The Doomed Fief’s Dying Lord (29)

The secret of Vittorio Leviner.

It appears in the early part of the original work.

---

Jin Astrier panted and said.

“Ah. I see. That was your scheme. So you pretended to help us.”

What awaited Jin and the soldiers who had barely returned after destroying the dungeon core was betrayal.

Hundreds of Limone troops’ spears and blades were aimed at them.

Denabi warriors likewise brandished their weapons in response.

But they and their weapons were utterly exhausted.

Limone’s armaments gleamed steel-blue and razor-sharp.

By comparison, the blades of the Denabi warriors were worn, nicked, and stained red with blood.

Still, they intended to fight until death.

This was the land they had risked their lives to reclaim.

They could not simply hand it over.

But Jin stepped between them.

-Clink, clink.

Jin’s battered armor spoke in his stead.

“Hmm. Let’s make this clear first. Lord of Limone, I won’t beg you for honor or mercy.”

“Wise. Will you surrender?”

“Ha.”

Jin gave a short, incredulous laugh at Ludovica’s question.

Then he looked over his soldiers and said.

“Do they look like the kind to surrender when told?”

At Jin’s words, the Denabi warriors answered with fierce smiles.

It was a chilling laugh that smelled of death.

“Let it be a duel. A grand finale must be spectacular for the spectators to accept it.”

Jin said.

“If I lose, everyone surrenders. If I win, let us go.”

“Very well.”

Ludovica surprisingly accepted the proposal easily.

She gestured and called her son forward.

“Vittorio.”

-Clack, clack.

A knight in black armor approached, seeming to swallow every living bit of light.

The knight silently drew his blade.

Jin greeted that long-standing bond.

“Long time no see.”

“Yeah.”

And the two swords met.

-Clang!

The ensuing duel between Vittorio and Jin was utterly brutal.

At least, from Jin’s point of view.

The dungeon assault had dragged on mercilessly.

Because of that, Jin was exhausted even before the duel began.

Moreover, Vittorio’s sword was heavy.

It ranked among the heaviest swords Jin had ever faced.

‘Of course…! This bastard is Vittorio Leviner!’

Paradoxically, Jin thought it a pity.

“It’s a shame to be in this state after finally facing you again. Truly regrettable.”

When was the last time they crossed blades—seventeen, perhaps?

‘Back then we fought all day but couldn’t decide a victor.’

A reunion with an old friend across blades.

It stirred excitement in Jin.

But Vittorio’s blade attacked Jin’s openings with cold, relentless precision.

‘That’s precisely what I like…!’

Vittorio did not lower his guard simply because Jin was tired.

He did not underestimate Jin’s skill.

Because Vittorio knew his opponent well.

Not merely because he was an old friend.

Vittorio had thought from the start.

Jin Astrier is a prime raw gem.

And he was forged in the hellfire of Denabi.

Through countless battles and honing, Jin had become a supreme sword.

Had they fought at full strength, the odds would not have favored him.

But this match was one-sided.

He cursed his fate that left him no choice but to kill his friend.

Then something in his heart gripped Vittorio’s wrist.

‘Is that really the right choice?’

Killing a friend.

That choice would be the only rational one.

But rational for whom?

‘I’m going to die soon anyway.’

Is erasing this genius from history truly the correct answer?

That anguish granted Jin a momentary opening.

“…Dawn!“

“…!“

A radiance poured from Jin’s sword.

‘Was it an artifact…!’

Artifact.

Equipment imbued with a unique spell.

Imbued with the spell’s power, Jin’s sword cleanly cut through Vittorio’s blade and chest armor.

A smooth cross-section like a honed blade.

It was a terrifying cutting force.

But it fell one step short.

It lacked the satisfying finish.

Jin’s strike had not reached Vittorio’s heart.

So Jin did not stop.

-Kaang!

Jin hurled his sword at Vittorio.

And while Vittorio blocked it, Jin lunged at him.

-Thud!

“Ugh…!”

Jin’s kicks rained down over the sliced armor.

Vittorio felt a pain as if his viscera were being crushed.

The force of the kick, bearing all weight and the armor’s mass, was immense.

‘Dangerous.’

A potentially fatal internal injury.

But Jin himself collapsed from his own strike.

They grappled, beginning a brutal hand-to-hand struggle.

Two overwhelming warriors.

The mud-soaked fight made them look like evenly matched combatants.

Only after losing their swords did the two swordsmen begin a battle befitting the name bloodfight.

Onlookers held their breath.

Vittorio poured all his strength into pushing Jin away.

He sat astride the fallen Jin and drew a dagger.

Jin struggled again and again to rise.

But his instinct warned him.

‘You cannot get up.’

Then Vittorio’s blood poured over Jin’s face.

“Cough…”

A heavy coughing up of blood.

It implied that Vittorio’s condition was also critical.

Yet the chance to end Jin’s life still lay with Vittorio.

Why didn’t he just stab the dagger into my nape right now?

Jin wondered.

Beyond Jin’s red-tinged vision, Vittorio rose.

Vittorio still held the dagger, but its blade seemed to have lost its murderous intent.

“…What are you doing? Not killing me?“

Jin asked.

But Vittorio wasn’t even looking at Jin.

Vittorio was staring at his mother.

Ludovica Leviner.

It was the first time she had seen her son like that.

Surely she had raised him with her.

He had likely been raised as a cold successor, a merciless ruler.

‘What are you hesitating about, Vittorio.’

Ludovica’s stern gaze rebuked her son.

‘Finish it.’

But Vittorio said.

“No. Mother.”

He suddenly unfastened the buckle of his armor.

He tore off the exposed chainmail with his hands.

Terrifying strength.

But what drew everyone’s gaze was not his strength.

On Vittorio’s left chest, a blue glow had emerged and revealed itself under the late afternoon sun.

The heir of Limone, Vittorio Leviner.

He was a terminal case infected with the Mana Plague.

“I tried to hide it my whole life, but I could find no meaning in doing so.”

Swordsmanship, intelligence, effort.

The one thing Vittorio, born with all of those, lacked.

That was mana adaptability.

Limone is a neighboring territory of Denabi.

And Denabi’s mana contamination levels had long been severe.

Even among Limone’s citizens, it’s not hard to find people whose bodies have undergone crystallization in parts.

Vittorio was one of those people.

But he belonged to the less fortunate end of that spectrum.

Vittorio stroked the sign of the plague marked on his chest.

Crystalline dust sifted down.

Vittorio could sense that little time remained for him.

“It began to worsen the moment I entered Denabi. I will die soon. Before long, a Mana crystal will pierce my heart.”

-Tsk.

A tongue-click came from somewhere.

Probably Ludovica.

Vittorio was Ludovica’s only son.

If he died, the succession in Limone would be unsettled.

Instability in succession undermines a ruler’s authority.

Especially in a frontier territory like Limone, the ripple effects are far greater.

‘That’s why she’s already worrying about what comes after I’m gone.’

But there was no need for that.

Vittorio had prepared an alternative.

He looked down at his old friend.

“Jin.”

There were many things he wanted to say.

‘When did we first meet?’

Right, when I visited Denabi Castle at my mother’s command.

I saw your territory and your family then.

It was a barren place. Even more so than Limone.

But that didn’t satisfy my sense of superiority.

I don’t know if your parents were good rulers.

But I could tell they were good parents.

You must have grown up in circumstances I never knew.

With your siblings, probably in warm sunlight.

Jin.

‘I envied you.’

But as always, Vittorio said nothing.

Instead, he said this.

“You were born with better qualities than me. Even the mana curse that swept across Denabi could not harm you.”

“You… what are you saying…”

Vittorio did not let Jin prattle on.

He struck Jin’s temple with a kick.

It was a blow with just enough force to knock him out.

Vittorio confirmed Jin had lost consciousness.

His gaze turned to his mother.

“Mother. Take Jin as your adopted son. He will be a better successor than I.”

He finished what needed to be said.

“Live long, Mother.”

Those were his last words.

The blade that had lost its rival finally plunged into its owner’s throat.

‘Yes… I should have done this long ago…’

Bringing this life this far was a mistake from the start.

This body was raised for the family after all.

The moment he learned this body was terminal, he should have taken his own life.

Vittorio now resented himself for taking so long to decide.

Why did he hesitate?

Why couldn’t he give up sooner?

He looked at his mother one last time.

Ludovica regarded him with a bewildered look.

‘Now that I’ve made my decision: I apologize, Mother. But I wanted to live too. I didn’t want anyone else in my place.’

And moreover, he hated the idea of Jin taking that place.

The emotion that had driven him to bring that steel-willed man, raised as a stern frontier heir, here was actually jealousy.

But in the end he buried his jealousy.

He chose his friend’s survival and the family’s survival.

The feeling of jealousy would remain Vittorio’s secret.

He would never speak of it.

From now on, forever.

The second mouth that opened at his nape expelled all his life instead of words.

It was instantaneous.

He sank to his knees and bowed his head.

The hand of oblivion seized him and led him into darkness.

Sorrow,

Regret,

And the words he wished to say…

All became one with the darkness.

---

That was the ending of Vittorio Leviner that the modern man Lee Jungwoo read.

He was a villain.

He deceived the refugees of Denabi, betrayed them, and left them to die.

Still, it would be a lie to say I didn’t sympathize with him.

‘Actually I’m more empathetic now. I’m experiencing the same mana crystallization symptoms.’

He was terminal.

A terminal case far more severe than mine.

But if we stop the Mana Plague from spreading, he might survive for a while.

But there’s no guarantee he’d be fine in ten or twenty years.

“What do you think will happen if your mother finds out about this?”

“…“

I spoke in place of the silent Vittorio.

“The Lord of Limone will abandon you. She will adopt a distant relative or one of her trusted retainers as her heir.”

Vittorio must have known that.

Knowing that, he chose to entrust everything to Jin and take his own life.

“I don’t want that to happen either.”

He remained silent.

What a listener who makes the speaker feel awkward.

But will anything change if you don’t speak?

Your thoughts are already in my palm.

“You’re wondering whether you should kill me, aren’t you?”

His eyebrow twitched.

Like mother, like son.

“But killing me won’t change your fate. Without me, Denabi cannot be saved. And if Denabi falls?”

It was a simple question.

“You die, too.”

I tapped my left chest.

Only then did he speak.

“…What do you want from me?“

Ah. Now we have a conversation.

“My demands are simple!”

I climbed down from the carriage.

He dismounted his horse and faced me.

Indeed, the first villain.

An impressive presence.

But I did not think him frightening.

‘Because I’ll control him.’

I held up two fingers.

And I folded one down.

“One: I have an employee named Ronari Arenta. Listen to her carefully. Betrayal will not be tolerated.”

I folded down the remaining finger.

“Two: Survive.”

“…Survive?“

“So that I can teach you.”

Ah, right.

There was another reason I wasn’t afraid of him.

‘One cannot feel fear toward the person one intends to save.’

“You. Can live.”

I placed my hand over his left chest.

Through my hand I felt Vittorio’s heartbeat.

He was agitated.

“I will free you forever from the threat of mana crystallization. If you just follow my instructions.”

The more talent, the better, and candidates include even villains.

‘You’re mine. Vittorio Leviner.’