Chapter 70
Hatred and Obsession
“Wow. I’ve always wanted to visit Valdrova Castle at least once, but I never imagined I’d get an opportunity like this.”
Erdes stepped forward with exaggerated excitement, almost as if she were dancing.
Her restless gait was distracting, yet no one pointed it out.
That alone showed how serious the atmosphere was.
“But why is it so quiet? It’s already suspicious that the regent himself is guiding us. Did you kill everyone because you didn’t like them? Or are you preparing to stab us in the back?”
She certainly had a charming way with words.
“Everyone working inside the castle is an ordinary civilian. They are not suited for situations like this.”
“Ah, I suppose that makes sense. When your knights consist of one guy who looks like a swindler and another bawling his eyes out, I can only imagine what kind of disgrace the rest would make of themselves.”
Erdes burst into peals of laughter.
She behaved like a thoughtless child, but she was never someone to be underestimated.
This woman was the greatest mage on the continent.
Destroying an entire family with a flick of her finger would not be difficult for her, and even kings bowed their heads at her arrival.
She was a living calamity and a mad dog capable of wielding magic.
That was why Ferda had gathered everyone in the castle out of sight.
Those who worked there were far removed from high society and had no ability to withstand this kind of pressure.
“Anyway, I think it really is meaningful that I finally came here. Valdrova Castle is incredibly spacious. I once tried sneaking in without permission, but I couldn’t break through the barrier at all.”
“Am I supposed to be pleased by that?”
“Of course you should be. This is praise from humanity’s strongest mage, you know? If even I couldn’t break through, it means no other human ever could.”
Ferda muttered inwardly.
‘You were utterly defeated by me, though.’
Goz was the one who refuted her.
“This structure was built for a dragon. It is only natural that a human alone cannot interfere with it.”
“Are you defending her just because you’re both dragons? Dragons really are impossible to understand.”
“Watch your words, Erdes Roton.”
“Yes, yes.”
It was irritating, but Ferda agreed.
To think those who hated Valdrova would still defend her.
Did it mean that even sworn enemies had lines they refused to cross?
While Erdes rambled on, they reached the end of the red carpet.
It felt as though they were standing at the end of a fuse.
Would the bomb explode, or would it prove to be a dud?
With that thought in mind, Ferda opened the door.
The reception room was decorated in gold and red marble.
A single attendant stood ready, having completed every preparation for their arrival.
She lifted the sides of her broad skirt and greeted them.
“Welcome. My name is Luri, and I serve Lady Valdrova.”
She stood gracefully as though nothing was wrong.
Yet her eyes deliberately avoided meeting Goz’s.
Goz, however, paid no attention to Luri.
His lukewarm reaction, unlike when he had once tried to seize her, felt suspicious in its own way.
Meanwhile, Erdes giggled and threw herself onto the sofa without permission.
“Oh, everyone keeps making the atmosphere so murderous. This is why men are hopeless. In an elegant place like this, shouldn’t we be laughing and enjoying ourselves? You there, maid. Bring me some tea.”
“I will prepare it at once.”
As Luri moved to comply, Ferda raised a hand and lightly stopped her.
“This is tea for the greatest mage on the continent. Should you really be the one preparing it?”
“Then…”
“I will pour it myself.”
Ferda acted because he had begun sensing something strange in Erdes’s behavior.
If he allowed her to continue unchecked, she would drag everyone into her rhythm.
Ferda prepared to serve the tea.
However, he did not rise from his seat.
The shadow beneath his feet stirred, took shape, and rose from the floor.
It was Ferda’s Shadow Hand.
Erdes’s face stiffened as she watched.
Brazenly declaring, “I use dark magic,” was practically the same as provoking someone to kill him.
Ferda paid no attention to her reaction and poured a cup of tea.
His etiquette was flawless.
“This is the finest tea grown in the highlands of the western region. Please, have a cup.”
Warm steam rose from the tea placed before her, but her gaze remained fixed solely on Ferda.
Her dull, lifeless eyes looked as though she might draw a blade at any moment.
“Unfortunately, I’m not thirsty anymore.”
“Didn’t you say you needed something to drink?”
“I know, right? Women are so hard to understand.”
There was killing intent behind her smiling eyes.
Ferda met her gaze directly and took a small sip of tea.
Perhaps now she would finally shut her mouth.
“Let us begin the discussion.”
Goz adjusted his posture and leaned forward.
“Starting with why you secretly entered another’s territory.”
He intended to understand the background of the incident first.
Ferda answered him.
“There was a demon research facility nearby.”
“An imaginary research facility?”
“Wasn’t there recently a landslide in that area? One that looked as if something had exploded?”
“…”
Goz did not answer.
That meant Ferda was correct.
“I discovered the location where they were conducting their project and attempted to destroy everything. That was why I had to move quickly.”
“So you used a Bending Bridge to cross over and strike before anyone else could?”
The words Bending Bridge came from Goz’s mouth.
Erdes must have supplied him with that information.
“Why did you not inform us?”
Goz asked.
“Because it had to be carried out in secret.”
“And why was that necessary?”
“Did I not just say it was a secret?”
Goz’s face twisted into a fierce scowl.
He looked ready to bare his claws at any moment.
“Ferda Valdrova, not only did you enter our territory without permission, but you also killed his son with your own hands. Unless you desire an all-out war, you would do well to explain yourself properly.”
Ferda would not avoid a war that came to him.
But he had no intention of starting one unnecessarily.
“As I said earlier, I did kill that man named Abel Silverwind. It is also true that I caused trouble. But none of it happened because I desired that outcome.”
Ferda added,
“He was a demon worshiper. He intended to use a demon to seize power through rebellion.”
“How did you discover that?”
“There was no need to make things complicated. He told me everything himself. Whether he thought I was already a fish caught in his net or mistook me for a priest in a confessional, I do not know, but he confessed of his own accord.”
Goz did not flare up in anger at the words demon worshiper.
That meant Sitri had properly left the mark of the contract.
The balance of the conversation tilted slightly.
Ferda decided to add something that might have been unnecessary.
“Do you know what he said? He called Goz Silverwind nothing more than a usurper. He said you were unworthy of your power.”
“Sounds like Silverwind has plenty of internal grievances too. To think a small fry like that grew ambitious and began plotting—”
“Shut up.”
“You do know I’m on your side, right?”
Goz silenced Erdes before she could continue scraping at a painful wound.
“There will always be those who doubt my strength. Challenging it is only natural for a descendant of Silverwind. But if that strength is obtained through a contract with a demon, then it is a different matter.”
What they desired was pure strength.
Strength achieved through the blood inherited from the Master of Steel and Wind.
Hatred and Obsession
“But what does that have to do with you killing him? Are you saying you did me a favor?”
“Of course not. I told him that if he wanted to overthrow you, I would help.”
The wind began to stir.
How could Goz not become enraged after hearing that Ferda had openly proposed a conspiracy to kill him?
“But he refused. Not because he was noble, but because his plan to overthrow you required me.”
The wind stopped.
“A mere human like you?”
“He said he would use me to lure her out, then absorb her power.”
“Whose? Valdrova’s?”
“Luri’s.”
Goz’s body flinched at those words.
Erdes, who had been watching his reaction, cut into the conversation.
“Luri? Who’s that?”
“There is someone by that name.”
Goz attempted to brush the question aside, but Erdes was persistent.
She glanced toward the petite silver-haired maid and clapped her hands.
“Don’t tell me it’s that little lady over there. Judging by the look of things, I must be right. There were traces left behind by someone with a small build, so that was her? That little girl is—”
“Erdes Roton. I did not bring you here to chatter.”
His vertically slit pupils glared fiercely at her.
He seemed even more irritated than before.
Erdes gave an awkward smile and mimed locking her lips.
Goz’s irritated gaze unconsciously shifted toward Luri.
Luri stood with her back to him, unable to turn around.
Ferda continued explaining the situation.
“Luri came to save me, and in the end, she had no choice but to kill Abel.”
“Hmm. Then why don’t we call our dear Luri, who miraculously survived, and have her testify?”
Do as you please. I have nothing to hide.
Ferda was about to agree to Erdes’s suggestion when—
“That will not be necessary. I have heard enough.”
It was Goz who rejected the testimony.
Erdes glared at him in dissatisfaction for stopping her, then turned her attention back to Ferda.
She smiled brightly once more.
“Well, it seems the two gentlemen have said their piece, so I suppose it’s my turn now.”
Had there ever been turns in this conversation?
With how often she had barged in, Ferda had assumed it was simply a chaotic mess in which everyone said whatever they wanted.
He almost made the sarcastic remark aloud, but restrained himself.
Erdes stretched widely and gave him a languid smile.
“Well, it was a touching story, Regent Ferda. Unfortunately, I can’t simply take it at face value.”
It was the response Ferda had expected.
“There should have been evidence that he had made a deal with a demon.”
“Yes, I found it. He hid it in quite an ingenious place, too. His heel, of all places. Then again, no one normally examines every inch of someone’s heel. It’s understandable that even Silverwind failed to notice.”
She acknowledged that the mark had been placed somewhere easy to overlook.
However, something about the way she was staring at Ferda felt unpleasant.
“But I am Erdes Roton.”
The greatest mage on the continent.
A model for all mages, a witness to history, and a war hero.
A law unto herself, an unrestrained tyrant who recognized no borders.
At the same time, she was an authority on dark magic.
Someone once said that love and hatred were separated by only a thin line.
Erdes knew dark magic so well precisely because she hated it.
“I can spot the schemes of some filthy demon bastard almost immediately. For example, when the contract mark was placed.”
A smile spread across Erdes’s lips.
She looked like a spider gazing at prey trapped in its web.
“The contract mark engraved on Abel Silverwind was so fresh that the ink had barely dried.”
Ferda had not even known it was possible to determine when such a mark had been placed.
He had never been interested in contracts with demons.
No, more precisely, the exact properties and nature of such contracts had never mattered to him.
The only important things were how demons ensnared humans and how one could avoid being trapped by them.
That was what most people focused on.
Erdes’s obsession, however, was far broader.
She fixated on everything connected to dark magic.
It was a form of compulsive fastidiousness.
She was the type who would obsess over every detail in her attempt to wash the disease called dark magic from the continent.
And that obsession was now driving Ferda into a corner.
“Would you like to hear what I think?”
She began laying out her deductions.
“Regent Ferda, you made ‘some sort of deal’ with Sitri, a great demon of Hell. You said you came to destroy a demon facility, didn’t you? Perhaps that was the deal. What would happen if the facility collapsed within hours rather than days? Sitri would gain a wonderful excuse. You ignored the old warning never to bargain with demons and quietly crossed over using a Bending Bridge.”
Her explanation was astonishingly accurate.
It was more than enough to make Ferda feel pressured.
“But then something unexpected happened. For some reason, the Bending Bridge you used closed. Regent Ferda was left completely stranded, and Abel appeared. Was that unexpected development one of Sitri’s traps?”
As she posed the question, Erdes smiled with her eyes and stared intently at Ferda.
She was trying to peer beyond the mask he wore.
Ferda did his best to conceal what lay beneath it.
“No. No, it wasn’t Sitri’s plan.”
Had she read his expression?
She continued along a different line of reasoning.
“If it had been such a shallow trick, you would have noticed. Regent Ferda, you are not a fool. You must have checked repeatedly to ensure there was no trap in the Bending Bridge. But even so, you were unable to throw yourself into the bridge that would take you back.”
“That means you took something from the demons’ residence.”
“Something important enough that you were willing to risk your life for it.”
Ferda’s throat began to burn dry.
Erdes rotated one finger in circles as though hypnotizing him and continued.
“Making you encounter Abel Silverwind was probably one of the traps that whore Sitri had prepared. He would have been someone assigned to keep you from entertaining any other ideas and to punish you if you did. Even if he died, he would still make an excellent card capable of causing trouble afterward.”
“But for some reason, she did not use that trap.”
“Instead, she helped you by placing a contract mark on Abel Silverwind.”
Ferda nearly found himself admiring her.
Even while being backed into a corner, he could not help it.
Could hatred for a single field truly allow someone to see this far?
The depth of Erdes’s understanding was on an entirely different level from his own.
“Why would a demon help you? Had she simply left Abel without placing a mark on him, Silverwind would have come to interrogate you, and you would have been sweating as you struggled to convince them.”
“War would have been practically inevitable.”
“So why did she willingly abandon the kind of chaotic situation demons love most?”
Ferda’s mouth went completely dry.
He deliberately maintained his composure, afraid even the movement of his throat as he swallowed might betray him.
“These are the three clues that led me to my conclusion.”
Erdes raised her index finger.
“First, you use dark magic.”
Her middle finger followed.
“Second, a great demon of Hell rescued you instead of luring you into a trap.”
Then her ring finger.
“Third, I keep detecting a faint demonic scent throughout this castle.”
She had struck directly at the opening in his defenses.
Whatever happened, there was one conclusion Erdes could never be allowed to reach.
‘Penelope.’
Ferda was already walking a tightrope over whether he had made a contract with a demon.
If Erdes discovered that he was hiding a demon, her hostility would tip completely against him.
And that hostility was more than merely troublesome.
Erdes was someone whom even the First Prince, the second most influential person in the Empire after the Emperor, was trying to ingratiate himself with.
She would undoubtedly obstruct the development of the Far East.
Everything was becoming hopelessly entangled.
‘But that isn’t the only problem.’
An even greater problem would arise if, while explaining himself, Ferda revealed that Penelope was a means of restraining the authority of a great demon.
Erdes would undoubtedly become obsessed with Penelope at any cost.
He could not allow that.
Everything within this castle existed solely for Valdrova.
Just as Ferda was about to speak, Erdes smiled with her eyes and asked,
“You’re a demon’s child, aren’t you?”