I Reject the villain’s ending.

Episode 26

‘Kerr, kuluk.’

Eldrakis looked down, coughing up blood, unsure of what had happened to him.

And then he saw it. A hand pierced through his chest, and in that hand, his own heart, pulsing.

‘My, heart?’

‘…….’

Eldrakis’s disbelieving, strained words filled the room with a deafening silence.

Like the eve of a storm, like a frozen moment in the face of a great typhoon.

‘…….’

‘…….’

And the hand that pierced his chest mercilessly squeezed his heart out in front of everyone.

At that moment, I snapped out of it like a cold water baptism on my head.

‘Ella-!!!’

‘Eldrakis!’

Eldrakis’s body jerked like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and he fell forward.

With a dull thud on the floor, Eldrakis collapsed, revealing the cloaked figure behind him.

I opened my eyes wide and muttered in disbelief. My mind went blank.

‘Richie? How……. I thought you were dead?’

‘Ella! Ella, you can’t be dead!’

Diane rushed over, her eyes red and bloodshot, slashed at Richie’s throat, pushed his body under the altar, and scooped Eldrakis into her arms.

‘Ella, open your eyes, Ella!’

‘…….’

Diane slapped Eldrakis’s cheek and tried to shake her, but her limp body swayed this way and that, and her hands fell to the floor.

With a thud, the feathery weight sounded loud. Diane shook her head with trembling eyes.

‘Eh, Ella. Eldrakis.’

‘…….’

No matter how many times she called, there was no answer. She could only feel her body’s chilling temperature, but not a single breath.

I watched as Diane cradled Eldrakis’s body, tears streaming down her face.

‘What the hell is going on here?

Why is Richie, who I thought was dead after summoning Nivas and draining his life force, alive?

Why is Eldrakis, who just a few moments ago was smiling broadly as he created an anti-demon circle to keep demons out of Middle-earth, dead?

It all made no sense. It was incomprehensible.

‘A man died in front of me, and his heart burst?

It was unimaginable for So-won Kim, an ordinary girl from South Korea.

The idea of someone dying in front of me was as unlikely as winning the lottery, as improbable as that.

Richie’s head on the floor, not dead, but alive, with a face full of anger at the world. It was a bizarre sight.

‘This time, I thought for sure you were going to die. Why are you alive this time, why!’

‘Madman.’

‘Haha. Saint, are you sad or angry that your mate is dead?’

Richie said, wriggling his decapitated body.

‘I envy his death! A thousand years, a thousand years, I’ve been alive for over a thousand years, and now I want to die, please, I want to die!’

I couldn’t listen to Richie any longer as he screamed like he was holding all the pain in the world.

My anger had already reached its limit.

I twisted my lips and strode over and grabbed Richie by his muzzle.

Blood dripped at my feet, but I could not see the red blood of my enemy in my eyes, which were filled with rage.

‘If that’s how you want to die, I’ll kill you. Scream until you die with your corrupted soul somewhere forever.’

‘You can kill me?’

There was hope in Richie’s eyes. I scoffed at that hope.

‘No. I’m going to scald you to death with holy power.’

‘What? Wait, turn it off!’

I’ve never used holy power this strong before. I pushed my holy power to the limit of what I could muster and crushed him.

His agonized screams filled the underground cavity, and it wasn’t long before he was reduced to ash and annihilated.

What a futile end.

‘If I had known it would be so easy to kill him, I would have done it sooner.’

But then Eldrakis would not have died, not dead, but alive, breathing and smiling……!

‘Then we would have all gone back to the castle together.’

A dry tear trickled down my cheek, a tear that no one else could see, only I could feel.

I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, but all that came out was emptiness.

It was funny that a person, a mate I had spent days with, was dead and my tear ducts were dry.

Kugugung! The ceiling of the basement collapsed at a rapid pace, sending heavy stones falling everywhere.

‘Kaaaak!’

‘Diane let the children out first.’

In the face of the urgency, I spoke in a low voice to Diane, who was holding Eldrakis’s body.

‘Diane Emore.’

‘Cough, Ella.’

‘Diane Emore, this is an order. Evacuate the children now.’

‘…….’

‘I command you as a holy woman. Eldrakis is dead. Concentrate on saving the remaining children.’

Diane looked at me with resentment in her eyes, then staggered to her feet and went to save tens of thousands of children.

I stared down at the dead Eldrakis for a long moment, then grabbed his bloodstained white robes and carried the unconscious Iros out of the crumbling basement.

I wish I could have brought Eldrakis with me, but there wasn’t enough time to retrieve her body from the rapidly collapsing basement.

Once safely outside, we stared at the ruins for a long time.

‘Ella…….’

‘…….’

Of the five warlocks who had departed, only one, Eldrakis, had died.

It was an unexpected death. A death that happened in an instant.

But it was a death that should never have happened.

‘Eldrakis was twenty-five years old.

The age of a flower. She was gifted enough to be recognized for his wisdom in the temple.

The dragon I’d left standing beside the underground staircase sobbed beside me as if it knew how I felt.

‘Saint.’

The stifled voice calling me tore my eyes away from the collapsed basement and turned my head.

Diane, her face stained with tears, stared at me, her green eyes the color of Eldrakis’s hair, as if to consume me.

I slowly parted my lips.

‘Tell me.’

‘Is there a connection between Ella’s death and your knowledge of this demon you’ve never seen before?’

I shook my head.

‘And do you know anything about Richie coming back to life?’

Again, I shook my head at this question.

Diane seemed to want to connect Eldrakis’s death to me in some way, but I didn’t know.

Still.

‘You can blame me for Eldrakis’s death. If you can’t find anyone to blame, I’ll gladly be the one.’

In times of unbelievable suffering, we all look for someone to blame.

It’s human instinct, it’s the heart.

But Diane had lost Eldrakis, whom she loved as more than a brother, but she had no one to blame but Richie, whom I had killed, and Nivas was gone.

In such a situation, when there is no one to blame, one turns to oneself for blame.

It was a shortcut to self-destruction.

And I didn’t want Diane to be destroyed that way.

I also feel somewhat responsible for Eldrakis’s death.

If I hadn’t brought him here in the first place, if I hadn’t let my guard down, if I hadn’t recognized Richie’s aura sooner, he might have lived.

‘Think I’m the reason Eldrakis is dead, if that’ll make you feel better.’

‘…I…’

Diane turned her head away, unable to continue.

* * *

With that, we returned to the castle, and the children returned to their parents’ arms.

Back at the castle, we were treated to the lord’s most extravagant hospitality, but none of us laughed.

No, we could not laugh.

‘The basement of the temple has collapsed because my colleague is buried there…….’

Diane choked up and couldn’t speak for a moment. Clenching his fists tightly, Diane finally managed to finish.

‘Can you provide manpower and support?’

‘Ah. Of course. I’ll send people straight to the temple.’

Viscount Ellis nodded, hiding his pleasure at the emotion in Diane’s voice.

I laid Iros down in his room with a worried Mei, and Diane went back to the temple.

The people thanked him for finding the children, and a great throng of people flocked to the temple.

As Diane stood by the window and watched, she said to herself.

‘By this evening, I will have Eldrakis’s body in my possession.’

‘Saint…….’

Mei fidgeted and looked at me anxiously.

A moment later, I heard a small groan from behind me, and Iros opened his eyes. A cracked voice called out to me as soon as he woke up.

‘Ugh. Saint?’

‘Mei, can you get some water for Iros to drink?’

‘Sure. I’ll be right back.’

Mei left the room and I moved away from the window and approached Iros, helping him up and laying him back down.

Sprawled out on the fluffy bed, Iros looked up at me, squinted, and called out to me in a cracked voice.

‘Sierra.’

‘Yeah.’

He calls me by name again.

For the second time on this journey, I turned to face Iros, who had a serious look on his face.

‘Who gave you that look again, the warlock, the lord, or if not that, Eldrakis?’

I always had a feeling, but Iros was unnecessarily intuitive.

How he could read so much into an expressionless face that hid emotion when he made eye contact with me.

I tried to deny it, but something else came out of my mouth.

‘Pink, I wonder why good people die early.’

‘…….’

‘Bad people live so well.’

‘Well, good people die early because they’re good and they’re stupid.’

‘Yeah.’

I was surprised, as Iros was always the good guy, and I expected him to side with the good guys.

‘Then the bad guy needs to die quickly.’

‘Kill him.’

And so I die at the hands of Airos, a puppet emperor, at the center of all power and wealth, well-fed and well-lived.

I’ve killed so many good people in my time, and I’ve lived so well by killing them and taking from them.

‘No good man should die, after all.’

Who… is dead? Is Wisdom dead?’

‘…….’

If any of us had died, Iros had already guessed, it would have been the weakest Eldrakis.

He’d probably realized it vaguely from the moment he woke up saw my expression and called my name.

Like an excuse, I opened my mouth.

‘A lot happened after you collapsed, but … Richie didn’t die, he came back to life.’

‘Sierra.’

‘So, so…….’

I try to say something, but I’m so ridiculous myself that I’m speechless.

I don’t know what to say. I tried to explain the situation, but my head was spinning.