Chapter 174 - Because It Is Precious

The eastern grasslands of the Arken Empire's territory.

Spring had deepened, and a cool breeze carried the scent of flowers.

It was a broad and peaceful plateau, but it took only an instant for a storm of blood to blow there.

Spring, when new life emerged after the harsh winter.

At that time of year, packs of dire wolves were more merciless and brutal than ever.

Their prey was a woman walking alone across the plateau in the dead of night.

They formed an encirclement with practiced ease, completely cutting off every path of escape.

It was only a matter of time before she, too, became shards of bone upon this peaceful plateau.

But this woman was different.

There was no sign that she was frightened or tense.

GRRR...

The dire wolves closing the encirclement suddenly let out threatening growls.

They had realized it by instinct.

The fact that this woman, whom they had thought easy prey only a few seconds ago, was by no means easy to deal with.

The woman showed no sign of fear.

Her face was expressionless, as if everything were hollow.

She stared blankly for a moment, then moved her eyes and looked at the dire wolves.

Two moons were embedded in her eyes.

The dire wolf that met those eyes flinched.

Mere beasts though they were, they saw their own future.

They saw that the moment they lunged at this slender woman, they would become corpses on the plateau.

The dire wolves broke their encirclement and began to flee as fast as their legs could carry them.

And so the woman survived.

CLAP, CLAP!

The sound of applause rang out the moment the dire wolves retreated.

Only then did the woman standing on the plateau notice.

That there was someone else here besides her.

"As expected of Yubel. Your wild instincts are still alive."

The woman called Yubel turned her head and looked toward the place the voice had come from.

A plain-looking woman stood there, dressed simply, with freckles scattered across her face.

That woman looked at Yubel and smiled.

"...?"

Instead of answering, Yubel narrowed her eyes and tilted her head.

The woman reacted with an "Oh my," as if disappointed.

"Oh my, to think you would forget me just because we have not seen each other for a few years. I am a little hurt, Yubel."

"...!"

Yubel's eyes began to shine silver again.

The deaths the dire wolves had seen now appeared to that woman as well.

Even under a gaze that stirred the instinct for survival, the woman only sighed as if it were nothing.

"To think you would even show me the eyes of death just because I put on a little makeup. I do not think we are distant enough for that..."

The freckled woman grabbed her own face, as if she had no other choice.

Then she tore it off.

Beneath it was a woman with an utterly innocent face, nothing like the one from before, smiling.

When she saw that face, Yubel's wariness vanished.

"Waned."

What came from her mouth was a single syllable.

"Oh my, how cruel. Even so, should you not have recognized me just from my voice?"

"Waned."

"To think you would have such a rude thought. The youth of this Angrem remains nineteen no matter how many decades pass, you know?"

"Waned. Waned."

Yubel narrowed her eyes and glared, and Angrem pressed a hand to her face as if troubled.

She decided to leave the trivial talk for later.

"I heard you escaped from the Empire?"

"Full."

Yubel nodded.

"For someone who did, you resolved it very peacefully. I never thought you would avoid getting blood on your hands."

Angrem asked as if she were asking whether Yubel had forgotten to put on clothes.

At that, Yubel stared at her with half-lidded eyes, then answered like this.

"Full."

"Full?"

Her index finger was pointing at the sky.

When Angrem followed her gaze and looked up, she saw the moon.

"Ah, come to think of it, tonight is a full moon."

The full moon was a moon that granted mercy.

On that day, even those who deserved to die could not be killed.

That was the rule Sierra had set.

"Waned."

"It cannot be helped. It has been over twenty years since I began serving as Sierra's dancer. And it was far longer ago than that when I started looking up at the moon and offering prayers."

"Waned. Waned."

"Do not be angry. What will you do now? You must have felt very stifled after being locked away for three years. Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Full."

"Oh my, you do? Where?"

Yubel turned her head with a wistful expression.

That direction was east.

"Ferda."

"Oh my."

Angrem could not help being startled when she heard that.

"I never thought you would mention that name. You must have taken quite a liking to him."

Yubel said nothing more, as if embarrassed.

"Do not be impatient. He is someone you will face before long."

The woman's mouth held a crescent-moon smile.

"After all, he is Lady Sierra's only child left in this land."

Ferda's carriage safely arrived near the Grand Duchy's territory.

Isabella greeted Ferda in front of the village gate, right on time.

"Congratulations on securing the justification for autonomy."

"It was the natural result."

"You call it the natural result, but you prepared a great deal to achieve that natural result, did you not? It is a happy thing that it was not in vain."

They said praise could make even a whale dance, and this did not feel half bad.

Isabella pushed up her glasses and spoke.

"Please come inside. In celebration of this affair, there is a gift to show you, Lord Ferda."

A gift.

Once he entered the village, Ferda saw the gift she had spoken of.

The square at the center of the village that had been left empty during the urban planning.

In the middle of it stood a structure he had never seen before.

"It is a fountain."

"That is correct. It is a monument Tower Master Iorga created together with the artisans of the tower."

A fountain made of white marble stood where a broad square was supposed to be.

It had a hexagonal border, and at its center was a tower like a palace.

He could tell at once what the dragon shape attached to the pointed tip symbolized.

"It depicts Lady Valdrova during the subjugation campaign."

"Yes. I heard she carved it because she thought that would be best."

It was, in fact, a song that had spread widely even among bards, and hymns from those who could not forget that sight still continued.

For Ferda, it was a satisfying story.

But apart from that, one worry occurred to him.

'The question is whether I have enough power to operate this...'

A fountain was a symbol of prosperity, and its conditions were extremely demanding.

The first was a supply of magic power to continually pump up the fountain's water.

The second was water pipes formed throughout the city and a tremendous amount of water, enough to circulate through the entire village.

The third was that even that tremendous amount of water had to be clean enough to drink.

If there was a defect in these three conditions, or if they were ignored, it would instead become the crystallization of vanity and greed and turn into an eyesore.

There was no way Iorga would have ignored those conditions and sent this here blindly.

'If she did not send it here intending to get one over on me...'

Ferda was able to realize one more fact.

"It seems you succeeded in purifying the water held in the Land of Demons on a large scale."

At Ferda's guess, Isabella could not hide her surprise.

"That is the second gift the Magic Tower offers. I had intended to explain it slowly, but you beat me to it."

"It seems I was tactless."

"Not at all. I am only glad that the future of the Grand Duchy's territory is bright."

Isabella smiled with pride showing on her face.

"It would be best to show you the second gift, but I will put that off for now."

"Is there something we must do immediately?"

"Her Highness the Grand Duchess is waiting for you, Regent."

For Ferda, that was more important than anything else.

After washing himself clean and even changing clothes, Ferda headed to the recreation room.

The red woman seated opposite the balcony was sitting demurely.

Valdrova was looking at the sun tilting toward the west while fidgeting with her fingers.

She stared blankly at it, then sensed Ferda's presence and turned her head.

"Ah."

She sprang up from her seat and welcomed him.

"Welcome back, Mr. Ferda."

In her excitement, she approached Ferda with quick, tiny steps.

"You worked so hard."

At the unexpected sense of closeness, Ferda forgot what to say and simply looked down at her.

"My lady."

Luri stepped into the awkward atmosphere.

"It is not proper etiquette for you to come out to greet him yourself, my lady."

"Ah, right... I am sorry. My heart got ahead of me. Did I perhaps... look frivolous?"

Frivolous.

That word did not suit this woman.

"It is the greatest honor that Your Highness the Grand Duchess came and welcomed me."

Ferda gave her a respectful greeting and sat down.

Luri stood by like a folding screen and filled Ferda's teacup with black tea.

"What did you think? Of my visit to the Arken Empire, I mean."

Ferda recalled Valdrova's appearance when she had visited the Empire and answered.

"You sent a proxy."

Valdrova nodded.

"Yes. I sent Penelope. I heard it was perfect, but did she perhaps make a mistake?"

"No. Penelope fulfilled her role well enough. Thanks to her, the image of Grand Duchess Valdrova must have been imprinted on them."

"Even though it was not me?"

"It is common for a king to put forward a stand-in. They send such stand-ins to battlefields or unimportant diplomacy instead."

It was something that happened often in places with a high risk of assassination and little profit to be gained.

Of course, for Valdrova, who was harder to assassinate than breaching an iron fortress, it was unnecessary, but he did not bother saying that.

What was certain was that Penelope had done her part.

Her gait and the aura she gave off.

Perhaps because she was used to playing queen, she was convincing enough for people who had never seen Valdrova before to feel that she was Valdrova.

"Were you satisfied as well, Mr. Ferda?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Do you truly think so?"

At her question, Ferda lifted his head.

"What do you mean?"

"It is just... you look terribly disappointed."

It felt as though a skewer had suddenly flown at him and pierced his chest.

Ferda reflexively touched his own face.

He found himself wondering if he had frowned while saying that.

"I am fine."

Ferda glossed over it.

As if it were nothing.

But Valdrova did not let that uneasiness go.

"I sent her for you, Mr. Ferda, and for no one else. So I would like you to speak honestly."

Today, she was being persistent.

It was something he could have continued to say was fine and glossed over.

But what would happen if he tried to gloss over it like that?

Would misunderstandings and distrust between them not only pile up?

Part of him thought that.

Ferda had to choose.

Would he lie in order to comfort her gently?

Or would he accept the possibility of hurting her and tell the truth?

"The truth is..."

Ferda chose.

"When I heard that Your Highness... would be coming, I looked forward to it a great deal."

How had Ferda felt then, walking with dignity to welcome his partner?

The best way to describe it would be the sight of a groom welcoming his bride at the wedding hall.

That was how high his expectations had been.

And that was why the sense of betrayal had been just as great.

Because the one wearing the red dress and playing queen had not been Valdrova, but a third-rate demon.

"And the fact that Your Highness became friends with that demon... made me a little uncomfortable."

"Is that... a problem?"

If she asked whether it was a problem, of course it was.

That demon was a famous troublemaker in Hestia village.

It was only fortunate that the fact she was a demon had not yet been exposed; if she had been caught, there would already have been an uproar that a demon was living in the Grand Duchy's territory.

Keeping someone like that around would undoubtedly only harm Valdrova's reputation.

'... That is only an excuse.'

Though she was a famous troublemaker in Hestia village, she had never once harbored malice.

He also knew that the incidents she caused were not enough to become a major problem for Valdrova's prestige.

All of these thoughts were only Ferda's jealousy.

He was jealous of the fact that Valdrova could comfortably face Penelope with her bare face, and jealous that Penelope seemed closer to her than he was.

If he spat out the ugly feelings in his heart, it would only block her again when she was trying to step out into the world.

Ferda did not answer.

Valdrova did not urge him to answer either.

They both fell silent amid an awkward current.

"The heart is truly... strange, I think."

Valdrova said, placing a hand on her own chest.

"The truth is... I could have gone to greet you that day, Mr. Ferda. Strangely, after I showed my face to Penelope, I felt as though I was no longer afraid to show it to other people..."

"But..."

"It was not the same for one person alone."

Valdrova slightly lifted her head and looked at Ferda.

He felt her eyes meet his through the mask.

"He should be the person closest to me, and the person I must spend the most time with... yet I do not know why it is so difficult to show my face to the person I want to share my life with. I show it to other people, yet wear a mask in front of you, Mr. Ferda. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether this was right. If I cannot do it for the person who has done so much for me, but I can do it for others... would that not be terribly selfish...?"

Ferda understood what that feeling she was experiencing was.

Was Ferda not feeling the same way?

Just as she could not show him her bare face, Ferda could not show her the nature he possessed.

Because he wanted to look better to the other person, he became even more artificial.

Because their feelings for each other were so great, they became that much more cautious.

Why had he not realized this?

That, in the end, Valdrova and he were thinking the same thing.

The jealousy and resentment that had been filling Ferda's chest settled.

As the murky dirt sank, clear water rose and became a mirror, reflecting Ferda's face.

He saw his own narrow-minded self, and it disgusted him.

Ferda reached out and carefully took Valdrova's hand.

Valdrova looked a little surprised, but soon squeezed Ferda's hand tightly, as if at ease.

"Since Your Highness has shown such courage, is there anything I can do for you?"

"..."

It was quiet.

But it was not uncomfortable.

The pulse in her fidgeting fingers told him she was thinking.

"I-In that case..."

Valdrova shyly proposed.

"Please... do not call me Your Highness."