Chapter 154 - The Procession of Silence

Ferda listened closely to her words.

"If you wish to express regret over this incident, you need only put forward someone the Crisis Response Headquarters would not dare touch."

At first, he wondered if she meant Concillus, but soon realized that was not the case.

Ferda reflexively frowned.

"You mean to say we should put Her Grace the Grand Duchess forward?"

"It is shameless of me, but that is the easiest and fastest way."

Ferda was the man who would become the Red Dragon's Consort, the one who would become her prince consort, but he was still nothing more than a proxy.

In the eyes of the world, he was not the Grand Duchess herself, but merely a toy used for amusement.

That was how the public saw him.

If the dragon personally stepped forward and spoke on this matter, no one would dare make a sound.

But that was impossible.

Ferda knew what she had been like at the ball.

She could not go to places with many humans.

She was afraid it would make her relive the wrongs she had committed and cause her to make a mistake.

She was afraid it would put Ferda in trouble.

Ferda had thought she was simply suffering psychologically.

But that was not a matter of the mind.

'It is something that really happens.'

If Malcolm had not been there, he would never have realized there truly were malicious elements who had tried to break her.

If it happened even at the Start of Spring Festival, what would a public hearing be like?

If those who treated her like a guard dog lost their fear and tried to tame her, Ferda had no idea what he would do then.

"Garnet."

Ferda cast his gaze toward Garnet.

When their eyes met, Garnet flinched in surprise.

"Please do not bring that up again."

"... I apologize."

That proposal itself was a raw nerve for Ferda.

"We will resolve this with our own hands. That will not change."

"Understood."

Leaving the easy path behind, Ferda built his strategy.

The misinformation he would leak through Baron Guillot.

The inside information he would obtain through Hellus, who was playing the sage.

Through those, he would seize the advantageous high ground.

To give her a bright future, Ferda had to endure that darkness.

Even if it meant taking on a terrible disgrace.

"Lord Ferda."

While he was working, Luri called him.

"I have brought the item my mistress promised you before."

At last!

Ferda threw his work aside and rose from his seat.

She brought in a portrait as large as her own body and set it before Ferda.

The item she had promised to give him if he returned safely.

It was Valdrova's portrait.

"You truly requested this painting?"

Luri asked as if she could not believe it.

Ferda nodded.

"I wanted this painting."

"There are many other things there, so why this one of all things?"

"It just felt that way."

Ferda glossed over it without explaining in detail.

Luri glared at him with a dissatisfied look, then opened her mouth.

"Do you know what kind of portrait this is?"

"I know it was meant to be shown to her first fiancé."

"Yes. It was the first time she showed her face to someone else and asked them to paint her exactly as she looked."

"So you mean it is an unretouched true likeness?"

"Yes."

Usually, if a painting was going to be hung in a family estate, various adjustments would be made.

For example, if someone was too fat, the waist would be painted a little slimmer.

If someone looked shabby because their hair was thinning, it would be made fuller.

"I see. So that is why I wanted it so badly..."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"There are things like that."

It was probably some silly reason.

Luri did not press him either.

"In any case, I will arrange for a restorer."

"A restorer?"

"It is torn, so should it not be repaired?"

She asked back as if it were obvious.

But Ferda had no intention of calling a restorer.

"No, this is enough."

Luri stared at Ferda with eyes full of disgust.

"If you intend to hang a torn painting, I will oppose it even if you beat me to death."

"There is no need to worry. I will not hang it somewhere public."

"..."

"I will take it with me."

Luri watched Ferda walk away with the painting.

If he was not going to hang it in a public place, she knew where he would put it.

He was surely going to place it in that deep, dark place that bothered her every time she passed by.

Ferda went to the place he had used as his training room.

It was dark, and since all he had to do was sit there, the room was as cramped as a prison cell.

Calling it training only meant controlling shadows in a lightless darkroom for his mana cultivation method.

So instead of filling it with flashy tools like other mages, there was only a chair and a box of candles.

The third object brought into that darkroom was Valdrova's portrait.

Ferda hung the large painting in the place he had planned.

Ferda stepped back slightly and examined its condition.

"... Good."

The angle, the height, everything was perfect.

The portrait took up half the wall, making it feel as if it filled one entire side.

After checking it carefully as if he were enshrining a sacred relic, Ferda examined the painting in detail.

'How strange...'

If he looked too closely, all he could see were traces of paint, but if he moved only a little away, Valdrova appeared clearly.

It felt as though she might leap out at any moment and trot toward him, saying, "Mr. Ferda."

They must surely have called the greatest painter of that age.

Yes.

Because the artist was skilled enough to capture everything, it felt this vivid.

To learn that, he had desperately wished for this painting from her.

Valdrova had finally granted that request.

Now that he had received the painting and was looking at it from this close, he felt he understood.

'Desire.'

This painting held a fragment of the desire Valdrova possessed.

Her life, which she would never have told him even if he exchanged dozens of words with her, dwelled within it.

Because it was raw and unvarnished, he could vividly feel what she had felt.

It was held in those small, smiling lips.

The fear of a first experience.

The excitement of companionship.

Hope.

But the wish she had hoped for did not come true.

The 3rd Prince, her first fiancé, had thought of Valdrova only as a tool to be used.

Trampled innocence.

Betrayed expectations.

Despair.

And so Valdrova killed the 3rd Prince.

To toy with a dragon was truly a deed deserving of death.

But if Valdrova had been in her right mind, she would never have committed such a murder.

She had been devoured by the hot blood that made her unstable, and so she killed the 3rd Prince.

That was why that specter still lingered at Valdrova's side.

Just like after the Dragon-Demon War.

"As I thought..."

She had said this.

"Someone like me must not become happy."

After killing so many people and surviving.

To think she had believed she could marry a human in such an unsightly way and abandon everything.

Valdrova resented her naive self.

She loathed it.

She was angry.

Ferda placed his index finger on the edge.

Just as she had, he drew a long diagonal line.

He erased her own naive eyes that had taken sin lightly.

"Ugh..."

Ferda's body swayed.

It felt as though someone were strangling him, his breath caught, and at the same time, Ferda's eyes grew moist.

Tears flowed down.

His expression did not change in the slightest, yet those tears ran hot.

The Shadow Circle in Ferda's chest thrashed wildly.

'I...'

There was only one emotion that moved the Shadow Circle.

'I killed a woman like this.'

He regretted it.

He loathed himself for having fallen into misguided hatred and killed such a naive, pure woman.

Ferda feared that regret.

If he regretted, he could not move forward.

'But if I do not regret, I will lose my way.'

That was why the First Witch, Lucy Philiaz, had called it a blessing.

Because this painting was born of regret, it would become a lamp for the man she loved.

When he was trapped in a deep white night, it would become a single streak of darkness that let him see beyond that light.

The day of the postwar meeting to be held at the Golden Council.

"The nobles will soon begin the entry ceremony."

Alexander's adjutant reported.

"I know. I am watching it with my own two eyes right now, am I not?"

Alexander had entered the Golden Council in advance and was watching everything from the balcony.

The road into the Golden Council was packed with countless people, watching the nobles enter.

The five senior committee members at the Crisis Response Headquarters.

All four of them held influence inside and outside the Empire, but only one person could draw a crowd of this size.

Waldemar Gold.

A hero of the people, and the great pillar of the Arken Empire that would not fall.

With his intense charisma, he captivated the hearts of nobles and commoners alike, and even drew his rivals to his side.

'If only I could have that bastard's greenhouse...'

Alexander believed his power lay in that greenhouse.

Even if one had ruled arrogantly all one's life, all things were equal before death.

Even Alexander himself had lost sleep last night, afraid of tomorrow.

He had tilted the scales of death, which even high-ranking priests could not touch.

That was why, even as an old man, his eyes overflowed with vitality.

"... Are the preparations complete?"

"Yes. We have placed the shills in the middle of the procession."

"Good."

Alexander gripped the glass in his hand tightly.

He had shaped public opinion for this day.

He had created one-sided hatred and inflated that hatred.

"When Regent Ferda enters, we will begin the incitement."

Once madness began, it became uncontrollable.

A flood of criticism and resentment.

Whether he felt guilt there, or whether he felt rage.

The priority was to put him in an emotional state before he entered the Golden Council.

There would be nothing Ferda could do about it.

"Regent Ferda will arrive soon."

Alexander opened his eyes wider than ever.

He only hoped to see them being swept up in the condemnation they would receive.

But the moment they appeared, Alexander's smile stiffened.

It was far too different from the direction they had expected.

The capital.

Nobles were the sort of people who made a fuss about the scent of flowers on the road leading there.

There had been a time when Ferda, too, had been a child who believed wholeheartedly in the tune played by those immature fools.

He had wanted to follow his father to the capital.

He had wondered what that flower scent smelled like.

Would it perhaps smell as warm as his mother?

But what reached the nose of the man who had killed an angel and been left ruined was far removed from flowers.

If that was to be called a flower, then it was surely a flower that lured flies wandering through the gutter.

Back then, he had not known what that smell was, nor had he cared much, but now he knew what it was.

Garnet had said the Empire was a jar where stagnant water was rotting.

Yes, that was the smell.

Now that he smelled it, he was certain.

The procession of nobles gathering at the Golden Council continued.

As it was a place where those who wielded influence inside and outside the Empire gathered, it was only natural that each of them would show themselves off.

'For what?'

Ferda could not understand it.

The reason they had to dress up like this to enter.

Nor the citizens who cheered as they watched the nobles enter the Golden Council.

Everything was something that made no sense.

"Count."

"Yes, Regent."

"Do those people there know what happens inside?"

"There is only one thing they know."

"What is that?"

"What they know is that someone will die today, and justice will be served. In their harsh lives, that is welcome rain in a drought."

"And they must be hoping that the one who dies will be me."

"That is likely everyone's wish."

Everyone's wish...

He had felt a sense of déjà vu, and now he saw that nothing had changed from then to now.

"Prepare. We will enter now as well."

"Yes."

Ferda had prepared for this situation.

Concillus added his knights and lent strength to Ferda's back.

Ferda's turn came, and he entered.

The splendid procession of nobles entering was splendid in a way that suited it.

Dressing in formal attire to show themselves off to everyone was a given.

It was only natural to ride in a carriage and wear a relaxed smile.

Ferda, who had climbed onto the carriage, did not smile.

Neither did Concillus, who accompanied him at his side.

Nor even the knights following behind him.

Ferda's procession was a dull gray.

It was a gloomy color that had never once been seen in the Empire.

On the colored stone pavement, it seemed as if masses of gray and stains were walking.

They felt like defeated soldiers returning home.

But they were not defeated soldiers.

They were certainly the ones who had rushed forward to kill a colossal demonic creature, the ones who had crossed the battlefield and delivered news of victory.

They showed, plainly and without embellishment, the appearance of soldiers who had endured horrors the Empire had never once shown.

Every one of them had nearly lost their lives, and every one of them had watched someone else be lost.

They had been someone's friend, someone's subordinate, and someone's family.

What they had in common was that even in such a situation, they had advanced.

To protect what was behind them, they had thrown themselves into the fear of death and the wave of madness spewed out by the battlefield.

That was why half of one man's helmet had been blown away, and why another man's breastplate was deeply caved in near the heart.

The only thing intact was the flag held by the standard-bearer.

Even among those, the only one that shone most brilliantly was the Empire's banner.

The watching crowd did not cheer.

Nor did they condemn them.

Even those who had been shouting at the top of their lungs that the far east must be killed closed their mouths, and the shills, too, fell silent.

They knew that moving in this atmosphere would be madness.

Every one of them had returned from a battlefield where death lurked,

and they were patriots who had fought for the Empire,

so everyone could only solemnly honor the dead and wounded in silent prayer.