DED 58

Chapter 58

There were only three days left until Bartholomew’s birthday.

The Duke of Faraday ordered Bartholomew to leave the temple completely.

Bartholomew left the temple and went to the Duke of Faraday’s temporary residence in the capital.

Normally, the duke would have called him to the main Faraday estate.

But this time, he called Bartholomew to the place in the capital instead.

Bartholomew realized that this, too, was a sign that everything was coming to an end.

He vaguely guessed that someone who could fulfill the duke’s wish was staying in the capital.

“Cough, cough!”

When Bartholomew arrived at the residence, he began coughing hard.

The air was very bad—so bad that it felt strange and unnatural.

The same odd smell he remembered from the punishment room in the main estate was in this temporary residence too.

There were very few servants.

The butler led Bartholomew to a room.

Even though Bartholomew kept coughing and bending forward, the butler did not care at all.

When Bartholomew entered the room, he was left speechless.

The room was arranged exactly like the punishment room in the main estate.

As soon as Bartholomew stepped inside, the butler closed the door and locked it.

That meant Bartholomew could not leave by his own will.

Bartholomew looked around.

In the center of the room was a round table.

On the table were a book and a black orb.

Every time Bartholomew entered the punishment room before, he had to read that book out loud until the very end to be allowed to leave.

The Duke of Faraday called it a “room of thought,” saying he wanted Bartholomew to think deeply.

But Bartholomew thought of it as a punishment room.

The more he read the book, the more his body hurt.

Long ago, he hated it so much that he once pretended to read and called the butler instead.

But the duke quickly saw through his lie.

There was clear proof.

It was the necklace Bartholomew was wearing.

Bartholomew took the necklace out from his chest.

It was a gemstone pendant, about the size of his thumbnail.

The gem was a strange mix of purple and red.

At first, it had been clear and bright.

But every time Bartholomew read the book, it grew darker, and now it was almost completely black.

By checking this pendant, the Duke of Faraday could tell at once whether Bartholomew had finished reading the book.

“So there really isn’t much time left.”

Bartholomew stared at the necklace.

Black energy swirled inside the gem.

When that black energy completely filled the gem, Bartholomew would die.

That fact did not make him anxious or afraid.

“Maybe I’ve gone numb.”

The Duke of Faraday had told him this from the very beginning.

When the necklace turned completely black, Bartholomew would die.

The duke told him this when he first adopted him.

The Duke of Faraday did not adopt Bartholomew to make him his heir.

He only wanted Bartholomew to be the owner of that necklace.

At first, Bartholomew could not understand.

Why did he have to die?

But after suffering through endless pain, he was forced to accept his death.

He accepted that he was born to die.

The duke’s brainwashing had worked.

Originally, Bartholomew would have lived as a wandering orphan.

He would have roamed the streets and searched through trash cans to survive.

The Duke of Faraday gave such a Bartholomew a new life.

In return, that life had a fixed and short ending.

The duke gave Bartholomew a choice.

Either starve to death as he was, or live in comfort for a short time.

For Bartholomew, there was no real choice.

He was blinded by hunger.

If he could eat right away and sleep in a warm house, nothing else mattered.

At that time, he even thought the duke was his only hope.

“But now…”

Bartholomew fell into thought.

What would have happened if he had not followed the Duke of Faraday back then?

Would he really have starved to death?

Maybe he could have lived a different life.

Bartholomew could not stop feeling regret.

But soon, he shook his head.

“If I hadn’t followed the duke, I wouldn’t have met her.”

Lucy.

Bartholomew thought of her.

If he had not entered the Faraday family, become someone with a limited life, and gone to the temple, would he have ever met Lucy?

As a street orphan, the chance of meeting a princess like Lucy was almost zero.

Meeting Lucy was Bartholomew’s only place of rest.

Thinking that he endured all this suffering just to meet her, it did not feel so unfair.

Because of Lucy, Bartholomew learned about a new world.

He felt new emotions, and those emotions spread like waves and awakened others.

At first, Lucy was annoying.

He wanted to avoid getting close to her.

Maybe he knew it instinctively.

If he got to know Lucy, if he became close to her, he would grow attached to life.

Bartholomew remembered the day he first met Lucy.

She took off her shoes and ran freely in front of him.

She smiled brightly, her cheeks full of life.

Perhaps he was already captivated by her then.

That was why, no matter how much he wanted to distance himself from Lucy, he could not.

She had a strange charm that drew people in.

Bartholomew knew his own situation.

“I won’t be greedy anymore.”

He knew better than anyone that being greedy would only bring him pain.

He did not have the strength to handle the conflict in his heart.

He thought that wanting to spend time with Lucy until the very end was not too much to ask.

That was why he asked her to spend his birthday with him.

After this year’s birthday, he would never see Lucy again.

Even if he wanted to, he could not.

Because he would be dead.

He had once wondered whether he should tell Lucy the truth.

Lucy treated him as a friend and relied on him.

How empty would she feel if he suddenly disappeared?

Bartholomew was selfish, but he wanted Lucy to remember him.

If she knew he had died, she would be sad at first, but over time she would forget.

She would live on, think of him briefly on the day of his death, and even that memory would fade.

But what if he disappeared while still alive?

That mystery would make Lucy remember him longer.

The empty hope that they might meet again would keep her from forgetting him.

Bartholomew knew these thoughts were selfish.

But he could not help it.

He wanted to leave some trace in the world that he had lived.

Lucy was the one who made him feel such desire in the first place, so he wanted her to remember him.

Bartholomew opened the book.

Inside were the same lines he had read over and over again.

He did not know what the words meant.

He only knew that the more he read them, the darker his necklace became.

The tight feeling in his chest grew stronger too.

“This will end soon as well.”

Thinking that, Bartholomew began reading the book out loud.

The air around him grew heavy.

It became hard to breathe.

Suddenly, he started coughing.

Blood spilled from his mouth and soaked the book.

His vision blurred.

But Bartholomew did not stop reading.

Because once he finished this, he could meet Lucy.

He could spend his last birthday with the person he wanted to be with for the first time.

That thought alone kept him going.

As he continued reading, the necklace grew darker and darker.

When he finished the book completely, only a faint hint of purple remained in the black gem.

The end was truly near.

Bartholomew could think of only one thing he wanted to see Lucy.