I’m the Madman of This Family

Chapter 373. A Future Without Me (1)

Jenny knew. If Keter says he’ll do something, he’ll do it.

But she still couldn’t believe it.

“Keter. Pretending to be dead won’t get you through here. I’d have to genuinely believe you’re a corpse to let you pass.”

“I know. But that’s not the problem. Knowing the Grand Duke, he wouldn’t just place one guard here.”

The Grand Duke is thorough. He wouldn’t be careless enough to only place guards on the “outside.” There’s definitely someone inside too.

‘That guy must be stronger than Jenny.’

It could be Sword Demon Walt or the bomber Ragnon waiting inside.

Whoever it is, if I go in pretending to be dead, I’ll be wiped out without a chance to recover.

Jenny nodded. She hadn’t heard anything specific, but she knew the Grand Duke wouldn’t trust her alone.

There’s no other way. If the Grand Duke is involved, there won’t be any loopholes.

A binary choice.

That’s what the Grand Duke always emphasizes.

Keter, too, would have to make a binary choice. Kill Jenny and go underground, or give up.

But Keter doesn’t fall for the Grand Duke’s binary choices. He doesn’t choose the options prepared by his opponent. That’s Keter’s way.

“I’ll go in as a corpse. Jenny, throw me underground.”

“…You trust me?”

“I trust the me that trusts you.”

“That’s reckless.”

“I know.”

“You’re insane.”

“Tell me something new.”

Keter cleared the ground with his foot and spread his arms.

“Now, stab my heart.”

“What…?”

“You have to acknowledge me as a corpse to break the contract with the Grand Duke. So, just kill me.”

“If you stab my heart and die… can you come back to life?”

What Jenny was thinking was stopping her breathing and heart. But that would only be an “artificial” stop, so it wouldn’t count as death. That’s why Keter’s “pretending to be dead” would be meaningless.

But Keter was genuinely seeking death. With his arms spread, he said:

“There’s a way to stab my heart with my own arrow, but then you’d have doubts. If you stab my heart with your own hands, there’d be no room for doubt.”

“That’s obvious, but… but…”

“Don’t want to? Then I’ll have to kill you.”

From the beginning, the two were destined to kill each other. The Grand Duke designed it that way.

Jenny felt like crying. She didn’t want to die, nor did she want Keter to die. Keter erased her hesitation.

“Jenny. I don’t hate you. So, there’s a chance I might even like you. But remember, a woman who does nothing because she dislikes something is the worst.”

Thud.

A scythe pierced Keter’s heart.

A swift and precise move.

Drip.

Black blood flowed from Keter’s mouth.

Jenny, with a tearful face, muttered:

“This is definitely going to kill you.”

Tap.

Keter placed his hand on Jenny’s head and patted her.

“Good job.”

The light in Keter’s eyes faded. Soon, his body lost strength, and he collapsed forward.

Jenny, who ended up hugging Keter in shock, finally burst into tears. She had killed the person she loved. There was no reason to hold back tears in this empty place.

“Keter… You’re just pretending, right? Right?”

Jenny shook Keter. But his body rapidly grew cold and heavy.

“Stop messing with your face. You hate that the most.”

Jenny pulled at Keter’s cheeks. But there was no reaction. There was no need to check if he was dead. His heart had completely stopped, and he wasn’t breathing.

What lay before her was a “corpse,” nothing more.

Jenny could be certain.

Keter, who had survived countless trials, hardships, and powerful enemies, even when his body was battered, had died in a single strike. And by her own hand.

Jenny felt like she was losing her mind but managed to hold on.

“Keter’s crazy, but he’s not stupid.”

She lifted Keter like a princess and arrived at the entrance to the underground. Then, a phrase naturally came to her mind:

-Never let anything living pass through this door.

“This isn’t alive. It’s clearly a corpse.”

This wasn’t a stretch. Even Jenny’s soul acknowledged it.

She wanted to take Keter underground herself, but she couldn’t. She had to throw him. That pained her heart.

“Sorry, Keter. But I love you.”

Mwah.

As if proving she wasn’t one of Ruquer’s five lunatics for nothing, she stole a kiss from Keter’s lips. Then, she threw his corpse with all her might into the door.

*

Underground Level 1, the boiling desert.

This is a place where the sun never sets. In this cloudless sky, the heavens split open, and a person was spat out.

And there was someone watching. A man wearing fluttering clothes smirked.

“I knew you’d come, Keter.”

His name was Marhan.

One of Ruquer’s four lunatics, the Eye Collector.

He walked to where Keter had fallen. The scorching sand burst like bubbles, but strangely, frost formed around Marhan.

“Kekekeke.”

Marhan examined Keter’s corpse. The wound on his chest. It was clearly from Jenny’s chain scythe.

“He pierced the heart precisely. As if he let it happen on purpose. This is a wound you can’t recover from.”

Even Marhan acknowledged it. What lay before him was not Keter but a corpse.

Yet, Marhan unfolded his iron fan and aimed it at Keter.

“Honestly, I can’t even guess. Keter, you wouldn’t die so easily. You must have a way to come back even after death. But before you can do that, you’ll die.”

Without a shred of mercy, Marhan swung his fan at the corpse. What scattered from the fan was a storm of sword energy.

Marhan watched Keter closely. He assumed Keter might spring up and counterattack at any moment, but—

Crash! Boom!

The storm of sword energy swept over Keter and the ground without any resistance.

Marhan was disappointed.

“Was I mistaken?”

Keter didn’t move until the very end. His body was targeted, leaving only his face intact.

Snap.

Marhan folded his fan and approached Keter.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t fight, but I’ll take those eyes of yours—”

Clang!

Marhan’s iron fan shattered. Something had flown in and struck it, and the fan couldn’t withstand it.

Something was flying. Fast and strong. Marhan spun like a top and leaped back. What brushed past his body was—

‘An arrow?’

He had heard Keter was skilled in archery.

“Did he come back to life in that short time?”

Marhan stretched out his hands. Lightning burst from his palms.

It wasn’t magic. It was an ‘ability,’ the origin of magic.

Crackle!

The lightning struck in the direction the arrow had come from. It rained down on Keter relentlessly. Sand flew up, obscuring the view.

Marhan jumped around in the air as if crossing stepping stones, firing lightning bolts.

But the lightning couldn’t pierce the arrows. The arrows were stronger and faster.

“Tch.”

Marhan clicked his tongue, clasped his hands, and stretched them toward the sky, then brought them down. A thunderbolt fell.

Crash! Boom!

It was powerful enough to destroy a city wall.

But the true power wasn’t just in its physical force but in electrocuting the opponent. Even the slightest gap could burn the flesh!

“……!”

Hundreds of spinning arrows blocked the thunderbolt. The spinning arrows cleared the dust.

Marhan frowned. Keter was still lying there. Like a corpse.

‘He’s definitely dead. He didn’t come back to life.’

But it was different now. Arrows were shooting out from Keter’s body.

The arrows seemed to have a will of their own, circling around Keter. When an attack came, they countered it.

Marhan felt a chill but couldn’t help but smile.

“Hahaha, Keter! Even in death, you’re a formidable foe!”

Swish!

Marhan threw off his top. His exposed skin was horrifying.

Eyes were densely embedded in it. As if they weren’t just decorations, each one was alive, rolling around.

“Haap!”

Marhan let out a shout and stretched his palm toward Keter.

Suddenly, thousands of tons of rock appeared in the sky and fell vertically.

8th Circle Earth Magic, ‘Meteor Fall.’

At the same time, one of the eyes on his right chest closed.

“Keter, as you said, I won’t hold back my ultimate moves from the start!”

Swoosh.

The eyes embedded in his body closed in succession. At the same time, various abilities and magic activated simultaneously.

High Dark Magic, ‘Miasma of Decay.’

An ability that reverses healing effects to deal damage instead.

Elven Life Magic, ‘Great Forest.’

8th Circle Fire Magic, ‘Spear of the Sun.’

Secret Technique of the Demon Sword of Heaven, ‘Thunder Sever.’

Techniques powerful enough to alter the landscape were unleashed solely on one person—no, a corpse.

Marhan thought, ‘This should be enough,’ but since his opponent was Keter, he changed his mind.

“To kill you, this much won’t be enough.”

Marhan closed his eyes and then opened them. His eyes had changed into someone else’s.

Crimson eyes like a sunset.

They were the eyes of a certain ‘Transcendent Being.’

Drip.

Tears of blood flowed from his eyes. The beautiful crimson eyes lost their light, but in exchange, his ‘Authority’ manifested.

Authority Manifestation, ‘Boundless Sea.’

An Authority that makes everyone except the caster ‘believe’ they are in a ‘sea.’ Even if it’s an illusion, to those affected, it feels entirely real.

Marhan, thinking Keter was ‘pretending to be dead,’ used this Authority to confuse his mind.

Crash! Boom!

Arrows shot out from Keter and counterattacked. The moment they collided, the sound itself vanished beyond the roar.

A world of silence.

No dust. The world was engulfed in such bright light that nothing could be seen.

Even Marhan, the caster, was blown away by the shockwave and struggled to regain his posture.

“Haah, haah.”

Marhan panted. Even though he wasn’t attacked, blood trickled from his mouth.

Moreover, his senses weren’t normal. He couldn’t maintain balance in the air and had to land, but his body swayed uncontrollably.

“Ugh. Ugh.”

Marhan ended up vomiting.

But he was laughing.

“Huhuhu, hohoho.”

Even though his vision was blurry, Marhan laughed. His sight slowly returned, but what he saw wasn’t the desert.

A crimson land.

The ground cracked like paper.

A unique terrain had formed on the flat desert. At a glance, Keter was nowhere to be seen. Then, Marhan realized.

‘I should’ve left Keter’s eyes.’

In his focus on ‘defeating’ Keter, he failed to control his power.

“Tch, this is just a loss.”

It was exhilarating to kill his rival, Keter. But he didn’t get the eyes he truly wanted.

Regretfully, Marhan went to the battlefield and looked around. He held a faint hope that Keter’s face might still be there.

“Not even a shred of clothing.”

There was no trace of Keter’s existence. Marhan thought it was only natural.

“There’s no way he could’ve survived that attack.”

Keter had vanished without a trace. It was a waste of time to look further.

Just as Marhan, feeling both victorious and at a loss, was about to turn away—

Crunch.

The glass-like ground, melted by the intense heat, shattered as Keter sat up.

“……”

Marhan’s mouth fell open.

Keter was unharmed.

No, the wound on his chest had completely disappeared.

His clothes were gone from the explosion, leaving him naked, so it was clear. The wound on his heart was gone, and strangely, he seemed even more vibrant than before.

Marhan blinked. Keter, who should’ve been dead, had come back even more intact. How could he not be shocked?

As soon as he got up, Keter looked around and found Marhan.

Marhan, though he couldn’t understand it, prepared to fight immediately.

“What, I worried for nothing.”

But Keter’s reaction was strange. He saw Marhan and burst out laughing.

“I was worried it might be Walt or Ragnon, but it’s just you, Marhan? What a relief.”

“Relief…? Why?”

Marhan was extremely curious. Why was Keter so relieved?

Keter answered as if it were obvious.

“You’re weak as hell.”

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