ERTHMB Chapter 75

A Distant Person

 

Eden, having realized something, set down the portrait with a faint smile.

 

“I’ve seen it.”

 

Then, as if nothing had happened, he opened his book again. It was such a composed and natural gesture that it stopped Eugene, who had been about to question him hastily.

 

‘Was the sharpness I saw ultimately greed after all?’

 

Those who want something always hide their hand first. It’s a priority to assess how much value what they possess holds.

 

Eugene tucked the painting into his coat and instead opened his money pouch. Three gold coins landed with a thud on the glossy desk surface.

 

Eden, who glanced at them, picked one up with his right hand while holding the book in his left.

 

As expected. A cold sneer crossed Eugene’s lips.

 

However, the words that followed completely betrayed his calculations.

 

“Do you know this? Long ago, people used stones or shells as currency. It’s been less than a few centuries since modern currency began functioning as currency.”

 

The gold coin spun round and round between his slender fingers. Eden continued speaking without taking his eyes off the movement.

 

“Among them, gold coins valuable enough to be accepted across the entire continent are, when you consider their essence, not much different from stones. They’re a mixture of minerals that have undergone high-intensity heat and pressure over vast periods of time… which is why so many alchemists are obsessed with them.”

 

“Do I look like I paid for time to listen to a bookstore owner’s tedious discourse?”

 

“I’m declining with the utmost politeness.”

 

Eden lightly flicked the gold coin, caught it, and placed it back on the desk.

 

“Unfortunately, my tongue isn’t light enough to be loosened by mere yellow pebbles.”

 

This time Eden sneered. Eugene could wait no longer. He grabbed the collar of Eden, who had been leaning back leisurely in his chair.

 

“Enough with the word games. Confess about Helena right now.”

 

“Is this the only means you use to get the answers you want? It’s not just unfortunate… it’s pitiful.”

 

Without showing any sign of tension, Eden didn’t erase his sneer.

 

Eugene suddenly conceived a hypothesis. If someone responds to neither bribes nor violence, there’s only one reason. The person is involved with the information.

 

Prominent tendons stood out on Eugene’s hand.

 

“You must be in cahoots with that man.”

 

“……”

 

Instead of answering, Eden curled up the corners of his mouth. Eugene slammed his hand holding the collar down onto the desk.

 

Crack!

 

The teacup fell over from the vibration. Warm hazel-colored liquid soaked the wooden surface and dripped onto the floor with quiet drip, drip sounds.

 

Eden, who had struck his head hard, coughed and wheezed. But before long, even that was forcibly stopped. Eugene tightly squeezed his gasping windpipe.

 

Without giving him the slightest gap to escape, Eugene composed his breathing, which had become slightly rough with anger.

 

“Perfect. I was planning to kill that bastard first anyway. I appreciate you saving me the trouble.”

 

“Hah, gasp… You?”

 

Eden managed to scrape together the remaining air in his lungs and spoke well. The nuance was less about whether he would really kill him, and more about whether he dared to try.

 

Eugene’s eyes became bloodshot.

 

“You don’t seem to grasp whose situation is pitiful right now—”

 

The growling voice stopped mid-sentence. More precisely, it was cut off by Eden’s laughter.

 

A hollow laugh squeezed through the narrow airway. It wheezed like hyperventilation, grotesque in its intensity.

 

When the brain lacks oxygen, one can lose their mind. Had he gone insane?

 

Eugene’s eyebrows curved deeply at the untimely pleasant sound.

 

However, Eden collected his laughter and spoke with the clearest pronunciation possible.

 

“It was enjoyable. Let’s meet again if we get the chance.”

 

Whoosh.

 

With a sound like air escaping, Eugene’s center of gravity shifted forward. The lightened weight in his grip hit him all at once. The neck he had been gripping had vanished without a trace.

 

Silence descended on the quaint space. The heavy ticking of the clock’s second hand approached.

 

Eugene slowly straightened his upper body, feeling the crisp morning air on his skin.

 

On the desk where he had been pressing down on Eden, something that hadn’t been there moments before had appeared. Chaotic lines forming geometric patterns.

 

It was a magic circle woven with very complex formulas. The crimson lines were cooling like extinguished cigarette embers, still holding the heat of having just been activated.

 

‘Was he..a mage?’

 

A slight crack appeared in his mind, which had been filled entirely with Helena until now. A new figure began to settle in the opened gap.

 

The man he had always wanted to kill. The man who kept a mage—essentially equivalent to a heavy weapon—as his subordinate.

 

‘What exactly is his identity?’

 

If such a person was by Helena’s side, he needed to be removed immediately.

 

There was never a force that always flowed in one direction. Whether he would be a threat or a shield to her was unknown.

 

Nevertheless, Eugene wasn’t greatly anxious. In truth, it was because he knew the answer. The fact that his worry about Helena’s safety had lessened was proof of that.

 

But he deliberately suppressed it. His insides ached from forcibly swallowing it. The truth that he was more of a threat to her would eat away at and rot his organs the more he harbored it. But he couldn’t bring himself to voice it.

 

Eugene muttered quietly after a dry wash of his face.

 

“…So distant. You’re too distant, Helena.”

 

Next to the magic circle stamped like a wax seal, some bloodstains remained. Though he had made them himself, Eugene looked down at them as if they were someone else’s doing.

 

The three gold coins left lying there as well. And the tea fragrance quietly soaking his shoe tips.

 

It felt like returning to when he first met her.

 

Back then too, possessing you was this difficult.

 

****

 

The late Grand Duke Evergale–Aslan Kaumshvarts von Evergale.

 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Evergale’s history was rewritten under that name.

 

Aslan was a human too great to be contained by the word “superhuman.” He was an extreme genius who was already rubbing shoulders with society’s notables while his peers were just entering the academy.

 

Cold judgment, exceptional intellect, and innate business acumen. It was natural that he would distinguish himself as soon as he entered politics and business.

 

[Your Grace will continue to stay here, won’t you? The North may be rich in resources, but it’s also a cold and barren land with just as many monster lairs…]

 

[According to rumors, the massive townhouse currently being built in the city belongs to the Grand Duke.]

 

[His Majesty the Emperor also seemed to want to keep him by his side.]

 

Everyone predicted the same thing. Even if only to avoid wasting his versatile abilities, Aslan would plant his stakes in the capital where the imperial palace was, rather than in the desolate North.

 

However, he left like the wind, never mind planting stakes. As soon as war broke out, he threw away everything he had built and willingly rushed to the battlefield.

 

And after more than a decade of bloody fighting, he finally offered victory. Afterward, he showed the shocking behavior of donating vast wealth to the imperial family, saying it should help restore the devastated nation.

 

Hero who led the era, genius of the century, perfect savior.

 

The merits worthy of countless epithets deserved to be recognized with overflowing rewards. Yet he didn’t desire power. He didn’t crave wealth.

 

He didn’t even harbor the ambition to be separated into a duchy. He barely accepted the Grand Duke title as minimal face-saving and finally planted his stakes only in the North. He chose to remain only as the empire’s solid iron fortress.

 

[What’s the point of clinging desperately to things you can’t take with you when you die? All the sensations you feel while alive are wealth.]

 

He simply pursued pure power. He coveted breaking through human limitations. If you grasp that one thing, power, wealth, honor, and such naturally follow. There was no need to chase their tails.

 

Having reached the top in every arena, there was only one thing he desired.

 

To leave Aslan Kaumshvarts von Evergale’s seed in the world.

 

To raise a perfect and flawless successor who resembled him.

 

So it was natural, in a way, that he was a person who valued ability with ruthless emphasis.

 

Before him, even his own child was nothing more than a monkey who had to prove their usefulness.

 

In the end, he may have been a hero, but he wasn’t a good father.

 

—So thought thirteen-year-old Eugene.

 

‘You must already know this yourself.’

 

It was the day he lost first place at the academy for the first time. Eugene was called to Aslan’s study around evening.

 

He was able to come out when dawn broke. It took some time because he came out limping.

 

As if even that slow movement was disgusting to watch, Aslan brought down the belt in his hand on his still-unformed back.

 

“If you’re going to exist with only that level of usefulness, you shouldn’t have been born as my son.”

 

Terribly, the pain became worse after that night. The wounds that had torn his entire body wouldn’t heal easily. It was because of Aslan’s order that he would cut off the hands and feet of anyone who treated his wounds.

 

Eventually, the long tear near his collarbone became infected. Throughout that particularly rainy summer vacation, it repeatedly healed and burst open, tormenting Eugene.

 

Ridiculously, Aslan was satisfied even with that. He said that now a reminder to steel his heart was carved into his body every time he looked in the mirror.

 

It was the first night Eugene could never forget.

 

And when he turned seventeen, that second night came.

 

It was the day he was finally recognized as the heir of Evergale. After the appointment ceremony ended, as expected, Aslan sought out Eugene.

 

He seated Eugene in his massive chair and began to speak.

 

“Eugene. You must have felt enough through the life you’ve lived so far. From the moment you were born under Evergale’s blessing, there was nothing you couldn’t have. There will be nothing you can’t have in the future either.”

 

Aslan, standing behind Eugene, pressed down on his shoulders firmly.

 

“However, this thing called the world, this thing called logic, always tries to maintain balance. Do you understand what I mean?”

 

A suffocating sense of intimidation settled on his shoulders along with the pressure. Eugene knew he hadn’t asked because he wanted an answer. Without showing any sign of agreement, he sat silently waiting for the next words to continue.

 

Aslan smiled for the first time in a long while at his attitude.

 

“It means that as much as you can have everything, you must be able to accomplish everything. You must accomplish it. The moment you submit even once, you’ll remain nothing but a loser.”

 

“…I understand.”

 

“Yes, but you must not know such feelings. I lived my entire life without knowing them. Even if I suffocated, I never felt what the emotion of defeat was.”

 

Aslan removed the hand that had been gripping his shoulder. As he did so, he straightened his upper body that had been leaning over Eugene.

 

“I want my child to be the same. You don’t have the duty to surpass me. But you must not let me remain as your shadow.”