Chapter 322: |
Chapter 322
Frechen walked on without looking around.
He walked so confidently, as if he owned the place, that Yu-hyun, who was secretly following him from behind, felt embarrassed.
‘Even if he knows the place well, what if there’s a frost giant hiding somewhere inside the palace? What is he doing?’
At the same time, Yu-hyun shook his head.
‘Considering Frechen’s skills, a frost giant wouldn’t be a danger to him.’
A frost giant would be dangerous for ordinary explorers, but not for warriors like Lean or Frechen.
Yu-hyun recalled Frechen’s skills when he fought against Rahyan that day.
One swing of his axe with his gray aura would easily knock down a frost giant, no matter how big it was.
Everywhere he went was his will, and wherever he walked was his path.
Frechen’s every action was imbued with a firm belief in himself, as dark as ink.
‘But, where is he going?’
When Frechen first arrived at a place that looked like a huge alchemy room, Yu-hyun wondered if he was going to get some secret weapon hidden somewhere in the palace.
But Frechen didn’t even glance at the alchemy room and just passed by.
And when he headed to a small and shabby building next to the palace, Yu-hyun’s curiosity reached its peak.
Yu-hyun followed Frechen into the shabby building.
The building was frozen inside and out.
The ceiling was full of icicles, and hard frost covered the walls and furniture. The bluish coldness seemed to be still alive and breathing inside.
This was where the servants and maids stayed.
The place where Frechen headed was the door at the very corner of the building.
He gently touched the door with his hand without hesitation.
The frozen hinges broke and the door fell off.
Frechen put the door aside and went inside.
Yu-hyun wondered if he should follow him or not, but then he heard a voice from inside.
“Don’t be shy and just come in.”
“…”
Did he notice me?
Yu-hyun felt guilty and quietly followed Frechen into the room.
The room was small, as he had felt from outside.
There was only a small bed for one person and minimal furniture, and they were all frozen as well.
“I’ve been following you since earlier.”
“…If you knew, you should have said something.”
“Well, I’m not in a position to be proud of myself. I can’t brag about coming here alone without my subordinates. You were curious too, right? Why I came all the way here.”
Yu-hyun nodded silently.
Frechen approached a small drawer on one wall.
His sinister hand pulled the top of the drawer and the frost on the surface cracked like glass.
What was in the drawer was a gift box covered with ice.
Frechen took out the gift box.
“As expected, it was here.”
“What is that…?”
“The reason why I came here.”
The gift box opened, and what came out of it was a pendant necklace.
It didn’t look like an artifact at all. He couldn’t feel any energy from that necklace.
A mere necklace was the reason why he came here?
When Yu-hyun sent him a doubtful look, Frechen chuckled as if he knew it would happen.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like something that an emperor should bother to get by himself.”
“No, that’s not…”
“You don’t have to deny it. I know it too. Yeah.”
The expression on Frechen’s face as he looked at the necklace was hard to describe in words.
Somewhere pitiful, yet also unable to contain his joy.
And yet his eyes seemed to be ready to shed tears at any moment. A complex face.
“I had no choice but to come here. I had to make sure. Absolutely.”
“Who is it? The person who gave you that gift.”
“Someone very precious to me.”
Frechen said that and opened the pendant.
Inside it was a smiling person.
The picture had not faded at all despite the long time and maintained its shape.
“Rebecca. She was my personal maid when I was a crown prince.”
Frechen closed the lid of the pendant and put the necklace around his neck.
“And she was also the woman I loved. We promised to marry.”
“…”
“Heh. You still look surprised. I’ve got everything I need, so let’s go back. Let’s talk on our way.”
Frechen left the palace with Yu-hyun and told him his past that he had never told anyone before.
Frechen had imperial blood in him, but his succession rank was almost at the bottom.
He was practically unable to become an emperor, and more importantly, Frechen had a bad personality.
He was more often called the bastard crown prince than his name.
Frechen was weak since he was born.
His mother, who gave birth to him, also died shortly after childbirth.
Frechen was practically abandoned as soon as he was born.
He grew up without love and attention, and inevitably became twisted.
So, Frechen did whatever he wanted.
He was a royal bloodline, even if he was a bastard, so no one dared to discipline him harshly.
His misdeeds never stopped.
Frechen’s exclusive maids never lasted more than a week.
Frechen didn’t care.
No one liked him anyway.
He preferred them to leave quickly, rather than stay with him.
Then, one day, he got a new maid.
Rebecca.
That was her name.
Rebecca was different from the other maids.
She had a simple look, as if she came from a remote countryside, but what surprised Frechen more was her boldness.
The other maids would bow their heads and tremble whenever Frechen got angry or threw a tantrum.
But, Rebecca was different.
She looked straight at Frechen and scolded him.
It was a shock to Frechen, who had been accepted for everything he did until then.
He was a royal, no matter how low his rank was.
And yet, she didn’t yield to him.
Even though she knew it was an insult to the royal family, she looked at him with an upright gaze and said he shouldn’t live like that.
“Are you not afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid of you, Frechen.”
“Why not? I can order your head to be cut off right now.”
“That’s not your power, but the royal family’s power.”
“I’m the royal family’s bloodline!”
“But, you’re not the royal family itself. In the end, you’re just borrowing someone else’s power to show off. If you really want to claim the royal bloodline, you should act like a proper royal first.”
It was a shock.
Even more so that she said it so openly in front of him.
And she was his exclusive maid.
Frechen was furious when he heard that, but when he met her honest eyes, he felt himself shrinking.
“Then, what should I do? What should I do when no one likes me?”
“Improve yourself. It’s something you have to prove yourself, not anyone else.”
“Do you think I can do it?”
“No one knows until they try.”
Rebecca’s words were blunt, but they echoed in Frechen’s heart.
After that day, Frechen changed.
He used to get annoyed at anything, but he learned patience.
He started training to get rid of his weak body.
He paid attention to his every move so that no one could find fault with him.
It was a tedious and hard process.
He wanted to quit and go back to his comfortable life. But every time he felt like that, Rebecca encouraged him and cheered for him.
No one had ever cared for him seriously in his life.
His father, the emperor, had no interest in him, and his mother had passed away long ago.
His siblings, if they could be called that, ignored him or looked at him with contempt.
Only one person.
Rebecca was different.
Every time he remembered her eyes that looked at him without wavering, Frechen clenched his teeth and tried harder.
He wanted to live up to her expectations, but he also didn’t want to stay as weak as he was for the rest of his life.
As time passed, Frechen changed.
His skinny body gained flesh and muscle, and his stature grew taller.
Frechen showed his skills in swordsmanship.
He fought with the royal knights and defeated them, making a name for himself in the empire.
He learned patience and how to hide his emotions.
He learned how to command people.
Frechen soon won the hearts of the royal knights and formed his own knight order.
“Congratulations. Prince Frechen. Or should I call you the Grey Wolf Knight Commander now?”
“Rebecca. It’s all thanks to you.”
“It’s thanks to your efforts.”
“You don’t know how much you mean to me. Rebecca. Please. Stay by my side from now on.”
Frechen proposed to her like that.
It was a straightforward and unromantic proposal, but it was sincere.
He didn’t care about becoming the emperor or not.
He didn’t care if Rebecca was a lowly maid or not.
He only worried about one thing: what if she rejected him?
He sweated nervously and waited anxiously for her answer without hiding his expression.
Rebecca smiled softly at him.
“Okay.”
“Waaaaah!!”
As soon as she agreed, Frechen hugged her and shouted with joy.
He didn’t need anything else.
As long as he could be with Rebecca, he didn’t care about anything else.
Rebecca was his everything in this world.
She who didn’t hesitate to advise him when he was nothing, she who believed in him and supported him when no one else did.
Frechen vowed to make her happy for the rest of his life.
And then, a few days before their wedding.
The curse of the frozen land happened.
“It was really, a shitty thing.”
Frechen still remembered that day.
He remembered the black clouds that came from beyond the northern sky and the cold that froze his bones.
And it happened on the day he returned from leading his knight order to subdue the monsters in the south.
He was stunned to see the palace frozen in an instant.
“Rebecca!”
“Frechen! Don’t go! It’s dangerous!”
“Let go of me! Rebecca is in there!”
Frechen tried to enter the palace, but the gray wolf knights desperately stopped him.
Frechen was their idol and the one they chose to follow.
They couldn’t just watch him go into that frozen hell.
People were running out of the palace in real time, being swallowed by the cold and freezing solid.
They shouldn’t approach it without knowing what it was.
“Ah.”
Even as he was dragged away by his subordinates, Frechen’s eyes never left the palace.
Then, he saw someone jumping out of the open entrance.
It was her. Rebecca was gasping for breath, carrying someone on her back.
“Rebecca.”
You are.
Even in this situation, you are moving to save someone else.
But the cold that followed her was not something that a mere maid like her could escape.
Rebecca bit her lip as she saw the curse coming from behind her.
At that moment, it was a coincidence that she spotted Frechen from afar.
“Ah.”
Rebecca saw Frechen being pulled away by his subordinates, his face looking at her with tears.
She smiled brightly and said,
“I’m glad.”
Frechen heard her clearly.
At the same time, the curse of frost devoured her.
Frechen screamed and struggled to save Rebecca, but he felt a strong blow to the back of his head and fainted.
When he opened his eyes again.
Only the gray wolf knights were by his side.
The empire collapsed and the palace froze, and the survivors fled to the lower ground.
Rebecca was not there.
“This necklace is a wedding gift from Rebecca. She said she had nothing to give me, a royal, as a lowly maid, but it was better than nothing.”
Frechen touched the necklace around his neck.
It seemed like he could still feel her warmth from the necklace, even though a long time must have passed.
“That’s so like her. What is this necklace, that I wandered outside for 32 years?”
The hidden treasure of the royal family or the secret magic weapon.
To revive the glory of the past royal family or something.
He never had such things in his mind from the beginning.
“I gave up hope that she would be alive, but I thought there would be some traces of her left. Yes. I was just looking for this.”
For the past 32 years.
He led his men through the rough northern land and circled around the huge ice cliff for one reason only.
“Frechen. You… just to find that necklace…”
Even if others doubted him and pointed fingers at him.
A fake emperor or a useless one or a remnant of the empire that opposed Lean’s will.
He endured that period even as he heard such words.
“Just? No, no.”
Frechen shook his head and said faintly but firmly.
“This is everything to me.”