Chapter 12 (1/2)
I know. I think I’ll die.
The idea came to mind while Cornou was brus.h.i.+ng his teeth after dinner.
It had been ten years since he became King. The whole time, he had hid his true self, and tried his best to wear the mask of a splendid ruler.
The nation had been struggling through a famine when he succeeded the throne.
When he did, he began to lower the taxes.
Cultivating the lands, endeavours with flood control, preparing for irrigation, adjusting and fixing laws… Seven years of wrestling with problems facing the nation until it could finally yield tax again. Even now, he was struggling with supporting education.
The nation finally saw the light of day.
The citizens sang praise of him. Lately, even people from the neighbouring countries praised him as a wise king.
More! Praise me more!
That had been his reaction until just three days ago.
But now, even praise seemed irritating.
To be honest, Cornou actually hated trouble. No, not just trouble either. Things that hurt, things that were difficult, things that were sad. Having to try hard, having to endure, having to work. Having to leave bed, having to concentrate, having to train. All these things he loathed. He even loathed to ride on the ooma when he toured the country by air, and he found that speaking to people was tiring as well.
If he could, he would prefer to hole up in his room and devote himself to his hobbies.
A man like him had faced the sly geezer politicians in nauseating battles of wit and otherwise. He had spent an entire ten years reforming the country. And the reason was very simply so that the woman he loved would look at him.
Even now, he recalled that day fifteen years ago when the two first met.
At the time, Cornou had just turned thirteen, and she had only been five.
The girl had climbed a tree without thinking, and was at wits end because she couldn’t descend.
With fiery bright red hair, and bright blue eyes like a lake, her striking features made quite an impression.
At the time she had been an energetic child, befitting of her hair colour, and was the complete opposite of the intelligent but reclusive Cornou.
Their two fathers joked that if only they could split Cornou’s wisdom and the girl’s energy between them, they would be perfect.
He would see her once every few years, and with each time she would grow more beautiful, remaining lively as ever, and as time pa.s.sed by his feelings towards her changed as well.
From a rash and noisy child, to a girl he considered his sister. And then from that little sister, to the girl he was in love with.
He wanted to match her.
He wanted to be worthy of her.
He wanted to improve the country, so that he could bring her here with pride.
With that in mind, Cornou put in his most hated ‘effort’, and hiding his real self, he played the perfect king.
Before long, his efforts yielded dividends, and when Hitow turned sixteen, he sent a marriage proposal, which her father, King of Sunayu, accepted with pleasure.
King Sunayu had wanted to marry them right that instant, but it was Cornou himself who asked to wait.
Hitow had been growing more beautiful by the day, and in fear of having her taken, Cornou had sent a proposal. Even so, his nation was not yet fit for her.
In the four years until their marriage, he would restore and develop his nation further.
When he imagined the life they would be living together, his steps became light, and even going outdoors turned from h.e.l.l to paradise. The s.h.i.+tty beard-geezers that would do nothing except complain even turned into stupid but adorable children to him.
And then finally, finally, when everything was ready to receive her…
‘I would like to postpone our marriage. Having said that, you are already at the right age to marry. I am sure that you are in a rush to leave a successor. It would go against my good conscience to delay the birth of your heir due to circ.u.mstances within my own nation. If you desire to annul our engagement, that is also fine.’
When he had sent a message to inform her that the day of their marriage was arriving, the reply that he received caused the blood to drain from his face. Or rather, so much blood left his head that he fainted.
The letter said that she wished to postpone things, and yet she gave no reason. In other words, she simply wanted to annul their engagement.
What he did, what he ate, how he spent the last three days, he honestly had no memory of.
For three days he had been a sh.e.l.l, and only just now as he brushed his teeth, did his senses return to him.
Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter any more.
Going out was now nothing but a pain, and the bearded geezers were now scary again.
He was sick of it.
He was sick of all of it.
He was sick of giving his all and enduring everything.
A west wind began to blow. The decades of calm were over. The breeze had finally turned into a storm, and Cornou felt, no, he knew, that a maelstrom was coming.
He didn’t think he would be able to weather the tempest without Princess. .h.i.tow.
So he decided he would disappear before the tempest ever came.
Cornou prepared a study rope.
After tugging it a few times to test its strength, he tossed it over a beam, and created a noose.
Standing atop a chair, he placed his neck through its ring.
All he had to do was kick the chair away, and all would be well. He would be free from all troubles.
Cornou closed his eyes.
“What are you doing!” rang a deep voice.
It belonged to a man who knew Cornou’s true self; Baz, his trusted retainer.
Baz was the only person permitted to enter Cornou’s quarters.
Just why was he here? Cornou had clearly told him that he needed to think, and that he wanted to be alone.
“Please stop this! You must stop this, please!”
Cornou didn’t turn to face him.
He didn’t want to end his own life before his friend, but at the same time, doing so would free Baz from this troublesome lord of his.
As small children, Baz would secretly eat his carrots for him. He would help clean up the bedwetting that continued until Cornou was ten. After Cornou became King, he would patiently wake up the lord that hated early mornings, and when Cornou made decisions that he personally hated, Baz would listen to his complaints until deep into the night.
Farewell, Baz. Please live for yourself, from now on.
Cornou took a deep breath,
-clang-
when suddenly a s.h.i.+ning rectangle of light appeared with a clatter.
Cornou caught his breath.
It was a bright-lit rectangular s.p.a.ce, that seemed to suspend in mid-air. And inside it, a woman. Her black, wet hair clung to her face, and eyes darker than the deepest night beheld him.
“Hii-!”
A small shriek escaped his throat.
“What horrid tye’ming,” groaned the low voice of the woman.
There was white froth all over her hair and her bare shoulders.
The moment he saw this, Cornou knew who she was. She was a woman who had crawled out from the land of the dead, deep beneath the earth. She was a spectre. And judging by the foam, she had come from the Froth Marsh h.e.l.l, where sinners drowned for eternity.
Suicide was forbidden. It was said that those who ended their own lives would never rejoin the circle of life, doomed to imprisonment in the depths of the earth. Cornou had always considered it a dated and ridiculous superst.i.tion, but now he loathed himself for his stupidity.
“I’m going to put on my Barth Rohb, so just stay there. Listen, okay? You absolutely can’t move from there!”
In other words, “You’d better not run from me.”
This spectre was here to drag him into the abyss.
His knees went weak, and then the strength left his legs. His teeth wouldn’t stay clamped, and clattered despite himself.
That trembling reached his whole body――――and so he lost balance.
The chair began to tilt, and the noose bit into his throat.
“King!”
He had forgotten about Baz due to the terror.
“Aahhh! I told you! I told you not to move! Aahh, geeezz, how am I supposed to dress myself while you’re like that! Umm, ummm, WHAT DO I DO!? AH-, I KNOW!”
The woman slithered through the entrance to the underworld.
Her hands grasped large scissors, the length of her upper arm.