Novel Full Chapter 236: What’s the Color of Regret? [1]
Chapter 236: What’s the Color of Regret? [1]
Aetherion was an Empire that could never be saved. Someone like Vanitas, with memories of different progressions, playthroughs, or whatever could still be called real, understood this as an indistinguishable fact.
He was a man who had never reached the true ending as a player, so what else would happen if that same person found himself in that reality?
The answer was natural. It would be the same, regardless of the circumstances he found himself in.
It was not because he lacked competence. It was simply because the narrative had been written this way from the start. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps it was impossible unless someone rewrote the course of history that had driven Aetherion to this point.
But one thing was certain.
Aetherion’s destruction was not an ending to be avoided. It was a necessary juxtaposition that would condition it toward a better future.
In simpler terms, it was a means to an end.
“Emperor… No, Franz,” Vanitas began. “Will you stake everything on me?”
“…What are you planning?”
Vanitas rose and extended a hand. Crackle—A magic circle flared to life. Without a single incantation, the bloodied throne room turned clean. The pile of bodies vanished, swept away by a shifting equilibrium of wind akin to the eye of the storm itself.
Purple veins swelled and pulsed along his neck as dark magic filled the air. Franz noticed, yet even he didn’t question it.
Vanitas looked back at Franz as he continued to struggle against his collapsing throne.
“A happy ending.”
That had always been the goal. Only the methodology had changed. Just because the Empire would crumble did not mean it wouldn’t be a happy ending. A happy ending had many different rationales, and from a certain perspective, its definition was broad.
Even ruin itself could be meaningful. What was an ending, if not the acceptance that nothing remained permanent?
Nations rose, and nations fell. The people who lived within its walls suffered, flourished, then faded into obscurity. Yet history was never shaped by preservation alone.
It was often shaped through collapse, through loss, through the willingness to discard what had rotted beyond repair.
Aetherion’s downfall was not a tragedy to Vanitas. At least, not anymore.
It was a release.
A story must breathe, and sometimes that breath came only when the old was torn away. If a dream asked for the death of its vessel, then perhaps the vessel had fulfilled its role already.
Happiness, in the end, was not guaranteed by survival but defined by the memories one left behind long after they were gone.
If the Empire must fall so that its people could one day stand again, then was that not a kinder conclusion than clinging to a corrupted crown?
If destruction was the seed from which a gentler world emerged, then perhaps it was not destruction at all.
It was creation in disguise.
“I will prepare the Empire’s funeral, Franz.”
An undertaker.
* * *
A few days ago.
Tak. Tak. Tak——!
In the midst of the battle against the Great Power, the Wolf of the North, Friedrich Glade, Karina broke away the moment she noticed a black streak cut through the air at blinding speed.
She recognized it as Vanitas. Yet she did not run because she feared him. She ran to find a certain person who had vanished despite the dire situation.
“Vice-Admiral…”
Iridelle had told her she was investigating something, but days had passed with no sign of her return.
“….”
Karina halted when the ruins of the Lily of the Valley came into view, its once-graceful structure now collapsing into decay. As she drew closer, a voice rang out behind her.
——I wouldn’t go there if I were you.
“….!”
Karina turned. Standing before her was the Vice-Admiral of the Bundesritter Navy herself, the Great Power, Iridelle Vermillion.
“Vice-Admiral!” Karina rushed toward her. “Where were you? The Duke… he’s gone mad. You have to stop him before he kills the Saintess.”
Iridelle raised a brow. “There’s no need for that.”
“What? Did you not hear what I just said?”
“No. Did you not hear what you’re saying?”
“….”
“That person you claim to hate, Vanitas Astrea. This is your chance. A Great Power might kill him here. Isn’t that what you wanted? For him to die?”
“No. I need to be the one who kills him—”
“And then what happens, Karina?” Iridelle cut in.
“….”
“Tell me. How do you plan to live after that? When he’s gone, when he’s nothing but dust in the ground. How do you intend to move forward? What will your life be then?”
“….”
“You haven’t thought that far, have you?”
“….”
“Is revenge all you’re after?”
“Please… stop talking… You don’t know anything…”
“Maybe I don’t,” Iridelle said. “But I’ve walked that road before. I chased revenge until there was nothing left. And look at me now. Stuck in this miserable position as a Vice-Admiral in a miserable country.”
Iridelle sat on a nearby rock and lit a cigarette. She took a slow drag, then spoke again.
“I wasn’t originally from Zyphran.”
Karina’s eyes widened. Like herself, who had climbed her way through the Bundesritter, Iridelle seemed to have done the same.
“The Umbral Coalition. You’ve heard of it, I assume.”
“We don’t have time for this—”
“It was a rotten family. Two older brothers. A mother. A father. And me. A naive little girl who thought life in a backwater village was good enough.”
“….”
“Do you know what kind of people get sent to the Coalition? I sure as hell didn’t.”
“Exiles…”
“Exactly. Criminals who committed major offenses but weren’t dangerous enough to be kept in captivity. The government tossed them out there to cut costs. Better to dump them than feed them.”
It was the truth. The Umbral Coalition was nothing more than a dumping ground where the exiled were left to fend for themselves. If they died, good. If they lived, no one cared.
“One day, I came home after hauling that filthy water from the filthy well.”
Water that left stomachs aching for days unless one’s body had already adapted. That was the kind of life the Coalition offered.
“Want to know what I found? It sounds cliché, but it was real enough. I walked into a house full of blood. My entire family was slaughtered. And in the middle of it all stood a single man. He didn’t bother to hide his face. Why would he? There was no need.”
“Vice-Admiral—”
“I learned later that man was Vanir Astrea. Vanitas Astrea’s father.”
“….”
Karina froze. Her eyes widened in shock upon the revelation.
The end of Iridelle’s cigarette glowed as she drew another breath, smoke slipping past her lips in a slow stream.
“I chased him,” she said. “For years. Through storms, through borders, through every rotten corner of this world. I thought that if I could just put a blade through his throat, everything would make sense again.”
“….”
“But when I finally found him, he was already a dying man holding on to his last breath. Laid out on some filthy bed, rotting from a disease no one gave a damn about.”
Iridelle let out a short, bitter laugh that was anything but humor for Karina.
“No grand revenge. Just an old man fading away on his own.” She flicked ash from her cigarette. “I hated him for that. Not because he killed my family… but because he died before I could do anything about it.”
Her voice lowered.
“And in that moment, I realized how pointless it all was. Just like that, the purpose of my life disappeared. I had spent everything chasing a ghost, only to find there was nothing waiting for me at the end. Not even satisfaction at the outcome. Just an empty road behind me and an even emptier one ahead.”
The breeze carried the scent of smoke and old stone.
“Later on, I learned who he really was. A member of one of Aetherion’s top hunting-dog families. Turns out he was commissioned to kill my father to get someone else’s justice. And if you’re wondering what my father did, he was a notorious trafficker in Aetherion before he was exiled. Funny, isn’t it? I grew up thinking he was a good man, only to find out he was even more rotten than the one who killed him.”
Iridelle took another slow drag.
“So there I was. A girl who lost everything… only to discover there was nothing worth avenging in the first place. My brothers? They weren’t even my brothers to begin with, but criminals. My mother? A complicit. My father? The reason they all died.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“To give you perspective. Don’t stay blind to what you refuse to look at. If you can’t see the truth, then find a way. The blind uses a cane to see. A mute learns sign language to communicate. And you, with all your advantages, honestly think someone like Vanitas Astrea would kill your father for no reason?”
“….”
Karina clenched her fists, but Iridelle continued before she could speak.
“You’ve built your whole life around that resentment. But resentment without reason is just noise. You don’t know what your father did. You don’t know why Vanitas did what he did. And you don’t know what kind of world they were moving in.”
Iridelle’s tone softened.
“Hatred is easy when you don’t have the full story. It gives you something to hold on to. But the truth is rarely simple. And if you aren’t prepared to see the whole picture, then you’ll stay trapped in that same loop forever.”
Karina lowered her gaze.
“You don’t have to forgive him,” Iridelle said. “Just make sure that the life you choose isn’t built on a lie you were too afraid to challenge.”
“…I know that.”
“Is that so?”
“Because I have nothing left, damn it!” Karina’s voice cracked. “I don’t care what Vanitas’s reason was for killing him. I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Damn it!”
Her breath shook.
“Father… he… he killed Mother while she was on her deathbed. How am I supposed to accept that?! How could I?! He was the kindest man to me!”
Iridelle watched her quietly, letting the storm inside Karina spill out.
“Am I just supposed to accept the truth like that?” Karina’s pupils spiraled into madness. “I’m only human, too! It’s too much! I can’t just swallow it and move on! I can’t…”
Karina’s hands trembled as she pressed them against her chest.
“I know what he did was unforgivable,” she whispered. “I know. But a part of me keeps remembering the father who carried me on his shoulders… who laughed with me… who told me everything would be alright. I don’t know how to hate him without hating myself.”
“And your answer is to kill Vanitas?” Iridelle asked. “To dump all the blame on him and call it closure?”
Karina bit down on her lip, anger and confusion marring her expression.
“I just… I want the pain to stop…”
Iridelle sighed. “What a pitiful girl.”
She stood, flicked the cigarette aside, and wrapped her arms around Karina into an embrace.
“….”
Karina stiffened at first, caught off guard. No one had held her like this in a long time. The weight pressing against her chest slowly eased, and her trembling hands rose to grasp the back of Iridelle’s coat.
“It’s alright,” Iridelle murmured. “You’re allowed to hurt. You’re allowed to be lost. But don’t let the flames consume you. Don’t let them spread and burn someone else. It’s never worth it.
“…I’m afraid, Vice-Admiral.”
“I know,” Iridelle said. “Everyone who’s ever changed was scared first.”
Karina’s fingers tightened around her coat, holding on as if Iridelle was the only thing keeping her standing.
“For now, let’s go back.”
* * *
Many would say Aetherion was the root of most problems on the continent.
However, that was not true. There was the Celestine Hegemony, already on the brink of economic collapse. It relied on neighboring nations to sustain it with a debt so immense that even generations and centuries later would never be able to repay it.
There was the Zyphran Dominion, whose dictatorial rule kept countless cultists hidden under its shadow. The Sanctis Theocracy followed, ruled not by the Pope, but by an entirely different entity wearing his face.
And then there was the Umbral Coalition, a place that could hardly be called a nation at all, but a place where the exiled were cast. That land had long been marked as a red zone due to certain factors, such as its location in the Ring of Fire, a territory where monsters roamed freely and natural disasters frequently struck.
If anything, Aetherion’s internal struggles could have been considered the most salvageable. But the people would no longer relent. They had already crossed the line when they killed their own Empress.
Even the nobility had certain lines they did not cross. But considering what the nobility did, the simple act of killing Olivia seemed to balance out their sins.
Naturally, those who lived comfortably, yet had no noble title, remained neutral, choosing to distance themselves from conflict and focus on their own lives.
But even that would not last.
Everyone in Aetherion would feel the slow ripple of consequence. As working-class citizens began refusing trade with the nobility, prices rose. Goods that once passed freely through the marketplace suddenly became scarce, and inflation became evident.
The oppressed, who had endured years under corrupt lords and indifferent magistrates, found their voices. The murder of the Empress became a rallying point. To them, it was proof that even those at the top were not untouchable.
Protests filled the streets. Farms withheld their harvests. Craftsmen stopped supplying the capital. Caravans were raided not by bandits, but by common citizens desperate to reclaim what they believed had been stolen from them.
Towns once loyal to the Imperial banner denied entry to its soldiers. Border regions declared autonomy, refusing taxation and ignoring imperial mandates.
The nobility retaliated. They sent private forces to subdue the dissent, but each march only fueled the fire. Villagers took up arms. Some cities fell to rebellion outright. Their governors were captured or executed in public squares where their greed had once gone unchecked.
Soon, the conflict was no longer a dispute between people and the crown. It became a war between those who wished to erase the old world and those who yielded to it out of fear.
The Empire began to split. Factions formed among commoners and lower nobles alike, as former allies turned on one another.
November 14th. The day the Red Moon lit up the world once again.
A lone figure pulled back her hood before Vanitas.
“You’ve been hiding well, Princess,” he said. “Are you that afraid of your brother?”
It was Irene.
“Ha. Afraid of that fool? Why would I be? He’s just an idiot who let his wife die. A man like that should die himself.”
“Are you frustrated?” Vanitas asked.
Irene didn’t answer. Her shoulders trembled, but she remained silent. Rain pattered against the roof, filling the silence her voice refused to break, though for only a moment.
“Who are you to speak as if you understand—”
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Vanitas said. “The only woman who tried to embrace this Empire, something even you siblings failed to do, was treated like the filth under everyone’s boots.”
Irene’s grip tightened at her sides, but she said nothing.
“Do you feel guilty?” Vanitas continued. “Knowing you once tried to kill her?”
“You should stop talking—”
“That’s how the people saw her too. That the Empress should stop speaking as if she understood anything from that high tower.”
“…Vanitas.”
“She was a good woman,” he said. “This Empire didn’t deserve her.”