Chapter 14
Vernel had often been told that he was a “my way” kind of man.
Thus, even within the cramped academy, he failed to make a single friend and fell from a gifted student to the verge of flunking out.
But even Vernel, who always went his own way, felt powerless before this man.
‘Overwhelming aura…….’
Eyes that seemed to lead into the abyss of a deep chasm.
Yet they were not completely empty; one could also sense affection for Valdrowa in them.
A man who seemed truly capable of doing anything for him.
Facing a situation in which he might lose his life, Vernel opened his mouth.
“I-I don’t know. I didn’t think my convictions would be shaken by something like that…….”
But one thing was one thing, and another was another.
Vernel did not want to change his mind right away simply because he had been threatened.
‘Aaaah! I-I’m going to d-die, aren’t I?’
Vernel closed his eyes and let his imagination take flight.
Was he going to twist his fingers?
Or was he planning to beat him like a dog on the hottest day of summer, like a loan shark?
Ferda’s hand touched Vernel’s shoulder.
“I see.”
Ferda patted his shoulder.
Vernel, whose limbs were still intact, opened his eyes wide and asked.
“Uh, wh-what?”
“Didn’t I say I understand?”
“……Is that it?”
“Yes. I think this is enough. I never intended to persuade you in a single day.”
“Oh…… I-I see……?”
Ferda held out his hand to Luri, who pulled a scroll from beneath her wide skirt.
“Take this.”
“What is it?”
“An appointment letter.”
“An…… appointment?”
“It says that I am appointing you as the official chief researcher of Valdrowa Castle. The conditions will remain exactly as I said. The only thing that will change is how you feel about it.”
Ferda stood up and turned away.
“Take your time thinking about it. And once you’ve decided, come to the Grand Duchy whenever you like. Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Ferda and Luri went out the door.
He truly left without pressing the matter.
The appointment letter he had left behind rolled and rolled until it stopped at Vernel’s feet.
Left alone, Vernel merely stared down at it for a long while.
* * *
“Can we really trust that man named Vernel?”
Luri, seated across from him inside the carriage, asked.
In her right hand she held a skewer of fruit preserved in honey, while roughly five cups’ worth waited to be devoured inside her mouth.
Ferda nodded.
“You can trust him.”
“Those idealists will drag their stubbornness all the way to the grave.”
“I’ll make him.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“They say that anyone who wants peace always prepares for war.”
“Who was the idiot who said that?”
Who else?
‘That bastard.’
That was what the future Vernel Marquis Ferda had seen had said.
He realized far too late how hypocritical his pretense of being a zealous pacifist had been.
“Assuming we’ve recruited him…… where do you plan to go next?”
Ferda had, naturally, already chosen his next destination.
“We’re going to Halim.”
“Halim…… Isn’t that the city of pleasure in the south?”
Luri’s expression was even more displeased than usual.
She had never liked the attention she received there, but now her disgust was no different from what she would feel toward a bug.
That was understandable, since the city was a holy land of decadence and pleasure.
“If we’re just passing through, choose another city.”
“No, it’s our final destination. The person I’m looking for is there.”
“You mean he’s in a pleasure district?”
“He’ll definitely be there.”
“Are you certain there’s no ulterior motive?”
“There isn’t.”
Luri narrowed her eyes and looked at Ferda.
Luri could clearly tell that not a single word Ferda said was a lie.
Which made it all the more suspicious.
How could a human being live so honestly?
“Then who are we going to find?”
“Jed Swallow.”
He was one of the people listed on the roster Luri held.
“What kind of man is he?”
“He’s a con man.”
“……A con man?”
“Yes.”
A brief silence.
Luri thought.
After checking whether what she was thinking was correct, she asked him again.
“……You mean a good-for-nothing bastard who seduces noblewomen and wealthy ladies and scams them?”
“And a gambler.”
“……”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
The more the conversation continued, the more rotten Luri’s expression became.
An aura as dark as a deep shadow poured from her.
Neigh!
“Huh? Why are the horses suddenly acting like this?”
In the end, she had even frightened the innocent horses.
With the horses rampaging for no reason, the journey looked likely to become difficult.
Seeing that, Ferda continued what he had been about to say.
“And he belongs to the Red-Eyed tribe.”
The aura Luri had been exuding vanished at once.
The emotion she showed was close to surprise.
“If you mean the Red-Eyed tribe…… are they the people who possess the bloodline I’m thinking of?”
“That’s right.”
“I heard they were wiped out during the Incident?”
“Yes, that’s the information known to the public.”
The public, huh.
Luri knew this was not something that could be brushed aside with the simple phrase “known to the public.”
If there had been any sign that Red-Eyed survivors were alive, a report would have been sent up immediately.
If so, Luri would naturally have known about it too.
“How do you know something like that?”
Luri asked him outright.
“I simply know.”
He avoided giving any details.
She wanted to dig deeper, but Luri had no justification to question him any further.
‘A con man and a gambler…… but Red-Eyed.’
It was a truly delicate balance.
By comparison, he was an even worse person than Marquis Vernel, while possessing the greatest ability at the same time.
‘Should I oppose this or support it?’
Faced with a choice, Luri thought and thought.
She chewed noisily on honey-preserved fruit to keep her brain from dying, making it work even harder.
Ferda decided to help her choose easily.
“I hear they sell plenty of sweet desserts in the south.”
“Let’s go there, then.”
* * *
The southern region was hot all year round,
and the scorching sun dried out the earth, so in the far south lay a sweltering desert where not a single blade of grass or drop of water could be found.
Halim was a pleasure city built to make use of the characteristics of the southern region.
The days were hot, but the nights were cool, so nightlife had flourished, and many nobles and wealthy people visited.
If Escolia had been filled with the scents of coffee and black tea, here the thick scent of sweet sugar wafted through the air.
The smell was enough to give Ferda a headache, but Luri’s nose was delighted all day long.
Ferda headed to a casino.
Luri stared blankly at the chips Ferda had exchanged.
He had exchanged all the money he had brought with him.
“Didn’t you say you had no ulterior motive?”
“I don’t.”
“Really?”
“You’re giving me a headache. Pull that cart and follow me.”
While enduring Luri’s glare, Ferda walked silently through the casino.
Women in revealing clothes and people laughing as they indulged in pleasures of the flesh.
He solemnly passed among people who had momentarily forgotten reality and lived in a utopia purchased with money.
Among them, he saw a young man.
A young man who glittered amid the dreary, lustful aura.
Light brown hair and black eyes.
Tall and solidly built, his body was slim without looking frail.
People had gathered around the young man.
When he laughed, they laughed, and when he looked sorrowful, they all became sorrowful at once.
That man held the audience in the palm of his hand.
‘Jed Swallow.’
With his excellent eloquence and appearance, he won the favor of many nobles.
He was so charming that they did not even realize they were being swindled.
‘Well, he did eventually get caught because he became too greedy.’
Even so, it was not a problem.
They say a cunning rabbit digs three burrows, don’t they?
But Swallow was the kind of man who dug three more inside each of those three burrows to escape any crisis.
‘He even escaped Shark Island, from which escape was supposedly impossible, and the ice prison in the northern polar region.’
He was a master thief through and through, a man for whom nothing was impossible.
‘Though that happened because no one knew he was Red-Eyed.’
Everyone descended from the Red-Eyed tribe had distinctive red eyes, and they possessed a unique ability.
The ability to disperse mana lingering in objects or in the air.
Thus, the Red-Eyed were natural enemies of mages.
The man Ferda was looking at now had dark black eyes.
They were the eyes of an ordinary human.
So no one could think he was Red-Eyed.
‘Even if someone discovered that he was Red-Eyed.’
That man would have been absolutely confident he would never get caught.
He had that much ability.
‘He’s exactly the talent I need.’
With his hands clasped behind his back, Ferda quietly walked over and took a seat.
At the appearance of a stranger, Jed greeted him first with easygoing sociability.
“A new friend has joined us. Nice to meet you. I’m Jed.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ferda.”
“You’d better be careful around the people here. They’re all thinking of tearing you apart and eating you like vultures over a corpse, you know?”
“Haha! I’m pretty good at poker!”
“You lost forty gold coins and you’re saying that?!”
The atmosphere was friendly and cheerful.
Not one of them had actually won any money.
It was astonishing that he could make them laugh even though they had not won.
‘The way he controls the crowd with his words and aura.’
But to Ferda, it looked like nothing more than a thick mask of hypocrisy.
“Have you played poker before?”
“I know the rankings roughly.”
“You can learn slowly. Isn’t that right?”
“How can anyone become an expert without first being a beginner? Ha-ha!”
“Yes, I learned to play here for the first time today too. I’m just starting to get the hang of it!”
He had no interest in people who proudly advertised themselves as marks.
“Let’s have a game.”
“Let’s. What’s the point of standing around chatting?”
The game began.
Ferda won a little at a time.
It might have seemed that beginner’s luck had taken effect at the gambling table, but Ferda thought differently.
This was part of Jed’s process of drawing Ferda in.
‘He’s laying the bait well.’
The man was skilled with his hands.
Ferda considered himself fairly observant, yet Jed was so deft that even Ferda couldn’t tell where he was being tricked.
Ferda played along.
However, he subtly showed that he would not let himself be slowly bled dry, and instead drew Jed in.
“Hmm, perhaps we should wrap up the game soon? A lot of time has passed.”
Jed said that.
“Hmm? Is that so?”
“If you say so.”
“Let’s make the last round a fiery one. Haha!”
Jed dealt the cards, and the final game began.
“All right, let’s bet. One hundred!”
“Two hundred gold coins!”
“Now that’s spirited! Everyone, I’ll call your 200 and raise it to 400!”
Jed’s turn ended, and it was Ferda’s turn.
“All in.”
He pushed in every chip he had left.
Even at a glance, they were worth more than 2,000 gold coins.
The casino erupted in commotion.
“The guy who’s been betting little by little suddenly goes all in?”
“Isn’t that a bit much for the last round?”
Ferda interlaced his fingers and placed them on the table, then answered once more.
“All in.”
The middle-aged men fiddling with their cards groaned.
Then they backed out.
“There’ll be games tomorrow, too, not just today. I fold.”
“I fold too.”
After going around the table, it was Jed’s turn again.
“What makes you so confident you can bet that?”
He asked with a smile in his eyes.
Ferda glanced down at him and said.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to win this round.”
“I don’t know what makes you so confident.”
“Because you’re going to fold that hand yourself.”
Jed threw himself back against the chair and chuckled.
“Why do you think I’m going to fold?”
“To be honest, I have no intention of losing money. There’s a little brat who thinks I enjoy gambling.”
“You expect me to lose money just to impress a little brat? That’s a bit much. If that’s how you feel, you shouldn’t have come here in the first place, should you?”
Jed snickered.
He thought it was a gambler’s bluff.
“That’s not the only reason.”
“Hm?”
“Because I know what you want.”
“What I want? What do I want? I have pretty women, alcohol, and money right here.”
He put his arm around the woman beside him, and she giggled happily.
She was unquestionably the wife of some backwater noble.
Ferda said to him.
“None of all those women is named Emilia.”
A crack appeared in his smooth mask.
The hand holding his cards trembled faintly, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
It was only for an instant, but everyone could feel that a battle of nerves had taken place.
Yet Jed was a skilled gambler.
“……I call.”
He pushed in his chips without folding.
He would not let a game he had already won slip away.
“I have a straight flush. What do you have?”
Ferda showed his hand.
“A king-high.”
“A king-high!”
“Were you bluffing with a hand that doesn’t even make a ranking?!”
The middle-aged men exclaimed, eyes wide.
Jed had won.
Having lost all his money, Ferda stood up without lingering.
“Wait, my lord.”
Just as Ferda was about to brush himself off and leave, Jed called out to stop him.
“Since I won all your money, why don’t you have a consolation drink? You look old enough to drink.”
His face still wore a smile.
But it was not a pleasant mask.
“I’ll buy you one.”
Bloodlust seeped through that smile.
“All right.”
Everything had gone according to Ferda’s intentions.
* * *
A casino filled with laughter and delight.
A land of indulgence where people forgot time while enjoying themselves beneath a sun that never set.
Ferda and Jed were returning to their lodgings together, their backs to the place.
The moment they left the casino and entered the hotel corridor.
“What are you?”
His laughter-filled voice fell like a blade.
Ferda readily played along.
In fact, even though he wanted to speak, he had nothing he wanted to say.
“You know about me, don’t you?”
“That isn’t important.”
“Right. At this stage, it isn’t important. Let’s dispense with the tedious introductions.”
Jed pulled out the object he had hidden inside his clothes.
It was a dagger.
“Tell me why you mentioned that name.”
Jed’s eyes reddened brightly.
Those eyes were the defining trait of the Red-Eyed tribe, known as mage killers.
‘Any magic circle those eyes touch will be nullified.’
Ordinary mages would normally have been terrified by the appearance of a tribe known as mage killers.
But Ferda had no reason to feel that way.
“Jed Swallow. If you don’t want to expose your identity to the entire world, put those eyes away.”
“You’re one of those bastards too, aren’t you? Aren’t you?!”
“I came here to have a rational conversation.”
“What did you do to my little brother!? You son of a bitch!!”
The man wearing a mask of laughter revealed his bare face of rage.
Even Ferda was seeing that face for the first time.
“Do not show me any more murderous intent.”
Ferda warned him quietly.
“My maid is not loyal to me. Even so, if I’m in danger, she will kill you without hesitation.”
That warning was purely for Jed’s sake.
“I want to talk with you. So put away your murderous intent.”
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance