Chapter 165
Rache was recovering relatively quickly, all things considered, given how deeply he had been consumed by the energy of darkness.
This was largely thanks to Yan, whose body could accept and regulate that dark energy, having personally absorbed it out of him directly.
Thanks to that, Yan was now stuck languishing in a cell for days on end, but Rache, the purely innocent victim in all this, paid that fact no mind whatsoever and focused entirely on his own recovery.
“Think I could eat some meat now? I feel like my digestion’s back to normal.”
At Rache’s words, Teiti, who was tending to him, narrowed his eyes sharply.
“Ah. You’d like to eat meat? Go ahead, then! Except you’ll become the corpse, and the meat, all in one, Rache!”
“Ha, haha. No, you said you liked humans, and yet you’re being pretty… harsh with your words…”
“That’s because you’re currently making me quite angry. Lie down. Soup only.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rache sniffled and glanced anxiously at Teiti. Ever since what had happened before, Teiti had, in his own way, come to genuinely like humans, but, well, how to put it. That “fondness” of his came with a rather excessive edge to it. Constantly muttering about how pitifully weak humans were, insisting on treatments that weren’t even necessary, or refusing to let him move at all.
‘Still, better than him hating humans, I suppose.’
Rache let out a wry laugh and, following Teiti’s instructions, lay obediently back in bed. Then he asked.
“Where’s Daphne?”
Then, catching himself, he quickly added.
“Ah, wait, not Daphne… should I be calling her something else now?”
“Oh. Lady Daphne would be positively thrilled to hear that. She’d probably jump for joy and hit you with a flying kick.”
“…”
Rache smacked his lips and pressed them shut. They say a nagging sister-in-law is worse than a scolding mother-in-law… every time Teiti did this, Rache found him so irritating he wanted to smack him one.
Wonder if I could take on an elf in a fight at this point. Rache muttered.
“Are you afraid of Lady Daphne?”
“…Isn’t being afraid of Daphne just the natural response?”
“Fair point. Even I still flinch a little whenever we make eye contact… ah, wait, that’s not what I meant.”
Teiti glared and rephrased.
“I meant, are you afraid of Lady Daphne’s true identity?”
At that, Rache found himself gripping the blanket tightly without meaning to. It was purely instinctive. An instinct he had no control over.
Daphne’s true identity.
The very Calamity said to be capable of bringing about the end of the world.
The very Calamity the black mages had worshipped and revered.
The very Calamity so thoroughly regarded as the world’s ultimate evil that it was said the Guardians’ ultimate goal was to defeat it.
That was what Daphne was.
Unbelievable as it seemed.
“I’d be lying if I said no. Honestly, that whole ‘Calamity’ thing has always come down through legend, like some old folk tale…”
“Most of which Lady Daphne would probably find quite unjust, too.”
Rache let out a bitter laugh and nodded.
“If you ask me if the Calamity scares me, yes, it does.”
“…”
“But if you ask me if Daphne scares me, no, she doesn’t.”
The Calamity had been defined as the world’s evil, but Daphne was not that. Daphne was the youngest daughter of the Grand Duke’s household, my beloved little sister, and a righteous hero who fought for the people.
Even if Daphne’s power originated from the Calamity,
“Daphne and the Calamity are the same, and yet they’re different.”
The two were different. They could never be one and the same.
“And… once I learned that the previous Daphne had been nothing but a lump of curses…”
Rache let out a sigh and continued.
“I finally understood why I disliked Daphne so much, why she irritated and unsettled me the way she did, and why people hated and feared the Calamity so much too. So.”
“…”
“I just find Daphne pitiable, that’s all.”
Teiti gazed steadily down at Rache.
He hadn’t witnessed it directly himself, but having seen Daphne looking listless, sighing heavily, and knocking her head against the wall a few times, Teiti could roughly guess just how much Rache had pushed Daphne away back then.
And now, after all that, he was saying he loved Daphne again?
In some ways, that felt hypocritical, and in other ways, it spoke to just how deep that love truly ran. Teiti murmured that to himself.
He continued speaking.
“Honestly, I don’t really feel much pity toward Lady Daphne myself.”
“No?”
“No. To elves like us, dragons have always been objects of admiration and reverence. Well, setting that aside, though…”
Teiti found himself wishing that Daphne would regain her spirit. Wishing she would stop sighing so heavily. Wishing she would stop knocking her head against the wall.
All of this came down to,
“I just want Lady Daphne to be happy.”
Surely it was born from a wish for Daphne’s eternal happiness.
Teiti thought this to himself, smiling faintly, and at that very moment, Rache, seated across from him, went pale enough to look like a ghost.
“Teiti.”
Rache clutched his blanket tight and asked.
“You’re not… going to drop dead tomorrow or something, are you? Not going to keel over suddenly?”
“Should I go ahead and make you drop dead instead, Rache?”
“Ah. Never mind.”
At Teiti’s chilling remark, Rache burst into laughter regardless.
A relaxed, easy mood filled the room. Though Teiti was admittedly a little sulky about it, well. Rache laughed again, thinking to himself that he wanted to recover quickly and see Daphne as soon as possible.
It was then.
“Huh…?”
The door swung open. And someone entirely unexpected stepped into the room. Rache’s eyes widened as he stared at the person.
“What brings you here?”
Heros, the person in question, answered casually.
“There’s something I wanted to talk about.”
“What?”
Rache was bewildered.
Of course, he’d heard that Heros had come to visit him several times after he’d collapsed, but since then, they hadn’t crossed paths, so he’d assumed Heros had simply lost interest in him. He’d figured that was just the man’s usual indifferent way, and left it at that.
So why come now, suddenly? Something to talk about?
For a moment, Rache’s brow furrowed.
“Did you want to talk about Daphne?”
When Heros didn’t answer right away, Rache let out a hollow laugh. Of course. What else would the Grand Duke possibly have to discuss with me privately, if not something about Daphne… or so he’d thought.
“No?”
Heros tilted his head and said.
“I imagine we have something to discuss about your mother.”
Then he shrugged.
“If there’s something you’d like to say about Daphne, go ahead and say it.”
Rache simply stared up at Heros, dumbfounded, for a moment.
Not a conversation about Daphne, but a conversation about his mother.
Meaning he was concerned about him. About Rache himself.
Rache’s face brightened so naturally at this that Teiti offered a light farewell and slipped out of the room.
‘Guess I’ll go visit the village myself for once, since it’s been a while.’
He found himself suddenly missing the notion of family.
* * *
“Ah.”
Daphne thumped her forehead against the desk.
“Argh.”
And again, thump.
“Argghh!”
Before she could thump her head down a third time, a hand slid abruptly between her forehead and the desk. Looking up, she saw it was Shio.
“Why are you losing it again? Can you not go one single day without losing it?”
“…Hearing ‘losing it’ from someone who’s lost it himself really gets under my skin.”
Daphne scoffed and lifted her chin.
“You already know why I’m like this, don’t you?”
Shio smiled bitterly, and Daphne, cradling her forehead with her palm, muttered.
“That Emperor bastard.”
She cast her gaze out the window. The sky, thick with pitch-black storm clouds threatening rain, seemed to loom over them like a warning.
“He’s not likely to have made just one or two beings like Yan, is he?”
