Grand Duke of the Heibern House

＜Episode 11＞

Ruin, who was out in front of the garden as usual to recover his skills, found Kazen.

Ruin expected that his father would find him again someday.

But I didn’t think it would come to me so soon and in person.

Ruin adjusted his clothes and bowed.

“Why don’t you come with a message? I wasn’t even ready for tea.”

However, a totally unexpected answer came out of his father’s mouth.

“Thank you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kazen’s eyes looking at the land of confinement become gloomy.

“It really is broken. I am… … I am… … I no longer have the qualifications of the head of state.”

Ruin silently follows his father’s gaze and looks at the dirt floor together.

At last my father looked not at the top of the Rider’s Castle, which he had built with glory, but at the pitiful mud beneath the walls.

Members of this family no longer live solely on honor and pride.

A group of ordinary human beings who live their lives for their own sake.

Like other aristocrats, Hibern had long since degenerated into such an ordinary aristocratic family that did not hide their stomach desires.

“Don’t say you didn’t know.”

Luin’s eyes also became gloomy.

“You didn’t want to see it. You’ve been ignoring me. That honorable Sorod, that loyal Eden, that hot-blooded Wagger thought such hypocrisy was ridiculous.”

“… … .”

“There must have been countless signs. There was just a father who didn’t want to admit it all. therefore.”

Ruin kneels in the manners of a knight.

“Please punish me first for my sin that made my father weak. This weak son’s body was the biggest cause of clouding his father’s mind.”

Kazen looked at the kneeling Ruin with an expression of incomprehension.

Soon, he opened his mouth with a complicated feeling that he couldn’t even put into words.

“How can you… … Can you?”

I couldn’t quite understand it.

A curse like a heavenly punishment carried from the family.

A young soul who has endured such a grievous illness for more than ten years.

Even if his whole heart was twisted with hatred towards his family and the world, he would nod his head.

But in the midst of this, Ruin gives comfort to himself.

It was not a question of talent or skill.

It was not a personality that one could have at that age, it was like a sage who had a philosophical view of the world, or something more.

Luin raised his head and smiled whitely.

“How do you think your father is?”

“What do you mean?”

As if observing someone else’s body, Ruin slowly begins to sweep his own body.

“If my father knew the battlefield, he would have experienced countless awakenings of knights who survived death and seemed to have become completely different beings.”

Kazen silently nodded.

The noble life of a knight was because he could gain things on the battlefield that would never be possible for ordinary people.

Therefore, there was no need to explain the harshness of the battlefield and the specialness of the experience.

“What do you think the human experience of experiencing such a fear of death every day for more than a decade would be like?”

Kazen’s pupils, which had been shaking for an instant, stopped.

“The mind is less colorful than you think. Of course, at first, you will be full of hatred and resentment toward the world. But that is fleeting compared to the desperate longing to live.”

Ruin presents his arm to his father.

“As you observe your body, which slowly dries up, your thoughts will fade away and you will only have the one thought to live.”

shake.

“Let’s wiggle some more. Let’s shake more. I feel relieved and happy with the small movements. Because moving means being alive.”

“stop… … .”

Kazen tightly closed his eyes, but Ruin’s voice did not die down.

“I was so afraid of not being able to open my eyes in the morning that I often slept without closing them. is that possible? You may have doubts. It was possible. Human obsession with life is more consistent and persistent than you think.”

The past of Ruin, who formally signed a contract with the Absolute of the Demon Realm and finally reached the level of a great mage, could not have been ordinary.

A collection of longings that have been built up over and over again by breaking the limits of what humans can endure.

That is the horror of darkness, the life that Archmage Ruin has endured.

“I had no intention of hurting my father. Since you are curious about the attitude of life that I maintain, I can only answer you.”

Kazen was momentarily dazed.

He calmly reflects on his life by comparing it to a knight experiencing the horrors of the battlefield.

There were no emotions mixed in there.

A terribly objectified gaze, as if observing the lives of others.

Kazen felt overwhelmed by the terrifyingly calm and clear eyes of his son that gave him goosebumps.

I seemed to know a little bit now.

Why did his son Ruin seem so different?

“Is this why they are curious about you… … .”

Louin questioned.

“They? Who are you talking about?”

“Do you know about the existence of Sword Hill?”

“that… … .”

It is a legend passed down like a fantasy in the kingdom.

A group of retired knights, Sword Hill!

Like the Omniscience Sages that exist in the secret place of the Mage Tower, they too were hermits of the kingdom who had tremendous power but completely turned their backs on the world.

Even if the kingdom were to perish, they would stand by and stand by.

Ruin was already well aware of their thoroughly indifferent attitude from experience.

Of course, Ruin’s expression immediately crumpled.

“Why are the old people playing on the clouds curious about me?”

“Disrespectful Ruin!”

“… … .”

Kazen, who had firmly reprimanded Ruin, soon spoke solemnly.

“Their attendants went yesterday. He said he would meet you soon, so wear the robes of a grand duke and wait here.”

“There is no need for that. house owner.”

An old man who appeared shimmering like a fantasy.

Kazen hurriedly lowered his body and bowed.

“Bite an example. How can a person who has broken a knight’s sword by himself receive the respect of a rider?”

“… … Then I will step back for a while.”

“Thank you for doing so.”

Ruin looked at the old man who suddenly appeared while bowing to his father who was moving away.

Two eyes that are silent forever.

A temperament that I dare not look at.

An existence as if it had become a sharp sword.

Its omnipotence, which slowly casts speculation around it and blocks all sound waves and vision, was like seeing the swordsman of the past.

Ruin could feel it instantly.

That this powerless old man is a superman.

However, even with such tremendous power, he finally turned a blind eye to the destruction of the kingdom.

Naturally, Ruin just stood there with cold eyes without showing any respect.

“You’re really generous.”

It was a compliment he didn’t want to hear, so Ruin was still silent.

The old man, whose name is unknown, sat down on the dirt floor without hesitation and dug his ear.

“Aren’t you curious about why I came to you after breaking the rules of Sword Hill, where you can’t get involved in the world?”

“It’s obvious, so I’m not that curious.”

“Is it obvious?”

Ruin with a shy smile.

“A superhuman super sense would have felt the disparate twist of time.”

When the absolute evil Balcassiarious descended, all time in the Hibernian area stopped for an instant.

However, it is only at a level that cannot be felt by human senses, and if it is a superhuman sense, the words are different.

“You can feel the power of a superhuman?”

Louin was laughing inwardly.

To say such nonsense while showing off superhuman skills so openly.

“It blocks all sound waves and vision around it, so you can’t be unaware of it.”

Ruin’s sensitive senses could not be fooled as long as he had restored the magician’s eyes to see the world of mana.

The old man said something that seemed to acknowledge Ruin’s skills.

“You were a wizard after all.”

At that time, the old man’s face slowly began to grow fear.

“What kind of great being has descended? I have never experienced a greater presence in my life.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

An old man who quickly gets rid of fear and shows curiosity on his face.

“Are you still young and don’t know what it means for Sword Hill to break the rules by itself?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Even if your life is at stake?”

Ruin’s expression crumpled bizarrely.

“You mean you want to kill me?”

“If necessary, of course I will.”

Louin was stunned.

Even though he retired, he would never have thought that the existence of a noble knight would demand death from himself, who was no more than a lump of blood.

Moreover, on the subject of thoroughly ignoring the destruction of the kingdom, he even broke the rules to kill himself?

“Bondi Sword Hill will not step forward even if this Berna is destroyed. That is Hill’s discipline that has been followed for over a thousand years. But you are different.”

In an instant, the old man’s eyes changed.

“I won’t ask how the Grand Duke of Bern learned magic or how he was able to summon such a high-ranking being. But if you’re sure you’ll cause disaster, I’ll break any rules in Sword Hill.”

Ruin was disgusted.

None of them were among the superhumans who died under ‘him”s absolute magic.

Those who thoroughly hid themselves when faced with a real, unimaginable disaster.

But what?

Are you going to come and play the grandiose guardian of the continent?

Louin laughed at the old man.

“If I had been more honest, it would have been a conversation. You have attached a disgusting definition to the curiosity of useless old people.”

But the old man neither trembled with contempt nor showed anger in his eyes. On the contrary, he was smiling as if it was more interesting.

“Chuck! I could never have imagined that there would be a guy who dared to talk about the curiosity of the elderly in front of the hermit of Sword Hill! Your father, Kazen, is the yard where even the standard bearers of the kingdom bow!”

Even if he didn’t know yet, he didn’t know how great Sword Hill, the sacred place of retired knights, would wield in this Lemadel kingdom.

No matter how great his magical prowess is, his eyes to see the world are at the level of a newborn child.

When the old man was looking at Ruin as if he was having fun.

For a moment, Ruin smiled at me.

“I also reap acting that is not the same. Since you are a superman, I will treat you as you deserve, old man.”

sssss-

An image of a demon appears in front of Ruin like a ghost.

Stained with dark red blood, it was a terrifying existence that could hardly be believed to be of this world.

Gyrobel, the demon god, sneers with an unimaginably cruel and grotesque expression, casting fearsome murder everywhere.

The old man instinctively raises a speculation and summons dozens of intangible swords.

The old man, who had layer upon layer of spiritual aura on all the intangible swords, let out a terrifying groan.

“… … Keugh! Eh, Demon King?”

＜Wrong. human.＞

Now Ruin was smirking at the old man as if he was having fun.

“Kill me? see where Even if my head is cut off, as long as my soul is unharmed, this Gyrobel can always resurrect me.”

“Hey, Gyrobel?”

The old man desperately searched for his memory.

However, in human history, I couldn’t remember such a name among the countless demon lords who disturbed the world.

＜Does this guy still think of me as the demon king?＞

The power to reverse death cannot be exercised by a mere demon lord.

The expression of the old man, as if he had just realized it and had lost his will to fight.

As his spirit collapsed, the swords he summoned gradually began to fade.

“… … did you drink?”

Even if only one demon king invaded the human world, hundreds of years of darkness unfolded.

The existence that commands dozens or hundreds of such demon lords is the demon god!

The old man had never even heard the name of such a stupendous being.

“I will revive you again and again. And I will risk my all to annihilate your Sword Hill. I will put my name on it.”

The horror of darkness staked its name on itself.

The old man had no idea what a terrible result it would lead to.