Chapter 146: Everything was a lie (3)

“Haha…”

Ruel couldn’t help but burst into laughter, finding the situation amusing.

Looking at Cassion’s expression, Ruel finally spoke. “You said he came to his senses, even if just for a moment?”

There was annoyance in his voice.

“Yes, he is currently in his right mind.”

“The Crown Prince of the Tonisk Empire? Even a passing dog would laugh at that. This is what you call being in his right mind?”

Cassion remained unfazed by Ruel’s snort and calmly replied, “You may find it hard to believe, but it was proven true after undergoing a simple test.”

“What kind of test?”

“I first asked him to name the kings of the Empire. In addition, he answered most of the questions about the royal family, such as the names of cities in the Empire and methods of conquest,” Cassion explained.

“If he is interested in the Empire, he could know that much. Or maybe he’s a spy from another country.”

“I merely relayed his words. You be the judge.”

The truth couldn’t be revealed by scolding Cassion, so Ruel had to make his own judgment.

Ruel hesitated.

He thought the person was quite important, but what if he turned out to be a mere scammer?

However, he couldn’t discard even the slightest possibility.

“Fine, let’s go. Lead the way.” Ruel said with a troubled expression.

Cassion reached for the doorknob and announced, “Mr. Tyson is outside.”

When the door opened, Tyson smiled widely and spread his arms.

“Ruel, you’re already wandering around like this…!”

“Uncle, I’ll come back later.”

Ruel nodded slightly and followed Cassion.

Leo rubbed his face against Tyson’s leg and waved his short paw.

“I will come back later.”

“Yes, see you later.”

Tyson awkwardly looked at his outstretched arms and then nervously scratched his back.

‘Is Ruel too big for me to hug?’

No matter how much Ruel had grown, he looked like a child in his eyes.

***

“This way.”

Cassion guided Ruel to a room that had not been used before.

As they entered, they heard a frightened sound coming from a man crouching in the corner.

“…?”

Ruel was slightly surprised by the man’s behavior.

He had expected a young prince, but instead, he saw a middle-aged man with sparse white hair, showing signs of aging.

“Are you saying he is in his right mind now?” Ruel asked Cassion, seeking confirmation.

Cassion smiled and replied, “Yes, he’s okay.”

Ruel couldn’t help but sense Cassion’s enjoyment of the situation.

‘Okay, the more difficult my situation is, the more fun it is for you, right?’

Having already figured out Cassion’s twisted personality to some extent, Ruel’s temper flared up.

‘He’s also a butler.’

Ruel swallowed a sigh and then spoke, “Bring a chair.”

“Yes,” Cassion said, placing a chair at a distance from the man.

Even conversation with a person in their right mind could be difficult, Ruel was already anticipating how tiring this conversation was going to be.

Ruel looked at the man while inhaling Breath. The man crouched, shielding his head with both arms.

The sight was pitiful, but Ruel could not associate any sense of a crown prince’s bearing.

‘No matter how I look at him, he seems like a swindler.’

Ruel furrowed his brow and absentmindedly pet Leo’s stomach, who was lying on his lap.

“Do you know the Great Man?” Ruel brought up a topic, trying to gauge the man’s reaction.

The man’s trembling ceased, and he cautiously observed Ruel, resembling a wary herbivorous animal.

“I am Ruel Setiria, the owner of this mansion.”

Thinking that his name must have been mentioned several times during his treatment, Ruel introduced himself. This time there was a reaction.

The man lowered the arm covering his face.

“You claim to be the Crown Prince of the Tonisk Empire?” Ruel mocked him once again.

“Ho… How audacious!” The man automatically responded to Ruel’s ridicule, just like a typical noble who considered himself highly esteemed before he quickly looked away and raised his arm again.

“To be honest, I think you’re a scammer,” Ruel continued, regardless of whether he was upset or not. At that moment, a flicker of light sparked in the man’s hazy eyes. Ruel knew he had hit a nerve and continued to provoke him.

“If you want to talk to me, lower your arm and look at me properly. Even a self-proclaimed crown prince should be able to do that.”

“I’m not self-proclaimed; I am the only Crown Prince of the Tonisk Empire.”

“Well, well. Let’s set that discussion aside for now. What’s more important is that you can provide me with information to bring down the Great Man, isn’t it?” Ruel smirked arrogantly. “Go ahead, speak. I’m listening.”

Ruel set the stage for the man, prepared to listen to whatever he had to say. The man took a deep breath and lowered his arms. Ruel sensed his tightly gripped, trembling hands, as he struggled to maintain his composure.

“Concentrate. Focus,” the man muttered to himself, then turned his attention to Ruel. “Prove to me that you are not the Red Ash.”

When the name Red Ash was mentioned, Ruel chuckled, realizing that the man possessed at least some information.

“If I thought you were a swindler, would I be acting this way if I were the real Red Ash? I would have killed you the moment I found you.”

“…!”

The man, suddenly overwhelmed with fear, grabbed his head.

He panted heavily and muttered frantically, “Hide. I need to hide and watch for the next move. Don’t get caught. I must hide. I need to stay alive. The Empire will only survive if I live.”

Leo’s ear twitched.

—That man fears something.

Ruel gently scratched Leo’s belly and glanced at Cassion.

“He’s still fine.”

With reassurance, Ruel inhaled Breath and waited for the man to calm down.

After a while, the man’s murmuring ceased, and he once again tightly gripped his hands.

“Understand… Please understand. My mind feels shattered into pieces.”

“I understand. So, is that enough proof now?”

“That’s sufficient. If you were really the Red Ash as you said, I wouldn’t have been able to escape from there in the first place,” The man let out a long sigh and covered himself with a more relaxed expression than before. “I am Hilim Tonisk, the Crown Prince of the Tonisk Empire.”

Ruel chuckled lightly at the man reiterating his prince status. Though Hilim’s gaze briefly turned fierce, he managed to suppress his anger.

“I understand the ridicule. Everyone is probably deceived by a trivial lie.”

“What is the lie?”

“Please promise me one thing.”

Ruel frowned. If he was going to speak, he might as well speak openly without holding anything back.

What if he lost his mind again?

“Speak,” Ruel demanded, suppressing his rising irritation. He understood that some people required a promise before they would share any information, and he had no choice but to oblige.

“Make sure… to destroy the Great Man,” Hilim said, his anger palpable. “Erase that Great Man from this land. That man. Erase him. Surely!” His face flushed with rage, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Alright, I promise. So tell me, what is this lie?” Ruel asked, struggling to comprehend the intensity of Hilim’s anger. Even if he was a crown prince, his reaction seemed extreme.

“There is no Tonisk Empire,” Hilim finally managed to force out the words, leaving Ruel blinking in surprise. “The Tonisk Empire has long been destroyed.”

Silence filled the room. Neither Ruel nor Cassion could utter a word after hearing Hilim’s statement. It was a statement that was hard to believe or disbelieve without further evidence.

Breaking the silence, Hilim laughed. “You all have been deceived by that lie. Everyone has been fooled. The Empire vanished long ago.”

Ruel stared at Hilim intently, feeling his mouth go dry at Hilim’s desperate laughter. It seemed genuine. Even if Hilim was a swindler, he was adamant that at least the information he shared was real.

“…Who?” Ruel’s voice trembled. “Who destroyed the Empire?”

“The Great Man. No, that bastard who took on the disguise of my younger brother!” Hilim gritted his teeth and emphasized each word with anger.

‘…!’

Ruel’s eyes widened.

He had learned from Trino Setiria’s letter that the Great Man, who was not supposed to exist in this world, had taken on someone else’s identity. It was not information easily obtained by others.

Hilim stopped laughing and continued hesitantly, “The Ray of Darkness… engulfed the entire Empire. I saw it clearly.”

“They say a ray of darkness descended on the empire.”

He recalled the story he had heard from Huswen earlier today.

‘What?’

Ruel couldn’t easily believe the information he had acquired one by one.

‘He is not a swindler but the real Crown Prince?’

Ruel still found it hard to believe it was the truth.

Hilim’s hands shook as he covered his ears, his voice trembling. “The sounds… They’re fading away. My nanny, my mother, the servants, they’re all gone,” His voice trembled as he spoke. “I had to hide. I had to survive for the Empire to exist but I was discovered. That bastard who took my brother’s identity captured me and flaunted the state of the empire.”

Tears welled up in Hilim’s eyes as he began to choke up. “They’re all dead. Everyone is dead. That was the Empire. The place I was supposed to rule…”

Hilim’s pale face expressed bewilderment and sorrow as he glanced around the room, haunted by the memories of that day.

“The war? You were the ones who started the war, right?” Ruel asked, licking his lips nervously.

“That war… It was all manipulated by the Great Man who used us,” Hilim bit his lip.

“What…?” Ruel felt a growing sense of unease at the extent of the Great Man’s influence.

“One day, my brother brought information from a group called the Red Ash. That’s when it all started,” Hilim laughed bitterly, trying to hold himself together by clasping his hands tightly.

“He said they worshiped the one known as the Great Man and promised to fulfill the nobles’ desires. Many nobles joined the Red Ash as well.”

It was the same method Ruel knew the Red Ash used to expand its influence in Leponia and Cyronian.

“As I delved deeper, I discovered the immense scale of their influence. Despite that couldn’t fathom where they acquired such wealth and power,” Hilim’s anger surged, evident in his bulging veins.

“But now I understand. He changed bodies and accumulated power and wealth! That monster!” Hilim spat out the words, his disgust evident.

Ruel had often wondered about the source of the Red Ash’s power but had never found a definitive answer. There was much he didn’t know about the organization.

‘If what Hilim says is true, how long has this plan been in motion?’

Ruel swallowed nervously.

“After my investigation, I found that the Red Ash’s influence extended to three other countries, even deeper than in our own Empire.”

‘From that moment, or even before, the Red Ash had been pulling the strings.’

Leponia had severed ties with the Red Ash.

Cyronian had mostly rooted them out.

What a relief.

“The size of the force convinced me it was a dangerous matter. Their leader, the Great Man, is a monster. How can a person take over another person’s body? We started a war to get rid of the Red Ash.”

“The war started because of the Red Ash?”

“That’s right.”

The reason seemed somewhat absurd, but considering it was the Empire, Ruel could understand their confidence.

Hilim took a deep breath and sighed. “We were arrogant. We deluded ourselves into thinking that our Empire could truly save humanity.”

“Save humanity? What does that even mean?” Ruel furrowed his brow, struggling to grasp the connection between eliminating the Red Ash and saving humanity.

“They sought revenge.”

“Revenge? Revenge against whom?”

“I don’t know but they were aiming to eradicate all of humanity on this land except for themselves. The Empire was arrogant. We should never have started that war…”

“What happened to the Empire in that war?” Ruel circled back to the crucial point. Ultimately, the most important thing was the reason for the Empire’s downfall.

“The Ray of Darkness,” Hilim’s eyes trembled intensely. “The Ray of Darkness. It descended upon us. That ray, that ray…”

Hilim recalled the Ray of Darkness as if he had just seen it, curling up and shuddered. “I have to stay alive. I must rebuild the Empire. I must not be found out.”

As he repeated the same words, the flames in Hilim’s eyes that had flickered were extinguished.

Ruel inhaled Breath and waited for his condition to improve.

‘Damn it.’

He hadn’t expected the hypothesis he made yesterday to become reality.

If the Tonisk Empire had fallen, how could there still be people from the Tonisk Empire in the Kingdom of Kran?

‘Then did Kran already know that the Empire had fallen? That can’t be.’

If Hilim’s words were true, it meant that at the time, the Great Man had taken over his brother’s body.

The Kingdom of Kran had no connection to all this.

‘Why on earth did the empire have to be brought down? And what is this Ray of Darkness?’

Ruel furrowed his brow.

“If you count the use of magic in exchange for your own life as one, you count the lives and blood of tens of thousands of other beings as one.”

Suddenly, he remembered what Tyson had told him about the corruption.

The black water corrupted those with darkness attributes.

Where did the heavy price come from, and where was the black water being created?

He brought back the questions he had postponed.

‘Crazy…’

Ruel’s hand trembled slightly as he held Breath.

‘Surely not. They didn’t sacrifice the entire empire just to create the black water, did they?’

It was a horrifying thought that crossed his mind.

If it were true, then what or who could be present in the empire now? It was unimaginable, and Ruel didn’t want to entertain those thoughts.

“Ruel-nim.” Cassion quietly called out to Ruel.

“Speak.” Ruel’s voice still shook, unable to easily recover from the shock.

“It seems like we need to end the conversation here.”

Hilim showed no signs of recovery, and Ruel’s complexion was also not good.

“Alright.” Ruel stood up, inhaled Breath.

Soon, he laughed absurdly. They had all been played by the Great Man’s tricks. They had allied themselves out of fear of a non-existent Empire.

The only country that knew all this now was the Kingdom of Kran.

Why was it Kran? Why did Kran know?

There was only one conceivable answer now.

‘You were there.’

Ruel smirked.

‘You were in Kran.’

The Great Man.

Author's Thoughts

Kindly read only at . You can get the advance chapter at Ko-Fi Shop.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read