* * *
“So I became terribly lethargic, and even living itself felt like a pain. It is a shameful thing, but I lived relying on alcohol for over a year. Then one day, I went down to the basement to get more wine and found preacher John poking his head out from the wall. We stood there and talked for a very long time.”
Did the wall where preacher John poked his head out mean the end of the tunnel they had just passed through?
Normally, if someone found a person poking their head out of a wall while looking for something in a basement, the standard reaction would be to faint or be terrified to death.
Joel didn’t know whether to call Lord Bennett brave or insane. Fed up, he couldn’t help but ask.
“Father, so you’re saying that instead of running away or calling the guards when you met an unidentified being emerging from a wall, you just had a pleasant chat with it? Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“But once you speak even a single word with him, you can’t help but succumb. Joel, you will understand my words once you speak with him later. He is the only one who understood my pain and soothed my agony. He was kind enough to tell me that if I gave him something very small, I could meet your mother right away.”
“If it’s something very small… you mean your fortune, right?”
Joel asked, hoping that preacher John had only demanded money.
Before leaving the capital, he had been very angry at his father for blowing all their escape funds, but now, he felt it would be a relief if money was all his father had lost.
Unfortunately, Lord Bennett slowly shook his head. He answered with a mysterious smile.
“No, what he demanded was a soul.”
“A soul?”
Joel let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
It was an absurd answer, but after seeing the vast underground mansion beneath his father’s estate and witnessing his mother’s vivid spirit, he couldn’t just dismiss his father’s words as nonsense.
Joel asked anxiously.
“If… if you give up your soul, what happens?”
“Well… preacher John described it as being eternally extinguished after the death of the physical body. I don’t know specifically what that is like. Perhaps it is similar to sleeping forever?”
“No, how could you just give it away without even knowing exactly what happens to your soul!”
Joel snapped in worry, but Lord Bennett, who had already given his soul away, was perfectly calm.
He muttered with a weak smile, as if he had expected this reaction.
“Yes. You don’t understand my choice either. No one has understood my pain all this time. That desperate longing to meet a loved one just one more time before an eternal parting… But you, too, will soon understand your father’s desperation.”
Joel naturally scoffed at this, but in the next moment, he had to stop laughing when Lord Bennett asked, “Don’t you also have a precious existence that you wouldn’t mind trading your soul for?”
Lord Bennett’s words were meaningful. Joel instinctively realized that his father was talking about the Crown Prince.
It seemed that the claim about the Crown Prince waiting for him wasn’t a lie.
He realized his father’s intention in dragging him deep underground wasn’t just to let him reunite with his mother.
His father wanted to show the transcendental power of the preacher to Joel, who dismissed John as a fraud.
The reason was likely…
“Yes, Joel. He wants to offer you a contract. This will surely be a precious opportunity for you.”
Lord Bennett spoke while nodding, as if he were reading Joel’s mind.
It was at that very moment.
From the other side of the hallway, which was paved with tiles like a chessboard, the sound of rhythmic footsteps echoed. Someone was approaching.
Finally, the drawing room door opened, and a man stepped inside, speaking cheerfully.
“Good work, Lord Bennett. I think it’s best if I take over the talking from here.”
Joel watched the middle-aged gentleman with a protruding belly with wary eyes. He was neatly dressed.
Though he looked middle-aged, his exact age was hard to guess.
It was impossible to tell if he was older or younger than Joel’s own father.
The man’s hair was faded to a pure white, but in contrast, his face was smooth without a single wrinkle—so smooth it was almost nauseating.
“I want to have a conversation with your son now, so you go back upstairs and keep an eye on the movements of the knights.”
Anyone could see the man was incredibly suspicious, but Lord Bennett showed no fear in leaving his only son with him.
“Yes,” Lord Bennett replied, bowing politely before quickly withdrawing.
The sound of the door locking followed.
Now, in the dark drawing room where the chandelier candles flickered gloomily, only Joel and preacher John remained.
Only then did Joel realize why his mother’s spirit didn’t seem happy to meet him—and what the words she tried so hard to convey were.
‘Run away, my child. Run away quickly.’
She was pleading with her son to flee immediately.
“It must have been a long journey. Did you get lost on the way?”
preacher John greeted him in a smooth voice as Joel sat frozen on the sofa.
He was sitting in the exact spot where his mother’s spirit had been sitting just moments ago.
Because he had been so focused on his mother when he first entered, he hadn’t noticed the items on the coffee table.
There was ink, a quill, parchment, and an hourglass filled with glowing golden sand.
The amount of sand left in the top of the hourglass was very small.
At a glance, it looked as if the time had already run out.
However, if one looked closely, the sparkling sand fell one grain at a time at a very slow interval, showing that there was still some time left.
Joel, who had been staring at the hourglass unconsciously, snapped back to his senses and glared at preacher John.
The man’s goal seemed clear. He intended to demand Joel’s soul in exchange for saving the Crown Prince.
Should he accept the offer? Joel thought calmly.
He had already died once, but dying was still scary. Still, if it weren’t for the child’s existence, it wouldn’t even be a choice.
His life was worthless anyway, and he didn’t mind giving his all to the Crown Prince.
He felt sorry for his parents, but it was a clear fact that saving the Crown Prince would be better for everyone and the future of the Empire than having a stupid and useless person like himself continue living.
But…
Joel raised his hand and gently stroked his lower abdomen.
This baby was the only reason he had become attached to life.
Joel still had many things he wanted to experience.
He wanted to feel the baby kick, hold the baby’s tiny hand, and go on a picnic to a green field on a sunny day.
He wanted to give this child the happy childhood memories he never had because he lost his mother so early.
Was this how his mother felt when she closed her eyes and left her young self behind?
His nose began to sting. It felt like he would cry, so Joel squeezed his eyes shut.
Joel decided that if preacher John demanded his soul, he would give it, but he would ask if he could have a grace period of just a few years.
Even if a few years was impossible, he had to at least get enough time to tell the Crown Prince the truth and entrust him with the child.
The Crown Prince was a responsible man, so he would surely raise the child well.
Having organized his thoughts, Joel opened his eyes and looked at preacher John.
“Are you preacher John?”
“Such a young thing calling me ‘you.’ You are as rude as I heard.”
Joel had asked as politely as he could, but preacher John looked displeased immediately.
From the perspective of the original Joel, who would have normally grabbed the man by the collar and yelled, “Are you that fraud called preacher John?”, he couldn’t help but feel a bit wronged.
Joel grumbled inwardly that he had treated the man well enough, but he soon reminded himself that the Crown Prince’s life was in this man’s hands.
“I am sorry.”
When Joel apologized with a polite attitude, preacher John waved his hand dismissively.
“Um… preacher. So, where is the Crown Prince now?”
“He is currently taking responsibility for his own choices.”
“Choices…?”
Lord Bennett’s words that the Crown Prince was here of his own will flashed through Joel’s mind.
Of course, that couldn’t be true, but Joel still felt a sense of anxiety.
To Joel, who asked again with a trembling voice, preacher John muttered, “It would be better to show you directly rather than explain everything one by one.”
The next moment, Joel felt as if someone had grabbed the back of his head.
His body fell backward before he could even resist.
Joel squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the impact on the back of his head, but what hit him in the next moment was a strange sensation, like the feeling of jumping into water.
* * *
