Chapter 217 - The Golden Rule (1)

1

“Why...”

I had no choice but to ask.

“Why did you gather only people like that and make them your lovers?”

The Tower Master, Ja Sujeong.

Someday, she would build the Tower and gather people abandoned by every world. Children sacrificed to religious fanaticism, martial artists killed by senseless disasters, a woman whose life had been imprisoned by an otherworldly phenomenon she could not resist... She would summon those abandoned, broken lives to the Tower and give them a new world.

‘Someone who built the Tower for the victims.’

Why would someone like that choose murderers, of all people, as her lovers?

I looked at Viscountess Ja Sujeong, voicing my question.

“People like that...”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong smiled.

“Precisely whom do you mean, Adviser?”

“People who have committed terrible crimes. They whipped a child to death and butchered people to eat their flesh. They waged war and drove countless civilians to their deaths. Why do you love people like that? Why do you still let them hold their noble titles? You’re the person who will build the Tower. You have almost omnipotent power. Yet why don’t you punish them—”

“Adviser,” Viscountess Ja Sujeong said abruptly, “you’re a very kind person.”

“Pardon?”

“The people climbing the Tower with you must be very happy.”

I tilted my head, wondering what she meant.

But she offered no explanation. Instead, she simply sat looking ahead. Following her gaze, I too looked at the scene before us.

“The very idea of nominating someone who isn’t even twenty for a ducal title is a joke!”

A heated argument was raging in the lounge.

That noble from the conservative faction... Count Fang-Tower Tiger, if I remembered correctly.

The nobleman whose hair bristled fiercely like a lion’s mane snapped in irritation.

“Viscountess Ja Sujeong is eighteen. Eighteen! However many rebellions she has suppressed, however many dragon kingdoms she has conquered, this kingdom has a hierarchy and a proper order.”

“Indeed.”

HOO...

This time, a noble belonging to Viscountess Ja Sujeong’s faction took a draw from a hookah.

“Your Excellency is quite right. I could never understand why, over these past decades, the rebels kept growing stronger by the day instead of being subdued... But hearing your words today, I feel my eyes have been opened. While an eighteen-year-old child shed blood and sweat fighting the rebels, great nobles such as yourself were busy setting the distinction between nobles and commoners to rights. Now I see that it is thanks to you that the kingdom has prospered without falling to ruin.”

Laughter spilled out here and there.

The nobles of Viscountess Ja Sujeong’s faction joined their colleague in mocking him.

“Quite so. Until now, I reproached myself for leaving every burden to a young girl. But now I see I ought to have condemned her for daring to earn military honors at her tender age.”

“Exactly. Had our faction leader not stepped forward, subduing the Golden Dragon would have cost another two hundred thousand lives. No, had she failed to subdue Red Nails, millions of subjects would still be groaning in agony. But what does any of that matter? Even if she saved hundreds of thousands of soldiers and protected millions of commoners, she is only an eighteen-year-old child. A ducal title is simply out of the question.”

“Hear, hear! How splendid is the benevolence of His Excellency Count Fang-Tower Tiger, so concerned for the kingdom’s proper order!”

The nobles unleashed wave after wave of attacks.

They were all Viscountess Ja Sujeong’s lovers.

Marchioness Snow Rabbit, the [Child Murderer], looked cautiously around her; Viscountess Pure Black God, the [Devourer of Human Flesh], backed up her colleagues; and Viscount Giant Shrimp Roe, the [Mass Murderer], openly snickered. Their reactions varied, but all of them had gathered here for Viscountess Ja Sujeong.

“Ha...”

Count Fang-Tower Tiger’s face flushed and twisted.

Was he humiliated at having lost the verbal battle?

In an unguarded moment, the count muttered,

“A courtesan’s dogs... At least you’re superb at barking.”

That one remark silenced the room.

The nobles who had been mocking him so casually all turned cold. The smiles vanished from their faces. Anger burned in their eyes behind a mask of blank indifference.

“What do you think, Mr. Kim Gongja?”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong whispered, her voice so soft that only I could hear.

“Isn’t it interesting?”

“...”

“As you said, everyone taking my side over there is a murderer. A mass murderer. A criminal. But look. Look at their faces now.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong lifted herself from her seat and leaned toward me.

“They’re suffering.”

Her lips drew closer, spilling whispers.

“All that happened was someone called me a courtesan. It isn’t even particularly untrue. I have bewitched countless nobles and royals with music, dance, and sweet whispers of love. A life spent enchanting people with all manner of arts. Hence, a courtesan. Believe it or not, Count Fang-Tower Tiger chose his words carefully. In the streets, people openly call me a whore.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong gave my sleeve a firm tug.

“Look, Mr. Kim Gongja.”

Drawn by that small force of gravity, I had to bend down. Once my shoulder was level with her face, she whispered into my ear.

“Someone who whipped a child to death, a noble who gorged on human beings, a general who massacred civilians—they’re all so hurt merely because someone called me a courtesan.”

“...”

“Isn’t it fascinating?”

Still pouring whispers into my ear, Viscountess Ja Sujeong linked her arm through my right arm.

It felt like a snake crawling up my body.

“The kingdom has hundreds of volumes of legal codes. Under their written laws, we can tally those [criminals’] crimes, measure their transgressions, and determine their liability. A tedious task, but an easy one. If I wished, I could have them executed this very moment. What do you think, Mr. Kim Gongja? Shall I kill them all?”

“That would be...”

“Yes.”

The snake smiled with her eyes.

Beneath her long eyelids, the snake’s eyes gleamed violet.

“You’re thinking, [That would be a little excessive], aren’t you?”

“...”

“That is the sort of person I believe you are, Mr. Kim Gongja. You’re kind. The moment you feel that killing people who have done wrong is [excessive], you are already an entirely different breed from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Merely killing them could hardly be excessive.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong took hold of my cheek and forcibly turned my gaze.

We both looked toward the noble with hair as white as a snow rabbit. Marchioness Snow Rabbit was looking between the two factions, visibly at a loss.

“Marchioness Snow Rabbit killed another minor while she was still a minor herself. Her house paid a settlement to the bereaved family. On one side, a prominent great noble house in the royal capital. On the other, an ordinary family of free commoners. They called it a settlement, but in reality, it was more of an ultimatum, wasn’t it?”

It must have been.

“The criminal was a minor at the time of the crime. On top of that, she is a noble, and she even reached a settlement with the victim’s family. Under those circumstances, what sentence would Marchioness Snow Rabbit receive... Who knows? Even if we threw the book at her, would it amount to anything more than stripping her of her title? Ta-da. That is the punishment the law guarantees.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong spoke playfully.

“The bereaved family, on the other hand, was ruined.”

“...”

“Unlike noble houses, commoner families fall apart with astonishing ease. That family consisted of three people: a granddaughter, a grandfather, and a grandmother. The granddaughter Marchioness Snow Rabbit murdered was their only descendant. And that granddaughter died.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong whispered in my ear.

“Do you understand, Mr. Kim Gongja? That family was ruined. Broken. Shattered. What good would an immense fortune in settlement money do them? Can gold put a child’s broken body back together? If, by the great and venerable laws of the kingdom—ah, by the majesty of His Excellency the kind and impartial presiding judge—they miraculously succeed in having Marchioness Snow Rabbit stripped of her title, will that dispel all the bereaved family’s anguish?”

“...”

“A criminal who ruined my life and broke my family. Even killing that criminal will not lay the resentment to rest. Think about it. Your granddaughter died? On a winter’s day, on a field of pure white snow, a noble’s whip gouged the flesh from her back and smashed her spine until she died. Could a measly single death possibly settle that debt?”

“Then... what should be done?”

I understood what the viscountess was saying.

It was in the same vein as the questions I had wrestled with when taking in the Heaven-Slaying Star.

Those who had already committed crimes. The people who had fallen victim to them.

What could be done, and how, to make amends for those broken lives?

Even a good person like the Black Dragon leader had stained her hands with countless people’s blood. And I shared a friendship with her. Was that truly right? If it wasn’t, what should I do? I still had no answer.

“Pain,” the master of the Tower answered.

“Pain alone is the answer.”

She stroked the hair at the side of my head.

“The pain of losing their granddaughter. The pain of the six years they have had to live since she was gone. The pain of the rest of their lives, in which they will never see her again. Giving the criminal [exactly the same pain] as all of that. That is the order that must be established in this world, and the law I wish to establish in the kingdom.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong spoke like a senior giving advice to a cherished junior.

But her eyes—her violet eyes—possessed a magic that made even the gentlest consideration look like a malicious curse.

Perhaps that was why she looked both like a senior who cherished her junior and a devil tempting a passerby.

“I will found this kingdom anew beneath the law of pain. Not only the kingdom, but the world. Not only this world, but every other world as well. Everything in existence upon which my feet tread and my eyes fall.”

“...”

“The Tower is the means to that end.”

For a moment, I was speechless.

“Is something like that... possible?”

“There are two ways to make the impossible possible. One is to go mad. Go mad, sink into delusion, and make the impossible possible within your fantasies.”

“What is the other?”

“To become someone with power.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong chuckled.

“Power means possession. It means domination. I bewitched six dukes, seduced one sovereign, and captured three Dragon Emperors.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong raised a finger.

“All to become the most powerful person in this world.”

TAP.

TAP.

Viscountess Ja Sujeong tapped her chair’s armrest twice.

“...”

At once, the nobles of Ja Sujeong’s faction all looked our way.

“...”

The people glaring at Count Fang-Tower Tiger stopped what they were doing and swallowed the words they were about to say the instant they heard those two taps on the armrest. They turned their heads at their mistress’s signal.

The opposing faction did the same. At first, they kept talking, but when their opponents all turned their eyes in unison, they could not help noticing something was amiss. Thus, the nobles on the other side turned toward Viscountess Ja Sujeong as well.

Once the nobles were all looking in one direction, the servants serving drinks and the musicians selecting pieces also looked toward Viscountess Ja Sujeong.

Thirteen seconds.

That was all it took for hundreds of people in the vast lounge to look at Viscountess Ja Sujeong alone. Fierce shouting, cunning mockery, and cold anger all stopped in an instant.

Silence surrounded us.

“My dear fellow nobles.”

Under hundreds of gazes, Viscountess Ja Sujeong opened her lips.

“You must have come to the lounge to rest, yet here you are, still debating so earnestly. As a member of the kingdom, I cannot help feeling proud. Though I do wonder whether the assembly will pay you overtime. We can hardly keep working overtime in a place like this without even being paid.”

Viscountess Ja Sujeong rose, using my shoulder as a support.

“You’ve rested enough. Return to the Grand Assembly Hall now and resume your proper work.”

At the same moment, the nobles belonging to her faction sprang to their feet.

In the seats they vacated, glasses sat abandoned: some empty, some still half-full, some never even raised to their lips. Without the slightest hesitation, the nobles gathered around Viscountess Ja Sujeong.

Considering that each one of them wielded power incomparably greater than any commoner’s, it was a truly bizarre sight.

“Now, then.”

Amid that bizarre spectacle, Viscountess Ja Sujeong took hold of my wrist.

“Mr. Kim Gongja.”

“...”

“Tonight, I will show you a miracle.”

Ja Sujeong was smiling brightly.