PRU | Chapter 1.7

It was just a matter of crushing Jaehwan’s flesh with brute force. When Jaehwan lifted his head to breathe and his whole body jerked, the man abandoned the hand motion that had been tearing cloth and slammed Jaehwan’s head into the wall.

Bang bang bang.

After repeating it three or four times, the strength drained out of Jaehwan’s body. By then, Jaehwan had no spare energy to care whether he breathed or not. With his head pressed into the pillow, it was hard even to open his eyes.

The man skillfully ravaged Jaehwan with one hand. The left arm had already slipped out from the shoulder and could not move. At the rough sensation drilling in, Jaehwan felt a moment like eternity.

After Mehion left, Jaehwan suffered for three days and nights. Alestia asked for a priest, but Mehion did not allow it. So Jaehwan had no choice but to bear the fever in full. The wound was also left there, crudely treated with medicine that had not developed beyond what the priest could do.

In addition, because his meals had been poor for the past several months, not only would the wound not heal, the fever also would not go down easily. Alestia tried to make Jaehwan eat something, but the completely ruined inside of his mouth could not easily even take in water.

When he got up after being sick, Jaehwan looked even less lively than before. The dislocated left shoulder had been set back into place long ago while Alestia looked after him. Alestia informed him that Alpeon had come to see him while he had been unconscious, but Jaehwan, who had already lost his vitality, did not have the energy to be happy at that news.

What pained Jaehwan, though, was the fact that, beginning from that night, Mehion had sent word to Alestia that he would come again if Jaehwan recovered.

Even so, that promise was almost no different from indefinite, because Mehion did not send a priest to Jaehwan at all. Therefore, Jaehwan’s treatment was left almost entirely to his own healing ability. That did not mean Alestia forcibly changed his meals to high-nutrition ones.

She only mixed them appropriately and told Jaehwan to try one or two bites. Jaehwan did not resist that level of force and followed along. Only his appetite kept dropping until his bones and joints were visible.

In the meantime, Alpeon had tried to meet Jaehwan, but with the words that it was the king’s order, Alpeon was not even allowed near the palace where Jaehwan lived. Jaehwan had become depressed about his own body, which was recovering more and more, and he started self-harming in between.

It quickly became a habit after the impulsive acts he had committed from fear of meeting the king. He tore at his hands, the backs of his feet, his legs, and so on, with a heavy candlestick several times. But before long, he was caught by Alestia, who found it strange that the bruises on his arms and legs were increasing, and all dangerous decorations were taken away.

The wounds all healed, and the scheduled fear approached one step at a time. The only thing he could avoid was conversation with Alestia and the maids. Etiquette lessons were cut off. The reason was that Jaehwan had been injured.

In his isolated state, Jaehwan’s face gradually began to return from a blue color like a Mongolian spot to its own white color. The marks on his wrists were disappearing too, but Jaehwan’s psychological trauma did not seem to improve. Jaehwan’s reactions had become slower than before. Whenever Alestia or a maid tried to call to him in even a slightly small voice, there were countless times when he did not answer.

“Apene.”

“…….”

“Apene!”

“Huh? Huh.”

“You must not go around so absent-mindedly like that. What would you have done if I had been another noble?”

Whenever he answered with a blank expression, Alestia scolded him while teaching Apene’s manner of conduct, and Jaehwan nodded. Now, the only self-harm Jaehwan could do was biting the back of his hand, and the only thing he paid attention to was the condition of his own body. His body was recovering faster and faster as it rode the wave of recovery. It was ominous.

King. Lord. Leader of Sin Kala. Servant of Sin Kala. Call him whatever you like. The ruler of this place was that sort of being. Mehion poured blue liqueur into the glass. Already the third bottle. Rage was eroding the king’s mind. Mehion was always angry. Why did I have sex with Apene? Dirty blood. The liqueur wets the king’s throat.

From the first, from the next, and after that too, it was always rage. This thing called rage was very cunning, and in an instant it had taken away Mehion’s control. Whenever he came to his senses, the deed was already done. He had no intention of making excuses.

It was probably something he had wanted. Even so, what made him sick of it was having sex with Apene. There was not even no one else, so why Apene of all people. It was disgusting. But Apene had a side that made Mehion’s head turn.

Mehion filled the glass again. The gold glass became awkwardly distorted when it met the blue light. Embossed on the glass was the jackal, the animal of Sin Kala. What it always felt like, playing in Kala’s hands.

He touched the ruby set in the jackal’s eye with his hand. Mehion drank the liqueur all at once. On days when he did not drink at all, he could not sleep soaked in pain. On days like this, he also hated women.

Mehion rose from the chair and walked aimlessly. The things he was trying hard to think about were the other kings coming to celebrate the newly arrived Apene, and Apene, and the one who had gone to the Gray Wolf’s territory,

Those were not new thoughts. Mehion drank half the liqueur bottle in one go. Let’s think new thoughts. This festival was to give thanks to Sin Kala for the harvest finishing successfully. The budget set this time was 500,000 gold coins. It was an unprecedented scale. And it also included thanks for Apene coming down this quickly.

Blue water had soaked into the end of his sleeve. This robe now had to be thrown away. He would offer a wine-dilution bucket made of gold and silver to the temple. And the high priest would come out and offer a prayer. A sheep, a cow, one horse each would be offered to Sin Kala. Only the very highest-grade ones were slaughtered.

It was not as though beasts or people necessarily survived just because they were top-grade. So Kala always sent only second-rate Apene. Because those who lived in the cleanest places were always likely to die quickly in a changing environment. But the lower-grade ones were also too crude, so they often died too. Still, Kala did not send things like fish that lived in first-class water even if they died. So his mother,

Let’s think new thoughts. The liqueur was already showing the bottom. Because of the side effects of drinking too much, the trembling hand had stained the neck area blue. The title of Red Lion was pitiful. He had tried to act stupid while drunk, but this head would not listen.

Mehion lifted his head. It was a concubine. That too was a lower-grade one. What he wanted to call was not that. Everyone was a lower-grade one, but different things appeared each time. Nausea rose up.

He thought of Apene. Apene was a fucking idiot. A man, yet not manly, with the same black hair and black eyes, but dumber and not even pretty like the Apene of the Gray Wolf. A stupid Apene who could do nothing but cry. The only things he did here were eat and sleep.

The Apene of the Silver Elephant had successfully finished the canal construction, and the Apene of the White Tiger was a famous swordsman. The Apene of the Gray Wolf would, setting other things aside, give the Gray Wolf an heir. Then what feat on earth could his own Apene accomplish with that gaunt body?

That inferior thing. The only thing it could do was breathe. If anything, the writhing of plants living in the desert was more awe-inspiring and beautiful. It didn’t even have the ability of a mage. It had only shattered an innocent mana stone. It would have been better if it had not resembled him.

No more new thoughts came. He wanted to hear about the Apene of the Gray Wolf. Mehion thought in a dazed state. He wanted to hear it. His aimless steps continued, staggering. The thoughts could no longer continue. Because he had emptied the liqueur bottle.

Jaehwan peered outside through the gap in the wooden window, holding his breath.

This world without glass, this world that did not have all the conveniences of civilization, used wooden windows. By opening and closing the shutters made of wood, it allowed opening and closing, and the entry of sunlight.

But the wooden window in this bedroom, unlike the other wooden windows that were well maintained, had a tiny gap in the shutter. Alestia had found it and said she would repair it, but Jaehwan refused. He would block it anyway when winter came. There was no need to close it early. The northern winter was harsh anyway.

The always-arriving night made Jaehwan remain lonely and fearful until dawn. Jaehwan opened the window a little. The foreign night was beautiful, but it dragged his worried heart in front of Jaehwan’s eyes and shook it there. Jaehwan, who fell asleep whenever pain came during the day and he could no longer concentrate on books, was powerless in front of the night with its head held stiffly high.

He could not sleep.

A single satellite always circled this planet, testing gravity. Jaehwan thought that if he were also a satellite and the Earth would pull him in, that would be nice. This place was lonely. Rather than being this lonely, it would be better to become dust of the universe, drift about, and one day be swallowed by a black hole. Jaehwan, who counted stars every night, thought that.

Therefore, it was not such a surprising thing that Jaehwan, who that day was envying the satellite here, curved like the tip of a fingernail and suffered, discovered Mehion wandering around like a madman.

Jaehwan sensed the faintly visible Mehion faster than anyone and closed the window. That was half instinct. A heart that worried more than anyone else sometimes drew out abilities beyond what the body allowed. Unlike his quick movement, Jaehwan sat down without a sound. After catching his breath a few times, he finally got up and looked at the movement outside.

His hands trembled violently. His legs were shaking so much that he could not stand. It seemed like tears were coming too, but when he raised his hand and touched the corner of his eye, there were none. Panting, he kept following Mehion with his eyes. It was like a horror movie, because the moment he took his eyes off him, it felt as if he would be coming up behind him.

The wild-dog-like Mehion held a bottle in one hand and glared at the concubine before leaving quickly. His legs gave out, and he ended up in a half-kneeling posture. Jaehwan pressed his face against the wall. The cold chill climbed up the wall.