To You, Who Will Die Alone in Paradise Chapter 61

An anxious voice was heard.

When Herma looked over, he saw three elves from the tracking team talking with dark expressions. The one who had mentioned Elbardon’s name was Raiba, the youngest of the Tuella Deum envoys. It seemed he was concerned, as he had grown quite close to Elbardon during this journey.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’ll let you know when we get word?”

Anarel snapped in a sharp tone. Raiba lowered his head, crestfallen. The already uncomfortable atmosphere grew even more somber.

Herma anxiously bit his lip. The demonic beast problem alone was overwhelming and he wasn’t handling it properly, but Elbardon’s disappearance was also not a matter to be taken lightly.

Herma had personally assigned him to track Zellos and Dandeleon. However, Dandeleon had returned to the royal palace, and Elbardon had not. He had left a final message saying, ‘I will return with the prince,’ and then vanished without a trace. As if he had evaporated.

At this point, he could only assume he was dead. Could he have been killed while trying to kill Zellos? But Zellos, even as a Lycan, was not skilled enough to overpower a weapon-wielding Elbardon. How on earth could such a ridiculous thing have happened?

It had been like this for a while now. Ever since he heard that Kellewen had fallen for some human, it had been a continuous series of absurd events. No matter how much Herma tried to control the situation, variables kept cropping up.

With the successive unexpected situations, Herma’s nerves were on edge. He was sick and tired of the fruitless chase and the purification work that had no end in sight.

‘This can’t go on.’

It was just as Herma, his face gaunt from sleepless nights, rubbed his face and thought this.

“Captain, a magical beast…!”

Anarel shouted. Herma shot his head up and spotted a white bird flying through the sky.

It looked similar to the carrier pigeons commonly used in other kingdoms, but it was larger and had longer tail feathers. It was a magical beast used for urgent communications in the Elven Forest.

Herma extended his hand. The magical beast landed on his hand. Herma hastily unfolded the letter tied to the beast’s leg.

“……!”

Herma’s face turned pale as he read the letter.

• Continued in the next chapter

Chapter 39

“Captain, what is it?”

Seeing Herma’s unusual expression, Raiba asked hastily. Herma tightened his grip on the letter. The flax-colored paper crumpled with a crunch in his hand.

“Yggdrasil is in danger.”

“What?!”

“Is it demonic beasts?”

“No, its magical power is depleted.”

Herma’s face contorted.

“They say it wouldn’t be strange if it died right this instant.”

He had wondered why the reply was so late, but it seemed the Elven Forest had its own circumstances. To check how much magical power Yggdrasil had left, they had to contact the guardian tree’s deep consciousness. This process required a lot of time, and just as much magical power.

Since Kellewen had demanded they postpone the ritual, the elders must have wanted to know if Yggdrasil could hold on until then. But the results of the check were the worst possible. The magical power within Yggdrasil was almost completely exhausted, to the point that proper purification would be difficult. When it was last measured about 100 years ago, there were concerns that the rate of magical power depletion was fast, but its current state was even more serious than had been predicted then.

“Then, what do we….”

“The purification team is on their way here, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Yes, they should arrive in about five to ten minutes.”

Unlike Raiba, who was too flustered to answer properly, Anarel quickly regained her composure. Herma nodded.

“I will tell everyone again when they are all assembled, but for now, forget the current mission.”

Herma lifted his head and looked at the sky. Stars shone brilliantly in the pitch-black night sky. There were still about two hours left until sunrise.

“We must go to the royal palace right now and make contact with the High Elf.”

The situation was dire. The death of Yggdrasil meant the death of the continent. The continent, exposed to demonic energy, would be quickly encroached upon, starting from the seas, and would eventually be destroyed.

In a situation like this, he had no time to consider the Benoit royal family’s self-interested calculations. He had to inform Kellewen of this fact immediately. If he still wouldn’t listen….

“In the worst-case scenario, we’ll have to drag him to the Elven Forest, even if it means just keeping him alive.”

“But didn’t the High Elf say it? That if we drag him away by force, he will kill himself…!”

“That’s why our mission is to prevent that. Instead of complaining, think about what you should do, Raiba.”

The last member of the tracking team, Tiedore, snapped in an irritated voice. Raiba shut his mouth with an anxious expression. Meanwhile, Anarel, who had been lost in thought for a moment, asked.

“What do we do about Prince Dandeleon?”

“Kill him.”

All three of his subordinates showed signs of shock. But Herma had already made up his mind.

From the beginning, he had been nothing but a troublesome problem. He should have taken measures as soon as he heard Dandeleon had gotten close to Kellewen, but he failed to do so, and things had come to this. Herma hated regrets. But what he hated more was repeating something he would regret.

He had to fix it now.

‘I didn’t like him from the start.’

Herma’s face hardened as he recalled the day he first saw Dandeleon.

‘Those disgusting violet eyes were, horribly so.’

“If the prince dies, I don’t think we’ll be able to negotiate with the High Elf….”

“Raiba, please just shut that mouth of yours!”

When Tiedore shouted, Raiba made a fuming expression. Before the argument between the two could escalate, Herma intervened.

“Tiedore, watch your words. Raiba, are you questioning my judgment?”

“No, sir.”

Even as he answered, Raiba’s expression was still sullen. I must never bring this idiot on a mission again. Herma thought so and spoke in a deliberately stern tone.

“I said to kill him, but that doesn’t mean you should try it in front of Kellewen. You don’t think I would overlook the risk of the High Elf’s magical power running rampant, do you? If Kellewen is watching, it’s fine to just capture him for the time being. The important thing is that we take the lead. We, not Kellewen.”

The more he spoke, the clearer his head became. Just a moment ago, he had felt like he was wandering in a maze with no exit, but now he felt rather relieved.

Being led by the nose by the other party was over now. From now on, it was time to fight. And Herma was confident when it came to fighting.

“The prince is only a secondary objective. Our target is the High Elf. We must secure Kellewen before sunrise and leave for the Elven Forest.”

Even after knocking on the door until his hand throbbed painfully, Kellewen did not return. Seeing as there wasn’t even a response, it seemed he had left the place entirely.

Dandeleon, his face pale, turned to look behind him. Only the faint light of the candle he had left at the bottom of the narrow, dark staircase was visible.

“No way….”

Dandeleon sank down right there on the stairs. A firmly locked door was right above his head, and solid walls blocked both sides. Feeling as if he were trapped in a stone coffin, Dandeleon curled up his body. It was cold and suffocating. And it was scary.

“What do I do?”

He hadn’t thought Kellewen would go this far. No matter how mad he had become, the cause of that madness was his love for Dandeleon. So, he had naively thought that Kellewen would never do anything to harm him.

But the mindset of a madman was far beyond the assumptions of an ordinary person. Dandeleon realized that fact keenly, but it was already too late.

“He’ll be back soon, right?”

Dandeleon muttered so and pushed on the door above his head once more. Of course, it didn’t open. Even though he hadn’t held much hope, the cold weight that met his hand plunged Dandeleon into despair again. Dandeleon pulled his knees up and buried his face in them.

“He said it seemed like I needed some time to accept it… so he won’t leave me for that long….”

But he had just thought a moment ago. The mindset of a madman is far beyond the assumptions of an ordinary person. If Kellewen was in a state where he couldn’t think properly, who was to say he wouldn’t judge that it would take Dandeleon at least a week to accept everything? What if he thought it would take a month, or a year, or even longer…?

“No, before that, someone will notice.”

Dandeleon shuddered and tried to drive out the pessimistic thoughts.

“When morning comes, the servants will come to work….”

The true master of the servants who worked at the Celeste Domain was neither Dandeleon nor Kellewen, but the Crown Prince. They were probably tasked with observing the two’s lives and then reporting to the Crown Prince. If Dandeleon suddenly vanished, they would surely notice.

Suddenly, something he hadn’t considered crossed Dandeleon’s mind.

He shot his head up and looked down again. At the end of the stairs, the candle flame flickered. It was the only source of light illuminating this dark basement.

But how long does a candle last?

Dandeleon hurried down the stairs. When he checked the candle placed on the table, it was a little shorter than the length of his hand. It wasn’t about to go out right away, so Dandeleon was relieved for the time being. But after picking up the candlestick and looking around the room, his relief turned back into anxiety.

There was no other source of light in the room. The cupboards were full of water and food, but he couldn’t find any candles, not even a cheap oil lamp. Even if the sun rose, there was no way sunlight would reach this windowless basement, so if things continued like this, the moment the candle went out, Dandeleon would be left alone in the dark.

In a darkness where he couldn’t even see his own hand, how long could Dandeleon remain sane? It was impossible to know.

Dandeleon placed the candlestick on the cupboard and staggered to the bed. As he lay down on the small bed, everything felt like just a dream. In that he couldn’t change the grand scheme of things no matter what he did, it wasn’t much different from a dream.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

Overcome with a sense of powerlessness, all Dandeleon could do was think such thoughts.

‘If I hadn’t followed Zellos, would it have come to this? Or that morning, when Kellewen was acting strangely, should I have soothed him better then?’

His thoughts continued to retrace time, going further into the past. Countless moments of choice flashed before Dandeleon like a revolving lantern. From today to yesterday, and from yesterday to a more distant time.

Should he not have reached out to him when he came out of the King’s office? But at that time, Dandeleon was so lonely that he simply couldn’t refuse the kindness directed at him.