Chapter 11
The Crimson Battlefield (2)
A sudden change swept across the battlefield.
It was still before noon, with not a single cloud in the clear sky.
Then, without warning, the sun disappeared.
A crimson glow spread across the horizon, as though blood were slowly staining the sky itself.
Under the unnaturally dark heavens, the soldiers who had been locked in fierce combat gradually slowed.
The air grew unbearably heavy, pressing down on everyone. The weapons locked against one another began to lose their strength. The unease spread across the entire plain in an instant, and the battle came to an unbelievable standstill.
Beneath that blood-red sky stood the Holy Emperor.
At some point, he had appeared in the very center of the battlefield and was calmly walking forward.
He wore simple silver armor covered by a long ceremonial robe draped like a cloak.
In his right hand was his treasured sword, Nutcracker.
In his left hand, he carried a severed human head.
The blood splattered across his faintly glowing white robes looked horrifying.
The knights defending Amelia and Mores hesitated as the Holy Emperor approached, instinctively stepping back.
At the same time, Mores’s body collapsed limply to the side.
He had already stopped breathing.
“…!”
Mores. Mores. Mores!
Unable to move anything but her eyes, Amelia desperately stared at her fallen younger brother.
Instead of calling his name, only blood poured from her lips.
The Holy Emperor stopped before them and slowly knelt.
Thud.
The severed head he casually tossed aside rolled across the ground, its long silver hair spreading behind it.
Then he reached out and gently stroked his son’s blood-soaked hair.
Father… Father… Save Mores…!
Seeing the desperate plea in Amelia’s eyes, the Holy Emperor quietly shook his head.
“I arrived… too late.”
The knights who had remained at their side immediately dropped to their knees.
“It… it can’t be…”
Some simply stood there weeping.
Some collapsed onto the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
Others stared blankly into space.
It was painfully obvious how deeply they had cared for the Crown Prince.
The Holy Emperor silently looked over them before placing his hand on the hilt of the dagger lodged in Amelia’s chest.
To treat her, he first had to remove it.
But Amelia clenched her teeth and violently shook her head.
She could never live like this.
Not after sacrificing her brother.
Not alone.
Her life until now had been nothing but suffering, and the future promised only more pain.
She couldn’t bear it.
Even if refusing meant committing the greatest sin of abandoning the father who would be left alone.
Just then—
The small pendant around her neck slipped free as she shook her head.
It was the necklace Amelia had never once taken off since receiving it as her mother’s keepsake.
A tiny teardrop-shaped gemstone hung from it.
The pure white jewel rolled across her bloodstained dress, shining brilliantly.
The Holy Emperor froze.
He picked up the gemstone.
For a brief instant, countless emotions flashed across the face of the man who almost never showed any expression.
Confusion.
Understanding.
Relief.
And sorrow.
He looked back and forth between the small pendant and Amelia’s pleading eyes.
Then he quietly closed his own.
“Your Majesty, the Princess’s condition—”
One of the knights could no longer hold back and urged him.
Yet the Holy Emperor left the dagger untouched.
With one hand, he held Amelia’s.
With the other, he gently stroked her forehead.
When his hand touched her, Amelia instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
But realizing no holy light gathered around his fingers, she finally relaxed.
Even without holy power, her father’s hand felt wonderfully warm.
Father… I’m sorry.
“You’ve suffered enough, Amelia.”
Father… thank you.
“You may rest now, my daughter.”
Her vision slowly began to blur.
The sky sank deeper into crimson.
It looked as though blood might rain down at any moment.
…Or perhaps it already was.
Darkness gradually swallowed her sight.
The voices around her faded farther and farther away.
What’s happening?
What’s falling from the sky?
What in the world is happening?
“Aaah! AAAAAAH!”
And then came her father’s final words.
“Rest easy, Amelia. This is something you do not need to experience.”
Thus, Amelia, the First Princess of the Holy Delcross Empire, met her death.
* * *
The warm morning sunlight shone onto her face.
Amelia rubbed her eyes absentmindedly and blinked several times while lying in bed.
Morning…?
But… I just died.
Why am I lying in bed perfectly fine…?
Her face instantly turned pale with terror.
I’m… still alive!
“N-No! I don’t want to live like this again! I… I…!”
“Your Highness? What’s wrong?”
“Ah! Mores…! Mores! Father! Father! Father!”
“Lady Amelia!”
Early that morning, chaos erupted throughout the Silver Rose Palace.
The First Princess, Amelia, had suddenly burst into tears and suffered what looked like a violent fit.
She cried.
She screamed.
She exhausted herself, only to wake again and continue crying.
Only after several hours did she finally run out of strength and quietly lie back in bed.
The palace servants were completely bewildered by the normally gentle princess’s strange behavior and hurriedly summoned the imperial physician.
“Oh dear… Your beautiful eyes are all swollen. Did you have a nightmare?”
Her personal maid, Mirabel, gently replaced the warm cloth on Amelia’s forehead.
“Mirabel…”
As Amelia weakly whispered her name, Mirabel smiled sweetly and brushed the messy strands of pink hair away from her forehead.
“Yes, my lovely Princess. Why do you keep calling my name today?”
Because you died long before I was imprisoned in the tower… at Leonard’s hands.
Mirabel had cared for Amelia ever since she first entered the Imperial Palace.
She had sincerely loved the shy, doll-like princess from the very beginning.
In the end, she followed Amelia to Rohan…
Only to be brutally tortured by Leonard before dying miserably in an underground prison.
As far as Amelia remembered, there hadn’t even been a reason.
Leonard had done it simply to make Amelia suffer.
For Amelia, those events had already happened years ago.
Memories so old that thinking about them felt like dry sand would fall instead of tears.
Feeling Mirabel’s touch—one she had missed as though it belonged to a dream—Amelia quietly closed her eyes.
Though it had taken some time, she finally understood what had happened.
Instead of the awkwardly hacked-off hair she remembered…
Her beautiful rose-colored hair now flowed all the way to her waist.
Instead of rough, emaciated hands…
She had soft, healthy hands once more.
And Mirabel herself looked younger, smiling gently before her.
She had truly returned to the past.
“Please rest a little longer, Lady Amelia. The imperial physician will be here soon. Whatever’s wrong, you’ll feel better before long.”
“Father is coming. Just hold on a little longer, Amelia…”
Over Mirabel’s voice, another voice echoed—
One that could not possibly be here.
Her younger brother’s.
Fresh tears began rolling down Amelia’s cheeks.
Mirabel clicked her tongue sympathetically and wiped them away with a handkerchief.
“Oh dear… What is happening today? The whole palace was already in chaos after the Third Prince collapsed not long ago. If Her Highness falls ill too, I don’t even want to imagine the commotion.”
Amelia flinched.
“The Third Prince?”
“Yes. Prince Mores.”
“…He’s not the Crown Prince?”
“Huh? What do you mean? Prince Mores? The Crown Prince?”
Mirabel looked completely dumbfounded, as though Amelia had just said the strangest thing imaginable.
But Amelia hardly cared.
She shot upright in bed.
Mores…
“…Mores is alive!”
“…Well… yes? Did you expect him to die from being sick?”
Even though that troublesome prince had bullied the princess quite terribly…
Surely kind-hearted Lady Amelia wasn’t wishing for that?
Ignoring Mirabel’s increasingly awkward expression, Amelia had already tossed aside the wet cloth and climbed out of bed.
“I’m going to the Pearl Palace. Help me get ready, Mirabel. I have to see him.”
“What? But the imperial physician will be here any minute—”
Mirabel hurried after the princess as Amelia confidently walked into the dressing room.
Then she suddenly stopped.
For the first time, she felt an overwhelming pressure from Amelia’s unusually determined gaze.
“I have to see Mores.”
“Right now.”
And that was how they had ended up here.
The two siblings, who had always been distant, now sat awkwardly across from each other in the reception room, surrounded by an uncomfortable silence.
The moment Amelia saw that Mores was alive and well, she had lost control of her emotions and thrown herself into his arms, crying.
Now her face was bright red as she quietly sipped her bitter tea.
Meanwhile, Seongjin—who had unexpectedly found himself hosting afternoon tea—could only roll his eyes around the room, unsure what to say.
“So… you had a nightmare where I died…?”
“Y-Yes… I did. Before I realized it…”
Amelia lowered her head in embarrassment.
She had returned to the past after dying.
But she couldn’t exactly tell him the truth.
Claiming she’d had a nightmare wasn’t particularly convincing either.
Just look.
Mores was tilting his head in confusion.
However, Seongjin’s thoughts were entirely different.
Inside his head, he was grilling the Demon King.
“Hey. What’s going on? I thought these two hated each other. Why does she look like a perfectly normal older sister worried about her sick brother?”
[What do you take me for? A fraud? The day before you collapsed, she was still arguing with him in the garden. He called her ‘lowborn woman,’ ‘the disgrace of the Imperial Family,’ ‘vulgar wench’… Want me to keep going?]
“…”
Wow.
Mores, you absolute bastard.
The palace’s biggest troublemaker had the nerve to call someone else the disgrace of the Imperial Family?
Seongjin awkwardly cleared his throat.
“Ahem! W-Well… anyway… thank you, Sister. So… you were worried because I got sick?”
She was worried, so at least I should thank her.
That was all Seongjin was thinking.
But Amelia focused on something else entirely.
“So… you call me ‘Sister’ now.”
Seongjin flinched and instinctively looked away.
Amelia gently ran her fingers around her teacup before smiling faintly.
It was a nostalgic smile.
“…Now that I think about it… it was around this time.”
The troublemaker who had been the disgrace of the Imperial Family suddenly changed.
He lost weight.
He began learning swordsmanship.
…
And at the same time, his attitude toward Amelia had become unexpectedly gentle.
But in her previous life…
She had never accepted those changes.
She couldn’t forget the vicious little boy who had spent their childhood glaring at her with hatred.
Whenever Mores tried to talk to her first…
She turned away.
Or left.
They never truly reconciled.
Not long afterward, she fell in love with Leonard and left for Rohan.
Amelia smiled bitterly.
“If only I had opened my heart just a little more back then… our relationship would surely have become very different.”
The family she had always longed for…
Had never been far away.
Only then did she finally say what she had truly come here to tell him.
“I’m sorry for shutting you out all this time, Mores.”
“I wanted to tell you that.”
“Uh…”
Seongjin was completely stunned.
What?
Is she an angel?
Mores was the one who did all the horrible things. Why is she apologizing?
The Demon King whispered,
[Hey, the mood’s good right now. Since you’ve got the chance, why don’t you try repairing your relationship?]
“How?”
[You apologize too! Tell her you’re sorry for everything. Who knows if you’ll ever get another chance?]
“R-Right.”
Even Seongjin thought it was perfect timing.
Not wanting to miss the opportunity, he immediately bowed his head.
“N-No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Sister! I don’t know if you’ve heard, but ever since I got sick, I can’t remember much of the past. But I do know I treated you terribly when I was younger. I truly wanted to apologize.”
Amelia quietly stared at him.
At the crown of her younger brother’s bowed head.
His soft, pale blond hair.
Only moments ago, she had remembered that very hair soaked in blood.
The image of the healthy, slightly chubby boy before her overlapped with the young man from her memories—
The one who had become a shield for countless arrows as his body slowly grew cold.
“While I’m at it… I should apologize too. I’m sorry for bullying you and saying awful things when we were kids.”
“…Ah…”
She had cried so much today that she thought every drop of moisture had already left her body.
And yet…
More tears still flowed.
Her eyes filled again.
Large drops rolled down her cheeks.
The Demon King clicked his tongue.
[Hey. I told you to apologize. Why’d you make her cry again?]
“I didn’t do anything!”
Completely flustered, Seongjin awkwardly stood up and apologized again.
“I-I’m really… truly sorry, Sister.”
“It’s alright, Mores.”
Her tear-covered face shone softly.
“You already apologized to me.”
She smiled through her tears.
It was the brightest, warmest smile in the entire world.
