KFBRV Pt 2 Ch 4
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
I don't know why I dream of chasing her down to kill her......
Swaaa.
The crashing waves of the night sea broke against his waist, churning into white foam.
He spoke, projecting absolute indifference.
[Zion] "You should stay out of the ocean at your age, Alfredo. Are your bones not aching from the cold?"
His performance proved entirely futile. The elderly Alfredo's eyes reddened with tears.
[Alfredo] "Your Excellency. Please......"
Choked with emotion, the butler failed to finish his sentence.
Zion anticipated the unspoken words. He turned away, feigning absolute ignorance.
He waded out of the water and wrung the ocean from his soaked white shirt.
Alfredo maintained a heavy silence throughout the process before finally forcing the words out.
[Alfredo] "Your Excellency requires rest."
[Zion] "I just rested. I came all the way to the sea and took in the refreshing breeze."
[Alfredo] "You know exactly what I mean. Please suspend all your current duties. Heed an old butler's loyalty—"
[Zion] "That is out of the question."
Zion severed the plea with a brutally resolute tone.
[Alfredo] "Your Excellency has lost all sense of reason."
Alfredo refused to back down.
[Alfredo] "Step away from every single duty. Even for a few weeks, or just a few days—"
He possessed a long history as the Kleist butler. His lineage—spanning his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather—had all served the estate.
The Kleist family routinely issued bizarre, unorthodox commands.
These mandates ranged from base and cowardly tasks to directives destined to breed horrific disasters. Alfredo would gladly execute an order demanding his own death.
For a servant of such absolute loyalty to speak so desperately meant Zion's condition had deteriorated into complete ruin.
[Zion] "I explicitly said no."
Zion was making foolish, self-destructive judgments he never would have entertained two years prior.
He was actively drafting legislation to improve the treatment of Purifiers.
The military might of the continent, Barzeha included, relied heavily on the human weapons known as "Transcendents." Consequently, lowering their corruption levels remained an absolute necessity.
Odette faced intense public backlash for enjoying immense privileges while refusing to purify anyone. However, even without such privileges, any Purifier who rejected official requests from the military or the Imperial Palace suffered severe condemnation.
Society demanded to know how a Purifier could prioritize a trivial concept like "free will" over the monumental task of protecting the nation and humanity.
The superficial laws claiming to protect Purifiers offered zero actual defense.
This public vitriol grew exponentially harsher if the Purifier possessed a lower rank or commoner status.
Zion now spearheaded a new law. This legislation granted Purifiers the absolute right to refuse any official purification demand without consequence.
The "Purifier Protection Act Amendment" outright banned the Imperial Palace or the military from forcing unwanted purification upon any individual, regardless of necessity.
Because the Empire's military foundation relied entirely on Transcendents, the political backlash proved catastrophic.
Despite the resistance, this radical law passed. Zion discarded all diplomatic pretense, drafting and enforcing the legislation with tyrannical brutality.
He ruthlessly manipulated the Commoner Council members he bankrolled and casually subjugated the Noble Council members by weaponizing their darkest secrets.
Consequently, the Kleist Marquisate's reputation plummeted to absolute rock bottom among the aristocracy, yet Zion remained entirely indifferent.
[Alfredo] "Whether it is the Commoner Council or the Noble Council. Do you comprehend that they are condemning you? You are overturning every established law for the sake of one dead young lady—"
[Zion] "The Kleist family has no obligation to follow the law. To me, the law is something to forge and wield."
[Alfredo] "Then at least exercise some tact! Why are you acting this way? Being tactful is what you excel at the most, Young Master!"
Alfredo invoked the archaic title, overcome with raw emotion.
Zion usually operated with surgical precision. He avoided provoking the commoners while maintaining amicable ties with the nobility.
He masterfully attached perfect justifications to every action, preferring to use proxies rather than stepping into the spotlight himself.
Playing the role of a benevolent ruler in the public eye constituted his greatest specialty.
Alfredo had never once betrayed his emotions to his master. Therefore, Zion was witnessing this unhinged version of his butler for the very first time.
Nevertheless, he stared at the old man's desperate face with profound indifference.
[Alfredo] "Why are you doing this, Young Master? Are we not the House of Kleist? Do you not comprehend the centuries of wealth, reputation, and power built over countless generations?!"
[Zion] "Save your protests for when we return to the estate. The beach is far too romantic a setting to engage in a shouting match with an old butler. It is rather embarrassing."
He delivered the remark with a nonchalant smile, leaving Alfredo looking utterly devastated by frustration.
However, the butler failed to continue his reprimand.
[Zion] "Having one's reputation destroyed is a painful and lonely ordeal. That is why you pity me. Pitying a man possessing this much wealth and power."
His expression carried an abyssal exhaustion as he spoke.
[Zion] "Therefore, imagine how excruciating it must have been for a girl who possessed absolutely nothing. Having countless people tear her down relentlessly."
Alfredo recognized the truth. Zion was crumbling.
[Zion] "I believed she and I were comrades bound by revenge. Looking back, it is utterly absurd. She was entirely alone the whole time......"
The glorious era of his absolute invulnerability had perished. Now, he consisted of nothing but exposed weaknesses.
[Zion] "I held everything in my grasp. I could execute my revenge effortlessly. Yet she held absolutely nothing in her hands, did she?"
An S-class Transcendent, the Head of the Intelligence Department, the Patriarch of the Kleist family, and an obscene accumulation of wealth.
He still possessed the world, yet he radiated a devastating fragility. Such vulnerability held no place within the House of Kleist.
[Alfredo] "If Your Excellency continues down this path, I will have no choice but to leave Kleist."
Alfredo delivered the ultimatum with a freezing tone.
Indeed.
The Kleist family conditioned their retainers with absolute ruthlessness. Subordinates were bred to reject any imperfect master. It was a household that ingrained the philosophy of slaughtering even one's own parents if they proved worthless.
Zion boarded the carriage without a single word of response. He stared out the window for the entirety of the return journey.
A sudden sound broke the silence from the opposite seat.
[Odette] "Zion."
How can this voice...…
He snapped his head forward, his face draining of color.
Odette sat directly across from him.
She sported the same ruined bob cut from his dreams. Clad in filthy rags, she occupied the opposite seat of the moving carriage.
[Zion] "Al......brecht?"
He forced the question out through a violently trembling voice.
The sheer euphoria of her presence completely eclipsed the logical impossibility of her sitting in his carriage.
Wearing her dream-like visage, she questioned him.
[Odette] "Did you catch me?"
[Zion] "Are you alright? How did you get here—"
[Odette] "Answer me, Zion. Is there no escape now?"
A wave of profound déjà vu crashed over him. His entire body went rigid. He recalled hearing those exact words from her before.
[Odette] "I wanted to be loved...... just once."
The whisper struck like a final will.
[Odette] "Dump my body in the desert. I don't want to be hated even after I'm dead. None of you would want to carry my corpse anyway."
He had dismissed it as mere sleep-talking back then. Yet, those exact phrases connected seamlessly to his recurring nightmares of sprinting across the Erwin Desert.
Can this be a mere coincidence?
In that very fraction of a second. The carriage door flew open, and Odette hurled herself out into the open air.
[Zion] "Odette!"
The carriage is still moving! Does she want to break her bones?!
He launched himself out of the speeding carriage, frantically diving after her.
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