The cloak fluttered fiercely against the blowing wind, and the man’s dark hair did the same, revealing his handsome face clearly.

The man holding the reins twitched his eyes as he saw the crumbling outer wall from a distance. His gaze rested on his subordinates engaged in a bloody battle with monsters.

The five knights were struggling against a giant as large as an old tree.

“Bind its feet! Maintain distance and throw the ropes!”

“Grrrr……! Grrr……”

The monster with rough skin moved sluggishly, but each time it swung its massive hands, it created a destructive force that made eardrums throb.

‘Even a mere graze would be fatal!’

The knights, whose faces had turned deathly pale, couldn’t approach recklessly. Seeing that one of their swords had been broken in half, it seemed that piercing the steel-like skin was also a problem. The man clicked his tongue and rode his horse toward them.

“What’s happening here.”

When the man dismounted and approached to ask, the knights, who had been distracted by the giant until then, finally turned their heads and were startled.

“Gasp! Y-Your Highness!”

It was Caesar Adrian, the ruler of Luard and the one they served.

Relief spread across the faces of the confronting knights. With the arrival of the one said to be the most powerful among the Empire’s six Guardians, it was no different than welcoming the god of war.

“An ogre has invaded the vicinity!”

It was a serious matter. The monsters, which had never left the Black Forest before, were stretching their evil claws everywhere, taking advantage of Caesar’s weakened power.

“……”

Caesar recalled the official document that had come down from the imperial palace. Those who were coming to investigate the responsibility for the monsters found in the outer fortress were still nowhere to be heard from. A sardonic smile appeared on his blood-red lips.

‘Cowardly bastards.’

There was no way the noble figures from the capital would pass through the Black Forest. It was a miserable hell that those pig-like creatures with full bellies couldn’t even dare to imagine.

Caesar snatched a knight’s sword and strode toward the foul-smelling ogre.

“Grrrrrrrr!”

Discovering him approaching with an ominous presence, the ogre opened its mouth wide in threat. It was instinctively frightened by the aura it sensed through its wild instincts.

“How annoying.”

The hard muscles attached to his leather clothes bulged as he gripped the sword tightly. Caesar kicked off the ground and floated in the air. Using the ogre’s massive body as a stepping stone, he swung his sword mercilessly.

“Graaaaaaah!”

Each time, flashes of light flickered freely, painful roars burst from the widely opened mouth.

Caesar’s blade drove the ogre that had crawled out of hell into an even deeper hell. Where the sword passed, ugly chunks of flesh fell to the ground in clumps like sausages, emitting a foul odor. The monster, which was at least three times his size, was mercilessly cut into pieces by his hand.

“Grrrr!”

The ogre, frantically waving its hands trying to catch Caesar as if in a frenzy, looked pitifully foolish. Its desperate attacks couldn’t even graze the edge of his cloak.

‘Dear God……’

The knights were too busy watching in awe, unable to believe the overwhelming difference in power they were witnessing.

Their master was a demon. Whether he had unleashed his special ability or not, the sight of him butchering the ogre while emitting black shimmering heat waves was the very embodiment of a demon descended to earth.

Thud!

Not long after, the ogre’s massive body, which had been struggling and shaking the ground, collapsed.

The knights, who had been sending Caesar looks of admiration mixed with fear as he landed gracefully, hurriedly approached him.

“Your Highness, have you returned?”

Caesar, who had shaken off the flesh and sticky liquid clinging to his blade into the air, nodded indifferently as he returned the sword to the knight.

* * *

The carriage that had left the capital headed south without rest. Inside the carriage, Jeff and Estelle conversed for a long time.

Estelle revealed her miserable married life before regression, the process of acquiring her special ability, and the current situation where the holy relic did not respond.

Jeff listened attentively without missing a word. When he heard about shockingly unbelievable events in between, he openly expressed his astonishment.

“Lady Arcis… no, Estelle… Is it true that Lexion personally overthrew the Emperor?”

“Yes.”

Estelle had asked Jeff to treat her casually as he did before her regression. Although Jeff was awkward and stuttered at first, he seemed to have adapted over time and spoke comfortably to her as if addressing a longtime friend.

“I don’t know the exact circumstances either. But he staged a rebellion and publicly executed the Emperor. It happened in just one day, with no one able to do anything about it. The nobles who followed the Emperor were charged with various crimes and executed without proper trials.”

Lives were taken at the execution grounds almost daily. The once splendid streets reeked of blood, causing perfume to sell like hotcakes, and the streets grew gloomier by the day, comparable to the Black Forest.

Estelle continued bitterly, her eyes chasing phantoms.

“I still remember the child I saw then. He had touched a severed head at the execution ground, his hands covered in blood. A child barely four years old. And… smiling at me without knowing anything……”

The scene was so bizarre that Estelle felt something was terribly wrong. It was as if the reality she had vaguely wanted to deny had dropped into her mind.

Lexion was the seed of the Empire. Not a seed of hope to sprout a brilliant future, but a seed of disaster that grew by feeding on people’s blood, establishing cruel roots and bringing death. She, too, could not escape from sin for having overlooked this.

“Whenever the imperial family’s crest appeared, nobles and commoners alike would pledge allegiance and prostrate themselves without being told to. It was loyalty born from their desire to live. Every time that happened, I felt like I was a walking plague.”

“Estelle……”

Jeff couldn’t readily offer words of comfort to her. This was because her eyes harbored a grief too profound for him to fathom.

“I kept thinking about what the imprisoned Empress had said. That everything really seemed to be because of me… Could all of this have started because of me….. I was so afraid that my soul deteriorated. I… just… fell in love……”

Estelle’s hands, placed on her knees, trembled pitifully.

“I no longer had any faith in Lexion, and I resolved to escape from him just before the coronation ceremony began. Otherwise, I felt like I would truly go insane.”

“Estelle… I can’t even imagine how much you suffered.”

Estelle shook her head at Jeff, who was looking at her with sympathetic eyes.

“I… I’m not as noble as you think. I’m a selfish and wicked sinner just like Lexion. Every day as executions were carried out, I worried if I would be next, if the child Maria gave birth to would be born with the dead Emperor’s special ability, would my turn come when I became useless… I was a detestable villainess who only thought of my own safety while fretting like that.”

Estelle bowed her head, unable to bear the weight of her sin. She vaguely guessed that if she fled, her father would not be safe either, but the suffocating fear of death blurred even her concern for her father.

“But… but Lexion wouldn’t do anything to Father. Even if just to use him as bait to find me again… Thinking that, I desperately ran away. I didn’t think I could endure anymore. I was going insane. I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Estelle bit her lip after exhaling with difficulty. No matter what excuse she made, she knew all too well that it had been a despicable act.

“I didn’t want to think about anything. I just… wanted to run away. From the accusing gazes and the souls of the dead.”

“So where did you go?”

Estelle raised her wavering gaze.

‘Jeff… I ran to you. And because of me, you lost your life miserably to him. Not just you, but everyone in the duchy…. I was a disaster. In the end, I ruined your life too.’

Estelle couldn’t face him directly and lowered her eyes again. Even if she confessed everything, this was one truth she didn’t want to tell him. If Jeff became frightened and distanced himself from her… she didn’t want to lose him when they had just miraculously begun to walk together.

She was selfish until the end.

“Just… wandering here and there until I was caught. After that, I was locked in an underground prison and subjected to brutal treatment every day.”

“Torture……? He used violence against you?”

Sharp anger could be felt rising in Jeff’s voice.

“Ah, well……”

Estelle blushed with shame.

“It was… s*xual in nature.”

“……”

For a very brief moment, an uncomfortable current flowed through the carriage.

“Estelle, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t violence.”

Jeff gritted his teeth, more agitated than before. To Estelle’s eyes, his aura burned as if about to explode.

“Jeff, there’s no need to be angry. It’s all from before my regression anyway, and I was fine. No……! I mean… I could endure it. His thing was so large that it always felt violent anyway, so it wasn’t much different. It’s nothing compared to the suffering of others.”

Jeff gazed at Estelle with troubled eyes as she rambled on, trying to calm him down.

“No matter how I think about it… I don’t understand.”

“What……?”