Chapter 70
“Please give me your answer by the hunting tournament in three days.”
Michelle pulled her hood low and left Blanc’s room without hesitation.
Once she was gone, Vieta let out the sigh she had been holding. Relief from the tension mingled with the burden of having to come see Blanc again.
Even to Vieta, who knew nothing about politics, the matter Michelle had raised was not something that could be decided easily.
As though to support her thoughts, Blanc’s expression had also hardened.
Vieta did not want to burden Blanc, who was already troubled enough, with anything more.
‘There will be another night tomorrow.’
As luck would have it, Vieta tightened her cloak, trying to soothe her disappointment.
Just as she was about to jump onto the nearby iron parapet, a loud bang rang out, and someone grabbed her cloak.
“Where do you think you’re going, Vieta?”
Half leaning out of the window, Blanc was gripping the trailing edge of her cloak with all his strength.
***
“You can come out now.”
Hidden in the separately prepared bedroom, Vieta followed Blanc’s voice into the sitting room. The table, which had been empty only moments ago, was now set with simple refreshments and teacups with fragrant steam rising from them.
Vieta awkwardly sat in the empty chair and picked up a teacup. She tried to appear as calm as possible, but her mind was in turmoil because she could not decide what to say first.
She was curious about Michelle’s story, and she also wanted to know how Blanc had noticed her presence.
“The Duke of Sijak has five children. Three were born to his duchess, while the remaining two were born to a nameless concubine.”
As though he had realized that Vieta was curious, Blanc spoke first. Faint moonlight spilled over him as he leaned against the window.
“Michelle and her younger brother Melvin were born to a concubine. That’s why she’s trying to start a rebellion. If she doesn’t do something, her younger brother won’t be among the living for much longer.”
“…Her younger brother is going to die?”
“For Byon—in other words, for the heir—the duke is personally disposing of his children. I understand that Michelle was even in marriage negotiations with a noble who supports Byon. The problem is her younger brother, Melvin. The duke’s daughters can simply be married off, but there’s no plausible way to get rid of the duke’s sons. That’s why they’re desperately trying to kill him somehow. Melvin will die as soon as they finish dealing with Michelle. A young son born to a concubine won’t be able to protect himself.”
“…Are the other duke’s sons in the same situation?”
“The children born to the same mother have the duchess as a rallying point, so they can gather under one roof somehow. The problem is Michelle and Melvin. Michelle’s circumstances aren’t exactly good either. If she marries as the duke orders, she can preserve her life for now, but how long will the shield of marriage really last?”
Vieta lowered her gaze without saying a word.
As she listened to Michelle’s story, Blanc’s past kept overlapping with it. Hadn’t he, too, once fled to the Kingdom of Madak to escape his conflicts with Crown Prince Gabin?
“…Does that answer your questions, Vieta?”
After speaking, Blanc rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, then turned to look out the window.
‘It’s your turn now, Vieta.’
Blanc’s back seemed to be saying that. Watching him, Vieta kept wetting her parched lips with tea.
*
“I’m sorry.”
After a long silence, Vieta’s apology made Blanc’s eyes waver. He was glad that he had his back turned, since his reaction had slipped beyond his control.
“To tell you the truth, Blanc, I have been avoiding you. My head was a mess. So I wanted to run away. I’m sorry for turning my back on you just to make things easier for myself. I’m really sorry.”
As restless as Blanc was, Vieta’s voice trembled slightly as well.
“If I were to shamelessly make excuses for what I did, there was something I had always wished for even before meeting you. For eight whole years, in fact.”
What could she have wished for during those eight years?
Blanc waited for Vieta’s next words, which were slow in coming.
“…Blanc, do you remember the name Alicia?”
“You mean the hero chosen by the goddess? I heard she was confined to a villa in the capital….”
“Actually, I’m Alicia.”
Blanc had turned his body so Vieta could speak comfortably, but the unexpected revelation made him turn around without realizing it.
Vieta sat demurely with her teacup in hand, wearing a bitter smile unlike any he had ever seen before.
“My real name is Alicia Enwe. Eight years ago, I was the hero who received the goddess’s blessing and defeated the Demon King. Being called a hero may sound nice at first glance, but to defeat the Demon King, I had to lose everything I had.”
“…What do you mean, you lost everything?”
“I was forcibly summoned by the goddess. I wasn’t from this world. I was born not in the Dikram Empire, but in a city called Busan in a country called the Republic of Korea. That’s a place name you’ve never heard before, right?”
What on earth was she talking about?
Blanc could not follow what Vieta was confessing. He could somehow accept that Vieta was Alicia, but he could not easily accept the fact that she was from another world.
“From the moment I came to this world, I had only one goal: to return home. But in that situation….”
Vieta bit her lip hard, then continued.
“…Once I realized that you liked me, I didn’t know how to treat you. But Blanc, someday I’m going to leave the Empire—leave Rodina. So I hope you’ll meet another good woman who isn’t me.”
The prince covered his face with one hand to hide his overwhelmed feelings. He had suspected that Vieta might have realized how he felt.
Even after recalling his memories over and over, he could find no reason for Vieta to avoid him apart from the words he had muttered to himself in that dream.
Yet what he had learned about Vieta’s circumstances tonight, along with her unyielding rejection, was far too much for him to bear.
While Blanc struggled to compose himself, Vieta continued speaking.
“Ah, I forgot, but you mustn’t tell anyone else that I’m Alicia. If someone else finds out, either I have to kill that person, or I have to die. I don’t like it, but it’s something Aurea demanded, so I have to comply.”
As though she had laid everything bare, Vieta’s voice was remarkably light, as if to prove that her words were not a lie.
That fact made Blanc even gloomier.
***
The intense midday sun had caused even the weak breeze to die down.
In the sweltering heat, Hakim flung open the window as wide as it would go the moment he returned to his room.
To guard against possible intruders, Hakim locked the door as tightly as possible whenever he left the room.
“At times like this, I truly wish I lived in the Empire.”
Hakim plopped down onto a cushion woven from twisted branches and threw the keffiyeh he had been wearing onto the floor.
As he sat still, cooling himself off, a servant soon entered carrying a bucket filled with ice and a pitcher.
The servant set the tray down on one side of the desk, bowed without a word, and left the room. Hakim gulped down some cold water, then picked up the book he had been reading that morning before tossing it aside.
A book made from someone’s flayed skin, it contained accounts of what had happened or would happen on the continent of Rodina.
Not every event was recorded, but this one old book had enabled Hakim to rise from a mere lowly commoner to a royal mage.
And that was not all; before long, he could even place the mighty Empire beneath his feet.
Yet there was one thing that made Hakim uneasy.
“It was definitely Alicia who defeated Demon God Andera, so why is Alicia’s name the only one missing?”
Fulcare, Iseria, Laurent, and Theodore. The names of the others who defeated the Demon God alongside the hero were easy enough to find in the book.
Yet Alicia’s name was written on none of its pages.
Moreover, from some point two years after the Demon Realm War began, passages were blank here and there.
It was not merely a single word that had been erased. Sometimes an entire sentence was gone, or the blank space continued for more than a page.
Wondering whether the book’s contents had changed while he was away, Hakim calmly read the passage in which the Demon King—that is, Demon God Andera—met his death.
Yet Alicia’s name was still nowhere to be found. If anything, only the passages related to the utterly useless Duchy of Sijak had changed.
“Alicia, Alicia, Alicia.”
Hakim repeated the hero’s name over and over. He did not know why her name was missing, but he needed to eliminate every factor that might become a variable in his future actions.
“Good grief, has it gotten this late already?”
As he stared blankly down at the empty pages, the royal bells signaling the hour rang out in the distance.
Hakim picked up the keffiyeh he had thrown onto the floor and called for the servant.
“Tell His Highness that I’ll go visit him late tonight. If he happens to come looking for me, tell him I’m in the basement.”
Alicia was a problem as well, but first he needed to finish the magic device he was developing.
Although he had slipped several prototypes into the Duchy of Sijak as the book instructed, he could not simply sit on his hands and wait.
Since the book of Demon God Andera could change at any time and in any way, he had to make every possible preparation.