The butler immediately assisted Toren out of the hideout, leaving the brother bewildered and devastated.
When they heard of some marching footsteps coming from outside by the colonist soldiers, Coen's head snapped into panic and rush. He quickly grabbed the shotgun and aimed towards the eluding boy.
Even with shaky arms and pounding heart, he recalled the thousands of stimulation for target shooting done at the same place they are in right now. And with a single click, the muzzle blew off a deadly bullet and went straight through Toren's flesh.
The butler gripped on the boy's body to support him after being shot.
It was a critical hit, completely weakening the accused. The butler was panicking as he continuously yells for the boy's attention, whilst pressing hard on the wound. The gunshot had drawn massive attention towards their area, making the soldiers take action.
They have seen the peculiar scene which could only make them fabricate some vague conclusions. One by one, the soldiers began coming in to patrol and take action over the murder scene.
The butler had easily passed through their scrutiny after introducing himself.
He had also presented an emblem which was provided to the emperor's headquarters servants.
He immediately took the chance to escape from that place with the boy and took refuge at a rear part of a run-down household.
After assessing the boy's condition, searching for a pulse, he had finally concluded at the final beats that Toren had died. It was a major shock for him.
The butler exasperatedly sat on the dirty ground, clutching his hair, and suppressing his tears.
He had never taken on account how much the boy had grown to him already, even with such a short period of time.
Few months ago, he was only assigned to serve the emperor after being deported from the country as a servant. Among the other volunteer servants, he was the least needed and paid attention to.
He only volunteered for the sake of money to preserve himself with basic necessities as his family had all died from the great war after the opposing countries had ambushed an explosive counterattack on their city. He was too preoccupied with his own survival that he forgot some trailing meanings of empathy and humanity.
They were like metaphysical virtues that instinctively got condensed into collapsing as dusty residues meant to be forsaken. He was also naturally a homebody and an introverted person.
The emperor thought he was too timid to talk to and his co-workers did not understand him that much.
It was only a few months later when the emperor had hired a citizen painter to whom he was assigned to serve.
He was originally sent as he was the least valued servant and it did not feel like an honor to be assigned like that at all.
In the end, though, he liked serving the painter more than anyone else.
Seeing the boy die in front of his eyes was quite a painful blow, reminding him of his loneliness against this chaos-stricken world he remained in now.
He crunched over, hugged his legs, and silently cried at his knees.
It has been a while since he felt alive.