Regas Vol 4. Chapter 5

lmond quickly moved away from Kin. Then, with a contemptuous gaze, he looked at Kin, who quickly defended himself.

“Ridiculous. Why would I pounce on that man? I was just looking for dicine.”

“dicine?”

“Young master Lil’s dicine. When he is about to collapse, he used to drink so dicine to calm down, didn’t he?”

Right, lmond nodded his head and then turned his head quickly.

“Huh?”

“Then, is Lil unwell?”

“Yes, he was sitting there, feeling unwell...”

“I don’t see him?”

“....”

“Where is he then?”

lmond looked around the empty field several tis and asked Kin again. However, Kin also looked surprised and blinked his eyes as he confird the empty field.

“He was there just a mont ago.”

“Huh? Just a mont ago? What do you an?”

Thud. Kin lowered the arm that had been holding the sword with a dazed expression. The sword made a small sound as it touched the ground, but no one paid it any attention. Lil, who had clearly been sitting on the ground just a mont ago, was nowhere to be seen. The heat that had risen to his head due to anger vanished in an instant. In its place was a chilling sense of unease.

“He seed like he was about to collapse from shock, but where on earth did he go?”

As Kin muttered, lmond quickly nagged him.

“Shock? What kind of shock are you talking about?”

A shock in the middle of the night for no reason?

lmond looked around in confusion and realized that another person was missing.

“Where did the Commander-in-Chief go?”

When Kin heard the term “Commander-in-Chief,” sothing ca to mind, and he quickly scanned the forest with sharp eyes.

“Could it be that he went after him?”

“Him? Please explain it to so I can understand.”

In response to lmond’s urgent voice, Kin reluctantly pointed to the forest where Karas had disappeared.

“It seems that young master Lil went after the Commander-in-Chief. He was very surprised by his identity.”

Kin turned his eyes away from the forest and added to lmond, who had turned pale for so reason.

“It seems that young master Lil had no idea that the Commander-in-Chief was the real Emperor of this country. He seed shocked when I told him... Uh, are you okay?”

Kin had to ask the sa question to soone else this ti. lmond staggered back.

Wobbling― lmond’s knees seed to give way at any mont, but he managed to hold on and looked up with hardened eyes from the shock.

“Ah, no, did Lil, I an, did Lil find out? Who the real emperor of this country is?”

“Yes.”

As soon as Kin nodded, a scream-like cry poured out of lmond’s mouth.

“You damn pig!!!!”

Gasp, gasp, gasp.

It was impossible to run through the dark forest, however, walking as fast as one could was possible. Though Abel couldn’t see, he reached out his hands and felt his way past rough trees. Relying on the faint moonlight, he continued to move his weak legs. Though his heart felt like it could burst at any mont, it wasn’t because of the urgency of his movents.

However, he also felt like the fact that he was walking so frantically that he was out of breath was contributing to his heart’s pounding. Walking breathlessly, step by step, his chest felt like it was going to tear apart, and it seed like his heart was going to burst, spilling red blood. If it were before, he would have stopped walking and caught his breath, worried for his weak body.

However, Abel couldn’t feel the fear of death now. Simply moving forward was the only urgent thing he had to do. Pushing rough trees aside with his trembling fingertips, stepping into empty spaces, picking up his fallen body caught on the tree roots, and only moving forward.

Even though he didn’t know his destination, at so point, he felt a faint scent carried by the wind. Upon realizing it was the sll of blood, there was a slight ringing in his ears. It was clear that a fight was taking place sowhere nearby.

And there... he was. Karas.

The familiar moonlight, although faint, illuminated the scenery between the trees. The scent of blood grew darker as he approached, the dying screams of the fallen, and the sound of the wind caused by the sword. In the center of them all, the swift movents of a man cutting down enemies shone like a mirage.

There were still a few soldiers left attacking around, but compared to his swift movents, they felt slow as if they were standing still. They all had their throats cut and blood spurted out like a fountain into the air. The heads separated from their bodies turned into black shadows under the moonlight and rolled around on the ground.

Haah, haah, haah.

The rough breath that ca out of Abel’s mouth had now subsided. However, his heart, still watching the scene of the battle while holding onto the tree, did not slow down.

Thump, thump, thump.

Gradually, the sound filled his chest more and more, and each beat felt like a hamr hitting Abel’s chest. Thump—pain spread as if sothing was squeezing his heart painfully. Again—thump, the sound of his heart pounding relentlessly, this ti, even his throat tightened.

His mouth opened involuntarily due to the suffocating feeling of not being able to breathe, but it wasn’t just because of the weak heart that felt like it was about to burst.

It was as if sothing was suppressing his throat, chest, and heart like a rock. It was accompanied by pain, sadness, and joy. However, now that he was watching Karas swing his sword, leaving only the last person behind, the joy that had been taking up his mind had faded to an unseen place.

His face, as he plunged his sword deep into the heart of his last enemy, was slightly visible in the moonlight. Although the opponent’s blood splattered on his face like a fountain, he remained expressionless, not even closing his eyes. For him, stabbing a sword into a person’s body and spilling blood was a natural everyday occurrence, and his most basic emotion was simply cruelty.

Just like a young child for whom killing animals was the basic way of expressing oneself. The unchanged prince was right in front of him. Abel opened his mouth without being able to let out the hot lump stuck in his throat. Sothing that should have burst out from within him made his eyes burn hot.

The rippling moisture was still visible in the eyes, but it couldn’t flow because of his unyielding eyes that wouldn’t close. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. The man standing in the midst of the corpse in cruelty, at so point, looked like an eight-year-old boy to Abel.

With long hair covering his eyes, and hands and feet bound in chains, the prince knew nothing but attacking others. The mont his own na was heard from the silent prince’s mouth who wouldn’t speak, was still vivid in Abel’s mory. The hesitant look in his yellow eyes, the cute face looking up at him, even the small hands clutching his clothes, and the arms that hugged his neck—all felt like just yesterday.

He thought that he had barely taught the child what love was and made him feel the aning of life that everyone enjoys. In the end, he was wrong. It was his own irresponsible fault. He shouldn’t have left like that.

He shouldn’t have left the prince alone.

He himself...

His vision blurred and sothing hot and stinging flowed down his cheeks. But still, the painful lump in his throat couldn’t co out of his mouth.

Plop.

As he weakly sank to the ground helplessly, he knew he shouldn’t make a sound and just lowered his head. Even though his breath was short, and his shoulders shook involuntarily, he couldn’t cry.

He couldn’t be caught.

This pathetic sight, this foolishness, was his Regas twelve years ago.

He shouted from within to get up and go back. However, this ti, the tears that endlessly fell to the floor dominated his whole body. His body, which trembled every ti his heart pounded, now trembled along with his flowing tears. Every ti his shoulders shook, and his chest thumped, it felt like the cries stuck in his throat would lt and leak out of his mouth.

Trying to hold back the sobs, Abel bit his lower lip. The suppressed sobbing shook his chest. He tried to stop crying by pressing his aching heart with his hand, but it was futile. All he could do was silence the sound. He couldn’t get up, he couldn’t run away.

It was the sa even when he realized belatedly that soone was approaching him.

After a while, he finally raised his head. However, the tears that seed to diminish poured out even more when he saw the person in front of him. Karas was looking at him with an expressionless face.

Before killing the last soldier, he had felt a presence sowhere in the forest. There was clearly a rat hiding. Karas intentionally twisted the last soldier’s heart more cruelly to deliberately show it to the hiding rat. Though blood splattered on his face, tasting the pungent blood was already familiar to him.

He pulled out the sword from the body that had beco a corpse and turned towards the direction where the sound ca from. Fortunately, the direction where the little rat hid was where the group was staying. He just had to get rid of him and then go back that way.

Karas’ mind was already filled with the green eyes that looked up at him by the bonfire.

When the sun rises, he will join his army. Before that, he wanted to tell him.

Who he was.

And he would reveal his na is Karas once again.

Just thinking about it made him excited.

How surprised would he be? What changes would be visible in those big clear eyes?

But what he was sure of was the expectation that he would eventually smile. He walked while thinking about him being pleased to know his true identity.

Crack, thud.

A branch under his foot snapped and made a sound. Karas approached the black object that looked like a person, sword in hand, not paying attention to the rustling sounds around him. Though it was smaller than he thought, it didn’t matter. Then, it would be easier to kill. Just cut off the neck quickly and...

Thud.

His arm that held the sword, his foot that was about to step forward, and his breath that was about to be exhaled all stopped at once. Instead, Karas opened his eyes wider to see the figure more clearly in the darkness. The person who was crouching on the ground and hiding was not the little rat.

Abel?

He couldn’t see his face as he was lowering his head, but at a glance, he was sure it was Abel.

Why is he here?

Karas was surprised like never before and stood still for a mont, then noticed that Abel’s shoulders were trembling. And he also heard the sobbing sound that Abel couldn’t hide. It was because the forest was so eerily quiet. Tears flowed through his tightly sealed lips along with his stifled sobs.

Karas, who felt flustered for the first ti in his life, didn’t know what to do and just stood there. He had seen many people cry before. There were those who begged with heartbreaking pleas before death and others who simply shed tears without uttering a word. But never before had he been so moved by soone’s tears. Until now, he had always regarded crying as nothing more than an annoyance, just noisy and botherso.

Yet, as he realized Abel was crying, his heart, to his surprise, began to ache gradually.

Why is he crying?

The question echoed repeatedly in his mind.

Feeling uncertain about what to do, a sense of frustration washed over Karas belatedly. Only then did Karas carefully kneel down in front of Abel. As he lowered his body, he could see a little bit of Abel’s face. He saw tears falling endlessly, dripping down his face.

Abel, who held his breath to make no sound, pressed his chest with one hand. It felt as if that hand was pressing his own heart.

Suddenly, he rembered a ti in the past when he had been flustered in a similar way. It was from a long ti ago when he first t Abel. He had also cried in the forest. It was when Abel had ntioned his master.

Sohow, his crying bothered him, so he stopped biting his shoulder. It felt as if he had returned to that ti. He didn’t know what to do and felt like a confused child. At that mont, Abel looked up first. His heart sank as he t his tear-filled green eyes.

“Why are you crying?”

When he asked softly, it seed like he understood. Abel slightly opened his mouth. He seed to be trying to hold back his tears and say sothing, but he lowered his head again as if it was difficult. After swallowing his tears for a while, he opened his mouth again. A reason that sounded like a lie ca out mixed with his crying.

“Just... sob... I tripped... # Nоvеlight # and it hurt.”

Karas couldn’t believe it, but he couldn’t dismiss it either. Abel started laughing with a face that was a ss of tears.

“I fell down. Sob, I’m... I’m such a fool, right? I fell down and it hurts, just, it hurts.”

Abel tried to keep laughing. However, to Karas’ eyes, it felt louder than anyone else’s cries.