Even If Everyone Hates You - Chapter 2

“Is this the path you wanted? To stain your hands with so much blood with the excuse that you cannot control your own power?”

Sjoerd’s lips quivered in response to the question that seemed genuinely perplexed. His throat, which had remained unmoved even under torrents of blame for the horrific truth, twitched.

He felt he should say something, though he didn’t know what to say. But all that came out of his opened mouth was not a voice, but a clot of dark red blood.

With a low cough, blood spilled out. Each time his chest heaved, swelling and sinking, Sjoerd spat out blood. Prince Reuschers watched the scene in silence for a moment.

Sjoerd’s body, once among the strongest in the kingdom, had now reached its limit due to the combined attack of all the Tudurs of the kingdom.

He was doomed to die anyway, even without being beheaded. Death was approaching. Sjoerd’s insides were a mess, and his exterior was like a rag.

“There is no one to save you. The Crown Prince has entrusted me with your fate.”

Upon hearing that the Crown Prince he had always served wouldn’t come to save him, Sjoerd closed his eyes.

It was something he had anticipated from the moment he regained consciousness and realized what he had done.

The number of people he had killed during his rampage was too many to count. In such a situation, not even the King, let alone the Crown Prince, could save him. No one could.

The end of his lifelong loyalty felt futile. He wondered if all the blood spilled following the orders of the Crown Prince was just for this end. The Crown Prince, who had taken him in with a promise to clear his mother’s unjust death, ultimately achieved nothing.

No one could have expected that he would go on such a rampage. Even though it seemed inevitable, the absence of his Guide and master, who was always supposed to be by his side to calm him down, felt miserably wretched.

It wasn’t anger or betrayal that overwhelmed him, but agony.

His heart felt emptily hollow, despairingly fearful.

His soul, which had felt nothing for so long, suddenly regained its emotions.

And Sjoerd was crushed by unbearable loneliness.

Was this the end of a life he had run through without looking back? Since losing his mother unjustly, Sjoerd had lived for only one thing—to firmly establish the Crown Prince, who had sworn to clear his mother’s innocence, on the throne. He killed many of the Nirah, accumulating merits, and kept a check on Prince Reuschers, the second prince.

But now, the only person he had by his side, the Crown Prince, was not here. He would not even witness his death.

It was just hollow.

Sjoerd painfully opened his eyes and saw those surrounding him.

Zion, with bloodshot red eyes glaring at him, was a beloved Tudur of the kingdom.

Nova, a girl who admired and followed Sjoerd.

And Stella, a colleague who cared for him even after he had driven everyone away.

Among all these Tudur, only Sjoerd was hideous.

He was utterly alone here, receiving contemptuous glances from everyone he knew, abandoned even by the master he had served.

Turning his eyes away from them, Sjoerd gazed at Prince Reuschers. Seeing Sjoerd’s pale face devoid of any will to resist, the prince quietly placed the tip of his sword at the center of his chest.

The prince’s eyes, containing the purple of the night sky, looked intently down at him. Gazing at the prince’s unshaken, cold face, Sjoerd suddenly recalled a past memory.

“Id. Don’t leave me…”

There was a time when only Sjoerd had embraced the young prince. Since the day he approached the prince in the abandoned palace, whom no one else sought, the prince followed Sjoerd like a young bird. But that was a story of a very distant past.

With the fall of his family, on the day Sjoerd told the prince he would not come to him anymore, the prince clung to his feet, crying, desperately and intensely, as if his status meant nothing to him.

For a fleeting moment, the wet purple eyes of the prince from that day overlapped with the prince standing before him, and Sjoerd faced a painful realization.

All those standing before him were those he had personally forsaken.

“There will never be anyone as terrible as you in this world.”

The prince sealed his lips as if he no longer wished to exchange words. The pale hand gripping the sword hilt showed blue veins. After a brief silence, long, straight fingers tightened around the hilt. The determined hand moved swiftly.

Sjoerd felt the sword pierce through with a crunch. An excruciatingly cold pain sliced through his bones and plunged deep into his body. His breath caught in his throat. His barely beating heart split, signaling the end.

The pain was momentary. Soon, his consciousness began to scatter.

On the path that seemed both fleeting and eternal, Sjoerd confronted intense regret. He wondered if everything leading to this end was truly what he had wanted.

Yes, one thing was certain. Sjoerd never wanted to kill all these people. He had lived without anyone by his side for a purpose, but underneath that action was always the intention to fulfill his duty. He sacrificed a few lives to protect many more, all driven by that will.

If he could somehow turn back time, even just for a day, he would have killed himself to prevent this from happening.

But in the end, it was just a belated regret of a dying man, an impossible wish.

His consciousness, tinged with regret, dispersed. Darkness descended, and he felt nothing. As his physical body vanished, complete oblivion approached.

Just as he was fading into the darkness, Sjoerd was suddenly swept into a bizarre, unsettling illusion.

The royal palace in broad daylight was ablaze, and Nirahs were crawling over the broken walls. Many were trampled or devoured by the large and small dark monsters, and the sun that illuminated the sky suddenly disappeared, bringing a moonless night. The Nirahs, reclaiming their night, massacred everyone fleeing. Blood flowed like rivers, and screams filled the air.

“What in the world…?”

Sjoerd frantically surveyed his surroundings. No Tudur, tasked with slaying the Nirahs, were to be seen. Meanwhile, people continued to disappear, devoured by Nirahs amidst their agonizing screams.

“Stop, just stop it! Where is everyone!”

Sjoerd’s cry did not come out as sound. It just echoed terribly in his mind. As his eyes were filled with countless deaths, the scene before him shifted.

Inside the crumbling palace, Sjoerd saw Prince Reuschers standing alone with a sword. Dead knights lay scattered at his feet. A shadow cast over the prince alone, as a massive Nirah, unlike any seen before, approached.

The snake-like monster, seemingly conjured from twisted nightmares, opened its vast maw and lunged toward Reuschers.

And at the moment the monster’s maw engulfed the prince, Sjoerd opened his eyes.