Episode 170: The Repayment of Evil

The kingdom knights ready their blades, slowly advancing toward Luverios.

“To be honest, I had planned to find Your Majesty and grant you a swift… merciful death. Summoning Lugdura is unforgivable, but even so, we are kingdom knights. As those who serve the king, we thought at least your final moments should be—peaceful.”

A single tear traced down the knight’s cheek as he spoke.

“But… instead of acknowledging your sins, you dare pin the responsibility of summoning Lugdura on Count Siegfried? For such a king, there’s no longer any reason to show mercy. Please, die in agony.”

“No…! Wait! Listen to me! It was truly Siegfried who summoned Lugdura!”

To Luverios’s desperate cry, the knights responded with shouts of rage.

“Silence! We’re sick of your nonsensical excuses!”

“We no longer recognize you as our king!”

“Exactly! You’re the one who killed the previous king to seize the throne! You never should’ve sat on it!”

“This is retribution for the suffering you’ve caused the people… You know it better than anyone!”

Their anger was no longer solely about the summoning of Lugdura.

It was fury directed at all the deeds Luverios had accumulated over time.

“S-stop…!”

Cornered against the wall, Luverios faced the kingdom knights’ swords and spears thrusting toward him one after another.

Countless blades pierced his flesh, blood splattering onto the ground.

Yet, they deliberately avoided vital spots—to ensure he would die in torment.

“Gah…! A-ahhh! Stop! Stop it!”

After countless screams of agony, Luverios’s consciousness was swallowed into darkness.

And—in his final moment, a glimpse of a silver-haired youth flickered at the edge of his vision.

 

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“—Hah!”

Jerking upright from the cold cobblestone, Luverios gasped for air, breathing heavily.

“Hii… hah… hah…!”

Trembling all over, he frantically checked his body with his hands. But, as expected, there wasn’t a single wound on the body that should’ve been pierced.

(W-what’s happening!? What’s going on…!?)

He should’ve been killed, yet somehow he was revived. And not only that, he found himself in a different place. This was… the second time.

“Y-Your Majesty! King Luverios, is it not…!?”

Once again, a voice calling out to him came from somewhere.

“Hii…!”

Reflexively letting out a yelp, Luverios turned toward the voice. Standing there was—an old man draped in a robe.

That face… Luverios recognized it.

“Y-you… you’re the assistant court magician, aren’t you…?”

“Joseph, at your service, Your Majesty.”

The old man—Joseph—bowed respectfully.

“I was astonished. To think you’d be in a place like this…”

Luverios glanced around.

This seemed to be a back alley, situated at the boundary between the capital’s middle and outer districts.

Why was Joseph in a place like this? But regardless, meeting him brought a faint sense of relief to Luverios’s heart.

“It seems a rumor has spread that I summoned Lugdura… but surely you, of all people, wouldn’t believe such an absurd tale, would you? As a magician, you must understand how utterly unrealistic that is.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Joseph nodded calmly.

“Summoning Lugdura requires an immense amount of magical power. Even Lord Ignas couldn’t come close to such a feat. Naturally, it would be impossible for Your Majesty or Prime Minister Joachim as well.”

“Exactly.”

Finally encountering someone who understood, Luverios let out a sigh of relief.

Staggering to his feet, he continued speaking.

“Yes, it was all Siegfried’s—”

But Joseph cut him off.

“There’s no doubt that summoning Lugdura is impossible. However—if Lugdura appeared here of its own will, that’s a different story.”

With those words, Joseph suddenly lunged at Luverios, pinning him to the ground.

“Wha—!? You! What are you…!?”

“In other words, Your Majesty… you didn’t summon Lugdura with magic. You orchestrated it so that Lugdura would come to the capital of its own volition!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! What are you even saying!?”

The moment Luverios glared back at the old man up close, he saw something unsettling.

In Joseph’s eyes burned a strange light—part madness, part resolve.

It was the look of someone unafraid of death, consumed by an unfathomable obsession.

“Why did Lugdura come to the capital, Kirchhen? The reason is… because you, Your Majesty, offered the capital to Lugdura! You dedicated it to that necromancer! You offered the people here as sacrifices! Logically speaking… there’s no other explanation!”

“Stop spouting nonsense! It’s not true! It was all Siegfried—”

The moment he tried to say those words, Joseph’s body erupted into flames with a roar.

The scorching heat mercilessly assaulted Luverios’s skin as he lay pinned beneath him.

“Gah…! Aaaah! What is this!? S-stop! What are you doing!?”

“All this time, I served Lord Ignas with unwavering loyalty. Because he was a genius. Pursuing the depths of magic—that was everything to me as a magician. I didn’t care if people died for it. I even secretly admired Lugdura, who had mastered necromancy… But…”

By now, almost no magical power remained in Joseph’s body.

Yet, using the last dregs of his strength and even his soul as fuel—he set both himself and Luverios ablaze.

“I… I finally realized. I was wrong. This incident—if things had gone just slightly differently, the capital… no, this entire kingdom would’ve been filled with countless deaths. No matter how great a magician they are… I never should’ve admired Lugdura!”

The flames engulfing Joseph’s body flared even brighter.

“As Lord Ignas’s right hand, I’ve committed countless sins. But now, with him gone, I’ve finally… realized the weight of my crimes. As my meager atonement… I planned to die here. To think I’d encounter Your Majesty! In that case, let us perish together—as fellow sinners!”

“Stop it, you old fool! Don’t drag me into your pathetic self-satisfaction!”

Luverios desperately struggled to push Joseph off.

But his weakened body lacked the strength—he couldn’t break free.

“Gah…! Aaaah! Stop it, let go! It’s hot… it hurts! Let go! Can’t you hear me!?”

Both their bodies were engulfed in flames, and finally, Joseph’s movements ceased.

His magical power had likely been completely depleted, his soul burned out.

Yet the raging flames still clung to Luverios’s body, mercilessly burning him.

They weren’t strong enough to kill instantly, instead prolonging his excruciating pain.

“Let go! Don’t die on your own! Let me go! Let gooo! Is anyone there!?”

He screamed as his flesh burned, but no one appeared.

Joseph had likely chosen this deserted place to die quietly. It made sense that no one would come, no matter how much he shouted.

No—except for one person.

When had he appeared?

A lone youth muttered softly.

“To acknowledge one’s sins and choose death—huh. This old man had little chance to shine as a villain… but this way of going out is a new one. I’ll give him credit for that.”

With that, he slowly turned his gaze toward Luverios.

“Still… you’re dying again, Luverios. That’s the third time.”

“Siegfried…!”

Luverios turned toward the voice. Standing there was—a silver-haired youth.

“Even though I declared, ‘I have no intention of taking the throne. I won’t kill King Luverios either,’… you keep getting yourself killed.”

Siegfried let out a quiet sigh, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“But don’t worry. I owe you a debt.”

“A… debt…!?”

That was perhaps the least fitting word for someone like Siegfried.

“At the officer academy, I made good use of your authority. In the battle with the Serodonia Western Legion, I leveraged your name to great effect. Thanks to that, I could make my role as a villain shine. And above all, we worked together to bring Lugdura forth.”

“Tch, that was all your doing—!”

“So, I’ll repay that debt. Even if you die, I’ll bring you back.”

With vampire blood, revival is possible immediately after death.

—However, the toll on the soul is immense, and eventually, the mind will collapse.

“Every time you die, I’ll revive you and move you to a suitable place. Lucky you—you get to start over as many times as you want. Like the protagonist of a game.”

“W-what… you…!”

Luverios finally understood what this situation meant.

Right now, the capital was rife with the rumor that ‘Luverios summoned Lugdura.’ Even worse, Joseph’s theory—that ‘Luverios offered the capital to Lugdura’—was starting to be accepted as truth.

And Siegfried had explicitly stated, ‘I won’t kill Luverios or take the throne.’

In other words, as long as Luverios lived, he would remain king.

But would the people of the capital allow that? A man who summoned one of the ‘Seven Great Calamities,’ Lugdura, and tried to offer them as sacrifices?

—Surely, they wouldn’t. Rather than let Luverios sit on the throne again… in this chaotic situation, they’d choose to kill him.

“You… you orchestrated this… so the people of the capital would kill me over and over…!?”

“It’s not guaranteed you’ll die. If the trust you’ve built as king can sway the hearts of the capital’s people—maybe they’ll save you. Come on, Luverios, give it your all. Even if you die, you can try again. Until your mind breaks… you can repeat it as many times as you want.”

“S-stop… no… I don’t want… to taste the pain of death… again…! Gah… gaaaaah!”

Luverios’s body was consumed by flames, and with a scream, his consciousness sank into the depths of agony.