I opened my eyes. What greeted me first was a sea of faces. They were gathered below the high platform, their eyes fixed upon me, mouths moving as if shouting something too distant to hear. Most wore expressions of raw hatred, but here and there—at the edges of the throng—I caught glimpses of a different, deeper sorrow.
There were adults in the crowd, and children too. Some were held tightly by their parents; others stood alone, looking lost. Regardless, they all stared up at me the way one would look at a notorious pirate.
But why? I must be wronged! I must be the scapegoat forced to shoulder the sins of others, right?
No—because I am guilty.
My entire life has truly been a tragedy…
After finishing that thought, I realized my hands were bound to a wooden board, my head tightly locked in the center of a guillotine. Even so, I had no intention of struggling. It felt as if, in this world, dreams had never existed at all.
A navy commander, his coat crisp with authority, stepped onto the platform. The crowd's roar subsided into a charged silence. He unrolled a heavy parchment, and his voice—firm and righteous—began to declaim my crimes.
"Criminal Derrick. You stand convicted as the principal architect of the catastrophe known as the Eye of Terror Incident." His words fell like gavel strikes. "Your actions resulted in the confirmed annihilation of thirty-eight thousand, four hundred and eighty-one innocent lives. You ordered the deliberate sinking of one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-eight vessels, military and civilian alike. A further seventy-one thousand, six hundred and fifty souls were left wounded, widowed, or orphaned by your ambition."
He paused, letting the numbers hang in the air like smoke. Then he continued, each charge a heavier stone upon the scale of judgment.
I listened to every word, each one striking my soul like a fatal blow. I hated to admit it, but he was right. My guilt was an undeniable fact. But throughout my life, since when was I able to choose my own path?
Are those who possess dreams destined to never see them fulfilled? Can't a bird that's caged break free from its seal? The fairest thing in this world is that it is unfair to everyone.
"Criminal Derrick, you may state your last words."
His eyes—eyes that had witnessed countless hardships—recalled everything that had happened in the past. He remembered his parents from the fragments of his childhood, playing with him in days long gone. He remembered the brother he trusted most, standing beside him against their enemies on the battlefield.
Yet in all his memories, he could not recall the gentlest figure—the one who had given a man burdened by curses, battered by reality, and long stripped of the will to live, a chance at rebirth. He had forgotten. And he could never remember again.
After recalling the tragedy of his life, he took a deep breath and slowly closed his eyes.
In that instant, he imagined himself falling into a dream.
In the dream, he had chosen a different path since youth. He did not stand here as a condemned man. Instead, he joined the navy, entered its rigid system, and pledged his life to its banners. He grew stronger step by step, rising through the ranks, witnessing grander battles and more thrilling events than he had ever known. Along the way, he met countless people—comrades, rivals, and friends from every corner of the seas—and with them forged bonds that felt unbreakable.
As time passed, he began to see the rot beneath the order he once believed in. Corruption spread through the system he served. Unable to endure it, he left the Navy and became a free pirate, sailing under his own flag. He stood alongside the legendary Pirate King and challenged the authority of the world itself. Together, they ignited a revolution, shattered the old regime, and built a new nation from its ashes. He became its king, standing at the pinnacle of history.
Many years later, he saw an old man walk into the royal palace. The man spoke with trembling rage, cursing the system, shouting that it had long since decayed. He drew a blade and charged forward, only to be cut down instantly by the guards. As he lay dying, blood soaking the floor, he screamed with his last breath:
"I'm not reconciled... I'm not reconciled at all! I gave everything for so many years, only to fall here, just before the end!!!"
The man died.
But as he listened to those words, he realized something chilling. The one who truly died was not that old man—it was himself. It was the version of him who had once longed to achieve greatness, who believed power and victory would fulfill his dream.
In that moment, the dream shattered.
He opened his eyes. The whispering among the crowd had not yet finished, but the weight in his heart was gone. The desire for death no longer existed. Even with his hands and head bound, even knowing the blade would soon fall, it no longer mattered to him.
Hope ignited within him, fierce and sudden, like bamboo breaking through the earth after a storm.
He lifted his head and shouted to the crowd with everything he had left:
"What dies today is my flesh. What lives on is the choice we made! The world imposes a script upon us from birth: the child's study, the adult's labor, the elder's solitude. We learn to speak lines we did not write. My crime was to cast aside that script and speak in my own true voice. That voice, they can silence. But the act of refusal itself? That becomes a legacy. It passes like a torch through the darkness of coercion. And so long as a single flame of free will still burns, the dream it guards will never die. Remember this! I am not merely a man dying. I am the kindling that begins to burn, casting a light called 'Dreams'!"
His words echoed through the silent crowd.
Then, the razor blade fell.
His head was severed from his body. He could no longer hear whether the crowd erupted in chaos or fell into silence. But it no longer mattered. He did not need to hear it.
Just like that, the man who ruled an era was dead.