The Ring of Bondage - Chapter 2.10

II.

Damian pressed his ear to the tightly shut basement door and listened to Serabella’s footsteps. When she climbed the stairs, it made a sound like she was stepping on a dying mouse. When he thought her footsteps had gone far enough away, Damian turned around.

“You can come out.”

“Whew, I almost got caught with no way out.”

Damian looked coldly at the man crawling out from under the bed.

No matter how urgent it had been, he hadn’t thought an assassin by name would do something as foolish as leaving footprints. Of course, Serabella coming to the basement in the middle of the day had also been unexpected, so instead of reproaching the man, Damian resumed the conversation they had been having.

“Anyway, so you came to kill the head of Tocelli?”

“That is correct. Since that wicked bastard killed you, Young Master, I came for revenge, but…”

The man trailed off as he looked at Damian, who was perfectly alive before his eyes. From this man, he heard that Serabella’s father had apparently sent a burned corpse to Terca’s castle while claiming it was him. How bold of that bastard.

And all too naturally, Terca sent one of the family’s trusted assassins to kill him. And that assassin was Jake, who was standing before Damian now.

It was purely by luck that he had discovered the basement where Damian was imprisoned. While examining the area near the castle walls to infiltrate Tocelli’s castle, Jake found a flower garden where black roses were blooming in profusion, and Jake did something that no member of Tocelli’s household would ever do.

In his anger over losing Damian, he tried to damage the black roses, the symbol of Tocelli. Then, Jake found a suspicious door beneath the overgrown rose bushes—along with Damian, who was imprisoned beyond it.

“I’m sorry. As expected, getting you to safety should come first, shouldn’t it?”

“No, this actually works out. Kill the head of the family as planned and come back. After that, we’ll leave this place together.”

“Understood. Is there anything else you wish to order?”

“Until I give the order, do not reveal to anyone that I’m alive. And leave Serabella Tocelli alive.”

“That is…”

“Do not add your presumptuous thoughts to my orders.”

“I apologize.”

Jake answered briefly and turned away. Damian looked indifferently at the passage through which he slipped out. He had never imagined there would be a path beyond the stove leading straight to the surface. Serabella probably didn’t know either. If she had, she would have blocked this kind of risk long ago.

After spending a short while there, Damian folded himself into the place Jake had escaped through. A vertical ladder and an iron door set into the ceiling of the passage came into view at once. He laughed at the absurdly simple structure.

“To think I was trapped in a place like this.”

When he climbed the ladder without hesitation and opened the iron door, sunlight bright enough to sting his eyes poured over Damian. He hadn’t been trapped for that long, yet the midday sunlight was dazzling. To the point that he thought he might have gone blind if the black rose bushes hadn’t made shade for him.

Damian raised only his head slightly above ground and looked around. The dense rose bushes nearby were much more luxuriant than Jake had described, and it seemed no one would notice him if he took a few steps around.

Damian smiled in satisfaction.

“Well, I’ve always been luckier than other people.”

It was just as he said. Damian had always been confident in his own luck. If Jake finding him wasn’t luck, then what was it? Serabella saving Damian’s life was even more so. He had been confined and locked up in a stifling basement, but thanks to that, he had survived anyway.

No matter what indignity he suffered, as long as he was alive, he could move on to the next step.

“Serabella Tocelli.”

Damian murmured the name of the witch who had saved him and imprisoned him. Her dark magic had never worked on Damian from the beginning. Probably because of his bloodline.

Trusting in his own luck, Damian had played along with her as she wanted, and as expected, everything flowed in his favor. Because he was a lucky man.

Damian let time pass as he breathed in the thick scent of roses. It was a familiar scent.

Whenever Serabella held a magic circle in her mouth and kissed Damian, an intense rose scent strong enough to give him a headache always wafted from her. Enough to make even his mind, which had some resistance to dark magic, grow briefly hazy. Damian thought that scent suited Serabella very well.

After sufficiently enjoying the sunlight, the scent of roses, and the cool breeze, Damian closed the iron door again.

* * *

A few days later, Tocelli Castle was in a state of unprecedented uproar over the death of the head of the family. The corpse of the family head found in his study was in such a horrific state that it was like a declaration of war.

That day, Serabella did not come to see Damian.