“I know you’re curious about the story of Delight and the Empress, but please wait a bit longer.”
Hiel began recounting how he went to an underground auction house, only to find the building already collapsing.
First, he had to treat his enemy, a fellow kin.
“Ugh…”
“Are you starting to come around?”
“……..”
“You’re in pretty bad shape. What happened?”
His body was so battered that the term ‘ragged’ would fit perfectly.
Yet, thanks to him being a strong wolf beastman, he was able to recover this much.
“Everyone else who was with you is probably dead.”
“……..”
He lay there, staring weakly at the ceiling. Hiel had no intention of just watching him in that state.
“Now that you’re conscious, start talking. What exactly have you been up to?”
“…….”
“Are you going to keep hiding things even after all this?”
“You don’t need to know.”
After staying silent, that was all he had to say.
He was still treating Hiel with disregard.
This after all the trouble Hiel went through to save him.
Smack!
Hiel gave him a solid slap on the back of his head.
“Radon, you bastard! Then you shouldn’t have survived thanks to me!”
“Who asked you to save me!”
“Hey! Have you forgotten? You were the one clinging to my pants and refusing to let go. Isn’t that the same as asking for help?”
“…I didn’t know it was you.”
“It’s because it was me that you clung on, asking to be saved. Stop with the pride now.”
Just stating the facts gave Hiel a satisfying jab.
This actually feels quite refreshing.
With a smirk, Hiel looked away.
In fact, ever since he first saw Radon there, he’d had suspicions.
“Were you working at the underground auction?”
“………”
There was always only one answer silence could imply.
“Are you out of your mind?! How could you stoop to working in a place like that!”
“Who said I was serving them!”
“That’s exactly what you were doing! What’s the difference?”
Hiel’s eyes turned cold. He hadn’t expected things to have degraded this far.
Radon, avoiding Hiel’s contemptuous gaze, muttered defensively.
“We simply made a deal.”
“…A deal?”
“We needed a safe place for the wolf tribe to live, and they needed our strength. It was just an exchange of necessities.”
There were so few beastmen left that they were practically on the verge of extinction.
With their numbers dwindling, no matter how strong an individual beastman was, it wasn’t easy to protect the group.
To them, it was an inevitable compromise.
“But we ended up getting played by their filthy schemes.”
“Schemes? What do you mean by that?”
With clenched teeth, Radon fell silent, as if he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
“There’s no point in hiding it now.”
Hiel was determined to get the truth out of him no matter what.
***
“That night, what we saw was pure chaos.”
“Yes. It was certainly chaos.”
Late at night, Delight and Zaire were having a quiet meeting alone.
Ever since they had returned, they hadn’t had a chance to sort through everything because of the flood of incidents.
That night, Delight and Zaire had successfully entered the underground auction house in disguise.
The trouble began when one of the wolf beastmen guarding the auction recognized Delight.
Wolf beastmen were physically superior, making them difficult to defeat in a direct confrontation. But simply relying on physical strength wasn’t enough to overcome Delight.
Just as Delight was about to end the fight to prevent the situation from escalating, the beastmen, feeling threatened, suddenly began losing control and went berserk due to the excessive force they were using.
It all happened in an instant.
When one beastman started going berserk, the others followed suit simultaneously.
The building’s collapse began from that point.
“I’ve never heard of beastmen going berserk before.”
“There must have been some other cause.”
Perhaps that was the very reason the beastmen were guarding the underground auction.
They didn’t get the chance to directly verify the counterfeit magic stones at the auction house.
But what was even more troubling was the strange frenzy among the beastmen.
“It just leaves a filthy feeling.”
Recalling the scene, Delight’s face twisted with anger as he muttered under his breath.
“Zaire, what was the first thought that crossed your mind when you saw that frenzy?”
“…It was Your Majesty.”
It seemed Zaire had thought the same.
The mana outbursts that had tormented Delight all this time.
The beastmen may have experienced a physical frenzy instead of a mana one, but the symptoms were almost identical.
Uncontrollable aggression, and losing the ability to distinguish even the enemy before them.
“It must be related somehow.”
***
“So, even the beastmen were experimented on?”
“Yes. Those idiots agreed to the experiment, thinking it was just a deal.”
Just thinking about it seemed to make Hiel boil with rage.
Even as he spoke, he was fuming.
“If we can find out more from that guy, it might help with Delight’s condition too.”
“His name was Radon, right? Take good care of him. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I don’t need your help to treat that scoundrel. He deserves a bit of suffering.”
Hiel spoke sharply, cutting off any further discussion.
“Oh, right. I’ve heard there’s someone who helps people escape from the underground auction.”
“Who is it?”
“The problem is, no one knows. They say it’s an organization that operates in total secrecy.”
Hiel explained that he hadn’t been able to find out more because he returned to inform me of the situation.
“I’ve sent someone there instead. Once we find this person and question them, we can learn more about what’s been happening at the underground auction.”
“Yeah, I hope we find them.”
It was because of the magic tool hidden in the hairpin that led them to the underground auction.
Unexpected events had occurred there.
And at the end of it all, the Empress’s sudden appearance.
“Hiel, do you know much about Empress Blueny?”
“I’ve only seen her a few times, but yes, I know a bit.”
Hiel nodded as he spoke.
“What kind of person was Empress Blueny? And what was her relationship with Delight like?”
The moment I first saw Empress Blueny, I realized how little I knew about her.
All I knew was that she had married Delight due to an alliance, divorced him when the alliance fell apart, and returned upon discovering she was pregnant with me.
Until now, I hadn’t been curious because she was essentially a person no longer part of this world.
However, as it turned out, she hadn’t died, and now that she had reappeared, it was necessary to understand who she was in the past to compare her with who she had become now.
“Hmm.”
In response to my question, Hiel rolled his eyes, lost in thought, before speaking.
“Delight disliked Lord Luciel, so he rarely came to the palace, and so I didn’t see her often, but the most memorable thing was…”
Hiel began recalling memories from the past.
“The Empress was someone who wouldn’t back down even in front of a maniacally changed Delight.”
“She didn’t back down?”
“She was quite determined and very stubborn, too. I once saw her scolding Delight.”
“…Really?”
“Yes. Delight was so flustered that he backed down. She didn’t seem afraid of him at all. So, I commented that she matched him well, and Delight got so mad that I was kicked out.”
“..……”
Just hearing about it painted a pretty vivid picture.
“To be honest, I also thought they made a decent pair.”
“You did?”
“But there was no point if they just fought and hated each other every time they met.”
Hiel remarked as if it didn’t matter what others thought.
The version of the Empress that Hiel described felt like a completely different person from the one I’d seen today.
“She’s definitely different.”
“What is Empress Blueny like now?”
As I muttered to myself, Hiel asked.
“The Empress is said to have lost her memory, right?”
“You knew?”
“I mentioned that you might need the information I brought.”
Hiel flashed a sly grin.
“I found Delight in a remote village near the border. And guess what, Empress Blueny was there with him.”
Hiel explained that he was so surprised back then that he wondered if he was dreaming.
“I was delayed because I had to ask the villagers about Empress Blueny.”
He continued, noting that his inquiries yielded some useful information.
“She first arrived in that village about four years ago and has always claimed to have no memory.”
At least this meant it wasn’t some hastily concocted lie.
“And Empress Blueny has an incredibly good reputation in that village.”
“What kind of reputation?”
“They say she’s bright, cheerful, and full of laughter.”
“….….”
“She sounds completely different from the Empress I described, doesn’t she?”
Hiel continued as if he understood the meaning behind my reaction.
“Whether the current Empress Blueny is her true self or not is unclear, but one thing is certain.”
“Yes. Empress Blueny has been living a life completely opposite to her past, in a memory-lost state.”
I understood what Hiel was trying to convey.
Delight likely already knew this as well.
Even though everything seemed absurd, it made sense why Delight believed in the Empress’s presence and brought her back.
“But if she’s been pretending with a purpose for all these years?”
In that case, Empress Blueny’s existence would indeed be a significant danger.
