Chapter 460

So close, so far away…

(Caitel’s POV)

The sound of explosions, the crackling of flames, and the terrible smell of something burning.

Smoke and hot air spread around me.

Those were the only things I could see and feel through my dimly flickering consciousness.

I always expected that I would die one day, but I never expected it to be in such a way.

Well, it was more stupid than I imagined.

I knew some invading country would defeat me, or people in our country would rebel and chop off my head, or I would just die of some disease. Perhaps some closest aide would betray us.

But that was all wrong.

I would die because that fool Siorn would catch me. Really funny.

I couldn’t even say anything about it.

Ah, did it even meet any of my expectations?

I leaned against the door and tried to move it, but it was useless. The sound of screams outside the door was no longer audible.

Did they leave?

The place was empty and scary.

I was stupid, really stupid, pathetic, and funnily, my heart hurt like hell.

For the first time since the moment I was born, my heart hurt.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I took the right decision.

Right, I felt like it was the best thing I had ever done. The situation was urgent, and I was excited and overjoyed even though we were in a terrible state. I felt like I wanted to show off my proud accomplishment to someone, but unfortunately, there was no one around me.

And it made me feel a little regret.

That was the first time I felt such a thing.

“I thought that I wouldn’t regret dying, but…”

The calming voice was gone.

I had always waited for such a day to come.

A day where everything would come to an end.

What, at such a time, I was supposed to feel happy, but I felt sad instead. Since I couldn’t cry, I exhaled. A strange emptiness spread all over my body.

From the day I started to live to the moment I struggled on the floor, the sword in my hand, never once had it ever fallen from my hand. It was a relief that I held it out of habit.

It felt like everything was coming to an end, and it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. The freedom that I couldn’t let go of was finally releasing me. Right, that was it. I had always lived to die.

People would have been shocked to hear that, but that was how I lived my life daily.

Even if it meant that I was doing everything I wanted to do without hesitation.

If I were scared of dying, I would have never been on the bloody battlefields for years. Some might have already noticed that it was me acting crazy and not being sane.

It was my kind of struggle.

To forget things.

“… it’s starting again.”

When I was all alone and quiet, one after another, darkness would engulf me.

The things I always called a nightmare.

A woman without a neck, a man with his arm cut off, and a man with his body burned black—the maids who died during the great disaster instead of the nobles. At first, that was all, but then, all the people I ever killed began to appear.

Countless corpses I couldn’t even remember would surround me. I knew that they were all illusions, but it would only terrify me each time.

A sense of guilt and the illusions would turn intense; the more the morality and shame, the less I knew the reality. Killing became as easy as saying hello.

Once the sun fell, they would come for me again. Of course, I wouldn’t be breathing by then.

“Get out of here. This is the last moment I have.”

I wasn’t interested in what kind of result I would get by struggling with guilt because of the illusions. My country, the great empire, would turn into nothing.

No, it would have been better if that was the case.

Each time I didn’t hold onto the sword, it would only make the emptiness inside me spread.

The only thing which existed was my empty vanity.

The absence and void I felt were unbearable, and I sought after my death, to a place where something would make me feel alive. One always felt alive in the grasp of death. It was apparent that I wasn’t sane.

“Crazy.”

I was dead at 13.

A life undesired and lived without dreams, hopes, or purposes. I knew that. If there was anything real in my life, it was anger and hatred.

All I could do since my birth was to breathe and live.

I wasn’t given a choice.

To avoid getting killed by my brother, I had to live without letting them know that I was alive—all for the sake of living. By the time I grew up, I had managed to grasp the reality of my surroundings; it had been a long time since I adapted to the new life of living without dreams and hopes.

It would have been better if not for the child of an unnamed concubine.

The queen of the witch’s country who had no power or finance had a child with me. Something I thought wasn’t necessary, a useless legitimacy, but I ended up getting caught in it.

That changed my life.

My palace burned. The screaming maids and kids were chasing them.

Whatever the process, people survived, and that was only the beginning.

It shouldn’t matter if I died.