Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 181

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 181

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“Your Majesty, what are you looking at?”

The man standing precariously at the edge of the ice cliff raised his head.

The northern blade-like wind disheveled the man’s long golden hair, but with just a slight nod of his head, the wind calmed down.

The man, Lucas, shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside to make room for his younger brother.

“I was admiring my own genius.”

What Lucas had been looking down at was the Verdant Forest crossing through the white snowy landscape.

Ten years ago, the hero king who led the Bongma War to victory would often visit the northern region he had granted to his younger brother after founding the kingdom, inspecting his masterpiece and symbol of peace.

“The forest has taken root well, just as prophesied.”

“It’s not prophecy, but an achievement that Your Majesty accomplished.”

At his younger brother’s stubborn addition, Lucas let out a brief laugh.

Everything—driving the demonic beasts that covered half the continent to the north, nurturing the barrier forest that protects humanity, and establishing the Kingdom of Jenos—had all happened according to ‘prophecy.’

Despite witnessing all these processes by his side, his younger brother rarely believed in things like fate or prophecy.

“I couldn’t see by whose hand, but I die from being stabbed in the back?”

“Then I will always stand behind you, brother. To stab your back, they would have to dig through my organs first.”

He simply guarded his brother’s back, who prophesied even his own death, confident that fate too was in his own hands.

Eventually, the brothers sat side by side, looking down at the particularly verdant barrier forest.

After a while, it was Lucas who spoke first.

“I fought with the Queen. Wow, it was so brutal that I thought it would be better to slay dozens of demonic beasts instead.”

“You lost a child. We can only wait for time to heal it.”

“It’s not such a simple problem. The Queen finds me terrifying.”

Lucas sighed and lay his back on the frozen ground.

His eyes, always glittering gold due to his 9th Rank magic power and 1st Rank divine power, stared directly at the cloudy sky.

“I prophesied the deaths of my own children. That just as we lost our first, the second and third would die in succession, and only the fourth child would survive. Then she looked at me like I was some kind of monster.”

It wasn’t incomprehensible. Having spoken of such a terrible future, it must have sounded more like a curse.

“Why didn’t you just not speak such absurd words as prophecy?”

At the indifferent response, Lucas narrowed his eyes.

The next moment, an even deeper golden light appeared in his eyes.

“You will keep your promise with me and protect the barrier forest until your last breath, making this northern region prosperous.”

He spoke a prophecy.

Immediately after, Lucas observed his younger brother’s expression and grinned as if to say ‘see?’

“How’s that? Reassuring, isn’t it?”

Unable to deny it, the Duke simply nodded.

“That’s how people’s hearts work. So I can’t blame the Queen, who lost her first child so meaninglessly, for asking me about the safety of future children.”

The reason he answered honestly despite knowing it would hurt his wife was because Lucas had been submitting to fate for a very long time.

From the day the power of insight dwelt in his eyes and he realized he was the hero destined to save humanity, he had never once opposed fate.

Even after learning he would lose his children.

He could have distanced himself from his son to lessen the pain of losing blood relatives, but instead Lucas loved every moment the child was alive as if it were a lifetime.

That was Lucas’s way of accepting fate.

“I should head back now.”

Having composed himself beside his younger brother, Lucas headed for the Royal Capital.

In the early days of the kingdom’s founding, the kingdom was like a newborn that needed much care.

Boarding the carriage with his back to the north, Lucas fingered the portrait of his dead son contained in his locket necklace.

Knowing the end made the time before his eyes all the more precious and dear.

The same was true for the kingdom whose foundation he had laid with his own hands. So if he glimpsed the nation’s fate, surely even this moment’s hardships would feel sweet.

With such light-hearted feelings and a kind of curiosity, Lucas committed a taboo.

In his insight, when saplings became great trees and the streets of the Royal Capital, once simple as a chessboard, became complex as a spider’s web after such a long time had passed.

The kingdom had become ashes.

“….”

But the disaster that burned the kingdom did not diminish in size and ultimately devoured everything on the continent.

A perfect apocalypse where not a single person survived.

“Your Majesty, are you alright!”

What appeared on Lucas’s face upon returning from seeing this was helplessness, fear, and anger as terrible as those 700 years of time.

* * *

“I heard disturbing rumors.”

“Rumors?”

The King, visiting the north for the first time in years, had grown noticeably gaunt.

However, despite reaching middle age, the boyish cheerfulness in his eyes remained, making him look much younger than his actual age.

“That Your Majesty has dabbled in black magic….”

“Pfft, black magic?”

The King burst into incredulous laughter.

The Duke sat beside the King, who was looking down at the forest as always, relieved by that laughter.

With a face still touched by mirth, the King asked.

“Well then, there must be a purpose. What do the rumors say is the reason the King dabbled in black magic?”

No such talk had spread. The Duke shook his head as if embarrassed.

“It’s just idle gossip.”

“Don’t be so definitive, let’s speculate. What exactly is the King in the rumors plotting?”

Though his tone was playful, the Duke failed to notice the boiling hatred in the King’s gaze as he looked down at the forest.

“Brother, do you think heroes are born, or do you think they’re made?”

At the sudden philosophical question, the Duke looked at the King.

However, the King didn’t wait for the Duke’s answer and immediately continued speaking.

“I think it’s the latter. Madame Vermange, who possessed the nurturing ability, taking in us orphaned brothers, and you being born with the ability to purify the curse of demonic beasts that I lack—these too are the work of fate. It always disguises itself as coincidence to raise the heroes the era needs.”

The King’s voice was low and secretive, as if revealing the world’s secrets.

“Therefore, the King in the rumors is preparing in fate’s stead. Preparing to raise heroes to protect his beloved and pitiful people.”

“…Your jest goes too far.”

“Does it? I thought someone like you, who doesn’t believe in fate, would support the King in the rumors.”

The King, who laughed lightly, concluded his words and stood up, brushing himself off.

“I’ll be too busy with Royal Capital affairs to come to the north for a while.”

With those words as his last, the King never set foot on northern soil again.

Instead of the absent King, ominous rumors visited the north every year.

A plague of unknown origin spread through the Royal Capital, causing countless deaths.

Laws were revised so that even criminals who committed the most minor infractions paid with their lives.

The King foresaw rebel groups and summoned nobles and commoners alike to the Royal Palace, but none returned home.

When the King’s tyranny reached its peak and there wasn’t a household that hadn’t lost family members.

Signs of rebellion began to appear.

Only then did the Duke leave the forest and hurry to the Royal Capital to see the King.

Unfortunately, the rumors were true. The Duke barely reached the King after cutting through the private soldiers of nobles who had drawn swords against the King.

“Your Majesty!”

“This voice belongs to my younger brother. Yes, how did you come such a long way without notice?”

Contrary to rumors of madness, the King appeared perfectly sane. His eyes hadn’t lost their sharpness, nor did he show the characteristic madness of the insane.

However, the Duke couldn’t approach the King closely.

“What… what have you done?”

The great hall was filled with bloodied corpses.

In the middle of that horrific scene of slaughter, the King stood.

The King’s eyes, which had been wandering through empty air as if he had lost his sight, turned toward the Duke.

In the King’s eyes, which had always sparkled with brilliant golden light, an ominous purple hue was rippling. It was a trace of black magic.

“Brother, what do you see right now?”

Even if it were a lie, please say that you can see this terrible sight.

However, contrary to the Duke’s hopes, the King answered dryly.

“Nothing.”

“….”

“I see nothing at all.”

The Duke’s figure was reflected in the hollow eyes of the King, who had lost his sight forever as the price for glimpsing too distant a future.

The Duke slowly approached the King, crossing over the corpses.

“No matter how many tens, hundreds, thousands of times I look, the future of destruction never changes. Now all I can see is a future where our descendants and people are cruelly massacred by the claws of Demonic Beasts.”

Too many lives had been lost so meaninglessly.

Their blood flowed like a river, soaking the earth, and not a single blade of grass could sprout from the ground.

The destruction of humanity, grown accustomed to peace, was so effortless.

Finally, the Duke stood before the King.

The King still spoke to the Duke with eyes filled with youthful vigor and hope.

“Even so, younger brother, as you said, fate is not perfect either. In the end, I succeeded! I found a way to thwart destiny.”

“That method… was black magic? Is taking the lives of our people as payment for black magic truly the way to change fate that you speak of, all for a future that hasn’t even come yet?”

For a moment, deep guilt settled on the King’s face.

He answered with a face contorted as if enduring the pain of having his organs crushed.

“Black magic demanded what I hold most precious as payment, so I had no other choice. But don’t worry. Thanks to this, I’ve prepared an unparalleled hero who will prevent the catastrophe and someone to raise him.”

“Brother, please don’t talk about such future matters, but speak with this younger brother about the present.”

“However, my magic is not yet perfect, so I cannot know what kind of errors might occur. I must use the rebel faction as sacrifices to reinforce the magic circle.”

“Please, Your Majesty.”

“If you knew who the future hero I’ve appointed is, you would probably be greatly surprised. I’ll tell you in due time, so let’s hurry and go deal with the traitors.”

Only after facing the King, with whom he could no longer communicate, did the Duke realize.

That neither the screams of the people, nor the pleas of his blood brother, nor the counsel of loyal retainers would reach the King’s ears any longer.

With the feeling of stepping into a deep swamp of despair, the younger brother slowly embraced his older brother.

The moment a smile appeared on the King’s lips, the Duke thrust his sword into the blind King’s back, just as the prophecy had once foretold.

So deep that the blade penetrated the King’s body and damaged even his own organs.

“Kugh.”

The Duke caught the King’s collapsing body and seated his brother on the blood-stained throne.

“Your Majesty, do you remember the day we proclaimed the founding of the Kingdom here?”

In their youth, the King and Duke had made one promise in this very place.

“Younger brother. Can you promise me that you alone will value the protection of this nation’s people and peace more than my life, even more than the divine fate I speak of?”

“Yes, Brother. I swear to hold that promise heavier than this life itself.”

Just like that day, the Duke bowed in submission before the King.

“I will keep the oath of that day. Therefore, the sin of this disloyalty will be paid for by my descendants as well, so please rest in peace, my King.”

Behind the turning Duke, drops of blood fell one by one.

Shortly after, the Duke’s voice shaking the Royal Palace could be heard from afar.

“His Majesty has passed away!”

Ah, the foolish younger brother would not know. That even this contributes to the future destruction.

Barely holding onto his fading consciousness, the King squeezed out his last strength to exercise the power of divine insight.

However, despite having so much blood on his hands, the future of destruction remained unchanged.

As if it were all futile struggling.

Finally, the King raised his head to look up at the sky.

‘O God, if you were going to let us perish like this, why did you grant me the joy of saving people, the sense of mission that I must save the continent.’

For the first time resenting God, the King closed his eyes forever.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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