The assassin was Selheim’s parting gift. The bullet struck near his heart, causing blood to flow freely. Erich ran over, crying while attempting to stop the bleeding with both hands. Despite his efforts, blood continued to gush out, prompting Whilton to curse and fetch Emerson.

With one blink, he found himself on an infirmary bed. Sounds seemed distant, muffled like being underwater, while Emerson slapped his cheeks, demanding he stay conscious.

Ugh, Your Highness… Don’t close your eyes! Keep them open!

‘I know, I know…’

Crying echoed from all around.

Emerson shouted angrily, demanding something be brought. When things didn’t proceed according to her wishes, she stamped her feet while shaking her gloved, blood-stained hands.

“Reizen! Open your eyes, eyes! Hey, you bastard, I said open your eyes!”

With everyone shouting around him, he wondered why they wouldn’t turn off that piercing light first if they wanted him to keep his eyes open.

These people were so impatient…

Though he wanted to make jokes, his voice failed him. Drowsiness kept overtaking him. He wondered whether this brief life had been merely a dream.

Reizen smiled at his companions, noisy now just like always.

Still, you made this a good life. You were the first to become family to someone who grew up alone in the Rose Maze, knowing nothing of bonds.

Remember? During breaks, we’d all visit the railroad construction site together. Working from early dawn until afternoon, then spending remaining hours splashing in the stream.

At night, we’d light fires with kindling to dry our wet clothes, then scale our caught fish and grill them on skewers.

Biting into the fluffy white flesh would release hot juice down our chins, while everyone attempted to tear the meat with just their front teeth, making comical faces.

Then Sion, presumably with worms in his stomach, got caught by senior students stealing potatoes from a neighbor’s house and received a beating until his nose bled, being scolded ‘Are you soldiers or thieves, you bastards?’

Ah, what memories.

The four of us, faces bruised, would tell unfunny jokes and roll on the ground laughing.

Those precious memories faded one by one. Would death arrive when everything disappeared like evaporation, leaving his mind completely white?

But the smoothly moving clock hands toward the distant past suddenly stopped. Precisely at the moment with Melissa Grey.

The girl he met by the lake before the Rose Maze wore a pristine, bright chiffon dress with long flowing hair.

Her black hair swayed gently in the wind, releasing a fragrance more intense than flowers.

The woman, with a yellow butterfly perched on her second finger, smiled brightly while crouching among the grass.

She appeared to converse with the butterfly, though her words remained inaudible.

Reizen, in his military uniform, reached out and approached.

“Melissa.”

But when his hand touched the tips of her hair, the girl transformed into a white butterfly and flew away with the yellow butterfly, their wings fluttering.

“Melissa!”

Reizen reached toward the sky, crying.

“Don’t go!”

He ran while gazing skyward.

“Wait, just wait a moment. Hm? We still have things to talk about, you can’t leave like this. You promised you’d wait! I won’t go either, I won’t go anywhere, so please…”

But regardless of his reaching and shouting, the butterflies continued their dance away, growing more distant.

“Melissa, no… Why are you leaving me behind again…!”

Running wildly through the forest path, Reizen encountered a dead-end cliff. The butterflies soared beyond it, while he begged tearfully. Please, don’t leave me.

Watching the butterflies cruelly vanish despite his pleas, Reizen collapsed atop the cliff.

The deepest darkness seemed to weigh upon his entire body like iron.

When overwhelming despair surged beyond what tears could express, the man who had been crying in his dream for a month finally threw himself from the cliff.

Falling down endlessly, he felt no attachment to a life without Melissa.

Letting his body go limp, his life concluded with a thud against the ground.

He woke up.

“Reizen!”

Dozens of people surrounded his bed.

“Commander! Are you conscious? The Crown Prince is currently being pursued, and we’re handling the remaining forces in the imperial castle.”

“Following your previous orders, we’ve removed the imperial family’s statues and symbols throughout the castle and capital, immediately after occupying the castle.”

“We’ve also set a date for the Emperor’s execution. We thought a clear day would provide better visibility…”

Upon regaining consciousness, Reizen surveyed the faces of those urgently reporting.

Though his face had grown gaunt in mere days, the people present seemed desperate for his awakening.

“Are you talking about work the moment he wakes up?”

While Erich voiced his displeasure and pushed people away, Reizen clutched his heart with a vacant expression.

Finding this peculiar, Whilton approached and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s strange.”

“What is?”

“Something… feels missing.”

Feeling around his chest, Reizen released a rough breath and violently tore off his shirt.

When his muscular body became visible, Whilton laughed it off saying, “Whoa, good to see you’re still strong.”

But when he started ripping at his chest bandages, even Erich ran over from afar, attempting to stop him while demanding explanations.

“The wound will open up, you idiot! What are you doing, you crazy bastard! Reizen! Hey, you lunatic!”

Reizen remained silent.

Like someone truly deranged, he pulled down the bandages with wild eyes. This reopened the barely sutured chest wound, causing blood to seep out.

“Really doing great there.”

Whilton remarked sarcastically.

“I’ll get Emerson.”

Erich left the room, looking hurt.

But the person causing this chaos seemed oblivious to his wound’s pain, roughly wiping away blood while examining his left chest with sharp eyes.

The sutures burst open, leaving the wound grotesquely exposed. The blood, initially trickling, soon flowed like a monsoon stream, staining the white sheets red.

“Stop it, Reizen!”

But the man continued his frantic search. Looking completely unhinged, Whilton attempted to forcibly restrain his arms.

“F*ck, you’ll die from blood loss at this rate! What are you trying to do? What are you looking for!”

“My Mel…”

Melissa.

“Quick, over here!”

Emerson, summoned to help, screamed at the blood-stained bed.

“Eek! W-what have you done?”

She hurriedly covered the wound with gauze and administered a sedative to make him lie down, while Reizen grabbed Whilton’s collar.

As the medicine took effect, sleep overcame him and his blinks grew slower.

While consciousness rapidly faded, one fact seemed burned into his mind, repeating endlessly.

The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark is gone. The mark, mark, the mark, the mark…

Why. How did this happen? Why is the mark gone? Did they remove it during surgery? No, if it was a mark that could be erased by cutting flesh, it wouldn’t have been such a struggle. Why? How could this happen?

As Reizen’s sunken eyes closed involuntarily, a tear rolled down between his brows.

No matter what followed, he felt he wouldn’t be able to accept any truth.

* * *

A month later, the capital of Sys had transformed completely.

It was the season when deep green foliage had spent its life force and dropped, leaving autumn leaves piled high in the streets.

Thousands gathered in the square where the old Asphalia Hotel had stood to witness the Emperor’s execution.

Emperor Vincent ascended the execution platform before the watching crowd. The public execution platform, historically reserved for those guilty of high treason, had remained unused so long that it creaked and twisted with each step the two men took.

The middle-aged man with his protruding belly, face pale white, wet himself in fear. His face beaten beyond recognition, he trudged over and placed his neck on the platform.

“Do you have any last words?”

Hearing the familiar voice, Vincent’s hands trembled violently. Yet his eyes gleamed with expectation. His mind appeared already lost.

“S-so…”

Reizen looked down at his father, death imminent. He had hoped his father wouldn’t beg for his life, knowing it would appear pathetic.

The Emperor bared his yellowed teeth and asked, nostrils flaring.

“Did she get pregnant?”