Chapter 65
Salt and Sand
Boom!
A deep, muffled explosion rang out from inside Abel’s body.
At the same time, Abel went completely limp.
His agonized groans and trembling both ceased.
10+5
A gasp escaped Luri’s lips.
She thought that all of this had to be a dream.
That she was actually lying in bed, and a demon had secretly slipped into her chambers to show her this nightmare.
But she did not wake up.
The harder she tried to awaken, the closer the cold reality drew.
“Ah…”
Luri staggered toward Abel.
She turned his collapsed body over.
His pupils were unfocused.
His pulse was gone.
His body was rapidly growing cold.
She tried to use healing magic.
But she knew it was impossible.
His heart had been destroyed.
Once their heart was destroyed, no dragon spawn could survive.
Ferda must have known that too.
He had never intended to leave Abel even the slightest chance of survival.
The sensations of this tragedy, unfolding in a cold and dark place beneath a raging blizzard, drove themselves into her mind.
A Silver Dragon’s spawn was dead.
Another of her father’s children had died today.
What that other child had seen was now visible to her as well.
And the man responsible was standing right in front of her.
“Do you…”
Her voice forced its way through her constricted throat.
“Do you know what you’ve just done, Lord Ferda?”
“I do.”
Ferda answered flatly.
“Murder.”
His voice was as cold as the northern air.
“This isn’t just murder… Lord Ferda.”
Luri’s hands trembled.
“A child of Silverwind is dead. You killed someone who carried his blood. Do you understand what that means?”
“I do.”
“No. You don’t.”
Luri raised her head.
Then she walked toward Ferda.
“You killed someone who inherited a dragon’s blood. They will never stop seeking vengeance.”
“I know.”
“They will never stop… until you are dead.”
“I know.”
“If you truly knew!”
Luri seized Ferda by the collar.
Everything she had built.
“Because of what you did!”
Because of Ferda’s actions.
“The peace I protected for Lord Valdrova has been shattered!”
It had all collapsed into nothing.
“You… Because of you…”
Luri lowered her head.
The hand gripping his collar trembled violently.
Her legs shook beneath her, barely supporting her weight.
She wondered.
Could this still be dealt with?
Could they somehow make this incident disappear?
What would happen now?
She tried to imagine what was about to unfold, but she could not.
This was far beyond anything she could handle.
There was no possibility of resolving it peacefully.
“Haa… Haa…”
The tension tightened around her throat.
She breathed in short, ragged gasps.
Her vision began to swim.
“This is… your fault.”
Only resentment spilled from her lips.
“Lord Valdrova… was perfectly happy even without you.”
Cruel words she did not truly mean came pouring out.
“Because you… Because you tried to enter her life…!”
But Ferda did not flinch.
He merely looked down at her.
His eyes were like those of someone gazing upon a pitiful child.
“Luri.”
“Don’t say my name with that mouth! Not with that mouth…!”
“Luri.”
His cold voice seized hold of her confusion.
“Look at me.”
Luri raised her head.
Her lost silver eyes looked up at Ferda.
“Abel had to die. There was no other choice.”
“There was another choice. And I chose it.”
“The choice to abandon yourself was the worst possible one.”
“Does it even matter whether I exist or not? All you need is Lord Valdrova, don’t you? Wouldn’t that have been enough to preserve the peace?”
“There was never any peace to begin with.”
“There was! It was right there, clear as day! The peace I created existed!”
Luri snapped back.
A suspicion that she might be wrong began swelling in her chest, but she refused to acknowledge it.
She did not want everything she had done to become meaningless.
“Luri.”
Ferda asked her,
“Was I the one who destroyed the peace you created?”
“Yes.”
That was true.
“Was I the one who placed my fiancée in danger?”
“Yes.”
That was also true.
“Then was I wrong?”
“…”
Luri could not answer.
She did not understand why she hesitated.
He had clearly killed Abel.
Because of that, the peace had been shattered.
Valdrova was now in danger.
So did that mean he had been wrong?
No.
Somewhere deep inside, she did not believe that.
“You… were wrong.”
She lacked the courage to admit it.
Once again, she stubbornly threw a tantrum.
“Is that so?”
Ferda removed her hand from his collar.
Her hand followed the movement of his.
Luri’s eyes widened.
He guided her hand slightly higher than his collar, placing it around his throat.
“Then kill me here and now.”
Luri asked in a trembling voice,
“Are you… serious?”
“That was what I asked of you.”
Luri recalled something she had buried deep in her memories.
When Ferda had finished recruiting all the people he needed, the final name he had written down was hers.
And he had made this request.
“If I ever place my fiancée in danger or commit a wrongful act, kill me without hesitation.”
Luri had naturally never believed him.
No living creature wished to die.
Not humans.
Not dragon spawn.
Not even dragons.
“If I die, the peace you protected will return.”
Ferda was different.
There was no hesitation in his eyes.
From the moment he killed Abel until now, the resolve within them had never wavered once.
Luri finally voiced the question she had never been able to understand, the one she had kept locked inside her heart.
“Lord Ferda… do you not regret what you did?”
“I do not.”
Ferda had thought about it countless times.
He had thought about it before acting, while acting, and even now, at this very moment.
His conclusion had always been the same.
“Even if time were turned back a thousand times, I would still save you.”
“Why?”
Unlike her trembling pupils, his eyes shone clearly.
It was a light that Luri did not possess.
“Because I have no doubt that this is for my fiancée, Valdrova.”
That light gently brushed against Luri’s cheek.
“She needs you more than she needs me.”
The moment she heard those words, everything that made up Luri collapsed.
“Why…?”
The hand around Ferda’s throat loosened and slid down his body.
“Why… when I’ve lived longer… when I’ve served Lord Valdrova for far longer…”
Her voice grew wet with tears.
“Why is it that you, a human…”
Luri hated humans.
Human greed had always done nothing but cause Valdrova pain.
Ferda was different from those humans.
And yet—
She hated Ferda more than any human she had ever known.
Why was that?
He cared for Valdrova.
He truly possessed the power to act for her sake.
And yet Luri hated him so much she wished he were dead.
“Why can’t I… be like you…”
Luri’s body collapsed forward.
She did not want to lean against the man she hated.
But she hated the thought of letting him see her cry even more.
“Kh… Hic…”
Luri desperately tried to swallow her sobs.
Realizing she could not, she buried her face in his clothes and forcibly muffled the sound.
As tears poured endlessly from her eyes, Luri caught a faint scent.
A village that had burned to the ground in a great fire long ago.
The man who had taken in the girl who alone had survived within it.
Ferda smelled like that man.
Ferda returned to Count Consilus’s castle with Luri.
“Thank you.”
“…”
Luri did not answer.
She had not spoken a word since she finished crying.
“You should return now.”
There was neither agreement nor refusal.
Instead, her hand answered for her.
She could not let go of the hem of his clothes.
The anxiety lingering in her heart seeped through her fingers.
“Luri.”
“…”
“Are you afraid that war will break out?”
She gave a small nod.
It meant she was worried about that, but that was not all.
“There is no need to worry. If I am right, there will be no war.”
“…”
“Return to my fiancée’s side. Go back as though nothing happened and prepare the tea party.”
“…”
“Can you do that for your mistress?”
Only then did Luri release his clothes.
Without saying a single word in the end, she shot into the air and flew away.
Ferda straightened his clothes and opened the balcony doors.
The inside of the castle was already in complete chaos.
“Kill that demon bitch at once!”
“Don’t merely kill her! She must be burned to death with holy light!”
The knights bristled with rage.
“Waaaaah! I don’t want to die!”
A pink-haired demon was bawling loudly enough to shake the castle.
“No, calm down and listen to me!”
And between them, Zed was sweating profusely as he tried to mediate.
“Move aside, Sir Zed!”
“Have you been bewitched by that demon bitch?!”
“You damned knight who got his position through connections! Hand that woman over right now!”
“Is there no limit to what you people will say?! I’m not protecting her! I received orders too!”
“Waaaaah! Sir Knight! Please save me!”
“You crazy bitch! Stop clinging to my leg and get off! Damn it! All this suffering because of that man!”
They said there was dignity in every kind of work, but accepting this job had been a mistake.
Zed regretted it again and again.
“Kill her already!”
“Waaaaah!”
“What is going on here?”
“That filthy demon bitch hijacked the gate you were supposed to arrive through, Regent, and caused this entire mess… Huh?”
“R-Regent?”
The regent at the center of the entire commotion appeared, and the room instantly fell silent.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. A few ribs and fingers were broken, but there is nothing seriously wrong.”
“That demon claimed you were the one who let her inside…”
“Waaaaah! I told you I wasn’t lying!”
“She wasn’t lying. I was the one who sent her in. So put away your hostility and return to your posts.”
“Ah, yes. If that is what happened…”
“See?! I was right! Why were you treating me like a liar?! A demon’s life is so unfair, seriously—Mmph!”
“You’ve been unbearably loud this whole time!”
Penelope was about to pour oil onto the fire.
Zed gagged her mouth with a piece of coarse cloth.
“I’m glad everyone returned safely despite the sudden operation. I am fine, so go and rest.”
With that, the commotion finally came to an end.
Ferda turned his gaze.
Two people remained.
Zed, drenched in sweat.
And Penelope, with tears and snot streaming down her face.
“You two have another task to perform.”
It was early morning at Count Consilus’s castle.
The black sky was slowly beginning to regain its color.
It was the twilight just before dawn.
Ferda waited without sleeping.
His ribs had been broken and his fingers twisted out of place.
He had repaired his body with healing magic, but its aftereffects had left him more exhausted than ever.
Even so, he fought off his drowsiness and waited.
A short while later, Ferda sensed a presence infiltrating the area.
“My darling, you’re back?”
Sitri, a Great Demon, crawled out of the darkness.
“I was so worried when it looked as though things had gone wrong, but I suppose you managed somehow?”
“…”
“Why are you looking at me like that? It wasn’t my fault, was it?”
“No. It wasn’t your fault.”
Ferda leaned against the backrest and folded his arms.
“But it seems you were hoping I wouldn’t return safely.”
“Of course not. You can’t do business with a dead man, can you? No one waited more eagerly for your safe return than I did.”
Sitri gave him a seductive smile.
But her expression was noticeably different from the one he had seen a few hours earlier.
There was impatience in it.
“Your dog is dead, Sitri.”
“My dog? Who are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. I know Abel Silverwind was one of your dogs.”
“Oh my, that’s too cruel. Is everyone who hates my darling automatically on the demons’ side? I don’t like that kind of prejudice…”
She brazenly denied it.
Her eyes curved like crescent moons.
“Even if Abel were my dog, you have no proof, do you?”
Sitri’s smile deepened.
She was right.
There was no evidence.
Anyone who made a deal with a demon would normally bear a seal or traces of demonic power.
Abel had possessed neither.
“Do you think you can accuse an innocent demon without evidence? If you insist on denying everything, they’ll try to summon me as a witness. And I’ll deny it.”
“Then I’ll be in trouble.”
“The picture they’ll see is Regent Ferda breaking in without permission, committing murder, and then blaming everything on a demon to avoid responsibility. And…”
Sitri slowly crept closer.
“It’ll only make it look as though my darling is desperately struggling to survive. Even if it doesn’t, the humans will never leave you alone.”
She whispered into Ferda’s ear.
“And you were the one who actually joined hands with a demon, weren’t you, darling?”
Sitri finally revealed her true colors.
“You borrowed demonic magic to secretly enter their territory, and you rescued a demon.”
She had undoubtedly secured evidence of that already.
From the moment she offered to provide the Bending Bridge, she had laid trap upon trap, ensuring that Ferda could not avoid becoming entangled.
“My poor, adorable regent.”
Sitri stroked Ferda’s face.
“Don’t you find it strange? Why has the warning never to make deals with demons remained unchanged through the ages? Because no matter how often it is repeated, people always make the same mistake.”
“…”
“The moment you used my Bending Bridge, you crossed a river from which there was no return. Perhaps none of this would have happened if you had asked one of the others before coming to me.”
She mocked him, implying that every decision he had made had been a mistake.
The balance of the conversation tilted in her favor.
Demons always waited for such openings.
Sitri opened her mouth to make an offer.
“If only—”
Ferda spoke first.
“‘If only’ is an escape for those who regret their actions.”
Ferda raised his head.
“If one has no regrets, there is no need for the words ‘if only.’”
The atmosphere, which had seemed entirely Sitri’s, changed in an instant.
Sitri sensed something alien in his eyes.
He was far too calm for a man who had been driven into a corner.
For a moment, she wondered whether he was a fool incapable of understanding his situation, but that was not it either.
It was unmistakably a conviction forged from absolute resolve.
“Are you planning to start a war? Or perhaps break off your engagement with Valdrova? Neither option will end well for you.”
“There will be neither war nor broken engagement.”
Ferda spoke leisurely.
“The fact remains that Abel was a demon worshipper who cooperated with one.”
“Were you not listening to a word I said?”
Sitri was dumbfounded.
“I told you. There’s no evidence. Why would they believe you without evidence? Do you think they’re idiots?”
The game was overwhelmingly in Sitri’s favor.
She held many cards in preparation for this moment.
No matter how Ferda responded, she was ready to counterattack.
Ferda was no fool either.
He had made thorough preparations of his own to prevent the repercussions of dealing with a demon.
“Yes. There is no evidence.”
But when he killed Abel, all of those cards had slipped from his grasp.
He possessed nothing capable of countering Sitri’s hand.
“Therefore…”
What he held instead was—
“You will create it from this moment onward.”
A leash with which he would bind the demon.