Chapter 94
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The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
The foundation that had allowed her to pretend to be the master of this house had vanished.
-What?
-Isn't something strange?
The voices of the men shouting outside pierced her ears.
Rather than chase the intruder from the mansion, they began talking about it as though it were more important.
-I feel like my head has suddenly cleared.
-Indeed. I suddenly got a very strange feeling.
-What was that? What had we been under the influence of?
Then one of them asked,
-Come to think of it, didn't that thief call Tilda, that woman, a witch?
-Did a real witch use some sort of trick?
-It's possible.
At the same time, she heard footsteps approaching.
‘No!’
Tilda instinctively rushed to the door and locked it.
Click click!
-Please open the door, Lady Tilda!
-Are you all right? Please say something!
Bang bang!
Though they pounded on the door, Tilda did not answer.
The confusion soon turned to anger.
-She was a witch, just like that thief said!
-That witch must have cast a spell!
-Break down the door!
Everyone who had been loyal to her shouted at the top of their lungs as a backlash from the spell being dispelled.
She was like a rat caught in a corner.
‘I have to run.’
Yet Tilda had prepared even for the worst of the worst.
She rushed to the bathroom, threw the rope she had prepared out the window, and climbed down it.
She gathered up the rope without anyone noticing where she had fled, escaped the mansion, and began to run.
The last voices heard from the confused mansion were these:
-The head of the household has passed away!
-That damn witch even killed the head of the household!
Rico Dandolo's death.
Tilda had no idea what had happened, but in any case, it was irrelevant.
She was the witch who had dispelled the spell in the mansion, an unforgivable being.
She had escaped with her life, but only briefly.
Her life was like a candle before the wind.
‘Where should I go?’
How could she survive in such a disastrous situation?
She thought and thought, but there was no future.
As Yorr had said, she was incompetent.
She wanted everything, but had no right to possess it.
She had even gained the ability to obtain it, but she had failed to protect it.
‘I will survive.’
Even so, she struggled on pathetically.
She ran and ran through the dark forest.
‘I will survive!’
But that thought soon scattered like a midsummer dream.
“Ah……”
Shadows lurking in the dark night writhed and revealed themselves.
Men wearing black masks approached her.
Tilda Pascal tried to resist, but eventually lost consciousness.
* * *
A road not far from Dandolo Mansion.
Three carriages disguised as merchant wagons were waiting there.
A brown-haired man with a ponytail climbed into one of the carriages, gasping for breath.
“Phew! It wasn't as easy as I thought.”
“Did you really have to go to such lengths?”
Jed replied with a grin.
“I had to. Otherwise, there was no way we'd finish in a single day.”
“Didn't you leave a trail?”
Garnet asked, her face saying, Are you serious?
“Bunny Swallows?”
“Interesting name, isn't it?”
Garnet glared fiercely, but Jed answered with a smile.
She sighed as though conceding defeat.
“I knew you were unnecessarily good with words, but I didn't know you had that kind of talent too.”
“It's a secret art of our clan. Disguising ourselves as a circus troupe to find people we can swindle.”
“Don't the troupe leaders usually do that?”
“When your father is the troupe leader, you can't avoid it.”
“I see.”
Garnet nodded.
Jed sensed a presence outside and peeked out.
Men wearing masks were loading a large bundle.
“So what about that young lady?”
“She'll be delivered to the castle. We have to follow the contract.”
“Hmm, then we'll be taking the same route. There won't be a problem, will there?”
“……Not entirely.”
“What is it?”
“Uuugh, Jeje?”
He realized as soon as he heard the nasal voice.
A pink-haired woman dressed as a bunny girl was sitting opposite Garnet, grinning foolishly.
Like someone very drunk.
“What's wrong, Pepe?”
“Wooheehee, Jeje. I was freaking awesome, right? For only practicing one day, I did freaking great, right? Huh? Huh?”
“……?”
“What kind of thief dresses like this? Even I think I'm freaking sexy. Look. Sexy~.”
“……Did she hit her head?”
Garnet calmly nodded.
When Jed discreetly checked the back of her head, he found an arrowhead embedded there with a thunk.
So that's why she'd gone off the rails.
“Ahahaha! Arrows went whoosh-whoosh, and I couldn't dodge them all~. Ah~ Who knew one would get stuck in my head?”
“Hey, don't shake your head.”
She laughed vacantly and grabbed Jed's arm.
Garnet sighed and said,
“After checking, it is most likely a temporary injury, so there is no need to worry. We will rendezvous with a healer along the way and have the arrowhead removed there.”
“What? You're sexy and smart too, miss? Want to burn up tonight with this big sis? I'll treat you right.”
Penelope growled like a sleazy old man.
Garnet said seriously, her expression hardening.
“She suffered a serious head injury, and even her sexual preferences have become twisted. This is dangerous if she isn't treated soon.”
She had always been like that.
But he couldn't bring himself to say it aloud.
* * *
Tilda opened her eyes in the darkness.
She didn't know where she was, but one thing was certain.
She could not escape the consequences of her deeds.
Who was doing this?
Murchit?
Stephan?
Herman?
Or Rico??
As countless thoughts passed through her mind, her breathing grew ragged.
Either way, it would be difficult to survive.
Creak-
After a while, a door opened in the dark space.
Someone entered.
Tap tap.
The only thing visible in the light of a single candle hanging on the wall was a pair of neat black shoes.
“We meet again, Tilda Pascal.”
It was a young man's voice, yet it carried the strange weight of middle age.
Tilda knew this voice well.
It was the voice that had humiliated her.
“L-Lord Regent Ferda……?”
He leaned back against the chair, then bent forward.
Gray hair and blue eyes appeared in her sight.
“Tilda Pascal.”
Ferda called her name again.
“I disliked you from our first meeting, but……. you are something beyond imagination.”
There was not a trace of emotion in his voice.
Because of that, it was infinitely cold, like a chilly blade.
“Did you think you could torment a merchant supporting the Grand Duchy and live to tell the tale?”
Tilda opened her mouth.
“It wasn't me. Everything was my fiancé's…….”
Fwap!
Ferda picked up the documents and threw them onto the floor.
What was written in the documents was a record of Tilda Pascal's actions.
Black Bandana had provided that information.
“Keep talking.”
Tilda could only close her mouth like a mute who had swallowed honey.
Yet that lasted only a moment,
“……It had to be this way.”
Her lips trembled as words poured out.
“That bastard who calls himself my father had never intended anything but to leave it all to that damned Stephan.”
She released the feelings she had held inside for so long.
“It makes no sense! Why can't I have it? I'm family too! Blood family……! I contributed to Pascal Trading Company too, so why am I the only one……!”
That emotion she was feeling.
Ferda could understand it.
He had been a boy who wanted to live as a member of a proper knightly family, but always fell short.
There had been none of the warmth he ought to have felt from his family.
Ferda had hated such a father.
“Even so, it does not change the fact that you dealt a blow to the Grand Duchy.”
“I deeply repent that crime. Truly! I will compensate you.”
Bound to the chair, Tilda struggled and toppled forward.
She begged with her forehead pressed against the floor.
“From today onward, I will live a life befitting my station. Please take pity on this girl and show me mercy.”
Tilda sobbed and wept.
Ferda silently looked down at Tilda.
“There is something I have been wondering.”
Ferda said,
“If you answer that question properly, I may consider letting you go.”
“Wh-what is it you want to know? I will answer anything.”
“Jed told me.”
“Jed……?”
“The man who broke into your house. The one who destroyed the medium for the Garden Contract.”
She clenched her fist and briefly showed her anger at the name.
Ferda continued,
“Anyway, he said you chose a family portrait as the medium.”
What Jed had seen was a family portrait depicting everyone.
A photograph from their childhood, when they had all been smiling happily.
“Why did you choose a family photograph as the medium?”
Ferda was curious about the reason.
Why had a woman desperate to devour her family chosen a family photograph?
He needed an answer to that contradiction.
“Because…….”
Then she answered through her tears.
“Because they are my beloved family, of course.”
Ferda lowered his gaze, following the tears streaming down her face.
“So that's what it was.”
Ferda muttered.
“D-did that answer your question? Will you let me live?”
“I never intended to kill you in the first place. I will let you live.”
The moment he added the words ‘let you live,’ she sensed something strange.
It sounded as though he intended to take everything except her life.
“Didn't I answer your question? Why……?”
Ferda looked down at her.
“In Mist Valley, west of the continent, there is a monster called a Flurryman. Do you know what that is?”
She did not.
There was no way she could.
“They say it remembers the last words beasts utter as it devours them. And when it is eaten in turn, it is said to speak in the voice of the beast. Why do you think that is?”
Ferda answered coldly.
“Because it knows that saying those words will get it spared. It may not understand what they mean, but it knows that it will be allowed to live.”
Ferda understood why she had chosen a family photograph as the medium.
It was to appeal to sentiment and struggle pathetically to survive to the bitter end.
“Your actions are exactly the same.”
Her claim that she had contributed was also a lie.
Even her claim that she had done terrible things was a lie.
Everything was merely a lie she threw out to survive.
“Thank you.”
Ferda said sincerely,
“For turning yourself into someone not worth remembering.”
Ferda rose from his seat.
He moved away from the light and disappeared into the darkness.
Creak-.
Thud.
The door closed.
The space was left alone again.
The question of whether she could survive lasted only a moment.
She was not alone in this room.
Someone had been there before Ferda entered.
They had merely been waiting in the darkness, which was why she had not seen them until now.
It walked over and revealed its identity.
Tilda doubted her own eyes.
The form reflected in her eyes had silver scales and a pair of horns that seemed to pierce the sky.
A being whose very form inspired dignity, wonder, and awe.
It was a dragon.
‘That is…….’
Her pupils shook.
‘It’s fake.’
There could not possibly have been a dragon in such a narrow space.
Common sense and logic said so, naturally.
She desperately tried to hypnotize herself into believing that, but it was futile.
The immortal mystery was something that paralyzed even reason and logic.
With every exhalation, the hot wind and the low growl faintly reverberating through her eardrums grew clearer.
Dragon fear.
No matter how hard she hypnotized herself into believing it was false, the unknowable source became truth.
And that truth became a terror no mere human could endure.
“Aaaah!”
A long scream rang out helplessly.
Yet no one heard it.
* * *
Garnet and the Black Bandana agents in black robes were waiting outside the castle gate.
As the job reached its final stage, they grew anxious.
Shortly afterward, they saw a man emerge from beyond the castle gate.
Garnet stepped forward and greeted him respectfully.
“I greet Lord Regent Waldrova.”
“I have brought her as you requested.”
Soon, Tilda Pascal appeared.
She was ruined beyond belief for a beauty who had been courted by many men.
Her hair was disheveled, her face haggard, and her eyes vacant.
Saliva dripped from her slack, open mouth.
Unable to resist Ruri's touch, she staggered down the stairs.
A living corpse, alive but not truly living.
Overwhelming terror had robbed her mind of strength, leaving only her body.
Garnet formally expressed her thanks.
“Thank you for fulfilling your part of the agreement.”
“It is too early for thanks.”
“Is there something else?”
“There is.”
Ferda held a dagger to Tilda Pascal's throat.
Garnet was startled by the sudden hostage situation.
“What are you doing, Lord Regent?”
“Isabella told me how corporate acquisitions work.”
Ferda said,
“I consulted all available knowledge and searched Imperial laws and precedents, but no matter how much I looked, she said an acquisition would be difficult through normal means. Even with Black Bandana involved.”
“Are you saying we lied?”
“I am curious myself. It seems one of you lied to me, but I cannot tell which one.”
Ferda tilted his head slightly to the side.
“So will you tell me?”
“……I did not lie.”
“Then Isabella lied?”
Garnet bit her lip before answering.
“She did not lie either.”
“There will be no second chance. You will have to convince me.”
“That…….”
Garnet could not bring herself to speak easily.
She had a duty to keep the secret.
At the same time, she had to complete the mission.
Especially now that they had reached the final stage, letting go was not easy.
Garnet knew that, and Ferda knew it as well.
Though the situation was impossible, Ferda needed an answer.
Who the client was, and why they had tried to drive her mad.
“It is entirely possible.”
What came instead of Garnet's excuse or explanation was a middle-aged voice.
The voice continued,
“If the chief executive determines that it is impossible to manage the company, he can independently appoint a new manager. That is the rule at Dandolo Trading Company.”
It was a middle-aged man's voice.
The voice had come from among the men wearing black robes.
The man whose voice it was stepped out from among them and removed his hood.
“You…….”
Yet the identity of the client was utterly beyond anything he could have expected.
The man approached Ferda and greeted him:
“Henri Dandolo, heir to House Dandolo, pays his respects to the consort of the Great Fire.”