Chapter 233

Chapter 233. Handkerchief

Meanwhile, the imperial army.
“The barrier of the inner fortress is collapsing!”
Exclaimed a mage who was checking the status.
Just as Ferda had said, all the totems had fallen, and the absolute barrier had lost its power.
Ureas, who had been taking a strategic rest with his arms crossed, asked the vice-commander next to him.
“What about the allied forces’ side?”
“Their strategy is similar to ours. It seems they will charge the moment the barrier falls.”
“So it’s finders keepers, the first to arrive takes it.”
Greed sparkled in Ureas’s eyes.
Everyone already knew what intention he had in entering the inner fortress.
But there was no one who dared to offer him frank advice.
Even if the battle situation was unfavorable, Ureas was the type to summarily execute anyone who displeased him.
He rose from his seat and shouted.
“Prepare yourselves, knights! The time to execute the demon’s lackey on the gallows and display him is not far off!”
Ureas drew his sword, and his royal guards also fully prepared themselves.
It wasn’t just the imperial army.
Shortly after, another barrier of the inner fortress also collapsed, and an entrance appeared before them.
“Alright, knights! Advance!!”
The first to enter were the spearmen.
He turned them into lab rats to probe the situation.
As expected, the moment they entered the inner fortress, the ambush of the monsters began.
That place was a space densely populated with monsters and demons.
“May the light of Althea be with you!”
Knights imbued with chivalry repelled the enemies.
Even the Night-class demons who had matched a few knights could not exert much power.
It was then that it happened.
Something charged toward them from among the monsters and demons.
“May the Void be with the King of Heinkel!”
A human form with a head emitting a red light.
The moment a knight tried to repel it with his body, it exploded just like that.
Kwaang!
Blood and flesh scattered, unfolding a grotesque scene.
“Damn it!”
They were equipped with helmets and armor, but these only left minimal openings to block sharp swords and arrows.
They could not prevent the blood of the fanatics from penetrating.
Feeling a slight discomfort and trying to rejoin the fight,
“Huh…?”
A knight who had tried to touch his face as if only feeling a discomfort, perceived something strange and yanked his helmet off.
“Kyaak! Kyaaaak!!”
His comrades, who had felt doubt at his loss of composure, were shocked to see his face.
His face was collapsing, the skin melting as if dissolved by acid.
Spreading rapidly from where the blood had splashed, he turned into a white skeleton in less than 10 seconds.
That was not the end.
“Hehehehehe…!”
Tap!
Death was only the beginning.
Stripping all authority from those who set foot in the realm of black magic, he is reconstructed.
The knight became a Bone Knight right there, a slave to a black mage, and swung his sword against his allies.
“Beware of the blood! They are creating undead with blood!”
It was a suicide tactic commonly used by black magic fanatics.
Telling them to be careful didn’t solve the problem.
This was a place where the crystallization of black magic had settled on the ground, a darkness that not even a single torch could pierce.
The captain of the knights could not just watch and pulled out a scroll as his trump card.
“You foul and evil creatures! The light of Althea shall fall upon you!”
As he tore the scroll, the magic circle inside it rose and activated.
High-level light magic, Holy Sanctuary.
A faint light rose from the ground centered on the captain of the knights, brightly illuminating the dark interior.
“Kreureureuk!”
“Keuek!”
A powerful light that purifies by stripping the undead of their magical power.
However, because the Legion’s magical power was so strong, it only managed to make them hesitate.
But even that was enough.
“Look! Those evil creatures are losing their power!”
“Althea is great!”
“The Arken Empire is eternal!”
“Light to the Emperor!”
Knights invested with the great power of faith cheer up and shout slogans.
In a war plunging into death, anyone would go mad.
“Find the sources giving power to the King of Heinkel! And kill them all!”
Ureas prepared to head to the audience chamber.
He smiled at the fact that everything was proceeding smoothly.
Until he heard that voice.
“Orabeoni!”
The smile that had settled on Ureas’s lips vanished.
It was a woman’s voice he knew well.
“Olivia?”
Ureas could not understand.
She clearly should be waiting in the rear according to the schedule.
Olivia’s voice should not be audible.
“Then is it an auditory hallucination?”
He already knew the demons’ technique of bewitching opponents using hallucinations.
So he just had to move according to plan.
“Kyaaak!! Orabeoni! Save me!”
“Olivia!”
“Commander?!”
But it didn’t matter anymore.
If Olivia’s voice was heard, Olivia was here.
With his eyes wide open, Ureas began to run toward the sound.
“Everyone follow the Commander!”
Inevitably breaking formation to protect Ureas acting on impulse, they ran toward him.
Ureas recklessly charged into the enemy lines.
“Get lost, you despicable bastards!”
Ghoul monsters blocked the path, demonic followers charged, but Ureas shattered all obstacles with agile movements and advanced.
In the end, the royal guards could not catch up to Ureas.
The place he arrived at looked like the castle’s storehouse.
Bringing his eyes close to a small hole, Ureas’s worry became reality.
“Orabeoniiii!!”
Some ruffians were trying to outrage Olivia.
“Euaaa!!”
Kwang!
Ureas smashed the door with superhuman strength and entered.
Before they could react, he threw his sword at one bastard.
The rapidly spinning sword pierced through the head and stuck into the wall just like that, and he pounced on the remaining one, grabbing him by the neck and smashing him into the ground.
And then the beating followed.
Thud! Thud!
“Don’t touch my younger sister!”
He punched with his tightly clenched gauntlet until the shape of the face completely disappeared.
When the excitement that had rushed in like waves calmed down, Ureas released the captured Olivia.
“Olivia, are you hurt—.”
“Orabeoni…!”
Olivia burying herself in his embrace with tearful eyes.
“Thank you. For saving me…”
Ureas could not believe it.
The younger sister who wouldn’t even let him hold her hand was in his arms.
Something boiled inside Ureas’s chest.
As he tried to return the hug, she pulled away from his chest.
“I’m so glad. I… thought I wouldn’t be able to raise my head and speak again…”
Olivia, unable to continue speaking, sobbed with tears.
Ureas comforted her.
“Don’t worry. Under the light of Althe-nim, who could hide? Even if you suffered such humiliation, Althe would never abandon you.”
“It’s not about Althe-nim.”
Olivia wiped her tears and said.
“It was about Regent Ferda.”
“…What?”
Ureas trembled violently.
His throat closed up, so he could only gasp for air.
As if Ureas’s expression didn’t matter at all, Olivia continued.
“The person who should take my first… can be no one other than Regent Ferda.”
It was confusing.
In the midst of that, his mouth barely opened.
“T-that man already has a fiancée, doesn’t he? The dragon is his fiancée, right?”
He said that, but Ureas knew the imperial law.
The Empire allowed polygamy, and Ureas already had three wives.
One was a duke’s daughter, two were count’s daughters.
Ureas could do it, most nobles could, but there was no way Ferda could.
He is human, and Valdrova is a Red Dragon.
Even if they treated her as a house guard dog, she was still a dragon.
She wouldn’t allow him to take another woman, and there was no way she would let Ferda take a concubine.
“That is not true.”
Olivia’s beautiful voice clearly lodged in his ears.
“Valdrova-nim is extremely generous.”
Each syllable struck, Ureas’s heart crumbling one by one.
“You know? In a dragon’s life, humans are a mere entertainment. Humans only seem like pets. And you cannot share that kind of love with a pet. So, what do you do? You pair the pet with a suitable mate.”
“T-then…”
“Yes.”
Olivia placed her hand on her chest,
“I have decided to marry Ferda-nim.”
It tore Ureas’s chest apart.
That couldn’t be.
Olivia would never say such things.
Even though he knew she felt nothing for him,
Even though he knew she felt something for Ferda,
She was not the kind of girl who would tear his heart apart by saying such things directly.
However, those words became daggers that lodged into him, heading even slowly toward his heart.
Why?
He clearly knows that Olivia is not there, that this story is fake, that it is an event that will not happen, yet it was incredibly hard to bear.
It was then.
Ureas, sitting slumped, spotted an object in Olivia’s hand.
It was the root of this deception, a single truth that proved thousands of lies as real.
The decisive object that made him let go of his last bit of reason.
That object was a handkerchief.
But it wasn’t Olivia’s.
Ureas knew what Olivia’s handkerchief looked like.
It had ruffles and gave off a faint scent of roses.
Since she was an imperial princess, everything she owned had to be pure white or gold.
But that handkerchief was black.
A black handkerchief with red embroidery could never be the princess’s possession.
Ureas knew the owner of that handkerchief.
‘Ferda Valdrova.’
It belonged to that man.
The items in the princess’s hand changed every couple of days, but only that item remained the same even after days passed.
She had no intention of returning it to Ferda, and every time something troubled her, she secretly fiddled with that handkerchief or carefully smelled it.
Even Ureas, despite all his stupidity, clearly understood the meaning.
Olivia had feelings for Ferda.
Emotions beyond longing were directed toward him, and her gaze never let go of Ferda.
“Olivia…”
Ureas calls her by her name.
She is his only younger sister.
Supporting his younger sister’s love is the duty of an older brother.
He couldn’t do it.
“Olivia…”
Ureas did not want to let go of Olivia.
Every time, he projected his mother onto her to soothe his loneliness.
He himself knew it was an ugly thing, he knew he had to stop, but he didn’t.
Why?
Why am I so obsessed with Olivia?
Because I miss my mother?
He missed her, but he was no longer a child.
Complex emotions tormented Ureas and confused him.
In the agony that felt like he was going to go mad, something surprising happened.
“Ah…”
Those complex things began to entangle even more tightly.
Like strands twisting together to make a rope, the complexly entangled emotions found their meaning.
They bound tightly together and connected into a single prolonged emotion.
“Olivia is… mine.”
It was love.
When the shackles of kinship and common sense could no longer hold him back, Ureas felt something break free from his heart.
It was an overwhelming power, the source that constituted him.
If one had to define it, it was Golden Blood.
“Commander, you shouldn’t be here. Please, from here…”
The vice-commanders who arrived late lost their words.
“Althe-nim, heavens…”
There was nothing worthy of being called Ureas in that place.
“Mmm…”
Unable to resist the invitation magic, Ferda was dragged away and opened his eyes.
The dark inner depths of the fortress.
Not a single ray of sunlight entered properly, but having reached the 5th Circle, he now had eyes that pierced the darkness.
The place Ferda was summoned to seemed to be the King of Hinkel’s bedchamber.
‘The signs of life are…’
None.
He extended his shadows to search every nook and cranny, but there was nothing in that place.
Ferda held his breath for a moment and thought.
‘As expected, the Legion is not something to be underestimated.’
Before Gokma invited Ferda, the number of techniques he cast to interfere with that formula was three.
Mana Flare, Spatial Transfer Magic Formula, Artifact Activation.
If it were a normal fight between mages, they would have delayed the formula to respond to this interference or used a method to dismantle that interference with support.
Gokma didn’t do that.
It meant that petty tricks didn’t work against an invitation.
Do they say it takes three times the troops to win a siege?
It seems mages are no exception.
‘But why on earth did he invite me to a place like this?’
Neither life nor magic was felt there.
‘If the purpose was to kill me, he would have dropped me in a room swarming with monsters.’
Could even this be creating a hallucination?
Ferda thought deeply.
Could it be that when I opened my eyes, I faced a Trauma, even for a moment?
Rationally, and even pessimistically, he thought about it several times, but found nothing.
‘That means he intends to use me as a piece.’
The question that bites its own tail is whether that order is from the King of Hinkel or from Gokma.
It could be from Gokma.
‘Demon King.’
Suddenly, the words Alberto had come to say came to his mind.
He said that Ferda was a man who could become the Demon King, and the one who said that was Gokma.
It must be a plan to make Ferda the Demon King for the glory of the demons.