Chương 33: Chapter 32: The King’s Journal

"Y-Yuto! Stay with us!" Rivian screamed. She leaped from Flokai's back. Healing magic glowed blue as it flowed out of her hand. It wrapped around his body, but the consequences of using the power of the spirits could not be undone by her magic.

"No... It can't be..." The healing ether scattered around Yuto, and her eyes widened in shock. She had never heard of such a thing. And that was not the only surprise. Everything she had seen and experienced in Velkyne contrasted with her prior knowledge. The familiar helplessness that she despised so much came over her again, but she didn't give up. She quickly reached into her herb pouch. If magic couldn't help, perhaps giving him some herbs would.

Yuto, who had lain on the floor, fighting his pain, now tried to get up. Rivian panicked. Flokai moved closer to whisper in his ear.

"Yuto, you need to rest right now. If you force yourself to move, it will damage your soul." Before being rescued by Yuto, Flokai had been trapped as one of the vengeful spirits in the Penalty Zone. He knew exactly how much pain Yuto must be feeling right now. The horrible hatred and resentment did not come from any outside source, but when it mixed with madness, it turned into a hellish fire that no one could control.

The fire burned the soul, wrecked the spirit, and even destroyed one's identity, making it difficult to remember who one was. The emotions of countless vengeful spirits had clotted inside Yuto now. It was true that he had accepted the spirits into himself, but that explosion of hatred was not something any human was equipped to handle. He was an accomplished hero in his own right, and that was why he was barely hanging on. That, and he had a contract with the Void. He panted.

Despite Flokai's advice, he hugged his body, breathing rapidly. His vision seemed to flash and turn blood-red. It alternated with darkness repeatedly. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and his fingers spasmed continually against his will. He used his unsteady hands to support himself on the floor. His fingertips scratched the marble and produced a grinding noise, but he didn't stop.

"Y-you can't get up now! You need to lie down and rest—" Rivian began. She gripped his shoulder. Tears were in her eyes.

"I'm... fine," Yuto said. He shook his head emphatically, then pushed against the floor so he could sit up.

"I... have to go... There's something... I need to see."

"But—""That is why... I came," Yuto rasped. Every sentence was accompanied by bloody coughing that came from somewhere deep within his lungs. But his eyes, though they were hazy from the pain, were glued to the crumbling stairs that led to the second floor.

"You idiot...! Here, let me carry you on my back. Please don't do this to yourself!" Flokai said. He could see that there was no talking Yuto out of this. Flokai sighed, then grabbed Yuto's body lightly with his mouth before placing the boy on his back.

"Y-Yuto, eat this herb first of all. It should help you recover some of your stamina. Oh, and have another ether potion. You have one left, right?" Rivian said. She offered him some green herbs. Yuto didn't argue. He could barely move, but he opened his mouth and ate the herbs. He had always been cold and strong, but right now he looked more his age—like a fragile boy. And this made Rivian's heart go out to him. As mature as he might act most of the time, he was only fourteen years old.

That was two years younger than she was. Rivian heaved a sigh. She pulled an ether potion out of Yuto's pocket and trickled it into his mouth. Yuto exhaled. The herbs and the potion eased the pain in his body slowly. His fatigued and overworked system gained energy little by little. Gentle ether filled his insides, which felt mangled and torn by the power of the vengeful ghosts. Flokai moved Rivian onto his back as well, then leaped for the stairs.

Even though the stairs were falling apart, they posed no obstacle since he could jump right over them. Yuto bit his lip as he rode on Flokai's back. Much of the pain had gone away, but his mind was in turmoil. Everything he had seen of the royal castle so far—the castle destroyed by the night of disaster, and further sullied by the black mages—brought back memories. The second-floor corridor was much quieter, but this silence did not feel like rest.

It was a sad, desperate, timeless sort of quiet reminiscent of the grave. Yuto leaned into Flokai's back. He took in the silk wallpaper. It was torn and moldy now, but the pattern was still visible, and he remembered that pattern. I know this spot... A scene came back to him. He had played hide-and-seek with his mother in this area as a child, hidden with bated breath behind a large flowerpot. His mother had smiled lovingly as she looked for him. Enjoying the story?

Show your support by reading it on the official site. He could remember the sound of his father's footsteps. State affairs always kept him busy, but even so, he would erase the stern expression he wore in front of his vassals and approach his son to give him a pat on the head. But a chilly corridor was all that was left of the place. There had been a warmth in the air back then, but it was replaced by purple, venomous fumes. It looked ugly and hellish, with bits of rotten flesh plastered to the walls.

Yuto sighed, his breath shaky. The thick purple fog filled this corridor as well, and as it rolled gently past, he spotted glimpses of dulled golden decor. Even when he closed his eyes, the flashbacks returned in perfect clarity, as if they had only happened yesterday. After my mother passed away... My father, he... he would always walk this corridor alone... Yuto's mother, a lovely woman with warm-colored blond hair and a benevolent smile, had passed away when he was little, from a disease nobody could identify.

After she had gone, a terrible silence descended on the castle, where it stayed for a long while. Most of the furnishings in this corridor had been put there by his mother. It had been her hobby to paint. In all honesty, she had not been the greatest painter, but she was proud of her works and put them on display on the walls of the corridor. She would bring her husband and son to have a look at them and tell her what they thought. That was one of her favorite pastimes.

His father would pace here alone, staring silently at the paintings she had left behind. Yuto had done that too. At first, he had cried under the covers, unable to accept that his mother would never come back to him. Then he would come out here to feel her warmth again, or at least remember it. He would eventually find that his father had come up beside him. My father had the weight of an entire kingdom on his shoulders, but he would step down from his throne and come to me whenever I needed him.

The father and son had fixated the most on a portrait of them done by their beloved. Yuto could recall when she had painted it. She had called her busy husband over and put on him silly clothes that seemed right for a clown. She had done the same with her son, then asked them to pose in a specific way. He could not find that painting anywhere. In this world, the Yuto he had been did not exist. He exhaled. As if he had not felt it enough, the fact stung him once again. Father...

His father had treated him even more lovingly after his mother's death. Despite being forced to spend sleepless nights when his state affairs demanded it, his lap was always open to Yuto when he showed up, woken by a particularly nasty nightmare. Yuto remembered his father's rough but warm hands running through his hair. He could still smell the ink on the bundles of documents on the desk. Those things had comprised Yuto's world as a child. And his father was the ideal king in his mind.

The most dependable of anyone, his world. Flokai stopped short.

"Yuto," he said. Yuto shook himself from those ancient memories he longed to experience again. There was a massive oaken door at the end of the corridor marked with the crest of the Velkyne royal family. It had been Yuto's bedroom at one point. In this world, the last person to occupy it had been Luke Velkyne, his father. The door, which no doubt had been imbued with the warmth of its owner in the past, was now covered with ugly purple moss. A terrible cold seeped out from under it.

Yuto got off Flokai's back unsteadily. Rivian did so as well and rushed to support him, but he shook his head at her and gripped the doorknob. The door creaked open. The air was stale and smelled of dead time pooled inside the room for years. The room was so neat and clean, it almost seemed bizarre. Yuto doubted that the black mages hadn't already been here and rifled through it. And yet it seemed so clean. Had the damnable mages had the decency to show a little respect to the deceased king of Velkyne?

His heart ached. He clutched his chest and faltered into the room. The desk at which his father must have worked now only held a single pen. He walked over to it as if mesmerized. Luke had seated his young son on his lap at this very desk and told him about how justice worked in Velkyne. Yuto felt his nose sting. He ran his hand over the surface of the desk, as well as the feather pen. Then he moved to the bookcase behind the desk, which featured an elaborately carved lion's head on its side.

There was a secret here that he still remembered. He pushed the eyes, which were actually buttons, in a specific order. With a low, mechanical clunk, the desk slowly slid to the side, revealing a hidden chamber. This was where his father had kept his secret records. Yuto gulped, then walked inside. The only thing in the room was a small desk, the drawer of which was unlocked. He opened it and saw a journal with a golden cover marked with the crest of the royal family.

Just as he had in Yuto's past life, his father seemed to have recorded everything he learned inside this diary. Yuto could hark back to the day in the past life when he had first found this journal and opened its pages. The first page had featured an urgent message scrawled in the king's last moments. [I have written these in hopes that my son, Yuto Velkyne, will one day discover this journal.] Yuto opened the cover now, his fingers shaking.

[If somebody discovers this journal one day, do not forgive me, the foolish king. Hate me, resent me, and tell the entire world about the horrible mistakes that I've made.] Yuto flinched. Luke Velkyne had not had any children in this world. It was only natural that the message on the first page would be different. But even so, Yuto couldn't help but feel confused by it. What mistakes...? What was his father talking about? The question burned in his mind. [Velkyne is a beautiful land, but the skies are cruel. Today, as on all days, countless people whose names I do not know die out for the enjoyment of the Constellations.] [I am its king, but I am powerless. It is foretold that I will not even have a successor who will take my place, who will fight through this hell after me and perhaps change it. I lie alone in an empty bedroom every night, hallucinating the screams of the people of Velkyne and the world at large, both of which will one day be destroyed.] This was not at all what he remembered saying in the diary.

The Luke Velkyne of this world, Velkyne's last king, was far more pessimistic and overcome by despair than Yuto remembered. [I was born into this world, into the world of Callisto, as the prince of this kingdom. Eventually, I became king. I rule many subjects, and each of them has families that are bound by blood.] [I, on the other hand, do not have a family. One might argue that the king's subjects are his children, but that does not change the fact that I have failed to make a mark in this world by having offspring.] [My wife wanted children, as did I. But no effort on our part bore fruit.] [My beloved wife passed away yesterday from an illness.] The handwriting was unsteady, laden with heartbreak and anguish.