I Just Wanted to Avoid Death - Chapter 174
Whether he died by their hands or by his own, it felt the same.
“I… I want to stop now…”
“Stop?”
“I… don’t want to kill anyone anymore.”
His voice trembled, filled with fear.
Yeshion shut his eyes tightly.
Revenge no longer mattered. He just wanted to return to a life without fear. He just wanted to disappear somewhere no one knew him and live quietly, like a mouse.
“…That’s going to be a problem.”
It wasn’t Baine who answered.
It was a voice he’d never heard before.
No it was a voice he’d definitely heard once, long ago.
Yeshion, trembling and soaked in fear, lifted his head without realizing it.
A flood of red filled his vision.
The day he first witnessed death in his life, that woman had bared her teeth and smiled like a specter. Veronica stood there, lips curled in a crescent.
“You… you’re…”
“It seems you don’t quite grasp the situation. You’re a traitor now.”
Without a shred of hesitation, she was the one who’d driven a sword into her own mother’s heart.
“A… ah…”
His heart pounded like it was about to explode.
All the things he had done flashed through his mind, and the cries of those who had begged for their lives rang in his ears like tinnitus.
But Veronica paid no mind to Yeshion’s state and continued speaking.
“I finally got myself a useful pawn, and now you want to quit? With a heart that soft, how do you expect to survive?”
“A… useful pawn…?”
No. That couldn’t be.
Surely…
“Why so shocked? Is it because you’re scared now that the one who killed your mother is standing right in front of you?”
Yeshion’s gaze wavered violently. His breath grew ragged, and tears welled in his eyes.
“That can’t… be…”
He’d thought they didn’t know anything, but they had known everything.
That Yeshion was the only surviving member of the Azelist Count’s family. That he’d crawled his way here for revenge.
“The Azelist family was so naïve.”
“……”
“You saw plenty of others die one by one for refusing missions. Didn’t you ever think it strange that you were still alive?”
Her voice whispered sweetly, but the content of her words was nothing but brutal and cruel.
“Why? Why…?”
They’d known all along.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Veronica smiled, her eyes narrowing into crescent moons. Her crimson irises shimmered with an enigmatic glow.
“Because it was fun. Watching someone who wanted to kill me struggle pathetically beneath me, completely clueless.”
“……”
“So how does it feel, Yeshion Azelist? Turning into a murderer yourself while trying to get revenge.”
It was the worst.
No, not even the word worst could describe the powerlessness and despair consuming him whole.
‘I should die.’
He was never going to escape their grasp anyway.
If he died, he wouldn’t have to be at their mercy anymore.
And if he was going to die anyway, he might as well bite that b***h’s throat out and take her with him.
The moment the thought formed, Yeshion sprang up and lunged at Veronica.
“…I’ll kill you!”
He screamed so loud his throat strained with veins. But just as he threw himself at her, Baine, who was standing beside him, tripped his leg. The man with blue eyes kicked him hard in the gut.
Even as they beat him for daring to raise his hand to a noble, the tears wouldn’t stop.
He loathed himself.
The fact that he couldn’t even choose his own death was unbearably cruel.
Even after that, Yeshion was dragged into mission after mission.
Bringing internal maps of the temple, opening the back gate to let in assassins.
‘Yeshion’s’ wicked deeds grew worse by the day, and the stress built until it twisted his personality into something hysterical.
Step by step.
Each footfall toward the temple felt like lead.
It was grotesque that someone with such a heavy burden of sin was walking into a space meant only for the innocent.
“Hey, move. That’s priest Yeshion.”
No one loved him anymore.
No, Yeshion was someone unworthy of love. Maybe he shouldn’t have been born at all.
“I didn’t… even do anything wrong…”
Yeshion bowed his head, cursing the gods. If there really was a god, they should never have let him live like this.
“Even if you descended yourself, you wouldn’t be able to fix this mess, you piece of s**t.”
A life abandoned by even the divine. That was how Yeshion saw his existence.
So he decided to throw that life away.
He’d stain the hands of those who pretended to be pure. He’d drag them down to hell with him.
“Suffering alone… it’s just too unfair.”
And then his vision went dark.
