Chapter 167
Heros must surely have heard everything.
Irritating and infuriating as he could be, Heros was, after all, a Sword Master. A man whose senses were sharp enough to hear an ant crawling wouldn’t have missed sounds carrying through nothing more than a single wall.
So Daphne carefully turned over in her mind the conversation they’d had in that room that day.
‘We never actually discussed my true identity, though.’
That was, in a way, a small mercy amid misfortune… Daphne thought, then let out a wry laugh at herself. A mercy, indeed.
Considering she’d already decided she needed to tell her family eventually, after Rache had discovered the truth, and here she was calling it a mercy.
What a contradictory feeling, Daphne murmured to herself.
“Anyway.”
Daphne looked at Heros again.
“You heard everything, and yet you’re pretending you know nothing? What are you scheming?”
Heros tilted his head to one side, looking down at Daphne.
“Daphne.”
“Yes.”
“Do you not trust me?”
Daphne blinked. Why ask a question with such an obvious answer?
“Isn’t that rather obvious…?”
“…”
Heros’s expression flickered with something like hurt. He’d thought they’d grown fairly close over quite a long stretch of time, and yet she still didn’t trust him, even now. Feeling a weight settle somewhat over his heart, Heros let out a small, dry cough.
“It’s not that I had some scheme in mind. I simply saw no need to make a show of already knowing, given the nature of what was said.”
“…No need to make a show of already knowing?”
Daphne’s brow furrowed, but Heros didn’t stop.
“At first, I was quite startled when Elise’s name came up. But that’s as far as it went. Whoever the Emperor tortured, whoever he remade, whoever he used, and however he wishes to rule the world—none of that has any bearing on me whatsoever.”
Daphne stared blankly up at Heros.
“No bearing, you say.”
Turning his words over in her mind, she let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re saying that even knowing the black mages’ rampage came about because of the Emperor?”
Disappointment began to fill Daphne’s expression. But Heros didn’t stop talking.
“If you go looking for reasons that way, you could find an endless number of them. No single event is ever caused by a single reason alone.”
He leaned forward.
“Daphne.”
And recalled the conversation they’d shared.
-I thought Lani was the villain, but to these people, she’s the hero.
-I thought the Emperor was the hero, but to these people, he’s the villain.
-What exactly is the difference between good and evil, anyway? Thinking about it this way, it’s honestly rather funny.
“Didn’t you all say it yourselves? That good and evil are hard to distinguish. That the very same thing could be good to one side and evil to the other.”
Heros agreed with that entirely. No one could ever precisely distinguish between good and evil.
Whether something was good or evil depended entirely on the judge, since it could fall into either category depending on perspective.
Even Heros himself, at this point, had no clear sense of which side he belonged to, or which side he appeared to belong to.
“That’s simply how it is. The Emperor must have had his own reasons for it. And to himself, those reasons would count as good.”
“Hero.”
Daphne asked the moment his words trailed off.
“Why did you become a hero?”
She clenched her small fist tight.
“Wasn’t it because you performed good deeds to save people, that you became a hero?”
And yet the very reason Daphne had watched over and cheered on the hero all this time was because so many humans had survived thanks to him.
Looking at the thousands upon thousands of lives he’d saved, she couldn’t shake the conviction that the hero was, in fact, good. And yet… surely that had been true… and now he was saying this? Daphne felt an ache settle somewhere in a corner of her chest.
“Think about how many people have died because of what the Emperor set in motion. If you do, you might reconsider your own mission as well.”
Listening to Daphne’s words, Heros burst into loud laughter. He laughed so hard his whole body tilted backward.
“Daphne.”
Gradually settling his laughter, Heros turned his head back and lifted his eyes.
“My mission,”
“…”
“is to protect the people I love.”
As he said this, Heros’s expression carried something bitter about it, something hollow.
Daphne forced down the irritation and frustration rising within her and let out a long sigh.
Inside the carriage headed toward the imperial palace.
No more conversation passed between them after that.
* * *
“Wow, there really are so many people here. Is this a ball or a marketplace?”
Rachel, having arrived early at the ballroom and downed several glasses of champagne in a row, muttered, and Morris, standing behind her, snatched the champagne glass away.
“That’s enough. What’ll you do if you get drunk?”
“Why can’t I get drunk? I came to have fun today too, you know.”
Rachel said with a giggle.
“Ah, I thought taking off that stuffy armor would finally let me breathe easy, but putting on a dress is just as suffocating. I can’t find a single comfortable outfit anywhere.”
She pressed her shoulder blades against the constricting corset and scratched the back of her head. It was then that someone approached them.
“Did you hear the Grand Duke’s household was coming today too?”
“Oh, Mark!”
It was none other than Mark Brown. The one who’d been thoroughly beaten by Daphne and had gone to sleep crying every night afterward.
Whatever else he was, love him or hate him, he was still a fellow trainee from the academy. Morris and Rachel beamed and welcomed him warmly.
“I heard the Grand Duke’s household is coming? Teppy told me. Not just the household members, but the kids too, apparently.”
At that, Mark let out a short laugh.
“Calling them ‘the kids’ sounds a bit funny at this point. ‘Fellow academy trainees’ would be more accurate.”
“I guess so. Anyway, wonder how everyone’s been doing?”
“From what I’ve heard, sounds like everyone’s doing incredibly well.”
“Daphne caught the leader of the wraiths not too long ago too.”
As they went back and forth chatting, Mark’s eyes flickered slightly.
“Actually, there’s something I heard.”
He continued in a low voice.
“The imperial palace is planning to do something soon.”
Morris’s brow furrowed.
“Something? What kind of something?”
Mark shrugged.
“Not sure. But apparently they’re gathering everyone together. All the trainee knights from the academy, all the Guardians too. Everyone.”
As Mark finished speaking and Morris was about to add something, Rachel hastily stepped forward.
Rachel was the second daughter of a household with both skill and wealth to spare, so she too had already known the information Mark had just shared, and it irritated her that Mark knew something she’d assumed only she was privy to.
“Where’d you hear that?”
Mark shrugged again.
“Do I really have to reveal my source?”
“…”
Rachel bit down hard on her lower lip, then snatched the champagne glass out of Morris’s hand.
“This isn’t leading to a war breaking out or something, is it?”
Mark asked Rachel that, and Morris, standing nearby, widened his eyes in shock.
“A war? Against who?”
“…”
“Daphne just wiped out the black mages not that long ago. So who exactly would we be at war with?”
Rachel quietly looked away, clenching her fist tight. Mark cleared his throat and addressed the group.
“Anyway, there’s all sorts of talk going around, so let’s all gather together for once and hash it out.”
“Well… sure.”
“Sounds good.”
As they continued their conversation, a servant’s booming voice rang out.
“Announcing the arrival of the House of Achion, the Grand Duke’s household!”
A moment later, the doors creaked open.
Everyone in the hall turned their heads toward the opening doors at once. Who else could it be but “the” House of Achion.
The Grand Duke’s household spoken of most, and drawing the most attention, not just in the capital but across the entire nation.
And so everyone’s eyes turned toward that one spot.
“Um…”
Rachel’s gaze landed on Daphne.
“Why does she look so pissed off?”
What’s going on?
