KFBRV Pt 2 Ch 1
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Side Story 1. Johan's POV
By nature, Johan lacked greed. His untouchable position as Crown Prince eliminated the need for desire.
The rarest, most noble treasures rested in his grasp before he could form a single wish. Everything a human could covet lay at his feet from the exact moment of his birth.
Furthermore, he possessed flawless beauty and awakened as a Transcendent at merely two years old. The rules and order of the world yielded to him. They existed solely for his benefit.
He followed goodness without needing to ponder its definition. He adhered to chivalry without questioning its purpose. Devoid of lack, he possessed no cowardice. Devoid of fear, he harbored no hesitation.
A simple, flawless existence maintained a lukewarm temperature—neither hot nor cold.
He bore a solitary mission. Born a Transcendent, he must dedicate his life to the Purifier in absolute perfection.
Just as fairy tales, scripture, and human history dictated. He must obey the categorical imperative and serve the Purifier with absolute loyalty.
Therefore, he never anticipated a first encounter like this.
[Ulrich] "Oh...... Your Highness. My daughter's harboring immense nerves. Haha. Allow me to introduce Odette. She's recently awakened as an S-rank Purifier."
Half-hidden behind the booming Count, the girl trembled with a bowed head.
The artificial stench gives me a splitting headache.
This Purifier clashed against the priests' grand sermons. A magical moment of ecstasy? Nonsense. This introduction constituted pure torture.
The cloying scent of cheap melted candy saturated the audience chamber. A lace dress reflecting the chandelier’s brilliant light pierced his retinas.
Every minor detail about this girl grated on him, a man renowned for his boundless generosity. Even his innate abilities, which should celebrate the Purifier’s presence, remained dormant and apathetic.
Did he not claim she turned fifteen? What fifteen-year-old possesses such a small frame?
Her stature provoked the most severe irritation. Her shoulders lacked the structural breadth to bear a Purifier's grand mission.
She drowned within her dress, overwhelmed by the excessive layers of fabric. Her white-knuckled grip on the gaudy lace betrayed a desperate cling to a fraying lifeline.
[Ulrich] "Step out from behind me, Odette. You've got to greet His Highness."
Prompted by the Count's urging, the hunched girl struggled to stand beside him.
A single step forward amplified the foul stench, worsening Johan's migraine. His ability shuddered in stark rejection of her presence.
My skull might split open.
Perhaps that precise pain explained the distortion of time. The brief instant she lifted her gaze stretched into a paralyzing eternity.
The exact moment their eyes locked.
Thump.
A heavy drop echoed in his ears.
Thump, thump, thump.
Hues mirroring a warm summer sea, or perhaps a frigid emerald.
Heat flooded his ears. His throat constricted. A suffocating tightness seized his chest, identifying the rhythmic thrumming as his own erratic heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
This noise defied the priests' promised bells of joy upon meeting a Purifier. This thunderous sound heralded the total annihilation of his world.
His lukewarm, flawless reality—devoid of desire or loneliness—shattered into countless jagged fragments.
[Johan] "O......dette."
He breathed her name, utterly bewitched. His body transformed into a foreign vessel, forgetting the basic mechanics of breathing and blinking.
What do I do?
A vicious curse gripped his soul, far darker than any magic.
Nothing else could explain this profound bewilderment. Nothing else could ignite this unbearable, dizzying heat.
His throat tickled. A single relaxation of his jaw threatened to unleash a foolish, uncontrollable grin.
Her identity as a Purifier, or his status as a Transcendent. The supposed natural law of a Transcendent worshipping a Purifier. All such logic evaporated from his mind.
The artificial perfume remained vile. His ability stayed dormant. Nothing changed externally, yet he alone floundered in uncharted waters.
The tiny girl before him reigned as an absolute sovereign. A sovereign destined to upend his entire existence.
The Emperor's authoritative voice fractured the blinding spell.
[Gregory] "Crown Prince. You must maintain proper etiquette before a lady."
Ah.
Johan extended his arm toward her.
Etiquette demanded he pull her knuckles to his lips. He performed this daily ritual dozens of times without a second thought, yet his hand trembled like a fool's.
Gripping that lace with such force will bruise her fragile fingertips.
Pondering this exact hazard, he enclosed her porcelain hand—a delicate thing capable of snapping under pressure.
[Odette] "F-Father. I can't do this!"
She jolted in pure shock, tearing her fingers from his grasp.
[Odette] "No! No! This isn't right!"
Her voice tore through the grand chamber as a desperate shriek. The thunderous volume defied the hunched, trembling girl emitting it.
[Odette] "I'm terrified. This isn't something I can endure!"
She clutched her father's collar, pleading for salvation. Unadulterated terror flooded her teal eyes.
[Johan] "Ode......"
He attempted to speak her name to soothe her rising panic, but the raw sound only escalated her hysteria.
[Odette] "I-I can't. I can't do it. Father. Please. Please, save me."
Her face drained to a ghastly pallor. She hyperventilated, consumed by absolute dread.
Johan stepped closer to support her trembling frame. At that exact second, a tall window across the audience chamber reflected their figures side by side.
[Johan] "Ah......"
He halted his advance, exhaling a heavy sigh. The mirror's reflection laid bare the distinct source of her terror.
Despite his youth, he possessed a colossal physique next to Odette.
His uniform, tailored specifically to command reverence, accentuated his intimidating bulk. A razor-sharp blade hung off his hip.
Beside the small girl, Johan mirrored a hulking monster.
His own facial expression worsened the horrifying image. His eyes burned with ravenous anticipation, ready to devour her whole.
A grotesque, unrelenting obsession dominated his blue irises, broadcasting a primal vow to never let her escape.
[Ulrich] "Odette. Control yourself. Don't make a scene."
The Count delivered a heavy reprimand through stiff lips, but Odette merely shuddered, spilling thick teardrops onto the floor.
[Odette] "Aren't you terrified? Am I the sole person terrified of these Transcendents?"
[Ulrich] "Enough, I said, control yourself!"
[Odette] "Father, this arrangement is wrong. I refuse to participate. The atrocities those monsters commit—"
Terrible monsters.
Johan's hands curled into tight fists at the pinpoint accuracy of the mirror's truth.
The Count smothered her mouth with his palm. Johan deduced the unfinished sentence with zero difficulty.
[Odette] "He will subject me to the exact atrocities those terrible monsters commit."
He possessed no defense against the brutal accusation. Her words aligned perfectly with his inner desires.
Just as a fairy tale beast coveted a radiant princess, Johan craved Odette.
The Count's specific reaction faded from Johan's memory.
Odette's weeping paralyzed him. He stood vacant, staring exclusively at the sobbing girl.
In that suspended moment, a profound revelation struck him.
Fairy tales, holy scriptures, and human history highlighted only the Transcendent's immense love for the Purifier. No historical text ever questioned whether the Purifier welcomed such overbearing worship.
My love functions as sheer violence against you. My desire acts as a devastating Calamity.
Despite knowing this brutal reality, I can't halt my adoration. You remain too beautiful, too agonizingly precious to me......
Following that fateful encounter, Johan endured a torturous adolescence. He agonized day and night, swinging like a relentless pendulum between ravenous craving and crushing guilt.
He questioned the core of righteousness. He interrogated the necessity of a Transcendent's goodness. He challenged the foundation of chivalry. He analyzed how to prevent raw desire from mutating into brutal violence.
The painful philosophical reasoning consumed him. Halting these analytical thoughts meant his boundless greed would instantly devour and shatter the fragile Odette.
His lukewarm existence fractured entirely. Only a withered young man remained, perpetually chasing Odette with an unquenchable lust.
He sprinted across a scorching desert. He became a foolish wanderer, unable to abandon his pursuit of an eternal mirage.
During his darkest hours, he wished to eradicate his love.
That bleak time passed. Now, he recognized his own suffering as utterly insignificant. His internal pain paled in comparison to Odette's tragically eroded life.
Johan replayed the Recording Stone resting on his palm. He had ordered an aide to steal this exact artifact from the Count's secure vault. The crystal held the unflinching footage of Odette's formal disownment.
Rumors circulated of the Count tearing his grand estate apart in a blind rage over the missing artifact. Johan dismissed the man's fury as irrelevant noise.
[Odette] "I'll do better. Father."
The tiny hands scrubbing the floor measured even smaller than his memories of their initial meeting.
[Odette] "I was wrong. Please don't abandon me. Father, Father!"
Halting her grueling labor, the child buried her face in her blistered, ruined palms and wept.
A tiny girl shattered by sorrow. Redness stinging his eyes, Johan stroked the moving illusion of Odette within the Recording Stone.
[Johan] "Odette."
Clarity settled over his mind. The "monster" the fifteen-year-old Odette referenced years ago didn't describe him.
Her terror directed itself at Count Albrecht—a man devoid of any intention to utilize Purification, scheming solely to exploit the Imperial Family.
Her scream constituted a monumental display of courage against her absolute, long-time abuser.
Therefore, Odette, my scorching agony.
You hold every right to break me countless times. You hold the right to ruin me with vastly superior pain.
Please, just stay alive and healthy wherever you reside.
If Odette secured her happiness, Johan accepted a lifetime of absolute misery in exchange.
After caressing the crystal sphere for a long stretch of silence, he summoned an Imperial servant to dispense strict orders.
Several edicts descended upon the empire bearing Johan's royal seal.
Upon reading the imperial mandates, the Barzeha nobility arrived at a singular, unified conclusion.
The Crown Prince of Barzeha has lost his mind.
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