The Heavenly Demon Can’t Live A Normal Life [EN]: Chapter 182

Thud.

“Walk faster.”

A hard object pushed against his back.

Marquis Benedict shuffled forward, each step a struggle. His hair was matted with dirt and sweat, hanging in greasy clumps around his face. He looked truly wretched. One shoe was gone, lost somewhere in the forest.

His feet were raw and bleeding, torn from running through the rough bushes.

Sharp, burning pain shot up his legs with every step, but it was nothing compared to the shame that burned in his chest. As they dragged him into Benedict Castle, he couldn’t lift his head. Everywhere he looked, soldiers glared at him with hate in their eyes.

“It’s Marquis Benedict!”

“The bastard!”

“He ran away alone, and look at him now!”

The soldiers were from the Noble Faction.

They had tried hard to defend Benedict Castle until the end, but they became prisoners when the castle fell.

Actually, the battle should not have ended so quickly.

Even when Roman Dmitry attacked, they fought hard until the end. But then, they saw that something was wrong.

No one was giving orders.

Cameron, who had been shouting from the walls, had disappeared. Marquis Benedict and the leaders of the Noble Faction had not shown themselves from the beginning.

When they lost trust, the war was sure to end.

One by one, they dropped their weapons to surrender. This feeling spread quickly.

This war was a civil war inside the same country.

The leaders had given the soldiers a grand reason to fight, but when those leaders ran away, there was no reason to keep fighting.

The tense situation fell apart.

The Royal Army gathered all the soldiers who didn’t want to fight anymore. They took control of the castle and searched it until night to make sure there were no problems.

It was over.

The Royal Army had won.

When the prisoners saw Marquis Benedict being dragged in, looking so sad, they spat on him as he walked by.

“Kaa-ack, ptooey!”

“Rot in hell!”

Someone spat in his face.

Thick, yellow spittle landed on his face and slowly trickled down, sticky and disgusting. Marquis Benedict’s stomach twisted in shame.

The bad smell on his body kept the spit from feeling too awful.

He couldn’t believe this was happening. Soldiers were hurting him, the man who used to be the most powerful in Cairo. He felt it in every way – what he saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched.

Thwack.

“Kuh-euk.”

He knelt, the hard ground pressing into his knees. Everything was spinning. Then, like a flash, a memory came to him.

He looked up and saw Roman Dmitry coming closer. His heart pounded in his chest. ‘This is it,’ he thought, his mouth dry with fear. ‘This is how I die.’

At that moment, Marquis Benedict’s mind went back to a memory he had forgotten.

Years ago, there was a big party in Cairo.

The Cairo Royal Family and the Benedicts, the most important family in Cairo, were joining together. People from other countries came to congratulate them.

Marquis Benedict was there too.

He had taken over his father’s job when he was young. He was happy that his sister, who was like a daughter to him, was getting married.

From that day on, he was truly happy.

That is, until Daniel Cairo’s father, the previous king, showed he wasn’t good at his job.

“The Chronos Empire is doing terrible things more and more often. They keep attacking the border, and they use their people to cause trouble in our country. Your Majesty, Cairo is weak. I know we have to watch them do these things, but we can’t let them take advantage of us. You must take charge again. Get rid of their people and show Cairo’s strength.”

Many people were dying on the Western Front.

Marquis Benedict went to the palace, very angry, and spoke about the future, his face red.

Maybe Benedict loved his country then.

He thought the Benedict family and the Cairo Royal Family were in the same situation. He couldn’t stand by and watch the Chronos Empire make fun of the kingdom.

But the king did nothing.

The reason was simple: he didn’t want to put the people in danger.

The king thought that if he killed the empire’s people, they would attack back, and he couldn’t allow that.

Loving the people was a good thing for a king, but Marquis Benedict didn’t see it that way.

He thought that one mistake would cause many people to die in the future.

The king wanted peace more than a strong country. His ideas sounded good, but they only brought peace that didn’t mean anything.

That was when Cairo started to become weak.

While the king couldn’t make up his mind, the Imperial Faction, who followed Chronos and Valhalla, became scary and powerful.

Marquis Benedict gathered his own forces to fight them.

Even if the Cairo Royal Family was acting foolishly, he didn’t want Cairo to be taken over by the empire.

Around that time, something happened.

The queen, who had always been sick, got worse and died, even though the king took care of her.

It was the same sickness that Marquis Benedict’s father had.

The Cairo Royal Family was barely holding together, and now that bond was broken. Marquis Benedict watched his younger sister’s funeral with a cold face and wondered if the Cairo Kingdom should even continue.

At the memorial service for the queen, the Imperial Faction laughed loudly.

They showed no sadness at all, and this made Marquis Benedict very angry.

“I can’t trust the Cairo Royal Family anymore. I will create my own group to represent Cairo and lead it in the right direction. Tell the nobles who follow me that if they want to follow ‘Benedict’ instead of the Cairo Royal Family, they must promise to support me on the day I choose.”

This group was called the Noble Faction.

They had become corrupt.

They didn’t trust the King of Cairo, who only talked about dreams. Daniel Cairo, the only heir, was too young and too much like the king.

The kingdom had no future.

Even if people later thought he was someone who only wanted power, he believed he was doing the right thing at that moment.

Then, the previous king died.

Everyone had been waiting for this to happen. Marquis Benedict became the real leader, even if no one could see it.

The air was heavy with the threat of death.

He wanted to be calm as he died, but memories rushed through his mind, making him feel very emotional.

It was unfair.

What had he done wrong?

From the start, unlike Gregorina Denver, who could have simply handed over the kingdom, Duke Benedict had done everything in his power to preserve the Cairo Kingdom.

Though he hadn’t followed the Cairo royal family, he had also worked for the kingdom in his own way.

Roman walked closer. Each step was slow and deliberate. Tap. His foot stopped right in front of Benedict.

Beneath the cold gaze of the sword-wielding man, Duke Benedict raised his head and cried out desperately.

“I—I did nothing wrong! How can you try to kill me when I have dedicated myself to this country? The former King of Cairo clearly had the chance to deal with the supporters of the Empire before they gained power, but he delayed the decision because he feared the deaths of his people. A truly good king. If this world were a paradise where blood and death were forbidden, he would have been the kind of king his people would shower with love. But reality is not like that. While the weak king ruined the country, I held the line to prevent Cairo from collapsing!”

The veins in his neck stood out.

He was desperate.

Regardless of how people saw him, he poured out the emotions that had been building up inside.

“After the former king died, Daniel Cairo became king, talking about making everyone happy. Roman Dimitri, could you sincerely serve such a king? You, who are cold and always make practical judgments, must understand my feelings. The Chronos Empire crossed the border several times, traitors swarmed within, and recently even the Hector Kingdom looked down on us and declared war. That is Cairo. So, shouldn’t the one who becomes king possess the strength to protect the kingdom in this chaotic situation? Answer me! Tell me I’m wrong, look me in the eye and say it!”

He was consumed by rage.

Blood vessels burst in his eyes, and blood flowed down like tears of blood.

Roman stared at him calmly.

As he watched Duke Benedict insist on his own righteousness, he recalled Daniel Cairo as he remembered him.

“I will not condemn your choice. Cairo may have had the opportunity to correct the royal authority as you said.”

But.

“The former king’s choice cannot be said to be wrong either. If you had led the ‘Aristocratic Faction’ and truly made Cairo a strong kingdom, then the former king’s choice not to draw his sword at a better time would indeed be worthy of criticism. But look at the result. What have you accomplished? Even after you formed the Aristocratic Faction, the power structure remained the same, and when the Hector Kingdom crossed the border, you did not consider the safety of the country at all. You were a useless person obsessed with power, and the cause you speak of has lost its meaning. And when you were truly on the verge of collapse, you chose to join hands with Chronos.”

Clink.

He pointed his sword.

Duke Benedict did not avert his gaze.

Even in the face of death, he expressed his will to the end, as if he felt wronged.

“It is not shameful for the powerless to bow their heads. If one cannot take responsibility for that decision, especially if one is a king bearing the lives of many people, one cannot be blamed for choosing silence. You can see it just by looking at your current self. When you became the decision-maker, you became an even worse piece of trash than the existence you criticized. The Cairo royal family, while criticized for being incompetent and even completely denying the existence of the royal family, has never once made the choice to sell the country.”

Momentarily.

Duke Benedict’s eyes wavered.

He felt that something was wrong.

He understood what Roman’s words meant.

He crawled on his knees.

He grabbed Roman’s trouser leg.

“…Please, please spare me. I only said those words because I wanted you to acknowledge my efforts. From now on, I will do my best for the Cairo royal family, no, for Dimitri. So please, just spare my life.”

He begged.

It was pathetic.

As if he had soiled himself, Duke Benedict was not composed in the face of death.

Roman said.

“No. From the moment I drew my sword in Cairo, I was prepared for the consequences of my decisions. If I had lost the war, Dimitri would have been burned to the ground, and my family members would have been violated. We started a fight that could not be undone from the beginning. A fight that can only end when one side dies. It doesn’t matter whose choice is right. The loser bears all the responsibility for the war. I will show Benedict, through you, what the end of a wrong choice looks like.”

“Please, just one more time…!”

“Cairo will remember this day.”

Flash.

He brought down his sword.

People screamed.

Some stared straight ahead with wide eyes, some averted their gaze, and some were shocked.

The price of rebellion.

Roman’s sword beheaded Duke Benedict.

Thud.

Roll roll.

The head rolled on the floor.

The body, now headless, collapsed powerlessly.

The giant of Cairo.

It was the end of Duke Benedict, once called the living power.

Silence fell over the crowd. Far away, in the royal palace…

Daniel Cairo could not calmly accept the fact that the fate of the country depended on Roman Dimitri.

‘One of the three days has passed. If it takes too long to suppress the Aristocratic Faction even a little, there is a possibility that the Chronos Empire will break through the western front and invade Cairo’s territory. Did I really make the right choice? If I had compromised to a reasonable extent, at least the people of Cairo could have avoided the danger of temporary peace.’

He constantly worried. What if Roman fails? What if I made the wrong choice trusting him?

At times like this.

He truly envied people like Roman Dimitri.

An ordinary person like himself could not shake off the thought of whether it was the right decision, even after constantly agonizing over a single decision.

He opened his eyes wide.

He sat upright on the throne, determined to firmly believe in his choice as much as possible.

His father.

He was a good person.

But he did not want to be reduced to just a good person like him.

It was then.

“Your Majesty! It’s a victory report! Roman Dimitri has captured Benedict Castle!”

“What?!”

He jumped up from his seat.

Just one day.

To bring down Benedict Castle in just one day.

Tremendous joy caused shivers from the tips of his toes, but he also felt a chill at the actions of Roman Dimitri, who had turned his words into reality.

It was certain. Roman Dimitri was a monster that Cairo could not handle.

He instinctively knew that in order to move forward with such a monster, he would have to abandon the typical relationship between a lord and his subject.

Still.

It was alright.

He would accept the life of a figurehead and lead Cairo in the right direction as much as possible.

The joy was fleeting.

“The rewards for the war effort will be given properly later. First, order him to go straight to the western front. The movements of the Chronos Empire are unusual. If we respond even a little late, we may face problems that cannot be fixed.”

He suppressed the joy of victory.

The civil war had been resolved, but.

Still, Cairo’s reality could not guarantee peace.