My Life as A Death Guard

They had been traveling nonstop, and now night had fallen.

The darkness pressed in, infinite and oppressive, like a drop of ink spreading endlessly in a rain-soaked night.

Out here in the wilderness, they felt so small.

Hades followed the Emperor as they stopped to build a fire on the desolate plain. The flames crackled and popped, flaring and dimming, pushing back a tiny circle of the darkness.

The faint light illuminated their faces as they sat by the fire, bored and waiting for dawn to resume their journey.

Then, the laughter of children echoed out of the darkness.

Hearing children’s laughter in an uninhabited wasteland made Hades shiver.

“How can there be kids out here?!”

He turned to the Emperor, but the Emperor ignored him. His face grew tense as he drew his sword and stood up.

“Get away! Get away! Damn things, leave!”

The Emperor’s voice carried far but was quickly swallowed by the endless darkness, leaving no trace behind.

The mule snorted, stomped its hooves, and edged closer to the fire.

“What’s going on?”

Hades scrambled to his feet, though unfortunately, he was unarmed.

Still, he thought to himself, Should I really pick up a weapon to face children?

While Hades was pondering, the children appeared.

Their eerie, filthy silhouettes emerged from the shadows, darting in and out of the border between light and dark.

“Join us,” they said.

“Get lost! Get lost!”

The Emperor brandished his sword, preparing to lunge.

“I’m human, you wretched filth! Stay away!”

“Why won’t you join us?”

“We promised you everything,” one of the children said.

“Why don’t you take just one more step to the very top of that final stair?”

A sly-eyed child, lean and agile, taunted him.

“You should face your own desires, hypocritical adult,” said a beautiful child.

“Everything is meaningless in the end. Obsessing over it is exhausting.”

“You shouldn’t be so weak!”

“Crawl away, you scum!”

Hades couldn’t make sense of their bizarre ramblings, but luckily, none of the children paid him any attention. He seemed to blend into the darkness, forgotten.

So he remained on the sidelines, calmly watching.

The Emperor, fed up with the children’s chatter, scooped up a handful of mud from the ground. He molded it into a ball and hurled it at them.

The mud hit a plump child squarely, and the sound of crying immediately erupted.

The other children, annoyed, dragged the crying one away.

Before they disappeared into the shadows, one of them glanced in Hades’ direction.

Then they were gone.

Hesitating, Hades walked over to the Emperor.

“What were they?”

“They were exactly what you saw.”

Children?

“You don’t like kids?” Hades asked.

The Emperor snorted.

Ah, not liking kids. That wouldn’t make him a good father, Hades thought randomly.

“What were they saying about making you join them?”

The Emperor’s nose twitched as if the question deeply disgusted him.

“Never. Not in a thousand lifetimes.”

“Humans do not mingle with vermin.”

“Look,” the Emperor said, seemingly in the mood to talk. The two sat down by the fire again.

The orange glow lit up the Emperor’s face. He held a branch, stirring the firewood below.

His face glowed gold in the light, and for a fleeting moment, Hades thought he saw a golden crown atop his head.

“Even if they offered me everything.”

“But what is ‘everything’ to children? Just mud toys and silly trinkets.”

“They misunderstood me.”

The Emperor casually picked up some twigs, snapped them, and tossed them into the flames.

As he watched the twigs burn to ashes, he continued,

“To live. To live with the freedom to raise a sword of vengeance against your enemies—that’s all that matters.”

“Nothing else has any meaning.”

The twigs turned to ash, and the Emperor reached out to add more wood to the fire.

Hades blinked and began helping, tossing more sticks into the flames.

The fire roared back to life.

The Emperor glanced at him.

“And you? What do you want?”

Hades? What did he want?

At first, he thought about saying “to live,” but the word stirred no emotion in him. It felt like he’d seen too much of life and death already, like leaves falling from trees by the roadside—nothing worth dwelling on.

“Hmm,” Hades muttered as hunger struck him again.

Start a restaurant?

He suddenly remembered someone mentioning that to him long ago.

Back when everything hadn’t happened yet, when he hadn’t trudged step by step to this desolate place.

Back when they were all still there.

“A place where people could sit down, eat, and chat together?”

The Emperor glanced at him, his deep brown eyes occasionally catching golden sparks from the firelight.

“Then you might as well give your enemies a knife to the throat.”

Hades shrugged.

“It’s just something I want to do.”

“If it’s already done, then it’s not a want,” the Emperor muttered, disdainful.

“Short-sighted and shallow.”

“I never claimed to be a wise man,” Hades said.

“I’m just an unlucky guy.”

“True,” the Emperor nodded.

“But who isn’t?”

Yes, who isn’t?

Hades stared at the fire. It was so small. No matter how hard it burned or how much wood it consumed, it was still too small.

Beyond it lay the endless night.

Hades didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he woke up to the chill of the morning breeze.

He forced his eyes open. The sun was rising, and the Emperor was packing up.

“Let’s go.”

The Emperor mounted the mule, and Hades naturally followed.

And so they traveled again.

They walked and walked, and walked some more.

They walked through a puddle, which the Emperor parted unnecessarily—Hades thought the puddle was shallow enough to simply step through.

They encountered an abyss, but the Emperor just kicked the mule, and Hades grabbed the mule’s tail to leap across.

The air grew thinner and colder.

Finally, they arrived.

It was a vast plain covered in lush green grass. A cow grazed leisurely in the field, its coat marked by vibrant green and red cracks.

Nearby, several half-eaten bales of hay lay scattered haphazardly on the ground.

The Emperor dismounted, drawing his sword and staring intently at the cow.

“Stay out of its attack range,” he warned.

Huh?

“Is this…”

Hades racked his brain.

“Is this a dragon?”

“Yes.”

The Emperor said nothing more and charged straight at it.

The cow rushed to meet the Emperor, colliding with his sword.

Wait, what?!

As the Emperor battled the creature, it suddenly turned its gaze toward Hades and spat at him.

The spit flew at him with astonishing speed!

Hades dodged quickly.

The Emperor seized the distraction and drove his sword into the creature.

Black liquid gushed from the wound.

The liquid hit the ground without making a sound.

Seeing the liquid flow, the Emperor pinned the cow down forcefully.

The cow bellowed in protest.

“Come here! Hurry, Hades!”

Hades rushed over, only for the Emperor to smear the black liquid all over his face.

“Drink it! Quickly!”

“Drink as much as you can! Now!”

What on earth was happening?!

Despite his confusion, Hades obeyed, stumbling out of the cow’s range. He cupped the black liquid in his hands and swallowed it desperately.

The liquid tasted strange, clinging to his throat. Hades felt as though his insides were on fire.

He kept drinking, as if compelled by some internal command: If it doesn’t kill me, I’ll drink until I’m dead.

He was burning.

“Ugh! Cough, cough!”

As Hades felt himself nearing death, his vision blurred, and he looked ahead—

The Emperor stood in golden power armor, his ornate sword crackling with psychic energy. He held the massive dragon down with sheer force.

A colossal, incomprehensible, shimmering dragon.

Its immense tentacles blotted out the sky, their metallic sheen ever-changing, radiating the principles of the cosmos itself.

It was bleeding.

Hades looked down at his hands, now soaked in dragon’s blood.

He passed out.

When he opened his eyes again, Hades felt a chill on his back.

Malcador was looking at him, upside down.

I must still be dreaming, Hades thought.

“Get up! Stop sleeping!”

Malcador whacked Hades’ leg with a stick.

?!

Hades opened his eyes again, realizing they were now on the Tharsis Plateau.

“Huh?”

“What’s going on?”

Hades struggled to sit up.

Malcador glanced at him.

“You’ve gained knowledge. That’s all.”

“What knowledge?”

Hades still felt an empty haze in his mind.

Malcador rolled his eyes.

“You know how to drive a tank. But what if you’ve never even seen a tank before?”

Hades blinked, baffled.

Malcador ignored him and walked away, seemingly summoning the swarms of Koliersess.

Hades watched Malcador’s silhouette disappear into the distance.

The setting sun stretched Malcador’s shadow long across the plateau.

He walked toward the light and vanished into it.

Hades was left alone in the darkness.

Feeling drowsy, Hades closed his eyes and lay comfortably in the darkness.

It was as if he had always been a part of it.