Puhak!
Sigh!
Water splashed everywhere. Hasdeja, who was looking into a bowl filled with water, was suddenly struck by a thunderbolt of water.
“Damn it.”
He became human again and had the face of Saint Malik. Fingers as smooth as his sleek appearance ran through his wet hair. Hasdeja grumbled, baring his gums.
“It’s not that easy.”
Hasdeja jerked his body back. Then a chair appeared from somewhere and supported his butt. Hasdeya, sinking into the soft backrest, looked helplessly at his ceiling. The ceiling was strange. There was not a ceiling, but a black pit. Unknown letters and patterns were wriggling along the boundary between the pit and the wall like living insects. Hasdeya looked at this without thinking, and a bug-like wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. Although he had the youthful appearance of a young man, there were times when Hasdeja could not tell his age based on his facial expressions.
“It’s almost unbelievable.”
Perfect! Hasdeya struck the middle and index fingers in the air and made a sound.
“Did you call me?”
After a while, someone entered. He was wearing a priest’s uniform. However, the style was slightly different from the priest’s uniform of the Temple of Harios. When his plan through the Temple of Harios failed and his nest was in danger of being exposed, Hasdeya abandoned the Temple of Harios without any hesitation. And he nested again in another temple. Controlling the priests was easy. Most people were more blind than other humans, so they thought he was their god at the slightest hint.
As Decan guessed, Hasdeya had space limitations. Unless he was in a space where the power of the demon world was summoned and confined through a barrier, he could not maintain his human form or use his magic power at will. Once the barrier was escaped, the demon’s appearance was completely revealed. In order to become Malik again, there was the hassle of having to find a safe nest and set up the barrier again from the beginning. In any case, for that reason, Hasdeya decided to be cautious about destroying the nest she had worked so hard to choose from now on. Malik’s knights were also made to wear priestly uniforms. Unless Bahamut was a fool, he would have realized that he was using the Malik Knights. He had to erase not only himself but also traces of Malik’s knights.
“Is it true that you asked me to find out then?”
“I have told you everything that my eyes and ears have seen and heard, saint.”
“Hmm… Didn’t you say that you lived in the temple without knowing anything? He did what his parents told him to do and locked him in a room so he couldn’t see anything.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“But why are you so lively?”
Pot!
As Hasdeja frowned, the water droplets that had scattered in all directions bounced back. Malik’s knight, hit by a drop of water, contorted his face in pain.
“You already know how to handle power. If what you said is true, does that make sense?”
“How presumptuous, saint… The temple of Dell’arta where he stayed was completely changed. It is said that the new king of Dell’arta, who took the crown through treason, wanted to take the temple into his hands. Anyone who remembered the temple’s former appearance disappeared without even a rat or a bird knowing. Not many could open their mouths.”
“Oh, I’m going crazy. There are evil people like me on earth?”
Hasdeya laughed as if it were absurd. He never thought there would be a person who would kill all the priests in the temple. Although the purpose was different, the disappearance of the temple was the same. Even though he was a demon, he found it fascinating how humans could not believe in a single god.
“I guess I’ll have to look at my face soon… Anyway, was there anything else? Anything is fine, so squeeze your brain out. I’m missing something.”
“Saint. I have already told you everything I know.”
“Damn it, don’t make me say the same thing again! That’s not enough, so come up with something more! Since you went all the way there, you must have seen something!”
“…Ugh, that’s…”
Malik’s knight rolled his eyes with a pale face. Within the barrier, Saint Malik was a being who gave infinite power. Through Saint Malik, they opened the forgotten doors of ancient magic. With his power, he was able to travel from here to the edge of the continent called the Kingdom of Dellarta in an instant. He could burn a village down, or he could drown all the villagers to death. That enormous power inevitably instilled fear and obedience in people’s minds. Malik’s knight was loyal to him until death, but he knew that he could twist his neck and kill him at any moment. He had to choose his answer carefully.
“Well, that woman…”
There were not many people who really knew about the woman that Saint Malik was obsessed with. One could only guess that she was one of the prophet’s dream keepers. There were two or three dream keepers by the prophet’s side, all dressed in similar clothes and with veils covering their faces. He found the smallest clue that one of them had long black hair like the Empress Cartagena. Inside the main temple, there was a place called the Prophet’s Room. It was like a prison without any windows. It felt like the temple desperately hid the prophet for fear that someone would steal it. However, since the rebellion occurred, the Great Hall has not made any prophecies. He wondered if the new king had killed the prophet and silenced him. The dream keeper with black hair also became unknown.
“I heard you acted as a dream keeper… It appears that the temple was cleaned by the new king and disappeared along with it.”
Malik’s knight desperately squeezed out his words. But this was said long ago.
“Do I have one ear? So, do you think that if you say the same thing twice, you will understand it the same way as a human?”
“Oh, no, that’s… that is… Oh, maybe she’s a prophetess! Well, you said you don’t know exactly who the prophet is…!”
“Prophet… what?”
Hadeyasu’s eyes turned into sharp blades.
“Prophet? Didn’t the dreamkeeper say something?”
“Yes, yes. It was like that. A prophet must have foresight, so not just anyone can do it, right? So, I assumed that she would naturally be a dreamkeeper, but when I thought about it, why couldn’t she become a prophetess of Dell’arta just because she was born in Eliaden…?”
“What?”
Grasp!
Water droplets splashed everywhere.
“Ahh!”
Water droplets splashed and Malik’s knight rolled around on the floor, holding his face. Hasdeya stood up from the chair and walked towards the knight. Hasdeja’s foot stepped on the knight.
“Aaaah!”
“Hey, it’s noisy. Shut up. A prophet?”
“…ugg!”
The knight covered his mouth with his hand and nodded as if he were about to die.
“Damn it. Then it’s a completely different story!”
“Ugh! Sigh!”
The screams that could not be properly heard sounded even more painful. Hadeyasu kicked the knight as he pleased. It was a light action, like a joke, rather than an expression of anger. So it was even more scary.
“Do you think the Prophet can do anything? Looking at the dream keeper, I guess the town dreams of prophecy. Doesn’t she know from her tiny little head that that woman was her shaman? Some crazy god gives divine power to humans who use magic or something. And yet she said she was acting as a prophetess. What does that mean, huh?”
Knock, knock!
“Well, I don’t even know who that woman is… Just do as you tell me… Turn it off!”
But Hasdeya was not speaking to Malik’s knight. It was like he was taking out his anger on him and talking to himself.
“She, she is that damn human female, she has made herself her prophet. Why? She can dream… She used her power to see her past through dreams, acting as her prophet at an age she didn’t even know how old she was. So she’s like, damn it, she’s probably survived this long. You wouldn’t dare treat a prophet poorly in a temple. Ha, you’re so clever, really.”
Pow!
“Please, please have mercy… Bwak!”
“Do you understand now? That woman, she is a human who has already forgotten how to use magic. Why is she using my power to attack me? Damn it, you’re saying you’re born with it!”
Puck!
“…Tsk…”
Malik’s knight revealed the whites of his unfocused eyes. It’s dead. Hasdeya glanced into those eyes but did not stop kicking.
“It’s because you didn’t tell me. Would I have done this if she had said from the beginning that she was a prophet?”
Still, Hasdeya’s anger did not seem to subside, and he lowered his head and screamed into the knight’s ear.
“You did it! …ah. I lost it, really.”
Hasdeja clicked his tongue and snapped his fingers in the air.
Grumble!
A sudden flame engulfed his body. Hasdeya muttered slowly as she watched the flames reduce the corpse to ash.
“I can’t leave it any longer… If your strength grows, it will be difficult.”
The flames that had swallowed up a corpse burned fiercely for a while, as if they were hungry.
* * *
Knock, knock.
The bathroom door rang. Lasilia was startled and turned her head. The whirlpool had long since disappeared. So it wasn’t a big deal. Yvette must have brought a towel.
“Come in.”
“…Is that okay?”
But it was not Yvette, but the emperor.
“Your majesty?”
Lasilia looked at the closed door. Rather than feeling absurd, her first thought was why did he appear at such a moment?
“The princess said she needed to take a towel, so I intercepted it. I hope you don’t get angry.”
“…So, are you saying you want to take my bath now?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Sure?”
“Because time is precious.”
“…”
So, what she meant was that she came to the Empress’s palace after finishing her work day and that Lasilia was taking a bath. She didn’t feel like waiting for that time, so she took her towel and came to the bathroom.
“If you tell me not to come in, I will stay here. But don’t tell her to go… Wouldn’t it be good to have a conversation? With a door in between.”
“…Is there any reason for that to be good?”
“Because it’s something I’ve never done with you.”
“…?”
“So it’s a good thing for me.”
“…”
As always, the emperor had a knack for taking away what he had to say.
“It’s okay if it’s just conversation.”
He said he wouldn’t come in, but it was difficult to stop him any further. Moreover, after realizing that she was a companion, Lasilia was quickly becoming desensitized to the emperor’s strange behavior. She knew he wasn’t usually the type of person with strange or incomprehensible quirks. When he became unreasonable, it was only to himself. Perhaps the demon’s instinct for a companion was unreasonable from a human’s perspective.
“Then.”
The answer came back as if it were somehow enjoyable. This was followed by the sound of the emperor rustling and sitting down in front of the door. Lasilia, sitting in her bathtub, unconsciously moved her head closer to the door.
“But there’s something I’d like to ask.”
Lescal spoke to me as if he were sitting next to me on the couch.
“What are you curious about?”
“Did the mark come back?”
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
If you like my work please support me with Ko-fi or Patreon. Next post will be released on May, 19.
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