Chapter 171
“…Hm?”
The Emperor, exchanging pleasantries with various people and carrying out his duties as expected of an emperor, suddenly shuddered at a strange, unexpected sensation and snapped his head around.
“Your Majesty? Is something wrong?”
“Are you feeling unwell?”
Those nearby asked anxiously, but the Emperor gave no answer. He simply stared into empty air with narrowed eyes.
“Your Majesty?”
Ignoring the voices calling out to him, the Emperor scanned the surroundings urgently. His gaze soon fixed on a man with radiant golden hair, visible even from a distance.
Heros Achion. The Emperor searched the area around Heros. A red-haired boy, a knight order, a girl with a somewhat guileless expression… but nowhere among them was the one he was looking for. He hurried toward Heros.
“Grand Duke.”
Hearing the Emperor’s voice calling out to him, Heros slowly turned his head to look at the Emperor.
Having only just resolved, moments ago, that he could follow anyone at all if it meant protecting the beings he loved, facing the Emperor now felt somewhat uncomfortable to Heros, but he showed none of this. He simply offered a faint smile.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I should have greeted you sooner, my apologies.”
“No. Not at all.”
The Emperor looked past Heros’s shoulder, his brow furrowing.
“Did you come alone?”
Heros closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again. Then, gesturing toward the children beside him, he said.
“No. I came with my children.”
The Emperor’s brow furrowed further.
“You know that isn’t what I meant, don’t you?”
He let out a sigh and got straight to the point.
“Daphne Achion.”.
“…”
“Where is she?”
Judging by his expression alone, it looked as though he meant to seize Daphne and throw her straight into a dungeon cell. Heros found himself puzzled.
Not only was he suddenly asking after Daphne, but he was wearing such a menacing expression on top of it? Instinct told him he should not reveal Daphne’s location. It was pure instinct, the result of everything he had come to know and accumulate over time.
“I’m not entirely sure myself…”
“Daphne said she’d be resting in the lounge!”
At that moment, Arius shouted. The children, too, seemed to have sensed something was off. Led by Arius, the other boys all shouted at once.
“Yes, that’s right! She said she was resting with an upset stomach!”
“She kept going back and forth to the bathroom!”
“She even grumbled about needing to pay rent for the bathroom at this rate!”
“…”
Was such elaborate detail in a lie really necessary?
Heros’s expression flickered with slight embarrassment, but he shook his head a couple of times and turned back to the Emperor.
“Is there a particular reason you’re looking for Daphne?”
At that question, instead of answering, the Emperor simply stared steadily at Heros.
How strange, really. Before—that is, before Heros had met the Daphne of now—Heros had been someone who obeyed his every word without question. And now, at some point, he’d started defying him like this. Rather amusing, in its own way.
“Well… should I say there is, or should I say there isn’t?”
What to do with this arrogant, insignificant hero. How could he bring this human back under his control, the way things once were?
Mulling this over, the Emperor soon smiled broadly and spoke.
“Yes. That’ll do nicely.”
The Emperor placed a hand on Heros’s shoulder.
“Grand Duke.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You…”
The Emperor asked, his thoughts drifting toward the lair, far, far away, beyond all this.
“How much do you trust your own child?”
* * *
Despite Shio’s attempts to stop her, Daphne slowly placed her hand against the mural.
The moment she did, she felt a sharp, tingling sensation. But unlike with Shio, there was no burning pain scorching her palm. It felt more like… how to put it. As though some unknown power had entered her body.
Daphne tried to pull her hand back, but couldn’t, as though something were holding it fast. And yet, since it didn’t feel unpleasant or uncomfortable in any way, Daphne, for the moment, simply let her body surrender to that force.
It was then.
Boom!
The mural slowly began to crack. Though this wasn’t damage caused by any impact. As if a new image were being drawn, line connecting to line, forming some kind of symbol.
“What… what is this?”
Shio, too, seemed to be seeing something like this for the first time, his eyes widening as he studied the cracking mural, while Daphne, still unable to pull her hand free, stood with her mouth half open.
This wasn’t because of the symbol forming on the mural. It was simply because someone was speaking directly into her mind.
[Do you know what causality is?]
A gentle, endlessly kind voice. Daphne listened to that voice, dazed.
[If there is a cause, there is an effect. Commit a sin, and you’re punished; do good, and you’re rewarded—that’s likely what everyone thinks. But it’s more than just that.]
[Causality, in the end, means that everything turns within the wheel of fate.]
Whoosh—
A wind blew in from somewhere.
That wind brushed past a bewildered Shio, and Shio froze stiff exactly where he stood. As though time itself had stopped.
Daphne wanted to speak to Shio, to look at him, but she couldn’t. Her own body, too, had frozen the exact same way.
[I wonder—haven’t you ever been curious what your fate truly was?]
The woman’s voice whispered, light and chattering.
[So go ahead, and choose.]
With a low hum, the wall beyond the mural slowly began to split open. Beyond the splitting wall, Daphne caught sight of something achingly familiar.
Namely,
[That’s your body, you know.]
The colossal true form of Daphne—no, of the Calamity, Sellus.
Seeing Sellus’s body again after so long, it carried a far deeper shade of black than she remembered, radiating an even more ominous, menacing presence.
Though it remained far in the distance rather than close by, its chilling aura reached even this far. It was likely only because Daphne’s causal link had been severed that she was able to perceive this “Calamity” at all.
And so, in a way, Daphne felt a deep sense of guilt toward everyone she had once encountered back when she herself had been that very Calamity.
Daphne had never known she was such a chilling, terrifying being. There had been no way for her to know. But other beings must have known.
They must all have been utterly terrified of Sellus, utterly repulsed by her… thinking this, a heavy weight settled deep in a corner of her heart. Unable to turn her head away, she closed her eyes instead.
[It seems you’ve stood at a crossroads of choice fairly recently, haven’t you.]
The voice did not stop.
[Fortunately, you didn’t make that choice.]
Daphne’s body floated upward. Then, in an instant, she was carried straight before Sellus’s body. Her breath catching sharply for a moment, Daphne pressed her lips shut, and forced herself to ignore Sellus, now visible through some third eye. Forced herself to try, at least.
[This time, you’ll have to make that choice.]
The woman lifted Daphne’s body once more, bringing her face to face with Sellus.
[If you choose to reclaim this body, I’ll erase the causal value dwelling within it.]
In other words, she was offering to erase the causal fate known as “the Calamity” entirely.
If that truly happened, Daphne thought she might finally be able to live the life she had long wished for—that is, live no differently from an ordinary dragon. A thoroughly tempting offer.
[But if you wish to remain in that body instead…]
“That body” presumably referred to Daphne Achion’s own body. Once a lump of curses. But now able to live and move, thanks to the current Daphne having entered it.
[From now on, you will no longer be able to create false causality.]
With a heavy thud, Daphne’s body dropped to the ground, and Shio toppled over with a crash. And from not far away, footsteps could be heard approaching, steady and deliberate.
[What will you choose?]
She had to make her decision right now.
