Chapter XXX: Lusdov; The Kingdom Of Greed

Blood drips from the gleaming furniture and statues of the gods and goddesses inside the luxurious-looking room that was designed with sparkling stones and diamonds; the curtains were thorned; and the floor has turned slippery because of the red-colored liquid that has a sulfur-like smell covering the floor.

There were also bodies of people cut in half horizontally with their heads chopped, lying on the floor while bathing in their crimson-colored blood.

No voices of people begging for their lives could be heard inside the room of the temple, which is located in the farthest north.

The saintess just kept her mouth shut from screaming while biting her lips in disapproval, trembling in anger.

Looking in front of her is Khalid, who's holding her right wrist so tight that she can feel her bones cracking into pieces while the sharp bayonet is pointed at her neck.

"This crazy brat!"

She was about to raise her left hand to get back at him when Khalid noticed it before she did.

He immediately slashed the air with his bayonet that was pointing at her neck.

She could feel the immense pressure eating away her pride and attitude towards him, leaving her no time to blink seeing how he played the bayonet on his hand before he stabbed it so hard between her index and middle fingers.

"Eck!"

"So, Dear Saintess, won't you help this brat?" 

Khalid stated while his eyes pierced through her.

The saintess couldn't even move an inch after all she saw; it was like she was being eaten with those grave-emotionless looks in his eyes as if he were dead himself.

'Shit! This is the end! How did things end up like this?!'

She could feel her throat closing, no words came out of her mouth while her eyes continued to tremble in front of Khalid, who was completely apathetic towards the saintess, that even her divine beauty couldn't save her.

(The day before they've reached the temple of Lusdov)

"So, what is it that you want to tell me?"

Khalid asked while sitting inside the carriage in front of Reinhardt, with Lillibet quietly sitting by his side.

"Milord, you should be careful when meeting the saintess!"

You might not be able to tell what he was feeling by the tone of his voice, but his actions speak louder than his words. Khalid already knows that he is distressed by the way he shakes his legs continuously, which almost creates a big hole in the carriage.

"I'm a man who doesn't believe in such rumors, but..." 

He stopped in the middle of a sentence while he stared at him with widened eyes.

"Milord, the saintess is a wicked being; she is the type of person who would do anything in her power to kill her prey, and once she set her interest into it-"

He added as he gazed upon Lilly.

Reinhardt almost lost his words after seeing how Khalid patted her head gently while she was making paper cranes out of the old documents.

"Milord, are you listening to me?!"

Khalid looks back at him before he begins to speak.

"Do you think I will answer if I am not?"

He stated calmly, but Reinhardt knew he was being sarcastic by his words, and it made him sigh deeply.

All he wanted to do was give him advice, but the more he informed words towards him, the more words doubled when they came out of his ears. Still, he continued to speak until he piqued his interest.

"It's also rumored that her appearance is bewitching enough that... @hcegb8*... gyddg2gu."

Reinhardt continues to blab things towards him, but he fails to catch his interest; he doesn't even pay a single attention to the things he says, and instead, Khalid admires the paper cranes that were made by the small, crafty hands of Lillibet that were sitting comfortably inside the carriage by his side.

"Brother, take this."

Her face was shining with those smiles on her lips while she handled the jar full of cranes.

"This is for the sick people."

She stated this as she began to fidget with her hands while gazing back in his direction.

"It's for the sick people to wish for their immediate recovery!"

She added, but Khalid didn't state a single word from his mouth, and seeing how she waited to be praised by him, he patted her head instead while gently caressing it with those careful hands, which made her giggle as she formed a smile. But the more he looks at the crane in the jar in his hand, a thought pops into his mind—a rubbish thought that he wants to believe for once.

'If I make hundreds, no, thousands, of cranes, will I die?'

Just then, he felt as if his body had become lighter than a cloud, and it made him feel so comfortable to the point that he couldn't hear the annoying voice of Reinhardt.

"I want to feel hopeful just once."

He could feel his eyelid slowly close before his vision darkened. Luckily, Reinhardt immediately caught his head before it even made a loud bang in the window of the carriage.

As soon as he opens his eyes, he encounters a girl standing in front of him who keeps calling out for his name; even though he stares at her face a thousand times, he wouldn't be able to recognize her.

"Hyun…lee hyun…"

She continued to call while reaching her hand toward him.

"W-Who-!"

He asked as he slowly got up on the floor; he even hesitated to grab her hands at first, but as soon as he did, the girl slapped him so hard that it left Lee Hyun shocked with a big question mark on his mind.

"Pfft! How can you be so dense?!"

She mocked, pointing her index finger to her lips.

After hearing her voice, Lee Hyun's eyes widen to the point that he wants to cover his ears and run away from that place.

'T-this voice, I remember this well!'

He thought while his legs began to tremble as he fell to his knees by themselves; it was as if he couldn't control his own body of his own accord.

"Hey Hyun, you said you loved me, right?"

She affirmed while watching Lee Hyun kneel in front of her with his hands covering his ears.

'Ha, really this annoying voice; I hate to hear this! '

Lee Hyun's complexion is such a mess that the girl can't stop herself from giggling like an idiot, while he is left frozen, kneeling on the floor with his eyeballs and teeth trembling furiously.

'..I just wish to die rather than hear this damn voice again! ' 

He added and gathered the courage to look at her face, but even though it was blurry and unrecognizable, Lee Hyun already knew who it was by just hearing her voice, which made him want to vomit.

Just then, she grabs Lee Hyun's face while caressing it gently before whispering in his ear.

"Will you die for me then?"

Suddenly, after hearing those words from her mouth, he couldn't help but be left speechless with a messy, petrified expression after seeing a red liquid with a sulfur-like smell of metals appear on his hands that covered his entire body.

"That's right, Hyun, you've done a great job, you stupid idiot, pfft-hahaha!"

She began to ominously laugh while holding his cheek.

The last thing Lee Hyun could remember while he was feeling suffocated by her touch was her vicious grin that was carved on her lip.

*GASP!*

Once he opened his eyes, Lee Hyun had escaped from the nightmare where he even remembered how he trembled in front of a girl after hearing her voice, but as soon as he woke up, he was back to being apathetic, which made him feel at least more fearless and secure.

Khalid then finds himself all alone in the carriage, while hearing different voices verbally arguing with each other and seeing Reinhardt and Lillibet nowhere by his side, leaves him no choice but to barge outside.

"F*ck it! Why do I have to remember that right now? "

He was panting heavily when he opened the door aggressively after remembering the voice of the girl that echoed in his mind.

They were all shocked when they saw Khalid with a lifeless expression and a murderous aura that covered his entire body, which brought silence for a minute.

"Milord!"

Reinhardt called, but it didn't take even a second for Khalid to figure out what was happening; in fact, he already knew that Reinhardt and the others were arguing because of the priestess's rude behavior toward them.

'He looks like a mess.' 

Zev thought as she looked at him in the distance before their attention was all caught by the priestess when he began to speak.

"The temple won't accept an outsider from another kingdom; it's better for you to go back!" 

He affirmed it so strongly with a coarse tone of voice that it made the others feel offended.

"How ungrateful!"

Even Dal couldn't help himself and almost used his hair tie as a sword to slash the priestess's head if he wasn't stopped by Erwin, who stayed calm in the situation while shaking his head towards him.

Khalid is also an exception; he didn't say a word and just watched them until they stopped arguing, but even so, he couldn't hide the aura that wanted to strangle the neck of the priest.

'Ah, he just wanted to tell us that we were not welcome in the temple... but what can I do?-'

He formed a mischievous smile on his lips without knowing how his aura had left them all suffocating.

"Ecch! This is disrespectful!-"

The priest shouted while holding his neck.

It's as if their breath were being taken away from them, and it would have just continued if Khalid had not decided to get inside the carriage.

Silence stayed for a while, not before he got out carrying a big sack with his small body that made the priestess feel so alarmed that he even flinched and covered himself when Khalid threw the sack at him; the expressions of the other were also unexceptional, as they were all speechless after seeing the big sack of gold coins in front of them.

"Ha!- shameless-"

The priestess was about to utter another word when Khalid continuously threw another two big sacks of gold coins and jewels in front of him, making his eyes gleam from greed.

'W-When? I didn't know that the Clovisto kingdom was this rich!'

He thought while faking his cough that he couldn't even hide his excitement after seeing countless gold coins and precious jewels in front of him.

"People are such a breed that even on their deathbeds when you mention money, they will raise their heads in a hurry."

He mumbled while looking at the priest, who was about to drool over those sacks of gold coins shimmering in front of him.