Chapter 131 - North Korean rabbit

Episode 131

With a complicated heart, I trod upon the crimson moonlight and headed toward the underground cemetery.

Lord Beltain had gone to Delphin on my orders, and Aron was also absent, occupied with matters at the Grand Duke of Kieln's residence.

There were other imperial knights, but I was somewhat reluctant to bring them.

Arpad wouldn't have hidden his identity as the Mercenary King even from his close aide Yulken for no reason.

So this time, I went to the catacombs alone, in disguise.

Of course, it was only possible because I had brought along the protective magical artifact I received from Hephaes, just in case.

Fortunately, I encountered no great danger.

I was able to set foot in the catacombs with an ease that felt almost anticlimactic.

And then I came to realize, with bone-chilling clarity, just how complacent a thought that had been.

Unlike when I first came to meet Arpad half a year ago, there was no gatekeeper at the catacombs today.

Had it not been for the fact that I had been guided here once before, I might have gotten lost within the vast cemetery.

I looked at the door before me, puzzled.

‘What? Why won't the door open?’

When I came before, there was no need to knock.

Because Arpad, sensing my approach, had opened the door himself.

There was no way someone with such keen senses wouldn't know I had approached.

Puzzled, I knocked on the iron door—the only new-looking thing in the uniformly decrepit catacombs.

*Thud, thud!*

A noise, ominous like a coffin settling, echoed.

But there was no response from within. In the end, unable to bear it, I called out to him.

“Arpad?”

“…….”

There was no answer, so I fumbled for a way to open the door.

When I held my lantern up to the doorknob, I realized what a foolish thing I had done.

This door wasn't locked from the inside.

It was locked from the outside.

It wasn't a door to prevent entry from outside, but a door to prevent exit from within.

So, from the outside, no key or such was needed.

One simply had to undo the lock and turn the knob.

This fact brought a foreboding suspicion to my mind.

‘This… it's exactly like a cage for a beast.’

A conspicuously new door in a place where everything else was old and covered in a white layer of dust.

Its solidity, made of iron.

This meant a being dangerous enough to warrant being locked inside was confined there.

And tonight was the Crimson Moon.

Images of Arpad at his worst, utterly broken, which I had seen several times before the regression, surfaced in my mind.

His corpse becoming an experimental subject.

And the sight of him, unable to overcome his madness, running amok and ultimately being killed by his father, and so on.

Fear seized my entire body.

Instinct and reason were both screaming.

‘Don't open it. Go back.’

‘It's too dangerous. How can you know what state he's in, whether he's in his right mind?’

‘Do you want to be killed by that man?’

‘I only wanted to use him to survive.’

‘What do you think you'll do, jumping in knowing full well the danger? What was the point of the regression if you die by his hand?’

‘Run away!’

I knew. Yet, I was already opening the door and stepping inside.

In the cavern-like room at the deepest part of the underground cemetery was an Arpad I had never expected to see.

“…Arpa…d?”

The sound of chains clanking.

A dull glint reflected from the iron chains in the light of the lantern I held.

The thickness of the chains firmly fixed to the wall seemed about the width of my two thumbs combined.

Those chains bound Arpad's neck and all his limbs.

I couldn't tell what expression Arpad wore.

Because his head was bowed deeply.

I struggled to suppress my shock.

‘This… it's just like when he was an experimental subject in the Magical Tower.’

Back then, Arpad was already a corpse.

But now, he was perfectly alive.

Was such a thing possible?

I soon found the answer.

‘He did this… to himself.’

Not even his father, the Emperor, could have restrained Arpad like this.

The thick chains were likely magically treated.

Then, from the darkness, Arpad slowly raised his head.

A face like a mannequin, terrifyingly devoid of expression.

Only his eyes were different.

The blood vessels had burst, reddening even the whites.

Truly, completely red eyes.

I had seen that before.

His appearance just before he completely succumbed to the madness and ran amok.

Of course, it was far more severe back then.

Still, it was clear Arpad was in a dangerous state now.

Fear surged from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair.

The violence and cruelty of Arpad running amok, experienced in my first life.

And the terror instilled by Arpad's corpse-made experimental subject I faced in my third life.

The cries of reason and instinct that arose at the door sounded the alarm again.

To run away at once.

To get as far away as possible from that dangerous beast.

Clenching my fist, I took a step forward.

“Arpad?”

“…….”

I simply couldn't turn and leave him there, locked in the darkness, bound in chains by his own hand.

This didn't correspond to any of the images of Arpad I had imagined alone.

I had only thought of him sitting alone, forlorn, in the underground cemetery.

This… this wretched state… I couldn't have even dared to imagine it.

I had only thought that if things went wrong, Arpad would be exploited even after death.

But the situation wasn't much different for him while alive.

The Arpad of that time.

And I… was the only being who could save Arpad from the madness.

“Bride of the Dragon. No other epithet suits you more.”

Gaspard had clearly said that.

Through those terrible pre-regression experiences, which were not of my will, I had learned one thing.

The possessor of dragon blood, seized by madness, desperately craves his bride.

Reason in my mind incessantly sounded warning bells.

‘It's dangerous. He might try to kill and devour me.’

This was my instinctive fear when looking at Arpad.

“The dragon seeks to take a bride to compensate for its own incompleteness.”

“There are various methods. The most primitive and violent method would, of course, be… devouring her.”

The sight of him rushing at me and madly licking the blood, and the words Gaspard had spoken, were proof of that.

Before him, I couldn't help but feel like prey before a beast.

But.

But, even so…….

I felt no desire to retreat.

“It seems you have forgotten that I too am a person with red blood flowing in my veins.”

The expression Arpad showed me when he said those words came to mind.

The wounded look in his eyes, too.

Shown only to me.

The words he spoke when he left me behind as the Crimson Moon approached came to mind.

“I'm worried I might hurt you.”

It wasn't that I didn't believe those words.

I wasn't looking at Arpad with only wariness and unease, as I had when I first proposed the marriage of abduction to him.

I had felt much gratitude since then. I had grown quite fond of him.

‘…I didn't know it was to this extent.’

I didn't know he would restrain himself in such a horrific and wretched state.

I had clearly come here half a year ago.

But I hadn't noticed at all back then. The ‘true’ purpose of this place.

No, even if I had known… I wouldn't have felt this heartache and sorrow as I do now.

It was an emotion felt because I had come to know Arpad as a human being over half a year, watching him by my side, and had grown attached.

I bit my lip.

Arpad kept his promise. He pulled me out of hell.

Then, this time, it was my turn.

I cut my palm with the small dagger I had brought for protection.

The moment drops of blood plopped onto the floor, a glimmer of light briefly returned to Arpad's dazed eyes.

I approached him. The fear from moments ago was not felt at all.

The light that had briefly seemed to return to Arpad's eyes grew dazed again.

Approaching close to him, I let the blood flowing from my hand trickle to the corner of his mouth.

But Arpad, still dazed, as if wandering in some dream, couldn't swallow properly.

In the end, I held the blood in my own mouth.

Gaspard's words upon seeing me came to mind.

“…Would they also try to devour me upon seeing me?”

“Or perhaps try to merge bodies.”

A voice as unpleasant as bloodstains festering on a prison floor.

“So it's best not to stimulate them as much as possible.”

I acted contrary to what I knew.

My resolve was already made.

Holding the blood in my mouth, I pressed my lips to his.

* * *

The bloody kiss was utterly greedy.

He acted as if he would swallow everything—Hilia's blood, her wound, even her breath.

There was a stinging pain, but Hilia did not part her lips.

Only the sound of chains clanking echoed chaotically through the room.

The moment he tried to swallow the mouthful of blood that had entered.

Arpad came to his senses.

“…!”

The moment reason returned to his eyes, he pushed Hilia away and spat out the blood.

Hilia cried out, feeling wronged.

“Why did you spit it out? What a waste!”

“Why are you here? I clearly said it was dangerous……!”

It was exactly the tone of Arpad that Hilia knew.

For some reason, she struggled to suppress a surge of emotion. Her eyes felt hot. She didn't know why.

Wherever she went, wherever she was, that was her own heart.

Hilia embraced Arpad and pressed her lips to his again.

He couldn't bring himself to push her away as he had moments before.

His chained arms wrapped around Hilia's shoulders and waist.

Breaths intertwined even more deeply and thickly.

Arpad slowly laid Hilia down on the floor. The hands holding her shoulders pressed more firmly.

Hilia flinched slightly but did not refuse.

No, rather, she stretched out her arms and clung to Arpad's neck and shoulders.

Breaths grew ragged. Only each other's body heat was distinct in the darkness.