HRB 115

“What?”

Ketron, having just finished a long conversation with the Emperor, scowled at the Holy Sword’s words.

“Eddie’s going out alone?”

Though the content wasn’t, the tone was undeniably accusatory. The Holy Sword jumped, making excuses.

“He said he can’t transform right now and is just going to the market for a bit!”

“I told you to stay with him no matter what.”

“He said he’d be back soon since it’s just the market down the street, what could I do?”

The Holy Sword mumbled. Ketron himself felt uneasy about letting Eddie go alone.

“Hmph.”

Ketron let out a small sigh and roughly ran his hand through his bangs. It wasn’t that Marquis Rivalt had been allowed to erect a magic barrier to prevent the conversation with the Emperor from leaking outside. Because he couldn’t know the situation outside, he couldn’t stop Eddie from going out alone.

Ketron, with the Holy Sword on his back, was about to leave the mansion.

“Are you going to pick up Eddie?”

If only the Emperor hadn’t spoken to him. Normally, he would have ignored the Emperor and anyone else, but the person speaking was none other than Eddie’s brother. Unable to ignore the words, Ketron paused and replied.

“Yes.”

The Emperor, who came out later than Ketron, seemed to have inferred the situation from Ketron and the Holy Sword’s conversation, and Ketron saw him click his tongue.

“Hurry and bring him back. It’s best to be careful at a time like this.”

“I am aware.”

Ketron opened the mansion door and went outside.

It was clearly the last day of the year, and the streets, which just a few days ago had been filled with a festive atmosphere celebrating the end of the year and the new year, now exuded a grim mood.

It was an intensely cold day, as if to prove it was the dead of winter. The path was slippery due to the snow that had fallen and then partially melted.

Ketron, being conspicuous in many ways, drew furtive glances from people on the street. After confirming the sword on his back, they would exclaim, “Huh?” and point fingers.

But Ketron paid no mind and headed towards the market, a place he often visited with Eddie.

“He said he was going to buy cabbage. So he would have gone to the vegetable vendor.”

“Anything else?”

“He didn’t say he was buying anything else?”

Ketron’s jaw tightened at the Holy Sword’s words. For some reason, he had a bad feeling. Why was someone who went to buy just one vegetable taking so long to return? At the very least, he should have encountered Ketron on his way to the market by now.

Why…

At the entrance to the market, for some reason, a large crowd had gathered.

Amidst the murmuring voices, some were screaming, others were shouting, and some were fleeing the market with pale faces.

Ketron’s steps quickened. No, he was running.

He pushed his way through the crowd. The onlookers grumbled at the rough shove, but upon seeing the man with the overwhelming physique, they fell silent. Then, they began to murmur, looking at the sword he carried.

And finally, as Ketron pushed through the crowd and entered the inner area.

“……”

He saw the ground stained crimson.

The path he and Eddie always took.

The white stone path, soaked in blood, had turned a deep red.

He saw a disheveled figure with his back to him, breathing heavily, his shoulders heaving as if he couldn’t control his own breath.

Someone seemed to be lying on the ground, but the identity of the person whose blood had soaked the market floor was obscured by the figure’s back.

Ketron’s heart pounded, thudding heavily as if it were sinking to the ground.

No.

Even without seeing, he somehow knew. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to imagine it, but his instincts screamed at him, telling him what the situation was.

Who was lying on that cold ground.

Ketron finally pushed aside the disheveled man standing there blankly and confirmed the identity of the person he had tried so hard to see, yet didn’t want to see. He didn’t have the presence of mind to confirm who the man he pushed aside was.

“Uh……”

He wanted to call out a name, but only a metallic, breath-like sound, not even a word, passed through Ketron’s throat and disappeared. The name that failed to become a word came from somewhere else.

“Eddie.”

The Holy Sword called out the name of the person lying there in a chilling voice Ketron had never heard before.

But the man, who had long since learned to react to the Holy Sword’s voice and smile, just as Ketron did, did not react to the words.

No, he could not.

Ketron had witnessed countless deaths. Sometimes people close to him, often strangers, or even people he himself had killed.

There were tragic deaths and dry, emotionless deaths. Most were the latter. From his days as an orphan wandering the streets, to the moment he took up a sword to survive, even during the time he was called a Hero, there hadn’t been many deaths that held meaning for him.

He had never been shocked by someone’s death, nor had he ever wept.

But now.

The moment he witnessed the face he knew better than anyone else in the world lying there, utterly devoid of color, with his eyes faintly open, Ketron’s heart plummeted.

His heart, which had beaten loudly once, fell silent, as if it had stopped moving.

It felt like every hair on his body was standing on end. His senses, which had begun to fade from his cold fingertips, felt like they were about to disappear, but at that moment, Ketron felt all his senses sharpen.

His senses went wild, to the point where he could feel the direction of the wind brushing against his fingertips.

Ketron’s vision turned black.

Because, on some day, at some moment, just like that day when he realized all his glory had been stolen before he met Eddie, he had realized it.

His entire world had collapsed in that instant.

“You can’t put that in.”

The man kneeling before the coffin raised his head at the words. It was a crematorium attendant. His gaze was fixed on the mobile phone the man was trying to place in his brother’s coffin.

“It might explode. You can put in dolls or notebooks you have, but not mobile phones.”

“……Ah, I see. I didn’t hear. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” the attendant replied curtly and walked away. The man swallowed a sigh. He had wanted his brother to be able to read his favorite novels to his heart’s content on his journey, but it seemed that wasn’t allowed.

“They say you can’t, what are you going to do when you’re bored?”

The man spoke as if talking to his living brother, trying to sound casual, and placed other items inside the coffin instead of the phone he had intended to put in.

“You have to take these with you.”

Instead, he carefully placed inside the coffin a doll of a character his brother had loved as a child and refused to part with even at his age, and notebooks filled with detailed settings for characters he had created himself.

This was the process of the final confirmation of the body before cremation, as their Father couldn’t bear to see their youngest and their Mother had fainted. As he was the only one who could say these words before the coffin lid was closed, the man bit his lip and spoke with difficulty.

“Jeong-hoon.”

His brother’s face, with his eyes gently closed, was completely pale. As is usual for someone who is not alive.

“Don’t be in pain there……”

He offered his final farewell with a cliché phrase, and then added.

“……Really, don’t be in pain.”

You left in so much pain, so please, truly, don’t be in pain there.

He sincerely prayed.

Eddie watched the scene blankly.

Finally, the coffin lid was closed, and as Lee Jeong-han, who had stood before Lee Jeong-hoon’s coffin, disappeared into the darkness with steady steps, Lee Jeong-hoon’s coffin, left alone, also quietly vanished from the spot.

Eddie, remaining in the darkness, slowly turned his gaze.

Creeeak, creeeak, creeeak.*

He heard the sound of gears constantly turning.

Eddie looked up and saw a space filled with dozens, hundreds, of gears rotating in perfect unison. A space packed so densely it reached the sky, where the end was not visible.

Below that space, the only area illuminated by light.

There was a book.

Eddie knew what that book was. He also knew what kind of content some of its pages held.

The book, which was much thicker than Eddie remembered, opened with a rustling sound the moment it caught Eddie’s eye. The pages, which turned rapidly to a point near the latter half of the story, were blank.

However, at the end of Eddie’s gaze, the story began to be written onto the book in real-time.

[…Arthur plunged the Holy Sword he held directly into Eddie’s body.]

The brutal description of the sword piercing Eddie’s body, blood splattering, and Eddie collapsing was vivid.

Including Eddie, lying on the cold ground, recalling Ketron’s face.

[And so, Eddie]

But towards the end, the story rapidly began to lose its diligence in description. As if this was the extent of the effort it could show for this character.

[Met his end on the cold ground.]

Eddie’s final story concluded like that.

With utter lack of care.