Chapter 167

I Married the Dragon I Killed

Chapter 167: Beginning

— Ah… i-is that how it seemed to you?
A trembling voice and way of speaking.
Acad could not hide his embarrassment.
A feeling that seemed like it would burst if he tried to suppress it.
Just looking at that face intensified it even more.
— Haha… well, everyone has their own aesthetics, after all…
Acad turned his head away.
— I, I will s-serve you t-tea!
He moved hurriedly toward the tea table.
He could not show him his face.
Because it was disgusting and ugly, his anger chilling him to the bone.
“I knew no one would understand.”
Yet Acad showed the shape of his love.
He gathered courage, thinking that Ferdá would be different from the others.
But he called Acad’s love and courage disgusting.
Just like that woman who had cruelly trampled upon his first love.
“I…”
He clenched his fist.
“Am not disgusting.”
The disgusting one is you, who does not understand.
Acad’s eyes finally rolled back.
His favorable impression instantly turned into fuel and burned with immense fury under the flame of anger.
No one can underestimate my love.
Therefore.
“I will make him clearly understand what my love is.”
Only that resolution took hold in Acad’s mind.
Acad carefully took out a bottle he had kept inside his chest pocket.
Inside was a transparent, colorless, odorless, and tasteless liquid, and he poured it into the teacup.
— Here, drink. It is black tea containing the essence of my alchemy.
— I will drink it gladly.
Acad pretended to sip and watched Ferdá closely.
Checking whether he would drink the tea.
The rim of the porcelain sliding between his lips.
The tea flowing as it tilted.
He drank.
Acad smiled with relief and spoke.
— Regent-nim Ferdá.
— Yes, go ahead.
— I am Archduke Golt-nim’s right hand. We are close enough to exchange communications across the shortest distance.
— Is that so?
— Then, if it is not inconvenient for you, Regent-nim, I would like to lend my strength so that the Far East can receive adequate support. I wonder if I could receive an invoice regarding that.
Ferdá listened to those words and nodded kindly.
— If you offer yourself like this, I would be truly grateful.
— What is needed in the Far East right now?
— Well, transportation needs improvement. To improve it, we need to maintain the roads and the forest a bit…
Ferdá’s speech became slurred.
— The forest… t-that is… the fo-orest…
Ferdá’s head, which had been resting against the backrest, fell to one side with a dull thud.
Acad drank another cup of tea as if nothing had happened, stood up, and lifted Ferdá’s head.
— Hmm…
Eyes sunken into the abyss of consciousness.
It was certain.
The medicine worked properly.
Acad looked at Ferdá with deep eyes.
— I am sorry.
Acad spoke softly to Ferdá as if comforting a woman.
— It could not be helped. You see, I do not care if someone hits me or stabs me. I am the kind of person who deserves to suffer such things. Because I am such a disgusting person…
He pressed his forehead against Ferdá’s and apologized repeatedly.
— But… I decided that I would never forgive anyone who insults my love.
That woman who rejected his confession and looked at him with disgust.
That woman who wagged her tail pretending to love.
Acad tried to instill what his love was into her, who had insulted love.
Since it was his first time, his work contained clumsiness.
His first love ended like that.
— Of course, this is my fault. Because I believed in you, this happened… but even so, I cannot forgive. So…
Acad carefully took a leather pouch from his chest and untied the cord.
Inside was a 30 cm long acupuncture needle.
Acad took one of those needles.
— I will help you understand my aesthetics just a little bit.
Acad carefully brought the needle toward his pupil.
The moment it was heading toward his retina,
— Hmm…?
Acad doubted his own eyes.
The moment he tried to aim the needle at his retina, Ferdá’s pupils seemed to tremble very slightly.
“That cannot be…?”
What he gave Ferdá was an anesthetic that turns a person into a doll.
Even a small sip produces a sufficient effect.
It worked even on a barbarian twice his size, so there is no way Ferdá could be fine.
Feels pain but cannot scream, can hear but cannot speak; that kind of state.
“Perhaps I was too agitated.”
Right, I must have seen wrong.
Thinking that, he aimed the sharp tip at his retina again.
The moment he tried to pierce it,
The candles in the chandelier burning brightly were blown out with a puff.
— What is it this time?
He looked around in bewilderment at the darkness ruining the atmosphere.
The candles in the chandelier in the reception room were replaced yesterday.
Even if they had all burned down, they would not blow out with a puff like that.
It was an unnatural movement to the point that someone must have deliberately extinguished them.
While living in this house, Acad had never experienced something like this even once.
This happened after bringing Ferdá into the house.
“If that is the case, could it be…?”
This bastard Ferdá?
If coincidence occurs twice in a row, it must be seen as inevitability.
With that thought, he directed his gaze toward where Ferdá was.
Those eyes that should have lost all vitality.
They shone a pale blue in the darkness.
This guy was awake from the beginning.
— Is…!
He tried to respond quickly with Stun Magic, but his words were blocked.
Something covered his mouth and interfered with his incantation.
Not just his mouth. An uncomfortable pressure was felt on his hands and abdomen, where he needs to concentrate to manifest a magic circle.
As if countless restless dead hidden in the darkness had invaded him.
Acad is a 5th Circle mage.
Yet right now he had been perfectly subdued to the point of being nothing more than a fat, powerless man.
At the same time, Ferdá’s eyes glowing in the dark moved.
The body that should have collapsed, unable to support itself, moved as if nothing had happened.
The one subdued was not Ferdá, but Acad.
— Acad Debelung.
Goosebumps broke out all over his body.
It felt as if a dead man resurrected from hell was whispering.
— You are thinking this right now, aren’t you? How is that guy moving so well? Something like that.
Ferdá wiped the head he had leaned on with a handkerchief and tucked it into his pocket.
— But, did you know?
Ferdá revealed his own secret, just as Acad had done.
— I, you see, came to not eat food made by just anyone.
It was when he was not treated as a proper mage, but pointed out as a new noble.
It was when a small thought of expanding connections remained in him, and a tiny bit of love and hope for humans still lingered within him.
Ferdá used to go to social gatherings and trust people.
— After giving me medicine, there were pieces of trash who tried to bury me alive just like that.
And he was betrayed.
Fortunately, it did not lead to his death.
Although God abandoned Ferdá several times, he returned alive and took his revenge.
— So…
Ferdá grabbed Acad’s face.
Two eyes, burning with ferocity, turned toward the ceiling.
Acad instinctively knew what he would do and struggled.
Yet, no matter what he did, he could not prevent his mouth from being forced open.
This darkness belonged to Ferdá.
— I will return this to you.
Ferdá opened his mouth, and Acad looked inside.
Inside that mouth resided an even deeper darkness.
That darkness tore like a thin pouch, and the contents inside flowed out.
It was the tea he had drunk.
— Mmph! Mmph!
It entered Acad’s forced-open mouth.
He resisted violently, trying to spit it out.
Yet the moment it touched his tongue, there was no turning back.
Acad’s body gradually went numb, and he finally fell into a deep place.
With the sound of the door hinges engaging, light penetrated.
The person entering with a candle was dressed as a maid.
The maid showed no sign of surprise or fear at that sight.
She approached silently and looked at Ferdá and Acad alternately.
That maid was a brown-skinned woman who should not be in this mansion.
It was Garnet.
— Did you clean up already?
Ferdá asked the maid.
— Yes.
— The secret passage?
— I found it. Just as you said.
— Good job. Take this guy away.
— Understood.
Even with his heavy body, Garnet carried him easily on her back and moved.
The place Garnet guided him to was Acad’s alchemy workshop.
To open the door, security release magic known only to the person himself was needed.
It was not a problem.
That key was Acad Debelung’s own body.
She entered while carrying him on her back.
It was a secret room, but several ventilation ducts had been made, so no stale, moldy smell was perceived.
At first glance, it looked like a safe alchemy workshop.
Yet Ferdá knew that this was not the end.
One of the rows of medicine bottle shelves was open at an angle, and in that spot was a passage leading underground.
— Shall we go down?
Garnet asked.
Ferdá already knew what she had seen.
That was why she asked such a question.
— Let’s go down.
That was why he went down.
When the door opened, odors created in the form of vapor escaped.
A physiological disgust, a deep stench, made his brow furrow reflexively.
Ferdá was familiar with this energy.
It was that disgust he felt in his abstract painting just now.
— Ambu-jang.
— Yes.
— Sense it and step back.
— …Yes.
Garnet left her position as Ferdá instructed.
Ferdá headed toward the medicine shelf he had organized.
As expected of a delicate alchemist, he had meticulously written labels and notes according to their use.
Thanks to that, he was able to collect the medicines easily.
Time passed, and Acad’s fingers twitched.
Focus formed in those distant pupils, and vibration returned to his vocal cords.
Yet that was all.
He blocked his mouth and tied each finger, one by one, to the armrest.
Ferdá had no intention of giving Acad even the slightest opportunity to use magic.
Ferdá activated the magic recording orb placed on the table.
— Acad Debelung.
That is the name of the man he faces.
— The Miraculous Alchemist who cured the Black Plague that ravaged the Empire.
That is the achievement built by the man Acad Debelung.
In just 5 years, a grim plague where 10 million people died.
— But who would have known? That it was a self-directed play, secretly orchestrated by the high-ranking officials of the Empire.
Acad’s eyes widened at Ferdá’s words.
Eyes asking how he knew that.
— It is too early to be surprised. I also know that it was at Valdemar Golt’s instigation.
The one who spread the plague was Acad.
Yet the ringleader was Valdemar.
He spread the plague, surprisingly, throughout the Empire.
Valdemar wished for this Empire to continue.
To keep this Empire—which was rotting and corrupting—functioning properly, new parts had to be constantly supplied, and 90% of the lower class served as those parts.
They were precious parts, but simultaneously a headache.
Because there were too many surplus resources, they were nothing more than worms eating away at the pillars.
So the population needed to be controlled, and he spread the plague centered on the slums, killing people who did not know why.
Valdemar proudly called that quarantine.
— I do not care about that.
In any case, it has already passed, and Ferdá did not come to argue about justice.
— But there is an interesting medicine that has been passed down in your family.
Ferdá took out one of the medicine vials he had selected.
The name written on its label was ‘Truth Drug’.
— I would like you to drink this.
— Mmph! Mmmph!
Acad, who had been calm, resisted violently from that moment on.
Because he knows what effect that medicine produces, he cannot take it.
Yet as someone neutralized now, there are no means to defy Ferdá.
A blackish liquid flowed into Acad’s mouth.
The effect appeared immediately.
— Keueuk…
Acad let out a groan.
Like someone suffering from a terrible headache, he grimaced and shook his head.
Ferdá opened his mouth while observing that scene.
— Try to speak.
He extracts the story intertwined with this medicine.
— Who made this potion?
Acad spoke.
— Father… Jakal Debelung…
— Tell me the effect.
— Fast-acting potion… clouds the mind, induces a terrible headache when lying… a medicine that makes one speak only the truth…
— What happens if you keep your mouth shut?
— The same. It hurts so much that one wants to die.
— Understood.
Gathering information calmly, Ferdá then asked him seriously.
— To whom did your father give this?
— That is… eueuk… keueueueuk…!
Acad tried to close his mouth.
Yet, finally unable to endure it, he opened it.
— …The Third Prince of the Arken Empire… Million Arken…
It was familiar information, but he continued with the questions.
There was a need to make certain at this moment.
— Who was he?
He answered.
— Archduke Valdrova’s fiancé…
He was the man Valdrova killed.