Chapter 79 :

Chapter 79 - Outsider Appears

“What do you mean by that? That man is dead anyway. He is not someone we can help.”

Beside the frustrated Tollin, another broken piece of wood fell.

The duke limped and hurriedly brought Tollin to the entrance.

The secret passage might have been safer, but there was no way Tollin knew the path, and right now there was no time to explain.

“You must go down the tower as you are and inform the other imperial family members gathered for the ritual of what is happening here. The reason Prince Dito has moved cautiously until now must surely be because he was conscious of the other imperial family members. That is the only way to stop this fight even a little faster.”

“What is that bastard to you, that you would so easily take a path where you are obviously going to die again?”

The duke spoke quickly, but Tollin asked while struggling to shake off the duke’s arm.

Then, with another groan, he had to clutch the shoulder he had put back in place.

Seeing him in pain, the duke’s strength loosened in surprise, and Tollin used that gap to step away from the entrance.

“There is no need to take the risk of bringing even the other imperial family members here. If the young duke has escaped, there is no reason for you to stay here. You can take advantage of the commotion and escape with me. In any case, Jack or Pale are.......”

Seeing Tollin trail off, the duke guessed what he meant and furrowed his brow sadly.

“Even so, I cannot run away like this. That man saved my life and Plin’s life.”

Even though he knew what kind of man I was.

There were many truths he had to share with him.

Things like what had happened with the child, why he had saved him, and why he had helped his son escape.

And his instincts were warning him.

If Ratel died, if he disappeared from the world, there would never again be anyone who could face the imperial family.

“I cannot simply watch that man die.”

“You are making that kind of choice again.”

Tollin’s voice was trembling.

“What about the young duke or the people of the ducal family? You know nothing about how we have lived all this time, what kind of feelings I had while protecting that place......! And now you are saying you will risk your life again right before my eyes?”

Tollin’s bloodshot eyes turned toward the duke.

The complaints he had not been able to express at their last farewell and the resentment he had not been able to pour out toward the man who had become deceased burst out.

“Damn it, can’t you live a little selfishly? No, that’s wrong. You are selfish. Because if you leave everything afterward to the people left behind and just choose a clean death, that’s the end of it. The people left behind, the people left behind......!”

Unable to continue, Tollin lowered his head, and the duke carefully placed his hand on top of it.

Tollin said nothing, but he did not avoid that hand either.

“Everything you said is right. I am an ignorant and selfish old man.”

Even though those were words he himself had spoken, Tollin flinched without realizing it when the duke put that criticism of himself into words.

“Even at this age, I knew nothing. What I had to protect, or how I had to protect it. I lived knowing nothing. So the moment I was cornered, I used death as a refuge and ran away. I left every burden to you.”

The duke’s hand very slowly patted Tollin’s head.

“I am truly sorry.”

The corners of the wrinkled Duke Feedus’ eyes folded.

Tollin, who had been quietly listening to him, raised his head.

“Even so, you will not run away from here. Right?”

The duke nodded.

“What I want to protect right now is neither that man nor the emperor. It is my family. For that, that man must survive.”

Tollin looked up after seeing his unwavering eyes.

It is always like this.

Agony Feedus was honest, upright, and stubborn to a frustrating degree.

And it was because he was such a man that Tollin had followed him.

Bang!

From above the ceiling, the roar created by the Second Prince and Ratel was ringing out.

His words were right.

If they avoided this as they were, the Feedus family was finished anyway.

It was now impossible to lie low and cater to the imperial family’s mood.

Since they had touched the imperial family, there was no way they could live in the Abiran Empire.

Even if they abandoned everything now and fled, how long could they live as fugitives?

That would never be a happy choice for the young duke or for himself.

Once again, the loud sound of something collapsing and the vibration created by someone falling rang out.

Tollin blankly listened to the sounds of destruction and thought.

Who in this Abiran could dare to pick a direct fight with the imperial family?

His heart stirred.

Even when the duke had been sentenced to death, even when he had been insulted because of it, even when the young duke had been kidnapped, there had been little he could do.

He lowered his head, sought forgiveness, and begged.

Even so, he had been anxious, lonely, and afraid.

That was probably because he knew that what he was doing was no different from bowing his head beneath a collapsing dam and begging for the water not to flood over.

Tollin looked at Duke Feedus with wavering eyes.

The duke, who was telling him to open a new waterway when he himself had suggested avoiding the flood, was staring at him without urging him any further.

Tollin squeezed his eyes shut and opened them.

“I......will go save the young duke. If we survive, I will also find a way for us to flee.”

Before the duke could answer, he quickly continued.

“That insane man turned the priests and knights at the bottom of the tower into bloody pulp, so people will gather before long anyway. If we say Prince Dito is being attacked by a ruffian, the other imperial family members will gather as well.”

He spoke, his voice returning to its usual strict tone.

The duke’s expression brightened.

“Plin went down below. He may be wandering dangerously through the capital. Please protect that child.”

“That has always been my duty since the day the young duke was born. I am confident.”

Tollin avoided the fragments falling from the ceiling and went back down the stairs he had climbed.

It was no different from returning empty-handed on the path he had come from, but it did not feel empty.

His steps were light.

* * *

Duke Feedus could not watch Tollin run off for long.

Boom!!!

With a roar, the roof of the tower collapsed.

Duke Feedus, who had thrown himself away to avoid the suddenly collapsing roof, looked at the one person standing amid the dust.

Was it Ratel, or Prince Dito?

As the dust settled, the hair that was revealed was, despairingly, pure platinum-blonde.

“Is this all? You said you would take everything from me.”

Duke Feedus blankly stared at Dito, who was laughing in the middle of the dust cloud like an excited child.

Did Ratel lose?

This suddenly?

Until just a moment ago, he had held a slight advantage, so why had he suddenly been defeated so helplessly?

Instead of pointlessly turning his head, he got up and ran to do what he could do right now.

The duke grabbed Ratel’s collapsed body and rolled.

Dito’s sword brushed past Ratel’s hair and stabbed into the floor.

Like a fruit knife piercing a soft peach, the sword pierced through the stone floor.

“Ah, come to think of it, that guy saved your son. It seems the two of you are close.”

Dito’s gaze, which had become even more relaxed, fixed on the duke.

The duke felt his body refuse to move, like a mouse before a cat.

As if his body could not handle the power overflowing from it, Dito was laughing spasmodically.

Something had changed.

He was different from the man who had merely been strong and beautiful.

He was stranger and more sinister.

“Leave your son to me, Duke. I’ll make sure he faces the most painful end.”

His finger pointed precisely at the duke’s heart.

“In recognition of your hard work until now, I will specially kill you in one blow.”

As if enjoying the way the duke’s eyes became dyed with fear, he laughed.

“What bullshit.”

Along with a voice that was insolent no matter when one heard it, light brushed past the duke’s ear.

The light shot toward Dito’s two eyes, but it barely grazed his cheek and passed by.

The duke looked back.

“Cough!”

He saw Ratel, who had vomited up a handful of blood, raising his body.

At least he seems to still be alive.

“Hey, if you’ve come to your senses, hurry and stand. I’m no match for His Highness.”

At the duke’s urging, Ratel slowly raised his body and gripped his sword again.

“How boastful of you.”

He did not forget to say a word.

But perhaps his body had not recovered as much as his arrogant tone, because he spat blood once more.

“Even for you, it seems there’s nothing you can do if your organs are burned?”

Dito giggled.

Whether it was a curse or a blessing, his body was diligently recovering the hole in his stomach.

Watching the wound fill in at a disgustingly fast speed, the duke clenched his fist.

Ratel rose while holding the wound on his chest.

“As expected, you can’t beat me.”

Looking at Dito, who muttered happily, Ratel opened his mouth.

“What did you eat?”

“What was my older brother. No, originally, it was mine, so I took it back?”

Dito, who had been rambling as if his mind were elsewhere, raised his sword again as if that no longer mattered.

“You don’t need to know more. You’re going to die soon anyway.”

He suddenly stopped laughing and shot fire once more into Ratel’s healing wound.

It was too fast.

Unlike before, its speed could not even be followed with the eyes, and it did not give the duke even a moment to try to block it.

At the attack that gouged into his unhealed wound, Ratel vomited blood again and collapsed backward.

“Since you’re such good material, I wanted to keep you alive, but it can’t be helped. You’re too dangerous.”

Dito raised his hand and this time aimed bow-like fire at Ratel’s arm.

Because it was not a great force this time, the duke could barely change its trajectory.

It was clear that, for Dito, it had been nothing more than playing with his hands.

By the time the duke came to his senses after blocking one attack, Ratel and the duke were already trapped inside a cubic prison of fire.

Watching Ratel and the duke, who had ended up trapped inside a box whose six sides were made of flames, Dito clenched his fist.

Then the empty inside began filling with flames.

The fire was tightening around them.

It felt as if they would melt from the heat of the flames.

This cannot be blocked.

Even amid the heat, Agony Feedus’ face grew white, as if drained of blood.

With his power, he could not shake off this prison of fire.

Before their power, he had always been powerless.

If God commands death, to whom should we pray?

A shadow fell over the duke, who had closed his eyes and was waiting only for death.

“Stop.”

At the familiar voice that followed, Duke Feedus raised his head.

Standing by the window with moonlight at his back, when he leaned his body into the tower, the flames burning the interior revealed the face that had been hidden by shadow.

“Your Highness the Seventh Prince.......”

Agony Feedus muttered without realizing it.

It was the Seventh Prince, Ran Abiran.

The black-haired prince who had been the beginning of everything was looking at Dito with eyes more firm than they had been during their final moment at the cliff.

Though he looked quite uncool, barely breathing unevenly with his breath rising all the way to his chin, and sweating profusely.