Chronologically, this chapter precedes Chapter 7. Douglas has not yet died in the tavern. Louise is still named Louise.
I. The Tavern
“Legend has it that before humanity moved toward the Alliance, there existed nations large and small. Places like France, England, and America. Until a great man united humanity.”
In a tavern in Prague, a white-haired old man leaned on a cane and spoke with earnest gravity.
No one listened.
“Save it. You Superstarkin love talking nonsense. Nothing is as fantastical as you make it sound; none of it is in the history books,” a fat, red-skinned Infernal shouted, raising a bottle of hard liquor.
“Exactly. The Human Alliance has existed since the birth of humanity,” another Infernal chimed in.
The old man said no more. He drank by himself.
At that moment, a hunchbacked white man with sharp eyes walked over, sat beside him, snatched the bottle, and poured it into his own cup.
“History is all lies.”
He was Douglas. He was accompanying Louise while she studied in Prague. With nothing much to do usually, he liked to frequent this tavern.
Looking at the wrinkled old man before him, who tried his best to keep his back straight despite his hunch, the old man also muttered:
“History is written by the victors.”
Douglas did not respond to him. He turned and left.
If Louise found out he wasn’t home, she would surely go searching all over the streets for him again.
II. The Kingdom
Prague was the kingdom of the Infernals.
They disliked humans, especially white people. It was because of the acts enacted by humans that the Infernals had been unable to hold their heads up for decades. Now they had “occupied” Prague, taking control of government institutions and making the government revolve around them.
If a human humiliated an Infernal on the street, they would swarm and attack. Conversely, they considered bullying humans to be a matter of course—letting humans taste what it felt like to be bullied.
Hot water supply prioritized Infernals, followed by humans.
Louise had originally been studying abroad in Prague alone. But when Douglas saw the situation in Prague on the news, he grew worried and followed her over. Facts proved he was right. Although he had no army now and was not in power, Prague still harbored his former influence.
On the news, Prague was praised as a “paradise of freedom.” People could sing and dance on the streets. Of course, this freedom was absolute.
Three factions had turned Prague into a chaotic mess.
The Alliance faction—also known as the Douglas faction—utterly despised such a city. They advocated nuclear cleansing to demonstrate the power of pure-blood human race.
The Progressive faction—also known as the Hubery faction—advocated Infernal priority.
The Liberal faction advocated harmonious coexistence.
None yielded to the others.
Nowadays, the mayor of Prague was an Infernal. The police chief was an Infernal. The chief procurator was an Infernal. Even the judges were Infernals.
The largest Infernal organization in Prague was called the Black Infernal Party. The second largest was the predominantly white Flower Slayer Party. The two gangs were locked in constant violent clashes. But obviously, the government supported the Infernal Party.
Every night before falling asleep, Douglas could hear curses from downstairs.
“Coward hiding inside. Have the guts to come out and fight to the death.”
Immediately followed by a gunshot.
The provocative voice dissipated.
Louise was unaware of all this. She was pursuing a doctorate in literature at Charles University, and most of her close friends were Infernals. But Douglas always told her to stay away from Infernals, saying they were all ungrateful wretches.
She did not understand why her father said such things. These friends of hers were clearly very good to her. Over these matters, she often argued with Douglas. Once, Douglas had even resorted to violence.
Yet she did not blame her father for it. She only wanted this pedantic patriarch of the old society to live out his remaining years in peace.
III. The Slums
Almost no vagrants could be seen on the streets of Prague. Stainless.
But in the southwestern district of the city, there were vast slums. According to incomplete statistics, there were approximately two hundred thousand vagrants.
The Prague government adopted a policy of forced relocation for vagrants. Those who disobeyed were executed on the spot.
The vagrants included both humans and Infernals, but their living conditions differed vastly. Infernals were provided housing arranged uniformly by the government. These fiscal expenditures were shared by the wealthy, claiming that “Infernals help Infernals.”
But certain wealthy Infernals did not like this. Most of them were moderates who questioned why their own wealth should go toward helping those unmotivated Infernals. These individuals preferred interacting with humans, yet humans ostracized them. Thus they believed they themselves were not exceptional enough, and opposed the government’s practices.
Another group of human vagrants, however, lived inside cramped, narrow residential buildings. Some small residential buildings even held fifty people.
The government declared this to be a punishment for idle loafers in society. Almost no human aristocrats could be seen in Prague. Most had moved to other places where humans gathered.
Only a small portion remained.
Douglas was one of them.
The Infernals were naturally afraid of the cold, especially in winter. In the past, many Infernals froze to death in Prague every winter. Now, almost none did.
Replacing them were human vagrants.
No one had tallied how many humans froze to death in Prague’s winters. Because no one needed that number.
IV. The Toe
“I truly regret not slaughtering all the Fire Fiends and Infernals.”
This was Douglas’s statement after getting drunk in a Prague tavern.
When he said this, there were seven people in the tavern. Six were Infernals.
It instantly triggered a siege from the group of Infernals.
The pinky toe of his left foot was chopped off.
A rusty knife. No one knew who did it. When Douglas was carried home, the cloth shoe on his left foot was soaked with blood. Seeing this, Louise cried all night. The next morning, she bandaged her father’s left foot without saying a word.
After this incident, the Slayer Party hacked at Infernals on sight.
In the end, Alliance forces came to quell the matter.
Then it ended in nothing.
Epilogue: Paradise of Freedom
The news was still calling Prague a “paradise of freedom.”
Aerial footage. Clean streets. People dancing in the square. Sunlight hitting the spires, golden and brilliant.
The footage did not show the slums in the southwestern district. It did not show fifty people crammed into a single building’s rooms. It did not show the human-shaped outlines frozen at street corners in winter.
Nor did it show that tavern—the tavern where a hunchbacked old man was surrounded by six Infernals, missing a toe on his left foot.
Douglas went to that tavern again later. He sat in the corner, ordered a glass of hard liquor, and drank slowly.
He spoke to no one anymore.
The old man—the Superstarkin who spoke of history—was gone as well. Some said he returned to Verdo; some said he was dead. The tavern owner said he couldn’t remember clearly.
On the day Louise graduated, Douglas sat in the last row of the Charles University auditorium, watching his daughter walk onto the stage to receive her degree certificate. Her Infernal friends applauded, screamed, and took photos below. Louise smiled like a flower.
Douglas applauded too.
With one hand.
The other hand clutched the blanket on his knees, clutching it tightly.
That was the last time he saw Louise smile.
—End of Chapter 8.