A while after Alexis entered the passageway with Randal several steps behind him, the opening in the wall closed. Realizing that Randal had once again spun around, Alexis said, “Don’t worry. It’s rigged to close after a few seconds.”
That is yet another element of my dream now confirmed.
According to his dream, it was also possible to close the wall manually.
“It seems…this passageway hasn’t been used in a while,” Alexis murmured.
The passageway could hardly be called clean. Dust kicked up with each step, proving it hadn’t been disturbed in a very long time. It was probable that the passageway’s existence was long forgotten and, if that was the case, the last person to use it might very well have been King Eus.
If his dreams depicted reality, that is.
Alexis reached a dead end in the passageway. Even in the lantern light, it looked like an ordinary wall.
“…”
But Alexis paused…and copied what he’d seen in his dreams. He touched the part of the wall King Eus had touched. He squeezed his eyes shut, an unbearable feeling coming over him.
Why…?
Just as before, an entrance opened in the wall.
Why did you have to open…? Why do you have to be real?
What lay beyond that point, Alexis did not know. This was where his fragmented dreams cut off. If he wanted to know how that dream progressed, Alexis would have to navigate it in reality.
Exhaling hard, Alexis opened his eyes. Lighting the darkness with his lantern, he stepped through the opening.
It was a dreary room with a high ceiling and walls of white stone. There were only two objects in the room. One was a large mirror; the other was a rusty sword.
The sword was thrust into a stone platform that rose from the floor in the center of the room. It was a Turchen blade, with distinctive ripples.
The mirror and the sword—that was all the room held.
But unlike the passageway Alexis and Randal had just walked through, this room showed traces of upkeep. It was clean… Perhaps the Earl of Turchen kept it tidy.
Alexis approached the sword. When he reached for it—the sensation of grabbing the sword filled him before his fingers could even touch it.
“Ngh!”
The scene is so vivid.
He knew he was standing there holding a lantern, but reality and dream had collided.
……There’s a corpse.
King Eus—he removes the sword and looks at the person he just killed. At the man, lying face down, covered in blood.
As he gazes upon the body, not even a shred of guilt or regret finds him.
Only one feeling remains in his heart.
“How tiresome…”
A dry laugh escapes his mouth. Killing that man was supposed to change everything—yet nothing happened. His one ray of hope was dashed. The earnest desire he had clung to all this time would never come to be.
But he can never let it go.
Then what should he do?
How can he possibly…
“…bring Esfia to ruin?”
This question, directed at no one in particular, spills from his lips.
And then it appears before him—a certain test.
That’s it…
The fog suddenly lifts from his mind.
If he, the king, were to die standing in this vortex—what would happen?
He turns the bloodstained sword on himself.
However—
Though his mind is clear, he cannot do it. His hand gripping the sword shakes faintly.
Is he afraid to die?
Ridiculous.
Somebody else is stopping him.
“Yeah, that’s gonna throw a wrench in things.”
He hears a voice—a voice that should not exist.
He still cannot thrust the sword into his own heart.
But there is one body part he can move freely—his head.
The man ought to be all alone, and though he had felt no other presence enter the room, he sees a man standing before him.
It is a young man.
His hair is gold, and his eyes are amber. His features are strangely constructed—inhuman, almost. His clothing and everything else about him do not belong to that time or place.
Wait, is he truly human?
The man opens his mouth.
“Esfia’s monarch lived a long life, you see? He’s not supposed to kill himself like this.”
“Is this…some sick joke…?!”
The monarch lived a long life? Then why did my sister, the queen, die?
“Hey, don’t pass the buck, man. The important thing here is that you killed your sister. Everything you’re doing now—aren’t ya just taking it out on someone else?”
“…!”
A fiery rage burns through his body.
“Besides, I can’t have Esfia fall to ruin yet. The real story doesn’t start until much later, and I’ll wind up breaking my promise to Maki. Be that as it may—”
The man pauses, peering down at the corpse on the ground beside him.
“So much for this flesh-and-blood proxy I prepared.”
He turns to look into Eus’s furious eyes.
“I never dreamed people of this world could kill… Guess my read on the situation was way too optimistic.”
Though his words express frustration, the man’s tone is cheerful. He begins to clap his hands, as if in praise.
A metallic taste fills Alexis’s mouth. He is grinding his teeth too hard.
“I must show you my utmost respect—you exceeded expectations and dragged me all the way out here. I never thought I’d find myself here, in the flesh.”
The man puts a hand to his chest and gives an exaggerated bow. And then he casually poses a question, the way one would to an old friend.
“Hey…do you really want to destroy Esfia that badly?”
And the man smiles. More beautifully…and more hideously than anyone.
Do you really want to defy the happy ending?
……The happy ending?
Whose happy ending?
“Prince Alexis!”