RAMHM Chapter 128

Help Me

Even at Rotsy's words, Rhodness's eyes continued to ripple.

Vincento, who had been kneeling, straightened his body.

"Your Highness. The reason I wanted to reveal why Bardenaldo became twisted was not simply to ask you to replace Bardenaldo but because you are this nation's true heir."

Confirming those eyes that simmered quietly like water just before boiling over, Vincento looked up earnestly at him—so calm even after facing such enormous truth.

"Though very late... I wanted to tell Your Highness that you were not Empress Letina's darkness, but her light."

About who was the heir. About who was the true successor.

In truth, more than such things, Vincento had wanted to correct those words that had tormented Rhodness his entire life.

Because he could not bear the pity of watching Rhodness's eyes lose their light over recent months, clinging to life as if its meaning existed solely in Countess Acacia.

"Having just seen those past circumstances, do you truly think Bardenaldo never loved you even once? Though he became so wildly twisted, he genuinely loved you until he saw that record. Until he saw that record."

Vincento had been the person who had watched Rhodness's devotion longest.

The self-loathing of having dedicated his life to someone who had never loved him even once.

The guilt of having contributed to that brother's death, brother though he was.

The debt of having crushed his mother's will with his own hands.

His lord was too magnificent and precious a person to live carrying such dark feelings.

What Rhodness needed was not simple truth, but comfort. Vincento knew this better than anyone.

"So you need not digest sorrow inwardly, need not carry everything alone like that. You need not hesitate. You need only take everything you want."

With those final words, Vincento burst into pitiful tears.

Rhodness looked down at Vincento as if seeing a stranger for the first time in his life.

Neil, who had been blankly watching the two, felt goosebumps rise at the sight of Rhodness's eyes.

Eyes that had been rippling with various colors cracked like shattering glass, and from within, pitch-black darkness rose and spread like light.

Seeing those eyes suddenly gleaming far more blackly, as if his personality had changed, sent chills to his very toes.

Though he had seen his lord's frightening aspect countless times, never before had he seen eyes that had completely snapped like this.

In this situation, even Epero, who had been wearing an angry face, could no longer step forward and held his breath.

The beautiful face was distorted by torchlight.

Chillingly cold and darkly gleaming red eyes slowly turned downward.

The long-drooping eyelashes were beautiful, but simultaneously cast a shadow that made hearts flinch.

"You dare try to comfort me?"

"...I merely seek forgiveness for my cowardly silence."

Vincento whispered, not daring even to raise his head.

Rhodness's face, containing not a trace of warmth, tilted slightly sideways.

Each time strands of platinum hair clotted with hardened blood spilled toward his tilted forehead, onlookers felt their breath choke.

"If you want forgiveness..."

The red bloodstains spreading from his strong jawline to beneath his ear undulated.

"...prove your usefulness to me now."

An intense torch burning in darkness.

Rhodness's eyes, burning red, certainly urged Vincento with that color.

"So that I can have what I want."

The descendant of Kaldaeon, who had subjugated all monsters and unified Ronteaux into an empire, commanded coolly.

Following Vincento, who had leaped up and burst out of the cave, came the dazed Neil, the terrified Count, and even Epero—who had mountains of questions for them—all leaving the cave.

"Let's awaken magic tomorrow, then. Right now you seem to need time to organize your thoughts."

Even Rotsy shook her head and slowly exited the cave, leaving only Rhodness and Adrienne inside the thorn barrier.

Rhodness's eyes, having heard the truth and even received Vincento's comfort, had sunk even more darkly instead.

Nothing would feel real. Just as it had been for me in every moment I faced the truth.

I hung the torch I had received from the Count on the wall.

Like a well-crafted statue, Rhodness stood a few steps away from Empress Letina's corpse, gazing at it.

Watching his gaze repeatedly darken and brighten, I quietly approached and took his hand.

Perhaps because it was a hand that had been covered in monster blood, Rhodness flinched reflexively and tried to pull away.

Like a scolding mother, I rolled my lower lip inward and bit it, then firmly grasped that large hand still tinged with thick traces of blood and drew it toward me.

The dark gaze shifted to me. Eyes like fake jewels shattered in their very shape.

"...There's blood on it, Adrienne."

"I don't care."

I demonstratively pulled his hand to my chest and embraced it tightly.

Rippling eyes wordlessly watched the sight. His hand, always hot, had grown cold—it pained my heart.

"...Weren't you scared?"

"Of what?"

"When I was killing the monsters."

Was that all he had worried about?

Even after hearing such tremendous revelations, Rhodness was merely asking whether I had been frightened of him covered in monster blood.

If I said I had not been scared, it would be a lie. But more than fear, I had felt greater sorrow and pity.

Because in that moment I had seen Rhodness as a young boy.

Not the protagonist of a heroic tale slicing through monsters stylishly, but the afterimage of a young boy struggling desperately to kill monsters.

Rhodness looked down at me with difficulty, then ultimately could not meet my eyes and shifted his gaze back to the glass coffin.

His face, anxious because he could not be certain of his own existence even after hearing what so many people said, became clearly visible now that only the two of us remained.

Even his pitch-black gleaming pupils that had terrified people looked to me merely like a wounded beast.

"Rhoan, you heard them."

I suppressed my trembling voice and answered with deliberate calm.

"I told you."

Not Vincento, not Rotsy, not anyone else—I was the one who had always wanted to say this to Rhodness.

"You were never, from the beginning or in the future, anything like your mother's darkness."

Had not his life proven it? He was not anyone's darkness.

"You are your mother's light, and my light."

I pulled at Rhodness's hand as if drawing his gaze, which still remained fixed only on the corpse.

Then, gazing long into Rhodness's violently trembling eyes, I burrowed into his arms and embraced him deeply.

My chest swelled at finally being able to embrace Rhodness, who had avoided my eyes all day.

Rhodness's body, standing upright while being held, was as always solid and massive.

Rhodness felt his mind gradually brighten not at Vincento's voice, not at the ancient record, not at Rotsy's certainty in having written it, but at Adrienne's voice.

Eyes like rippling torches turned toward the sleeping Letina.

'Was I... not your darkness, Mother?'

Belated tears fell in thin lines down cheeks hardened like stone.

'Is it also a lie that my brother never loved me even once?'

Even while witnessing Bardenaldo's ugly past, he had searched only for Bardenaldo's sincerity.

He knew it too.

As Vincento had said.

The statement that Bardenaldo had never loved him even once was false.

In his very early years.

When he hid in corners to avoid people who shunned him, it had always been Bardenaldo who extended his hand.

When he fell asleep exhausted from crying, it had been Bardenaldo who stroked his hair until he awoke, grinning that he had been standing guard lest nightmares come.

Even during that period when he had been frequenting the imperial archive, it had been his brother who had pressed his sleeping forehead and whispered for him not to be sick.

'There was such a time.'

Because he had trembled with enormous betrayal. Because in the moment Bardenaldo—whom he had considered his mother's only light—died, he had not prevented it.

Rhodness had to hold back tears over Bardenaldo's death if only to avoid facing Letina in shame.

"You can cry, Rhoan."

As if caressing his heart, Adrienne leaned her lovely cheek against his chest and whispered.

Words he had always, always wanted to hear from someone.

"It's okay to cry."

It was not forgiveness for Bardenaldo.

The tears flowing now were tears to bid farewell to the Bardenaldo of his childhood.

Having lost two of the people he had loved most in life without properly crying, Rhodness buried his face in Adrienne's shoulder.

The hot tears he had kept thoroughly hidden even at Bardenaldo's funeral poured out.

As he embraced Adrienne burrowing into him, he belatedly savored his mother's true will.

'Live gloriously for yourself. Not for someone else's glory.'

Everything felt like a dream.

Vincento's words. Bardenaldo's illusion. Rotsy's story. None of it felt real yet.

The afterimage of Bardenaldo rising like a heat haze in his mind twisted Rhodness's lips.

'Mother, it seems your twisted son was not only Bardenaldo.'

The sun of Ronteaux that Rotsy spoke of. The light of the world intense enough to burn monsters?

'Someone else can have such things.'

He cared about nothing except ensuring that the woman in his arms could live not in his darkness but in light.

'Mother. If it is a position from which I can protect Adrienne... I will become it, whether Emperor or god.'

He clenched his teeth and vowed.

Through blurred vision, his mother's form—peacefully asleep as on that last day he had kept watch—rippled.

'Can even such light illuminate you, Mother?'

It was a question tinged with some self-mockery.

"Let's go out too, Rhoan."

Adrienne carefully led Rhodness toward the cave exit.

Adrienne, who stepped out first under the bright sun, stopped at the cave entrance and extended her hand toward Rhodness, who was watching her.

Receiving backlight and shining, Adrienne was beautiful enough to dazzle the eyes.

"If you want to become Emperor, I'll help you. I'll... make you Emperor."

Rhodness's heart ached because Adrienne's voice was so lovable, speaking without even knowing why he would want to become Emperor.

"Not Doris. Me."

Adrienne, who had envied Doris for saying such things so confidently, spoke with her face slightly flushed.

At those words, Rhodness laughed with his wet face. Adrienne stared blankly at the sight.

No matter how dark the place, Rhodness's smile was beautiful enough to tighten the heart.

It was an entirely different reaction from how he had stared blankly and unresponsively at Doris's proposal to make him Emperor.

Adrienne extended her hand further toward Rhodness.

Rhodness, who had been gazing at the faint bloodstains transferred to her, slowly reached out his own hand toward hers.

Adrienne, still unconcerned, grasped that hand tightly in one motion and pulled.

His military boot, which had been submerged in darkness, stepped one pace into the light.

"...Yes, I'm counting on you."

A low, sweet voice. Adrienne's face gradually brightened.

This dangerously beautiful prince embraced Adrienne, who had said she would make him Emperor, and raised the corners of his mouth higher than they had risen all day.

Though his body was still soaked in blood, Adrienne did not avoid him at all. Rhodness's chest swelled instantly.

Having completely escaped the terribly dark cave, he whispered into Adrienne's ear.

"Help me, Adrienne. So that I can truly become a bright light."

For the first time in his life, Rhodness requested help from someone.

"I need your help more desperately than anyone else's."

He could not be happier.

"Help me, Adrienne."

With those final words.

Eyes that had gleamed pitch-black instantly sparkled like beautiful jewels, and lips that had regained their color immediately devoured Adrienne's lips.

In the gently blowing wind, the smell of monster blood that had been circling the young lovers flew away in an instant.