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Mananen McLeir, the mana god, was the only god who submitted himself to and cooperated with Juan back when Juan was exterminating the gods in the past—Mananen McLeir even devoted his heart to complete the last step needed for Juan to become the emperor. Mananen McLeir’s heart was still beating inside Juan even now, and Juan was the one who allowed McLeir’s remains to be laid to rest in the magic tower.
“Back then you even took my hair without my knowledge.”
“Your Majesty.”
Juan grabbed the magician by the neck. Dane didn’t even realize that Juan had made a move to grab him until he was lifted in the air. Dane groaned with a low and suffocated voice upon being suddenly hung in the air.
“Tell me what you are playing at, Dane Dormund.”
Dane trembled in fear, but still managed to open the cloth and showed Juan what was inside. Inside the cloth was a baby with blonde hair and bright eyes looking at Juan without crying even in the sudden situation.
Theft is never good, try looking at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.
Juan quickly scanned the baby’s soul through his eyes and was shocked to find out the identity of the baby.
Juan tightened the hand holding Dane up in the air, causing Dane’s face to be instantly turned red.
“What crazy thing have you done, Dane? Is everything a joke in the eyes of the magicians? How dare you play with life!?”
“Keuk, huff. Y-Your Majesty…”
Juan felt the strong urge to directly separate Dane’s body from his head—but he couldn’t do that. Dane was both a father figure to Juan and a teacher who had taken care of Juan ever since he was young. At the same time, Dane was also the one who made the greatest contribution to Juan being crowned as the emperor.
Juan felt an even greater sense of betrayal, since Dane was the one who Juan relied on the most.
“It-it was for hum-humanity, Your Majesty. Keuk, humanity will be irrevocable if anything happens to you. I had to think about who would be your successor for the future of the empire.”
Juan glared at Dane for a while and soon relaxed his hand.
Upon falling to the floor, Dane hurriedly checked to see if there was any problem with the baby. On the other hand, Juan made a dejected expression.
“So that’s your excuse for creating a clone of me without my permission?”
“Your Majesty, you told me that you didn’t want to have a biological child… this was the only other solution I could think of…”
‘That was the problem?’
Juan did not wish to create a world where his descendants ruled the empire from generation to generation. Juan had experienced and recognized both the positive and negative aspects of humans through his relationships with his many colleagues, and thought that humanity had great potential.
Due to this reason, Juan felt that ultimately the best thing to do would be to leave the fate of the world in human hands—this was the emperor’s decision, the decision of the person who was full of love and respect for humans.
Of course, there weren't many people who understood his decision.
But Juan had thought that at least Dane who taught him everything about humanity would understand his decision even if the others didn’t.
Yet Dane betrayed Juan in a way that Juan wanted to deny the most.
“Didn’t I say that humanity has great potential and that humans should be given a chance to make their own decisions, Dane? I’m sure I made that clear to you,” Juan said.
“Your Majesty is a human too,” Dane answered with a cough. “No. Your Majesty literally defines what a human is.”
“Dane.”
“Your Majesty’s decision is the decision of a human and a step forward. But Your Majesty doesn’t understand something—you don’t understand how little this world cares about us nor how tiny the existence of humanity is. Without Your Majesty, humanity as a race would have already gone extinct a long time ago. If Your Majesty continues to lead us, we can even rule this continent—no, this entire planet. Perhaps we can even rule the universe.”
Juan couldn’t understand what Dane was saying. Juan thought that it might really be like Dane said—that he was clueless about the way humans thought.
Dane might be right about certain things, but one thing was certain.
“You went against my will, Dane.”
“I am well aware of my sins, Your Majesty. But my intent had never been to commit treason—instead, I was the one who was the most loyal to you, your empire and all of humanity. So please have mercy and…”
“I deprive you of your status as the owner of the magic tower. I also deprive you of the status of an Imperial Grand Magician. All records about you will be banned from the empire’s history and all your research data will be destroyed. You won’t ever be allowed to take even a single grain of wheat from this land, nor should I ever be able to sense your presence around me ever again.”
Dane wiped the cold sweat off of his forehead upon hearing Juan’s words. But he also sighed in relief—it seemed like he had been spared from the death penalty.
“I appreciate you for your generosity, Your Majesty. I’ll be leaving with the baby as soon as…”
But at that moment, Juan reached out and grabbed the baby wrapped in the cloth.
Dane’s face instantly turned pale as he remembered Juan’s words that said that he would not be allowed to take even a single grain of wheat out of this land.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty, please, I beg you. Please, not the baby! I’ll live the rest of my life quietly, almost like I’m a dead man. I promise to never take a single step toward the empire from beyond the border. Please, just spare the life of the baby!” Dane cried.
Juan looked at Dane with a sad expression.
“It’s a pity that your pleas are not due to compassion or your respect for life, Dane,” Juan continued speaking while holding the baby in his arms. “This baby will continue to be safe. But he will never be allowed to find out how he was born, nor will he ever be allowed to find out about his real identity. He will never get to see you again either. Lastly, he won’t be given the mission you wanted him to take on either. This baby will grow up with the same ideas and thoughts as me.”
“Your Majesty!”
“Get lost!” Juan shouted.
Those short words that were filled with power was an order and it was like a magic that controlled one’s mind. Dane couldn’t even think about resisting Juan’s words and immediately threw himself somewhere out of the empire as fast as he could. In just an instant, Dane disappeared, almost as if a fire on a candle had been blown out.
Juan looked at the spot where Dane had disappeared from without saying a word and then he turned his gaze toward the baby. Juan had never raised a baby, nor did he ever think that he would be raising one.
Juan flicked his finger in front of the baby’s eyes, causing the baby to open his eyes wide and laugh upon seeing the small flame on Juan’s fingertip.
A strange feeling that Juan had never felt before started to brew inside him.
***
Winoa Weaver, the captain of the Imperial Guard, was anxiously waiting for his master to come out of the entrance of the magic tower.
The position of the captain of the Imperial Guard, the group which was meant to protect the emperor, was rather embarrassing to Winoa.
‘Protecting His Majesty? No—it’s more like they are being protected by His Majesty.’
Winoa had often heard such sarcasm countless times, and it was even a joke that even Winoa himself couldn’t really deny. It would be impossible to hurt the emperor even if there were one hundred men like Winoa trying to attack him, and all the guards including Winoa himself knew this.
Nevertheless, Winoa loved the position of the captain of the Imperial Guards; it was the only occupation in the empire where it didn’t seem strange to constantly worry about the emperor’s safety.
But Winoa’s list of concerns definitely did not include the emperor returning with a baby. Winoa Weaver was extremely perplexed upon seeing the emperor holding a baby in an awkward manner.
“Who is that baby, Your Majesty?” Winoa asked.
“I picked him up on my way.”
Juan’s calm answer seemed as if he was telling Winoa not to ask any more questions.
Winoa sighed and approached the emperor, whom he respected so much, holding the baby. Then Winoa slowly taught Juan how to properly hold onto a baby in his arms.
“Babies can not hold their heads straight. You should support their neck with your hands like this.”
Juan supported the baby’s neck with difficulty, just like Winoa told him to. Then, the baby looked much more comfortable than before. Juan nodded his head; he recalled that Winoa was the father of two sons.
“It seems like I will be asking you for a lot of advice in the future, Winoa,” Juan said.
“Are you planning to raise him, Your Majesty? I can introduce you to a good family that is in need of a child.”
“I cannot leave him in the hands of others. I’m going to have to raise him on my own.”
“I understand, Your Majesty. So, what’s the baby’s name?”
Juan fell into silence.
‘The baby’s name?’
The fact that he had to come up with a name for the baby was something that Juan hadn’t considered.
“Can’t we just call him a baby?” Juan asked.
“There are many rules to consider when giving someone a name, but the most important one is that the baby shouldn’t be given a name that will cause them to resent you in the future, Your Majesty. The baby will one day become a boy, and the boy will one day become a man. Please keep that in mind,” Winoa said.
Juan agreed with Winoa. Juan tried to think of anyone who had a good name among the people around him. Then Juan suddenly seemed to have thought of something.
Back when he had just been a small child, before he met Dane Dormund, Juan used to have a different name. In the rural village where Juan was born, orphans were named after the valleys and the name of the villages around the area.
Juan remembered a girl with whom he had spent his childhood at that time. When Juan was hesitant about leaving the village to become the emperor, she told Juan something with a firm expression.
‘If you have to fight, then go out and fight. If you end up dying, then I promise to give birth to a baby and give him the same name as yours. Then you will be born again.’
Only after hearing those words could Juan throw away the name he had used until then.
And that was how he became the emperor, Juan Calberg Kennosis.
Juan recalled his old name and who he used to be—a child of Gain village in the Gerard Valley.
“Gain. Let’s call him Gerard Gain.”
***
Juan opened his eyes only to realize that his eyes were wet with tears upon touching his face.
Juan roughly wiped off the tears on his face and looked around. He was inside a dark cave that had a low ceiling.
There was a strong scent of the sea breeze. Upon looking at his surroundings, Juan noticed that animal skins and poorly made household goods were everywhere. There was a strong presence of someone who had lived inside the cave up until recently.
Juan then looked at his own body. Although he still retained the form of an eighteen-year-old boy, his mana heart was close to being completely empty. All the mana that Juan had struggled to collect had disappeared at once; however, he didn’t feel a sense of loss. Rather, he only had questions about how he was still alive after what had just happened.
After seeing that the wounds on his back and chest had been bandaged, Juan got up and headed out of the cave. The sound of the roaring waves could be heard and the sea breeze stirred Juan’s hair.
The cave was located on quite a high location and was surrounded by sea in all directions. White coral reefs lined the island, almost filling the entire sea. Upon seeing this sight, Juan instantly realized where this place was.
What Juan thought were white coral reefs were actually the bones of a dragon—the island was made up of dragon bones and located in the far eastern sea, beyond the boundaries of the empire.
It was the Kaliduk Archipelago, the cemetery where the dragons met their end.
***
[Stop zoning out and come down already if you’ve come to your senses.]
At that moment, an unknown voice belonging to a woman was heard.
Juan didn’t need to ask the voice where he had to go. If he was in the Kaliduk Archipelago, then there was only one place he had to go to. Juan could roughly guess who was talking to him.
Juan could see a slippery road on the hillside—it looked like it had been used countless times. Juan walked down the road and went down the valley. Below the valley were traces of something that had been broken using artificial means and was collapsed by something huge. The floor was flat because the rocks had been crushed under enormous weight.
The first thing Juan encountered in the shaded cave located deep inside the valley was a dragon with huge golden scales who was cackling away, as if it found something to be extremely funny. In front of the dragon was a silver-haired woman.
[Ah… Who do we have here? Isn’t it the sleepyhead VIP that we’ve been waiting for,] the dragon sarcastically said as Juan approached them.
The silver-haired woman soon turned her head when she heard the words coming out of the mouth of the dragon.
Juan heaved a huge sigh of relief the moment he saw her face.
“Nienna.”
“Dad!”
Nienna ran over and tightly hugged Juan, lifting him up. Although Juan was taller than he was back in Tantil, his height was still not comparable to Nienna, who was quite tall.
With his feet hanging in the air, Juan comforted Nienna by rubbing her back.
Juan remembered that Nienna had grabbed his hand at the last minute. Juan had been concerned, since she was nowhere to be found when he opened his eyes, but he never would have thought that she would be talking to a dragon in such a calm manner.
The dragon watched Juan and Nienna while licking its wounded right wing—it was the dragon that had appeared alongside Gerard. The wound from being directly struck by Nienna’s spear still remained on its shoulder, but it seemed to have already recovered to some extent.
“You two seem to have developed a pretty friendly relationship compared to the last time I saw you guys when you were trying to kill each other,” Juan said.
Nienna put Juan down on the floor while laughing, almost as if Juan’s words were funny.
“It has a funny way of speaking. It speaks as if it's reading from a book or something,” Nienna said.
The dragon stretched out its neck and looked closely at Juan. The size of its eyes were much bigger than Juan’s body. But Juan didn’t even flinch.
“Don’t you dare make me have to look up at you, dragon.”