RAMHM Chapter 144

Your Revenge—You Handle It Yourself

Oh. Right.

'Adrienne…… I absolutely have to kill that son of a bitch.'

'Fine, but—I'm the one who kills him first.'

That's right.

The woman he loved was exactly that kind of woman.

Trapped in a frail body, but too clever, too considerate for it—and her goddamn courage went too far, always catching him off guard—

'Cruelly lovely.'

A laugh like an empty gust of wind wedged itself out through his cracked expression.

'All right. If this is your way.'

His hands trembled wanting to protect Adrienne standing there at the center of danger, but his heart was pounding like something possessed. Falling in love in a situation like this—it was agonizing.

One hand scrubbing dry across his face, a hollow laugh still leaking out, Rhodness went still—and then, with eyes sunk dark, stepped further toward the center of the dais.

Moving under the anxious gaze of Empress Grace, as he walked forward, unseen by anyone, his eyes went dark as ink and then blazed bright.

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK-THUNK-THUNK!

"AAAAAHH——!"

Black, viscous monsters erupted from the ground around the dais. As people stumbled backward and fled, the space around the creatures emptied.

Ordinarily those monsters' teeth would have pierced the hearts of whoever stood in the places he had let his mana flow.

They were creatures desperate to possess the sweet mana he carried.

And in that instant.

His eyes met the eyes of the ones who had dared say they would dispose of Adrienne.

Rhodness's cold face pulled his mouth into a sharp curl at the corner.

Every person threatening Adrienne.

He had planned to use the monsters to eliminate them—to drench Doris Castagna's saint investiture in blood—and then, after making plain to all the world that the will of the gods was not with Doris, to cut those very monsters down before the people's eyes and show them clearly who it was that protected this nation.

Though he had always held mana that awakened and bent itself to his control without him seeking it, Rhodness had not once used it. This time he did not hesitate.

Let them say it. Or not. Didn't matter.

It didn't matter anymore. He was past the reach of that.

An invisible force seized the rampaging monsters by the throats all at once.

Without hesitation Rhodness drew the long sword at his hip, charged through the scattering crowd, and swept it in several strokes.

"SHRRIEEEEK——!"

A monster that couldn't move was no opponent for him.

He dispatched the creatures in an instant, then turned his gaze on the people fleeing the shower of monster blood.

The faces of those who had moved their mouths to say they would handle Adrienne—dark red monster blood spattered across them, heavy.

"The West gives its full and fervent support to His Highness the Second Prince Rhodness—the true successor who will protect this nation!!"

The western nobles who had taken losses from the monsters and been saved at the last instant by him called back in a crash of sound the moment they witnessed his power before their eyes.

A collapsed Duke Castagna. A Crown Princess Doris who was no saint—neither of them were the lifeline the western contingent was still reaching for.

"The West calls for His Highness the Second Prince's investiture as Crown Prince!!"

The people who had been seized with fear at the monsters' appearance at last let the tension drain from their bodies and began applauding and cheering until their hands ached.

"His Highness the Second Prince slew the monsters!"

"His Highness the Second Prince will protect us!"

It had always been this way.

It was what he had always done and what had always been known, since before he left the capital—yet with the wind of change Adrienne had brought, he had become not a monster that drank monster blood, but a good man who protected people from monsters.

From an object of terror to an object of reverence.

Even soaked in blood like this. Even with it everywhere on him.

"His Highness the Second Prince is the new sun who will save this nation and shine bright on Ronteaux!"

The true successor.

Not red eyes that would drag a nation to ruin—but red eyes like a sun that protected people.

Ha.

A false oracle that was clearly Adrienne's scheme—

had stitched back together and set upright every torn and trampled year of his life.

It was the first time that standing in blood-soaked clothes, he had ever heard cheering and applause like this, like thunder rolling.

Rhodness, as if deaf to the crowd's cry, slowly wiped the blood from his face.

For a moment his ears felt as if he'd gone underwater. Then that faded.

He sheathed the sword again and closed his eyes once, then opened them.

At no great distance, Adrienne was watching him, her hands clasped together.

On that delicate, beautiful face—clearly worry, yes, but more than that: a completely clean smile.

"Seize Doris Castagna—who impersonated a saint and nearly killed her!"

"One who impersonates a saint is a demon, and the god declared she may be killed!"

"Wasn't it Doris Castagna who summoned the monsters as well!"

"Kill Doris Castagna!"

Cheers for Rhodness and condemnation of Doris hit the dais simultaneously.

"A——ah……!"

Doris's body, which had locked up at the sudden appearance of the monsters, let thick tears roll down her face.

She reached and reached, and not a single one of the western nobles would meet her eyes.

"A, ah——!"

Her lips, which could no longer produce any sound, trembled and moved silently, but Rhodness's gaze didn't reach her.

"Confine the guilty."

At his low voice, tamped down against the elation rising in him, Neil and Vincento moved toward Doris as if they had been waiting for exactly this.

Rhodness's two aides took Doris by both arms—white as a bride in her ceremonial clothes—and began to drag her off the dais.

"No, let go! Let go! How dare——! Do you know who I am! Guilty! Guilty, they say!"

With Doris's howling behind him, Rhodness wiped the last of the blood away and at last walked toward Adrienne.

As Doris was dragged down from the dais, her voice not dying even then, it rang and rang in my ears.

Fear and jubilation. Admiration and condemnation mixed together in the crowd's roar, and I finally came face to face with Bliea.

Sweet honey-gold hair.

The pallor that had been in her face before was giving way to color now—she was unmistakably alive.

Just as I was taking her in from top to bottom, Bliea was doing the same—looking at the person standing before her the way someone looks in a mirror, for a long, careful time.

"I have things I want to ask you. Things I want to say to you. Plenty of both."

"……Huh?"

The slight edge in my voice—so different from the cooperation of just a few moments ago—made Bliea blink, eyebrows drawing together in something like surprise.

"But right now I only have one thing I want to say."

"Mm?"

Bliea slowly looked me up and down, then folded her arms. When her chin lifted in a go on, then sort of way, I was quick to follow through.

"You. You wanted me to see for myself just how pitiful, how pathetic, how absurd my situation was and fix it myself. Didn't you?"

Her one eyebrow twitched—not entirely wrong.

"You wanted me to get my own revenge myself. Didn't you?"

I thought of all the layered feelings I'd carried through so many hours of thinking about her.

"That's why you kept me alive when I was dying."

Bliea watched my lips moving with something like curiosity, then blinked slowly. Whether it was agreement or denial, I couldn't tell.

"Now it's your turn."

"……?"

I turned my body toward my father, who was shouting something at us without stop.

"Your revenge—you do it yourself."

Bliea's and my father's eyes collided in the air.

My father's face, and Gregory's—looking back and forth between Bliea and me—went pale at the same moment.

Nearby I could see Olivia crying, and Bianca soothing her.

Bliea didn't step past me into the path I had opened for her.

She only blinked very slowly at my father and brother.

No tears. No anger.

But whatever that did to something in my father, he reacted violently—and then disappeared into the crowd at speed.

"Father——"

"……More than that right now——"

My arm, reaching toward where my father had been, stopped in the air.

I started to turn back slowly—or tried to.

Yanked.

The next instant my wrist was pulled, and I was pulled hard into a slender, firm pair of arms.

"What—right now, what is this——!"

It was Bliea's arms.

The most enigmatic person in my life.

The strange woman who had seduced my husband and saved my life without asking permission—my strange——

"I wanted to hold you once."

'——my sister.'

Paying no attention to me standing there stiff as a board, Bliea pulled me tighter still.

"Your Grace."

The furthest corner of the plaza.

Desolate—everyone else having crowded toward the dais to be closer to the miracle, closer to the new successor.

Jimskehr, who had sprinted there until his lungs nearly burst, made his way toward a man standing behind a massive stone sculpture.

The man in a black cloak with his hood pulled up had been standing still for a long time, not answering, eyes fixed on the dais.

"Your Grace."

"……Better not to call me that anymore."

Novian turned away from Jimskehr, who couldn't bring himself to leave out of grief, and turned over that day's Adrienne in his mind.

'There's exactly one thing I want from you.'

'Die for me.'

He squeezed his eyes shut and worked the muscles of his mouth against each other.

'Someone like you who'd even break out of prison to come here—that means you're already prepared for it. Prepared to throw everything away.'

'Then give me that useless Grand Duke title. Help me do whatever I need to do for the person I love. Die for me.'

The woman he had loved had been that kind of woman.

The frail woman who used to say with such aching sincerity that she wished she could do anything for him—she had been that strong.

A thin thread of tears ran down his sunken cheek.

'If dying for you is the most useful thing I can do, I'll do it gladly. But if the Second Prince sets you aside and chooses Doris to become Crown Prince... then, after that—could you not pretend not to notice, if I lingered near you?'

'No.'

He had clung, to the very last, to someone who had asked him to die.

Under the blazing eyes of Epero watching him with a murderous gaze, he had been so desperate he couldn't even register it.

'No, Novian.'

He'd wanted to be free of every danger, just like this—to start over somewhere with her, anywhere that wasn't Ronteaux or Elacon, anywhere outside every country that knew the two of them.

If Adrienne were ever cast aside by Rhodness—he'd take that as a once-in-a-lifetime gift from the gods, and spend the rest of his life with her... truly, with her...

'You, too, live your own life now.'

But in Adrien’s eyes, there was no longer any lingering attachment, nor any hatred, contempt, or anger.

Pity.

'You travel anywhere you like—strip away that hollow name the Emperor gave you, and go just as Novian. Live doing what you want.'

Sympathy.

'Whether you're someone whose fate is to tend to others' affairs until you die, surrounded by nothing real—or whether you live a life that's truly yours…… decide for yourself.'

It was the first time in his life that anyone had faced him carrying those words, those feelings, behind their eyes.

The words he had always longed to hear from someone—they had finally come, from a woman who no longer loved him.

While the restored Grand Duchess collapsed and another wave of commotion broke over everything—

Novian stood as if nailed in place for a long time, and only then finally turned.

"Now—where are you going?"

Jimskehr asked, reaching toward him with a hand that couldn't quite close the distance.

Novian didn't look back.

"……I don't know."

He had never lived this way before.

In the whispered words, Jimskehr grew desperate and called after him once more.

"Your Grace, please, at least tell me——"

"There's still someone here I want to see alive. Anywhere I can watch her from, even from a distance—that's enough."

"Your Grace?"

"A place she can return to anytime she's sad, anytime she's hurting…… Probably somewhere like that."

'……Only now.'

Thinking of the years he couldn't manage even that—the years of living as husband and wife—he murmured with something that cut against himself.

A lonely sound moved through the wind between the people.

Into the enormous crowd still pouring in as rumors spread—a man in a black hood finally stepped forward and vanished.

Jimskehr stood in that spot for a long, long time, watching the back of a man who was already gone.