Chapter : 15
“Don’t be unreasonable, Deminic.”
While Bellona was focused on twisting her hand free, another voice interrupted the two of them.
“Let go of her hand.”
Bellona tore her gaze away from her wrist and looked up sharply.
Ruils had drawn his sword and was pointing it at Deminic, his expression filled with the same firm resolve to punish a ruffian that he had shown at the Information Guild.
The only difference from before was that Deminic didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at Ruils’s threat. Instead, he wore a mocking smile.
“Are you threatening me? A mere knight of the temple?”
“Deminic, don’t provoke him. And Ruils, you put that sword away too.”
The moment Bellona spoke Ruils’s name aloud, she felt the grip of the hand holding her wrist tighten.
As soon as Bellona frowned slightly, however, the pressure disappeared with surprising speed. Even so, Deminic still seemed to have no intention of letting her go.
“You know this man?”
“…Yes. So don’t interfere. We merely had a minor disagreement.”
Since that was technically true, Bellona was momentarily at a loss for an excuse when she saw Ruils’s doubtful expression.
“Didn’t you hear Bellona? You have no business interfering, so why don’t you get lost? What are you planning to do with that pathetic sword, anyway?”
“Whether you can say the same words after this sword cuts your throat remains to be seen.”
“Oh? Are you saying you want to fight?”
The sight of the two of them growling at each other as though they were desperate to tear each other apart was absurd.
Caught between them, Bellona eventually decided to act herself. She raised her free hand and reached out to push Ruils’s sword away.
“…Lady Bellona, if you try to grab the sword like that—!”
“Are you insane? Why are you trying to grab the blade with your bare hand?”
Ruils hastily lowered his sword in alarm, and at the same time, Deminic, who had been equally startled, released Bellona.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t even touch it.”
Even if she had actually cut her hand on the sharp blade, it would have been an injury Bellona could easily endure.
She had actually died from being stabbed by a sword before. Compared to that, a little pain like this was nothing.
“You two were trying to fight without listening to a word I said. I was just about to tell you who would end up getting hurt if you fought.”
“I apologize. I said I would protect you, yet I forgot my duty.”
Ruils immediately backed away and bowed his head, apologizing with an utterly flustered expression.
“It’s fine. I understand that you were worried.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
“Rose and Julian will be waiting, so let’s really go back to the carriage now.”
“What about that man…?”
While Bellona was talking to Ruils, she only then turned back toward Deminic after noticing Ruils cast a sidelong glance at him.
Deminic was staring solely at Bellona with blazing red eyes.
“Deminic, I have to return to the count’s estate now.”
“You’re really going to put that brat ahead of me?”
“Just as you have things you need to do, I have things I need to do too.”
She meant that, now that he had properly reclaimed his position as the Duke of Roxellne, he surely had plenty of things to take care of as well.
“Let’s both finish what we need to do and talk again later, Deminic.”
“…Right. Things we need to do. There’s that.”
He forced the words out through clenched teeth, clearly unwilling to accept them.
But this time, Deminic merely gave Ruils a quiet nod and did not stop Bellona as she turned toward the carriage.
That did not mean he had no complaints.
If anything, he could barely contain the anger blazing up inside him.
‘She asked me to cooperate with her, yet she’s seeking help from another man too.’
Deminic could not believe that Bellona had left him behind and gone to some pathetic knight like that.
He understood logically that Bellona’s words had been perfectly reasonable, but his emotions were boiling over, urging him to grab her again after she had let go of his hand.
He had not intended to follow her here, either.
He had arrived in the capital a little later than she had, and while listening to brief reports from his people stationed throughout the city about the various rumors circulating in the capital and the relationships among the nobles, Bellona’s name had come up.
“Um… You know the young lady you told us to keep a close eye on? I saw her going out today. Her carriage was headed toward the area where the Information Guilds are located, but that alley is rather…”
That was all it took.
Deminic immediately pushed himself to move there, even if it meant recklessly using his power, and what he saw was Bellona talking pleasantly with Ruils.
Her tone was just as calm and indifferent as when she spoke to Deminic, but there was an unfamiliar warmth in it that he could distinguish.
He had no idea what part of that apprentice knight had managed to soften her toward him, but seeing her treat him so familiarly, even going as far as to let him ride in the same carriage, displeased him immensely.
‘Why did she go all the way there alone and bring that bastard along…?’
Bellona’s warning had not been wrong.
The powerful energy that had momentarily surged out when Ruils dealt with the men harassing Julian had unmistakably revealed the existence of an enormous amount of divine power hidden within him.
He was indeed someone they needed to be cautious of.
“But from beginning to end, there isn’t a single thing I like about this.”
Yet for now, it was still a talent he could easily crush beneath his heel.
‘Should I eliminate him?’
Should he take the risk of possibly having to deal with the temple’s relentless pursuit and cut down that sprout before it could grow?
He simply could not stand the fact that Ruils was clinging to Bellona’s side and bothering her.
“My lord, didn’t you say you were going to the Imperial Palace?”
Deminic had watched until the very end as Bellona’s carriage disappeared from sight. One of his subordinates, who had barely managed to track him down after Deminic had disappeared in the middle of receiving his report, glanced at him and asked the question.
“We’re going.”
“Are you going to become the Duke of Roxellne, as you said?”
The people he commanded were those who could not openly step into the world.
Deminic had rescued those who, like him, had attempted to carry out revenge and consequently faced execution, then completed their revenge for them. In return, he had received their lifelong loyalty.
Having already abandoned their lives once and believing those lives were already lost, they could be merciless when necessary while generally remaining obedient.
“No. Not yet. I need to revise the plan.”
If Bellona intended to share only the information she deemed necessary, act independently where he could not see her, and attempt to maintain a certain distance in their relationship, then all he needed to do was find a way to trample over that boundary and enter.
‘If you needed help, you should have come to me first. You could have just told me and relied on me….’
Deminic had no intention of allowing Bellona to leave the thread connecting them loosely tied.
Without realizing it, Deminic rubbed the ring in his hand.
After encountering Bellona, he once again heard whispers scattered on the wind.
This time, they were clearer.
“You don’t have to kill me. I can kill myself.”
As though it were an extension of this phenomenon, an illusion of Bellona suddenly appeared right before him, her eyes filled with hatred as she stared at him, capturing his gaze.
Bellona had clearly left in the carriage just moments ago.
“Bellona?”
No.
Looking again, he realized that she was not his Bellona. Her appearance was different.
Her face looked older than it did now, and unlike her current habit of wearing her hair loose, it was elegantly pinned up.
It was, presumably, a ‘future’ Bellona, glaring at him expressionlessly.
The moment Deminic unconsciously took a step toward her, Bellona’s figure scattered like mist, disappearing as though she had never been there in the first place.
Yet strangely, a thick sense of obsession and greed remained clinging to him, leaving him with the feeling that he had just lost something he desperately wanted right before his eyes.
Deminic stood there for some time, unable to make sense of what had happened.
“My lord? Is something wrong?”
Only when one of his subordinates called out to him did he finally regain his sense of reality.
But what had been that image of Bellona he had just seen?
The sight of bloodstains scattered across the hem of her bright, cheerful-colored dress had been bizarre and eerie.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Deminic and Bellona had clearly never met before.
Then had some part of the ability to see the future somehow been transferred to him through this ring?
He was confused.
Deminic rubbed his face, trying to clear his head.
‘Is there something about Bellona that I absolutely have to know?’
As though responding to that thought, a faint energy briefly gathered around the ring for the first time before disappearing.
There was undoubtedly some incredibly complicated spell placed on it, one that was clearly mediated through the ring itself and so subtle that even he could barely detect it.
If it had been a threatening type of spell, he would have noticed immediately, but since it was nothing of the sort, it was even more difficult to figure out what was happening.
‘If there’s a spell on it, then when and by whom?’
There was one thing he knew for certain.
Now that he and she had become entangled with each other in some way, he felt that he would not be satisfied until he uncovered everything about Bellona Rosentin.
‘I can’t let those other bastards get any closer to her.’
It had to be him who personally uncovered the mysterious aspects of Bellona Rosentin, a woman surrounded by layers upon layers of veils.
Like a precious jewel, Bellona continued to attract his attention, and the more he watched her, the more fascinated he became.
The same went for Ruils, whom Bellona had met today, as well as that cousin of hers whom she suddenly intended to bring in and establish as the next count.
Every time Bellona added another word, they seemed bewitched, focusing entirely on whatever she said.
He did not like it at all.
“When are we actually moving?”
Perhaps because Deminic had remained silent for so long, his most talkative subordinate, Ransel, could not endure the silence and asked again.
“Let’s go to the Imperial Palace.”
Every time Bellona’s gaze turned toward Ruils, an indescribable emotion he had never experienced before seized him with particular intensity.
He did not know what this emotion was, but one thing was certain.
He wanted to take all of Bellona’s attention and gaze away from everyone else and keep them entirely for himself.
Even if, perhaps, the end of this emotion was waiting for his destruction.
