The Tyrant's Happy Ending - Chapter 12.3

Yet, even so… Lyle had once fallen for that person. For that unwavering conviction, that true embodiment of what a royal should be.

Yernen’s beliefs had become Lyle’s beliefs.

And now that those memories were resurfacing, Lyle found he could no longer stand by and watch people die in front of him. It was an utterly miserable turn of events.

At that time, the Empire faced its greatest crisis.

The early surge of momentum had dissipated, and the Imperial army had lost all the northern territories they had gained. Even the minor forts originally within the Empire’s lands had been taken.

When the Empire’s main stronghold fell, the emperor, unable to accept his mounting losses, sent a mage known for being as mad as the emperor himself.

That deranged mage, true to his reputation, demanded “sacrifices for the Empire.”

A sacrifice, in this case, meant infiltrating the fortress as defectors and acting as living bombs. It was an idea no sane person would conceive, but the mage, obsessed with inscribing magic circles on human bodies, was ecstatic.

No one wanted to volunteer for such a suicidal mission. Everyone wanted to survive and return to their families.

Seeing that no one was stepping forward, the mage began to point out the northern-born imperial soldiers, ordering them to be dragged out.

The knights grabbed people by force, and the cries of those being taken erupted all around.

“Please, spare me!”

They shouted desperately for someone to save them, but those who weren’t being dragged away stayed silent. Despair filled the eyes of the captured.

Some of them turned hopeful eyes toward Lyle, recalling how he once stood indifferent. But they soon dropped their gaze, knowing better.

“Stop.”

Surprisingly, it was Lyle who stepped in, the one who had never saved them before.

“If I take back the fortress, will you release them?”

The commander, who had been watching in silence, stepped forward at Lyle’s sudden declaration.

“You?”

The question could have sounded mocking, but Lyle knew better. The commander was genuinely curious.

This man was a rare case—a conscientious civil official from the East, recently demoted to this war zone. He had never shown hostility toward Lyle or the northerners, and Lyle believed he would listen.

And he did.

“How do you intend to do it?”

The commander’s eyes sparkled with interest.

“Remove the slave brand on my back and grant me a few soldiers. I’ll reclaim the fortress.”

The commander’s face clouded with hesitation. He was a civil officer without skilled warriors among his ranks.

But Lyle was different. The only son of the legendary Grand Duke of Beltimore, famed for his martial prowess, Lyle had been celebrated for his exceptional feats at a young age.

Unlike the higher-ups who wished for Lyle’s death, this commander thought it wasteful to let someone like him perish.

“Fine. I’ll grant you ten men. But there will be no clerics. Will you still do it?”

Being a marked man, the commander’s camp had no clerics. This meant the brand would have to be burned off by hand—a pain beyond human endurance.

Lyle had felt that pain before, when the brand was first applied. He knew how excruciating it was. But it didn’t matter. If this could be penance for all the lives lost because of his inaction… wasn’t it a small price to pay?

With a hardened expression, Lyle answered.

“I don’t need a cleric.”

At his response, the commander ordered a red-hot iron to be brought. It wasn’t long before the branding iron seared the mark on Lyle’s left shoulder blade.

The nauseating smell of burning flesh filled the air, and Lyle’s groans of pain rumbled in his throat.

It was a sight so harrowing that even the onlookers turned away.
But Lyle endured the agony that would make even the strongest faint. And once he regained his lost power… he reclaimed the fortress.

Lyle was given command of the troops and led them to victory after victory. His accomplishments became so great that even the emperor couldn’t kill him at will.

The more victories he secured, the more soldiers he could command. He gathered all the northerners dragged to the battlefield, those treated like disposable tools, under his banner.

The northerners gave Lyle their unwavering loyalty, grateful for their salvation. His army subjugated kingdom after kingdom.
But even so, Lyle and his forces never received proper recognition.

Supplies never reached them. They never held decent weapons, never ate their fill. Soldiers slept in worn-out tents and lost limbs to frostbite, with no clerics or even doctors to tend to them. Many died without treatment.

Lyle had gained command of an army, but all he could do was sit by dying soldiers and close their eyes as they passed.

“I remember a bountiful harvest once, in my youth. Never saw a better one in my life.”

“Yes.”

Lyle sat beside a dying soldier, listening to his final words.
The soldier had once been a farmer in a small, secluded village before being torn from his home and thrown into war. He had fought to survive and return to his family, and his determination had caught Lyle’s eye.

Lyle listened quietly as the man spoke his last words.

“I miss that rye field, Your Highness. The one I saw when I rode home with Father after the harvest.”

“…I see.”

“I feel such anger.”

Lyle silently squeezed the man’s hand. He knew the end was near.
“I don’t understand why I had to live like this. I never wanted much. I just wanted to live in peace with my family.”

Tears welled in the man’s eyes as they dulled, a final drop falling to signal the end.

“I miss it so much…”

“……”

Lyle stayed with him until his last breath and held his hand long after the warmth had faded. Then, he closed the soldier’s eyes and returned to his tent.

He sat and closed his own eyes.

Half of his troops had perished. Some had been slain by enemy swords, others caught in enemy tactics. But most had died from hunger or cold, unable to heal from their wounds.

They had held on as long as they could, but this winter’s unforgiving chill would be their breaking point, his instincts told him.

This was truly the end.

After a few more battles, even the last survivors would succumb. They would die in a foreign land, never to return home. And so would he.

He could see it clearly—his future. He would die without clearing his parents’ names, without reclaiming the Grand Duchy, unable to save a single northerner. He would perish after giving everything and gaining nothing.

A bitter smile played on Lyle’s lips.

Amid such wretchedness, he had sent the evidence he painstakingly gathered to the royal court, hoping to clear his name.

But he knew the chances were slim. If justice had been possible, he would never have been branded a traitor in the first place.
The burning hatred in his chest felt like it would consume him.

Yernen…

He hated him, despised him. The one who had brought him to this, who had made his people suffer so terribly…!
He couldn’t forget the sight of Yernen’s back as he turned away.
He hadn’t believed the taunts back then—those who said Yernen would discard him, that he was only a puppet. But in the end, all those words had been true. The looks Yernen gave him, the warmth…

Had it all been an act?

Lyle let out a hollow laugh and ruffled his hair.

It must have been an act.

Even now, he hated himself for wondering if something had happened to Yernen, trying to understand. Despite all the clear evidence that it had all been a lie.

Yernen had never responded to any of the letters Lyle sent.
When he thought it was over, when he desperately needed reinforcements, when the barracks were overflowing with the dead from starvation—on one of those days, Lyle wrote his first letter to Yernen.

He begged for help, humbling himself before the man who had ruined him.

But no reply came. Not even as Lyle overcame every hardship.
Yet, after that first letter, reaching out to Yernen no longer felt difficult. So, Lyle continued to write to him now and then.
Even though there was never a reply.

Lyle continued to send letters to Yernen, endlessly, even as each one was ignored.

Thinking of Yernen filled him with a deep-seated hatred, so fierce it felt as if his heart would shatter. He wanted nothing more than revenge against the one who had brought him to this point and trampled on his land and the people of the north. Yet, disgustingly, pathetically, the thought that always surfaced in the end was the same.

Just once, he wanted to see Yernen’s face again.

‘…….’

He knew it. He knew how foolish he was.

No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to throw away the pendant hanging around his neck.

He dreamed of achieving enough to rebuild the Grand Duchy, of becoming indispensable to Yernen, so that if he returned, if he could face him once more…

‘Damn it.’

But what would it matter?

Yernen wouldn’t accept him, no matter what status he gained. Not when he wouldn’t even respond to a letter. There was no way he would agree to marriage now.

Lyle’s eyes darkened. Even now, even after everything, he couldn’t stop thinking about Yernen. Since arriving here, there hadn’t been a single day he hadn’t thought of him. Like a stray dog, abandoned yet unable to forget its master.

It was utterly pathetic.

With a bitter smile, Lyle stood and stepped out of his tent.
The wasteland stretched before him, a desolate expanse where only the cold wind ran free. It mirrored his own state, abandoned, useless.

Lyle gazed out at the lands he had traversed.

Beyond those lands, far away, Yernen was there. The cold-hearted fiancé who didn’t love him, who hadn’t answered a single one of his letters.

‘Do you ever think of me?’

He wondered. Even though he never went a day without thinking of Yernen, could Yernen possibly feel the same?

Probably not.

To Yernen, Lyle was just another name, a discarded memory.
For Lyle to hold onto these feelings now was to insult his parents, those who relied on him, and all those who had died for him. He knew that. But he missed him. So deeply, so achingly.

So much…

Lyle imagined what Yernen would look like now, grown into an adult, and he passed another long, sleepless night.

Not long after, a letter came for him.

It was from Yernen.

His hands shook so badly that he struggled to open it. After several failed attempts, Lyle finally managed to unfold the letter.

The smooth texture of the fine paper was a sharp contrast to his rough, calloused hands.

He unfolded the letter thrice and began to read. But the contents were not what he had hoped for.

“……”

In unfamiliar handwriting, it was an official decree that absolved the Grand Duchy of its charges of treason and restored his title and lands. Alongside it was another document formalizing his betrothal to the heir of the Fortnum family.

Lyle only found Yernen’s familiar handwriting at the bottom, in the signature box.

A signature, hastily scribbled, devoid of respect or courtesy.
Lyle traced the letters with his thumb, feeling as though the bl00d in his veins had been drained, as though he were suffocating.

“…Hah.”

He felt as if he might die right then and there.

At last, he fully accepted it. He was nothing to Yernen.

Later, he heard news from the Empire that Yernen had killed his brothers and ascended to the throne.