ERTHMB Chapter 177

Cheschire

Helena stopped crawling backward and asked.

“Did you make me regress?”

Elai simply smiled without answering, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Helena asked again.

“Why did you return my memories this time?”

He maintained his consistent smile as if he would keep silent this time too, then shrugged his shoulders with a reluctant gesture.

“Because you wanted it. I’m a being that responds to human desires.”

“I never wanted it.”

At the firm answer, Elai took a step forward. Bending his knees to sit in front of Helena, he moved his lips while still looking down at her despite his lowered eye level.

“I told you before. I’m quite fond of you, Helena.”

Then, in the moment she blinked.

Helena noticed that the fire burning in his red eyes had disappeared.

He seemed to sway for a moment, then let out a low groan while holding his forehead.

“Why am I here……”

“Elai?”

Helena, gathering her courage to reach out her hand, carefully touched the bangs covering Elai’s eyes. She immediately met his confused red gaze.

“I seem to have lost my memory again.”

His tone was calm, but Helena could sense it was barely maintained composure.

He quickly sorted through his confusion as if it were a familiar occurrence and stood up. Looking around, Elai discovered the assassins scattered about and moved toward them.

Helena also approached as he pressed his hand against their necks to check if they were alive or dead.

Elai’s expression hardened unusually.

“These bastards weren’t sent by the Grand Duke.”

“Then who—”

Before asking who sent them, Helena realized the answer and changed her words.

“Is this Beelzebuth’s doing?”

Elai nodded and took Helena’s arm to lead her.

“The lord is looking for you. Let’s talk as we go.”

****

“Ian!”

Helena ran to him as soon as she saw Ian. He, who had been standing by the lake, turned around immediately at Helena’s voice.

Ian stopped her from rushing to embrace him and first confirmed she was unharmed, then finally pulled her into his arms.

“Thank goodness, thank goodness.”

“Ian, I can’t breathe.”

When he released her from his crushing embrace, Helena said with a face both happy and bewildered.

“I didn’t expect you to come. Was it okay for you to come?”

“It wasn’t okay—I had to come. Right now, you’re the person who’ll be most targeted. Whether I leave your side or not, there will be no more negotiations. They’ll try to bind my movements by using you as a hostage.”

“That’s what I mean. How did Beelzebuth send assassins after me? There’s no way they could have known you and I were in Instantia this quickly.”

To Helena, who expressed the question she’d had for a while, Ian answered after a brief pause.

“Unless they’re watching very closely.”

When Helena gave him a puzzled look, Ian added an explanation.

“Cheshire. Beelzebuth’s greatest limb. The Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army and a master of disguise, an assassin skilled in poison and sorcery. No one knows their exact identity. We only estimate that they’ve been settling in Evergale for several years, accumulating funds.”

Elai, who had been silently tending to his sword nearby, also chimed in.

“To some, she appears as a noble saint or a cunning witch, then becomes a loyal knight or is called a despicable assassin.”

“……She? Does that mean you know her gender?”

Elai tilted his head toward Ian as if the answer lay with him.

Ian, who nodded, spoke at a somewhat slower pace as if retracing his memories.

“She’s a woman who climbed all the way to the top by disarming opponents with an innocent and guileless face. She entered the imperial palace disguised as a lady-in-waiting and finally stabbed me. I avoided a fatal wound, but when I chased after her, there was only a trail of blood everywhere.”

Ian’s hand briefly rested on the long scar that ran down his spine.

“I’m probably the only person who’s seen that woman’s face. Everyone else who has seen it would be dead. That’s also why I came to Instantia myself from the start.”

He began leading Helena with hurried steps as if eager to leave the place as soon as possible, continuing his words.

“It was dark that day so I couldn’t see properly, but if my senses are right, there’s probably a long scar remaining on her right shoulder. I also stabbed Cheshire quite deeply.”

Helena stepped onto the bridge crossing the lake while following him and thought.

‘A scar on the shoulder? Why does this feel so familiar……’

It seemed like if she pulled the line just a little more, the answer would rise above the surface. However, what popped up unexpectedly were things that were not welcome at all.

A new group of assassins leaped down from the trees all at once.

“My lord!”

Elai, who had been right behind them, deflected the assassin’s attack and alerted them to the danger.

Ian also turned and drew his sword as soon as the sound of blades clashing rang out. He pushed Helena behind his back and shouted.

“Go now!”

Helena ran straight ahead without time to look back. She knew that bringing up objections like “but” out of inadequate concern would only hold her back.

Nevertheless, whether due to the considerable difference in their strides or because they were at a numerical disadvantage, Ian and Elai were rapidly closing in.

Helena stopped briefly around the middle of the bridge. Judging by the vibrations that traveled up the bridge with each step, the bridge’s durability seemed to have reached the end of its lifespan.

‘If I just give it a little more shock……!’

“Ian! Can you cut the bridge?”

All she could see was his back, but Helena felt that he had agreed.

Ian shouted while cutting down the assassin blocking Elai.

“Elai!”

Understanding the command with just one call, Elai quickly scooped up Helena and ran.

Helena panicked and struggled when he reached the edge of the bridge, expecting him to stop.

“Elai! Ian hasn’t crossed yet!”

However, Elai didn’t slow down at all.

As soon as Ian confirmed from the corner of his vision that Elai and Helena had almost arrived, he grasped the sword handle with both hands and raised it.

Helena saw blue aura burst forth from the vertically raised sword. It was a brilliance that shone like a supernova even in the pitch-black night.

The sword, which had been emitting light more and more fiercely, fell just as Helena cried out his name.

“Ian!”

With a severe cracking sound, cracks began spreading across the bridge from the center where the sword was embedded.

The gap that extended without hesitation, splitting the ground the assassins stood on, finally disappeared only after plunging into the black lake.

The same was true for where Ian stood.

Kwarrung!

With a shockwave like thunder, everything before their eyes sank beneath the lake.

Elai didn’t release Helena until the situation had ended and the water surface had calmed down.

Helena rushed frantically to the waterside. The night lake that had swallowed everything was brazenly calm.

“No, no……!”

In despair, Elai caught Helena again as she tried to wade into the water. Helena tried to push him away reproachfully, but Elai gestured with his chin toward the front.

Helena panted as she followed his gaze. Small bubbles were rising in succession. Without realizing it, she held her breath while watching them.

And finally, clean silver hair burst up, splashing rough spray.

“Ian!”

Ian, who swam to the waterside and stood on both legs, spat out the water he’d swallowed. He sat down on the gravel and wrung out his wet clothes after taking them off. Helena immediately approached and sat beside him.

“That was too reckless!”

“Less reckless than you coming to Rihalt without thinking.”

“Are you joking right now?”

“It’s a power I’ve been training with full force lately because I have an urgent use for it. What do you think? Will it work on the battlefield?”

“I thought my mind would snap!”

At Helena’s touch hitting his forearm, Ian suppressed his laughter and threw the wrung-out clothes to Elai. He then shook out his wet hair while presenting an ominous point.

“By the way, I clearly shook off the pursuit while leaving the forest…… How did they know to follow so closely?”

While Ian pondered, Helena held out her hand. Ian, who stood up by grasping her hand, soon asked.

“Helen. Do you have anything that’s passed through someone else’s hands? Either when leaving Rihalt or when leaving the Grand Duke’s residence. It seems like your location is being tracked.”

Both in Rihalt and at the Grand Duke’s residence, she had barely managed to escape with only her body due to Eugene’s oppressive behavior. Helena unconsciously shook her head. Then she suddenly remembered one thing.

Something that was hers but had passed through someone else’s hands.

‘The brooch.’

Helena’s head, which had been moving left and right, stopped. Helena removed the thorn brooch from her dress hem and showed it to Ian.

Ian’s expression became serious as he received the brooch.

“Did the Grand Duke have this and then return it to you?”

Elai, who had come closer, also looked at the brooch and muttered quietly.

“There’s a directional tracking spell on it. This is Cheshire’s doing.”

“But I’ve never met that woman, so how……”

“The Grand Duke may have had contact with her.”

Helena asked Ian, who seemed to agree with Elai’s opinion.

“Ian. Can you describe exactly what this woman Cheshire looks like?”

“Her hair color was probably different since she was disguised at the time, and her eyes were green. Deep green eyes like a swamp.”

The bait that had been about to be pulled above the water surface stirred again.

Master of disguise, scar on the shoulder, someone very close to her.

Funds accumulated in Evergale for several years. A laundering account created in Christine’s name.

“It’s not Eugene, it’s her.”

In Helena’s mind, only one person finally came into clear focus.

“Natasha.”

****

Beelzebuth still remembered vividly.

‘Irritating.’

That was his first impression of Ian. He was truly bothersome beyond compare.

With clean silver hair and low-saturation purple eyes. He looked so much like his mother that one might think the emperor’s blood was mixed in. From the fact that he looked completely different from himself with black hair and crimson eyes, he didn’t like him at all.

But what he did was even worse.

Despite being the son of an unfavored empress, he smiled as if he’d received all the love in the world, and he had the audacity to swagger before His Majesty with a sword in hand. And yet the senile old man was so pleased that he laughed heartily.

From then on, Beelzebuth had to endure the terribly boring task of watching his young brother’s clumsy swordplay at every annual event.