From the Tip of the Tongue of the Lowliest Maid - Chapter 25

This work contains scenes of sadistic coercion and hardcore depictions of BDSM. Reader discretion is advised.

Theogrim lowered the hands he had been using to pray. Pale moonlight brushed across the dark prayer room.

Beautiful violet eyes glimmered dimly. Eyes said to be the jewel of Impellias. They were windows to a soul so pure and clear that nothing could compare.

He recalled a moment from the past. A time more than ten years ago. It was long enough for any memory or recollection to be erased.

When they first met, Arzeletta had been a girl.
If compared to humans, that was how it would be. For in the language of the fairies, he did not know how to refer to a young and small female.

The hand that had reached out, gasping as though she might stop breathing. The pale arm and body that had wrapped around him without hesitation. The green eyes that had looked up at him, free of any ulterior motives.

“……”

As if beholding the most noble thing on earth—it had been dazzling.

Not even for a single moment had Theogrim ever forgotten that gaze from the girl during their first meeting. Not once, not even for the briefest instant.

It was a memory that would remain etched in him forever, like a burn upon his face.

“Give me your prayer.”

Theogrim had asked for Arzeletta’s prayer, and Arzeletta had offered him a single prayer.

But neither the boy nor the girl had known the true meaning of a fairy’s prayer.
It was a tale that had already been lost long ago. A thing of legend.

Because of that, he could only make his own solitary assumptions after receiving Arzeletta’s prayer.

That the girl had offered her one and only prayer without hesitation only because she wanted to live.
Because of the trap, or perhaps because of the long time she had lived alone, she had wanted to rely on someone in order to survive.

Just like himself, who had desired a fairy’s prayer in that moment—though he didn’t truly believe in it either.

On the path chasing dazzling glory, Theogrim had been just as desperate as the girl caught in the trap.

The boy had wanted to survive, and so he needed the girl’s prayer.

He had hoped to become something meaningful to the girl who had looked at him with such earnest eyes.

“You cursed thing! If only you didn’t exist, Lord Theogrim wouldn’t have suffered such wounds…!”

Yet even now, as they had grown into adults, that prayer remained engraved deep within their bodies in the form of a scar that could never be erased.

Arzeletta, who wandered the domain like an eternal outsider.
Pitiful Arzeletta, who was never welcomed by anyone, who never experienced any kind of love.

So long as he existed here as everyone’s beacon of hope, Arzeletta would forever have to remain as his shadow.

The more the great Del Rose, Theogrim’s glory, shone high and bright, the deeper and longer the shadow cast over Arzeletta would become.

Theogrim knew this all too well.

If he truly cared for Arzeletta, he had to help her leave this land.

However…
“……”
Theogrim clenched the hands he had been using to pray. His tightly clenched fists trembled faintly.

…He couldn’t do it.
Without Arzeletta’s gaze and presence that turned to him like a sunflower despite all the pain she endured, Theogrim couldn’t breathe even for a single day.

He had to gain strength.
Enough that no one could ever oppose him. Enough that he would never need to be commanded by anyone.
Such overwhelming power that he could protect anyone, no matter who they were.

“Del Rose.”
At the sound of someone calling him from behind, Theogrim flinched and his shoulders trembled.

“It is time for the Purification. The lord is waiting.”

Had they noticed his wavering?
Or perhaps the impious thoughts he’d had during prayer…?
Theogrim concealed his unease and rose from his seat with a composed expression.

With a fluttering sound, he straightened his prayer robes and, without hesitation, turned toward the entrance.

The priest, bowing at the waist, followed Theogrim’s upright back with eyes as sly as a snake.