Cruel Reality, Final Hope

“If things continue like this, Lord Jonatan… you have at most one year left to live.”

“………………………………Huh?”

At Günter’s sudden death sentence, Jonah let out a dazed sound.

He had been bedridden ever since he could remember. Jonah hadn’t expected good news.

But this was far, far beyond anything he had imagined.

“Ah… ahaha… Mr. Günter, please stop joking…”

With a dry smile, Jonah shook his head.

“I wished it were a joke so many times that I rechecked the results over and over. But they never changed… and every monthly examination has only confirmed it.”

Günter took a sheet of parchment and showed it to Jonah.

“As you can see here, your heartbeat has grown weaker and smaller with each passing day, and your pulse is irregular. If this continues, then just as I said—one year from now…”

“U… That’s a lie!”

Jonah swatted the parchment away and stood from his chair.

Unable to accept the reality in front of him.

“H-hey, Mr. Günter, please stop with this sort of lie… It’s not actually true, right? I’m… I’m not going to die, right…?”

“…………………………”

Clinging to Günter, Jonah asked with a tear-streaked, smiling face.

His voice, his shoulders, even his fingertips trembling.

But Günter only looked down and said nothing.

That reaction, that attitude, told Jonah that the earlier declaration was the truth.

“It’s a lie… It’s a lie… IT’S A LIEEEEEEEE…!”

“!? L-Lord Jonatan!?”

Jonah bolted out of the examination room and the building, deployed a magic circle on the ground, and teleported away.

Back to his own room in the Langheim mansion.

“It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie… There’s no way I’m going to die…”

Diving under the bedsheets, Jonah repeated it to himself over and over.

Desperately wanting to believe Günter’s death sentence was a lie.

To a child like Jonah, this pronouncement was far too cruel—something he could never accept.

Yet the crushing pain in his chest, the ragged breathing, the dizziness that assaulted him—all screamed that it was the truth.

“Ah… aaah… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

To escape this suffering, to turn away from despair, Jonah simply sobbed… and then lost consciousness.

“Ah… ahaha…”

Three days had passed since Günter’s death sentence.

Jonah had barely eaten anything and stayed shut in his room the entire time, wearing a faint smile.

First he overheard that Sieg would become the next head and grieved—then came the death sentence on top of it.

It was more than enough cruelty to break a child not yet eleven.

Yet not a single person had come to visit Jonah’s room.

Did no one care that he wasn’t eating, that he wasn’t showing up for sword training or lessons?

This clearly revealed exactly how little value Jonah held in the Langheim house.

“…I see. From the very beginning, I never had a place here.”

He had known it. But he hadn’t wanted to know.

And now the inescapable, tragic reality that he would die in one year.

After vomiting out so many things over these three days, Jonah had reached a strangely clear… no, a state of resignation.

“Then… for the one year I have left until I die, I can do whatever I want, right…?”

A question Jonah asked to no one in particular.

Getting off the bed, Jonah picked up one book from the careless pile.

“Uwaaa… It’s still so amazing no matter how many times I read it.”

The book was a compilation of legends from all over the world.

The legend of a dragon in the far northern mountains. The legend of a gigantic guardian deity swimming the great seas. The legend of a deep, deep forest inhabited by tiny fairies.

There were also terrifying tales of vicious demons and monsters.

“…I want to visit all kinds of places.”

Jonah had never been anywhere except the Langheim estate and Günter’s clinic in the imperial capital.

It was only natural for him to long for the outside world.

Originally, he had planned to wait until he could control his body much better—and until, even if not chosen as successor, his existence in the Langheim house was at least acknowledged.

Unfortunately, with so little time left, he could no longer afford to take things slowly.

“All right…!”

Jonah opened his desk drawer and counted the money he had on hand.

Though most of the pocket money he received from the Langheim family had gone to Günter’s consultation and medicine fees,

Jonah had never spent it on anything else, so he had saved up more than enough to live on for a year.

“These clothes won’t do either, right?”

The clothes he currently wore were those of a noble son.

Though plainer and shabbier than Sieg’s, they were still far too luxurious for a commoner.

“There’ll be times I have to sleep outdoors too, so I need to prepare a lot more things.”

He started writing a list on parchment, thinking things through.

At this moment alone, Jonah had forgotten both the sadness of not being chosen as successor and the pain of his death sentence.