Chapter 129
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
The young master who had departed in the middle of the night had fainted when the carriage was destroyed.
But before long, he woke again.
“Ugh…….”
He regained consciousness.
His body throbbed from the impact, and he groaned.
“Urgh…… What?”
Both his hands were tied to the armrests, and his neck was tied to the backrest, forcing him to stare straight ahead.
The only thing in his field of vision was a single candle.
And sitting across from him was a gray-haired man with a sinister air about him.
He was looking this way with his face propped up in both hands.
His deep blue eyes, like a profound lake, seemed to glow.
The young master knew who he was.
Ferda Waldrova.
He instantly understood the situation.
No—it was hard to tell whether he understood it or not.
He snickered and addressed the man across from him.
“Why don’t you say something? You kidnapped someone and yet you’re completely silent.”
Only then did Ferda open his mouth.
“To be honest, I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“I wondered if I was making a mistake. What would happen if I kidnapped an innocent man and killed him?”
Ferda undid the bindings on his hands and leaned back against the backrest.
“But I got the right answer.”
He spoke the name of the culprit who had called Waldrova a murderer.
“Marcus Yurei.”
The eldest son and heir of the House of Yurei.
He was the source of Waldrova’s auditory hallucinations.
“I trust you know for yourself why you were brought here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Marcus Yurei looked up at Ferda with hollow eyes and sneered.
“It seems His Excellency the Grand Duke listened to that rather well, hm? I thought he knew how to ignore the voice of the people.”
“You lowly human who doesn’t know his place…….”
Luri tried to step forward in a huff.
Ferda calmly stopped her.
Luri obediently followed Ferda’s order.
Ferda was no less angry.
“……Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do it? Isn’t the reason obvious enough?”
He let out a laugh like a madman.
“My father is now a war criminal, and people are swarming to tear our ducal house apart. You’re sucking our territory dry with refugees too, aren’t you?”
“That’s your own fault for being stupid, isn’t it?”
Ferda shot back aggressively.
“Your father caused this whole mess by clumsily asking for mediation, so what exactly were we supposed to do?”
“Couldn’t you just return the refugees?”
“After staying quiet through winter and waiting until spring? What shameless nonsense.”
“You’re right. It is shameless. We did treat you like a free soup kitchen, after all.”
He grinned.
He looked as though he had caught Ferda in a trap.
“But aren’t you just as shameless?”
“…….”
“It has been 150 years since the Dragon-Horse War began. How many people did the Grand Duke kill over that time? Wasn’t he supposed to have repented and chosen to live quietly after killing so many?”
He added in a low voice,
“If you’re a murderer, then crawl back inside like one.”
Then Marcus, bound from head to toe, fell backward.
It was not Luri who had attacked him.
Ferda was the one who had lost control.
Instead of using magic, he clenched his fist and beat Marcus in the face.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The beating burst forth without mercy.
Ferda struck Marcus’s face with all his strength.
Crack!
The sound of something breaking violently.
It was not Marcus’s face that broke.
As proof, Ferda’s wrist went limp and hung uselessly.
Marcus’s face was only slightly swollen.
“Heh heh heh…… The Regent’s fists are so delicate they can’t even make my nose bleed.”
“Shut up.”
Ferda had known this would happen.
Even knowing that, he could not hold himself back.
Because he wanted to smash that bastard’s face with this hand, not magic.
“Your right hand is broken, so are you going to try it with your left now? Why don’t you?”
Marcus continued to mock Ferda without pause.
Ferda grabbed him by the collar and said,
“Don’t be so hasty. This is only the beginning.”
Ferda knew how to turn a person into someone neither dead nor alive.
He would draw on every bit of that knowledge to give this man a cruel life.
Marcus chuckled and then burst into manic laughter.
“The beginning? Do you think I’ll let you start whenever you please?”
“Why? Do you think I’ll follow the rules of those high-and-mighty nobles? Or are you planning to die before I even start tormenting you? If you’re confident, go ahead and die. But you can’t do that. Now that you’re in my hands, I’m the one who decides whether you live or die.”
Ferda tried to overwhelm him with his gaze.
Yet Marcus showed no sign of fear whatsoever.
Ferda could tell.
He still had a card left to play.
“Regent Ferda, welcome to a terrible world.”
As soon as he finished speaking, an afterimage appeared around his neck and space warped.
Crack! Crack!
Marcus’s neck bent in a zigzag and twisted in place.
He died instantly.
The sudden silence changed into an atmosphere of bewilderment.
Luri, who had watched everything, called his name.
“Lord Ferda?”
“……I didn’t do it.”
When Ferda answered, Luri asked worriedly,
“Could it be that you lost your reason and control……?”
“No, it’s not that.”
He was angry, but he felt none of the overwhelming rage he had experienced at Erembalt.
Ferda calmly examined Marcus’s neck.
“Look.”
A magic circle of the dark-magic school remained there as a trace.
“He must have set it so that his neck would automatically twist when the activation word was spoken.”
“Then that greeting was the activation word?”
Luri, who had thought he had lost control, immediately apologized.
“I’m sorry. I suspected you so shallowly…….”
“No, there’s nothing to apologize for.”
Luri looked at Ferda with an expression that seemed to ask what he meant.
“I mean that if you suspected me, wouldn’t other people see it the same way?”
Ferda viewed the situation from a step removed.
One thing was certain: he was caught in some kind of swamp.
“Luri.”
“Yes.”
“You said you attacked the carriage and brought him here, right?”
She nodded.
“That’s right. I overcame the urge to slaughter them all and brought only this damned thing.”
“Are you sure no one knows it was you?”
“Few people saw me, but…… if they try to find out, they’ll manage somehow.”
Since she had even released Dragon Fear to prevent unnecessary slaughter, there was no doubt.
‘The question is whether I should go report this, or return to the castle…….’
He couldn’t know right away, but either choice left the situation in a bad state.
If he chose the former, Duke Yurei would investigate and things would become an even bigger mess,
while if he chose the latter, he would have to dispose of the decapitated corpse of Marcus Yurei.
As things stood, it would look as though Ferda had killed Duke Yurei’s son in a fit of rage after being insulted by him.
“You admit yourself that he insulted His Highness the Grand Duke, don’t you?”
“It wasn’t done publicly, so it doesn’t count.”
He had deliberately muttered it so that only Waldrova, whose hearing was excellent, would hear.
Ferda knew.
Even trying to prove it would cause problems.
‘They’ll definitely bring up dark magic.’
Marcus Yurei had died because of dark magic.
Once dark magic came up, attention would focus on it, and the narrative would become that Ferda used dark magic.
The reason he knew this was because his past self had gone through it.
Dark magic was a stigma, and people had been desperate to use it to kill Ferda.
The death of Young Master Marcus Yurei had already dragged Ferda into a thick swamp.
‘Who stands to benefit from this death?’
The first person to come to Ferda’s mind was Duke Yurei.
Duke Yurei was the sort of man who called the refugees a traitorous mob in front of his own knight, holding them up as an example.
It was entirely possible he would use his own son as a stepping stone.
“What will you do with the body?”
Ferda looked down at the young master of Duke Yurei, his neck twisted.
There were many ways to dispose of it.
He could bury it somewhere, feed it to monsters, or burn it until nothing remained.
His former self could have chosen any of those options easily, but not now.
He was the Regent leading the Grand Duchy,
the acting lord of Hestia Village,
and Waldrova’s fiancé.
“……Terrible.”
Ferda muttered the word.
That was when it happened.
Someone flung open the interrogation room door and entered.
“Regent Ferda. The Tower Master has contacted us…….”
Isabella stopped speaking when she saw the corpse with its neck twisted.
“What in the world happened here?”
“It’s complicated to explain properly, but for now, just know that he paid the price for insulting the Grand Duke.”
“Hmm.”
As a Dragon Spawn, Isabella quickly understood the death of someone who had been blasphemous.
At the same time, as an administrator, she wore a complicated expression over the death of a nobleman.
Luri scolded her for barging in.
“What are you doing, coming in without even knocking?”
“I know I’ve been rude, but it’s that important.”
Isabella showed Ferda the crystal ball she was carrying.
“The Tower Master contacted us urgently. Please speak with her now.”
“Understood.”
Ferda connected his mind to the crystal ball Isabella had brought.
-Regent. Since you’re busy right now, I’ll skip the formalities.
Erika spoke in a flustered voice.
-Are you perhaps in the middle of enjoying the Beginning-of-Spring Festival?
“No.”
-Then is the Beginning-of-Spring Festival over?
“Officially, yes, but many people are still in the castle.”
-The young ladies and young masters haven’t left yet, have they?
“Some people departed in the middle of the night.”
-If they’ve gone far, it can’t be helped, but gather as many as you can for now!
Erika explained why she was so flustered.
-The entire Grand Duchy of Waldrova has been overrun by monsters! If you move now, you’ll all die without a chance!
* * *
The entire peaceful Grand Duchy of Waldrova went on emergency alert.
Not merely Hestia Village, which bordered the Demon Land, but all the nobles under his rule.
With Isabella and Luri’s cooperation, Ferda turned the current situation into a map.
Looking at the completed map, Ferda said,
“……It’s become an island.”
The monsters’ line had precisely isolated the far eastern region.
“They aren’t ordinary monsters but colossal monsters. They’ve gathered around colossal monsters comparable in size to those Waldrova usually handles.”
“How many in total?”
“Twelve.”
Twelve monsters meant twelve legions, and twelve legions were isolating them.
Colossal monsters that could casually smash a castle if they moved.
Ferda had watched Waldrova fight and confirmed their power.
‘If they move…….’
It was only a matter of time before the territory was reduced to wasteland.
“The one fortunate thing amid this misfortune is that those colossi have no mobility.”
“So there’s no danger of them all converging at once.”
“The problem is the abilities of those colossal monsters.”
“What abilities?”
“Breeding. They’re giving birth to monsters and building an army.”
They served as monster hatcheries.
They kept producing monsters steadily without Gokma having to move separately and pour them out.
“Dozens of monsters already surround each mother, and they’re still giving birth to more. If they don’t stop laying eggs, they’ll become an army of more than several thousand in an instant.”
“If there are more than several thousand, it will be a catastrophe.”
“Hmm…….”
The way to stop them from steadily building their forces was a mobile strike.
There was no choice but to strike swiftly.
“What about His Highness Waldrova taking the field……?”
“Of course, that would be best, but…….”
Luri wore a troubled expression as she pointed toward the Demon Land.
“A large force is waiting here. They’re all positioned along a front that prevents Master from entering.”
Their intention was obvious.
“So they’ll attack the moment he leaves.”
“That’s right.”
Intelligent.
It was inevitable that Waldrova would be tied down at Lonely Mountain to protect Hestia Village.
The fact that they had made such an intelligent, strategic move revealed their intent.
‘Gokma. It must be that man.’
With a single swipe of his finger, monsters had leaped out from within it.
That man, who could manipulate space freely, must have placed those colossal monsters in various locations.
Ferda played the best card available to him.
“We’ll have no choice but to request aid from the Empire.”
The Grand Duchy was Imperial territory, so this was something the Empire had to intervene in.
Ferda immediately sent a communication.
-I present the Regent of the Grand Duchy of Waldrova, Lord Ferda Waldrova! I’m Hans, a communications mage of the great Arken Empire!
“Who is in charge of what’s happening in Imperial territory right now?”
-The person in charge, sir?
“Call the highest authority. Monsters have invaded Imperial territory.”
-Oh, yes! Understood! Please wait a moment!
Judging by the mage Hans’s reaction, Ferda wondered whether the Empire was unaware of the situation.
A short while later, after hearing the noise of the signal changing, the voice changed.
Even the cough he gave to clear his throat dripped with oily smugness.
-I am Crown Prince Alexander Arken.
“Greetings, Your Highness.”
-Yes, I heard. The Empire is in an uproar right now as well.
Ferda thought they might be able to have a conversation.
“We need reinforcements. Deploy the Empire’s forces and strike as quickly as possible.
-Of course, of course. I’ll send as many reinforcements as I can. But it will take a little time.
“How long?”
-Two months.
Two months.
Ferda frowned.
Was that fat bastard making fun of him?
“You’re saying we should leave those monsters there for that long?”
-Don’t take it the wrong way. We’re doing our best, too. Even doing our best, that’s how long it takes—what can we do?
So that was what he called doing his best.
There was no urgency in Alexander’s words.
Ferda was not a fool, so he could see it.
The Empire intended to exploit this crisis of impending doom.
“Do you want me to bow my head and offer you something in return?”
-Now, now! You know that isn’t what I mean. War takes a great deal of time and money, and handling things according to Imperial law and procedure! It isn’t easy, you see.
In short, he was saying that if Ferda wanted an army dispatched, he needed to offer them something profitable.
The loathsome fat bastard.
He wondered whether he should curse him out right then and there, but the situation was not easy for Ferda.
The weight of it suppressed Ferda’s temper.
“I’ll think about it.”
Ferda cut off the crystal ball.
Suppressing his boiling anger, he asked her,
“What do you think will happen if we leave those monsters alone for two months?”
“If they continue giving birth at a steady rate, they’ll become an army of thousands.”
Isabella added to Luri’s words.
“An army is one thing, but the soil is a problem too.”
Life dies in places where monsters linger.
Once the land dies, the entire area has to be dug up and discarded somewhere.
If the soil died in a ring around the Grand Duchy, it would remain shaped like an island even after the crisis was resolved.
‘That’s the problem.’
They had to eliminate them quickly, but the Empire had no intention of responding quickly.
In the end, Ferda would have to do it himself.
“Do you think you can do it?”
Luri revealed her anxiety.
“I can do it.”
He had to.