From the Cradle to the Grave - Chapter 3

BANG!

I thought it was thunder again, but it wasn’t. It was the sound of the heavy iron gate being torn off its hinges.

As Serendia slowly turned around, a monster stood there, one foot raised.

“Caught you.”

The monster straightened its leg.

“The game of tag ends here.”

The monster’s face was reflected in Serendia’s eyes, filled with fear.

Dark black hair, so deep it seemed to swallow even the moonlight.

Her skin was pale, like that of someone long dead.

Only the fiercely gleaming red eyes proved that he was a living, breathing creature.

And yet,

Could one dare to consider that thing alive?

Apostle of Tenon, the god of death.

King of the dead. Wicked heretic. Apostate who turned his back on Solafel’s grace. Necrophile. Corrupted necromancer.

Countless derogatory names used to call the monster in the royal capital flashed through her mind.

Worshipping the evil god banished from Pantea, the land of gods, he was blasphemous by his very existence.

The countless wicked deeds committed by the heretic spread faster than rumors about her fiancé, plunging the entire continent into terror.

It was meaningless to retrace the heretic’s wicked deeds one by one. For no devout saint, male or female, could possibly save the monster.

“Dante.”

Serendia’s voice trembled faintly.

It was the name called for the pure boy, before the monster was a monster, before he possessed a corrupted soul.

“Are you… are you perhaps Dante…?”

“Yes. Dia.”

Dante replied, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

Though now grown beyond recognition, Dante still held the smile of his boyhood.

“Dante. Dante, why… why did you do such a thing?”

Serendia whispered the boy’s name, denying reality.

She had prayed every day for that child to be alive somewhere, but she never wished for him to grow into such a horrific monster.

She wished with all her heart that this was all a dream.

She couldn’t believe she had let the monster out of its cage.

Like Mother said, like her brothers said, was that child someone who deserved to die?

No, that’s not it. Dante, Dante.

He was the only one who loved her, the incompetent saint. And she cherished and loved Dante dearly too.

“Are you asking why I killed people?”

To Serendia’s question, Dante mulled over his countless wicked deeds, then added with a bright smile,

“For Dia!”

Serendia’s heart sank.

For her? Did he kill people for her?

She swore she had never made such a wish before the gods.

What was most unbearable was that Dante’s face showed no trace of guilt when he said such a thing.

Guilt was solely Serendia’s burden.

It felt like handing a knife to an ignorant child. It was meaningless to try and figure out where it all went wrong.

Serendia’s heart was crushed by guilt, and she couldn’t bring herself to lift her head.

At the end of her fallen gaze, something was stepped on.

Her fiancé’s head in Dante’s hand. Red blood dripping from his neck, where flesh had been torn away.

Ah. It’s not a dream. It’s a terrible reality.

I let the monster loose.

“Ah. Ahh. Ahhhhh…!”

Serendia covered her ears and wailed.

A beast-like scream echoed in her mind. Her legs gave way, and she fell to her knees. Dante approached her.

“Don’t, don’t come any closer, you monster!”

Serendia screamed in terror.

“Monster? Are you perhaps scared of me and running away?”

Dante’s dark eyebrows drooped listlessly, as if deeply hurt by Serendia’s words.

But soon, he chattered on in a cheerful tone, stopping before Serendia.

“It wasn’t tag. Well, I suppose we’re too old to play like that now!”

Dante examined Andrew’s head in his hand, then tossed it carelessly behind his back as if bored.

“Ah, ahh…, ah……”

Serendia could no longer even scream.

Dante was a heretic.

The apostle of Tenon was Dante.

She was suffocating from the cruel reality, her will to resist completely broken.

“Dia.”

“……”

Dante knelt on one knee.

He gently grasped Serendia’s ankle and pulled her towards him.

Only then did Serendia realize one of her shoes had come off.

Dante’s touch as he caressed her bare foot was as delicate as touching a sculpture made of melted sugar.

Or perhaps it seemed reverent, like a priest performing a sacred ritual.

“After we parted, I wanted to see you again so badly. So, I worked hard. Enduring the pain as if I were dying, and enduring again.”

No, I endured dying thousands, tens of thousands of times.

Only to see you again.

“I love you, Dia.”

As Serendia watched blankly, Dante’s lips descended onto her instep.

Peck. Peck. Peck-peck.

Dante showered her instep with short kisses, like a bird pecking. Then, with an ecstatic expression, he rubbed his cheek against hers and murmured,

“I want to lick each of your toes too, but I’ll refrain.”

The corners of his eyes, holding red pupils, curved like a crescent moon.

Serendia doubted her own ears.

What on earth was he saying? She was speaking the same language, yet she couldn’t understand him.

“Ah. Ugh…!”

Serendia, finally regaining some sense, struggled to break free. Then, by accident, she kicked Dante in the face.

Thwack!

Blood splattered onto the stone floor.

Dante stared blankly at the blood on the ground, then wiped beneath his nose. Bloodstains smeared his neat fingertips.

“Ah, blood.”

Dante murmured, looking disbelieving, then began to laugh like a madman, as if finding it immensely amusing.

“Haha. Hahaha. Huhuhu.”

His large chest rose and fell threateningly.

“Haa……. To think such a day would come in my life. To have my blood drawn by Dia.”

Dante took out a white handkerchief and covered his nose. Then he gazed at the red blood on the handkerchief with ecstatic eyes.

“I’ll cherish this for a lifetime.”

The bleeding stopped quickly, and Dante seemed quite disappointed.

There was no sign of discomfort or pain. Rather, it was as if her kick was a reward.

Serendia couldn’t understand Dante.

Naturally. He was a monster. And the one who had released that monster into the world was.

Guilt once again tightened its grip on her heart.

The only way to be free from this guilt, the only way to atone, was death.

Die. Die.

Even if it’s in death, your sins!

Serendia twisted her body when Dante let his guard down. As she grabbed the windowsill to jump, the monster’s arm roughly wrapped around her slender waist.

“No, Dia.”

The monster’s hand covered Serendia’s eyes.

The moonlight that had guided her vanished. Her vision instantly turned dark.

“Running away won’t solve anything. More importantly.”

“Ah, ahh……”

“There will be no god to accept your soul.”

The reason is simple.

For your body and mind are already mine,

The god of death whispered.

Two months later.

Serendia tossed and turned in bed. Cold sweat beaded on her pale forehead.

‘…Where am I? Ugh!’

In the pitch darkness, as Serendia looked around, a dazzling light shone down from above her.

In her dream, she was an actress on stage.

Her role was the noble saint of the North.

Three actors, wearing the masks of an arrogant Empress, a debauched Prince, and a greedy Noblewoman, joined the play.

The three, surrounding Serendia in a circle, began reciting their lines clockwise.

‘You can’t sleep together before the wedding? Were you a frigid saint, not a saint?

The Prince sneered.

‘What have you done to offend the Prince this time? Please don’t make me regret having you as my child, you idiot! Just do well!’

The Noblewoman berated her.

‘Are you saying the Prince has a mistress? Lady Serendia, aren’t you the woman who will become Empress? Yet you’re already letting problems between the two of you leak outside. Your qualifications are highly questionable. Before you criticize my son, I suggest you examine your own conduct.’

The Empress spoke in a stern voice.

As Serendia, who had been standing bewildered, blinked,

‘Go and sleep with the Prince immediately. You must bear an imperial heir, by any means necessary. Do you understand?’

The Noblewoman grabbed Serendia’s arm.

Serendia didn’t know what to say. Her mind was blank.

‘B-but… before the wedding, absolutely I must not yield my body,’

Yet her mouth moved on its own.

‘The situation is different now, you dense thing! If our deception regarding the moonstone production is discovered, the royal family will demand enormous reparations from the North, but our family doesn’t have that much wealth. Where do you think that money will come from? Taxes! Do you want the people of the North to suffer because of you?’

‘Ah, I understand, Mother. I will do as you say.’

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