Chapter 177
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 177
Of course, since we had smuggled the real Gabriel out, it would be Rico standing on the altar. When I voiced my concern, the Duke simply shook his head.
"If it's Bishop Marik, she'll choose you."
Both Gabriel and the Duke seemed absolutely certain that I would be the sacrifice. The Duke stared at my face for a long moment, as if baffled that I didn't understand why, before finally speaking.
"...Because you resemble Leah."
"Leah?"
That Leah? The one who rebelled against the Sun Goddess, only to be betrayed by the founding king? The original sacrifice? But I looked exactly like Amaranth. Did that mean Amaranth resembled Leah as well?
But the Duke would never say anything that might insult Amaranth.
"Those red eyes of yours. They say Leah had the exact same shade of crimson. Even after she was beheaded, her resentment was so immense that anyone who met her wide-open gaze supposedly choked and died on the spot."
So it wasn't my face the Duke found similar to Leah's, but my eyes.
...Ah. Come to think of it, the Amaranth in my memories didn't have red eyes like mine. Hers were amber, just like the Duke's.
Now that I thought about it, Count Rohanson's eyes were plain black. So where did Evangeline's red eyes come from? Don't tell me she really was an illegitimate child, as I'd always suspected...
"This is the first time I've heard that Leah had red eyes."
In truth, I had only first heard of Leah when we started discussing the Festival of Sacrifice. The Sun Goddess's presence in this world was simply too overwhelming. I'd been told that Leah was now treated as something far more wicked than a mere evil deity and that she was the sole reason heretics were so deeply loathed.
The Duke nodded in agreement and added, "The fact that Leah had red eyes isn't widely known."
"How do you know that, Grandfather?"
"That is... Ah. Didn't the people of House Rohanson ask me to find them a place of refuge? Let's discuss that now."
Clearly uncomfortable, the Duke deliberately changed the subject. He spread a map across his cluttered desk.
"Since it seems they're planning something for the Festival of Sacrifice, it would be safest to evacuate them beforehand."
The Duke rambled on, pointing to a corner of the map. His finger rested on a spot where a rough sketch had been drawn, apparently an addition he'd made himself.
"It isn't marked on any map, which only makes it safer. It lies on the edge of the forest, which carries some risk, but their safety will be guaranteed if the Pararos Knights accompany them."
Apparently, there was a small village deep in the forest, just past the duchy's borders. It was a remote frontier, barely considered part of the duchy at all. The Duke tapped the spot again.
I lowered my gaze to commit the location to memory but otherwise stared at him in silence. Eventually, the Duke sighed in defeat and finally revealed how he knew the color of Leah's eyes.
"Because I heard it from someone who saw Leah with their own eyes."
Saw Leah with their own eyes? How? Leah died centuries ago. Was he just referring to some historical record he'd read?
The Duke buried his face in his hands. It was the same gesture he always made when avoiding something he didn't want to face. He rubbed his face with both hands, as if suffocating under an invisible weight, before finally turning to look at me.
"...Are you planning to meet with Agera?"
"Lady Agera?"
The Duke nodded. I had asked about Leah, and now he was suddenly bringing up Agera. Was he trying to dodge the question again?
"You asked about Amaranth. As you know, I was a flawed father and don't know much about her. You'll learn far more from Agera than from me—about Amaranth, and about Leah's red eyes."
Ah. I was starting to see the connection. It wasn't as if Agera had just stumbled upon some random sorcery to summon a demon.
If the demon Agera summoned was influenced by Leah, then Agera—who knew the summoning circle—would naturally know more about Leah as well.
Had she learned about Leah from the demon she summoned? If this was tied to Agera's past sins, it made perfect sense why the Duke was so reluctant to even speak Leah's name.
"Very well. I'll go see her."
I nodded, promising to pay Agera a visit.
Besides, Agera had only just regained her memories. Since there was no telling when her mind might slip away again, this was the perfect time to ask everything I wanted to know.
The Duke seemed to agree. I left him to his heavy sighs, took the map, and stepped out of his office.
* * *
There was no time like the present. With the Festival of Sacrifice threatening to throw everything into chaos, I knew this was my only window of free time. I went straight to see Agera.
I found Agera being tended to with the utmost care by her maids.
"Could you... leave us alone for a moment?"
"Yes, Milady."
Since I was the one Agera wished to speak with in private, the maids bowed and left the room without hesitation.
"Canna, could you take Pudding and wait outside?"
Canna, who had accompanied me, picked up Pudding and stepped out. Pudding, in his cat form, dangled limply in her arms. He glared back at me with a rebellious look, clearly unhappy about leaving me alone with Agera.
"What a truly adorable cat."
Agera offered a gentle smile. Instead of laughing brightly and loudly as she used to, she merely curled the corners of her lips—a flawless display of aristocratic poise.
Her voice was no longer bright and bubbly like a naive young girl's. True to the saying that spouses grow to resemble one another, she was solemn and weighed down by some heavy burden. In that, she was the spitting image of the Duke.
I gave her a small bow. It was jarring to see her maintain her distance instead of rushing forward to embrace me while crying Amaranth's name. Agera seemed to find it equally awkward.
"This is our first proper meeting. You are Evangeline, correct?"
"I am Evangeline Rohanson, Lady Agera."
It felt as though I was meeting the real Agera for the first time. Not a single trace of her former, childlike innocence remained. Though I knew this signified her recovery, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret.
"I heard you call Julian 'Grandfather.' Won't you call me 'Grandmother' as well...?"
Perhaps feeling a similar sense of loss, she asked the question with tentative care.
The only reason I called the Duke "Grandfather" was to get under his skin, since he loathed acknowledging me as his granddaughter—not because I actually saw him as family.
"Well, you kept calling me your daughter. It would have been strange to call you Grandmother."
I blurted it out without thinking, then winced. I had taken my lingering resentment toward the Duke out on the wrong person. I hadn't meant to sound so cold, but the words had slipped out with a sharp edge.
Had the Duke been here, he probably would have flown into a rage, barking about how a mere estranged granddaughter dared to upset his wife. Then again, maybe not anymore.
"I'm sorry. That was shameless of me..."
"But since you remember who I am now, I suppose it doesn't matter if I call you Grandmother from now on."
Seeing a shadow of despair cross her face, I quickly cut in.
"Right, Grandmother?"
I offered a playful smile, and her lips twitched in response. At the very least, our first proper introduction had gone smoothly.
I had already conquered the Duke, whose difficulty level was practically off the charts. Winning over Agera would be a walk in the park. Compared to her husband, she was a tutorial boss.
"Would you like some tea?"
"No, thank you."
She must have offered out of habit from our regular tea times. When I flatly declined, a brief flash of disappointment crossed her face before she quickly composed herself. She masked her regret with an incredibly warm gaze, despite my rejection.
"I heard you went through a great deal of trouble because of this old woman. It couldn't have been easy, humoring someone who had lost her mind."
The Duke must have given her a brief summary of what had happened. In that case, it should be fine to ask. I had so many questions.
"Grandfather told me you had much to tell me, Grandmother. He said you could tell me more about my mother than he ever could. And about my eyes, too."
"Julian told you all of that...?"
"We had a deal. He promised to tell me about my mother in exchange for me getting rid of the rat. Since he passed that duty on to you, I'll have to hear it from you instead."
When I explained that the Duke had essentially passed the buck to her, Agera's eyes widened in surprise before she let out a soft chuckle.
"It seems he trusts you deeply."
I decided not to mention that this "trust" was built on a foundation of contracts, threats, violence, and gaslighting.
The Duke would never admit to his wife that he'd thrown a wine glass at me in a fit of rage, and I had no desire to confess that I'd gaslit him in return. Since we both kept our mouths shut, Agera would never learn that our "trust" was forged in the fires of mutual hostility.
"Have you regained all of your memories?"
"Yes..."
Agera clasped her hands together tightly, hiding them from view. It was the gesture of someone trying to conceal a shameful part of themselves. She seemed to vividly remember everything, right down to the moment she had summoned the demon to make her wish.
"Even the part where you summoned a demon?"
The smile vanished from Agera's face. She gave a heavy, painful nod.
"To my shame, yes... I assume Julian told you why I dabbled in sorcery?"
"Yes. I heard the gist of it from Grandfather and Rico."
Agera's eyes traced my features. Based on my experience dealing with her, I knew that look—she was searching for Amaranth in my face.
"...You look so much like Amaranth. Truly, her spitting image. No wonder my foolish, broken self mistook you for her..."
Of course. How could she let go of the daughter she had loved so desperately that she'd summoned a demon just to see her again? Agera's eyes were still thick with regret.
"I just wanted to see her face again. My greatest regret is that I failed to be a proper parent before she died. It was that desperate longing that led me to make a wish to the demon."
I understood her motives. What I wanted to know was how she had learned of this sorcery, how she knew the color of Leah's eyes, and what the deal was with the summoning circle from Amaranth's diary.
But as impatient as I was, I wasn't so heartless as to ruthlessly interrogate someone who had only just recovered her sanity.
Or perhaps the habit of treating her gently during her illness had stuck with me, leading to this uncharacteristic consideration.
"Evangeline, do you know what is required to summon a demon?"
"A summoning circle and a sacrifice."
Although I hadn't been able to read the annotations on the summoning circle in Amaranth's diary, recalling what had happened to Donau and at the birthday banquet, a summoning circle and a sacrifice were indeed the key components. Agera nodded and elaborated.
"Yes. A summoning circle drawn with your own blood, a sacrifice entirely innocent of your desire, and a powerful, burning wish. Only when you offer all of these with absolute desperation can you summon a demon."
So there were more conditions than just a circle and a sacrifice. An innocent sacrifice... Naturally, my mind jumped to the Festival of Sacrifice. How ironic that a ritual hosted by the temple to honor the Sun Goddess mirrored the exact process of summoning a demon.
"Did you offer a sacrifice as well, Grandmother?"
Had she used an innocent person to grant her own selfish wish? I felt a sudden knot of discomfort in my stomach.
The demon she summoned had burned down the Rohanson mansion and possessed the residents of the Duke's estate. While Agera had unwittingly been the catalyst, those disasters weren't directly her fault. But if she had actively sacrificed an innocent person to achieve her goal, that was a sin she would have to bear.
"Yes. I missed Amaranth so terribly... I simply couldn't accept that my child was no longer in this world."
If she had really sacrificed someone, I would never be able to look at her the same way again. I kept my mouth shut, waiting in tense silence for her answer.
Agera gazed at me with deep, sorrowful intensity. Perhaps seeing Amaranth in me once more, she continued, tears welling in her eyes.
"I offered myself as the sacrifice."