The shell surrounding Aslan, Geladridion.
Somewhere within that Geladridion, a man let out a low hum.
A man with an impressive air of lazy arrogance and overconfidence.
This man was completely naked, not a thread on his body.
His nakedness had a certain peculiarity to it.
It was sturdy and muscular, correctly described as perfect.
His tall stature and broad shoulders harmonized in a way that evoked more of a piece of art than a warrior’s physique.
This man sat on a stone throne without any trace of shame, despite exposing himself to countless others.
When his fierce face turned slightly, the one kneeling before the throne trembled lightly.
“Are they all dead?”
The one kneeling before the throne was no ordinary individual.
In fact, it was questionable whether this being could even be called human.
With an elephant-like head, bear-like body, specialized running legs of some beast, and arms boasting destructive strength.
Truly, a creature worthy of the term “monster.”
This creature was a priest.
A priest of the mother who bore him, having served her for quite a long time while developing his physical prowess.
Though he possessed strength comparable even to dragons, he bowed his head without hesitation.
“Yes, that is correct.”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The man sitting on the jade throne rested his chin in his hand and let out another low hum.
That hum now resembled the sleep-talking of a wild beast, a primal breath.
An aura that instilled fear and submission in weaker creatures.
As this presence spread, those countless ones kneeling before the jade throne prostrated themselves en masse.
They were all priests.
Easily numbering in the hundreds. These priests all had animalistic forms.
Among them, the only one resembling a humanoid shape was the naked man, yet the priests did not oppose his nudity.
For within his seemingly frail body lay infinite potential and power.
In that relatively slender frame was hidden a ferocity that could make even great beasts kneel.
Revealing this ferocity, the man looked down at the priest from where he rested his chin.
“Continue.”
“I… I observed the situation as best as I could. From when the ships of the Calus Empire arrived at the Northern Empire’s coast… to when the emperor disembarked…”
The subsequent words of the priest revealed the fate of the Northern Empire.
The Calus Empire had arrived at the Northern Empire’s shore as if summoned by someone.
The emperor personally came out and demanded allegiance from Baulder, and Baulder, becoming the new ruler of the Northern Empire, knelt without hesitation and swore loyalty.
Naturally, there were many who opposed this decision.
But they failed to defeat General Lumel.
After half a day of duels, there was not a single person left who dared to resist.
Of course, the well-stocked food supplies brought by the Calus Empire’s ships also played a part.
What happened afterward was inevitable.
The Northern Empire essentially became part of the Calus Empire.
The devastated Worpol Barony was renamed Frontier Barony, and Baulder accepted the title of Frontier Baron and prepared to relocate.
Many people from the Northern Empire followed suit.
Few refused the offer of fertile land instead of barren soil.
Listening silently to these words, the man gestured toward the priest with his chin.
“So what did you do after that?”
A subtle rebuke. The priest flinched slightly, revealing a flicker of fear.
“If… If I could have, I would’ve attacked… but given the current situation, I thought information was more valuable, so I…”
“You mean you ran away.”
The man cut off the priest’s words. When the priest flinched, the man said indifferently,
“Did you recover the bodies?”
“…Bodies?”
“Knight, monster, weeping. Any of those three.”
“The… the veteran guarded it too fiercely—”
Before the priest could finish speaking, the tyrant sighed and waved his hand.
As the hand moved, it twisted into a pale glow, and the next moment, the event unfolded vividly in red.
Crunch!
A short sound of tearing flesh. Without a scream, the priest fell, losing his head.
That head was clutched in the mouth of some enormous beast.
An odd beast’s mouth, as if various animals had been mashed together.
That mouth was the man’s arm.
Gnash, crunch!
The arm, now transformed into a beast’s form, chewed on the priest’s head, and bits of brain matter and gray chunks fell chaotically to the ground.
The man watched this scene with an indifferent expression.
“It’s better to be eaten if you’re weak and useless.”
No priest could dare to resist such words.
They merely cowered in fear, pressing their bellies to the floor. Amidst the crunching sounds, the man waited patiently.
Finally, when his arm finished its feast, he shook it off, returning it to its original form.
“…Still, there is something interesting.”
Something interesting. A few priests managed to lift their heads slightly, and the man smiled faintly.
The memory embedded in the chewed-up priest’s head contained a certain face.
The face of a certain Green known as a watcher, Resham, and the face of Aslan, the veteran of battle.
Recalling these faces, the man rose from his jade throne, causing the priests to flinch.
“I don’t plan to eat you ‘yet.'”
To the trembling priests, the man announced, cracked his neck side to side, and spoke.
“I’ve found something amusing, so I’ll let you go for now. Go and do your jobs.”
Grateful for this merciful reprieve, the priests scurried away on their beastly legs.
As the priests hurriedly fled like escaping prey, the man smirked.
“I should go meet my successor.”
The man had no name.
At least, he had abandoned the name he used before, leaving only the title everyone called him by.
People called him the Tyrant.
*
A tattoo glowing blue.
A system calling forth Astrid’s farewell.
Aslan felt the wind blowing against him as he watched the flashing tattoo.
The wind carried Astrid’s scent.
A woman who always enjoyed drinking tea because her hands and feet were cold but warmed her body.
Aslan could smell the tea this woman loved from the tattoo.
Whether it was a mental influence or a physical effect, he couldn’t tell.
He just caressed the tattoo with a bitter expression, grieving for Astrid’s mana imprinted there.
Things were going well.
The plan to incorporate the Northern Empire into the alliance was progressing, as was the intermediate goal of unifying the Northern Empire.
But it wasn’t satisfying enough.
Because the losses were too great.
Of course, it wasn’t Aslan’s fault.
Even though it wasn’t Aslan’s fault, it still left a bitter taste.
Because in Astrid’s defeat, Aslan glimpsed what might have happened if he had compromised.
‘If I were the one thinking like that…’
Had Aslan given up and become a priest of the evil deity, he might have achieved his goals much more easily, albeit indirectly.
He wouldn’t have pursued his goals fully, and there would have been many sacrifices, but it would have been far easier than now.
He simply chose not to because the losses would have been greater then.
Thus, Aslan couldn’t help but think.
If the 12 years he spent struggling and suffering were longer—20, 30 years, or perhaps even more—he might have succumbed like Astrid.
Thinking about this possibility, Aslan involuntarily imagined another scenario.
A scenario where Astrid didn’t surrender, and he could accept her as a comrade.
Perhaps if that had happened, instead of the mana tattoo marking Astrid’s soul, he might have gained a true comrade.
There weren’t many kind and sociable people in the group, so Astrid’s presence would have surely strengthened the bonds among the party.
They would have fit perfectly.
So Aslan sighed wistfully, missing his friend who had already vanished.
On the wall where they first met, he faced the cold wind blowing from a distant world.
Just then, a presence approached Aslan.
“What are you doing?”
Lumel, whose original dress had been torn, now wore Northern Empire-style clothing with a fur cloak.
Aslan glanced slightly to see Lumel. Through Lumel’s shoulder, he could see the interior of the fortress where the banquet was in full swing.
As usual, Aslan had slipped away from the Northern Empire-style banquet which he found rather dull.
For a moment, Aslan considered how his actions might be perceived, then shook his head.
“Just… the banquet didn’t suit me, so I was looking outside.”
It wasn’t a lie that Angie or Richard might believe, but it certainly wouldn’t fool Lumel.
Seeming to sense this, Lumel stared quietly at Aslan.
Avoiding that gaze, Aslan turned his head slightly. Lumel looked at Aslan for a while before sitting beside him.
On the wall where the wind blew, Lumel perched his hips and his hair fluttered gently in the breeze.
Pressing down his hair, Lumel gazed in the direction Aslan was looking.
The distant horizon of the ‘far-off world.’ The remnants of a fallen empire.
Looking at that, Lumel spoke first.
“I thought the people of the Northern Empire were monsters.”
An intention easy to guess. But before Aslan could reply that he hadn’t really known either,
“However, upon closer inspection, they were all people.”
Aslan had no choice but to remain silent. It was natural coming from Lumel, who harbored prejudice against the Northern Empire people.
Slightly startled, Aslan looked at Lumel, who glanced at him mischievously and grinned.
“Does my saying this surprise you?”
“…A little.”
A hesitant response to hide his embarrassment. Lumel chuckled and extended her hand to grasp Aslan’s.
The right hand bearing the tattoo, which he had been staring at moments ago.
Aslan stiffened at the warmth transmitted through that right hand.
It was different from Astrid’s—a warm hand.
As Aslan looked down at that hand, Lumel spoke.
“While Aslan and others fought on the battlefield, Phey and I battled two priests.”
Caught off guard by this unexpected statement, Aslan looked at Lumel, who continued calmly.
Her intertwined fingers conveyed a soft tone.
“My spear skills were easily broken. My strength was insufficient. Honestly… I was afraid. I didn’t want to die.”
At the slight trembling felt through the intertwined fingers, Aslan opened his mouth.
“Lumel.”
“Ah, don’t misunderstand. I’m not afraid now.”
Unable to respond to Lumel’s attempt to downplay it, Aslan closed his mouth again.
“At that moment, I definitely felt fear, but now I’m fine. Just… I thought of Aslan then.”
“Me?”
“Yes, I thought of Aslan. I recalled the words Aslan had once said.”
To Aslan, who wondered why there was a reason, Lumel laughed while rubbing her intertwined hands.
“I needed the most powerful spear technique I knew. I thought I should mimic Aslan’s spear skills.”
Only then did Aslan remember seeing Lumel wield two weapons on the battlefield, just like him.
Lumel’s stance holding Emperor’s Sword and Judgment was unmistakably the stance of Budonggong.
Realizing this, Aslan wondered why she was telling him this story, to which Lumel glanced sideways.
“Maybe it was just my delusion… but while mimicking Aslan, I felt lonely. I thought how lonely Aslan must truly be… like that…”
At that gaze, Aslan had nothing to say.
Because it was true.
Lumel quickly blushed and babbled about forgetting it, but Aslan looked toward the distant world and spoke.
“Yeah. It is lonely.”
And it seemed Lumel had already known this.
Her embarrassment now was merely a reaction to having spoken out of turn.
Since the thought that Aslan would feel lonely remained unchanged, Lumel didn’t let go of Aslan’s hand.
Instead, she gripped it tightly, making Aslan smile faintly.
This loneliness stemmed from fighting alone.
More precisely, it arose from knowing that this struggle would end completely when he died.
Even if others fought alongside him, it wouldn’t be a complete fight together.
With anticipation in her eyes, Lumel looked at Aslan as he acknowledged her straightforwardly.
“Then…”
Her lips quivered, exhaling heated breath, and Aslan smiled bitterly.
“Still, don’t torment me too much. I’m human too. I’d just… like you to wait for me.”
At least until he gained confidence in achieving his purpose.
Because Aslan couldn’t endure the pain of losing when compared to loneliness.
Lumel, sensing some meaning hidden in Aslan’s words, stared at him for a while before pulling him close.
She pulled Aslan and embraced him.
At the surging scent of the woman, the full-bodied mana enveloping her, Aslan flinched, and Lumel sweetly whispered into his ear.
“You don’t have to hold back so much. I…”
And Aslan regained his senses thanks to that whisper.
Had it been Rowena’s temptation, he might not have resisted, but Lumel’s temptation was filled with desire, awkwardness, and embarrassment.
A trembling voice brimming with intense expectation.
Aslan could sense Lumel’s desire lurking beneath that expectation.
It was a proposal he wanted to accept in his heart.
Aslan was human too.
Desires and needs existed within him.
Unexplored since after Rowena, suppressed desires.
But Aslan realized.
If he accepted Lumel’s proposal here and unleashed his desires, many things would become difficult.
Aslan still couldn’t bear the loss.
Losing just a friend, Astrid, was already so painful. How much more painful would it be to lose a lover again?
The Dark Ram was an entity that relentlessly targeted Aslan’s weaknesses.
It wouldn’t be strange for the same thing to happen again.
Thus, it was best for both Lumel and Aslan.
Aslan softly felt Lumel’s flushed breath and stood up.
“Thank you for your consideration. But I’m okay.”
Thinking it was fortunate that Lumel was clumsy.
Lumel, as if reading his thoughts, made a pouting face.
