Chapter 165
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
A vile green light poured from Lord Yurei’s body as it trembled.
Because preservation magic had been cast on it, it felt less like a corpse being awakened and more like a person waking from a long sleep.
“Who are you?”
Erika, a spellcaster, asked the question.
-Marcus…… Yurei…… Peri Yurei’s…… sole heir……
Normally, identifying someone was a simple matter, but Erika dug deeper once more.
“I’ll ask again. Who were you before Marcus?”
He answered.
-Kevin…… of the Red Fields……
Kevin of the Red Fields.
Introducing himself that way meant he was descended from ordinary farmers.
It was an introduction Marcus Yurei could never have made.
No one suspected that it had been fabricated.
The dead could not lie.
“How did you become Marcus Yurei?”
-Kidnapped Marcus Yurei…… killed him, then used…… a Doppler ampoule……
“What is a Doppler ampoule?”
-The path to becoming…… the great…… Lord Godwin’s…… minion……
The Black Dragon, Godwin.
The worst and most terrible evil dragon, one that could never be forgotten.
Those who pursued him were followers of demonkind!
Without even pausing to process the shock, Erika continued with her next question.
“Did Regent Ferda kill you?”
-No……
“Then what happened with you being killed by black magic?”
-Pin it on Ferda…… cause confusion…… Aaaahhh!!
The green light in his eyes faded.
She had finished asking every question that could be asked with Deadman Knock.
That meant it was time for the counterattack.
“Bishop Joseph Faust.”
Ferda, who had remained still as death, opened his mouth.
Amid the cauldron of shock, Joseph’s shoulders jerked upward.
“W-What is it, Regent Ferda?”
“You said it, did you not? You said I was the source of the black magic.”
The gaze of Ferda, who had calmly maintained his reason, began to change.
“You said the investigation was fair and impartial under the light of Alte. Can you explain why I ended up being identified as the source of the black magic?”
He moved on to a new subject without the chairman’s consent.
No, why would he need consent?
A man who had publicly declared that he had nothing to hide under the light of Alte—and who was, moreover, the representative of this Empire’s religion—had nearly framed someone through such a fatal mistake.
“Th-that…… When I investigated it, I was certain it was Regent Ferda Valdrova……”
“There seems to be an error. May I examine those traces again?”
Ferda probed him, knowing it would not be allowed.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. The traces were badly damaged during the investigation……”
“Then shall we see how badly they were damaged?”
Erdes cut him off.
As someone who hated demons and black magic alike, she reached toward the corpse and examined it without permission.
“Good grief, it’s practically been ripped apart on purpose, hasn’t it? How could you have left it in such a rough state? Hmm…… Well, fortunately, it’s not that I don’t know how to restore it.”
After Erdes waved her hand several times, the blurred traces gradually became clearer and returned to their original state.
“Now then…… Hmm…… It certainly wasn’t made in the Grand Duchy of Valdrova. There’s still a northern scent clinging to it.”
She cheerfully rattled off the information emerging from the traces.
Joseph Faust’s face, by contrast, gradually turned pale.
He was the head of this nation’s state religion.
But Erdes was the president of the Magic Association, representing the entirety of Serdes.
“Commissioner Faust……”
Valdemar called out to him as though he were in shock.
“That is speculation!”
Joseph shouted.
“There is also a possibility that when Regent Ferda cast preservation magic, it covered the traces……”
“If you’re incompetent enough to be fooled by a scheme from a mere fourth-circle mage, what does that make you? A bishop?”
“Th-this is definitely a conspiracy!”
Joseph pointed accusingly at Ferda.
As the pressure cornered him, his behavior grew increasingly frantic.
“That spawn of demonkind from the Far East is clearly trying to brand me a liar!”
Foaming at the mouth, he tried to portray Ferda as a member of demonkind.
But it was impossible to tell which side was telling the truth.
It was difficult to accept that the renowned leader of the Alte Church was actually an utterly heinous follower of demonkind.
At that moment, one of Akad’s aides hurried over and whispered something in his ear.
Watching this, Ferda felt the devil’s temptation in earnest.
An urge to extend his shadow and eavesdrop on their conversation surged within him.
It was clearly something he could more or less guess the contents of, yet still wanted to hear directly.
“According to the breaking news we have just received, new evidence has been secured!”
Akad’s eyes turned cold as they fixed on someone.
“Commissioner Joseph Faust.”
“Yes, Chairman……”
“I hear that unidentified bones were found in your room at the Grand Cathedral. How will you explain this?”
Ferda discreetly measured the time.
One hour and twenty minutes?
Considering the time it took for the information to be relayed, it was fair to call it about an hour.
‘Not at his peak.’
It was an unprecedentedly excellent result, but to Ferda, who knew his abilities, it was not quite satisfactory.
“Bones? What do you mean……”
“I’ve just confirmed it. There is a corpse rotting in a secret vault in your private bedroom, along with top-secret documents.”
Akad, the chairman, pressed him so forcefully that he even disregarded his own neutrality.
“If you cannot properly explain this, you will not take a single step out of here today, Bishop.”
Joseph neatly folded his two trembling hands.
“I know nothing about that corpse either. I…… I…… the great……”
His trembling stopped.
A joy forged by madness settled over his face.
“I shall offer this body in accordance with the will of the great Lord Godwin, Master of the Void!”
Joseph shouted with both arms spread wide.
He manifested self-destruct magic.
It was just as light began to burst from his body.
Something resembling a cube enclosed his entire body.
The light, which had been growing fiercer, subsided helplessly.
“Oh? You dare try to put on a self-destruct show in front of me?”
It was Erdes’s magic.
“You damned piece of trash.”
What she hated most were demons.
But if there was anything she hated nearly as much, it was demonkind.
Erdes’s hand, which had been extended toward the cube, clenched at empty air.
A brutal sound rang loudly from inside the cube.
Crack!
“Aaaaargh!”
Joseph Faust howled in pain.
Erdes did not stop there.
Crack!
Crunch!
She twisted, folded, and crushed him.
She did not stop until every bone in his body had been broken and he hung limp like a mollusk.
She tormented him until he was barely breathing, then encased him inside the cube like a specimen.
Having turned him into a ragged mess, Erdes looked at Erika and said,
“You let me investigate the black magic, so I’ll take this and investigate it myself. You don’t mind, do you, Eri?”
“……Go ahead.”
“Looking at this, there doesn’t seem to be anything else to discuss, and I don’t think I’ll have any fun, so…… May I leave? I’m dying to get back and find out what scheme this bastard was plotting.”
Erdes asked Akad.
Despite saying that, Erdes opened a portal without waiting for his answer and returned to the Magic Association with Bishop Joseph.
Akad was furious at her completely ignoring procedure, but not as furious as he was at the absurd situation unfolding before him.
The Golden Council had once again become a complete mess, like a place where a storm had struck and passed.
The person most shocked by it all was Yurei.
“This can’t be…… My son…… Are you saying that wasn’t my son?”
Since when had my son not been my son?
Countless questions seemed to pour out like water from a collapsed dam.
But those questions could no longer be answered.
Not anymore.
“Everyone, please be quiet. The session has not yet been adjourned.”
Valdemar, rather than Akad, spoke up to calm everyone down.
“Duke Yurei……”
He looked down at Duke Yurei and spoke.
“It seems that the one impersonating your son was a member of demonkind, or one of their followers.”
“……”
“That brings me to the matter……”
Valdemar placed his interlaced hands on the desk.
He let out a heavy sigh before speaking.
“I think we need to investigate your background.”
“What…… do you mean?”
“What do I mean? You need to prove that you’re human.”
Duke Yurei shouted.
“Of course I’m human! I am Peri Yurei of the ducal house of Yurei, which has devoted itself to the kingdom!”
“And how are we supposed to believe that?”
Valdemar’s gaze was cold.
“You didn’t even know that the son closest to you was a member of demonkind, did you?”
“I-I……”
“Of course, you may not be the one wearing that mask. But what if you joined hands with a follower of demonkind?”
“There’s no way I would do something so preposterous!”
“It isn’t preposterous.”
Valdemar shook his head.
“Didn’t you come here after losing everything, intent on seeing this through to the end?”
That was the sort of thing a follower of demons or demonkind would do.
He had thought he had nothing left to lose.
He had come here with that single-minded resolve, only to lose something else here.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave until we finish verifying your identity.”
And now that he had lost even that, the truth finally began to reveal itself.
In Duke Yurei’s shocked eyes, a sticky and ugly truth appeared.
“Valdemar Golt, you raccoon-faced bastard! You planned this from the beginning, didn’t you?!”
His deep anger gathered at his fingertip as he pointed at Valdemar.
“You talked about the grief of a father who had lost his son! You said you’d enforce justice! Now that you have grounds, are you trying to send me away like this?!”
Valdemar answered his anger.
“You couldn’t even recognize your own son, and now you’re making an ugly struggle, dog of demonkind.”
“You inhuman piece of trash!”
Duke Yurei finally lost his reason and charged out of the witness stand.
Something glinted at his fingertips.
Hidden inside his lapel was a sharp awl.
“I’ll kill you before I leave today!”
The awl was something he had prepared to punish the person who killed his son.
The weapon he had prepared for Ferda flew toward Valdemar Golt.
He threw himself at Valdemar, but he could not reach him.
Something pressed his body down and slammed him onto the floor.
Oldin Rooster.
With agility ill-suited to his enormous frame, he had subdued Duke Yurei.
“You’re not in your right mind, Duke. Sorry, but I’ll have to be a little rude.”
Crack!
“Aaaagh!”
Oldin twisted his arm and incapacitated him on the spot.
Valdemar looked down at him and said,
“First, we’ll have to interrogate you to determine whether you really are Duke Yurei. Not merely for the security of the Arken Empire, but for the Heinkel Kingdom as well—and for the security of the continent.”
“Golt……”
Duke Yurei glared at Grand Duke Golt with bloodshot eyes.
His desperate cry echoed throughout the Golden Council.
The session of the Golden Council, which had turned into a complete mess, was adjourned just like that.
* * *
Ferda returned to the inn where he had been staying.
Arwen welcomed Ferda in Consilius’s stead.
“Do you have anything scheduled tomorrow as well?”
“No. Since the session has been adjourned, I doubt there will be anything more to discuss.”
“Then I’ll make preparations so you can leave whenever you wish tomorrow.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
Ferda went inside the tent and sat down on the sofa.
Then he reflected on everything that had happened that day.
As a result, he had safely protected the Far East and all the assets he was responsible for defending.
‘The plan succeeded without a hitch.’
Ferda thought about how he could safely protect the Far East.
If he launched a full-scale public-opinion campaign, Ferda could never win.
The Empire’s population and influence were impossible to match.
That was why Ferda had planned to prove that the Empire had a follower of demonkind among it.
And there really had been one.
Not in the audience seats or the council seats, but in the seat of the highest councilor.
He had lived all this time without even realizing that a bishop of the Grand Cathedral was a demonkind lackey.
‘With this, I have gained grounds for autonomy.’
The true face of the integrity hidden behind the golden light had been exposed, proving that the Far East’s barrier was not the problem.
No one could put the brakes on him anymore by talking about responsibility for the Far East.
With the Blue-Eyed Tower Master even stepping forward to defend him, the Grand Duchy of Valdrova had no choice but to be recognized not as a frontier of the Empire, but as the shield protecting the continent of Serdes.
‘And yet……’
Strangely, it did not feel like a victory.
Alexander was famous for making blunders, so Ferda had not expected anything from him in the first place.
It was as trivial as a twenty-year-old adult fighting a seven-year-old child barehanded.
‘Valdemar.’
That old man was strange.
Amid the fierce waves of emotion, Valdemar had remained consistent from beginning to end.
Like a great river that nothing could block.
Why?
Ferda thought about it again and again as he drank his tea.
“Regent.”
Someone called out to him.
It was Arwen.
He entered the tent and asked cautiously,
“A visitor has arrived. It’s the princess. What shall I do?”
It was around the time the evening glow was fading.
It was not a good time for a woman to be out and about.
“Tell her to come in for now.”
After permission was granted, a woman wearing an inconspicuous robe entered a short while later.
She removed her hood and let out the blonde hair she had hidden away.
“Congratulations. With this, you’ve certainly gained grounds for autonomy.”
“Would you call it a great victory?”
Ferda asked Olivia, unease weighing on him.
“If we judge solely by the fact that you gained autonomy, then yes, it would be a victory.”
Her answer was unsatisfying.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when you look at the bigger picture, it isn’t.”
As expected, his unease had not been baseless.
Olivia had undoubtedly felt the same thing Ferda had.
The difference was that Ferda had only sensed it, while Olivia knew the specifics.
“If we choose the greatest beneficiary of this affair as the victor, it turns out to be Grand Duke Golt.”
The victor, as always, was the person who did not get swept along by the current, but watched from the sidelines.