Having poured out his honest feelings, he felt half relieved. Yunseo smiled with a clouded expression and tucked his toes inside Hwi's palm.

"Had I kept still, the desire would have remained as nothing more than desire, ugly as it was. I am sorry."

"It is right to cut out a bud that would bear rotten fruit. I was simply not myself in being too lenient."

Hwi's voice was calm. Yunseo thought about those who had betrayed him. His father, his brother, a meritorious subject and his subordinates. And countless other things he himself did not know of.

"Your Majesty. Jeongjoo……"

Yunseo could not finish the sentence and took Hwi's hand. Hwi turned his hand over and interlaced their fingers. The sensation of bone pressed against bone, enclosing tight, brought a feeling of stability.

"You will lose something again, in the future. It is a pity I cannot protect you from it."

Thinking of Wan who had left, Wongyeong whom he could never see again, and Jeongjoo who had in the end chosen a thorny path, Yunseo shook his head.

"It was never mine to begin with."

But even so, since we are each other's — even if all things pass away, at least each other remains in our hands, and how fortunate that is. Yunseo burrowed into Hwi's embrace and felt his warmth, his breath, his heartbeat. They grew warm together, their breaths mingled, and their heartbeats became the same.

That union called a peaceful sleep. Yunseo closed his eyes and tightened the grip of their joined hands. So as not to lose hold even in dreams, tightly.

* * *

Yung, his entire body bound and his hair in disarray, trembled, unable to overcome his humiliation. He could not accept why he deserved to be treated this way.

As he was dragged along by the imperial guards, countless gazes stabbed at Yung. Yung glared wide-eyed and tried to memorize the faces one by one, but all he increasingly felt was only the pitifulness of his own sorry state.

It was unmistakably all the scheme of his cunning and treacherous younger brother. From the very start he had brought in that Yongrin to dangle before him and play his game.

He was indignant. Profoundly indignant.

Not content with taking everything that should have been his, now he was trying to take away even what little remained. This was something that could not, and should not, be allowed. If the heavens were watching, they had to set this injustice right.

Arriving at the main hall, Yung came face to face with Hwi, who was sitting atop the high throne looking down at him. The bored and indifferent eyes enraged Yung all the more.

"No, this is wrong, this isn't right!"

Yung thrashed while bound, but he could not escape the grip of the imperial guards. No matter how desperately he struggled, it only drained his strength uselessly, and under Hwi's gaze he was reduced to nothing but a spectacle.

"I was foolish and got caught up in your scheming tricks, nothing more. Call Eomama. Call the Queen Dowager! Mother surely knows of my innocence. Surely, surely……"

He railed against Hwi and screamed abuse and curses that ordinary people could hardly bring themselves to utter, yet Hwi maintained his silence with eyes like those looking at an inanimate object. And so at some point his heart lurched and sank.

It would have been at least a little better if he had shown anger or betrayal. But the black eyes that held no pity, no brotherly sentiment — they were like stones, and a fear that crept in step by step took over his limbs, like confronting a being that was not of this world.

"Brother, brother. I was only caught in that Yongrin scoundrel's trap. How could I have harbored the vicious intent to harm your companion? I truly did not know. I have no motive whatsoever. You know that as well."

Yung changed strategy and lowered himself completely. For now, he had to survive. No matter how humiliating and nauseating, survival came first. Only by living could he plan what came next. He had to secure pity somehow. Yung squeezed out tears that were not there and desperately pleaded his innocence.

Soon, Hwi's firmly closed lips parted. Yung watched that movement like a wild dog eyeing carrion.

"Brother."

"Y-yes."

"Ending the Deputy Minister of Personnel, Gang Pilseok, as a suicide was my final mercy and a warning."

The corner of Yung's mouth stiffened for an instant. It sounded like an implication that Hwi had designated Gang Pilseok's death as a suicide — in other words, that he had orchestrated the death artificially.

He had not expected that topic to come up here. Yung composed his expression and feigned an innocent face. But the words that followed were merciless.

"Surely you did not take me for so foolish as to assume I could not even track down the person who tried to harm mine."

Hwi gave a quiet click of his tongue. Yung's mind spun at full speed. He knew the mastermind was him? That could not be……!

The Deputy Minister of Personnel Gang Pilseok and the palace maid of Jiseo Palace, Bu Wan, were in fact half-siblings with different fathers, and they were caring for a widowed mother who was ill. They needed money and rare medicinal herbs that could only be obtained from the Imperial Medical Bureau, and so they swore their loyalty to him as though they would offer him their liver and gallbladder.

But there was no chance of his identity being exposed. The woman called Bu Wan did not know his identity, and even if she could not withstand torture and revealed Gang Pilseok's name, it went no further than that. Gang Pilseok had sworn to take his own life should his younger brother — whom he cherished as much as his own mother — be taken prisoner, and even without the oath, he was the type who would be unable to overcome his guilt and would end his own life.

Of course, he had sent someone as a precaution, and the body had definitely been confirmed……

"I do not know what you are talking about."

Cold sweat ran down his spine. Yung tried to soothe his anxious self. Even if Gang Pilseok were alive and had confessed everything, there was no hard evidence. It was nothing more than worthless words, so it was impossible to tie him down with it.

"I could not help but think of the mother who bore an irresponsible husband and then a son just the same, and no matter how little I wished to expose such a chaotic household to my companion, I let it go with an appropriate cover-up."

"……"

"Should I have given you a somewhat kinder warning, this younger brother of yours?"

Hwi tilted his head slightly and slowly closed and opened his eyes.

"But brother. A person who will not listen does not listen no matter what is done."

"……"

"And I am now tired of things like this."

The words were dropped casually, carrying a genuinely fed-up air. That touched Yung's pride sharply. The corner of Yung's mouth quivered finely. His head told him he should lower himself further and grovel here, but he simply could not bring himself to do so. He raised his head and glared at Hwi with bloodshot eyes.

"Why do you not apologize to me?"

"……"

"You took everything that was mine. Did you not seize my entire world overnight!"

If only Hwi had begged his forgiveness, if only he had looked into his heart and treated him in a manner befitting it — it would not have come to this. And yet how could he be so brazen as to not look back at his own faults — it made him furious.

"If you are going to kill me, then go ahead. But do you think the people of the world will believe you? There is no hard evidence — it will be nothing but your words and those of your henchmen! You will go down in history as a tyrant who was not content with usurping his brother's place and, unable to overcome his own greed, seized even his brother's life. Posterity will judge and condemn you!"

If Hwi had made up his mind to kill him, there was no surviving it by any means. For one who held the entire world in the palm of his hand, eliminating a single person like him would be as easy as the flick of a finger. In that case, he wanted to die with his head held high. He did not want to beg for his life from a scheming wretch like him.

Hwi, who had been watching Yung steadily, gave a light nod.

"Yes. Since you desire this position so much, I will grant you that wish."

At the compliant reply, an unidentifiable and unpleasant sensation cut across his back. What on earth could he be scheming. Yung scrutinized Hwi's impassive face — impossible as ever to read — from one side to the other.

"Go to the Hell Realm."

"……!"

"If your place there is rightful, Yongshin will come to his senses and bring about your Gakchim. Should that come to pass, I too will gladly step aside."

Hwi gave a flick of his chin and the imperial guards grabbed Yung's arms and lifted him to his feet. Yung repeated Hwi's order to himself in a daze.

Sending a non-Yongrin to the Hell Realm was tantamount to telling him to go and die. Even as resentment surged at Hwi's attitude of packaging it as something like a concession, a threadbare hope arose — that perhaps this time's business might become an opportunity.

If he could subdue the monsters without Gakchim, would he not become the first hero? There was no reason he could not do the things they did. If Hwi could do it, he had to do it as well. He would not be swayed by the myth of legitimacy the imperial family had created.

Seized by a strange elation, Yung rolled his crazed eyes wildly. When he returned, he felt certain everything would have changed.

* * *

Wind blew emptily across a wide open plain. What lay before his eyes was nothing but a desolate rocky mountain. And beside him, one utterly useless wretch whimpering away.

The Empress's brother was trembling, bound to a wooden post driven into the ground by the Yongrin. In any case, bookworms were all uniformly dull and stupid — he had no desire to even exchange words with them.

The ground trembled and his body shook. Yung tightened his grip on his sword and stared straight at the darkening cave mouth of Yongrim Peak. This was his once-in-a-lifetime chance. And a gambler never lets the perfect opportunity slip away.

The earth shook once more. A chilling aura wrapped around his skin and goosebumps rose. Yung swallowed dryly.

Then — from the gaping cave mouth, accursed things poured out and came charging, savagely, like famished hungry ghosts.

Clang — the sound of a sword falling rang out loudly. His raised hand trembled and shook. Yung found himself taking one step, two steps backward without realizing it.

Instinctive revulsion and terror seized him by the ankles and stretched long. Those things should not exist. Those things were things that human strength alone could never overcome.

"N-Noooo……!"

This is wrong. This is wrong!

Yung quickly turned and ran for his life toward the Yongrin watching from a distance, screaming for them to save him.

His feet, outpacing his mind, caught on a stone and his knees gave out. Yung frantically braced himself with his hands against the ground and looked behind him.

Before he knew it, "those things" had come right up to him. Yung rolled his eyes wide and chose to faint rather than face it.