MTO C31

Chapter 31

“O Highest Above the heavens, You who rightly deserve all worship upon this earth…”

Murmur, mumble. Michel repeated the words of the prayer blandly, eyes glazing over.

Since returning to his guest chamber he had tried to memorize it, but not a single sentence seemed to stick. Not only was he poor at rote learning, but his head was already brimming with other thoughts.

I really was reckless, wasn’t I?

He sighed deeply. When he had first walked out of Kaidan’s study, his only feeling had been shock. But as the evening cooled and he mulled it over, he recognized: he had committed a serious offense.

If the late Duke had truly been such a loving father, then Kaidan surely still carried his grief. To hear a stranger speak of that father must have been agony.

And then there was his mother—dead when Kaidan was only a child, leaving him mute for months with trauma. Some wounds, Michel knew, never faded; they only scarred.

Michel envied Kaidan. Though his parents were gone, their memory lived—a treasure Jeong‑oh had never had.

Maybe that’s why I spoke so foolishly. I wanted to peek into a world I never knew, even just with borrowed words…

Instead, I tore open his wound.

But how should I apologize?

Michel longed to address the wound between them, but was it right to mention it afresh? Everyone bore pains that should not be touched. If he demanded forgiveness, might it not be like sprinkling salt into a still‑bleeding cut?

Perhaps the best apology was not words at all—but showing perfection in what Kaidan wanted: succeeding tomorrow at the relief festival.

“…The Heavens above—no, the Most High above the heavens…”

He resumed his chanting. Suddenly moonlight pierced the gap in the curtains, extending a cold line across the floorboard.

Michel rose, drew the curtains wide. Before him glowed an enormous full moon. So close it seemed to hang above his window, so large he could see every hollowed crater.

“Wow.”

On instinct, his hand searched down his thigh for pockets—but met only smooth cloth. He jolted. The habit of snapping photos on his phone at sights like this still lingered.

Back home, he would have proudly shown the pictures to the taekwondo kids the next day. For adults they were trivial, but the children had been delighted, pelting him with endless questions, innocent and bright.

I wonder how they’re doing now.

One by one, images of those dojo kids ran through his mind, drawing a smile. Yet when the orphanage children rose in memory—their faces pale with screams—his lips stilled, hard.

He turned about. The pale moonlight washed across golden furniture, every shine rendered sterile, empty. The room brimmed with finery, but felt utterly hollow.

This room is much too large to be lived in alone.

“P‑please, Your Grace! I swear I saw nothing! Please—no, aghhh!”

The man dropped with a choking death rattle. His throat fountained blood, steaming across the cold stone floor.

His severed head rolled to a halt at the feet of a boy. Even in death, those bulging eyes had not closed—fixed in horror.

Kaidan clenched his teeth not to cry out. He recognized the man. A kind servant, one who had often snuck sweets for him from the village, and who had bragged giddily of a beautiful fiancée.

“Did you see?”

The voice was rough ice, a spike grating down Kaidan’s ears. The boy stiffened. He knew he needed to respond instantly—but his face would not lift. His father despised when someone averted their gaze.

Kaidan was twelve years old. Young enough that any normal child would faint. Yet here, he forced himself only not to run nor collapse.

The Duke pitied nothing. The cold tip of his blade pressed up beneath the boy’s chin, forcing it skyward.

His father stood there under a massive moon, body soaked in blood, eyes blazing with a light more monstrous than any devil painted in holy frescoes.

“I ask again. Did. You. See.”

Kaidan gasped, throat cut by pressure.

“No.”

He rasped, the words twisted from his strangled voice. His vision blurred—tears welled, but tears were forbidden. He forced them back, eyes burning wider.

“I saw… nothing.”

Something hollow cracked inside him, something vital abandoned. But his father grinned ghoulishly, pleased.

“Good. Then you saw nothing.”

The blade lifted. Kaidan dropped onto limp knees. His father clicked his tongue, stepped away. Squish, squelch. The sound of his soaked boots clung hideously.

The boy stared blankly. Around him was devastation—mangled red lumps scarcely human, once friends and servants he knew, all butchered.

Soon black‑armored knights came, dragging corpses away like shades from the underworld. Those were his father’s men: alive, yet more dead than alive. Eyes seeing but unseeing. Mouths silent forever.

The dead here tonight had not been like them. They had wished to live—and thus they were erased. To know what must not be known was death.

Thus, of all who had claimed ignorance, only one child remained alive: Kaidan.

From that day forward, he too became one of the living dead. He too must pretend forever that he had seen nothing.

The training yard massacre. The nightmare.

“—!”

Kaidan jolted awake, hand flying to the sword by his bed. His eyes were blood‑streaked, his chest heaving. Pale morning light trickled quietly into his room.

Sweat drenched him. His massive body shuddered through breaths. Realizing, he snarled, rubbing at his face angrily. His hand trembled—still trembled—and that enraged him further.

It had been over a decade. He was no longer powerless. He was a man whom no one dared challenge. If that wretch of a father crawled from his grave, he would split him in two.

And yet he shook from a dream.

Pathetic.

He’d seen worse on battlefields, horrors countless. Still, some nightmares never unchained themselves, dogging him like shadows.

He rose from bed, ignoring sleep, pulling on a robe. His desk was strewn with papers from the night before. He had hardly slept, heavy with simmering anger.

Among them lay reports. Kaidan pulled one free—and his eyes sharpened to blades.

To His Grace, the noble and just master of Valois, Kaidan Eglence:

As commanded, I send my report on the investigation into Saint Michel.

Before Michel had returned to the castle, David had dispatched two letters.

The first detailed Michel’s strange conduct after resuming the orphanage. On the first day he had nearly brandished whips again—but by the second, he claimed to have met God and repented every past sin.

He begged forgiveness from the Sister and the children. He served them sincerely, even when unobserved. Aside from constant displays of bizarre martial arts, he attempted nothing suspicious.

By all appearances, he had become someone utterly different.

In closing, David speculated that perhaps Michel was truly chosen as a saint.

Kaidan’s brow furrowed deep. Somehow, David had been duped too. But Kaidan was not so easily fooled. He knew well how hypocrites spun deceit.