Chapter 267 : Chapter 267
Chapter 267 : Watchdog (4)
"Augh! This is too gloomy! Bring a brighter color!"
At Philinus II's furious command, the servants moved busily.
The reason he was making such a fuss from early morning was because of the message that had arrived from Adeline just last night.
'Adel has finally opened her heart to me!'
Philinus II did not know how many times he had reread the letter brought by her servant—no, Henry, the administrator and strategist of Conwell. The paper was practically worn to shreds.
'Asking to meet me first. Is this a dream or reality?'
He tightly embraced the letter, which he held preciously with both hands, against his chest. His nostrils flared continuously from the uncontrollable excitement.
"Ah, how wonderful. The entire world is the color of pink flower petals."
Then, his eyes narrowed again. He did not like the new clothes the servant had brought at all.
"Blast it! At such a momentous time, where on earth did the palace official go that he hasn't even shown his face?!"
"F-Forgive me, Your Majesty. The Chief Attendant's illness grew severe last night, so he briefly stepped away from his post—"
"Oh, my, my? Look at him slacking off. What a grand master we have here. Anyone watching would think he's handling all the state affairs by himself. Even though the ones actually suffering are the administration officials who are working their fingers to the bone preparing for the coronation!"
"F-Forgive m—"
"Forgive, forgive, forgive! 'F-Forgive me, Your Majesty'...... Is that the only thing you know how to say? Get out of my sight this instant. I don't even want to look at you."
The servant retreated with hurried steps. Philinus II took deep breaths repeatedly. Still, since it was a rare good day, his anger subsided quickly.
Having barely managed to choose his formal attire one way or another, Philinus II hummed as he walked to the meeting place. The place where he was to meet Adeline was the arboretum within the royal castle.
Step.
Joel, who was waiting at the entrance, offered a polite bow. Philinus II smiled with satisfaction at his upright demeanor.
"Oh, what was your name again......"
"I am called Joel, Your Majesty. I am a lowly person who has not yet been bestowed a surname."
"Right, Joel. But how is it that your appearance is more handsome and noble than the young masters of most families? Your eyes look very sharp."
"It is merely an honor to serve you."
"Ahem, yes. Let us go."
Joel led the way. Two guards escorted Philinus II, who followed closely behind.
As they went deeper inside, Henry, who was waiting alone, greeted them.
"Ah, aren't you Adel's servant?! Why are you loitering here alone? Instead of serving your master by her side."
Assuming they were both commoners of equal status, in terms of official rank alone, Henry could be considered higher in the hierarchy than Joel.
However, such public hierarchies among underlings were of no concern to Philinus II. To him, the yardstick for judging a person prioritized appearance above all else.
"My master gave strict orders that she wished to remain alone the entire time. She also requested that when she receives Your Majesty, it be strictly in private, without any disturbance from others."
Henry replied slyly. At that, Philinus II stared blankly behind him. Then, with a mere flick of his chin, he ordered the guards to leave.
"There, satisfied? Lead the way at once."
Henry bowed deeply and turned around. Before he did, a glance was exchanged with Joel.
"Oh, Adel......!"
Philinus II, who was stepping inside, let out an exclamation of awe.
Adeline stood alone on the bank of a lake nestled deep within the arboretum.
The small lake was adorned with glowing magic tools and splendid decorations illuminating the water's surface, creating a seductive atmosphere even in broad daylight, as if the Milky Way of the night sky had been transposed onto the earth. Standing within that brilliant aura of light, Adeline was truly unrealistically beautiful.
"Have you arrived, Your Majesty?"
"I-I am sorry! I seem to have made you w-wait, ha, haha......!"
"Not at all. Since I spent a rather pleasant time recalling old memories after a long while."
Philinus II blinked. Adeline's subsequent words echoed in his mind like a sweet auditory hallucination.
'The time spent waiting for me...... was pleasant?'
Philinus II swallowed hard. His racing heart felt as if it would burst right out of his throat.
"Looking around the arboretum, I truly realize how much time has passed once again. This place, along with my mother, Princess Isabel, was the only sanctuary for me."
Fine cracks slowly began to form in the pink delusions drifting in his mind. When he snapped back to his senses, Adeline was already walking quite a distance ahead along the path that followed the lake bank.
Philinus II quickly caught up and laughed awkwardly.
"Ah, I-I see. Somehow I feel like I remember it too—"
"Whenever cold slander and persecution choked us, my mother and I would always hide behind these trees."
Philinus II flinched. For a moment, he almost hiccuped.
Stopping her steps, Adeline slowly turned sideways. She gently caressed a thick, roughly cracked ancient tree.
"These trees are just as they used to be. Even through the harsh years, they silently keep their places and seem to welcome me."
Adeline lifted her head and slowly scanned the surroundings. She murmured quietly.
"But the scenery surrounding them has truly changed beyond recognition. To think that the forest of the Academy, which used to be so rough, has become such a splendid and luxurious royal promenade......"
"Uh, yeah? R-Right? I bring in the finest architects in this Kingdom every year and pay very special attention to it."
Adeline let out a small, mocking chuckle at his boastful voice. Her gaze passed over the magic tools embedded here and there and landed on Philinus II's distorted face.
"A promenade where living, breathing life has been reduced to a background for dead decorations. Doesn't this landscape, where the cart has been put before the horse, resemble something quite a lot?"
"……Uh, what? What did you just—"
"I have come to desire to expose all the ugly roots buried beneath this beautiful landscaping. How about you, Your Majesty?"
Philinus II's pout grew increasingly prominent.
He was quicker than anyone when it came to reading the room. It did not take long for him to realize that Adeline was openly mocking his legitimacy as the king.
"Adeline. Hearing this makes me highly displeased. Are you seriously still holding onto those past events in your heart? Your mother's matter is an issue that our fathers already completely settled long ago!"
Philinus II's words did not stop there. Instead, he raised his voice as if he were the one wronged.
"Let us drop the stale past. Now we must draw the future together. Did We not explicitly declare that We would heal your painful memories?!"
If the opponent had been anyone other than Adeline, he would have immediately charged them with lèse-majesté and punished them severely, but Philinus II decided to be generous and endure it. Rather than mercy, it was a sense of leeway.
Philinus II snorted.
"Well, I shall call it a cute rebellion. But by the way, so what? What can you do here, Adel? This is not Conwell. You have already been brought to this Imperial Capital by my hand, and the master of this Imperial Capital is me. And above all else!"
Philinus II twitched one eyebrow.
"Bihen Benkou is dead."
"……"
"There is no longer a mad dog to fight for you. Do you still not grasp reality?"
Step, step.
Adeline strode toward Philinus II. Her expressionless face, revealing not a single emotion, was chilling.
Overwhelmed by her aura, Philinus II clumsily stepped backward.
"The one who does not grasp reality is you, Your Majesty."
"What? I have listened to enough of this......! No matter if it is you, I will not tolerate any more climbing over me—"
"The more anxious you are to possess me, Your Majesty, paradoxically, it only proves my legitimacy to the entire world. It is tantamount to announcing to all nations that a fake is trying to fill its deficiency by keeping the real deal by its side."
Philinus II's pupils trembled unpredictably. His head grew increasingly hot as he tried to process it.
"Did you believe that my staying cooped up inside the palace ever since I came to the Imperial Capital was solely due to the sense of loss from losing Bihen Benkou?"
"……U-Uh, was it not?"
One corner of Adeline's mouth curled upward. Philinus II flinched and shuddered.
"Rumors tend to grow fat diligently when the party involved remains silent. I was merely waiting quietly for the sympathy toward me and the suspicion toward you, Your Majesty, to swell even larger."
Adeline withdrew her face, which she had leaned in close, and turned around composedly. Her voice became noticeably lighter.
"Before coming here, I sent word to Conwell in advance. I instructed them that if I am harmed in the Imperial Capital or isolated due to a forced marriage, they must immediately designate the Imperial Capital as an 'enemy of Conwell' and rally the entire East."
"……! T-That is right now, don't tell me, treason—"
"Treason? How can you utter such profanity, Your Majesty? Nothing has happened."
Adeline added quietly.
"Not yet."
Philinus II's face flushed crimson. He wanted to shout and press her right this instant, but because his mind had become entangled like a messy skein of thread, he could not even organize his thoughts to refute her.
'……She had not given up on everything?'
And for good reason—was she not practically a hostage brought here without a single troop under her command?
To put it bluntly, it was a fact that he felt as if he owned the entire world just because he held the Duke of Conwell—whose power was said to be mightier than the king's—in his hands.
He felt completely blindsided.
'W-What on earth has she been scheming all this time?'
Philinus II raised his head and looked at Adeline. Her already cold impression looked even colder. It felt like facing a massive wall of ice.
Tremble, tremble.
The fear and anger that had surged in an instant subsided quickly. Above all else, the disappointment of having his sweet excitement and anticipation crumble into ruins was far too immense. He simply hated everything.
"I-I shall take my leave now."
Philinus II turned around with his shoulders slumped.
Adeline watched his receding back with an emotionless gaze.
To be honest, in her heart, she wanted to stop him and hold him back right away.
'Bihen Benkou is not a man who would lose his life to such a shallow trick.'
She desperately wanted to say those words, but...
"Huu......"
She endured it. Exhaling a deep sigh made it a bit better.
'Get a grip. I must not ruin things by getting emotional.'
She had walked into the lion's mouth on her own two feet. She resolved that to bear the fruit she longed for, she must not rush, but endure and endure until the opportunity was ripe.
'No matter how foolish he is, he must be sufficiently intimidated by this point.'
Today's conversation was not a mere mockery, but a sort of declaration of war. It was meant to psychologically pressure Philinus II, clouding his judgment and forcing him to narrow his own radius of action.
Now it was time to move to the next step.
'I will become the focal point of the anti-Zisair faction.'
Looking at it from the inside, the situation and dynamics of the Imperial Capital were grasped all at once. In this place, one had to walk on eggshells around Zisair just to breathe.
In that case, she just needed to become their breathing hole. Like this arboretum, which held the only fresh air in the royal palace reeking of foul odor.
'What tears down the walls of Aleos is not Bihen's sword. It is the very small crack that I will cause from right here.'
There was no change to this policy.
***
Zisair's office.
Zisair and Batz were each engrossed in their own work, sitting at the executive desk and the sofa respectively. It was natural, as if ignoring each other despite being in the same space was the obvious thing to do.
"What kind of person do you think the Duke of Conwell is?"
Zisair spoke without warning. His eyes remained fixed on his documents. Of course, the content had absolutely nothing to do with the Duke of Conwell.
"Well. Aside from having a pretty face, there is nothing about her that catches my interest."
Batz replied half-heartedly to the sudden question. He focused solely on grooming his fingernails.
"Befitting the woman whom that Bihen Benkou harbored affection for, she is a highly terrifying and cold-headed person. An iron lady, one might say."
Only then did Batz lift his eyes to look at Zisair. However, it did not last long. He blew on his fingernails as he answered.
"She certainly did not look soft. But what can she really do? It is just a matter of time anyway."
After finishing his sentence, Batz paused and eventually turned his body completely around to sit. His expression showed that he felt he might as well say it since the topic had come up.
"They say Conwell is the leader of the entire East. If a full-scale war breaks out, won't the board end too easily? I question whether the Imperial Capital can even withstand that momentum."
"That might be so."
Zisair replied dryly, still without taking his eyes off the documents.
At that, Batz raised one corner of his mouth as if trying to provoke him.
"Perhaps the Duke of Conwell will usurp the throne without shedding a single drop of blood."
At those words, Zisair finally raised his head and stared at Batz. Soon, a snort escaped from the tip of his nose.
"Usurping...... Entertaining."
The childish king is relieved merely by the fact that his powerful enemy is within his sight. His attitude is that since he kept her within arm's reach, what kind of major disaster could possibly happen?
"In the first place, the Duke of Conwell does not even consider the king an 'enemy.'"
"Because he is such an incompetent fool? Even so, would she really let her guard down like that when she has the nemesis of her lifetime right nearby? Especially when she is practically trapped all alone in the middle of enemy territory."
Zisair shook his head quietly. His eyes narrowed with a strange amusement.
"A watchdog."
"Hmm?"
"Because to the Duke of Conwell, the king is likely nothing more than a dog that was guarding the house while the master was away."
Batz blinked and soon shrugged his shoulders. Still, a son of a bitch, really?
'Well, it does not seem like an entirely incorrect analogy.'
Batz interlocked his fingers and stretched both hands forward. The popping sound emerging from his joints sounded pleasant. His eyes closed on their own from the fatigue.
"So, what do you plan to do now? As for me, I will perform a sword dance as ordered. But shouldn't you moderately create a faction for the king so that the board doesn't tilt too far to one side, allowing the war to last long?"
"Well, perhaps we might have to choose the next best option."
"The next best option?"
Batz turned his head. In an instant, his eyes widened slightly.
Zisair's face had returned to his true form before anyone realized. The ghostly pale visage that could not even be distinguished as male or female, which Batz had seen when they first met.
Resting his chin on his hand, he was staring intently down at the stolen crown placed on the desk. His eyes gazing at the thorn-studded golden crown were endlessly hollow.
"……That was truly bizarre. As expected, the name Crown of Suffering suits it well."
"The true name of this object is not that."
"Did it have a separate true name?"
"……Asriel."
"Asriel? Hmph, for a holy relic, it sounds exactly like a person's name."
Zisair smiled faintly.
"Because it was named after the person who created it."
He did not bother to add the fact that it was himself.
Silence descended over that stark white face, completely devoid of any human warmth.