Chapter 189

Everything stopped.

Everything literally came to a halt.

The arms that had been embracing each other just moments before felt rigid, as if they weren't human.

Even when he broke free from the arms of Leandros, Amelia, Russel, and Arndt, they remained motionless.

"Everyone?"

No answer came back.

The smiles from crying and laughing were still on their faces.

He stared blankly at the four people, then slowly stood up and looked around.

The blood-red sky. A piece of dark blue space and stars that had intruded between them. Yurik, who had died crushed under the massive ice. The demonic beasts that had disappeared into debris. The black mud that no longer writhed. White snow crystals that had been pouring down in clusters of light. White flames in the distance that had frozen solid.

Why?

"Stop joking around, everyone. I'm scared."

It was a poor joke that felt almost malicious. But even when he said this, none of the four looked at him.

Was this the end of the story?

Could he now return to where he had lived?

He brushed away the snowflakes that had stopped falling mid-air and were lightly hitting his face as he walked around the ruined royal palace.

No one remained. Everything was collapsed and broken.

He returned to the people who remained relatively intact.

Sculptures lost in their own joy.

No. That couldn't be right. It couldn't be.

He fumblingly grabbed and clutched the black cloak, but his hands slipped helplessly.

"Leandros, Leandros. You finished everything. You killed Yurik. Then isn't it all over? Isn't everything finished?"

"......"

"You killed him together with Arenheit, you avenged the former Duchess! Then this should be the end. Weren't we all supposed to go back?"

"......"

"Was I wrong? What more do I need to do? Tell me. What more can I do here! I died so many times. I came here by dying and coming back to life! How much, how much."

Why was Leandros smiling?

Why was he doing this here?

"......how hard it was."

The words he spat out broke into pieces and crumbled.

After that, he tried every method to move the four people, but it was useless.

Grasping at straws, he ran around various parts of the collapsed castle. That was also useless.

Was this right?

He couldn't hear any divine voice calling to him who had finished the story. No portal opened for him to return.

Was he perhaps being too impatient?

Would someone come to get him if he waited a little?

Would a divine messenger or transcendent being guide him to Earth, to Korea?

Could he return to his home? Could he go back to daily life and live as if nothing had happened?

So he waited obediently.

Staring at that colorful sky until his eyes hurt, he kept waiting and waiting for someone to come get him.

In the middle of this damned castle.

With everyone except him either dead or unable to talk to him.

Unable to erase the terrible feeling that only he was breathing and alive in this time where everything visible had stopped as it was.

He waited endlessly without eating, sleeping, washing, crying, laughing, screaming, or resenting.

Without singing, praying, walking, getting up, getting angry, atoning, accepting, apologizing, calming down, accommodating, being surprised, pleading, and yet neither advancing nor retreating...

Just like that.

He only waited for days, months on end.

Harboring a thread of hope amid terrible despair.

But the savior never appeared in the end.

Eventually he returned to where Yurik had died. He personally placed a sword in the hands of the man who had only his upper body left and wasn't rotting in the stopped time.

And while holding his hands together, he pierced himself with the sword.

The day when even the smallest hope was completely crushed,

Was about 700 days after he had been in the royal palace in this worldline.

* * *

A familiar ceiling. A smell he had experienced before.

He would rather die.

He had never so desperately wished for death. They said death came fairly to everyone, but he alone was always the exception.

Why? What had he done wrong?

People who faced unbearable misfortune generally coped in two ways.

The first were those who looked for the cause of misfortune outside. They thought the logic that caused misfortune existed outside and directed their anger externally.

The second were those who looked for the cause of misfortune within themselves. They looked back at their past and found the root of misfortune in themselves, thinking things like "if only I hadn't done this then," or "because I committed such wrongs then."

He was a typical second type, so he tormented himself by looking back at all his past.

If only he hadn't scolded his younger brother that way. If only he had paid a little more attention. If only he had encouraged him. No, he should have registered him for novel writing classes or something to help him gain more expertise. How much could that cost? It wasn't like he didn't have money to eat. He should have generously paid for the course. No, if only he hadn't lived that way from the beginning? Could he have lived more proudly if he hadn't received the orphanage director's sympathy? Could he have lived more comfortably without being obsessed with money or social status? What about before that? In the hillside slum? If only he and his brother hadn't gone out together early in the morning? If only he could have persuaded his mother? If only he had stopped his father once when he left after receiving a phone call? If only he could have found out about his father's mistress and driven her away? If only he had taken his mother's side? Wouldn't a more harmonious family environment have been created? All the events and sins he had experienced in life piled up on top of him until he could no longer escape.

So this was what it felt like to be trapped in a swamp.

No matter how many times, how many dozens of times he died, he couldn't escape from the past.

No matter how hard he tried, reality remained the same. Everything just kept getting messed up, so what more was he supposed to do?

He was useless.

At least in Korea, he had been used as a cog in society's machine.

Here, he was nothing but trash that couldn't even create a story.

When he got out of bed, his abdomen hurt as if it would tear. When he randomly spat out what suddenly came up, thick clumps of blood poured onto the floor.

Had Yurik's sword pierced his stomach before he died?

He roughly smeared the blood clumps on the floor with his bare feet and left the bedroom.

He had no particular destination in mind.

It was natural since he had nothing he wanted to do.

He passed by the Duchess's study. Inside there was his brother who had become a god and the Pnakotic grimoire that had become his.

He climbed the stairs past walls that were still charred and hadn't shed their soot. There was a window that captured the scenery of the Dikenter Mountains that he had once thought magnificent.

If he continued up, there was the floor with the bedroom used by the ducal couple, and above that was a door leading to an outdoor observation post for surveillance.

At the very top, where the stairs ended, there was a small door through which one could crawl to the top of one of the towers that comprised the ducal residence.

The door, long neglected and rusty and loose, was stiff but did open.

When he went outside, he could see the entire castle at a glance.

The hills of the Dikenter Mountains, the mist and low clouds that covered them hazily embraced the tops of the green mountains.

Beyond that was the north, where Aphoom-Zhah, who had first become his god, would be trapped beyond the ice walls.

He wasn't sad.

He wasn't angry either.

What right did he have to carelessly harbor such emotions?

If he had to name the emotion that was endlessly pulling him down below, what should he call it?

He looked down and took a step onto the steeply sloped roof.

The wind fiercely shook his hair and himself, and he threw his body as if swept up by the impulse.

He just wanted to rest a little.

* * *

The young Duke had gone mad.

Rumors were circulating in the village closest to the ducal residence.

After a splendid carriage bearing the royal palace's insignia entered the ducal residence, which was no different from ruins, people whispered that the 'Hartmann ducal family' had returned.

The Hartmann ducal family, which had once plotted treason and at the same time had begged for forgiveness from His Benevolent Highness the Crown Prince and barely had its inheritance passed to the sole remaining heir.

But now that the territory and wealth had all been recovered into the royal treasury, there was nothing the Duke could do even if he returned.

People who thought this far were relieved that no additional taxes would be imposed and went about their daily lives.

As the young Duke's story was gradually dying down, another topic surfaced.

Rumors that the Duke was suffering from madness.

Once the rumor was spoken aloud, the villagers competed to pour out what they had seen.

A forest keeper said that while entering the forest to survey the surroundings, he saw someone lying on the ground curled up and muttering unknown names, who suddenly jumped up and ran toward where the ducal residence was located.

A widow testified that while picking grass near the empty estate of the ducal family, she witnessed a young man who was clearly the Duke singing strange songs and wandering around the estate until nighttime.

A boy spread the word that a red-haired person sitting barefoot on the castle gate and endlessly gazing at the scenery was definitely the new Duke. He said there were festering wounds on his feet that wouldn't heal.

The villagers began to speculate about why the still-young Duke had gone mad.

Among several likely theories were that he had unfortunately been caught up in family affairs he didn't understand well and suddenly lost both parents and became an orphan,

Or that after enjoying all kinds of wealth and glory, he had slipped up and his situation became no different from begging on the streets, which made him resentful.

Anyway, opinions were divided about why he had lost his mind,

And while people were curious about the Duke's story, they also considered it an impure tale, so after ending their conversations they always called upon God's name and prayed for forgiveness for their sins of speech.

Around the time when Duke Arenheit Hartmann was being perceived as a tragic duke driven mad by terrible grief,

The two people serving the mad Duke in the ducal residence were no less confused.

Arenheit, after suffering from fever, seemed like he wasn't the same Arenheit they had known before.

Just the fact that he jumped from the castle's highest tower while Arndt, who was nursing him, had briefly left his side was proof of that.

Fortunately, Leandros, who was passing through the courtyard, caught Arenheit, but if he hadn't, it was terrifying to imagine what would have happened.

As the price for saving Arenheit, Leandros's right arm was broken, and Arndt felt disgusted with himself for not being able to stay by Arenheit's side continuously.

But Arenheit's eccentric behavior didn't end there.

He ate no meals at all and didn't sleep either.

Since Arenheit would escape from his bedroom at every opportunity, Arndt and Leandros had to search the castle to find him.

Usually he was found on the castle gate or in the spire, but occasionally he could also be found in the former Duchess's study.

While Arenheit behaved quietly when found outdoors, he didn't in the Duchess's study.

Thanks to this, the last remaining large painting in the study had long been torn to shreds, and sometimes Arenheit's voice could be heard screaming at the painting.

Though they couldn't understand the specifics, Arndt and Leandros could understand that he was pleading with someone in the study.

After pleading for a long time, when Arndt finally couldn't bear it anymore and entered the study to bring Arenheit out,

Leandros would carry the exhausted Arenheit to the bedroom and lay him down.

The seizures were painful for Arenheit and for the two men as well.

Quite a long time had passed since they had started using pain-relieving herbs that only mercenaries on the verge of death would use on the young Duke who wouldn't eat.

They did this even though the herbs were addictive and could potentially turn a healthy patient into a wreck if misused.

Arenheit was in a terrible state of insomnia, and even when Arndt barely managed to put him to sleep, he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and flailing, then vomit blood profusely with his weakened body, so this was unavoidable to prevent such episodes.

Arndt and Leandros were gradually becoming exhausted.

Thus winter came to Hartmann Castle,

And the cold wind brought an unwelcome guest.

It was Crown Prince Yurik's secret journey.