I’d been positive a grisly death would be waiting for me the moment I arrived at the palace. But contrary to my expectations, the guards tied my arms together, tossed me to the floor of a dungeon cell, and just left me there. This dungeon was larger than the ones underneath my estate, and there were prisoners in some of the other cells as well. Now and then, from one direction or another, an agonized groan would break the silence.
I couldn’t say how long I remained there, down in the oppressive gloom without food or water. But eventually, Eberhart himself showed up, with a group of guards trailing behind him. He had them wait outside while he stepped alone into the cell, empty except for the two of us.
“How are you feeling, impostor?”
“Do I look like I’m feeling good?”
I figured I didn’t need to bother playing the villain anymore, even with him, but it seemed my reply wasn’t to his liking. The tip of his boot slammed into my unguarded stomach. My throat spasmed with strangled retching and gagging noises, but before I could even curl in on myself, Eberhart crouched down to grab me by the hair and yank me up. I was forced to meet his blue and gold eyes as they stared at me with disgust.
“Hmph. You’re the very image of Heinreid, but the moment the lie is revealed, the differences become impossible to ignore. Tormenting you no longer stirs anything within me whatsoever.”
“Then do me a favor and kill me already. You don’t feel like waiting for me to weaken and starve either, right?”
“That had been my intention... But circumstances have changed.”
What’s that mean?
I furrowed my brow in concern over my postponed demise. I had nothing but bad feelings about this, but Eberhart seemed to have no interest in explaining further. He just looked down at me wordlessly. He maintained his silence for a while, but then his head cocked in thought and he ran his fingers along the nape of my neck. When he spotted the bite mark that must’ve been visible there, he chuckled deep in his throat.
“Is this Craig Bauer’s handiwork? What a fool indeed, to allow you of all people to seduce him. Not that you’re much better, surrendering your body to a man—even if only for the sake of manipulating him.”
“I haven’t surrendered anything, dammit.”
Don’t get the wrong idea, okay? I mean, obviously the bite mark on my neck would give anyone a weird impression, but I’d never do anything to defile him.
“Oh? I’m told that you charmed him quite utterly...”
Who the hell told you that? Was it Karl? I guess that is related to me, just barely. But what kind of misleading report did you give this guy? Eberhart’s making it sound like I deliberately led Craig on or something! Well, maybe I did a little, but whatever.
“That’s all just a misunderstanding.”
It’s like the suspension bridge effect—that sort of thing. Craig was in a high-stakes situation, and he got overly sensitive to little changes. Just a temporary fever that’ll cool once he’s calmer.
That was why I hadn’t heeded his voice. There was no way I could ever take his hand.
“Hmm. I see.”
Eberhart briefly closed his eyes, satisfied with my explanation. And then—when he opened them once again—the Tyrant of the Century gazed at me with a gentle beauty unbecoming of his nickname, smiling softly like a holy mother.
“So, Nobody from Nowhere. It seems you wish to die in order to make amends for Heinreid’s villainy... How utterly conceited.”
Ugh, this again?
My eyes narrowed. I’d assumed it’d be easier to get Eberhart to kill me if he thought I was someone else, so I hadn’t denied it. But at this point, he wasn’t going to change his mind about me no matter what I said, so I decided to speak the truth, plain and simple.
“No matter what you think, no matter what you decide, I know for a fact that I’m Heinreid.”
No matter who says otherwise, I’ll always know the truth. There’s nothing anyone can do to change it. Go ahead and deny it if you want. But no matter what anyone says to me, I’m never letting go of Heinreid’s sins. I swear it.
I’d wondered if he’d get angry at my words, but Eberhart just kept on smiling calmly. “So you intend to atone for your sins with your life? Then why did you never turn on me, knowing my sins are just as heavy as your own? You had pawns you could have sent against me, did you not?”
“What, and command them to kill the king? Of course I couldn’t have done that—I would’ve been ordering them to die!”
“Then you could simply have killed me yourself. That would have been the more certain method. And when I still believed you were Heinreid, I allowed myself to be rather unguarded with you, didn’t I? In fact, if you had served me that poison wine of yours, I would readily have drained my glass.”
That’s ridiculous—
I was about to say those words, but they died in my throat. Thinking back, it was true that I’d only ever faced him one-on-one—when he’d first visited me, and when he’d summoned me to the palace too. If I’d wanted to...I could’ve poisoned him that first time, or I could’ve done a suicide attack in the throne room...?
The people who’d driven this country into terror were Heinreid and Eberhart. There were other villains as well, but if the two men at the helm had both disappeared at once, the whole thing would’ve fallen apart. Then I wouldn’t have had to do all this roundabout stuff just to set up my own death...
I felt a cold sweat run down my back.
“But I... I couldn’t just murder someone...”
“And yet you intended to have Craig Bauer kill you?”
Panic started to well up inside me. I felt like I was being steadily pushed closer to the edge of a cliff.
No. I don’t want to hear any more. I can’t let myself hear any more...
But the merciless tyrant, without a care for his prey’s terror, unfalteringly pushed me off the cliff and down to the rocks below.
“What a cruel man you are,” he said with a chuckle. “You thoroughly beguile your poor guard, steal his heart, declare it all a misunderstanding, and shirk your own responsibility. You would force those left alive to clean up your mess, while you alone make your getaway?”
Eberhart stared into my eyes.
“You wretched coward.”
He spoke those final words in the calm, relaxed tones of someone telling a child an old tale, but they dug up the soft, defenseless depths of my heart and tore into it ruthlessly.
I’d convinced myself that this was right. I’d believed without question that this was the role I needed to play. But everything I’d done up until now was being rejected. All the walls I’d leaned on for support were crumbling away.
He hadn’t beaten, kicked, or trampled me, but in all my time as Heinreid—no, in this life and my past life combined—I’d never once been wounded this deeply.
I... No... That’s not what I...
The seeping, throbbing pain in my heart grew stronger and stronger. I was having trouble breathing, and I couldn’t tell whether my body was trembling from asphyxia or from anguish.
As I knelt there, dazed and filled with despair, the tyrant just smiled softly and sweetly.
“Your Majesty,” one of the guards called from outside.
“Very well.”
Eberhart gave a casual gesture as he stood back up, and guards stomped into the room to drag my slumped-over body to its feet.
“Let’s go, impostor. Don’t worry—unlike that guard of yours, I am neither gentle nor naive. You have dared to impersonate Heinreid...and I shall make certain that you pay in full for your sins.”
Eberhart turned his back to me and left the cell, and the guards shoved my limp body along after him, making me follow on unsteady feet.