Chapter 35
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: Beneath the Candle Workshop
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The outskirts of the Duke's domain.
A man stepped into a quiet candle workshop.
As he familiarly pushed open the door, a thick fragrance spilled out into the street.
Inside, rows of candlesticks and wicks of varying shapes from his work stood in neat order.
"Hmmm... hmmm."
The man set the front door key on the workbench and stretched.
As if to savor the scent,
he lit a small incense candle on the far left.
But he showed no interest in its aroma, quickly turning his gaze elsewhere and lighting another incense candle with practiced ease.
A regular pattern.
When he finally lit the thick central incense candle,
drurrrruck...
the stone wall filled with candles split open, revealing a new underground space. He had lit the incense to unlock this hidden chamber.
What need was there for a secret space in a mere candle workshop?
A private studio free from prying eyes?
Yet the stairs descending into darkness felt far too ominous for that.
As if hiding something sinister.
Step by step.
The man descended the spiral staircase.
At the bottom, the underground chamber came into view.
What in the world was this place?
The first thing that caught the eye was a row of candelabras stretching out on either side, like outstretched wings.
Up to that point, it could pass for a warehouse, but beyond the candelabras, things grew strange.
Stained glass windows in vivid colors, as if to beguile the human eye, and statues and altars venerating someone.
This was a chapel.
And there were people who looked like congregants...
At a glance, they seemed ordinary, but all were dead.
In other words, they were the man's masterpieces, elevated to art through his injected poisons.
"Haa..."
Beautiful. Isn't it magnificent!
The man inhaled the fragrance of his creations as he walked along the central carpet.
"It was truly bizarre. Why did the plan to kill the princess fail...? It was a plan that couldn't possibly fail."
Though no one was around, he murmured as if speaking to someone.
"Yes, there must have been some reason. We thought the princess had hidden a power we couldn't foresee. There was no other possibility."
The man took a step forward. Like a congregant come to pray, he sat on one of the long pews.
"But we didn't take it too seriously! We just moved to the next plan. So for Plan B, I put the Duke into eternal slumber. Another foolproof scheme...!"
The man grinned in disbelief.
"Those idiots would never realize it was my handiwork, yet even that was seen through. I thought it was the princess, but no... it wasn't. How did they know I poisoned the Duke?"
The man's gaze turned forward.
There, unlike the candle workshop above, stood the statue of a demon clutching a human in its hand and crushing it.
An altar venerating an ancient demon that must not be seen or heard.
This was a chapel dedicated to an evil god.
But the man wasn't staring at the demon statue. His eyes fixed on the shadowed throne beneath it. And the space before the throne gradually brightened.
On the altar before the throne,
a flame sparked to life in the candelabrum shaped like a great tree.
Beyond that candlelight, the shadow seated on the throne revealed itself.
Deyan.
He held a torn paper to the candle flame.
Gazing at the burning paper, Deyan spoke.
"It smells just like the candle left in the Duke's study. Remarkable, such a foul stench is rare."
The man curled his lips at Deyan's voice.
"Oh...? Is that so? Don't just spit out the answer—tell me in detail. How did you make it all the way here?"
"You'll know if you live as the Duke. Poisoning starts with observation."
Deyan casually lifted the paper, now burned to ash.
"Among them, the Duke's greatest love was books. That's when I started mimicking a bookworm. I entered the Duke's study and opened a book. From there, I became the Duke. Lost in reading... until suddenly, the shadow from the book interrupted. I—no, the Duke—looked up, and darkness had fallen outside the window. Would he stop? Not at all... To finish the book, the Duke lit a candle."
Sssshiiiik...!
Something flashed from Deyan's fingertip.
A spark—it was a spark he had shot, igniting the wicks of the wing-like candelabras.
The spark embedded in the wall and stopped moving.
Its true nature was a flying dagger.
The paper attached to its ring burned to ash and vanished.
"He lights the candle, unaware it's the poison that will kill him."
The tool that poisoned the Duke.
Not the book, but the candle. The Duke loved books.
Poisoning the books would eventually fell him, but evidence would remain in the study.
But with a slight shift in thinking, there's a way to leave no trace.
Candles are essential for reading.
Unlike books, the Duke always used the same ones, and once lit, they melt away, erasing all evidence.
Even if wax remains, servants dispose of spent candles.
No one would find a trace.
The man's body gradually hunched.
Was it because his poison had been seen through?
Was he afraid?
"Kuhhuhuhu!"
Laughter echoed.
Unable to hold it back, the man's body shook.
"Chilling insight...! I have no choice but to praise you. Perfect deduction! But there was one mistake."
The man lifted his head, his face twisted in madness.
"You shouldn't have come here alone."
The owner of the candle workshop.
Nemet crumpled his glasses.
His eerie grayish-white eyes twisted grotesquely.
"One correction."
"...?"
Deyan smiled at Nemet.
"One of me is enough."
"What?"
The poison master Nemet doubted his ears.
Enough?
Who against whom?
No one would dare utter such arrogance to him.
A fleeting absurdity passed.
"Hahahahaha!!"
Nemet's laughter boomed through the chapel, as if it might bring the place down.
What a ridiculous boy!
One of me is enough?
Nemet clapped.
His body convulsed grotesquely. But... his claps grew faster.
Thud... thud... thud... thud!
Each clap shook the chapel.
Like dark clouds descending, a terrifying aura filled the air.
"You're still a child after all! Yes, you can think that way."
Even with Deyan in his lair, Nemet sat back down with utter composure.
Crossing his legs like an interviewer.
"Indeed, I acknowledge it! You're a student who grasped the intent of my art!"
Nemet praised his art. His face brimmed with ecstasy.
His body thrilled with rapture.
More than his poison being unraveled, the thrill came from someone appreciating his art!
"Magnificent... magnificent!!"
Nemet let out a cheer.
As if ready to whistle.
"Wasn't it magnificent? Watching the Duke's household dance in my palm? Poison is most beautiful when the victim never suspects!"
That was Nemet's standard for art.
He was utterly different from those who handled poison crudely.
Poison becomes a masterpiece only when it mocks the victim to the end!
"And the one who saw through it is the third son of Pador, whom Ian begged me to ruin. How thrilling..."
Nemet licked his lips.
The Duke was his masterpiece.
Even thinking back, it thrilled him.
Watching Duke Christopher live on, oblivious to his poisoning!
After the Duke fell asleep, delighting in the panicking retainers.
Watching a work complete is the essence of art.
And the one who recognized that masterpiece was another of his creations?
Ecstasy. Pure ecstasy.
"Haa..."
Still, one regrettable point.
If he had known the culprit, he never should have come alone.
A poison master capable of such subtlety would have a hideout designed with utmost precision—didn't he consider that?
Nemet was a perfect artist, but Deyan had failed as a perfect audience.
"What a pity. Ah, no, no. Actually, it's better. Imperfection is the void in art. Filling it is art too!"
Nemet wrapped his arms around himself in bliss.
"Third son of Pador, do you know?"
"...?"
"You thought one of you was enough..."
Nemet clicked his tongue.
"But you're already wrong. Let me teach you! You're already poisoned."
"Poisoned...?"
Nemet rose from his seat, face alight like a professor giving a sermon.
"This is my poison domain—a fatal place for outsiders. Just entering douses you in toxin. Moreover..."
Nemet spread his arms wide and inhaled deeply.
"It's poison on another level from what felled the Duke. Only I in all the world can antidote it!"
"Ah...? Is that so?"
But Deyan responded indifferently, lost in thought.
"Foolish child. Dealing with you alone is child's play! Even if the entire Duke's house came."
Nemet elegantly extended his hand.
"They'd be beneath my art."
Nemet could kill the boy right now.
He could erase him without a trace in one move if he wished.
But why?
'Such a precious gem.'
Not only had he escaped his poison unknowingly, he even uncovered that he was the one who poisoned the Duke.
This wasn't mere raw talent.
It was the brilliance and insight that pierced through even after being poisoned and broken by him.
The child possessed everything most vital to a poison master.
'What to do with him?'
Tempting.
But Ian Pador cared about this boy?
He'd rage like fire if he learned the boy had antidoted his poison.
Still.
Wasn't it too wasteful?
'Shall I raise him?'
He's young, and poisoned or not, he could antidote him!
A disciple—make him his disciple. Fool Ian's eyes too.
This boy could surpass him and unfold divine art!
Nemet eyed Deyan with a strange glint.
"Let me make one proposal."
"A proposal... It won't be funny, but I'll hear it."
"Become my disciple! I'll spare you. And that's not all?"
Nemet glanced at his masterpieces beneath the demonic statue with its lolling tongue.
"I'll give you everything. I'm serious. Become my heir and unfold divine art!"
The iron rule of the Evil Society: kill any outsider who learns of their activities.
Yet Deyan tempted him enough to break it.
It meant nothing to him anyway.
Demon or whatever, all faded before the pinnacle of poison.
He'd joined the Evil Society to approach divine art in the first place.
And here was a boy to share that path.
The Evil Society...
'No, I can hide it well.'
The Society's members were formidable even without him—he just needed to act the part.
'Worst case, bring him into the Society too?'
But in truth.
Deyan sat motionless upon receiving the proposal.
Assessing the situation?
With that brilliant mind, he'd surely grasp the truth.
"It's unprecedented, but so be it. Understanding art is a blessing. I'll let you walk my path!"
"I have a question."
"Ask away. I'll answer anything!"
"Did you make all these people here like this?"
Deyan's gaze swept the chapel.
Figures frozen like statues.
A choir with mouths agape in rapture, people praying in pews.
Priests reading scriptures, assisted by acolytes.
All seemed ordinary, but in truth, victims of Nemet's poison.
They had stiffened like taxidermied beasts in an exhibition.
"Of course, all my works. They were human. No, they were once human. For mortals denied eternity, I granted them forever praying to the evil god!"
"I see. As expected."
"Well? Now do you grasp my artistic sense?!"
"I thought a poison master might show some mercy."
Deyan leveled a chilling gaze.
"I've decided. You'll suffer eternally."
Nemet's brow twitched.
What confidence was this?
The boy needed education. Let him marinate in poison, realize his frailty, and he'd follow.
"It's not confidence—it's arrogance."
"Not arrogance. The seat you're in, and the one I'm in."
Deyan smirked without moving a foot.
"These are the right seats."
Clap.
Nemet clapped.
Shwaaaaak...!
In an instant, tentacles burst from the demon statue, lunging to tear into Deyan.
Speed beyond reaction.
The venomous fangs already aimed for their prey.
"If only you'd listened quietly!"
His body torn by venomous appendages—holes everywhere, blood flowing.
He brought it on himself.
Not fully intact, but no choice.
If he sought that Evil Society executive, he could be revived—stitched back if even a breath remained.
That one had the skill to save anything breathing.
For the insolent, show true art, then...
"Hm?"
Something was off. The venomous tails thrashed wildly since earlier?
That wasn't predator behavior.
'Like desperately wagging tails to survive...'
The venomous creatures shrank one by one. Soon, their heads burst, leaving not even hides on the floor.
And Deyan emerged.
In that moment... a shiver ran through Nemet.
Himself, cornered on an endless black cliff.
And atop it, watching him fall—the boy.
Deyan's colossal pupils.
'Me... like this!!'
Nemet bristled at being overwhelmed by the enemy's spirit.
His toxic aura spread through the chapel.
This level of energy.
The Duke's knights might notice, but it didn't matter.
Plan change. Kill the boy, then everyone in the domain...!
As Nemet unleashed murderous intent.
"Is that all?"
A disappointed voice whispered in his ear.
"See? I told you. One of me is enough."
Deyan gazed down at Nemet steadily.