For You 80

#80

“Are you alright?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that…”

The knight didn’t ask further and cut his words short. He knew well that expressing his opinion here would only make Kuatrin more uncomfortable. In fact, him speaking up first was already presumptuous.

Fortunately, Kuatrin didn’t take issue with the knight’s question itself. Kuatrin smiled briefly and looked ahead. The long, well-stretched corridor seemed to unfold just for him. How many winding paths had he walked to be able to walk this road?

He couldn’t be completely certain that everything would work out as he wanted, but so far, things were flowing according to Kuatrin’s wishes. It was almost as if someone was helping him from an unseen place.

“I know what you want to say. It was a good opportunity. I could have finished everything today.”

The face of the boy who had tightly gripped Persis’s collar came to mind. Indeed, he was the Duke’s son. His steady posture without the slightest tremor, regardless of who was around, overlapped with the image of the Duke who had always stood in the way of what Kuatrin had planned to do.

Had he felt some kind of premonition? Or was it just a momentary impulse from the boy? Whatever it was, the fact that he had blocked Kuatrin remained unchanged.

If Persis had followed along, everything could have been handled very easily. It was regrettable, but opportunities would arise again in the future.

“It’s alright. Even if not today, I can deal with my dear brother anytime.”

Persis had never been intimidated in front of Kuatrin since childhood. The young prince beloved by everyone. A life clearly different from Kuatrin’s, who had lived under evaluation and pressure from birth.

Despite having everything, he coveted even the things Kuatrin had built up through effort. Previously, Kuatrin had let it slide, thinking it was excessive greed, but gradually, it had become a thorn in his eye. Of course, it would have been nice to remove the thorn that was Persis today, but once matters were properly settled, dealing with him wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

As they entered the temple, several priests rushed to greet Kuatrin. Greeting them, Kuatrin walked toward the place where the person responsible for the black pillar that had risen earlier was located.

Heading to the very center of the temple, a huge gaping hole became visible. Below it, people were busily moving to clear the debris of the collapsed building. And in the middle of it, there was someone whose body was tightly wrapped with various sacred objects made in the temple.

Even from a distance, Kuatrin recognized that face and smiled brightly. The figure wrapped tightly in sacred objects was someone he had been seeing since childhood. ‘He,’ who had been keeping his eyes closed in a large tank, now looked up at Kuatrin with sharp eyes.

* * *

It had been a long time since I visited the Duke’s study. Even when I visited Persis at the palace as a child, I rarely visited the Duke’s study. The Duke often held meetings with other nobles in his study, so there was enough space for all of us to sit.

As soon as we entered the study, Kara seated us as if it were her own room and began preparing tea for us to drink. Although she probably hadn’t visited the Duke’s study much, Kara skillfully prepared tea and placed it in front of us, like someone who had worked in this study for a long time. What couldn’t Kara do? Once again, I thought she was truly remarkable.

Rikin kept glancing at Iria, perhaps still surprised by her identity that he had just discovered. Unable to bear his gaze any longer, Iria clicked her tongue briefly and spoke.

“Senior, staring won’t make a hole.”

“Ah, sorry. Um, I mean, I apologize.”

“It’s fine. If you suddenly start using formal speech, I’ll feel awkward. In this country, I’m just Iria.”

Hearing Iria speak like that, Rikin said he understood and backed off. Anyone else would have treated Iria with respect, but Rikin was someone who used informal speech with Persis in private settings.

“Were you very surprised?”

Iria asked me in a concerned voice. If I hadn’t known her identity, my mind would have been spinning with both the incident that had happened to me and Iria’s identity, but fortunately, I knew everything about Iria. I could confidently say I knew Iria’s circumstances more thoroughly than anyone else present here.

“It’s fine. Iria must have had her own circumstances.”

There was no need for her to explain those circumstances to me specifically. Although I had grown closer to Iria, I hadn’t become close enough to know everything about her. It was Persis’s role, not mine, to listen to Iria’s story.

So I said it was fine, but somehow Iria’s face seemed to darken a bit. Seeing that expression made my heart sink as if it were my fault. I tried to think of what to say, but I couldn’t come up with a way to lift her spirits. I couldn’t even understand why she was upset in the first place.

I wanted to cheer her up somehow, but at this moment, I couldn’t prioritize Iria. Although it bothered me greatly that I had to leave Iria be, there was something I needed to ask first.

I looked at the Duke, who had remained silent since entering the study. I couldn’t ask about the sword in front of Iria, Rikin, or Persis. More precisely, I wanted to articulate what I had suspected, but I wasn’t sure if I should share that information with them.

While I was conflicted, the Duke, who had been quiet, opened his mouth.

“Your Highness Persis, what do you think is causing what’s happening at the temple?”

At his question, Persis looked toward the window. Beyond that window was the temple where we had to turn back earlier.

Sensing that the situation was turning unusual, Iria and Rikin subtly tried to rise from their seats.

“We’ll step out for a moment…”

“It’s alright. I’d like to hear about this incident from a fresh perspective as well. In that sense, Princess, how do you view this matter?”

The Duke threw a question at Iria before even hearing Persis’s answer. It was as if he was testing to see how much they had figured out. In a way, the Duke, like Kuatrin, was treating Iria as beneath him. Even for a Duke, asking for opinions in such a probing manner from a princess of another country was a breach of etiquette.

Nevertheless, Iria didn’t take issue with the Duke’s behavior. Rather, as if deciding to express her opinion without reservation, she raised her head straight and spoke with a dignified face.

“It must be related to demons. From any perspective, it seems the imperial family of this country has joined hands with demons.”

I wanted to shout that it wasn’t true right away. That’s not it. I thought so too until just now, but that wasn’t it.

The voice that whispered “It’s okay” to me still lingered in my mind. It wasn’t the usual feeling, but it was definitely the sword that had been with me from childhood until now. Fearing I might be overwhelmed by emotions again, I gently placed the sword I was holding on the floor. It felt like something terrible would happen if I lost my reason here.

“Joined hands… Then, Your Highness Persis, what do you think?”

The Duke passed the baton to Persis once more. Persis, who had been quietly observing the situation, slowly opened his mouth.

“The imperial family must be using demons.”

I never expected Persis to say that. Rikin, who was sitting beside him, also seemed shocked, as he looked back and forth between Persis and Iria, seemingly deliberating whether he should stop him.

Whether Rikin was concerned or not, Persis didn’t stop there and continued to speak.

“I can guess how they did it.”

The Duke silently listened, as if waiting for Persis to reveal what he had figured out. In the past, I would have prevented him from revealing all this to the Duke, but the Duke wasn’t involved in this incident. That’s not to say the Duke had absolutely nothing to do with this incident. It meant that, unlike in the original work, the Duke wasn’t the direct perpetrator of this incident.

“I visited the temple’s underground when I was young.”

A massive tank, someone inside it. They seemed to be in a deep sleep, or maybe floating around lifelessly. And I knew well who ‘he’ was.

“There was a demon there.”

The voice that had dwelled in this sword, he was a demon.

Although I knew it, it felt strange to definitively label him as a demon.

“It must be the demon that the Duke claimed to have defeated.”

The demon defeated by the Duke. The demon inside the sword. The demon who hadn’t awakened in the temple’s underground. They were all the same person.

The Duke, who had been quietly listening to all this, turned his gaze and met my eyes. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but somehow it felt like he was deeply contemplating something. The Duke closed his eyes for a very brief moment, then opened them and spoke while looking at Persis.

“I need to retrieve that demon.”

As the Duke uttered those words, the study was enveloped in a suffocating silence. Even in the silence that felt like it was choking us, the Duke spoke out what he intended to say until the end.

“Will you help me?”