Chapter 74
What barely allowed him to endure was the memory of Hermane, who was recorded in history as a benevolent and wise sage king.
The nation that he and Hermane had founded together—and that Hermane had lovingly nurtured until the day she died—grew more prosperous with each passing day. That fact was a point of pride for Promeon.
Even when other kingdoms of the world collapsed under royal tyranny and popular rebellion, Hermeon weathered its crises through clever reforms.
All the while, Promeon watched them as though from afar, slowly wearing away like an immovable rock standing tall in the middle of a vigorously flowing current.
He felt his memories of the past grow faint, his human emotions dull, and the very meaning of his existence rust and creak. The only thing that sustained him was the name of a single person.
‘Hermane.’
Not even their long-ago separation could carve that name out of him. Even the loathsome curse failed to erase her completely.
‘Hermane.’
Rather, the more he chewed over his primordial memories, the more that single part was distilled, seeping into his soul as a dense obsession.
‘Hermane.’
Loneliness fueled longing. In a world where no one remained who remembered him anymore, he clung like a madman to the memories of the person he had loved most in his human days.
‘Hermane.’
Without that, he could not endure this desolate immortality.
‘Hermane.’
He had to get her back, no matter what.
That was why, hundreds of years after her death, the cursed hero descended into the underworld in search of his lover’s soul.
Ordinarily, humans have no concept of reincarnation.
In principle, a soul experiences only one life. After that life is concluded, it descends to the underworld and is judged according to its deeds in the living world.
Only in cases where someone dies unjustly due to another’s malice before completing their allotted lifespan, or when a soul must pay for its sins through the punishment of reincarnation, does a soul receive a new body and return to the surface.
Promeon knew that Hermane had no chance of reincarnating.
She had lived out her full natural lifespan to the very end, and she had committed nothing deserving of punishment. There was no reason for her to be cast back into the living world.
Hermane’s soul was probably enjoying endless rest in a paradise cut off from the living world, together with the souls of other good people.
A righteous voice sharply pricked Promeon’s conscience, telling him that if he truly loved her, he should not disturb her peaceful eternal sleep.
However, Promeon had long since stopped living according to his conscience. And even if he had still been inclined to listen to morality, he would not have been able to resist the sweet, destructive temptation.
He was too lonely. Loneliness had quite literally driven him mad. The solitude piled up over hundreds of years was more than what someone who had once been human could bear.
To begin with, even the gods he knew were not a race particularly strong against loneliness. Though their sense of time and the power they wielded were utterly different from humans, their essence was, in truth, quite similar.
Now that he could truly wield divine power freely, Promeon tore open the boundary between the living world and the underworld, carving a path for himself and crossing over.
A river of unfathomable depth blocked his way, but no longer human, he had no need to helplessly immerse himself in the River of Oblivion.
Promeon created a bridge upon the surface of the water with eternally burning fire, stepped upon the flames, and crossed the river.
He shoved aside the gatekeepers of the underworld, passed by the kings who judged the dead, and entered the most beautiful and mysterious paradise of the nether realm.
There, Promeon found Hermane—neither an old woman nor a middle-aged one, but in the form of a young girl, barefoot and playing in a fresh green meadow.
“……Hermane.”
“Promeon?”
When the intruder who had trampled into the underworld’s order called out in a hoarse voice, the silver-haired, blue-eyed girl stopped running and widened her eyes.
“Promeon!”
She cried out brightly. Truly delighted, she ran toward her lover with a radiant smile. Promeon immediately spread his arms, and the girl threw herself into his embrace without hesitation.
Promeon hugged her, dropped to his knees, and rubbed his cheek against her silk-like silver-white hair. He tried not to cry, but failed. Tears spilled helplessly from his eyes.
“Promeon, how did you get here? What brings you here?”
The girl chattered on. Just as she looked like she had returned to the healthiest and most innocent time of her life, her speech and gestures truly resembled those of a small child.
Because Promeon continued to hold her tightly without letting go, she did not see his tears. He steadied himself with a brief deep breath.
“I missed you. I came because I longed for you.”
He avoided answering the first question and gently replied to the second. Even that answer left much unsaid.
Confessing that he simply missed her was not enough. There was no way to explain, piece by piece, how broken and twisted he had become over the hundreds of years since everyone close to him had died.
And even if he tried to explain, it was doubtful whether Hermane in her current state could understand.
The living world and the underworld were fundamentally different realms. There was an essential wall between a being belonging to the living world and a soul that had crossed into the underworld.
Just as Promeon had endured hundreds of years alone after Hermane’s death, her time must also have flowed for just as long here.
As a result, her memories would have faded, her emotions thinned, and the complex joys and sorrows of the living world would have become a very distant tale.
The time she lived as a king, and the days she spent with her lover, were now stories from an entirely different world. To her, they were merely a past that had passed—a burden of a former life long since set down.
The moment he looked into the girl’s clear eyes, Promeon realized this. Unlike himself, whose insides were grotesquely rotten, his lover’s soul was excessively pure.
Captivated by her innocent gaze, Promeon rubbed her soft cheeks. He held the longed-for sensation in his hands, but there was none of the fulfillment he had dreamed of. Instead, an even deeper emptiness swelled within him.
“And you? Didn’t you miss me?”
Promeon asked in a trembling voice. Judging by the years lived in the mortal world, he was far older—but the way he clung to the girl now was worse than that of a small child.
“Of course I missed you, Promeon. I really missed you.”
Her once-transparent gaze clouded over for a moment. Seeing her once-innocent face darken with sadness, Promeon felt an intense surge of joy.
‘So she hasn’t forgotten me.’
At that moment, he felt even more keenly just how broken he truly was. To feel happiness upon seeing the sorrow on his lover’s face—this was something he would never have done when he was human.
‘You were thinking of me too. You missed me…….’
Even after realizing this, he felt no shame or guilt whatsoever. He had no will to reproach himself. In fact, he could not even understand why he should.
Broken and twisted, yet with his longing for his lover intact, he had forced his way into the underworld like a monster driven by obsession alone.
The one he desired so desperately was right in front of him. He decided to simply ignore how different she was from the way he remembered her in the living world. It did not feel particularly important right now.
“Hermane, come back to the living world with me.”
“Huh? What?”
“Let’s go back together, Hermane.”
“But, Promeon.”
“I came all the way down to the underworld to find you. I endured hundreds of years alone without you. I can’t anymore. I won’t. If I have to endure even one more day, I’ll burn everything to the ground. What meaning does a world without you have anyway?”
“Promeon!”
“If I could have died and come down here, I would have done it long ago. But I can’t. Don’t say it’s because I didn’t try hard enough. I tried to die countless times. I jumped into water, tried hanging myself, even stabbed my own heart with a sword. I swallowed hundreds of different poisons, but I won’t die. I think I really became a body that lives forever.”
“You, you…….”
“You missed me too, Hermane. You said you missed me. So let’s go back together. I’ll find a way somehow. And if the underworld’s army comes after us, I’ll burn them all.”
“Ah, Promeon.”
The girl began to cry. Promeon could not understand why she was crying so sorrowfully, or why she was looking at him with such a wretched, pity-filled gaze.
Once he returned to the living world with her, his loneliness would be resolved anyway. That kind of pity was unnecessary. Even as joy swelled within him, confusion crept in.
“Hermane, let’s go. We can sneak out without the gatekeepers noticing. If we find a suitable body in the living world, you can reincarnate right away.”
Promeon whispered gently as he stroked her starlight-like hair. The girl looked at him with tear-filled blue eyes, then replied softly, her voice still brimming with grief.
“Promeon, no. I can’t go.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m already dead. It’s been hundreds of years since I died. There’s no place for me in the living world now. And there probably never will be.”
As the girl choked up, Promeon’s expression hardened. The sense of dissonance and confusion he had felt all along rapidly spread within him. It felt as though he had swallowed poison; his breath caught.
“I’m sorry, Promeon. I really am. But my place is here now. I can’t leave the underworld. I’m truly sorry…….”
“……I don’t understand. What are you saying right now? You’re saying you’ll stay here without me? You’ll send me back to the living world alone? Me, alone, again?”
“Promeon.”
“You’re not saying this seriously, are you? You wouldn’t do this to me.”
His deeply sunken voice was not angry or pleading—it sounded genuinely unable to comprehend, which made it all the more chilling. Promeon stared at the girl in pure incomprehension.
At some point, the girl slipped out of his arms and stepped backward. As she retreated, Promeon closed the distance just as persistently, following her closely. His gaze was fixed on her tear-soaked face.
“Hermane, I really don’t understand. Why won’t you come with me? And why are you avoiding me right now?”
“Promeon, I’m sorry. But we’re already over. Our bond began in the living world……. And now, I’m not someone who belongs there.”
Every word the girl spoke through her sobs was rational and factual. Yet Promeon did not want to accept it. He could not accept it.
