How the Villainous Consort Avoids His Death Ending

It was really unclear if he was in his right mind. The man kept saying dangerous things again and again. Was he saying that a mapmaker should rule the empire?

He kept shouting words that made no sense and raised his voice more and more. His uneven, cracking voice roared through the cramped hut. The maps scattered on the floor became crumpled under his feet.

This did not feel right.

I hurriedly grabbed Tristan’s sleeve.

“Tristan.”

“Ruellin. Get back.”

Tristan lightly pushed me behind him. The man’s frantic shouting kept stabbing into my ears.

“You came here to arrest me, did you not. I knew this day would come. No matter how hard you try to silence me, you cannot crush the truth. One day everyone will know. How worthless the imperial maps are, and how corrupt you all are. You rotten fools.”

There was no chance to explain that it was not like that. Right at that moment.

A loud crash.

With a violent noise, the hut’s door swung open. Everyone’s gaze turned toward the entrance at the sudden arrival of strangers.

Fully armed imperial soldiers rushed in and surrounded the man in an instant.

“There he is. Capture the traitor.”

The one who seemed to be the captain shouted sharply. The mapmaker’s face turned completely pale and he collapsed to the floor. His arms were seized by the soldiers, and the man thrashed wildly as he screamed.

“See. Was I not right? The dogs of the empire are crushing the one who speaks the truth. They want to erase the true map. Help me, otherwise the truth will disappear.”

We were too stunned to do anything. While we only stared at the man, the soldiers ignored us and beat him mercilessly with clubs.

“Shut your mouth, traitor. Before I sew your lips shut.”

When the man fell to the ground bleeding, the soldiers grabbed his hair and dragged him toward the door.

In a moment, the hut became chaotic. The man was violently dragged away, and at the final moment he looked at us. In his ashen eyes, despair, rage, and madness were tangled and shaking.

“The truth must be spread. The true map must reach the empire. The sea holds the truth.”

“No, wait.”

I tried to say something, because it felt wrong to just let him be dragged away like that, but it did not matter. His sad cries and the words I tried to speak were completely drowned beneath the harsh sound of soldiers’ boots.

After the man was taken away, heavy silence filled the narrow hut. The old hat that had fallen from his head rolled to a stop at Tristan’s feet.

I stared blankly at the hat, then looked up at Tristan. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he was staring at the doorway. No one spoke.

There was nothing to say. Really. We came here to find a map, so why did it turn into this chaos?

❖ ❖ ❖

My forehead was throbbing. I pressed my hand to my dizzy head and leaned against the wall. I had never imagined a situation like this. What did I miss?

The person who created a map that would go down in history was such a madman. Or rather, someone slightly disturbed.

Now that I thought about it, I remembered that in the original story, the mapmaker had been executed for treason. At the time, I just accepted it. Thinking about it now, he must have raged like that, then been executed.

Either way, everything he said was dangerously extreme. From the situation here, it did not seem like he truly committed treason.

But something feels strange. Did he really lose his mind?

I looked around the room again, slowly. The maps and books scattered on the floor and in the corners, and the old dusty felt hats caught my eye. They were top hats made of felt.

“Why are there so many hats? In a mapmaker’s house.”

I muttered without thinking, and Tristan turned toward me. Even though he looked confused, a voice unexpectedly answered from behind us.

“He probably worked as a hat maker. It seems he could not live by mapmaking alone, so he must have made top hats as a side job and sold them.”

Gehardt was from the common class, unlike nobles, so he understood how ordinary people took on many side jobs to survive. There was a faint note of sympathy in his voice.