Kingdom's Bloodline, page 533
When they they heard this, every guards’ breathing became uneven.
Barney Junior’s figure swayed under the light provided by the fire. The man followed Thales’ gaze and swept it over his two comrades’ bodies. His gaze was numb, and he looked lost in his thoughts.
With great sadness, the prince watched Nalgi and Naer’s bodies. They were slowly becoming cold on the floor. He said softly, “But I somehow feel that it is the exact opposite.”
Barney Junior’s fingers curled slightly, and his breaths grew increasingly chaotic.
Thales looked up and glanced at the Prison of Bones’ underground storage room. All he saw was dust and chaos. The guards all noticed that the prince’s gaze had become unfocused, and his expression was one of perplexity.
“Nalgi said that everyone has suffered enough in this underground prison, which runs so deep that the end could not be seen, and is shrouded in darkness…
“But there is also this one man who is the one and only person who lived in a place where light shone on him.”
Barney Junior’s gaze froze for a moment. The Royal Guards were all momentarily taken aback. Thales’ voice was soft, and he chose his words carefully.
“While he was there, he had what they all lost, and it was what they desired the most.”
The teenager whose face was bruised and scruffy lowered his head to reveal a calm and relaxed smile in Barney’s direction. Barney Junior was dumbstruck.
“Compared to the others who knew what happened and chose not to voice it, or had their own secrets, you always maintained the purest determination, belief, and sincerity.”
Beldin lowered his gaze, bewildered. Tardin looked down in agony, Samel pressed down on the hilt of his sword, while Canon and Bruley were silent.
Thales spoke with his clearest and most regretful tone, “This is what they lost long ago. This is what they envy, what they are jealous of, admire, and long for the most, even though it is out of their reach. It is the most precious thing to them. It is the spark that has been saved for you, and it was built upon the premise of your father’s downfall, along with the price of your brothers’ lifelong guilt.
“It is the spark that makes them ashamed of themselves; it is what they seek, but cannot obtain, and what they do not dare to look straight into.”
Every single word was spoken clearly, and they lingered in the air. Barney Junior did not speak. He was stunned as he remained where he was. The rest of the Royal Guards were either perplexed or indignant. Each one of them had different expressions.
Thales snuck a glance at Nalgi and Naer, laid on the floor with their eyes closed, but he smiled.
“The truth is, Quill Barney, before I came here, you are your comrades’ light in the darkness. You were bright and glaring, burning and dazzling. You represented the brightest and most wonderful part of being a Royal Guard. You represented their refusal to admit defeat. They did not dare lay covetous thoughts on that spark, much less have the courage to destroy it.”
Every sentence Thales said caused Barney Junior’s chest to heave while the others looked down and sighed. Even Zakriel was no exception.
“Whether you admit it or not, Quill Barney Junior…” Thales bent down laboriously. His palm stopped for a second above the blood-stained, broken sword. Then, he slowly moved his palm sideward…
He picked up the torch by his side.
“You are the only presence that still hopes to remain loyal in this desperate world where betrayal is commonplace. You are the only coordinate that remains while they are immersed in self-reproach and guilt, and when they doubt themselves in this meaningless future. You are the only light that they can see as they look up when they struggle in this darkness that reeks of blood, and are covered in cuts and injuries all over their bodies. You are the only existence that they respect, love, admire, get jealous of, and look up to without any reservation and apprehension.
“You are the last bit of comfort for when they look back on the rest of their bitter, cold, and dark lives.”
Thales let out a long sigh and said, “In these eighteen years, you are the reason that has got them to continue living. Once all that has happened today passes, will you—”
However, Barney Junior cut the prince off, “It is false.”
He seemed somewhat ashamed, although that shame was born out of anger. His limbs and expression showed that he did not know what to do in this situation.
“It is all false! It is all false. It was all made up by their despicable behavior and betrayal.” Barney Junior shook his head in his daze and clenched his fists, as if he could stay a little more clear-headed by doing this.
“It never existed.” He growled with a rasping and weak voice. “Be it my father or someone else… Back then, th-they did not even give me a choice! They did not!”
Barney Junior was a little worked up. What he said led most of the guards to look away in shame. They did not dare look at him directly in the eye.
At this very moment, Thales suddenly strode forward. He lifted the torch in his hand high in the air. As the flame drew closer and flickered continuously, Barney Junior was overwhelmed by the light. He instinctively raised his hands to hide from it.
“No, they did not give you any choice,” the teenager said faintly, “But your life gave you one.”
Thales spoke very slowly. It allowed Barney Junior, who had become worked up, to calm down unknowingly.
Thales sighed softly again. “However, compared to the others, the choice that belongs solely to you came much later, but it matters much more compared to them, and is more significant. It is at this exact moment, right here, eighteen years later…”
Thales turned around and looked at every single person in the room, including Zakriel, who was immersed in dreariness.
“Yes, Barney. When the truth comes to light, when all pretenses are resolutely ripped to shreds and cruel confrontation is called upon…” Thales said faintly, “You will then understand that what you went through in the past is to lay out the groundwork for what decision you will make on this day.”
Decision.
As he bore with the pain in his body, Thales recalled everything that happened in the proximal world, which had seemed like a dream. He turned around again.
He gazed firmly at Barney Junior, who was avoiding talking to Thales. The second prince said softly,
“And the decision is this: what kind of person will you choose to be when you face all the darkness in this world, when you are filled with anger because of betrayal, when you feel indignant because of lies, when you feel pain because of hatred, when you are in despair because of failure, when everything you have been fighting for leaves you?”
No one said anything. There was, once again, an indescribable silence.
However, Barney Junior’s gaze was no longer unfocused. He only stared at the prince firmly. His expression was complicated, and the meaning behind it was difficult to decipher. He snorted through his nose. It was sorrowful and filled with resignation.
“It is easier said than done…” Barney Junior gritted his teeth and tilted his upper body forward as though he was resisting something with all his might. “…because you were not there!”
He gritted his teeth fiercely.
“If it were you, if you had to experience all these: betrayal, lies, hatred, failure…” Barney Junior raised his voice and said to the prince in indignation and resentment, “What about yourself? What decision would you make? What kind of person would you become?”
However, he was soon interrupted.
“It is easy.” Thales sighed. “In Constellation, my master who taught me my sword told me this on the first day of my lessons.”
In the next moment, Thales’ arm moved!
Barney Junior was startled, but he reacted quickly and caught the object Thales threw at him.
It was a torch. The one Thales had picked up from the floor.
The torch burned obstinately before Barney Junior’s eyes and illuminated him from head to toe, showing the blood flowing from his body, his scars, cuts, marks, and the brand.
The darkness surrounding him was driven away.
“She told me, ‘Hold up your shield.'” Thales spoke calmly, but there was no room for doubt. “I can only put it down in two situations.”
In that moment, Barney Junior shuddered as he held the torch. The flames flickered violently and swayed back and forth, but he never lowered the torch.
“No matter how f*cked up this world is, Barney, no matter how they try to persuade you, lie to you, and tempt you into opening up to hostility, fight an eye for an eye against hatred, surrender to anger, submit to despair, and turn into captives and slaves to their rule…”
Quick Rope, who was silently observing all of this by the side, was the first to notice that Thales’ emotions had changed.
“No matter what reality does to you, no matter how others attack, hurt, and torture you, no matter how limited the choices life gives you, and how painful they are…
“No matter how many times this damn world betrays, double-crosses, harms, and persecutes you…”
While under the illumination of the fire, Prince Thales, who went on several adventures with Quick Rope over the course of the few days they had been together, had a rarely seen, complicated expression appear on his face.
Grief, sadness, numbness… and vulnerability.
These were the emotions that Quick Rope thought would not be associated with Thales, who was optimistic, humorous, resolute, and who had a thousand tricks up his sleeves.
After he paused for a few seconds, Thales took a deep breath. “Only one thing matters the most…”
Before Barney Junior’s expression—which made him seem as if he was perplexed but also aware of something—Thales pulled a faint smile, of which other people could not tell whether it was because he felt more resigned or melancholic.
“Others can forget about changing you. They can forget about asking you to put down the shield.”
In the silent, gloomy, and dim prison, Barney Junior watched Thales with a blank expression. A scene from a very long time ago suddenly flashed before Barney’s eyes: it was of when he just joined the Royal Guards.
Back then, he was young, smug, proud, and confident.
He was annoying.
That day, he brandished the wooden sword in his hand and pointed it at the girl from the village who was in a disheveled state because she had fallen multiple times on the sand, and her entire face was full of pain…
That vain girl whom he once thought married above her rank into the royal family, gained the crown prince’s favor, and was personally handed to him in a seemingly joking manner by the prince to ‘learn some military skills’.
“‘Trust me, My Lady, the extent of how much I hate this mission is the same as the extent of how much you hate me.”‘
He still remembered how he had to withstand his comrades pointing fingers at him at the training field. During that time, he said to the ‘trainee’ appointed to him by the crown prince with disdain and loathing,
“‘Now, honorable Lady Jines, please hold up your shield.”‘
He still remembered the gaze that girl had when she struggled to her feet through gritted teeth.
“‘Only in two situations can you let it down…”‘
He remembered the sweat on her face, mixed with dust and bloodstains, and the shield she gripped firmly in her hands and never let go, no matter how badly she was beaten up by him.
“‘…You die, or your enemy dies.”‘
Barney Junior felt his vision blur.
Thales raised his voice and said, “You do not need words of comfort and forgiveness, vanguard… You only have to face yourself.”
A few seconds later, Barney, who seemed unable to withstand the prince’s hopeful and bright gaze, subconsciously lowered his head and avoided his gaze.
At this moment, his heart was in turmoil, and he did not know what to do.
“Is that possible?” Barney Junior turned to the other side and stared at the two bodies on the floor with doubt and sadness. His tone became a little hesitant.
Thales looked at Barney Junior, who gritted his teeth and held the torch high. Thales smiled faintly. “Of course. Because that was what I did.”
Thales turned around slowly and left the vanguard to look at his back, which swayed as he laboriously moved forwards. Before everyone’s gazes, the teenager took a step forward and looked up with a smile.
“From the first day, until the last.”
Translator’s Note:
1. There is a slight change in this from the raws. The original says that Zakriel was the one who knocked his sword away, but in ‘Where the Sun Does Not Shine (Two)’, it’s very clear that Thales used his mystic energy to seize his sword, so we decided to say here that Thales was the one who seized the sword instead, just to keep to consistency.
Chapter 462: Rebirth (Three) |
The remaining torch grew weaker while the underground prison grew darker. However, he felt that the underground prison had never been this peaceful and bright.
Although Barney Junior was still in an absent-minded state behind him, Thales knew that he no longer had to worry about the former vanguard’s condition.
His remaining problem was…
Thales shook his head and walked towards the last person while he endured his pain.
It was the long-faced man who had been kneeling on the floor for a long time. He was badly wounded, and there was a shade of despair on his face. He looked as if he had lost his soul.
The Knight of Judgment’s face appeared slowly before his dark field of vision. His left arm, which was seriously injured by Barney, hung stiffly on his shoulder, powerless, like the skin that had been shed by a snake.
“Alright. You’re the only one left now,” Thales said softly.
Even when he finished speaking, the Knight of Judgment still looked like he was immersed in his own world. He did not react to Thales’ words and allowed him to approach slowly.
However, at the moment Thales was ten steps away from him, Zakriel shot up like a leopard that had suddenly awoken. He instinctively drew the chipped axe beside him.
“Your Highness!” Beldin cried out in alarm and subconsciously got up to move forward.
The others registered what was going on. Samel scowled and pressed down on his weapon; Tardin, Bruley and Canon got up nervously and surrounded Zakriel; even Barney Junior snapped out of his daze and lifted his torch. But right then, Thales raised his hand at the people behind him!
“Hold on.” The prince’s voice was raspy and feeble. Everyone subconsciously stopped moving.
In the quiet stillness, Thales observed the long-faced man in front of him silently. Zakriel did not move. He only breathed while he was lost in his daze. He pointed at Thales with the weapon in his hand from afar, as if it was an instinct of his.
The air was still again.
At the back, Quick Rope asked while feeling embarrassed, “Hey, Wy… erm, Thales?”
Beldin snuck a peek at Zakriel who was still dazed yet remained alert due to his instincts, and spoke hesitantly, “Your Highness, it would be best for you—”
Before he could finish his words, Tardin interrupted him nervously from the side, “Do not go any further!”
“Dan-dangerous,” the slightly neurotic Canon said.
The people present reacted in different ways, but all of them looked warily at Zakriel who appeared to have just snapped out of his daydream.
However, Thales smiled. “Thank you, Beldin, and you too, Tardin and Canon… But I will need you to wait for me for a little while.” The teenager forced himself to withstand the discomfort in his body. Thales turned around, revealed a tired smile, and raised his index finger. “…Just a little while.”
He turned around and took a deep breath before he continued to talk towards Zakriel.
As he saw the distance between the two people shorten, Beldin’s expression changed. “Your Highness, for your safety’s sake—”
However, a hand shot out from beside him and pressed down on Beldin who was just about to take action!
At some point of time, Barney Junior had gotten to his feet. He said coldly to the surprised Beldin and Tardin, “He already asked us to wait.”
He looked like he still held a grudge towards Thales. When he spoke, he seemed to intentionally lower his head to avoid looking in the prince’s direction.
Barney Junior’s powerful and rhythmic voice snapped Zakriel out of his trance. The latter’s eyes regained clarity slowly and focused on Thales.
Beldin stared at the vanguard bewilderedly before he looked at Thales. There were a few times when he wanted to say something, but he hesitated. In the end, he did not say or do anything.
He only stood where he was and watched worriedly as the prince got closer to Zakriel step-by-step.
His reaction was similar to the others’.
When Thales was three steps away from Zakriel, the latter panted. He glanced at his former comrades around him, and saw that they longed to immediately rush towards them, but held themselves back.
‘Something has changed,’ he thought.
Zakriel looked around. He saw that Barney, who was used to giving orders, looked unhappy, but did not say a word. Beldin, who was reliable, and sometimes even slightly inflexible, also decided to not do anything and just let things happen on its own accord. Even Samel, who did not like receiving orders, only pursed his lips and did not say a word.
As for the rest of his comrades, be it Tardin or Canon… They were all comrades whom he was once incredibly familiar with…
They stood quietly behind Thales. Other than throwing warning glances at Zakriel, they mostly observed, and let the prince walk to stand right in front of Zakriel while the man remained drenched head-to-toe in blood.
‘These people…’ Zakriel turned around stiffly. His mind was distracted while his thoughts were all jumbled up, but he subconsciously tightened his grip around his weapon.
