Chapter 34
Since ancient times, in the Kingdom of Roan, pureblooded royalty had personally garrisoned the border, especially the zone where the boundary met the demon kingdoms.
That was both a rite of passage and tradition, ensuring a smooth succession to the throne.
But the legitimate children, unwilling to while away their time in such harsh conditions, corrupted and exploited the tradition. They began formally sending bastards—those who had inherited a fair degree of the royal power—in their stead.
It was a workaround to fulfill the oath of the First King: that the bloodline of Haldegard itself would guard the border.
Whether their manifested power was remarkable or mediocre, most bastards sent to the frontier were forced to remain there for life.
For the legitimate children, it granted legitimacy and honor toward the throne. For the bastards, it meant ending their lives in unending solitude.
Eredite, too, had been sent here at the age of eight, substituting for the Second Prince Edawin.
In short, she had been living carrying her half-brother’s honor on her back.
The power she was born with was not extraordinary, but it had been enough to sustain the impression that the great blood of Haldegard itself guarded the boundary of the land.
She was a woman, but above all, she was brave—and because she periodically subjugated demonic beasts, there had been almost no incidents of them wreaking havoc in the villages.
Thus, Eredite had become a truly ‘convenient honor’ for Edawin.
Then, several months ago, she vanished. And reports exposing her absence had continued to pile up.
Having received the final report, he had deduced that, with no body found, Eredite must certainly have been captured by the Belluk territory.
He absolutely had to retrieve her—she who had been holding this cold, gloomy post in his stead—until he could seize the upper hand in the succession struggle.
Otherwise, a flaw could be caught on him, and he might be pushed out of the competition.
But now, seeing the state of the half-sister he had finally managed to track down, he was appalled.
He wanted to tear the Belluk-style dress she wore to shreds, along with her body.
Edawin did not hide the blazing fury in his eyes as he condemned her.
“I wondered if our little sister had died, yet here you are, wallowing as the ‘Demon King’s’ concubine all this time?”
Pointing the gleaming tip of his blade at the bewildered Eredite’s chest, he clicked his tongue.
“Filthy thing. Did the Demon King’s hot fires and jewels please you that much? Enough to throw away the honor of Haldegard and a lifetime of devotion?”
The blade severed the necklace hanging around her neck, scattering its gemstones with a clear, ringing sound.
Eredite stared blankly at the unfamiliar man who called her his sister and leveled incomprehensible accusations at her.
She felt something—like the cold shadow of a memory—flickering around her, threatening to engulf her, and she was afraid. Afraid that if it overtook her, she would become a strange being, one that could never return.
‘I threw away the honor of Haldegard…? …Halde… gar…?’
She blinked and studied the man snarling before her.
He resembled her, strangely.
Hair like molten silver, eyes of piercing blue. Setting aside the impression of something cold-blooded and underhanded, he seemed to resemble her greatly.
In the meantime, Edawin, finding Eredite’s clueless reactions strange, realized something and furrowed his brow.
“You…!”
In an instant, his long eyes narrowed, and his gaze shot straight to the top of her head.
Edawin had belatedly discovered the black fragment embedded in the side of Eredite’s silver hair—visible only to those who could wield high-level demonic power.
He looked at his sister with the revulsion one might regard a woman who had been rolling in a w***e’s den.
At the same time, he stretched out his arm, and his large hand brutally seized and tore out the Demon King’s fragment.
Eredite’s face, which had been blank with incomprehension, contorted hideously as if in agony.
Soon, her desperate scream tore through the air.
The erased memories began to surge into her head like a whirlwind.
* * *
“…Gone…? …Lucy is?”
“…We have committed a sin worthy of death, Great Emperor…. It is all… our negligence.”
The maids, their faces pale as paper, lay prostrate at Laegar’s feet, trembling uncontrollably.
Laegar, who had been looking down at their backs with contemplative eyes for a moment, raised his head.
With the balcony left open for so long, the wind had already turned the room cold.
Alfredo’s fluster was plainly evident as well. Certain that today would be the day his neck snapped, he fidgeted in agony.
But Laegar merely handed him the dozen or so white foxes he had caught without a scratch, without a word.
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