Rustle.
“I have another one.”
“.......”
Cheion grinned and pulled another chocolate bar from his pocket, waving it in front of Kainel’s eyes.
“Want it?”
He already knew perfectly well that Kainel couldn’t stand not having anything Ceres had given someone, so he shook the chocolate even more vigorously to tease him.
“If you want it, call me big brother.”
“Big brother.”
...Thud.
“This is mine now.”
“.......”
So shocked that he dropped the chocolate straight onto the floor, Cheion stared in horror at Kainel, who immediately picked it up.
“Wow, wow.......”
That gave me chills! Those words came out that easily?
‘When you don’t even like sweets.’
Even if Ceres had given it to him, he could actually do that? Big brother? He called me big brother!
Watching Kainel unwrap the chocolate and pop the whole thing into his mouth in much the same way Cheion himself had just done, Cheion was so dumbfounded that he could only keep muttering, “Wow, wow.”
“Delicious.”
“Liar! Liar! Liar!”
Where’s your conscience?! Are those really words that can come out of the mouth of the man who tried to kill me at the café just because I ordered nothing but sweet things?!
Knock, knock.
While Cheion was still sputtering in disbelief, the office door opened and someone stepped inside. It was his secretary, Luca.
“Lord Cheion, Lady Ceres is here.”
And behind him, Ceres could be seen as well.
“Ceres!”
At her appearance, Cheion immediately broke into a radiant smile as though he had never been angry and scurried toward her.
Step.
“Ah!”
Or rather, he tried to. He would have succeeded if a certain large someone hadn’t blocked his path to Ceres.
“What brings you here?”
“Why are you here?”
Ceres looked surprised when she discovered Kainel already inside Cheion’s office.
Looks like these two get along just fine even without me now?
“I had a request.”
“A request?”
“Wow... wow.......”
Since when did you make a request? You threatened me!
Cheion kept muttering “Wow” in disbelief at Kainel’s shameless answer, but Kainel completely ignored him.
“What about you?”
“.......”
Ceres paused, wondering where she should even begin. Her gaze shifted toward Cheion, who was glaring at Kainel.
“......?”
As though sensing her gaze, Cheion looked back at Ceres. Then, noticing her somewhat grave expression, he tilted his head.
Did something happen?
“I came to tell you news about Lord Alex.”
Halt.
Unexpected words left her mouth.
“Alex?”
“Someone came to see me a little while ago, and he brought news about Lord Alex.”
“......!”
Ceres recalled the conversation she had before coming here with Daniel... no, Jutel.
* * *
“So.”
Ceres’s eyes grew colder and colder as she spoke with Jutel.
And for good reason. Every single thing he was telling her was fucking awful.
“So Alex was the bastard who teamed up with that son of a bitch Veilks and committed all sorts of shit with him.”
“He is still an imperial prince.......”
“Yeah, shut up.”
“.......”
“And you’re the one who helped Prince Alex do all that.”
“.......”
At some point, even Ceres’s manner of speaking had changed, and Jutel could no longer say a word in response to her question.
It felt as though merely nodding his head right now would cause his neck to be sliced clean through.
The murderous intent he could feel across his entire body really did seem to be coming not from the Duke of Schweiz standing behind her, but from Ceres herself.
“Haah.”
Ceres roughly swept back her hair. When Prince Alex had disappeared with Veilks after the latter attacked Emperor Debrica, she had already suspected something.
That Prince Alex and Veilks were somehow connected.
‘But this is way beyond anything I expected.’
She had truly never imagined that Prince Alex had been deeply involved in everything that had happened all this time.
“It was because of the cure.”
As though trying to defend Prince Alex, Jutel hurriedly continued.
“He said he would give him medicine that would let him live if he cooperated.......”
“So he killed other people to save his own life?”
“.......”
But those words only made Ceres’s gaze turn even colder.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Seeing the bitter curl of Ceres’s lips, Jutel shut his mouth once again.
Her murderous intent was now so intense that his skin practically stung.
“Tch.”
Ceres repeatedly clicked her tongue. Through Jutel, she had heard one by one about everything Prince Alex had done.
From creating small Black Forests to kill people to causing the previous S-rank Black Forest in the capital....... He had done all of it.
‘Now I understand.’
Aria.
Her death.
‘I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.’
That incident had always bothered Ceres. A Black Forest had appeared inside a house of all places, and of all houses, it just happened to be Aria’s.
Wasn’t that far too strange to dismiss as coincidence?
‘But.......’
Now that she knew Prince Alex was the one who had been creating small Black Forests, she could fully understand why Aria had been targeted.
She had made an enemy of his younger brother, and that must have put her on Alex’s radar.
“What are you?”
Daniel, whom she had known all this time as a homeroom teacher, was clearly a false identity as well.
Ceres suddenly became curious about what he really was. He didn’t seem like an ordinary underling.
When she had examined his wounds earlier, his recovery speed had been noticeably different from that of an ordinary person.
His regenerative ability was astonishing enough that she suspected all his wounds might have disappeared soon even if she hadn’t used her time-reversal ability.
“...race.”
“......?”
...What race?
“...I’m a demon.”
“.......”
Ceres dug a finger into one ear.
She could have sworn she had just heard something extremely strange.
“Say that again.”
“I’m a demon.”
“...A demon?”
“Yes.”
“The... demons from books?”
“I don’t know what kind of books you mean, but if you’re referring to the race that rules the Demon Realm, then yes.”
“.......”
Ceres fell silent for a moment. Then she roughly swept back her hair once again.
“Ha.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped her.
What was with this completely unreal word?
A demon? An actual demon?
‘That’s even more shocking than finding out that disciple of mine is a vampire.’
It felt exactly like when she had learned that her disciple was someone who sucked human blood.
‘Ridiculous and absurd.’
Ceres clicked her tongue softly before something suddenly occurred to her, and she immediately continued questioning him.
“Then that son of a bitch Veilks is a demon too?”
“Yes.”
Ceres frowned as she watched Jutel nod.
Only then did it make sense.
She had wondered how he had managed to remain alive for three hundred years.
She had thought perhaps someone had used forbidden magic on him, like Artia, but it turned out it was simply possible because he wasn’t human in the first place.
“You said you’re a demon too.”
And that bastard’s subordinate.
“Then why are you telling me all this?”
She couldn’t help being suspicious. After doing all sorts of things as Veilks’s subordinate all this time, wasn’t it strange that he was suddenly telling her all of this now?
“Something... has happened to Lord Alex.”
Those had been the first words Jutel spoke after opening his eyes.
Save Alex.
“Just what happened to him?”
Frankly, Ceres didn’t particularly want to care what happened to Prince Alex.
Considering everything that bastard had done, wouldn’t it be stranger if she actually wanted to help him? Just how many people had died because of him?!
‘But.......’
She knew very well who Prince Alex’s older brother was.......
“Tch.”
Thinking of Cheion, who was still anxiously worrying himself sick because he had no idea where that bastard was, Ceres decided to at least hear Jutel out.
“Veilks... called Lord Alex by a strange name.”
“A strange name?”
Jutel stopped speaking for a moment as though steadying his breath, then let out a long sigh.
And Ceres’s expression hardened at the answer that followed.
“Herchaos... That’s what he called him.”
* * *
“...Herchaos?”
Crown Prince Aseraian’s eyes widened slightly.
A short while ago, Cheion, Ceres, and the Grand Duke of Persia had come to see him.
And what they told him had been enough to make Crown Prince Aseraian cancel his entire afternoon schedule.
“Wasn’t that the name those strange believers were shouting before?”
“That’s right.”
Back when the Holy Spring had been contaminated, the being whose name the captured believers had cried out was none other than Herchaos.
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