Chapter 172
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 172
That was why he sneered.
By not letting his mother’s apology occupy even a corner of his heart—or rather, by convincing himself that he hadn't—Ferdinand believed that no one could ever hurt him again.
When he was young, he had always mocked and ridiculed others, looking down on everyone who dared to view him as a "pitiful child."
Or at least, he had tried to look down on them.
What Ferdinand hadn't realized was that he was slowly crumbling.
On the day he heard Olivia’s apology, everything had completely collapsed. He had been far too young to recognize that his heart was being torn into irreparable shreds.
Now that he was old enough to vaguely sense those countless scars, what did any of it matter?
It didn't matter at all.
It was all useless.
Ferdinand gave a blunt greeting to the Emperor, who was coughing incessantly, and headed toward the Crown Prince’s Palace.
“Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”
“We greet Your Highness.”
Upon his return, he had purged the servants of the Crown Prince’s Palace. He had intentionally left a few spies planted by the Empress, but even their attitudes had changed. They trembled, unable to even meet his eyes.
Ferdinand didn't give them a single glance. His destination was none other than the palace storehouse.
It was a massive warehouse where precious tributes were kept. Once empty, it was now overflowing with treasures.
However, what he kept in the innermost section was…
Hundreds of crystal bottles filled with dyes.
Not a single color overlapped.
“…”
Ferdinand pressed the cold back of his hand against his badly swollen cheek.
Once the Triumphal Ceremony was fully over, his engagement to Sophia Frezier would end. The Annulment Decree had already been drafted. Since it was issued because Sophia had insulted the Crown Prince to his face, neither the Emperor nor the Empress could reverse it.
However.
Ferdinand wanted power.
The kind of power that would allow him to kick aside Dave—Tulia Frezier’s first dance partner—and declare the annulment on the spot without needing to mention decrees to Sophia Frezier.
He had realized it today when he was slapped.
Despite returning with immense military achievements, he was still nothing more than a monster or a cripple in their eyes.
He needed more power.
The power to possess whatever he desired.
The hundreds of colors shimmering under the crystal lights were tens of thousands of times more ethereal than staring blankly at the night sky while on sentry duty.
Late that night.
“Has the Crown Prince’s fever subsided at all?”
“No. If anything, it’s rising.”
The lights in the Crown Prince’s Palace did not go out. Numerous servants, including the imperial physician on duty, moved busily. The master of the palace, Ferdinand, had suddenly been seized by a high fever.
The priests who always remained by Ferdinand’s side stared at the firmly closed bedroom door with worried faces.
* * *
“That damn mutt actually did something useful.”
Grand Duke Asis Frezier spoke as he scanned the interrogation room with heavy eyes.
This interrogation room was located quite a distance from the Grand Ducal Castle. It was a specially designed space, an underground chamber built deep beneath the earth. Because one had to navigate a complex route to reach it, very few people even knew of its existence.
Asis Frezier was not alone. His eldest son and Tulia’s father, Marquis Aster Frezier, was with him.
Aster asked, wondering if he had misheard his father’s murmur.
“Did you just say ‘mutt’?”
“Yes. A mutt.”
He was referring to Klaus, the Prince of Lupinus Kingdom—the descendant of Rocheva who had screamed that he would die if he wasn't glued to Tulia’s side, only to suddenly transform into a small dog.
The Grand Duke and the Marquis shifted their gaze forward in unison.
These were the mysterious heretic priests who had been performing human sacrifices when Tulia went to find the White Tulip seeds. Tulia had ordered three of them to be kept alive, and her loyal subordinates had followed her command faithfully.
Their tongues had been bound so they couldn't commit suicide, and they had been moved to this underground interrogation room under the Grand Duke’s orders.
The interrogation had been long, and the torture brutal. Two had eventually died, unable to endure it, leaving only one survivor.
However, they had managed to extract almost all the information they could.
Asis muttered, “I’ll have to increase the number of soldiers throughout the Grand Duchy. We must strengthen public order and security, making the protection of children under the age of fifteen our top priority.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
These fanatics had been kidnapping only children under fifteen to offer them to their god, ‘Animus.’ They claimed the reason they performed the sacrifice in the cave of the Belus Territory was that they had received a divine revelation.
Since they were fanatics, their eyes were half-crazed, making it hard to tell if they were telling the truth. Then again, because they were fanatics, it was unlikely they would lie in the name of their god. Furthermore, all three had been interrogated separately, and their answers had matched perfectly.
“So, what did your god promise to give you?”
The fanatic, whose limbs were already reduced to a pulp, hung limp and silent.
Asis stroked his chin and asked, “This continent already has a god it worships. Even if your god truly exists, it must be nothing more than a mere monster right now. No matter how much you worship it, wouldn't it take ten thousand years for it to finally become a god?”
Asis remembered something his wife had once told him. Even a lowly creature, if worshipped long enough, would eventually gain the power of a god. She had said such a belief existed on the Summer Continent.
It was a question he threw out on a whim, recalling those words.
“What would ignorant fools like you know?”
To his surprise, those words seemed to strike a nerve. The fanatic’s deathly eyes rolled back, emitting an eerie light.
“To think you live clutching the shell of a god that has already lost its power! You trivial, ignorant, pitiful things! When Animus truly descends, he shall chew your flesh and swallow your blood!”
“Your Grace.”
His son’s voice broke Asis’s train of thought.
“It seems this fellow can still speak. May I ask one more thing?”
“Do as you wish.”
As soon as he received permission, Marquis Aster gestured to his subordinate. Once the unconscious fanatic was jolted awake, the Marquis asked, “If you needed sacrifices, you should have done it on your Summer Continent. Why commit such acts on the Spring Continent?”
In an instant, Asis’s eyes flashed with keen interest. It was a point he hadn't considered. Klaus had already confirmed that these people were definitely from the Summer Continent.
“You… the Summer Continent?”
However.
“Spring Continent… Summer Continent… what else? Autumn and Winter? No matter how much you divide and rank them… the Spring Continent will end up the same anyway…”
The heretic, who was on the verge of death after being forced to drink nearly twenty bottles of truth serum, let out a hollow, unfocused laugh.
“Stupid fools… It’s nothing but a Ruined Continent anyway…”
At those words, Asis’s expression turned sharp.
‘A woman from a Ruined Continent.’
He remembered Tulia mentioning that she had heard the heretics say those words in the cave.
But further interrogation was impossible. The heretic began to foam at the mouth and lost consciousness immediately. It was a side effect of the truth serum. Shortly after, his breath stopped entirely.
“Your Grace.”
Marquis Aster stood up and turned to the Grand Duke.
“It seems this isn't something that will only happen in the Belus Territory or the Grand Duchy. There are children all over the continent.”
“Indeed. If they want to kidnap them for human sacrifice, they can do it anywhere.”
“Then we must first inform the Emperor, and also…”
Asis frowned slightly.
“Inevitably, we must inform the Temple as well. Only the Temple can devise a means to protect the entire Spring Continent.”
“Yes.”
No matter how much it was for security or protection, what monarch would welcome the knights and soldiers of another country roaming their lands? It was a task that would never be accepted by anyone other than the Holy Knights of the Temple.
They needed to send word to the Imperial Palace and the Grand Temple, and also compile the details of this incident into a secret official document. Since they didn't want to involve their granddaughter unnecessarily, they would manipulate the report to say Marquis Aster had discovered the cave instead…
Just as the father and son were about to leave, thinking of their respective tasks.
Marquis Aster came to a dead stop.
It wasn't a quiet halt; it was an unnatural freeze, like a galloping horse suddenly slamming on its brakes.
“What is it?”
“…Please wait a moment, Your Grace.”
“…?”
Marquis Aster immediately approached the dead heretic. He didn't just stand at a distance to inspect him as before; he moved in close, as if intending to touch the body.
The subordinates standing guard around them moved in confusion, but the Grand Duke raised a hand to stop them.
Marquis Aster grabbed the heretic’s jaw roughly with his gloved hand. Blood soaked the black leather and dripped down, but he didn't care at all.
In a flash.
Aster’s other hand reached for the hair near the crown of the heretic’s head and yanked it out violently. It was a ruthless display of strength, like a farmer pulling a radish from a field.
He didn't pull from just anywhere. It was the very center of the head.
The hair, torn out by the Marquis’s grip, fell to the floor in clumps.
“…?”
And there, revealed on the heretic’s scalp…
“…!”
Marquis Aster’s eyes widened. He unconsciously gritted his teeth.