Clown looked up, a travel backpack on his back and the broken Music Box lying at his feet.
"I don't know."
"I've only ever had one Master, and that's the Great Lord. From the moment the Female Host gave me life, everything I heard was about faith in the Great Lord. Though I never saw him in that era, I've always firmly believed that his ideals were the Violet Empire's ideals, and the ideals of every one of us Jailers. For that, any price was worth paying."
Rule, slaughter, suppression-everything that kept Hell going.
It didn't matter how many lives were lost.
Because it was necessary.
As long as they banished those who stood at the pinnacle of the Main Universe to Hell, they could bring hope to countless ordinary beings, and this bitter winter would no longer be cold.
So he had never regretted it, nor felt the slightest pity for the Origins in Hell.
But he didn't want to keep doing this anymore.
Because the Jailers had long since ceased to be the Jailers they once were.
He said quietly, "If the hope was to make him grow into the Great Lord we envisioned, then I was willing to play the clown. Even if it meant laying siege to Dark Night City, even if everyone hated my guts, I didn't care. But I've always felt that the Great Lord we believed in wasn't the face on a statue, but the ideals he upheld and gave us."
"Lynn really is a bastard. He's weak and lets his emotions rule him. The fearless guy he used to be, the one with nothing tying him down, was killed long ago by those so-called bonds of his. But..."
"He's been fighting all this time!"
But what about them, the Jailers?
They revolved