Ryan tried to turn around.
"Ryan!!!"
Diana shouted desperately just as her younger brother's head turned halfway.
Because she was terrified of the mere thought of the children coming into his field of vision.
"Ha."
Fortunately, Ryan chuckled and turned back to Diana.
"What's wrong? Can't you bear to see your own children die?"
"..."
Can't you?
Yes, I can't.
Diana was a person who had lived a self-centered life her entire existence. A person for whom children were not even the top priority in life.
However.
If asked to choose the most precious beings in this world besides herself, it would undoubtedly be her children.
The beings closest to her, whom she had carried with difficulty for ten months to give birth to and raised for over ten years.
Diana would not be able to die in place of her children in a peaceful world.
However, now that she has lost everything, in a situation where she is not afraid of death, in this miserable world where her supernatural ability is the only thing to offer.
She was a person who was willing to make choices for her children.
"You know the kids are innocent, right?"
When asked, Ryan scoffed.
"It is a sin to have been born as your child."
"Where is such a law?"
"Here."
Yaan, whose smiling face had hardened, added.
"You know, right? I'm a god now."
"..."
"Laws and order mean nothing to me. If I want to kill, I kill; if I want to trample, I trample."
"..."
Diana closed her eyes. Tears that had welled up unwittingly streamed down her cheeks.
"Even if I kill those children right now, no one will say anything to me. You know that well, since that's how you've lived your life."
"Save them. I'll do whatever you want."
"You should have done that sooner."
Ryan lifted his head, which he had kept pressed against the wall, and stood up.
"Promise me... you'll keep them alive."
"Check it out for yourself. Don't do anything foolish; if you work hard providing labor here, I'll let you know. After all, you need to be alive to know whether your children are alive or dead."
"...Alright."
"Yeah. Goodbye."
A guard approached. He grabbed Diana and dragged her toward the camp.
"Yeah. Mom!"
Just then, a little girl's voice was heard from a distance. It was her youngest daughter.
"Don't come near me!"
Diana, who was being dragged away, turned around sharply and shouted with teary, red eyes.
Ryan watched the scene.
What could be in her heart, not wanting to even exchange a final farewell?
Not wanting to unnecessarily provoke Ryan, not wanting to show him her miserable self, wanting to prevent them from needlessly reminiscing about their mother...
It must be such a complex mix of emotions.
Ryan looked back at the children only after Diana had disappeared.
While comforting his younger sister who was sobbing, Jeremy, the eldest son, bowed his head deeply toward Ryan.
As promised, his mother will not die but will 'live on'. No matter how miserable the form of that life may be.
"It's cold, so go inside!"
Ryan spotted the face of the next prisoner walking from a distance, and gestured to the guard to send the children back.
"Here, next one."
He drew a dagger from his bosom.
Gabriel approached and chuckled when he saw the blade in Ryan's hand.
“Are you excited?”
"Yes!"
"I heard on the way back that they gave you a little torture and you really enjoyed it."
Ryan clicked his tongue in disapproval as he looked at the sight of his fourth brother, Gabriel, covered in wounds beneath his prison uniform.
"If you had nothing to torture, you'd be the type to stab yourself in the body, right?"
"I didn't know it, but it turns out it is. It felt really good. Can you put me in the same room as you? If I die, I won't be able to feel that good feeling again, and it's sad, isn't it?"
"Do you know what it means to be sad? Do you think that would be sad?"
"Yes."
"I see. Still, you seem to have the cleanest record among your brothers. Cleanly, just one. Murder."
Ryan added, scratching his head with the back of the dagger he was holding.
"But the really surprising thing is that you broke the previous worst record. Until now, a former assassin from our house was the killer with the most murders on the continent, but you snatched that title away from me."
“Oh, thank you.”
"I never congratulated you, you psychopath."
“Ahahaha!”
"Save as many lives as you have killed before you leave. You don't need to be locked up here; the sick are all on the continent. I'll give you a warm room in the basement, so work there for the rest of your life."
“Ryan.”
Gabriel let out a deep sigh.
"You know it's a meaningless request, right?"
"Yeah. I know, I just asked."
"I've had such a hard time my whole life doing things that aren't even suited to my aptitude, so I really don't understand why I was given this supernatural ability."
“I really don’t know either.
"It's cold. Let's hurry. Are you going to do the first torture yourself?"
"No. Too bad, but if you're not going to work, you have to die here."
As long as Gabriel is alive, no one can possess the Fountain of Purification.
"Your ability. It's useless to you, but it's a damn precious power. So you need to die quickly for the generational shift to happen."
“Oh my.”
Gabriel, who had been sulking, shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I guess it can't be helped. I've done a lot of bad things, so kill me as slowly and painfully as possible."
"I'm so pissed off. Seriously."
Ryan spoke, almost in tears.
"A devil bastard like you deserves a painful death, but since you even enjoy that, what am I supposed to do?"
"Ahahahaha!"
"What is the biggest punishment for you?"
“What!”
"What is there for you to be sad about?"
“What!”
"What kind of death would you find the most painful, really!"
“Yes. What is it?”
<Instant death>
Gabriel instantly lost the light in his eyes and collapsed.
Ryan muttered as he looked at his brother's corpse lying at his feet.
"I figured this was the best one, right?"
The dead were silent. The snow, which had paused for a moment, fell onto Gabriel's long blonde hair. Ryan raised his head.
"Ha."
The sky where snow began to fall.
"...It's finally all over. This dreadful feud."
It was the day he finally completed his task as a member of the 'Wassenberg' bloodline.
***
"It's all over now."
"Yes."
Inside the ship returning to the continent.
Unlike in the past, Ryan and Vania were lying sprawled out on the luxurious ship beds.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
"Uh~ It's not uncomfortable at all~."
She really went ahead and showed the kids her mom in a prison uniform.
“But she lived, right?”
Ryan rested his chin on his hand, turned to face Vania, and sneered.
"If you hadn't threatened the kids, how would you have made her work for the salvation medicine?"
"And the kids might have cried for now, but they were satisfied, weren't they? I made sure they didn't hold a grudge later by clearly explaining why their mother was receiving such punishment, and since they said they couldn't bear to see her die like their father, even though she was a bad person, I let her live."
Ryan shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't think there's an angel like me?"
"Fine, figure it out yourself."
"But there is one thing I am curious about."
“What is it?”
“Fatherhood?”
"..."
"If I really have my own child, I wonder if I'll be able to feel that? Because I think it would probably be a slightly different emotion from what I felt for you and Alex."
"Oh, why did you suddenly become curious about that?"
"It was fascinating to see her back down in a second the moment I showed her the kids' faces. I thought she was a fucking self-centered person with no weaknesses whatsoever."
Ryan was unsure until the very end whether Diana would weaken at the presence of her children.
"Wouldn't that just create a weakness? Why bother? Just live alone for the rest of your life."
"Ah. Why are you cursing?!"
Ryan suddenly stood up.
At the same time, the guest room door opened, and Nike entered.
"Hey, did you have a good time taking care of the child?"
"..."
Nike was busy soothing Diana's children. After all, he was endlessly soft-hearted when it came to children.
He firmly educated the children, whose hearts were heavy after seeing their mother become a prisoner and being separated from her, and also comforted them when they cried...
"I still don't understand why I let things escalate to this point."
A weakened Nike muttered as he plopped down on the couch.
"Still, the number of sick people in the Empire will likely be cut in half, won't it? And Vania won't have to suffer anymore. Wouldn't that be a gain?"
"...Yeah, good job."
"Now everything is over. Just one problem remains, the one I couldn't solve."
Ryan got out of bed and spread his arms toward the empty air.
"My happiness after all the hard work!"
“Aren’t you happy now?”
"Ahem! I might be happier if there were an heir to the Belzer family?"
"Ugh, I'm so bored!"
Vania recoiled in disgust from behind.
"Hey lion! Does that mean you want to mate again after going around in circles?"
"No. I might be of the chosen blood. Wouldn't having a child soon produce talented individuals with supernatural abilities who can contribute to the country?"
Ryan dove onto the bed again with a sullen expression.
"I'm already twenty-nine. I wonder if I'll be able to get married before I turn thirty..."
Vania didn't even reply, perhaps because she was sick of hearing such complaints so many times.
“You can do it.”
However, kind Nike would say nice things whenever Ryan was feeling down.
"A good person will appear as if by fate. Maybe you might even be able to hold a child in your arms before you turn thirty."
***
...?!
It really happened!
Ryan stared blankly at the small baby in his arms.
His arm was trembling.
“Apaaa!”
Ryan Belzer, the autumn of his twenty-ninth year.
Just as Nike said, he held a child in his arms before he turned thirty.
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