Chapter 105

Obviously, I didn’t know anything. The prince and I continued to walk the quiet hallway, and I wondered if where we were going right now would really give us a safe haven. Prince Camille kept saying that there were things we didn’t know in this world. He told me, “I read that in ancient times, the Goddess Ara claimed that her soul was in a land in the middle of a lake in the faraway west land. So when our ancestors found Minurd after a long search, what do you think they thought? The people they found that spoke a completely different language and looked different… Our ancestors invaded this land and took it away from them, calling it the will of the Goddess…”

“So you are saying these people were Hwenian, right?”

“Juya…”

The boy prince sighed deeply. He was the most knowledgeable scholar among all of us, but I wasn’t sure what the purpose of his knowledge was. He continued slowly, “We were being chased, so I had no choice but to bring us to this place, but… I think there is a deeper meaning to why you were brought here…”

The prince stopped walking and talking at the same time. He was looking down on the ground, and after a long silence, he continued, “This place, Minurd, used to not belong to any kingdom. Only the wise priestess and priests lived here, and no, they weren’t Hwenian. They were the owners of this place. Our ancestors were just invaders. They were, and we are, murderers of those who used to live here. Hwen worshipped Minurd as a sacred place at the time, and when it was invaded, they believed this place was ruined. They believed that we made it impure, so they tried to drive our people out of this place for a long time, but they didn’t do so to rule this place themselves.”

Oh. This was some deep stuff his highness was saying to me, and it would have made more sense for me if he just said that Hakim Karid and Hawaki fooled all of us and came here to worship some pagan god. If not… Why were all of us here? If it wasn’t as a pilgrimage or to protect this sacred place… then what?

Prince Camille continued quietly, “Just as there were many different races of different names under the rule of our Ara, Hwen, and Isnilen aren’t also their original names like we imagined…” His highness looked up ahead. To help him see better, I raised my lantern and was forced to see what laid ahead of us.

“…!”

I coughed in shock because what I saw was a path blocked with piles of dead bodies on top of each other. So the awful stench was coming from this place… I have heard the sound of water flowing, and I thought it was a small stream, but now that I thought about it, I think it must have been a stream of blood. I cringed and tried my best not to get any part of my body to touch the stone walls.

All these bodies… All these people… They all died here, deep underground.

“…hmmm.”

“Your highness… What is all this?! What happened here?”

I looked at him, wanting an explanation, but he kept staring at the pile of bodies. At first, I thought it was because he was upset, but his peaceful expression told me that he was calm, unlike me. I was so shocked when I saw that I couldn’t even dare to step up and clear the path for us.

How could his highness look so relaxed after seeing such a horrific sight? Was this really the prince I knew? The kind, warm boy I fell in love with? If he hadn’t looked so relaxed, I would have run away.

“Juya… Don’t be so surprised.”

“What?”

The prince frowned darkly and replied, “It is time. The things I can’t explain to you… I will show them to you instead.”

Prince Camille took off something from his clothes, something I thought was just an accessory, and threw it at the pile of corpses before us. His shirt fell off when he ripped off the fixture, so I grabbed it quickly.

“What? How…?”

Before I could finish my question, the prince snatched the shirt away from me and covered the both of us with it. Suddenly, a loud explosion and a horrible smell scattered around us, and the mangled pieces of the corpses came hurling at us.

Thank god his highness protected us with his shirt.

I shivered and covered my nose and my mouth quickly. What happened? When I looked at where the explosion came from, I saw that the mountain of bodies blocking our path was now gone. I noticed that the stone door that appeared from the walls pulverized the bodies.

Slowly, the door opened as it made disgusting sounds.

“… Let’s go in, Juya.”

“W-what?”

The bodies were further crushed as the door opened wider. From inside, a bright light escaped, and I wondered what it was. My hands and feet trembled, and I felt like I was going to faint. This had to be the real hell, not the one I experienced so far but an actual hell that the devil himself ruled.

Inside, I could see a shadow of a figure kneeling on the ground, holding a sword with his hands like he was praying. His arms looked tense, most likely because he was holding the sword very tightly.

I saw that other men were dragged in front of him and pushed down on the ground. Every time a man arrived in front, the man with the sword would swing his weapon to behead his victim. The corpse was thrown to the side, and this went on and on. I finally realized where all the dead bodies came from.

“Hahaha… hehehe? Ahahahah?”

I laughed hysterically, and the prince ordered me again in a subdued voice, “Let’s go inside, Juya.”

This situation was so surreal that this had to be real. Nothing made sense, especially the fact that I recognized the sword the kneeling man held so tightly even if he was far from us. The tassel decoration on its handle… The beautiful yet simple blade…

How could this be?

It was my own sword.