Chapter 2: The Red Devil

“Red Devil” was not his real name.

No one knew who he was, and he never offered an explanation himself.

One day, he was simply there.

At the heart of every battlefield.

At the center of every blood-soaked massacre.

His lower body wrapped in coarse burlap, his bare chest exposed, his long hair hanging loose in wild disarray, he danced through the battlefield with a sword in hand, slaughtering everything in his path.

No one knew where he had been born.

No one knew where he came from.

A man without a past could hardly have a name.

As long as he was fed meat and liquor, he would happily play the executioner on the battlefield, beheading anyone he encountered without bothering to distinguish friend from foe.

Naturally, no one possessed the courage to ask about his identity.

Still less was there anyone insane enough to inquire after his hometown in hopes of making friendly conversation.

People only knew one thing.

If you found yourself standing opposite him on the battlefield, death was inevitable.

Before long, everyone began calling him a devil—a fiend who dragged the living into hell.

On top of that, while every citizen of the Hyeop Empire naturally possessed black hair and dark eyes, his were a vivid crimson, as though he had bathed in blood.

Thus, he became known as the Red Devil.

The Red Devil was an object of both terror and awe.

No one alive could rival him in slaughter.

And on the battlefield, slaughter meant victory.

It became an unspoken law: wherever the Devil stood at the front, victory followed.

Not only the Hyeop Empire but every neighboring kingdom competed to recruit him, desperate to secure his allegiance.

But if the Devil had been the sort of man who could be persuaded with words…

He never would have been called a devil.

He merely chewed on dripping raw meat while silently watching the high-ranking officials from every nation shower him with honeyed promises and lavish offers.

That was usually his first response.

His second…

Without warning, he swung his sword.

The blade, shimmering with a chilling blue edge, sliced effortlessly through bone.

The official standing before him, still in the middle of his grand speech, never even realized what had happened.

Still wearing a puzzled expression as he glanced downward, his body split cleanly at the waist.

The upper half slid away from the lower.

Shock was followed by absolute silence.

Everyone froze.

Each person imagined that the official lying dead before them could just as easily have been themselves.

I was no exception.

I had been dragged onto the battlefield at a young age, standing directly behind that official.

The dead man had been a representative of the Hyeop Empire.

I had served beneath him as a junior official.

The fountain of blood erupting from his severed waist drenched both the Devil and me alike.

Yet while I stood frozen in terror, the Devil calmly continued chewing his raw meat.

His crimson eyes never left me.

Those scarlet irises shimmered with an almost jewel-like brilliance.

They were too beautiful.

Too inhuman.

Blood from the raw flesh pooled between his teeth and gums in crimson lines as he tore through the tough meat with savage bites.

The sight was enough to stop my breathing.

He wasn’t human.

Something that could kill so casually…

Something like that was not human.

By the time I finally recovered enough to stumble backward, that was the only thought in my mind.

As though mocking me, the bloodstained barbarian opened his mouth.

“You’re noisy.”

That was all.

Simply because someone had been noisy…

He had casually cut a man in half.

Anyone who remained near him risked dying over some equally absurd whim.

When that same Devil eventually entered military service and settled within the Hyeop Empire, the neighboring nations found themselves torn between envy and relief.

With the Red Devil on your side, victory in war was all but guaranteed.

But who could possibly control such a monstrously cruel creature?

Anyone with a functioning head knew the answer.

Even so…

The one who had brought the Red Devil into the Hyeop Empire was—

“Master! Master!”

The frantic shouting shattered my thoughts.

My brows furrowed slightly.

Turning away from the manor behind me, I faced the voice, my long hair fluttering in the breeze.

The sun burst through the drifting clouds overhead.

The sudden brightness forced me to raise a hand to shield my eyes.

It was a clear, peaceful afternoon.

The steward rounded the corner, spotted me, and hurried over in a panic.

I gave him a moment to catch his breath before asking,

“What has caused such a commotion?”

“Oh, heavens… he’s here again!

Again!”

His face had gone deathly pale.

Even without asking who had arrived, I already knew.

Sure enough, he lowered his voice as he spoke.

Even a man of his age could not hide the fear and disgust in his expression.

“Th-the General…

No, the enemy general!”

I resisted the urge to frown.

It was hardly surprising.

There had been a time when the Devil wore a path to my front gate.

Though after witnessing the moment I confessed my feelings to His Majesty…

He had stopped coming.

I had believed I died after driving the hairpin into my own throat.

Yet when I opened my eyes…

I found myself in my own bedroom.

And the date…

One year before the rebellion.

I had sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, unable to comprehend what had happened.

My breath came in ragged gasps as I touched my body, drenched in cold sweat.

Outside, dawn was just beginning to break.

Roosters crowed from every direction.

The memory of my death remained painfully vivid.

And yet…

I was alive.

Three or four days had passed since awakening from what might have been a prophecy…

Or perhaps nothing more than a strange dream.

At this point in time, I had not yet confessed my feelings to His Majesty.

Which also meant…

The Devil was still a frequent visitor to my estate.

The words I had just spoken to calm the steward quickly proved meaningless.

As we walked together, my pace became increasingly aggressive.

The Devil had caused no shortage of trouble under my roof.

Before I had even seen what chaos he had created this time, my teeth were already grinding together.

Then the smell reached me.

The closer I drew, the stronger the stench of blood became.

No wonder the steward had panicked.

Turning the corner, the front courtyard came into view.

The servants of the household had gathered there after hearing the disturbance.

The moment they spotted me, anxious whispers turned into relieved cries.

“Master!”

The place they had all been stealing nervous glances toward was the front gate.

Men dressed in black—the Devil’s subordinates—were carrying animal carcasses through it one after another.

Wild boars.

Roe deer.

Pheasants.

Even tiny rabbits with their ears strung together.

The corpses had been piled into a mound.

Blood still dripped from the heap, flowing across the ground.

He had hunted quite a lot.

That brainless brute.

If one insists on hunting, one ought to know moderation.

Was he planning to drive every beast from the mountain into extinction?

My gaze swept over the gruesome display in disgust.

Then it stopped.

A deer’s neck.

Its hide and flesh had been torn apart unevenly, as though the blade had been too dull and brute force had done the rest.

Even then, the head had not been completely severed.

It dangled from strands of muscle.

The deer had died with its eyes still open.

Its short black lashes framed hollow, lifeless eyes.

Those eyes…

Reminded me of someone.

Someone else whose gaze had lost all light…

Whose vitality had faded into endless darkness.

The head…

Rolling across the floor.

The cold, stiff skin beneath my fingertips as I reached through the prison bars.

Eyes visible through blood-matted hair.

Eyes stripped of every trace of the glory they had once possessed.

My Emperor…

You should never have died such a meaningless death.

A sharp pain pierced my heart.

Perhaps my face had gone pale, because the steward called to me cautiously.

“Master?”

“…Where is General Jeok?”

I forced myself to look away and addressed the Devil’s followers.

But those men, who swore loyalty only to the Devil, avoided my eyes.

Without a word, they continued carrying the carcasses he had hunted.

Only my innocent servants shifted uneasily.

The steward quietly leaned closer, covering his mouth as he whispered,

“In… in your bedchamber…”

“What?

Ha!”

For a moment, I was too stunned to speak.

So this…

This was the true reason the steward had been so horrified.

And the disgraceful act the Devil’s followers had desperately hoped to conceal.

Only now did I realize why they had been bustling about so frantically.

They had simply been trying to avoid my inevitable scolding.

I stared at the Devil’s subordinates, who stubbornly refused to meet my gaze.

Realizing there was no point wasting another moment on them, I turned sharply.

The hem of my robe whipped through the air as I strode toward the manor.