Chapter 6
— — —
*Clank.*
Idir locked the heavy bolt, fiddling with it a few times to make sure, then offered a pretty smile.
"You haven't changed your mind in the meantime, have you?"
"The price of summoning a demon is not something you can handle."
"I'll decide that after I experience it for myself."
"Have you never considered another way?"
"The night is deep. Shall we continue this conversation tomorrow?"
Ignoring Deyan’s rebuttal, she turned on her heel with a light step.
A moment later, the sound of the heavy iron door closing echoed through the dungeon once more.
"……That witch."
Deyan couldn't bring himself to look back, standing dejectedly before the iron bars.
"Oh! You’re a knight, can’t you even protect yourself? Why did you have to go and get caught!"
"……If you hadn't become a hostage, I could have escaped somehow on my own."
"Talk, it’s always just talk!"
Glay Holdin nagged his superior irritably.
It was a brazen attitude, but Deyan didn't seem to have any intention of scolding him. Holdin seemed to know this, as he stepped up his nagging.
"What are you going to do now!"
What could he do? He had no choice but to pretend to play along with Idir’s tune while looking for another opportunity.
"Don't even think about looking for an opening."
Holdin saw right through him.
"The Grand Duchess is a complete witch! Look at that two-faced temperament. And she’s so smart, too……!"
Holdin lashed out as if he were about to burst into tears.
"I’ve tried all sorts of tricks in the meantime, but she saw through every single one of them!"
*‘That goes for me, too.’*
Deyan swallowed the words he wanted to say.
Instead, he recalled Idir’s face as she spoke with a calm smile.
"……She was too pretty to be a witch."
Weren't witches supposed to be ugly hags with long noses and faces covered in warts?
Deyan muttered it without thinking, and he barely managed to roll his eyes to avoid the killing intent he felt behind him.
Holdin was glaring at him as if he were about to breathe fire.
"That……."
Deyan hurriedly tried to change the subject.
"She found out."
"What?"
"……That I have a cursed body."
"……What?"
But he had chosen the wrong thing to say. Holdin’s jaw dropped, and he let out a cry of shock.
"You let her find out what?"
Eventually, Holdin grabbed Deyan by the collar and began to shake him violently.
"What did you let her find out? How did she find out, anyway?"
"She noticed."
"Noticed, my foot! How!"
"That my wounds healed too quickly……."
"Then she’d just think you’re not human, not that you’re cursed……!"
Holdin’s pupils dilated to their maximum as he interrogated Deyan.
"Did you tell her?"
"……."
"He told her, he actually told her!"
Holdin fumed, slapping Deyan’s arm.
"……She said she’s going to summon a demon."
Deyan rubbed his slapped arm and pouted his lower lip.
Deyan’s rebuttal only made Holdin’s blood boil.
"I was trying to stop her."
"Do you think she’d listen if you told her?"
"I thought she might reconsider."
"Ah. Ahahahaha!"
Holdin’s shoulders shook.
He let out a mechanical laugh like a man who had lost his soul, then glared with narrowed eyes again.
"And you just blurted it out like that?"
Holdin was as frustrated as a teacher trying to instruct the world’s greatest idiot.
"You think she’ll let us go after we give her a few drops of blood? Don't make me laugh! She’ll finish us off without a second thought!"
"Isn't there any room for persuasion?"
"Didn't you see her grabbing my hair and waving a knife around? Persuasion, my foot."
Holdin snorted and spewed all sorts of insults at Idir.
The insults, starting with "two-faced" and "witch," eventually reached absurd levels.
"She’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen."
"Even so, that’s a bit much."
"Ah, don't you know what irony is? Irony?"
At Holdin’s shrill voice, Deyan plugged his ears with his fingers. It seemed better to leave him alone until his anger cooled down.
"So, what did you talk about with the Grand Duchess?"
After some time had passed and he had finally calmed down, Holdin slumped down in front of Deyan.
Deyan recounted the conversation he had with Idir to Holdin, leaving out almost nothing.
"The Grand Duchess murder case, huh…… That was definitely nine years ago."
The death of the Grand Duchess had been a major controversy even at the time.
Publicly, it was announced that she had died suddenly from an unknown illness, but the Grand Duchess had been too healthy in life for anyone to believe that at face value.
"If it’s true that the Grand Duchess was murdered, they must have hidden it to prevent the country’s prestige from falling."
"That’s why they couldn't conduct a careful investigation."
Deyan nodded in agreement.
Here, Holdin raised a question.
"But why does the Grand Duchess think the culprit who killed the Grand Duchess is someone in power?"
"She must have some kind of evidence."
"Then she would have identified the culprit long ago."
Now that he thought about it, that was true.
Idir’s goal in summoning a demon was ultimately to find the person who killed the Grand Duchess.
If she didn't know who the culprit was, how could she be so sure it was the work of a powerful figure from another country?
Having his loophole pointed out, Deyan suggested two possibilities.
"Either the Grand Duchess left a clue hinting at the culprit right before she was murdered."
"Or she has an inkling of who it is, but can't touch the suspect rashly."
Holdin, who had been thinking the same thing as Deyan, added,
"Given the Grand Duchess’s actions, the latter seems more likely."
Idir Hubert had already identified the culprit who killed the Grand Duchess.
But the culprit’s power was too immense to touch. So, she decided to summon a demon to take revenge…….
He thought for a long time before shaking his head.
"I don't think so."
"What? What do you mean?"
"The Grand Duchess really doesn't know who the culprit is."
"How would you know that, sir?"
"Her eyes said so."
"……What?"
Deyan recalled the green eyes that had been rippling with silent fury.
Idir was even more enraged because she couldn't identify the culprit.
If the target of her revenge had been set, she would have found a sharper method than the absurd means of summoning a demon.
"She’s trying to borrow a demon’s power because she doesn't know."
Perhaps Idir Hubert was being pushed to her limits?
Thinking that, a faint sense of pity for Idir stirred within him.
In the end, Deyan let his soft-hearted thoughts slip out.
"If I cooperate so the Grand Duchess can find the culprit, she might not need to summon a demon……."
"There you go being soft-hearted again."
Holdin twisted his face in disgust and cut off Deyan’s opinion sharply.
Not content with that, he berated Deyan for a full ten minutes.
"Why do you have to act like the world’s biggest idiot every once in a while? You’re a man who can cut down a person in one stroke, so why do you get so soft on issues like this? Huh?"
Not a single word of Holdin’s was wrong.
Deyan had grown up always craving people and affection.
That was why he had a soft spot for anyone with a sad story.
Especially when it came to family issues!
Yet, the moment he received an order, he would become a heartless man who would cut down the person he had pitied without a second thought.
Deyan was a man built to be capable of exactly that.
"This is all because of the late Count Nemanjić. That wretched man."
*Tsk!* Holdin clicked his tongue so loudly it echoed through the dungeon.
But it was useless to resent the dead. It was more realistic to spend that time finding a way out of this situation.
Holdin, who had been lost in thought for a moment, said as if he had made up his mind.
"Since the Grand Duchess is going to kill us either way, let’s take a gamble."
"……How?"
"From now on, just stay still, sir."
Deyan had been staying still anyway.
He sat curled up, blankly watching what Holdin was doing.
Holdin approached the iron bars with a triumphant look and shoved his hand between them.
And then…….
"Grand Duchessssss! Let’s have a talk with us, will you?"
He began to shout at the top of his lungs.
* * *
Warm sunlight streamed through the thin curtains, filling the room.
"Grand Duchess. It is morning."
I could hear Giselle’s voice calling me softly.
I could feel a pleasantly cool breeze drifting in, as if the window had been opened.
"Haaam."
I stretched my arms high above my head and got out of bed.
Thanks to a good night’s sleep for the first time in a while, my body felt refreshed.
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