I stared blankly at the mansion engulfed by the firestorm.
They said fire was faster than the wind—how true it was. The blue flames swelled endlessly, surging toward me.
The once-splendid and magnificent mansion was now reduced to something pitiful, as if it had never boasted its grandeur at all.
Tomorrow, a bride was to be welcomed into this mansion, so no effort had been spared in its preparation. Even I had remained here until just now, fussing over details. All of that labor had gone to waste in an instant.
Hell.
The blue fire, born from sacred power, could not be extinguished no matter how much water was poured on it.
The azure flames swayed as though they had a will of their own, and the servants screamed as they fled. Some collapsed unconscious, others shouted at the top of their lungs as if searching for the master of the mansion.
This is bad.
The master of the mansion was on the very top floor—the place about to be swallowed whole by fire.
That was me.
I let out a hollow laugh as I watched the skeletal frame of the mansion burn.
Who would call this place a bridal home after seeing this? At best, they’d call it cursed.
The flowers that had been arranged in every color vanished without a trace, and the garden—of which the gardener had boasted that it would remain lush and green year-round—was now charred black. Smoke billowed in torrents, flames roared through the mansion, and yet here, in this one spot, there was only silence.
“Marriage?”
So silent that I could hear the voice of the man gripping my neck, as if he were about to snap it.
My head was smashed against the window as I twisted my face and struggled.
I had missed my chance to escape, and after inhaling so much smoke, my consciousness was already slipping. With no oxygen supply, water gushed from every opening, and my vision began to blur.
Even then, I tried to look directly at the one strangling me. I saw a hand wrapped in dark indigo bandages, densely inscribed with faintly glowing letters. Following those bandages upward, the first thing I saw was his face.
A beauty so delicate and graceful it seemed carved by a master sculptor, enough to enthrall anyone. For someone who had spent his growing years in such wretched conditions, his development was remarkable. His beauty was matched by his noble origin, and proof of that lineage shone in his eyes—deep and dark, the color of the sea.
“Za…chary…”
Zachary Thaddeus.
At my call, those blue eyes fixed on me. The moment our gazes locked, a shiver surged through me like rising heat, making my fingertips curl in on themselves.
Just looking at him was overwhelming; his face drew the gaze, making me forget the situation. If someone accused me of exaggerating, I would only ask them in return:
Protagonist.
Could you really witness the awakening of the world’s center and not tremble?
Zachary was the protagonist of the book I had transmigrated into—the greatest driving force of this world.
But I couldn’t remain just an extra applauding the hero’s path. Because the greatest mountain in Zachary’s life was none other than our family.
Zachary was unlucky.
Unlucky to an absurd degree. Of all people, he was noticed by our Solaris Kingdom, which was always sharpening its blades, scheming to break free from the Holy Empire’s rule. He was kidnapped. The Solaris King resented the Holy Empire for being pretentious and sanctimonious despite having nothing but God to boast of.
As if that weren’t enough, the king bore an inferiority complex toward the Holy Emperor, who had stolen the woman he loved. So he kidnapped Zachary—the son of that woman and the Emperor. Then he handed Zachary over to our family, infamous for sorcery and curses, commanding us to turn him into a hunting dog and make him crawl like one.
The king was a lunatic.
If only he had tried to negotiate with Zachary in hand, but what kind of brainless idiocy was this?
No matter how much he hated the Empire, what fault did a child like Zachary have?
But lunatic or not, he was the king. Our family followed orders and brought Zachary into the household. And so, by chance, I ended up living alongside the very center of the world.
I freed you with everything I had.
Having read the book through to the end, I couldn’t sit by and watch it unfold as written.
Because Zachary, after enduring endless torment here and awakening, would destroy not only our kingdom but also our family in the most gruesome of ways.
He would torture the family head, gouge out his eyes, shred his wife to pieces, and, before the two of them died, butcher their children right in front of them. Thus, House Serpentine would be annihilated.
I didn’t remember every detail of the novel, but that part I remembered vividly.
For what was supposed to be a moralistic fantasy with a touch of romance, the author’s malice toward House Serpentine was unusually graphic and cruel. That was why, even though it was just a book I’d read in my past life, I remembered that section clearly. When I saw Zachary brought into our family, I realized I had entered the novel—and from that moment, I struggled to escape that blood-soaked future.
I did everything I could to get Zachary out of House Serpentine unharmed.
I planned to set him free, hoping that he would spare me, my family, and the innocent people of the kingdom.
Then why is he burning my house down?
Looking at my mansion, once my bridal home, now ablaze… I was a little dumbfounded.
Yes, our family had tortured him and enslaved him with spells. But I had always explained that it was because of the king’s orders. I thought he understood. Afterward, I worked desperately to smuggle him out. At last, I succeeded in letting him escape.
Of course, my parents and older brother never knew that I was the one who freed him. If the king had found out, the consequences for our family would have been dire.
I had suffered endlessly unraveling the layers of brainwashing, all in secret, until I could finally let him go.
“I… freed you… so why…?”
Who would have thought he’d return as the axe to strike my own foot?
A tinge of unjust sorrow slipped into my words. At the same time, Zachary’s brows furrowed.
“Oscar.”
His low voice was brimming with menace. The unfamiliar way he spoke my name made me flinch.
Not once, all the time we had lived together, had Zachary called me by name. He had always addressed me as young master. And even then, in front of others, he had to act blind, mute, and tongueless, so in time he rarely ever called me anything at all.
But hearing him say my name for the first time now, I was certain of one thing—he was furious.
I didn’t know why, but surely it was Zachary who had called down this fire upon the mansion.
Why?
Why would he be so enraged as to set fire to what was meant to be my bridal home?
All the long years we had lived together, I had never once seen him this angry.
The Zachary I knew only ever bowed his head, cowed by the gloom of the mansion. At most, he would timidly protest to me in a faint voice once in a blue moon.
I had wanted to give that Zachary freedom. I had let him go. Shouldn’t he at least… if not be grateful, then at least not repay me by arson?
It was truly unfair.
I had never tormented him. All I did was rack my feeble brain, struggling to find a way to free him and—ah.
Well… maybe, freed from the spells, he saw how terrible it really was.
Come to think of it, I suppose he had every right to be angry.
Even if I had never mistreated him and had treated him kindly, House Serpentine was rotten at its core.
Seven years it took, up until today.
Even though he escaped earlier than in the original story thanks to me, it must have been a hard fight to return to his rightful life.
So, from fourteen to twenty-one, those years of his life were simply gone.
Seven long years, bound by spells, forgetting he was a prince of the Holy Empire, forced to live as a servant of a mere marquis family in Solaris.
The more he thought of it, the more rage must have swelled. And so, he must have decided to burn my bridal home and me along with it.
“…I’m sorry.”
How could I possibly compensate for seven stolen years?
I didn’t even know what expression or tone I wore as I begged him. My mind was in tatters.
My throat was squeezed, my ears rang, my head was hazy from all the smoke I had breathed in. With my already wretched body, it felt like I would break apart any second, so I could only beg.
“I’ll… apologize on behalf of our family again. Even if we were ordered, it was my weakness… I should have, cough, freed you… sooner…”
How pathetic. How filthy and pitiful must I look in Zachary’s eyes right now?
But before survival, such thoughts were a luxury. Even if this was a world inside a novel, I hated pain. I hated dying young.
So if I could just look pitiful enough to draw his sympathy and survive, that would be enough…
“The fuck… you call that freeing me?”
…Wouldn’t it?