Chapter 146
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Ferda left the forest and walked toward the village.
Hestia Village.
He searched for a house there and knocked on its door.
There was no sound from inside.
Wondering if William might be there, Ferda sent in a shadow, unlocked the door, and opened it.
He wasn't in the room.
Then where had he gone?
A place where a stablemaster might take the princess to protect her.
‘Perhaps he is there.’
Ferda headed toward the inn district.
It had been built to accommodate countless adventurers, but now peddlers used it only from time to time, while the adventurers had streamed out like a flood.
Ferda had no trouble pinpointing the place.
It was the only place with its lamps still lit despite the late hour.
When Ferda opened the door, a bell chimed.
“We’re closed for the day.”
Ignoring the innkeeper’s welcome, Ferda looked around inside.
As expected, there was a man there.
It was William.
He had ordered a glass and was sitting in a secluded corner.
Their eyes met.
Conflicting emotions crossed Ferda’s mind.
“Hey there.”
The innkeeper persistently tried to engage him in conversation.
Ferda intended to break the man’s wrist if he so much as laid a hand on him.
“Innkeeper. Don’t be rude.”
William stopped the innkeeper, who had been about to approach aggressively.
It was a gesture indicating that he would handle things himself.
Only then did the innkeeper back off, and Ferda approached William.
William rose from his seat and greeted him.
“My respects, Regent. What brings you here at this hour…?”
“I came to drink. And you?”
“I came for a drink too. I couldn’t sleep.”
“At the castle, you said you wouldn’t drink because you were still hungover.”
“Indeed. I should have had a few glasses of good wine while I was inside.”
Silence settled over them.
Amid the tension of treading over thin ice, Ferda spoke.
“So how many glasses have you had?”
Ferda glared at him.
“This is my second.”
William looked away.
“You don’t look drunk for someone who’s had two glasses.”
“I’m the type whose drunkenness doesn’t show on my face.”
“I see. Would you mind if I bought you another?”
William answered politely.
“No, thank you. I’ve had enough….”
“Are you refusing a drink from the lord of Hestia Village?”
Ferda spoke calmly, but there was nothing ordinary about his gaze.
“I’m sorry. Overindulgence is not a knightly virtue. I would ask that you postpone that glass until tomorrow—.”
“Then you’ll have to take a penalty.”
Ferda took out the item meant for the penalty.
It was a dagger.
“If you won’t drink, that’s only fair, isn’t it?”
……
William closed his mouth.
Ferda’s eyes asked him a question.
Had he spirited away the Imperial Princess?
William neither confirmed nor denied it.
As they said, silence was an affirmation. It was unquestionably a yes.
Please.
Ferda felt the urge to kill welling up inside him.
He wanted to twist this man’s neck until it snapped.
Ferda turned his back on the tight-lipped man and called for the innkeeper.
“Innkeeper.”
“Y-Yes!”
His rough attitude changed once he realized Ferda was the Regent.
“How many guests are staying at this inn?”
“Well….”
“Don’t try to scheme. I don’t have the time or patience to hold back.”
“O-One person.”
“A woman?”
“Y-Yes.”
“I see.”
Ferda tossed something to the innkeeper.
It was a gold coin.
“Go outside and relieve yourself. For about two hours.”
“Y-Yes? You want me to leave….”
“You may watch what happens here if you like. But the thing attached to your neck will end up on the floor. Is that what you want?”
“I-I’m sorry! I’ll go relieve myself somewhere far away!”
The innkeeper accepted the coin and ran outside.
After sensing the innkeeper’s presence recede into the distance, Ferda began speaking again.
“Now stop keeping silent and answer me. If there is still a knight left in your heart.”
“……I understand.”
William nodded as though he had no choice.
“Why did you do this?”
“She was… crying as though she were terribly aggrieved. She said she didn’t want to stay in a place like this and begged me to take her away.”
“So you touched her?”
“What do you mean by touched…?”
Crunch!
Ferda’s dagger struck the back of William’s hand.
Bright-red blood welled up in a rush.
“Ngh…!”
William let out a brief groan of pain, and Ferda said in a cold voice,
“Answer the question.”
“……I didn’t lay a finger on her. How could I, a mere chief of the constabulary who isn’t even a proper knight, covet Her Highness’s chastity?”
They had avoided the worst possible situation.
His urge to twist William’s neck subsided as well.
“Tell me.”
Ferda asked him,
“What did you dream of? Did you think that running away like this would make the princess open her heart to you?”
“I… watched her from close by as Her Highness’s adjutant.”
William said,
“I had preconceptions because she was an Imperial Princess, but she was an outstanding leader and an exemplary person.”
“Couldn’t you stand by and watch her suffer that injustice as a soldier?”
Ferda stared at his face.
If that vaunted knightly honor was merely an excuse to justify his actions, Ferda intended to cut off his head without hesitation.
“Her Highness… was about to make the worst possible choice.”
“What was that?”
“She was going to kill herself. With a dagger….”
The absurdity they had forced upon Olivia had finally broken her.
“When I saw her trying to kill herself, I barely managed to take the dagger away.”
“So what? What does that have to do with what you did?”
“She begged me. She said there was nothing in the world she could trust and that she wanted to get away from here, even if only for a little while…. So I came here with her.”
It was preposterous.
Ferda asked him angrily,
“Can you not tell right from wrong? You’re not a knight; you’re the chief of the constabulary. Did you really think I could forgive you after you disrupted the peace you were meant to uphold?”
“……Of course not.”
William did not think his actions were right, either.
“But if I close my eyes to the injustice suffered by a comrade with whom I shared life and death, wouldn’t that be no different from taking credit for her accomplishments?”
He said he had acted entirely according to his convictions.
If anyone else had said that, Ferda would have dismissed it as a cowardly, pathetic excuse, but William was different.
Though he could have dodged, blocked, or counterattacked when the dagger flew toward the back of his hand, he had done none of those things.
Even with his hand pierced through, there was no venom in his eyes.
He merely accepted it humbly, as though he had known this would be the result.
It felt noble—if it was nobility—but poisonous if it was poison.
“Why didn’t you report this to me?”
“It wasn’t possible right away. So I intended to report on the situation to you tomorrow morning.”
“What situation?”
“Her Highness’s condition is quite bad at the moment.”
“That isn’t a matter you need to concern yourself with, is it?”
“That… is true….”
Ferda thought to himself.
What should he do with this man?
For now, he could not be certain.
Ferda withdrew his hand from the dagger.
“Stop the bleeding yourself. And wait.”
“……Yes.”
Leaving William behind, Ferda climbed the stairs.
It was a place where a candle glowed softly in the pitch-black darkness.
Ferda opened the door without knocking.
The door was not locked, either.
As though someone had known he would come.
Inside was the princess the stablemaster had abducted.
Ferda was startled the moment he saw her.
Seeing her condition, he understood why William had said he would check on her condition.
“Olivia Arken… are you really the Imperial Princess?”
Blond hair and blue eyes.
The clothes looked as though they had been picked up somewhere, loose around the waist but tight across the chest.
The princess’s smeared makeup and disheveled hair lent her an alluring air.
It was strange.
At the same time, he understood how she had managed to escape from there and come here with William.
In this state, she was nothing like the Olivia Ferda knew.
Only her makeup and atmosphere had changed, yet she felt like a completely different person.
Olivia cast a sidelong glance at Ferda.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming in?”
Ferda entered.
Olivia brought the mouth of the bottle in her hand to her lips.
Gulp, gulp.
Pffah!
She wiped her mouth crudely with her hand.
Her behavior was so vulgar that it was strange to think she was the Imperial Princess.
“So you were here.”
“Yes, I was here. You managed to find me?”
“The Empire has been turned upside down.”
“I know. Someone stole a jewel. Wouldn’t it be strange if everything stayed normal?”
Olivia sneered as though she found it gratifying.
She had called herself a jewel before, but this was the first time she had put genuine feeling into it.
She rolled her eyes and glanced at Ferda.
The lifelessness in her eyes and the drunken vacancy in her expression instinctively warned him that she was dangerous.
“What did you do to Adjutant William?”
Ferda answered,
“I’m going to punish him. He abducted the Imperial Princess.”
“Don’t. I’m the one at fault—I know far too well how to use men like him. Rigid men like him are easy to handle if you threaten them with a knife.”
Her eyes turned toward Ferda once more.
“Unlike someone who doesn’t care.”
She brought her lips to the bottle again.
“Stop drinking.”
Ferda tried to stop her with words.
“Why? Is it unsightly for a woman to drink straight from a bottle?”
“Anyone who does that looks unsightly.”
“Right? Yes, that’s right… I hate it too. Depending on alcohol like an idiot.”
Idiot…
Ferda flinched at her openly hurling an insult.
Though she was sitting, she lifted the bottle again with a swaying motion.
“I hated those people too. I absolutely loathed people who drank until they lost their senses.”
……
“If you have time to grieve, shouldn’t you work harder and cling desperately to life? And yet they pathetically try to escape reality.”
……
“But… I think I understand the hearts of those people I hated. You work and work, but your efforts never seem to amount to anything. Do you know why?”
……
She pointed toward the sky.
“Because those bastards in high places stand in the way.”
Heh heh heh.
She let out a laugh and drank from the bottle again.
Bang!
She slammed it down hard enough to break the table.
She brushed back the hair that had fallen across her face.
A dagger was clenched in her hand.
Ferda looked at the dagger, then asked Olivia,
“What are you going to do from here?”
“From here….”
Olivia leaned against the backrest and let the words trail off.
“What is there for me in the future? I’ll probably do nothing but giggle with the other noble ladies and chatter about things I don’t mean while putting on a smile. Do you know what that resembles?”
“I don’t.”
“A prostitute.”
Olivia propped up her chin and stared fixedly at Ferda.
“Regeeent, have you ever been with a prostitute?”
She was drunk and saying all sorts of things.
“I haven’t.”
“Then that’s perfect. I’ll play that role for you. Come here.”
“Please don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“Why? There are different kinds of prostitutes. The ones who only do cheap things are cheap prostitutes. Those with enough knowledge to entertain people elegantly are high-class prostitutes. They say mages consort with high-class prostitutes.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re thinking this, aren’t you? Why does an Imperial Princess know so much about high-class prostitutes?”
……
“You pick it up naturally. Do you know what the difference between the two is?”
“……I don’t.”
“Try guessing. Come on, don’t just keep your mouth shut. I’m getting irritated, so don’t make it worse.”
Her emotions were growing heated.
The dagger in her hand gleamed ominously.
It did not seem as though she intended to swing it at Ferda.
She was probably thinking of using it to hurt herself.
That was the worst possible situation for Ferda.
“Your status, I suppose.”
“Status! What is this thing called status? Bloodline? That noble, illustrious golden blood?”
“I suppose so.”
“‘I suppose so.’ That thing called status is utterly meaningless, you know?”
……
“I don’t know what it’s like for men, but if you’re born a woman, you’re nothing more than a decoration. Whether your husband is worthless or capable, your job is to cater to his moods. I used to wonder how that was any different from being a prostitute.”
Listening to her lament her lot made Ferda feel as though his mind were being polluted.
Ferda did not care what became of her, yet even thinking that irritated him.
“That’s how we’re treated. Even when I commanded on the battlefield, they said the young noblemen who merely followed the chain of command were more capable. Heh, bastards.”
“Your language is crude, Princess.”
“Why? Did you think I was some idiot flower in a garden who couldn’t even use vulgar curses like this?”
He should not have said that.
From that point on, a torrent of profanity poured from Olivia’s mouth.
“These fucking bastards all stare at my breasts. They keep slyly moving their hands, trying to see me naked or touch me. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Bastards. If they’re so damn great, shouldn’t they at least acknowledge what I accomplished?”
Olivia spat curses.
Then she glared at Ferda with eyes blazing with resentment.
“You’re the same, Mr. Ferda, aren’t you?”
“……What are you talking about?”
“Be honest. You’re a man around my age, aren’t you? You’re at the age when your desires run wild, aren’t you?”
Ferda knew she was pretty, that she was beautiful.
Even in this ruined state, she was so beautiful that she hardly seemed human.
But Ferda had never felt lust for Olivia.
Not then, and not now.
He had never felt his heart race or flutter around her.
When Ferda said nothing, Olivia let out an empty laugh.
“Since things have come this far, why don’t I change completely? If I stop being a lofty flower and just become a loose woman, letting myself be passed around—.”
“Olivia.”
Ferda called her by name.
The words she had been spilling out like vomit stopped at those four syllables.
“Don’t say anything else you’ll regret.”