Translator: Nox

Ch#88

As if Belloa had disappointed him her entire life, he said it just like that.

All the merits she had devoted to him until now seemed utterly forgotten.

No, from the start, his gaze hadn’t even regarded them as merits.

Belloa paused her breathing for a moment.

She had known a day like this would come someday….

It had simply arrived a bit sooner than expected.

The man before her eyes was the face of the family she had strived to protect.

A person who wielded unshakable authority and pride, casually using others’ lives as he pleased.

And Belloa herself was a tool gripped in his hand.

Realizing that fact anew, Belloa slowly exhaled.

She felt foolish for clinging to that last, futile hope.

‘I….’

Why had she so naturally called that child nothing but the purifier.

What made us different.

Odellie’s words that they truly resembled each other had been spot on.

‘…Maybe I knew from the beginning.’

She might have vaguely known but denied it to the end.

Only then could she delude herself that her position was still better than that child’s.

With such filthy, ugly feelings….

At that moment, oddly enough, a single sentence circled in her mind.

“The one holding the key has been you, sister, from the very beginning.”

Belloa couldn’t understand why those words lingered now.

* * *

The plaza was boiling with fervor.

“Long live Cardell!”

“Lord Gawin has brought salvation!”

The citizens erupted in cheers all at once.

The streets once contaminated by the Black Plague no longer bore any rotten stench or black traces.

In their place spread a soft, golden glow.

The mark of ‘ancient magic.’

Gawin Cardell raised his head and silently accepted the cheers.

Amid the prolonged roar, he drew in a deep breath and exhaled as if finding solace in this familiar scene.

Yes, this is it.

This was the position where he belonged.

It was so natural to him, yet after successive failures and mockery, tasting it again felt profoundly new.

“Ahh, Lord Gawin. Please, just let me hold your hand once.”

The crowd reached out desperately, grasping at his robes in ecstasy.

Gawin smiled like a saint and took the hand of a beggar who had overcome the Black Plague without hesitation.

Some wept in overwhelming emotion, while others watched the scene with bated breath.

He slowly raised one hand.

In an instant, the plaza fell silent as if holding its breath.

“…This is not something I achieved alone.”

His low, gentle voice rang clearly to the far ends of the plaza.

“It was a miracle made possible because all of you endured to the end.”

Countless gazes looked up at him, breathless.

Eyes that revered him like a faith.

He knew those eyes all too well.

For those eyes, he could gladly utter any lie.

“This place is now safe. No contamination, no impurity will defile this land again.”

He paused for a moment.

The streets bathed in light.

The faces looking up at him from below.

And himself standing there with an utterly serene smile.

Everything was perfect.

“This is not glory bestowed upon me, but merely the extension of the duty the Cardell Family has borne for centuries.”

As his words ended, thunderous cheers erupted once more.

Some shouted his name until their throats gave out.

Others placed hands over their hearts in prayer.

At that moment, his gaze stopped on the Duke of Cardell descending from a carriage.

“….”

Gawin swallowed and stiffened abruptly.

His father.

Their eyes met.

Between them settled a cold silence utterly unlike the cheering plaza.

“What I permitted you was to restore the honor you had lost to the dirt.”

“Yet all you did was turn the family into a laughingstock and drag our ancestors’ names through the mud with you.”

Gawin’s breathing grew ragged.

“Enough with the ‘I’ll take responsibility’ nonsense! Responsibility is a word for those who can actually fix the results!”

“A wretch who can’t do anything without his father’s help….”

“Now I see your incompetence clearly. Remember this: my help ends here.”

His father turned away with a sigh laced with contempt, as if he’d never expected anything to begin with.

Gawin clenched his fists tightly.

That was right.

He had barely stood in this position with the Duke of Cardell’s aid.

Clutching at the last handful of honor by the skin of his teeth.

‘…And this is the play born from burning that final means.’

The purification magic device.

After Odellie vanished, it was the Cardell Family’s secret magic tool created to mimic purification ability.

Thanks to that device, the Cardells had remained viable until now.

No matter how much they flaunted bloodline and authority, they couldn’t cover the truth with appearances alone.

Remote rural areas untouched by outsiders were deceived with illusion magic and drugs to rack up ‘achievements.’

But in central territories frequented by lords and inspection teams, this device had to be installed.

For centuries, ‘purification power’ extracted in excess from purifiers generation after generation.

And the countless lives of test subjects sacrificed in that process.

Buried underground beneath the land where he now stood, they emitted purification energy.

Because it was based on genuine ‘purification power,’ it produced convincingly real effects, not mere imitations.

But accordingly, the magic device had a clear limitation.

It consumed an absurd amount of energy.

At this rate, they would exhaust all purification power before the next ‘Day of Guardianship.’

Gawin didn’t even want to think about how to sustain the family until then.

‘That’s why Father kept emphasizing to use it sparingly….’

As the cheers faded from his ears, the hollow glory in his grasp felt especially cold today.

‘No.’

Gawin steadied his breath and slowly lifted his head.

He had one final, truly final plan in mind.

‘The purification magic device and purification power….’

A far more meticulous and primal method inspired by them.

Facing the purifier head-on recklessly like Belloa was doomed to fail against her.

And thus….

This time, in a way that left no evidence, no room for interrogation.

‘…I’ll make the purifier come crawling out in tears on her own.’

The cheers showed no sign of ending.

To that sound, Gawin moved his steps calmly, as if all this praise were his rightful due.