Chapter 161 : Chapter 161
Chapter 161: Kingdom-Toppling Beauty (1)
I changed into the clothes that Kurt's maids brought and returned to the room where my companions were gathered.
“…!”
Seeing me return, all my companions showed a reaction of being startled.
They must have been newly amazed by my beauty upon seeing a completely different look from the usual, I thought.
“…A d-dress?”
Oh, a lavish dress covered in frills was not something one would typically wear during a journey.
Of course it would be new.
“How is it?”
Feeling good as I sensed everyone's 'attention' focused on me, I subtly swished my airy skirt hem as if showing it off.
“Does it suit me?”
“I-It suits you very well, Bin!”
Miki, who sprang up from his seat, immediately clapped his hands, clap-clap, offering praise befitting my beauty.
“Bin, you truly can pull off any outfit!”
“Huhu, right?”
Of course, it was a rhetorical question for which I already knew the answer and didn't need to hear, but hearing it directly still felt better.
As expected, Miki's reactions always knew how to make a person feel good.
On the other hand, Lily, who was sitting next to such a Miki, didn't say anything, but the look on her face as she swallowed gulp without taking her eyes off me was already a sufficient answer to my question.
Perhaps, if I didn't have an 'appointment' a little later, she might have carefully been touching her head... No, she was already touching it.
“You truly are…”
Toric trailed off, as if unsure what to say.
He was an 'old man' after all.
To be blunt, he was somewhat 'old-fashioned,' holding a rather antiquated mindset that a man shouldn't easily reveal his true feelings...
Because of this, he was quite stingy with compliments.
He was also awkward.
To be precise, he seemed to consider it impudent to compliment someone—especially their appearance—right in front of them.
“…By nature, you are a Bard.”
Considering his personality, this was practically the highest praise.
Am I interpreting it arbitrarily?
Then what am I supposed to do?
I decided to hear it as high praise.
Even an old-fashioned person knew I was pretty.
“…What is that?”
And Evie, who never complimented easily, though for a slightly different reason than him, also furrowed her brow, crossed her arms, and questioned me.
“They said it was that guy's preference, right? I had to match it.”
“No, matching it or whatever…”
Her reaction was highly dissatisfied.
However, that dissatisfaction was less about my current appearance and more about.
“Shit, what are you planning to do…?”
The situation itself—that I was called upon while looking like this, tailored to Kurt's taste—must have been what displeased her.
“It was an improvisation.”
In addition, the current situation where we were essentially confined to a room instead of a prison, even though he said he would treat us as 'guests' just for today, out of favor for me, whom Kurt liked.
“That guy was already seeing right through all of us. Pretending otherwise there wouldn't have made much sense.”
In fact, if he hadn't liked me there, he would have tried to slaughter us on the spot.
To express it in game terms, it means we would have immediately entered a combat scene.
Without ever being able to extract the 'information' we needed from him.
“So that improvisation, you shit, does it mean you're going to sleep with that bastard?”
“Don't worry.”
I immediately added, to reassure Evie.
“So far, everything is going according to plan.”
“Our plan was to somehow avoid that bastard's suspicion and find a way to wake Rine up here!”
“He is, that way.”
“What?”
“Why bother taking the long way around? He's right here.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“That guy definitely knows the way to lift Rine's curse, or at least a clue. He's one of the main people who drove her out of here, after all.”
Even if we managed to escape Kurt's suspicion and roam the city freely, the 'key' we needed to find was ultimately held by Kurt.
So, we had no choice but to come to this 'Divine Palace' to meet Kurt someday.
All I did was skip the investigation process.
“So, there's something I need you all to do starting now.”
***
“You're here.”
Kurt, who was basking in the bonfire of the fireplace, said calmly as he watched me enter the room through the open door.
“Finally, you are dressed in a presentable manner.”
“Thanks to the Governor.”
In response, I politely took hold of the ends of my skirt and slightly bent my knees to offer a greeting.
“Sit.”
I then demurely took a seat across the table where the gesturing Kurt was sitting.
Gurgle, the clear liquid that poured from the bottle Kurt tilted then completely filled a small glass.
After filling a second glass, Kurt held one of them out to me.
“This is a liquor you can only taste in this city.”
He offered a toast.
I accepted the glass and lightly clinked it against his.
Then, as I drank the liquor in one gulp, I felt as if my throat was being scorched.
“It was made with the dew of this city── 'Shurine's Tears.'”
To be frank, it was 'Vodka.'
Well, the taste wasn't exactly the same.
But the alcohol content was at least similar or higher.
Kurt gazed at my face, which had unwittingly turned red from the heat of the alcohol, with satisfaction.
Both Toric and Morgana said this about Kurt.
That this man didn't know 'color/lust.'
That he was absolutely not the type to fall for seduction or anything similar.
But that was a misconception.
This man didn't not know color/lust.
He was just incredibly good at pretending he didn't.
“You said you wanted the truth.”
He had fabricated that image until now.
Because it made him look stronger.
They often say, 'heroes are fond of women,' don't they?
Even those called heroes often can't help themselves when it comes to color/lust.
Kurt wanted to become a strong leader who wouldn't be swayed even by 'color/lust,' which was considered the (only) weakness of many heroes.
“…Yes.”
Despite the fact that he was a guy who was immensely interested in 'color/lust'—more than anyone, to the point of making even his left arm, Morgana, look like an ordinary person.
“Do you plan to make the truth you hear into a song?”
“…If it's content that many people will like.”
As one could tell from the satisfied way he listened to my voice, which I squeezed out while somehow enduring the hot liquor still in my body.
In a space like this, where there were no others watching or no need to be mindful of them, he habitually revealed the nature he had suppressed all along.
“Yes, ask. What do you want to hear?”
As if he were about to reveal the 'truth' to me now.
“Why did you drive out Shurine, whom you had revered as a god?”
“Do you not believe the words that she was a 'False God'?”
“Where are the people who revere a False God as a true god for hundreds of years, not just decades? You are not that foolish.”
“You are audacious.”
Because speaking that 'truth' was practically a confession for him.
“…Fine.”
The confession of a sinner who wanted to unburden himself and receive comfort from anyone, even if just for one night.
“As you said, that Shurine was not a mere pretender. She was the avatar of the true Lady Shurine, left with us before she departed for the Celestial Realm.”
And this was because he intended to simply kill me immediately once he lost interest, or if I failed to satisfy him as much as he expected today.
It wasn't because he believed in some rule for clerics that a person who heard a confession must never tell anyone else.
“But that avatar could only use a very small part of the true Lady Shurine's power, yet she acted as if she were a god. She wanted us to treat her like the true Lady Shurine.”
It was a cheap, one-night salvation he sought under the simple calculation that since he had no intention of letting me live anyway, I couldn't possibly dare to reveal it to others.
“Despite being merely a doll.”
It was an idea only possible because he thought of me not as a person, but merely as a toy to play with for one night.
“Even those who respectfully served the doll at first gradually began to harbor dissatisfaction.”
Therefore, everything he was saying right now was a single, unadulterated truth.
“Moreover, she had no interest in the suffering of inferiors like us. Even though she was on the ground with us, she observed our suffering right before her eyes as if it were happening in another world, as if she had only briefly descended from the heavens.”
In addition to being an objective fact.
That's right.
Rine was 'Shurine's' avatar, a part of her.
A part detached from a god who had no particular interest in her followers, having simply left behind an 'Ombudsman Center'—the avatar—so she wouldn't be bothered anymore.
And she had completely inherited that personality.
“Even when we asked her to set up measures because the people were starving, that doll wouldn't even look at us. She seemed to not understand at all why we would ask her for such things. She said, 'Your hunger is not something I can solve.'”
Nevertheless, the reason why Shurina's elves quietly followed a 'leader' who was indifferent to them, the 2nd Shurine, for hundreds of years... was partly because she was actually a part of the god they served, whether an avatar or not, but also.
“So eventually, the 'blood-bound ones'—commonly known as 'nobles'—who held dissatisfaction with that doll, planned to depose her. They intended to make her the source of the power we possessed, but force her to step down from the leadership position.”
“Source of power?”
“Simply put, as long as that doll exists in the world, we who have drunk her blood are immortal.”
That was the very reason why Pariah, whom we encountered a while ago, could not be killed no matter how much we stabbed or slashed him.
Because he was an immortal.
One who had been given a share of the god Shurine's blood.
“What kind of plan is that?”
“To lock her up. To make her a slave.”
And the hitmen those nobles chose were himself and Pariah, who, like the nobles, were the most dissatisfied with the 2nd Shurine.
Kurt continued speaking.
“We quickly took control of Shurina. We eliminated the remaining loyalists and came to the Divine Palace to secure the doll. …But for some reason, the nobles betrayed us at the last moment.”
“So you drove Shurine out.”
“Yes. Originally, the plan was to keep that doll under our protection. But for some reason, perhaps a slight feeling of guilt at the end, they spirited the doll away on their own.”
He said he had then driven them out as well, and seized power for himself.
“Yes. This is the truth of that day that you wanted.”
“Then, what about Pariah?”
“Pariah… I don't know. What that guy was thinking.”
He had a look that truly didn't know that part.
And, as if it wasn't the time to worry about that anyway, he abruptly stood up.
“Now, I have given you what you wanted, so now, as promised, I will take what I want.”
With that, he pulled me toward him and roughly shoved me onto a nearby bed, as if throwing me down.
Saying he had endured enough, he tore off his upper garment and crushed me with his thick, muscular arms.
“Follow my orders from now on.”
Looking up at Kurt, who was breathing heavily above me.
“──No.”
I gave a faint smile, smirk, raising the corner of my mouth.
“You follow mine.”
With the 「Witch's Eye」 off.
『Get down.』