About Things That Haven't Occurred Yet
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
It was impossible to fathom why she spoke as if the study held such extraordinary significance.
Yet, since there was no harm in hearing only the truth, Dominic remained silent, his expression unchanging.
“You see, I have no ambitions whatsoever regarding Henburg. I’ve even forgotten what my homeland meant to me.”
‘Forgotten,’ she said?
“My own life matters more to me than my homeland. In my life, there is something more important, something inescapable… something like that. You won’t understand, Captain, but that is how it is for me. That is my world. Perhaps once, my country might have mattered more. But not anymore.”
“…….”
“Not anymore.”
Just as Adelheid said, Dominic could not understand her.
Placing one’s own life above one’s country was questionable enough in itself, but her words were baffling to begin with.
Lost in thought for a moment, Adelheid closed the book.
“……It’s late. Thank you for talking with me today.”
She offered him that familiar smile she wore like a second skin.
“I’ll come tomorrow as well. I’m always here.”
“…….”
“Will you come again? I know what you’re worried about. But the King has never once set foot in the study. So it will be fine.”
She knew what he was worried about and had acted like that all along? Everything about her defied comprehension.
And so, Dominic did not answer.
Adelheid blinked a few times as if studying him, then whispered in a soft, delicate voice, just as she did before the King.
“If you come here again tomorrow, I won’t seek you out while you’re on duty anymore. I promise.”
Dominic and Adelheid read books in the study every night. And they talked about what they read.
After Adelheid’s first request, neither of them ever asked to meet, nor did either demand a conversation.
They simply came to the same place, read, and casually struck up conversation. Everything flowed as naturally as breathing.
When the topic turned to subjectification, Adelheid rose from her seat and retrieved a book from a corner of the study.
Then she opened it to a page detailing the arrangement of enunciation.
Dominic watched her idly flipping through the pages and suddenly felt a sense of doubt.
“……Did you not say you do not read books?”
“When did I ever say that?”
Dominic searched his memory. Come to think of it, she hadn’t explicitly said she didn’t read.
Adelheid had asked him if he enjoyed reading, to which she had replied, ’Not particularly.’
Looking up from the pages, her lips curved into a broad smile.
“I read. I just don’t enjoy it.”
Someone who didn’t enjoy it knew this entire study inside and out?
Dominic found that hard to believe, but he could hardly cross-examine someone about her own claim. It was too exhausting a matter anyway.
Tracing the printed words with her finger beside the lamp, Adelheid looked every bit the noblewoman.
Dominic suddenly realized the fundamental reason he despised Adelheid.
Though he had shared many conversations with her, there remained a conviction he could never compromise, even now.
The very first conversation they had. ‘Unless it is for a greater moral principle or higher value, no situation warrants humiliation. There are many in this world who hold principles dearer than life itself, and thinking humans willingly walk the difficult path.’
Dominic was a knight, and Adelheid was royalty of a ruined nation.
A knight possessed a knight’s values, and royalty possessed royal values.
To Dominic, such values were usually dearer than life itself. Yet in Adelheid, not a shred of royal dignity or worth could be found.
She catered to the King’s every whim like a pet and smiled at other men merely to draw his attention.
Even now, Dominic’s thoughts had not changed.
Adelheid was the exact kind of person he despised most.
A human being who willingly compromised her own intentions and self-worth for the sake of an easier, better path.
Suddenly, she spoke.
“You are a formidable warrior, Captain, but would I be mistaken in thinking you’re somehow better suited for politics?”
“……I am…….”
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
Adelheid’s shoulders flinched like a child caught in the middle of mischief.
She sprang to her feet as if catapulted from her seat. She didn’t seem to care in the least about Dominic, who was watching her with bewilderment.
A maid’s toneless voice carried through the door.
“Your Highness, His Majesty is on his way.”
A precarious tremor rippled through Adelheid’s blue eyes.
Hastily undoing her hair and combing it down with her fingers, she rushed out of the study. There was none of her usual flirtatious smile, nor her swaying gait.
Behind her departing steps, the door clicked shut with a slight edge of agitation.
In an instant, the study fell into utter silence. Left alone in the empty room, Dominic stared blankly at the closed door.
His thoughts were sluggish. He tore his gaze away and tried to resume reading, but the words failed to register, so he shut the book.
Leaning his head back, he rested against the chair. His mind spun in circles.
How long had he sat like that? Driven by an inexplicable restlessness, he soon rose to his feet.
He walked over to the window overlooking the palace gates and stood there.
Before long, he saw Adelheid hurriedly walking out of the building.
She had already fixed her hair and adjusted her attire. Soon, the massive palace gates slowly swung open.
Isolated behind the window glass, not even the familiar groan of the gates reached him. There was only silence.
As the King came into view, Adelheid approached him. Even if her face couldn’t be seen, she was surely smiling.
Though seen from behind, it was the very walk Dominic knew so well. He let out a low sigh.
And just as Adelheid moved to embrace Anton, Anton kicked her to the ground.
He seized the fallen Adelheid by her hair and dragged her forward.
Adelheid seemed to try and push Anton’s hand away from her hair, but Anton marched forward without a second thought. She was dragged along helplessly.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Inside the study, it remained dead silent.
Dominic stood frozen, watching the scene unfold.
- Regarding Adelheid
Genomes had invaded.
In the burning palace of Henburg, Adelheid thought of death.
When all her kin except her brother lay dead and she came face-to-face with the man who had slaughtered them, she thought of death. Her entire body trembled like an aspen leaf.
Awaiting death was far more terrifying than death itself, so she wished he would just kill her quickly instead.
The Blessing the dragon bestowed upon Henburg—it was that the lineage of noble blood would never end.
According to the Blessing, the royal lineage was never supposed to end. It wasn’t supposed to.
Faced with a reality where only two of them remained waiting for death, Adelheid could feel no hope whatsoever.
When her brother’s head fell first, and the blade swept down toward her own neck, Adelheid thought of death.
And then she opened her eyes again.
A bloodstained blade was before her eyes.
Her beheaded brother was beside her as well. Adelheid thought of death once more.
She opened her eyes again.
A bloodstained blade was before her eyes.
Her beheaded brother was beside her as well. Adelheid thought of death once more.
She opened her eyes.
Adelheid thought of death once more.
She thought of death again, and again, and again, and again, and again, yet it never ended.
The terror remained the same, and the pain remained the same. After death came death, and after death came death. It drove her to the brink of madness.
It was so terrifying and painful she felt she would die. Yet she neither went mad nor died.
The Blessing the dragon bestowed upon Henburg—it was that the lineage of noble blood would never end.
Ah.
Goosebumps washed over her entire body. Her mind snapped awake as if doused with icy water. Was this what the Blessing meant? Was this what it was? Was this how it worked?
This was a Blessing? An indescribable rage surged within her. This could not be.
How dare they give such a thing as a Blessing? Before she could even finish the thought, she died.
She opened her eyes.
When she fully realized that this would never end, Adelheid begged for her life. But there was no mercy in the blade.
When she opened her eyes once more, she pleaded even more desperately.
Before the King of Genomes, she threw away every shred of royal pride and dignity, begging wretchedly.
She wanted to live because she knew that even if she died, she would not stay dead. She wanted to live because never dying terrified her.
It was an emotion that surpassed terror. She wanted to live so, so desperately.
Unable to find the words to express this feeling, Adelheid simply wept and repeated the same plea over and over again.
‘I’ll do anything. Please spare me, please spare me, please, I’ll do whatever you want…….’
