The Sweet Alpha Crown Prince Loves Me So Much Chapter 141

Chapter 141

Emperor Glenn visited the dungeons for the first time in a long while.

There was a guest in the space he had rarely had cause to use since becoming emperor, and he was here to see him off on his final journey.

Wheeze, wheeze.

A young man, breathing harshly, lay on the stone floor, bound in special restraints.

Though his eyes were sharp, he was a man with no room for foolish bravado, so Glenn paid him not the slightest bit of attention.

“A king of a nation is locked in a foreign dungeon, yet no one comes to see you, no one calls for your punishment. Well, your life is in the gutter, too.”

Grrrrk.

When Glenn waved his hand and infused it with magical power, the gag binding his mouth fell away with a thud.

“Haa, haa…”

Mugicha gasped for breath, his body shifting in agony.

He had been lying in the same position for days, and fluid was weeping from the skin pressed against the floor.

After catching his breath for a moment, Mugicha glared at Glenn, who was sitting outside the iron bars, and the knights on either side of him.

“If you knew… it was the gutter, you could have… shown a little mercy.”

Hmph. Glenn smirked at his words.

The sinner was here, but there was no one to discuss his punishment. He had attempted to harm the Empire’s Crown Princess and Crown Prince, but had failed. His ambition to become the master of the continent had also vanished into thin air.

The people who had the right to bring down the hammer of judgment on him were all dead and gone.

“Never in my life did I think you’d get involved in the ecosystem of magical beasts, Mugicha.”

Immediately after Carl Lindbergh and Adrian Heineken returned to the Empire, the imperial army stationed in Parman had searched the tunnels for any remaining humans.

But there were no survivors. Of the magical beasts left wandering aimlessly without a master, half met their end at the hands of the holy knights, while some had their magic stones removed and were relocated to the Mibari Forest.

The scale was not small, and the process was ongoing, with neighboring countries joining in, busy with the disposal.

“What were you thinking? If you wanted to come out into the world, there must have been other ways.”

Glenn’s words were close to a lament.

With the Empress’s delivery imminent, he was reluctant to see blood on his hands and had been postponing the execution, but depending on the answer, moving it up was not an impossible task.

Mugicha gave Glenn a crooked smile.

“What other way? By bowing our heads to the great Empire and begging you to look after a small country on the frontier?”

“That wouldn’t have been so bad. It would have been simpler than killing off your people and taming magical beasts.”

Parman had been in decline, and its dynasty had taken on dirty work for generations.

What they wanted was to become a nation that surpassed the Empire. The evil practices passed down as a method for that had brought disaster upon Parman.

“We know no other way. No one in Parman lived like a human being. Reducing their numbers and ending their suffering quickly was the only way for Parman to be reborn.”

But in the end, nothing was achieved.

Glenn snorted.

“And who was it that kept them from living like human beings? You speak as if you were some kind of savior.”

“On the parched land where desertification was progressing, with crops that died no matter what we did, and where magicians were disappearing, the goddess did not look upon us. It was a miserable environment that the people of the Empire could never imagine, not even in their wildest dreams.”

“Who made it that way? None other than your dynasty made it that way!”

At Mugicha’s condescending tone, Glenn slammed his hand on the armrest of his chair.

“A nation needs a foundation to prosper. The Mochu Mountains don’t even reach Parman, so we had to pay enormous fees every time we mined for magic stones, and the land was arid. How were we supposed to protect the kingdom? Your Majesty. Overturning the world requires sacrifice. You cannot say that not a single drop of blood was shed for the rise of the Empire.”

In short, he was saying, you and I are one and the same, daring to put the Empire on the same level. The knights clicked their tongues with a tsk.

‘This is so irritating that I can’t listen anymore.’

A shimmering heat haze rose behind Glenn’s back, to the point that the scribe who had tagged along was nearly crushed flat.

‘What tremendous pressure.’

The elderly scribe, dispatched from a third country, repeatedly wiped away his cold sweat.

Glenn, who had been furious, calmed himself by thinking of the Empress.

Getting angry was only meaningful if the other person would listen. There was no longer any need to argue about what was right.

Mugicha Parman’s expression truly said that he believed his actions were justified.

Glenn, who had half-risen from his chair, sat back down, cracked his knuckles, and let out a smirk.

“What a pity. If your people were alive, they would have admired your spirit and given you a standing ovation.”

Though it would be a relief if the people who ended their lives to become ingredients for an unprecedented black magic weren’t waiting for him in hell, grinding their teeth.

Even at Glenn’s taunt, which was laden with many meanings, Mugicha didn’t show a single ounce of remorse.

Feeling no more value in conversation, Glenn asked a few perfunctory questions. He asked things like when he got the idea to use Adrian Heineken, if he had really killed all his people, and if that too had been part of the plan. Mugicha remained silent.

As he had been the king of a nation, however rotten, the scribe had to record all questions and answers. It was supposed to be fair and just, but…

‘He’s a man who has to die anyway.’

For a fleeting moment, he met Glenn’s eyes and came to a silent agreement.

Mugicha’s answers to all of Glenn’s questions were recorded as affirmative.

Mugicha let out a heh and rubbed his numb ankle against the stone floor.

Meanwhile, what dominated his mind was none other than Carl Lindbergh.

The plan he had prepared for over 100 years had been foiled in a single day. Because of that prince, whom Chancellor Kirchner was said to have raised with great care as his own prey.

If he had just one more chance, even if he had to die, he wanted to take that prince with him as a companion on the road to the afterlife.

Should I ask to see his face one last time?

His magical power was sealed, likely due to the restraints, but he didn’t know what might happen if he gathered every last ounce of his strength.

Unconsciously licking his lips, Mugicha thought that killing him would be more thrilling than any other murder.

Grind.

In Mugicha’s imagination, as the disheveled, blonde-haired Carl Lindbergh’s face twisted ugly and his body thrashed, a strange catharsis rose within him.

“Do not think such useless thoughts.”

A cool voice pierced the crown of Mugicha’s head like an awl.

Glenn Heineken, who had approached right up to the bars at some point, was looking down at him with emotionless eyes.

Crackle, crackle. An electric current sparked from the restraints binding Mugicha’s hands and feet.

“What useless thoughts do you mean?”

Mugicha feigned ignorance and smiled.

Glenn bent his knees and met his eyes.

“I am strictly forbidding any thoughts other than repentance.”

“Does the Emperor of the great Empire control people’s thoughts as well? Truly remarkable. I am so envious I could tremble.”

At Mugicha’s needless show of bravado, Glenn smirked and clapped his hands once.

“Is that so? How fortunate. If you had asked me how to become a monarch, I would have taught you with all my heart.”

“What kind of dog-like—Ghk!”

The restraint collar around Mugicha Parman’s neck began to shrink rapidly.

He thrashed, making gasping sounds of keok, keok.

The restraint, tightening and digging into his skin, did not stop until Mugicha made a gurgling sound and coughed up bloody foam.

Even the veteran knights and the scribe squeezed their eyes shut.

The only person watching it numbly was Glenn Heineken.

“The Parman dynasty ends today. Mugicha Parman. Your crimes are using black magic to cause considerable damage to neighboring countries, going so far as to slaughter your own people to use as ingredients, and attempting to murder the Empire’s Crown Prince and Crown Princess. No matter how I think about it, I don’t think you can survive and overcome this situation.”

The scribe, who had turned away slightly, fought back a wave of nausea and barely managed to record Glenn’s words.

When the ‘execution’ finally stopped, Glenn clicked his tongue and turned away.

Mugicha Parman’s end was futile.

‘The vain end of an arrogant man.’

Glenn soon left the prison and, on his way to his office, met High Priest Daniel.

He observed Glenn with a peculiar expression and then patted his shoulder.

“You seem to feel bitter.”

“Well, it’s not pleasant.”

It wasn’t a particularly satisfying conclusion.

Just because Mugicha Parman died didn’t mean the people of Parman would come back to life.

“It’s nothing new, but human greed always exceeds imagination. It makes me wonder if I’m too complacent an emperor. I don’t particularly pity him, but I feel drained.”

In truth, the ones who should have executed this punishment were the people of Parman, not Glenn.

He might have interfered since the Crown Prince and Crown Princess were dragged into it, but he shouldn’t have been the main actor.

That pricked Glenn’s conscience.

Daniel nodded and patted the Emperor’s shoulder once more.

“As one who serves the gods, I cannot help but believe in the afterlife. The rest will be concluded somewhere in the heavens. Therefore, Your Majesty should cease your duties for today and go to Her Majesty the Empress’s side to receive comfort.”

Glenn let out a faint smile.

“I was planning to do just that.”

After seeing off the back of Daniel, who was entering the dungeon with a few priests to confirm and handle Mugicha Parman’s body, Glenn almost ran to the bathroom.

He yearned for the Empress, who would empathize with and embrace his heart, more than ever today.

Because only to her could he reveal the vulnerable heart he could not show to the kings or feudal lords of other countries without shame.

Before that, washing away the stench of blood and crime was a matter of course.

 

***

 

When Adrian informed Carl of the news of Mugicha’s execution, he was surprisingly calm and said only one thing.

“How pitiful.”

“In what way?”

“The part where there was no one to tell him he was wrong.”

Towards Adrian, who was about to ask if he was pitying him, to ask how kind he was going to be, Carl raised an eyebrow.

“That said, if you’re that old, you should be able to judge for yourself what’s right and wrong.”

It was just that, if someone had told him. If that person had had an ear to listen, Parman wouldn’t have ended up as a ghost kingdom.

He knew all too well that blaming others only brought back self-loathing and a sense of despair that one could never escape, so it was simply regrettable.

Carl Lindbergh, who had basically been an atheist but had come to believe in the existence of the goddess here, prayed for the first time that night for those who had disappeared.

Just as Jeon Woo-young had died and become Carl Lindbergh, he hoped that they too would be given a new life and a new chance.