Chapter 96
How did she know that?
“You became my slave because of that, didn’t you? You thought if you won my favor and got me out of the empire, you could completely destroy the empire.”
Karl’s face lost expression as his mind raced.
‘It’s better to just kill this woman.’
Once he recognized her intent, seduction was out of the question. That also meant there was no clean way to spirit the Purifier away.
‘Better to kill the emperor and the woman right here — that would help bring about the empire’s destruction.’
If the one you’d branded died, he would die too. So he couldn’t simply cut her life short here.
He’d have to reduce her to a barely-living, breathing husk and then kidnap her.
It would be a problem to have to lead other Penril kin while chasing an ascended one for a while… but that didn’t matter.
‘If I use my life as a sacrifice, I can somehow stop three S-rank foes. The Penril clan won’t be destroyed.’
Karl flexed his fingers. Even with the strength of an ordinary human, there’d be no problem—
Then it happened.
“So you really plan to kill me. And then you’ll kill yourself after that.”
The woman laughed hollowly. For some reason, seeing that face drained the strength out of Karl’s hand.
Odette’s teal eyes were looking straight at him.
‘Teal eyes…’
He was certain he’d seen those eyes somewhere before.
“You said meeting me was the best luck of your life, right? Was that just a lie to win me over?”
Karl blinked without emotion. There was no need to lie, so he shook his head.
“That was sincere.”
She was someone who could spend gold for the Penril, and the perfect key to destroy the empire — such a useful woman had fell into his hands.
Of course that was the greatest luck. But…
‘Is that really all? Did I feel lucky only because of how useful she was?’
Karl felt an odd discomfort. A vibration he’d felt before made him uneasy.
“Right. That seems to be the case.”
Even while believing Karl might kill her, the woman didn’t flinch from his gaze and continued.
“Karl, listen carefully. Do you know why I said you mattered more than your ruined clan? Because you are alive.”
“……”
“If your revenge is by your own will, it’s fine. If protecting the Penril clan or sacrificing your life for vengeance is your choice, I don’t care.”
“……”
“But if you’re just being manipulated by your father’s orders, if you’re simply following commands mechanically, then don’t sacrifice your life. Your father is a bastard. You don’t have to obey the orders of someone who treats his children worse than objects.”
She said that and grabbed Karl by the collar.
“You are my slave, right? You should follow my orders, not the orders of your father’s ghost.”
Her teal eyes flashed.
At the same time Karl realized who he had met first. Why that teal gaze felt so familiar.
‘…Back then, in that cradle.’
An unseen presence. Something that had looked at Karl with pity. Didn’t that feel the same as now?
‘Ah.’
Karl understood. He didn’t know the mechanism, but that woman had been with him in that cradle.
At the same time, his father’s words from the cradle came back to him.
“Your heart, your body — use them all as tools to protect the Penril clan. If there is anything attacking the Penril kingdom, give yourself up to remove it. Your value exists only to eliminate the Penril’s enemies.”
“Karl, as your only master, I order you: defy your father’s orders.”
Hearing Odette’s steady voice, Karl felt something like shackles break in his head.
His father’s red eyes he had seen before. The Penril leader’s ability he had never known. The ‘command’ of his father that remained in him.
Karl instinctively perceived the power he could wield as a leader.
Then Karl’s eyes glowed red. He was using his modern leader’s ability to erase his father’s influence.
“…Your eyes.”
With his father’s ability gone, Karl felt cold reason returning to his mind. Erasing the ‘command’ hadn’t taken a long time or huge effort.
Blind loyalty for the clan. Unquestioning willingness to sacrifice for the clan’s protection. The overwhelming anxiety that made him feel like his existence crumbled each time the clan suffered losses.
When the brainwashing the former Penril leader had implanted was broken, Karl finally found his true self.
“…My Lady.”
“No way…”
Odette looked at him as if she could not believe it.
It felt as if he had been reborn.
He met the woman who held him with his glowing red eyes, like a chick seeing its mother for the first time after hatching.
“My master told me to give me a choice.”
Karl, suppressing a laugh that threatened to escape, spoke in a calm voice.
All his actions and feelings until now had contained no will of his own. So this — acting now according to his own will and judgment for the first time — felt so strange and yet somewhat exhilarating.
‘All my life I couldn’t get away from something so simple?’
The place where blind responsibility to the Penril had been disappeared. A greedy curiosity he couldn’t even define began to bloom.
The small white hand that had grabbed him, the red lips that had ordered him sternly and the flushed cheek from excitement. And… the teal eyes he faced again since the beginning.
Karl quickly reached a conclusion as he inspected the woman before him.
From now on the Penril name meant nothing to him. He might even kill the three children locked in the holding cell right now.
If it meant getting his master.
“It’s fortunate my master is alive.”
“…The brainwashing’s been broken.”
Odette spoke as if realizations were forming. Karl nodded meekly and gently.
He tried to look as powerless and pitiable as possible.
“My Lady…”
And he put on the most pitiable expression he could. Fortunately, because something had been broken in his head, physiological tears flowed down his face.
They were tears in his life for the first time.
“…Karl? Why are you—”
Luckily the woman looked surprised. Seeing her face, he became certain he could turn her heart.
Odette didn’t know. She didn’t know that the erstwhile Karl, who had obeyed commands blindly, was actually far closer to being human than the Karl now.
“…My Lady.”
Tears streamed down Karl’s cheeks. He shamelessly used them immediately.
“Please don’t abandon me…”
Karl willingly, happily, knelt before Odette. Please let me look pitiful. He was almost thankful to that Sion who’d half-killed him and used intimidation.
“I was wrong…”
“Karl. A- alright… calm down for now, okay?”
Theodore’s words had been right. Odette was more easily swayed by pity than she expected.
‘The time spent with those kids was useful after all.’
Indeed, Odette didn’t know what to do.
“Karl, don’t cry… okay?”
Our mistress had absolutely no talent for soothing others.
Because of that weak man’s command, Karl nearly lost such an entertaining thing. A living mistress was far more fun than a dead one.
Odette, flustered, finally spoke up.
“Alright. I’ll allow you to continue being my slave.”
Karl nodded meekly and obediently, tears falling.
With the brainwashing broken, the woman’s true value became clear to him. The one ‘something’ that had stirred him.
‘If not for this woman, I would have spent my whole life chasing that boring goal.’
Karl trembled as pitifully as he could. In his life, he’d never puzzled over ‘emotion’ like this before.
How does one act like ‘the good boy awakened from brainwashing’? He’d never contemplated goodness, so it was difficult.
Fortunately, there was no awkwardness: the vigilance in Odette’s eyes toward him had eased.
‘She’s weak to things like this, huh?’
Karl memorized his current expression. The kind of seventeen-year-old cry that would reassure his master.
