Chapter 05
The room was not spacious, but it was just large enough not to feel cramped. The walls were adorned with a modest ivy pattern, and the furnishings, while a far cry from the dazzling opulence of my family’s estate, were neatly arranged. Seated in a high-backed chair placed in the center of the room, I expressionlessly watched and received the person walking in.
“That is everything I know.”
As I brought my busily moving mouth to a close with those words, the scratching sound of the pen tracking my testimony stopped as well.
A few formal exchanges took place, and then, suddenly, the lips of the man in front of me warped into a thin smile. I knew exactly what that expression meant.
“Thank you for your cooperation. Thanks to you, our work has progressed considerably. However…”
Those thinly warped lips.
“…that does not mean your sentence will be lightened.”
It was, without a question, a sneer.
Seeing that look surface after they had pried every last bit of information out of me made a fire burn at the pit of my stomach. Beneath the table, out of sight, I clenched my fists tightly to endure the surging passion. I lowered my head slightly to hide my face, which was on the verge of contorting.
“I am well aware that what I did is unforgivable, and that I will never see the light of day again. I could not break free from my father’s spell and have committed crimes for years. That is why bringing everything to light is the only atonement left to me.”
My words, spun while masking my emotions, softened the attitude of the man before me. Keeping my head down and my expression hidden, I waited quietly for the men to leave the room.
The heavy thud of the lock clicking into place echoed.
I clenched my fists so hard, so incredibly hard, that my fingernails felt as though they would pierce through my palms. Lifting my gaze, my eyes landed on the boundary ahead.
There, entirely out of place with the room’s decor, stood iron bars. A rigid, rugged iron cage that separated the outside world from this room, which, judging by the interior alone, looked like a perfectly ordinary parlor at first glance.
The words I had just spoken repeated themselves over and over in my head.
I will never see the light of day again.
True to those words, I would spend the rest of my life in a dark underground. In a few days, I would be thrown into a wretched prison that couldn’t even be compared to this luxury cell__________
It’s all because of them!!
That man whom I hate so passionately, so intensely that I can’t contain itâKaiser von Luxembourg. And it’s because of the “Powerless” fools, starting with my father, who failed to understand my true worth.
I was the eldest son of a distinguished Earl’s house, a family with ties to the ducal house. My life as a talented prodigy was supposed to be bathed in light__________ or so it should have been.
But in reality… my father was a piece of trash with tiny, incompetent abilities but an ambition as massive as the sky. My mother was a blissfully ignorant woman who did nothing but indulge in waste and pleasure. And the Earl’s house itself was on the brink of losing what little remained of its former glory.
And then, that man was born.
Kaiser von Luxembourg.
A man who, from early childhood, threw himself into his studies like a maniac and completely monopolized the title of child prodigy. As if pushed away by a stronger light, the name of “prodigy” that once belonged to me became his, and I was cast down into the shadows.
At first, it was just a light, casual impulse. I simply wanted to see the contorted face of that unendearing brat. I wanted to make him taste what it felt like to have everyone around him suddenly flip the script on him.
So, I used my Trait.
My Trait__________ “Trait Sealing.”
An ability that seals a specific target’s Trait. While I am sealing someone’s power, I cannot use it on another person, but I didn’t care about that.
I made contact with him a few days before his appraisal at the temple and used the Trait I had kept hidden from everyone except my parents. Then, I secretly spread the word that he was “Powerless.”
Exactly as I had hoped, the nobles surrounding him reversed their attitudes instantly.
Expectation turned into disappointment. Praise turned into mockery. Glory turned into disgrace. Light turned into shadow.
I was supposed to have made him suffer the exact same despair. …………And yet, he didn’t change in the slightest.
Unable to contain my mounting irritation, I complained to my father and confessed that I had used my Trait. In response, he flew into a foul-mouthed rage and swung his fist without mercy, sending me flying. Holding my struck cheek from the first act of violence I had ever experienced in my life, I stared blankly as the taste of blood seeped into my mouth while that piece of trash screamed insults at me.
He called me useless!! A failure!! To me…!!!
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?! The opponent is the eldest son of the ducal house!!! If this ever comes to light, our family is finished!! I know nothing about this!! You are no longer a member of this Earl’s house, and you have absolutely nothing to do with me!!”
My father shrieked, spraying spit everywhere.
I had only intended it as a light prank, but the shock felt as though I had been bludgeoned over the head. I had only meant to seal his Trait for a fraction of a moment, just a tiny bit, to cause a brief panic.
As I sat there wrapped in pitch-black despair, my father, who had been yelling himself hoarse, suddenly wore a filthy smirk as if a brilliant idea had struck him, and turned his eyes toward me.
“But you are my son.”
His voice had completely transformed from moments ago into a sickening, purring tone.
“I shall give you a chance. Take that child’s place! It will never do for the heir of the ducal house to be ‘Powerless’! This is a golden opportunity!!”
A pipe dream, spoken aloud with a look of pure delight.
And so… as the price for that pipe dream, here I am in a place like this.
My vulgar, incompetent father and relatives, and those useless pawns who failed the assassination plot. Here I am inside a cage, while neither that man nor his younger brother died or suffered a single scratch.
It’s all because of that man who stole everything from me, and those incompetent, parasitic pests!!!
That’s why I spilled everything.
Every single crime our family had committed together, including everything I knew about our relatives, down to the last detail.
Fundamentally, the nature of a Trait appraised at the temple is only disclosed to the individual and their accompanying family. Granted, since most people take pride in their abilities and flaunt them willingly, they almost always become public knowledge. However, if a serious criminal is involved, there are rare instances where a formal inquiry is sent to the temple to check if a Trait was used in the crime. I wanted to hide my Trait at absolutely all costs.
Hence, the confession. If there were no suspicious points left unresolved, they wouldn’t go out of their way to issue an inquiry to the temple.
As long as I am locked away in this cage, that man will remain “Powerless” for the rest of his life.
He might even have the ducal title snatched away by the little brother he dotes on so blindly………… The mere thought of it brought a smirk to my lips.
If I’m not getting out of this alive anyway, I might as well drag that man, and all those pests who refused to acknowledge me…
…straight to hell with me__________!!!
The heavy iron cell door slammed shut with a sharp clang. Rudely nudged from behind and shoved inside, the cell was a crude, filthy spaceâentirely different from the luxury cell I had been kept in until my sentence was finalized.
So this is the world where I am to spend the remainder of my life…
Thinking of the people I had dragged down with me, I somehow managed to endure the resentment and despair welling up from the bottom of my stomach.
“What’d you do, huh? Quite a sight, seeing a fancy noble lookin’ like that.”
Hearing a vulgar voice drift over from the opposite cell, I instinctively glared at the pest, only for the lowlife to let out a theatrical, “Ooh, scary!” while shrugging his shoulders. The mere thought of spending my days in the same space as creatures like this made nausea rise up in my throat.
“Don’t matter what kind of mess you made, you better give up. The bastards who get thrown in this block stay here for good. No fancy mommy or daddy’s gonna come save you, and your high-and-mighty noble Trait won’t do shit in here anyway.”
Cackling laughter erupted from the surrounding cells. At those words, which were impossible to ignore over the grating laughter, I instinctively gripped the iron bars, causing the chains binding my wrists to clank loudly.
“What did you say?! A Trait won’t work?!”
At my shouting, a guard marched over. The jailer kicked the iron bars as if shooing away a dog. I hurriedly yanked my hands away from the cell door, glaring intensely through the sheer humiliation. The jailer looked down at me with a mocking laugh.
“What’s the matter? Did you have a handy little Trait for jailbreaking? Too bad for you, this whole block uses special tech. Doesn’t matter how amazing your Trait isâit’s nullified, completely nullified.”
“No way…”
My whispered voice vanished into the air, reaching no one.
If that’s the case… then what on earth did I do it all for__________?
