Chapter 98
Kierne gazed at the back of Chesha’s hand for a long while.
Of course, the vanished pattern did not reappear.
He lightly rubbed over the back of her hand with his thumb.
As he did so, he muttered to himself.
“Why isn’t it showing up again…”
His hand continued rubbing without pause.
Only when Chesha’s skin finally turned red did he snap out of it and pull his hand away.
Kierne slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.
The red hue of his irises revealed beneath his eyelids was enigmatic, making Chesha tense up.
She was a bit scared of what reaction he might show.
She had released the fairy on her own whim.
Moreover, a fairy to whom she had even provided the means to escape at any time.
The memories of the great disasters that had occurred after her brief escape from the Basilian household in the past flooded back, darkening her vision.
Intuiting that she needed to be more proactive, Chesha took the initiative to soothe Kierne first.
“I won’t be the queen.”
Fortunately, Kierne’s gaze softened a little.
He pulled Chesha into an embrace and whispered.
“…You mustn’t use the fairy’s power in front of others. Absolutely not.”
Because anything pretty and precious was bound to be coveted by everyone, he warned her several times to be careful.
Only after extracting a firm promise from Chesha did Kierne let out a long sigh.
It wasn’t one of relief.
Kierne pressed his lips to Chesha’s cheek and murmured softly.
“I’m worried. Chesha, you’re always so soft-hearted toward the weak ones.”
Chesha thought that was absurd.
‘Me, soft-hearted? What nonsense!’
But she couldn’t refute it.
Because Kierne, smiling faintly, looked so utterly desolate.
“But Chesha…”
His voice, gloomy like a rainy day, hung over her like dark clouds.
“Think of Daddy as pitiful too. Okay?”
“……”
Hailon furrowed his brows for a moment.
It was because he felt the sensation of the Chains of Condemnation breaking.
“Sir Hailon?”
A Holy Knight called out to Hailon cautiously.
Hailon nodded silently.
The Holy Knight quietly lowered his gaze and began purifying the traces of heresy with holy power once more.
He was in the midst of confirming and purifying the spot where the fairy had appeared, along with the Holy Knights.
His adjutant, Daren, observed his expression and lowered his voice to ask.
“Has something happened?”
Hailon didn’t answer immediately, lost in thought.
Judging by the state of the illusion realm, it was a fairy close to heresy.
Since they had captured it alive, the standard procedure was to take it to the Holy Empire for interrogation.
Yet, the fairy bound by the Chains of Condemnation had been released.
It couldn’t have been the work of Count Basilian.
He would have killed the fairy if anything, not severed the chains and set it free.
The floral spectacle the tiny child had bloomed came to mind.
The petals scattering throughout the twisted illusion realm…
Recalling the miracle the child had performed, Hailon uttered shortly.
“I’ll execute it on the spot.”
“…Pardon?”
Daren looked at him with eyes that said, ‘Have you lost your mind, killing a fairy we went through the trouble to capture alive?’
Unable to say it outright, he let out a hollow laugh and gritted his teeth.
“A report has already gone to the Holy King. This time, you really can’t get away with it. You’ll definitely be ‘educated’…”
Daren’s voice was faintly trembling.
However, unlike the fearful him, Hailon dismissed it nonchalantly.
To protect the child who had released the fairy, the simplest excuse was to claim he had executed and annihilated it himself.
If the child could be safe.
He could pay the price of something like education any number of times.
The issue was the information they should have extracted from the fairy.
Since he had entrusted the interrogation to Count Basilian, he must have dug out all the necessary information.
Even the things the fairy didn’t want to say.
The only question was whether he would transparently share the obtained information with Hailon.
They were on the same boat, but he was an opponent who could never be trusted.
Hailon quickly finished the purification work and returned first to the inn where the child would be sleeping.
However, he didn’t go to find the child.
Instead, he sought out Count Basilian.
The count was a sight to behold.
“…Oh, look who it is.”
His drunken voice drawled slowly.
“It’s the Inquisitor.”
The room, lit only by a single lamp, was dim.
It relied on moonlight to faintly illuminate the interior.
Hailon scanned the empty wine bottles rolling on the floor with his eyes, then fixed his gaze on Count Basilian.
Kierne, sprawled on the sofa with a wine bottle in hand, chuckled.
He grabbed an empty glass nearby and roughly poured wine into it.
The red wine sloshed messily into the clear glass.
Wine splashed onto the hand holding the glass.
Kierne extended the glass with one hand while licking the wine off the back of the other.
“Want a drink?”
Instead of accepting the glass from the man who had discarded even the minimal courtesy, Hailon simply looked down at him quietly.
As if expecting he wouldn’t take it, Kierne smiled and drank from the glass himself.
Gulp, gulp—the movement of his Adam’s apple was distinct.
Kierne tossed the empty glass to the floor.
The glass fell onto the carpet with a dull thud and rolled somewhere.
“I really wanted to kill it… But I can’t do bad things in front of Chesha…”
It was easy to tell that the target of his killing intent was the fairy.
“I hate fairies.”
Kierne took a deep breath and exhaled.
His chest swelled and then deflated.
“Is Chesha really Lichesia’s daughter… Back then, I briefly thought that she—that is, Lichesia—might be my daughter? Because they look alike. But the ages don’t match.”
The rambling typical of a drunkard continued.
“But I treated her well. Without me, she would’ve died in the underworld long ago. Now she could survive on her own, but not at first.”
Hailon, listening to the drunken ramblings with an expressionless face, narrowed his eyes at the following words.
“She’s the queen, they say.”
“Explain what that means.”
“The queen of the fairies, begging to be sent back to the kingdom.”
“…You’re saying the child is the fairy queen.”
“Yeah. Lichesia wasn’t like that, right?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Haha, figures.”
But there was ample possibility that the queen’s power had skipped a generation, a case of atavism.
Considering that Lichesia possessed unusually strong power.
It was while piecing together the fragments Count Basilian had spat out in his mind and inferring.
Suddenly, the count burst into loud laughter and spewed curses.
Uttering vulgar curses fit for a ruffian, he muttered in a voice laced with murderous intent.
“It’s the second time. The second time…”
Hailon lowered his gaze a bit more.
The shape of the shadow cast by the lamp and moonlight was smooth, without distortion.
“Does holy power work the same? Does its power weaken when doing bad things to fairies?”
“Yes.”
The reason numerous Holy Knights and holy priests couldn’t capture the witch Lichesia was that holy power didn’t fully manifest against her.
Even Hailon, called the proof of divinity, had to use more holy power than usual when facing the witch.
Ironically, the moments when holy power didn’t work properly were clear.
The instants of forcing something on a fairy or attempting to harm them.
Holy power would lose part of its might.
As if it wouldn’t permit harming fairies.
“Magic is the same. It doesn’t take properly.”
That was already known.
Experienced slave hunters didn’t use magic when capturing fairies.
The basic principle was to moderately shatter the fairy’s mind to weaken their power, and inflict physical wounds on the body to prevent proper movement.
But the following words were something he hadn’t known.
“I tried it myself. In the final moments, on my wife…”
What occasion would there be to cast magic of coercion or threat on a dying wife?
His intuition as an Inquisitor sharply picked up on the count’s words.
The count, unusually vulnerable unlike his usual self, was spilling words he shouldn’t.
If he probed a bit more here, he might salvage something useful.
However, before throwing a question to dig into Count Basilian.
His thoughts halted at the following question.
“Hey, Inquisitor.”
The count asked with a sly smile.
“If one day Lichesia suddenly abandons you and says she’s returning to the fairy kingdom, what would you do?”
