Principle

“Ah…… D-Did it seem that way?”

A trembling voice and manner of speaking.

Akad could not hide his bewilderment.

This feeling, as though it might burst out if he tried to suppress it.

The longer he looked at that face, the more intense it became.

“Ha ha…… Well, everyone’s aesthetics are different, after all…….”

Akad turned his head away.

“I-I’ll s-serve you some tea!”

He hurriedly made his way to the tea table.

He could not show Ferda his face.

His own rage, so hateful and grotesque that it seemed ready to tear through his skin.

‘I knew no one would understand.’

But Akad had shown him the form of his love.

He had gathered courage, thinking Ferda would be different from everyone else.

But Ferda had called Akad’s love and courage disgusting.

Just like that woman who had cruelly trampled on his first love.

‘I…….’

He clenched his fist.

‘I’m not disgusting.’

The disgusting one is you, for failing to understand.

Akad’s eyes finally rolled back.

His fondness for Ferda instantly became fuel, blazing in the flames of rage.

No one could disparage his love.

Therefore.

‘I’ll make you understand exactly what my love is.’

That single resolve took root in Akad’s mind.

Akad carefully took out the bottle he had tucked inside his clothes.

Inside was a transparent, colorless, odorless liquid, which he poured into the teacup.

“Here, drink. This is black tea infused with the essence of my alchemy.”

“I’ll drink it gladly.”

Pretending to sip, Akad watched Ferda closely.

He checked to see whether Ferda would drink the tea.

The edge of the porcelain cup slipped past his lips.

The tea flowed as the cup tilted.

He drank it.

Akad spoke with a relieved smile.

“Regent Ferda.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“You see, I am Grand Duke Golt’s right-hand man. We communicate and exchange messages from the closest quarters.”

“Is that so?”

“So, if it would not inconvenience you, I’d like to lend you my support so we can provide proper assistance to the Far East. I was thinking of taking a look at the bill concerning that. What do you think?”

Ferda heard this and beamed politely.

“If you’re willing to do that, I would be truly grateful.”

“What does the Far East need at present?”

“The transportation infrastructure could use improvement. To make those improvements, we need to repair the roads and do something about the forests……”

Ferda’s speech grew slurred.

“The forests…… I mean…… the foreeests……”

Ferda’s head, which had been resting against the backrest, suddenly lolled to the side.

As though nothing were wrong, Akad drank another cup of tea, rose from his seat, and lifted Ferda’s head.

“Hmm……”

His eyes had sunk deep into an abyss of unconsciousness.

There was no doubt.

The drug had taken full effect.

Akad gazed at Ferda with deep emotion.

“I’m sorry.”

Akad spoke gently to Ferda, as though soothing a woman.

“It couldn’t be helped. You see, I don’t care whether someone hits me or stabs me. I’m the sort of person who may well deserve such treatment. Such a disgusting person…… I am.”

He repeatedly apologized, pressing his forehead against Ferda’s.

“But…… I decided I would never forgive anyone for disgracing my love.”

The woman who had rejected his confession and looked at him as though he were disgusting.

The woman who had wagged her tail as much as she could while pretending to love him.

Akad tried to imprint on her what his love was, because she had disgraced it.

Because it was his first time, his work bore the marks of inexperience.

His first love ended that way.

“Of course, this is my fault. This happened because I trusted you…… but I still can’t forgive you. So……”

Akad carefully pulled a leather pouch from inside his clothes and undid its cord.

Inside were needles thirty centimeters long.

Akad picked up one of them.

“I’ll help you understand my aesthetics just a little.”

Akad carefully brought the needle toward his pupil.

At the moment it was headed for his retina,

“Hmm……?”

Akad doubted his own eyes.

Just as he was about to point the needle at Ferda’s eye, Ferda’s pupil seemed to tremble ever so slightly.

‘That shouldn’t be possible…….’

What Akad had made Ferda swallow was an anesthetic that turned people into puppets.

Even a small amount was enough to take effect.

It had worked even when a barbarian twice his size drank it, so there was no way Ferda could be fine.

The victim could feel pain but could not scream; they could hear, but could not speak.

‘Perhaps I was too distraught.’

Yes, he must have seen wrong.

Thinking that, he once again aimed the sharp tip at Ferda’s retina.

Just as he was about to pierce it,

The candle flames of the brightly shining chandelier suddenly went out with a whoosh.

“What is it this time?”

Flustered by the darkness that ruined his mood, he looked around.

The candles in the parlor chandelier had surely been replaced yesterday.

Even if all the candles had burned down, they would not have gone out so abruptly.

It was an unnatural movement, so much so that it seemed someone had deliberately tampered with them and put them out.

Akad had never experienced anything like this even once while living in this house.

This had happened because he had brought Ferda into the house.

‘Could that mean……!?’

Ferda, that bastard?

If coincidences happened twice in a row, they had to be considered inevitable.

With that thought, he turned his gaze toward where Ferda was.

Those two eyes, which should have lost all signs of life,

were glowing a vivid blue in the darkness.

He had been awake from the very beginning.

“St……!”

He tried to respond swiftly with a stun spell, but his words caught in his throat.

Something had blocked his mouth, interfering with his incantation.

It was not merely his mouth. He felt an uncomfortable pressure on his hands and stomach, which he needed to focus on to manifest a magic circle.

As though countless dead had been hiding in the darkness before pouncing on him.

Akad was a fifth-circle mage.

Yet he had been subdued so completely that he was no more than a powerless, fat man now.

At the same time, Ferda’s eyes, glowing in the darkness, moved.

The body that should have collapsed, unable even to hold itself up, moved as though nothing had happened.

It was Akad, not Ferda, who had been subdued.

“Akad Develung.”

Gooseflesh rose all over his body.

It was as though a messenger from hell were whispering.

“You must be thinking this right now: ‘Why is that bastard moving around as if nothing’s wrong?’”

Ferda wiped the spot where their foreheads had touched with a handkerchief, then stuffed it into his pocket.

“But did you know?”

Ferda rambled on about his secret, exactly as Akad had done.

“You see, I stopped eating food made by anyone else.”

It was when he had been singled out as a new aristocrat, though he had not been treated as a proper mage.

He had still retained a tiny bit of love and hope for humanity, and had even thought about expanding his social connections.

Ferda had gone to a social gathering and trusted people.

“There were some pieces of trash who drugged me and then tried to bury me alive.”

And then he had been betrayed.

Fortunately, it had not ended in his death.

No matter how many times God abandoned Ferda, he survived, returned, and took revenge.

“So……”

Ferda grabbed Akad’s face.

His two blazing eyes turned upward.

Akad instinctively knew what he was about to do and struggled desperately.

But no matter what he did, he could not stop himself from being forced to open his mouth.

This darkness belonged to Ferda.

“I’ll return this to you.”

Ferda opened his mouth, and Akad looked inside.

Within that mouth was an even denser darkness.

That darkness tore open like a thin pouch, and its contents spilled out.

It was the black tea he had swallowed.

“Mmph! Mrrph!”

It poured into Akad’s open mouth.

He resisted violently, trying to spit it out.

But the moment it touched his tongue, there was no turning back.

Akad’s body gradually stiffened, until at last he sank into some deep place.

Light streamed in with the sound of the door hinges moving.

The person who entered carrying a candle was dressed as a maid.

The attendant showed no surprise or fear at the sight.

She approached silently and looked back and forth between Ferda and Akad.

The attendant was a brown-skinned woman who had no place in this mansion.

It was Garnet.

“Is it done?”

Ferda asked the attendant.

“Yes.”

“The secret passage?”

“I found it. Just as you said.”

“Good work. Let’s take this bastard with us.”

“Understood.”

Despite her bulky frame, Garnet easily slung him over her shoulder and moved.

Garnet led him to Akad’s alchemy workshop.

To open the door, they needed a security-release spell known only to Akad himself.

That was not a problem.

The key was Akad Develung’s body itself.

Carrying him over her shoulder, they went inside.

Though it was a sealed room, several vents had been installed, so there was not the slightest musty smell of mold.

At a glance, it looked like a well-secured alchemy workshop.

But Ferda knew this was not the end.

One of the shelves of potion bottles lined up in a row was ajar at an angle, and in its place was a passage leading underground.

“Shall we go down?”

Garnet asked.

Ferda already knew what she had seen.

That was why she had asked such a question.

“We’re going down.”

And so they went down.

When the door opened, odors wafted out in the form of steam.

An instinctive revulsion made him wrinkle his nose at the heavy smell.

Ferda was familiar with this sensation.

It was the same disgust he had felt from the abstract painting he had just seen.

“Chief.”

“Yes.”

“Sit him down, then withdraw.”

“……Yes.”

Garnet left as Ferda instructed.

Ferda headed toward the shelves of potions Akad had arranged.

True to the meticulous nature of a delicate alchemist, he had carefully labeled and annotated them according to their uses.

Thanks to that, it was easy to select the potion.

After some time, Akad’s fingers twitched.

Focus returned to his eyes, which had been staring into the distance, and resonance returned to his vocal cords.

But that was all.

Ferda had blocked his mouth, bound each of his fingers individually, and tied him to the armrests.

Ferda had no intention of giving Akad even the slightest chance to use magic.

Ferda activated the recording crystal ball placed on the table.

“Akad Develung.”

That was the name of the man before him.

“The alchemist of miracles who cured the black plague spreading through the Empire.”

That was the achievement of the man named Akad Develung.

It had been a bleak plague that killed no fewer than ten million people in just five years.

“But who would have known? That it was a staged incident secretly orchestrated by the Empire’s leadership.”

Akad’s eyes widened at Ferda’s words.

His eyes seemed to ask how Ferda knew that.

“Don’t be surprised yet. I also know that Valdemar Golt ordered it.”

Akad had spread the plague.

But Valdemar was the mastermind.

Shockingly, he had spread the plague for the sake of the Empire.

Valdemar wanted this Empire to survive.

To keep this festering, decaying Empire running properly, new components had to be constantly fed into it, and the 90 percent who made up the lower classes served as those components.

They were precious components, but also a headache.

With far too many surplus resources, they were nothing more than worms gnawing at the pillars instead.

So the population had to be controlled, and the plague was spread through the slums, killing people who had no idea why.

Valdemar proudly called it quarantine.

“That doesn’t matter.”

It was in the past anyway, and Ferda had not come to discuss justice.

“But I hear your family has an interesting potion passed down through the generations.”

Ferda took out one of the potion bottles he had selected.

The name written on its label was ‘Truth Potion.’

“I’d like you to drink this.”

“Ngh! Nnngh!”

The composed Akad began struggling violently at that point.

He could not drink it because he knew what the potion did.

But now that he had been incapacitated, he had no means of resisting Ferda.

A murky liquid flowed into Akad’s mouth.

Its effects appeared immediately.

“Ghh……”

Akad groaned.

He shook his head, grimacing like someone suffering from a terrible headache.

Ferda watched him and opened his mouth.

“Tell me.”

He began asking about the story surrounding the potion.

“Who made this potion?”

Akad said,

“My father…… Jackal Develung……”

“Tell me what it does.”

“A fast-acting potion……. It clouds the mind and causes a terrible headache when you lie…… forcing you to speak only the truth…….”

“What happens if you keep your mouth shut?”

“The same. It becomes so painful…… you’ll want to die.”

“I see.”

After leisurely gathering information, Ferda began questioning him in earnest.

“Who did your father give this to?”

“That…… ngh…… gghhh……!”

Akad tried to keep his mouth shut.

But in the end, he could not resist and opened his mouth.

“……The third prince of the Arken Empire…… Million Arken……”

It was something he already knew, but he continued the questioning.

He needed to make certain of it at this very moment.

“Who was he?”

He answered.

“The fiancé of the Grand Duke of Valdrova……”

He was the man Valdrova had killed.