#54
“But I’m a bit curious what business you had with that vermin.”
Though his voice was light and playful, Marcus’s pupils were sharp like ice.
He was someone who knew better than anyone how many things the ripples from a single word could drag up.
A being with no ability and no presence, just ‘used because it exists.’
That was how the half-demons perceived Ersen.
He was an excluded target among them, unable to draw out any emotion or judgment.
Treatment as merely a name that existed unavoidably because it had been incorporated into someone’s plan.
Rico furrowed his brow, recalling that perception again. He didn’t want to be misunderstood even.
That single word from Marcus was tantamount to suspecting the entire half-demons’ aims, and that suspicion came in like a blade from an unexpectedly precise and unforeseen direction.
Rico tried not to show emotion, but it was difficult to stop the slight trembling of his facial muscles.
When Rico didn’t even answer and glanced at Isabella, Marcus’s smile deepened.
The flow of gazes was a clue in itself.
Even without speaking, pupils don’t lie.
Marcus didn’t miss Rico’s gaze.
The moment he looked at Isabella, Marcus made another confirmation in his heart.
The half-demons’ perception of Ersen was still vermin.
‘A being with possible utility but no value worthy of respect.’
They regarded him that way, and that view hadn’t changed for a long time.
‘Though I don’t see anyone expressing it as openly as that elder. Hmm.’
Elder Hascal.
He was the one who most blatantly despised Ersen within the half-demons and regarded his very existence as treason.
He wasn’t visible at today’s ball.
However, Marcus knew that those including Rico weren’t much different from Hascal’s position either.
This seemed to almost confirm that Ersen wasn’t close to the existing vested interest forces among the half-demons.
That was a meaningful harvest for Marcus.
At least today’s incident wasn’t direct planning from within the half-demons,
And if so, it meant Isabella and the half-demons had simply moved simultaneously for different purposes.
While Marcus carefully reviewed the information he’d gained today, Rico hesitated for a moment.
Whether to step forward or retreat as is—Rico fell into a brief silence, unable to make a judgment.
Their operation had been planned, but now it was full of variables.
He couldn’t know if it would be alright to approach the young lady like this.
Lady Marsien was still frozen somewhere, not moving from her spot.
The nobles’ gazes were directed toward her, and those gazes were closer to wariness or suspicion rather than goodwill.
The moment they approached her, it was obvious that the entire half-demons’ intentions would be put on the chopping block again.
“Please don’t make strange misunderstandings. We have nothing to do with the accident that happened today.”
Rico’s tone was firm, and there was a clear sign of trying to appear forcibly calm.
Even knowing that Marcus had already spread suspicion, he was trying to draw a line somehow.
“Who said anything about misunderstanding?”
Marcus let his words trail off lightly.
That tone was as if to say ‘rather, there’s no need to mention what I know better.’
“There’s no way we’d scheme such a vicious thing. Isn’t that right? When we came to congratulate.”
There was no smile at the end of his words, and it sounded like dialogue that flowed out mechanically somewhere.
The meaning was clear, but how the listener would accept it was another matter.
“Well, that’s true. People who came to congratulate wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Marcus grinned.
The confirmation was over now.
Even without probing further, he had gathered enough of what was needed.
What remained was only the real direction he needed to extend his intentions.
Marcus finally grinned.
His shoulders dropped just a little.
However, that wasn’t tension being released, but a small preview for shifting his gaze.
His gaze was already directed somewhere other than them.
A completely different direction from the target he had been talking to.
His pupils moved to the far side of the venue, to the position where gazes gathered least.
“So there’s only one thing left.”
Though his voice was still low and gentle, it carried a different quality of concentration than before.
At the end of that gaze stood Lady Marsien with a pale expression.
She was standing quietly with her lips pressed shut, almost as if holding her breath.
Her skin was pale, and her hands were trembling finely.
Yet the fact that she was holding her position was more impressive.
“Wow, when did you catch such a big fish again? But the management seems a bit poor?”
This was a clear declaration.
Marcus was already certain that the intention to harm Ersen lay with Isabella,
And now he was deliberately conveying that fact in his voice.
Damn it.
Rico’s fingers tightened the edge of the cloak he was gripping.
Rico, who had his information stolen again, grimaced.
* * *
‘Why did I do that?’
Isabella thought as she slowly swallowed the blood pooled in her mouth.
The metallic scent of blood seeped down her throat, and its lingering taste circled thinly on the tip of her tongue.
The blood she swallowed left heavy pain deep in her chest.
The inside of her ribs ached subtly, and the trembling of mana due to magical recoil was gradually disturbing her center.
‘There was no need to do this now.’
Her gaze slowly flowed through the ballroom.
People’s gazes were still complex, and an appropriate sense of distance had formed around her.
Someone had their lips tightly shut, someone passed by glancing at her with anxious pupils.
An attitude as if they had instinctively sensed that she was at the center of it, though they didn’t know what had happened.
She slowly steadied her breathing.
Even breathing in made the inside of her chest ache dully.
Every time she took a deep breath, she felt something strangely catching somewhere below her ribs.
When mana sweeps through once and then withdraws, the remaining residual traces stay in the body like ripples.
The inside of her chest was sore due to using magic impulsively and excessively.
That wasn’t simple muscle pain.
Black magic was connected deep into the nervous system, and if moved even slightly excessively, the recoil returned in a way that touched internal organs and bones.
Isabella knew that feeling well.
Nevertheless, she had activated magic earlier like a beast unable to suppress its impulses.
Logi poison had great recoil even when handling very small amounts. Now she wouldn’t be able to use black magic properly for the next four days……
She already knew this.
She was someone who accurately understood her abilities and limitations, and could grasp when she would overexert herself instinctively.
However, earlier she had been swept up in an unintended flow.
‘For a moment, nothing came into view except the Second Prince.’
A non-rational impulse arose that she had to kill that thing, or use it to the bone marrow.
Emotions are always variables.
But no matter how impulsive she was, something was different about earlier.
‘But what part exactly? Just because I saw the Second Prince, that vermin-like bastard, just because murderous intent surged toward him, would such abnormalities occur?’
She couldn’t understand it.
But.
‘It’s fine.’
As if cutting off the sensation of fatigue trying to rush in, she pulled herself together with a short, firm inner voice.
She wiped the sweat beaded on her forehead with the back of her hand and lowered her gaze.
Sweat had seeped into the silk gloves wrapping her dress, but she didn’t mind.
Letting others discover her weak appearance was close to a suicidal act in the middle of the ballroom.
Though she was aware that she had been impulsive, she decided to pass it off as if it were nothing.
It was a method she had grown accustomed to for a long time.
Acknowledge mistakes, but don’t carry them deep into the heart.
She was always skilled at making short-term strategies, and considered emotions unhelpful to those strategies.
It was the same now.
It wasn’t such a big accident anyway.
People might have sensed that something had happened, but there would be no one who knew the specific reality.
There had been commotion, but Isabella’s attitude of maintaining an unshaken center was effective in calming the situation.
The traces of black magic had already been erased with magic circles, and Logi poison was also an intangible poison that couldn’t be identified with the naked eye.
‘Since no one died.’
They were alive in the end, weren’t they?
Her logic was simple.
The fact that ultimately no one had died was sufficient grounds to justify her actions.
A kind of justification she granted herself like an indulgence.
Unless Second Prince Ersen suffered from mana depletion syndrome, there was a high possibility he would pass by without even knowing it was poison.
Information about black magic wasn’t shared except among high-ranking half-demons.
It was difficult to diagnose Logi with general detoxification magic or physicians’ techniques.
She was calculating even that.
Though the Crown Prince had also left his seat, the only victim was just the half-demon mixed-blood vermin prince.
Mixed-blood.
Vermin.
In Isabella’s heart, those words were settled like cold certainty.
The perception that even if he wore the shell of royalty, his essence was a being with dirty and impure blood.
Even the fact that he was a victim somehow seemed ridiculous.
‘They’ll just pass it over as if nothing happened.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
