Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 95

Chapter 13: No Words, Nothing at All

It was truly an astounding feat.

The subordinates of Major Ezekiel Valdemaira of the 37th Regiment returned in triumph after annihilating spies from Davis who had crossed the border unnoticed.

Citizens cheered and celebrated the King’s Army. Ezekiel Valdemaira once again secured his place as the god of war defending Astrie. Despite having been away from the capital for a long time, there was no sense of confusion from his absence. He carried himself as though he had always been there, doing what he had always done, asserting his presence naturally.

The King’s Army was only complete with Ezekiel Valdemaira. Wherever people gathered, the name of the young and handsome major could be heard.

However, the Valdemaira residence, which should have been rejoicing with toasts, was instead shrouded in a deathly silence.

It was because Ezekiel had returned carrying in his arms the condemned prisoner who should have been hanging from the gallows in the square.

Just one shot.

Just a single shot.

When a bullet from somewhere severed the noose around the prisoner’s neck on the gallows, people didn’t immediately grasp what had happened.

As the noose broke, the prisoner fell to the ground. So emaciated was the woman that when her clothes fluttered in the wind, one might question whether there was even a human body inside. She made little sound as she fell.

For a moment, everything fell silent. Everyone was stunned into speechlessness. Only those in the front row saw the bullet sever the noose; to those in the back, it looked as though the rope had simply snapped.

“W-what the…”

“Did they make that noose out of dough? Why did it fall apart so easily?”

The sudden drop in tension ruined the climax. Discontented murmurs grew louder and began to swell into unrest.

A man leapt off his horse and forced his way through the crowd gathered to witness the execution. People who were shoved aside shouted in protest, but he paid them no mind. The crowd was so densely packed that people couldn’t even turn their heads, so no one got a good look at the rude intruder’s face.

The man carved a straight path from the edge of the crowd to the gallows using sheer force. A long gap remained behind him, like a line cut through the sea.

At last, the man reached his destination and vaulted onto the gallows platform with one hand.

People in the front row gaped at him. It was astonishing enough that he was a head taller than others and well-built, but that he could move such a large body so swiftly was truly remarkable.

“Rose!”

The man ran to the unconscious woman and removed the black cloth covering her face. No matter how loudly he called her, the unconscious woman didn’t respond. Her profile, limp and pale as wax, dropped lifelessly to the side.

He laid her across his knee and pressed the artery in her neck to check her pulse. The scornful jeers of the crowd, angry their entertainment had been disrupted, were completely ignored.

“Who the hell are you?”

In any case, executions were the domain of the executioner. He shouted at the man who had suddenly stormed the gallows and halted the execution.

“What do you think you’re doing? Want to be hanged alongside her?”

Only then did the man slowly raise his head.

Despite the cold weather, he was soaked in sweat. Drops fell from the ends of his hair.

Wait a second, is that really sweat?

The executioner narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the man. The smell in the air around him had a strangely metallic tang that couldn’t be explained by sweat alone. Only after noticing the round bloodstains dripping from the ends of the man’s sleeves did the executioner realize what he was smelling. Blood.

Soaked in both sweat and blood, with sharply chiseled features and an aura as chilling as a honed blade…

“…My God.”

The executioner paled as he recognized the man who had rescued the condemned.

Ezekiel Valdemaira. It could be no one else. Not only did his appearance match, but who else could, from the far end of a massive crowd, sever a barely visible noose with a single shot—and without even grazing the woman?

It was a miraculous feat that only the famed marksman major could achieve.

“Who would’ve thought—M-Major Valdemaira!”

The executioner immediately backed down. Though he hadn’t recognized who he was dealing with, he was drenched in cold sweat for daring to block a man of House Valdemaira. He was terrified that he might end up hanging from the gallows himself for the crime of blasphemy.

But at the same time, he felt wronged.

Who could have imagined that Ezekiel Valdemaira would suddenly appear and interrupt the execution?

“P-perhaps you’ve mistaken her for someone else? That woman is a truly heinous felon.”

The executioner recalled her crimes. This execution had been ordered personally by House Valdemaira. That meant her sins were so grave that even after death, her body was to be humiliated before the citizens.

There wasn’t a soul in the country who didn’t know what that crime was.

Ezekiel Valdemaira, who had vanished for a long time, blinded by the deception sent by his brother, was the very victim.

Given the circumstances, he couldn’t make sense of what was happening. If Ezekiel had shot her dead himself, it would’ve at least made some kind of sense.

What did it mean to save the woman he himself had sentenced to the gallows?

“…In the name of Ezekiel Valdemaira.”

The man opened his mouth. His voice scraped from his throat. It was a dry, cracked rasp of steel. Yet the meaning was conveyed clearly.

“I pardon her crimes. From this moment on, she is no longer a criminal.”

He gave no explanation. He merely held the limp woman like a corpse, stepped down from the platform, parted through the crowd, and vanished the way he had come.

No one understood what had just happened.

There was no cheer. No condemnation. Only a murmuring crowd, dumbfounded and wondering if this was simply the whim of someone powerful.

And the scandal Ezekiel Valdemaira had caused in front of the public disappeared as if it had never happened, overshadowed by the triumphant return of the King’s Army, who had executed Davis’s spies.

Looking back, there had been clues to Rose’s identity. Once, she had startled him by waking as if in the midst of a seizure.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”

“…I had a dream where everything returned to its rightful place.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. You returned to where you belong, and I… to where I belong.”

“In your dream, did I abandon you after returning to Valdemaira?”

At the time, he dismissed her dream as nonsense.

“That could never happen. Unless you betray me first, I will never abandon you.”

But if he traced his memories back just a bit further, the reason behind her nightmare was clear.

“Rose, when my sight returns, the first thing I’ll see will be your face.”

Rose must have foreseen the future in which Ezekiel, returned to Valdemaira, would come to kill her.

She must have been frightened and anxious. So afraid that just one word from him had shaken her and led her to suffer nightmares—she must have lived each day as if walking on thin ice.

And despite that fear, when the moment of reunion came, she drank the poison without a word, without a hint of resistance.

Ezekiel spent the entire day gently touching her still-unconscious face.

The gallows had left a mark on her neck. Even though she’d only hung for a moment, the ligature had already turned into a dark bruise. The doctor said she was lucky for someone who had been on the scaffold. Her life had been spared, and the bruise would fade naturally over time.

But Ezekiel wasn’t sure if he could believe the doctor.

Rose, would you think it’s a relief too? Would you see it that way?

He closed his eyes.

Relying on his other senses, he cautiously traced over her. During her time in the detention center, she had grown emaciated. There wasn’t a trace of flesh to be found.

But some things hadn’t changed.

Ezekiel ran his hands over her round forehead, the slanted bridge of her nose, the curve of her lips, the fine hairs on her nape, her neatly aligned ribs, her concave waist, her rounded pelvic bones—comparing each to his memories.

Finally, he pressed his nose to her skin. Her freshly washed body carried the faint scent of flesh. At last, he acknowledged it.

It was you.

It was really you.

A truth he could no longer escape or deny.