Chapter 219 - Fried Eggs

Meanwhile, King Heodret had occupied Duke Yurei's castle without difficulty. The place was deserted; not even a rat remained to raid the granaries.

But it was not entirely empty. Valuables too cumbersome to take during the evacuation remained, and the soldiers who had entered without shedding blood were scraping together every last piece.

The duke's office had already become King Heodret's war room.

"How much do we have in valuables?"

A knight answered the king's question.

"Three wagonloads, worth over a hundred thousand golden."

Including the castle and buildings, which required no rebuilding, it was more than enough to repay the war debt.

"His Grace Duke Yurei is most generous, handing over a castle like this without a fuss."

"Most would destroy everything before leaving, just to deny us even the scraps."

"As a human fighting the Demons, he must have intended to leave behind a stronghold from which we could resist them."

"Still, it's a bit disappointing. We've won such a great victory, yet there isn't a single wench to bed."

One commander grinned lewdly and gave a small thrust of his hips. Another chimed in.

"We should have tried coaxing a few of those pretty wenches leaving the duchy into coming with us."

"Should you?"

King Heodret casually drove a dagger into the thigh of the commander who had made the filthy remark.

"Urgh!"

"You bastards entered without shedding a drop of blood, yet you still covet more than you deserve. Do you want the spirits of the fallen to curse us and bring the kingdom to ruin? Is that why you say such things?"

"N-no. F-forgive me, Your Majesty."

"Next time, I'll stab your tongue and your crotch. That goes for the rest of you as well."

King Heodret was a pragmatic, rational man. He knew that curses from fallen spirits were nothing more than ghost stories people invented. Respect for the dead was merely an excuse; he had made an example of one man to restore their slipping discipline.

It worked. No one was grinning anymore.

"Issue certificates promising them their share of the spoils after the war. For now, gather everything in the castle's storehouse and post guards."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

"When do the reinforcements arrive?"

"Twenty thousand soldiers and laborers in total will arrive tomorrow. We are reorganizing our positions according to the plans on record. Within a week, this will be a strategic stronghold."

"Good."

King Heodret looked down at the campaign map and considered his next move. He had swallowed the Yurei duchy. All that remained was the road into the Heinkel Kingdom.

Who could have known things would go so smoothly?

His original plan had been to draw out the war and make Yurei impatient, keeping an eye on the Arken Empire as it hunted for its own share of the spoils while extracting every possible advantage for himself. Now that things had gone so well, what came next?

'A march on the capital, of course.'

King Heodret's greed was like a snake's maw. Once he began swallowing something, he had to finish it. Having swallowed the Yurei duchy so easily, he believed he ought to devour the kingdom's capital as well.

But something stood in the way of an easy decision.

"Loyalty, Your Majesty. The scouts sent into enemy territory have reportedly returned."

King Heodret questioned the sentry who had delivered the report.

"Are they on their way to write up their findings?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Leave that to the stenographer here. Send the entire scouting party in. I will hear from them directly."

"Understood."

The guard left to relay the order. A short while later, the entire scouting party entered and bowed.

"We greet Your Majesty. Please forgive our appearance. We had no time to make ourselves presentable."

"Your report first."

"First, the rumors are true: they are definitely allied with the Demons. Demons were sighted within the castle."

It was unwelcome news. Fighting other humans was easy, but fighting Demons was more difficult even than facing monsters.

"And infiltrating the inner castle?"

"Infiltrating the inner castle, Your Majesty?"

"Do you not even remember your orders?"

Pressed by the king's emphatic question, the scout answered.

"That is not it, Your Majesty. I hesitated for fear of disappointing you, as infiltrating the inner castle proved difficult. We could not reach it, but we did just manage to scout inside the outer walls."

"Did you? What was it like inside?"

"As silent as the dead."

"You mean everyone was dead?"

"No. There were humans inside, but they were not moving at all."

"Not moving at all?"

"They lay there breathing as little as possible, keeping their movements to a minimum. As though everything..."

He drew a deep breath before continuing.

"They seemed to be conserving every bit of energy, like hibernating animals."

"Humans hibernating..."

"The king of Heinkel must be using dark magic to do something with his subjects' lives as collateral."

"Demons and dark magic... He has fallen very far indeed."

King Heodret grinned at the scout captain.

"Well done. I wish I could reward you all."

"You are too kind, Your Majesty."

"Incidentally, I never ordered the scouts to infiltrate the inner castle."

"What? What do you—"

SHING!

The scout captain's head flew from his shoulders. At King Heodret's signal, the royal guard standing behind the captain had severed it with a single stroke.

"I pressed you on the off chance, and you fell for it beautifully. You frauds. You Demon lackeys."

"D-damn it!"

The scouts belatedly tried to draw their swords and fight back, but the waiting knights cut them down before they could. King Heodret clicked his tongue as he surveyed the corpses, then picked up the head before him to examine the severed neck.

"These Demons are called Dopplers, are they?"

"They are."

"Fascinating. They say Demon anatomy differs from ours, but this looks remarkably like a human neck. They truly are superior to doppelgangers, just as the rumors say. They seem highly skilled at changing shape, but can't they absorb their victims' knowledge as well?"

He dropped the head onto the floor. It rolled toward the soldiers collecting the bodies.

"We've learned something. Doesn't that mean we now know more about Demons than the other armies do?"

"Indeed, Your Majesty."

The knights spat on the Dopplers' corpses.

"We almost believed the nonsense these filthy creatures were spouting."

"What are you talking about? What they told us was undoubtedly true."

King Heodret sounded amused.

"A spy must first earn trust. And to earn trust, one must appear competent. If a spy intends to pose as a scout, wouldn't he offer his best intelligence first?"

"I see..."

The knights could not contain their admiration. With a perfectly straight-faced lie, he had baited the Demons, extracted information, and disposed of them without trouble. Whether planned or improvised, the feat was equally astonishing.

King Heodret mulled over their information.

An alliance with Demons. A king wielding dark magic. Subjects who seemed to be hibernating.

'That dark magic must use his subjects' lives to grant him immense power.'

An ultimate magic that could bring even the king of Heinkel into the realm of the superhuman. As a king who sought absolute power, he could not help coveting it.

* * *

In a bedroom at Valdrova Castle, Ferda lay unable to sleep despite the late hour. One phrase remained lodged in his mind.

'Growing weaker...'

He could not understand what that meant. To his eyes, the way she fought had always been the same. Even analyzing the data revealed little difference between now and when they had first met.

'The only thing I'd never seen before was that brilliantly bright, jewel-like flame.'

That flame had been extraordinarily beautiful and intense. It had melted Phrontenium, a metal only the Primordial Forge had been able to melt.

Yet that very fact puzzled him.

'Why didn't she use a flame like that when I tried to kill her?'

He thought back over his battle with Valdrova. He had defeated her by the narrowest of margins. Had she not surrendered her life at the end, he would have died alongside her. If she had hurled that flame at him, the battle would have turned further in her favor.

'Yet she never brought it out.'

Perhaps she had never been serious about the fight at all. But there was another possibility.

'She really is growing weaker.'

That was what Phrontesis had said. Though powerful enough to melt Phrontenium, her flame fell short of what it had been at her peak.

Of course, he could not rule out the possibility that Phrontesis had given him false information. The two had spoken with great affection, but they had not met even once since the Dragon-Demon War, and Ferda did not know what was in his heart. If he harbored ill intent, he might have said it simply to burden Ferda with worry.

'What exactly is the twilight of the dragons?'

Twilight usually signified death. To beings who called themselves immortal and had reigned for ages, foretelling their own deaths was a grievous affront, an insult that must never be spoken.

'He said both he and Valdrova were growing weaker.'

Were the other dragons the same? In the end, did time sweep away even those called immortals?

Ferda was free to believe what he wished. But absolute freedom was an empty notion, and that was why those words held him captive. He wanted desperately to understand all of this and somehow resolve it.

How could he help her?

In the end, he stayed awake all night and watched the sun rise. Luri entered, wheeling in a breakfast cart. She glanced at his face and asked, "Did you sleep poorly last night?"

Unsure what she might say if he admitted to worrying about Valdrova, he gave a vague reply.

"I couldn't sleep."

"I will prepare some tea to help with your drowsiness. Here is your breakfast."

Luri prepared a simple breakfast: salad and bread, well suited to the morning, with butter and black tea. The accompaniments never changed. Only the main dish varied, and he looked at the food in the center, wondering what it would be today.

Today's main dish was truly astonishing. So astonishing that Ferda forgot his worries for a moment.

"...?"

He stared at the main dish she had brought. Judging by its shape, it was unmistakably a fried egg: an egg cracked into a frying pan and cooked. Yet the object before him was not simply white and yellow. It was a riot of colors.

Unable to comprehend what he was seeing, he asked Luri, "... Could you tell me what I've done wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I've done something wrong, I apologize."

"You have done nothing wrong, Master Ferda. Not at present, at least."

"Then why are you protesting through my food?"

To his indignation, Luri was the one who grew angry.

"You are truly too much. My mistress went to all the trouble of making this for you, and you speak of it that way."

"Your mistress?"

Luri had only one mistress, and Ferda knew her very well.

"Lady Valdrova made this herself."

"Valdrova..."

At those words, the object before him began to look different. This was a fried egg cooked by Valdrova's lovely hands.

"My fiancée... seems to have an extraordinary talent for alchemy."

But it was a disaster beyond even love's power to excuse. After all, Luri herself had persisted in calling it a thing, never food.

"... Have you tried it?"

"You don't need to taste something to tell shit from soybean paste. Why would I eat it?"

"What about Her Highness?"

"Naturally, she has no idea. She doesn't even understand the concept of tasting food to check the seasoning."

"In other words, I'm the only one who suffers."

"Everyone is happy."

Was that a blessing, then?

Ferda gave the fried egg a tentative poke. When he broke the fluorescent, wobbling yolk—or what had once been a yolk—the smell trapped inside wafted out.

Infused within it was her warm affection for Ferda.

And Luri's shouts.

["Hold the frying pan properly. You cannot support it well with that grip."]

["Add some oil. Just a little... A little more... No, not that much... Let's serve him a deep-fried egg instead of a fried egg."]

["Sprinkle on just a little salt. About a pinch... No, if you pour it in like that... It's fine. I'm not the one eating it, after all."]

["My lady! Do you know how many eggs you have used? A hundred, my lady! If we sent every hen a letter of condolence for the pointless sacrifice of her sons, we would empty the treasury!"]

No, that last one was a bit much. Someone like Penelope would say something like that.

"You need not eat it if you don't want to."

Ferda looked up at Luri, his face bright with a ray of hope. Before he could ask if that was really all right, she directed his gaze elsewhere with a glance.

He followed her gaze to the door. There, a cute creature with fearsome horns sat crouched, staring intently at him. The excitement behind that mask resonated with his heart.

Wait, was this really excitement?

It felt rather like the tension of suddenly coming face-to-face with an assassin, so he couldn't be sure.