I Couldn’t Stop my Childhood Friend from Turning Into a Villain

Rumors of a demonic infestation at the Imperial Palace spread faster than any other scandal.

It took less than half a day for the rumor to reach the Academy.

It was Hemil who informed Liel that Lucy had also been at the palace, adding that it must be true because he had heard it from his sister himself.

Liel skipped his afternoon class and headed straight to the palace.

“Ha, ha…….”

As if the rumors of a demonic invasion were true, there was an uproar around the palace.

There were knights and paladins blocking the entrance of those trying to enter. Liel strode boldly toward them.

The paladins stopped him.

“Even a trainee can’t go in here.”

The paladin who blocked him said, holding the weight of his pack. Liel’s hard eyes slowly shifted to focus on the knight in front of him.

Just as his eyes were about to fall to the sword at the paladin’s waist, Kamil, who had suddenly appeared, grabbed the paladin by the shoulders and said.

“Enough, let him in.”

Kamil’s eyes were dark with compassion as she looked at Liel.

Liel’s fingertips trembled. Even in a situation that could have broken him, he clenched his fists and pushed past them. Soon, his vision caught sight of the collapsed part of the palace. Only the back gate, to be precise, close to the Princess’s chambers had collapsed.

He could hear the murmur of people around him. Mostly the voices of the soldiers who had come to repair the damage, but also the cries of children.

Liel pushed his way through the crowd and approached the crumbling castle.

“Ah, my lady! Not long has even passed since Marquis Anise died. Even my lady……!”

Then came the sound of Sarah’s wails. Unable to contain her grief, Lucy’s name did not leave her lips.

He couldn’t tell if she’d followed her to the palace, or if she’d heard the news late and rushed to her side, as he had.

None of that mattered to him now.

“……Young Master Marsen.”

The Empress, who had been staring at the collapsed building, turned and called out to Liel.

“I’m sorry…….”

She muttered in a small voice. To anyone else, it might have been lost in the din of the crowd.

But Liel heard it clearly.

He opened his mouth to say his own interpretation of why the Empress was apologizing to him.

“Don’t treat her like a dead person.”

It was a terribly arrogant thing to say, but the Empress didn’t say anything, just pulled Chloe into a tight embrace.

The Empress watched as Liel’s back turned away.

Apparently, the second child of the Duke of Marsen still believed that the Marquis of Seywint was alive.

The Empress did not dare to crush Liel’s hopes with her own words.

Therefore, the Empress gestured to the soldiers who tried to block her approach.

The last image of Lucy crushed against that crumbling wall was still fresh in her mind.

In that final moment, she had thrown Chloe between her and the knights, and she had been swept away by the collapsing building herself.

⁂

Liel’s eyes darted about.

To others, he might have appeared stunned, unable to accept his friend’s death.

But he was certain that Lucy was still alive beneath the crumbling rubble.

His busy pupils stopped shifting and his amber eyes locked on a single point with an insistent intensity.

Immediately, he single-handedly removed a large boulder that would have taken three grown men to lift.

A knight working elsewhere dropped his jaw as he watched the stone fly by. Liel continued to clear the rubble of the building, oblivious to the stares.

Like a madman, he didn’t blink once as he cleared the stones.

Thump—

Gradually, the floor became visible.

Until then, he hadn’t seen a single strand of Lucy’s hair. It wasn’t until his hands were covered in dirt and dust that he realized—

“……Lucy.”

Soon a small hand emerged from the rubble.

Not unlike Liel’s soiled hand, it was stained with dirt and dust, and it was unmistakably Lucy’s.

When Liel cleared away the rest of the debris, there she was, her eyes closed as if she were dead.

Seeing the scars on her face, Liel felt even more impatient than before he had removed the stone.

Despite the fact that he had been searching for her with the certainty that she was alive, for a moment she looked like a corpse with her eyes closed.

A chill ran down his spine, and soon he was digging through the dirt, pushing away the stones that covered Lucy’s body with his fingertips.

He made a few mistakes along the way, and a nail or two flew off, but he kept moving.

Finally, Lucy’s entire body was revealed.

With his mangled hands, he carefully pulled her out and placed his ear near her heart.

Luckily, Lucy’s heart was still beating, albeit weaker than his. He wasn’t sure if his heart was beating too fast or if she was dying.

Realizing that he needed to get her to the doctor as soon as possible, Liel scrambled to his feet and picked her up.

“Ugh…….”

A pained sound escaped Lucy’s mouth. Liel stopped walking and looked down at Lucy in my arms.

“Liel……?”

Lucy’s fiery eyes locked with his, reminiscent of a sunset, and Liel bit his bottom lip in pain.

Lucy’s voice cracked from her long hours of isolation.

“Uh…….”

“Lucy, are you okay—”

“I thought I was going to die…….”

With those words, Lucy’s body sagged as she fainted again.

⁂

If Lucy hadn’t been carrying Chloe, she would have been able to escape unharmed.

Although the demons were large enough to knock down a floor, there were only three of them.

And even then, they had been nearly cleared out by the imperial knights.

Nevertheless, Lucy was determined to keep Chloe alive, so she pushed her toward Empress Lexion, even as the ceiling collapsed.

Lucy’s reasons for doing so were simple.

It wasn’t because Chloe was royalty or anything fancy like that, it was because she was a child who needed to be protected.

In the end, it wasn’t a bad choice.

Neither Lucy nor Chloe died.

“She’s just raw and bruised, but other than that, she’s fine. No broken bones, no flesh torn open nor is she bleeding profusely…….”

The doctor now examining Lucy was the second doctor. And he came to the same conclusion as the first doctor.

With the two doctors’ findings in agreement, Sarah’s legs finally gave out, and she collapsed into a heap.

Liel, on the other hand, sat at Lucy’s side, his head bowed low.

“Most of the people were crushed to death, and yet…….”

The doctor muttered in disbelief, his gaze fixed on him.

A glint of gold shot through him, so the doctor shuddered and backed away.

Then, as if his business was done, he scurried out of the room.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief as silence descended for a moment, then studied Lucy’s complexion: she was sleeping, her face relaxed and her breathing colorful.

Then she glanced at Liel.

The air around him was so heavy that she didn’t dare to speak.

“……Y, Young Master…….”

“Go back to the mansion, I’ll stay here.”

A stern voice cut off Sarah’s words. Sarah shook her head from side to side in disbelief. She was going to wait for to Lucy open her eyes, at least.

“If another demon shows up, I’ll save Lucy first, so you go back.”

By default, Liel was kind to the people of the Marquis of Seywint. It was because they were Lucy’s people.

But now, his voice couldn’t have been colder as he spoke to Sarah.

“O, of course you should, I don’t care……!”

“Go.”

Liel said again. By then, Sarah had given up trying to talk him out of it, so she stalked out of the guest room with a sigh of regret.

Silence reigned once more.

Liel closed his eyes tightly.

His mind was racing. He’d been told that the fiends that had invaded the palace were high-level demons.

They were usually large enough that they couldn’t get inside the empire without first breaking through the knights and paladins guarding the outer walls.

So how did they manage to get inside the palace without being seen?

Furthermore, the palace’s security was unusually lax. Most of the knights had been sent to scout outside the palace.

He wonders if he’s overreacting by connecting the dots.

The longer he thought about it, the more questions he had.

Liel’s hands clenched into fists.

“Liel…….”

Liel’s head snapped up as a muffled voice called his name.