ATTNH - Chapter 15

- Episode 15

"I was actually planning to call you anyway. I didn't know you would come now, though. The maids... I put them all to sleep with sleeping herbs."

Just as Dominic was about to take a step, Adelheid shouted.

"Not yet!"

"..." 

"Not dead yet. Not killed. Not yet."

Adelheid's voice was trembling.

She was not slender as usual, nor was she coquettish, nor was she gentle.

It was just her voice. The first time Dominic had heard it.

Adelheid nervously closed the half-open door and stood in front of it.

"First, first, listen to me. He's dead. Really. I promise. Please." 

Dominic was the King's knight. He should have ignored the person right in front of him and searched the room to ensure the King's safety.

If a problem arises, she must be apprehended.

But he could not move. Because of this mere voice, the first time he had heard such an empty voice.

"Let me get straight to the point. You are of royal blood. A drunk Anton once told me that there would be an era with two suns in the sky; there is a prophecy of the dragon. It was also a story about a hero of the times who appears when the nation is in trouble. That mark on your forehead—you didn't get it in the war, did you? Answer me straight. It wasn't."

"...No."

"It must have been there since birth, right? Anton has a mark of the same shape on his left forehead. A King's child is born with certain identical characteristics."

"Excessive speculation..."

"You said you are the child of the late king's maidservant, didn't you? One of the late King's children was stillborn. But... what if that isn't it? What if that lady-in-waiting raised you while hiding the fact that you were the King's child?"

It wasn't worth listening to any further. Dominic gritted his teeth, took a step, and drew his sword.

It was pulled out from the handle to the tip of the blade with a cool, crisp scraping sound. A distance of about seven paces.

Standing at the end of the hallway, Adelheid continued to speak desperately.

"What I used is your dagger. A dagger of royal blood. You are worthy to kill Anton."

Six steps.

"Think carefully. Why is Anton so hostile toward you?"

Four steps.

“I don’t know why he sent you here. He was trying to get rid of you.”

Two steps.

"I."

One step.

"Do you think I'm the first person to kill that bastard?"

Click, Dominic's steps stopped.

Adelheid's deep blue eyes gleamed in the darkness.

She was trembling like crazy, but the emotion that covered her face was terribly vivid.

Dominic had never seen such an expression, even on a battlefield where blood and flesh were flying.

"I told you. The blessing the dragon bestowed upon Henburg. I am the last of the royals; what will happen when I die? You couldn't answer."

Adelheid took a deep breath, as if struggling to breathe, and spoke as if making a declaration.

“I’m not dying.”

"...'

"On the day Henburg fell, all the royals died, and only my brother and I remained. Anton beheaded him and killed me too... But in Henburg, there is that damn blessing, isn't there? I won't die. I'll go back to that time. To the moment right after my brother died."

"..."

"Then Anton kills me again. But I don't die. Anton kills me again, and I don't die... That keeps repeating, repeating, until I beg to be spared. Begged, begged, begged, and appeased him to survive, and survived... Thanks to that, I know Anton terribly well. I survived by acting like a dog."

"..."

"...This is the Dragon's Blessing. Do you even know how many times I've died?"

Memories of the past faded away.

'There is a dragon I want to kill... There is a dragon I must kill.'

'In my life, there is something more important, something inescapable... the afterlife. That's how it is.'

'I am infertile. If I die, it is the end, so what happens to that blessing? Immortality? What do you think, Captain?'

[Hi. I'm back here again. I don't know how many times this is...]

The puzzles that were incomprehensible are being put together piece by piece.

'People say that I brought Adelheid here because I fell in love with her beauty. That is not true.'

One day, Anton said that Adelheid was a woman without pride.

When he killed her brother and tried to kill her as well—he had committed countless murders, but he had never seen a face like that before. She begged desperately and abjectly.

'She really would do anything. Adele killed her already-dead brother with her own hands. I brought her along because I was feeling lonely and thought it would be fun, and she actually quite knows how to please me... Anyway, she's a woman I actually quite like.'

It is said that she knows and matches Anton's tastes surprisingly well, as if she could read his mind.

'She is extremely obedient. If I tell her not to go out, she doesn't go; if I tell her to come, she comes; and if I tell her to go, she goes. She knows how to gauge the situation and is quick-witted, and as of now, I have no intention of killing her.'

Memories overlapped. Dominic felt as if his mind was crumbling moment by moment.

An unprecedented sense of helplessness poured down upon his head. A sense of stunned affliction set in.

“I killed the King many times. I did at first. I was so angry, I just couldn't stand it, I simply couldn't stand it... so I killed him many times. But he is still alive.”

"..." 

“When you repeat countless deaths, those emotions eventually wear away. Yes, I... I didn't let go of myself. How much I tried not to go crazy.”

The conversation stopped. Adelheid applied force and released it.

"This is a gamble. If, just hypothetically, you aren't of royal blood, then you aren't. I won't die anyway. I've died at the King's hands, and I've been executed a few times for killing him. Yet, here I am… here, still alive, aren't I? If you kill me, I'm just losing one of my infinite chances. That's all."

"I am..."

Dominic blurted it out without even knowing what to say. He quickly covered it up.

"...What do you want from me?"

"Take me to the Mountain of Time. No. I don't even ask for that. Just let me go. I have to go there. Do as you please, assign a watcher. Kill me afterward or not, do as you please. Just let me go, there, I must go there..."

He thought he could guess Adelheid's intentions.

Most people would be puzzled by the statement that a concubine whom the King loved dearly assassinated the King.

Since there is no reason for that, externally that was Adelheid's position.

However, what if a man of royal blood and a hero of the era coveted the throne and assassinated the king?

It was a sufficiently convincing story, and above all, it was not a sin.

Because he is of royal blood. Under the premise that he is of royal blood.

It was even Dominic's dagger that stabbed Anton. A knight, especially a captain of the Order like Dominic, does not give his sword to others.

Even so, there is no way he would have snatched a dagger and stabbed the King.

The King's blood can be detected and identified in the temple. It was the same even if the dagger was wiped clean.

Literally, Adelheid was gambling.

It was a gamble on a life that would not die.

"When Anton killed me in my previous life, you were standing next to him."

"..." 

"Yoy had a blank expression. Just... the kind of look that seemed like you were looking at something completely insignificant. You don't know, do you?" 

Dominic thought. Perhaps, if only he had held onto the feelings he had when he first saw Adelheid...

If he had continued to nurture it while carrying all that disgust, discomfort, and reluctance.

He thought that he might have done so.

"So, Captain, Dominic Legenon." 

"..."

'Don't do that in this life."

"..."

" I don't have the confidence to endure it again." 

It was a choked voice, as if swallowing back tears.

Dominic had spoken to Adelheid in the study.

There is no situation that should be humiliating unless it is for the sake of greater morality and values. One chooses humiliation because one wants to walk a more comfortable and better path.

There are many things in the world that are more valuable than life itself. And thinking humans willingly walk the difficult path.

Dominic didn't know.

He said that because he didn't know. If everything Adelheid has said so far is true, then Dominic's words are completely wrong.

'Then that is the Captain's world. But my world isn't the same as the Captain's.'

There was also a world where Adelheid lived.

Just because Dominic doesn't know doesn't mean a world that doesn't exist. 

"...I will kill the dragon on the Mountain of Time. I will take away the blessing. If I fail, I will just do the same thing in the next life and then go to the Mountain of Time. If I keep doing that, someday..."

"..." 

“If you succeed in taking away the blessing—no, if you just let me go to the Mountain of Time—then... you can kill me. Really. You can. Then maybe you’ll believe me.”

Adelheid had never once asked Dominic for help. She was just about to strike up a conversation.

That was all. Requesting a dagger and asking to be sent to the Mountain of Time—these were all Adelheid's first and last requests for the sake of just one thing.

"I am..."

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