurt her. That was why he was afraid. If he remained trapped in this abyss, would he become that kind of person? Would he hurt her yet again?

'No.'

If that was to happen, just kill him instead. He hurled a soundless scream toward the unreachable light. He would not ask for salvation, so grant him that much mercy.

"Regent Ferda?"

Someone's voice. It was not familiar, but he had certainly heard it once before.

"Can you hear me?"

He wanted to answer, but could not. All he could do was pray that the speaker would not pass him by.

"It seems your consciousness has slipped beyond the other side. Still, you should be able to hear my voice, so I don't think it's too late."

She seemed to understand his condition.

"I'm going to pull you out of your consciousness now, Regent Ferda. You may wish to thank me, but that is as far as I can help. We are being pursued, you see."

He did not care who she was. He had no idea what was happening. If it would only restore his senses, he would cling even to a rotten rope.

"I've rambled long enough. Let's begin."

At that moment, he sensed something descending from the light. Its shape was indistinct. Think of it as a rope, and it looked like a rope; think of it as a long hand, and it looked like a hand. It was as though he could perceive it however he wished.

Ferda cautiously took that hand. At once, the long hand clasped his firmly and lifted him up. He knew this sensation.

The abyssal reservoir was flooded with light in an instant, transforming into another place. Valdrova Castle. The place that had brimmed with life during the Start of Spring Festival.

Ferda had made a single mistake there. Flustered, he had tangled his steps. Just when it might have ended in humiliation, someone had deftly guided him. That feeling. He remembered.

"You're..."

But the freckled face was different from before. She had the face of an utterly unassuming woman, so ordinary he might have seen one like it on every tenth person in a village.

"A pleasure to meet you. My name is Angrem. I am a Saintess of Sierra. Some call me the Saintess of Mercy, but I am more commonly known as Sierra's Chain."

"Chain?"

"You need a sturdy leash to keep a wolf tethered, don't you?"

As though her work were done, she untwined her fingers from his and released him.

"We will meet again before long. Let us introduce ourselves properly then."

Once he was alone in the ballroom, Ferda finally became aware of reality.

"Gah...!"

He woke from a cruel dream into a reality of utter devastation. He was on his knees. His mind was so confused that all manner of words spun through it. Sierra's Chain. The burning village. Valdrova weeping blood.

His head hurt. Now that his mind had returned to his body, there was no time to think.

'The most important thing first...'

Reflexively, he reviewed his priorities. What had it been? He cast his eyes about, searching for anything that might remind him. Then he spotted the black book.

'Right. That.'

Gamigin's Legion. Called Gamigin's utopia, it had ultimately come to fruition in the human realm.

'I have to destroy it.'

Ferda tried to summon mana, but none remained. Both his Dark Circle and his Red Circle had been wrung dry. He tried gathering more, as though squeezing the last moisture from dried jerky, but even that was not enough.

He cautiously tried to rise. His legs trembled so badly that he settled for crawling instead. His body told him it needed rest. He tried with all his remaining strength to persuade it: the book, at least. He had to burn that book before he could close his eyes.

With that single purpose, he crawled slowly forward. Just as he reached for it, the book rose into the air. He thought it was magic, but someone had picked it up.

Ferda forced his head up to see who it was. The first thing he saw was a pair of large boots. Zed, Arwen, or... perhaps Luri, who had lost her shoes somewhere and put on a pair of large, discarded boots. He could only hope.

But reality cruelly tore his hopes apart.

"So this must be the thing."

Eugene Heodret. After cautiously destroying all the sources of power, he had arrived once everything was over. This was the worst possible outcome. Of all people, the book had fallen into his hands... Ferda looked up at him.

"There seems to have been quite a fierce battle. The mage outside told me the power was gone, and now the castle is coming down with it."

"..."

"Well, the source of that doesn't seem to be here either. I suppose it's because that fellow Alberto, or whatever his name is, and your attendant are so powerful. We'd best get out quickly. What will you do?"

He asked with a smile. The question was ominous, given how plainly he could see Ferda's condition. Ferda barely managed to speak.

"That book..."

"Hm?"

"Hand over... that book."

Ferda was no less bold. King Heodret glanced at the black book and asked,

"Do you covet this? Well, you are a mage. Your pursuit of power must be rather more intense than most."

"It must... be destroyed."

Holding the book, King Heodret gazed silently down at Ferda. His face was expressionless, making it difficult to tell. How was this man responding to the temptation that the other kings, and Ferda himself, had experienced?

Ferda wanted to believe Heodret had not succumbed. With his physical strength, he had no way to defeat the king.

"If you look at it... it will show you the desires you harbor."

"Desires?"

"The kings were consumed by those desires. And... they killed one another."

"Hmm... So that was why?"

King Heodret touched his chin. He seemed skeptical, but not as though he thought the claim entirely unfounded.

"It makes you believe it can fulfill things that would, and must, remain mere fantasies. So please... it must be destroyed."

"You're saying that if I look at this, the book will consume me?"

"Yes."

"Hmm..."

His responses remained maddeningly ambiguous. Had Ferda been sound of body, he would have ambushed him at once, but now he was too weak to defeat even a child.

After looking down at him for a long while, King Heodret gave a small smile.

"Let me ask you one question."

He raised his index finger.

"What do you think of a sovereign?"

"A sovereign...?"

"My father wanted to become a sovereign. He tried to instill his dream in his child, and that child was me."

"..."

"But the grander the dream, the weaker the bonds of family became. Rather than helping one another, we attempted assassinations and framed each other, over and over. I felt regret. Disappointment, too."

"..."

"In time, I naturally developed a certain eye for things."

He pointed at his eyes.

"Discernment, is that what they call it? I call it the Sovereign's Eye. I came to have a rough idea of what those who reached above their station harbored in their hearts."

His eyes were perfectly ordinary brown eyes. That discernment was by no means the product of a magical structure.

"It made weeding out those I thought were up to foolishness quite convenient. But it wasn't infallible."

He crouched and touched Ferda's forehead.

"I realized that when I met you. You harbored the greatest ambition of anyone I had ever seen. Yet you were different from the other kings. I found that most intriguing."

His smile vanished. He continued in a far more serious voice.

"Ferda Valdrova. The man who became Consort to Valdrova the tyrant. Let me ask you once more, then. What do you think of a sovereign?"

Ferda answered him.

"Even a sovereign is only a human who will die someday."

It was said that the higher one climbed, the fiercer the winds became.

"Then why do you hold such a lofty position, and keep trying to climb higher?"

It was simple.

"Because my fiancée is up there."

But the words that followed were not Ferda's.

"Because she doesn't know how to come down, and she's struggling."

He did not understand why he had said that. Perhaps his dazed mind had made him babble nonsense. Heodret grinned at those words.

"Let me see for myself."

At last, Heodret opened the book. His eyes widened at once, like an explorer discovering treasure. Like a farmer feeling welcome rain at the end of a long drought.

"Certainly... intriguing sights."

He saw it clearly. Himself becoming ruler of the continent. Everyone bowing in submission beneath him. The ideal every would-be king dreamed of.

"Though trifling."

Heodret quickly lost interest. Without the slightest hesitation, he burned the black book with his own hands. Ferda could not contain his astonishment.

"Why are you looking at me like that? It's quite offensive. You seem to underestimate me."

"How..."

"I'm not blind. With my eyes open to reality, why should that worthless thing sway me?"

He jerked his chin toward the kings' bodies.

"When the fate of those who pursued the ideal it showed them lies scattered right here?"

Every word was true. He watched the last of the book burn, then crushed its ashes.

"One who walks the path of a sovereign must have unwavering convictions. With resolve, and without haste."

The book disappeared without a trace. He turned his eyes to Ferda.

"So I would ask you the same. How did you resist after seeing this book?"

Ferda recalled the illusion it had shown him. But what shone more vividly than that was red.

"Valdrova."

He thought of his hopelessly foolish woman. No dream or fantasy could replace her. She lived in reality.

"So that was it."

King Heodret nodded, as though he finally understood.

"I'd wondered why I found myself liking you so much. That was the reason."

"..."

"You have no dream of becoming a sovereign. Why should I fight someone who will never become one?"

King Heodret sheathed his sword, took Ferda by the arm, and slung him over his shoulder.

"Rest. I shall personally deliver your carcass to your attendant."

It was a deeply humiliating position, but Ferda lacked the strength to protest. As Heodret had said, he needed to rest now.

The Heinkel Kingdom began collapsing, starting with its citadel. Drained of mana, the surrounding area crumbled as though built of sand, while the cheers of soldiers who knew nothing of what had happened proclaimed victory all around.