Chapter 167 - Principles

“Ah... d-did it look that way to you?”

A trembling voice and tone.

Akkad could not hide his bewilderment.

This feeling seemed as if it would burst out the moment he tried to suppress it.

The longer he looked at that face, the more violently it swelled.

“Haha... Of course, everyone has a different sense of aesthetics...”

Akkad turned his head.

“I-I shall s-serve you tea!”

He hurriedly moved toward the tea table.

He could not show him his face.

His anger was so hateful and ugly it felt as if it would pierce through his skin and come bursting out.

‘I knew no one would understand.’

But Akkad had shown him the shape of his love.

He had found courage, thinking Ferda would be different from everyone else.

But Ferda had called Akkad’s love and courage disgusting.

Just like that woman who had cruelly trampled his first love.

‘I am...’

He clenched his fist.

‘Not disgusting.’

The disgusting one is you, who cannot understand.

At last, Akkad snapped.

The fondness he had for him turned into fuel in an instant, and blazed high in the flames of anger.

No one could undervalue his love.

And so.

‘I will make you understand exactly what my love is.’

That single resolve took root in Akkad’s mind.

Akkad carefully took out the bottle he had kept inside his clothes.

What lay inside was a transparent liquid with no taste, no smell, and no color, and he poured it into the teacup.

“Here, drink. This is black tea containing the fundamentals of my alchemy.”

“Thank you.”

Pretending to sip, Akkad watched Ferda closely.

He checked to see whether Ferda would perhaps not drink the tea.

The porcelain rim pushed between his lips.

The black tea flowed as the cup tilted.

He drank.

With a relieved smile, Akkad spoke.

“Regent Ferda.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“I am Grand Duke Gold’s right hand. I exchange correspondence with him from the closest position.”

“Is that so?”

“And so, if it does not inconvenience you, Regent, I would like to lend you strength so proper support can be provided to the far east. I was thinking of receiving a bill regarding that. What do you think?”

Hearing that, Ferda brightened with restrained delight.

“If you are willing to approach it that way, I would truly be grateful.”

“What does the far east currently need?”

“Transportation will need improvement, I suppose. For that improvement, the roads must be maintained and the forest somewhat...”

Ferda’s speech was growing slurred.

“The forest... that... I mean, the foreeest...”

Ferda’s head, which had been leaning against the backrest, dropped sideways.

As if nothing were wrong, Akkad drank another cup of tea, rose from his seat, and lifted Ferda’s head.

“Hmm...”

His eyes were sunk into a deep abyss of unconsciousness.

There was no doubt.

The drug had taken effect properly.

Akkad gazed at Ferda with deep, tender eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Akkad spoke gently to Ferda, as if soothing a woman.

“There was nothing I could do. You see, I don’t care if someone hits me or stabs me. I may be the kind of person who deserves such things. Because I am that disgusting a person...”

Pressing his own forehead against Ferda’s, he apologized again and again.

“But... I decided I would never forgive anyone who insults my love.”

That woman who had rejected his confession and looked at him as if he were disgusting.

That woman who had flirted with him endlessly, pretending to love him.

Akkad had tried to inject his love into her, who had insulted love itself.

Because it had been his first time, clumsiness had stained his work.

His first love ended that way.

“Of course, this is my fault. This happened because I believed in you... but even so, I cannot forgive you. So...”

Akkad carefully took a leather pouch from inside his clothes and untied the cord.

Inside it were needles as long as thirty centimeters.

Akkad picked up one of them.

“I will help you understand my aesthetics, just a little.”

Akkad carefully brought the needle toward his pupil.

At the moment it headed for his retina,

“Hm...?”

Akkad doubted his own eyes.

At the moment he tried to aim the needle at his eye, Ferda’s eyes seemed to tremble ever so faintly.

‘That can’t be.’

What he had fed Ferda was an anesthetic that turned a person into a doll.

Even a small amount was enough for the effect to appear.

It had worked even when a barbarian twice his size drank it, so there was no way Ferda could be fine.

It put the victim in a state where they could feel pain but could not scream, could hear but could not speak.

‘I suppose I must have been too disturbed.’

Yes, he must have seen wrong.

Thinking so, he again aimed the sharp tip at his retina.

At the moment he was about to pierce it,

The brightly shining chandelier candles suddenly went out.

“What is it this time?”

Bewildered by the darkness that had ruined his mood, he looked around.

The candles in the drawing room chandelier should have been replaced yesterday.

And even if all the candles had burned down, they would not go out suddenly like this.

It was an unnatural movement, to the point that he had to assume someone had deliberately touched them and put them out.

Akkad had never once experienced something like this while living in this house.

This was something that happened after he brought Ferda inside.

‘Then could it be...!?’

This bastard Ferda?

If a coincidence happened twice in a row, one had to call it inevitability.

With that thought, he turned his gaze toward where Ferda was.

Those two eyes, which should have lost all vitality,

were glowing blue in the darkness.

The bastard had been awake from the beginning.

“St...!”

He tried to respond quickly with a stun spell, but his mouth was blocked.

Something had covered his mouth and interfered with his incantation.

And not only his mouth. He felt an uncomfortable pressure on his hands and stomach, which he needed to concentrate on in order to manifest a magic circle.

As if countless dead men hiding in the darkness had pounced on him.

Akkad was a 5th Circle mage.

But right now, he had been suppressed so completely that he was no more than a powerless fat man.

At the same time, Ferda’s eyes, shining in the darkness, moved.

The body that should have collapsed without even being able to hold itself up moved as if nothing had happened.

The one suppressed was not Ferda, but Akkad.

“Akkad Debelung.”

Goosebumps rose all over his body.

It sounded as if a messenger from Hell had risen and whispered.

“You must be thinking this right now. Why is that bastard moving around so perfectly fine?”

Ferda wiped the forehead Akkad had pressed against with a handkerchief, then crumpled it into his pocket.

“But do you know something?”

Just as Akkad had done, Ferda prattled on about his own secret.

“You see, I stopped eating food made by anyone else.”

It was back when he had not been treated as a proper mage, but had been designated as a rising noble.

It was when, having some thought of expanding his connections, a very small amount of love and hope for humanity still remained in him.

Ferda had gone to a social gathering and trusted people.

“There were pieces of trash who drugged me, then tried to bury me alive.”

And then he was betrayed.

Fortunately, it had not led to his death.

No matter how many times God abandoned Ferda, he returned alive and took revenge.

“So...”

Ferda grabbed Akkad’s face.

Those two blazing eyes turned upward.

Akkad instinctively understood what he was about to do and struggled.

But no matter what he did, he could not stop his mouth from being forced open.

This darkness belonged to Ferda.

“I shall return this to you.”

Ferda opened his mouth, and Akkad looked inside.

Inside that mouth was a still deeper darkness.

That darkness tore open like a thin pouch, and the contents inside flowed out.

It was the black tea he had swallowed.

“Mmph! Mmmph!”

It entered Akkad’s open mouth.

He resisted violently, trying to spit it out.

But the moment it touched his tongue, there was no turning back.

Akkad’s body gradually stiffened, and at last he sank into somewhere deep.

Light entered along with the sound of the door hinges fitting together.

The person who entered carrying a candle was dressed as a maid.

The attendant showed no sign of surprise or fear even after seeing that sight.

She approached silently, then looked back and forth between Ferda and Akkad.

That attendant was a brown-skinned woman who could not possibly belong in this mansion.

It was Garnet.

“Have you taken care of it?”

Ferda asked the attendant.

“Yes.”

“The secret passage?”

“I found it. Just as you said.”

“Well done. Let us take this bastard with us.”

“Understood.”

Despite his fat body, Garnet easily slung him over her shoulder and moved.

The place Garnet led him to was Akkad’s alchemy workshop.

To open the door, one needed a security-disarming spell known only to the owner.

That was not a problem.

The key was Akkad Debelung’s body itself.

With him slung over her shoulder, they went inside.

It was a closed room, but because several vents had been made, there was not even the slightest musty smell of mold.

At a glance, it felt like an alchemy workshop with thorough security.

But Ferda knew this was not the end.

One of the rows of potion shelves stood open at an angle, and in that place was a passage leading underground.

“Will you go down?”

Garnet asked.

Ferda already knew what she had seen.

That was why she had asked such a question.

“I will.”

That was why he went down.

When the door opened, smells formed like steam flowed out.

A smell steeped in visceral revulsion made him frown reflexively.

Ferda was familiar with this sensation.

It was the disgust he had felt from the abstract painting he had seen moments ago.

“Shadow chief.”

“Yes.”

“Sit him down and withdraw.”

“... Yes.”

Garnet left the room as Ferda ordered.

Ferda headed toward the shelves of medicines he had organized.

As befitted a delicate alchemist, he had been meticulous enough to write labels and notes according to each use.

Thanks to that, Ferda was able to gather the drugs easily.

After some time passed, Akkad’s fingers twitched.

Focus returned to the eyes that had gone far away, and vibration returned to his vocal cords.

But that was all.

His mouth had been blocked, and each and every one of his fingers had been bound to the armrests.

Ferda had no intention of giving Akkad even the slightest chance to use magic.

Ferda activated the recording crystal ball placed on the table.

“Akkad Debelung.”

That was the name of the man he was facing.

“The miracle alchemist who cured the Black Death spreading through the Empire.”

That was the achievement established by the man named Akkad Debelung.

It had been a grim plague that killed as many as ten million people in five years.

“But who could have known? That it was secretly staged by the upper echelons of the Empire.”

At Ferda’s words, Akkad’s eyes widened.

They were eyes that seemed to ask how he knew that.

“It’s still too early to be surprised. I also know Waldemar Gold ordered it.”

The one who spread that plague was Akkad.

But the mastermind was Waldemar.

Astonishingly, the reason he spread the plague was for the sake of the Empire.

Waldemar wanted this Empire to continue existing.

In order to keep this festering, rotting Empire running properly, new parts had to be continuously supplied, and those parts were provided by the lower classes who made up ninety percent of the population.

They were precious parts, but at the same time, they were also a headache.

There were too many surplus resources, so they were nothing more than worms eating away at the pillars.

So there was a need to control the population, and he spread the plague around the slums, killing people who had no idea what was happening.

Waldemar proudly called that quarantine.

“I don’t care about that.”

It was already in the past, and Ferda had not come here to discuss justice anyway.

“But I hear there is an interesting drug passed down in your family.”

Ferda took out one of the bottles he had chosen.

The name written on its label was “Truth Drug.”

“I would like you to take this.”

“Mmph! Mmmmmph!”

Akkad, who had stayed composed, began to resist violently from that moment.

Because he knew what effect that drug caused, he could not take it.

But now that he had been neutralized, he had no means to defy Ferda.

A blackish liquid flowed into Akkad’s mouth.

The effect appeared immediately.

“Ghhh...”

Akkad groaned.

He grimaced and shook his head as if suffering from a terrible headache.

Ferda opened his mouth as he watched.

“Speak.”

He brought up the story tied to this drug.

“Who made this potion?”

Akkad answered.

“My father... Jacal Debelung...”

“State its effect.”

“An immediate-acting potion... It makes the mind hazy, and when one lies, it causes a terrible headache... forcing them to speak only the truth...”

“What happens if you keep your mouth shut?”

“The same. It hurts so much... you want to die.”

“I see.”

After leisurely gathering information, Ferda began questioning him in earnest.

“Who did your father feed this to?”

“That is... ugh... gggghhhh...!”

Akkad tried to keep his mouth shut.

But in the end, he could not endure it and opened his mouth.

“... The 3rd Prince of the Arken Empire... Million Arken...”

It was information he already knew, but he continued the questioning.

At this moment, he needed to make it certain.

“Who was he?”

Akkad answered.

“Grand Duchess Valdrova’s fiancé...”

He was the man Valdrova had killed.