ERTHMB Chapter 180

Witch Hunt

Eugene tore his dry lips and sneered.

“Are you offering charity or help? How very possible.”

Natasha didn’t lose her circling smile as she brought her face closer.

“As you know… it’s quite noisy outside right now. Talk of spies and whatnot, troublesome words being thrown around, right? That’s why even Your Grace the Grand Duke couldn’t avoid this prison cell. But don’t worry too much. After all, there’s no evidence anywhere that you were involved…”

“…”

“This situation will just become an insignificant melodrama.”

Watching Eugene’s eyebrows twitch, Natasha willingly turned her intentions inside out.

“As you also know, people have this strange tendency to brush things off lightly when love and women are involved. And if a prey deserving of death appears on top of that, well. Your Grace will naturally return to your original life. But to conduct a witch hunt, you need a witch…”

Natasha bent her knees and sat down to match Eugene’s eye level.

“I’ll volunteer to be that witch.”

Eugene, reading Natasha’s cryptic intentions, furrowed his brow into even sharper lines.

The words he heard before the offer to release him from prison immediately echoed loudly in his mind.

“Don’t you want to recover Your Grace’s reputation and your beloved wife?”

Eugene’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“What do you mean you’ll bring Helena back? She’s already left with that bastard.”

“We’re not so ignorant as to rashly offer a promise without a solution. That bastard—we’ll take care of him for you.”

“…What?”

“Ian Fevernheim. Kill the Emperor of Rihalt, and send the masterless bird back into your arms—that’s what I’m saying, Grand Duke.”

Natasha’s strangely confident attitude indicated that this proposal wasn’t her independent action. Behind her was a larger organization.

The reason Natasha had to cling to Evergale, and why Helena had to go to Rihalt to find Ian.

He had already guessed to some extent. Eugene’s quietly assessing gaze reached Natasha. Natasha whispered about the future Eugene would soon grasp, clouding his conflict.

“It’s simple, Grand Duke. If the injured bird lost its senses and found a new nest, just destroy everything. So that it can never enter anywhere else but its original nest—not its refuge, not its heart. Destroy everything.”

The hand Natasha extended was like a double-edged sword. But Eugene could only see one side. He deliberately saw only that. Helena being with him. There was no other future.

There was no scenario of failure, and Natasha seemed to feel the same way.

Having made his decision, Eugene hardened his gaze.

“What’s the price?”

Natasha rose to her feet as if satisfied. She answered with an exceptionally bright expression.

“Mobilize all possible forces of Evergale to Rihalt. On the day the war ends, Grand Duchess Helena Evergale will be standing by your side.”

Leaving the words that they’d see each other again soon, Natasha suddenly melted into the shadows and escaped the prison.

In the completely black-painted night sky, only the yellow moonlight shone palely. Natasha stepped on the gravel path with muted footsteps, thinking blankly.

Someone had said there’s nothing more ridiculous than love.

The face of the man who resembled Eugene—no, whom Eugene resembled and made her like him—rose to mind as naturally as water flows.

Natasha forcibly washed away Beelzebuth’s afterimage and deliberately wore a sneer.

‘Look at how they cross over like madmen, not knowing the bridge is rotten, all because of that disgraceful love. Really…’

Natasha, who had emerged onto a deserted street, stopped walking. The ground beneath her feet was damp.

The puddle pooled in the middle of the street was as cold as a sensation poured over her entire body in an instant. When she barely lowered her gaze, a woman with a terrifyingly expressionless face was reflected.

Natasha muttered as numbly as that face.

“Right. It’s ridiculous.”

It was truly ridiculous and bitter. Because Eugene wasn’t the only one who, knowing the chalice thrust before them contained poison, stubbornly drank it down and suffered.

Natasha forcibly erased the uncomfortable sense of kinship and hid in the darkness again.

And three days later, Eugene Evergale was released.

He came out from behind the bars and could now hear Natasha’s confession from a reversed position.

Caught obediently after a sloppy escape, she testified that she had no relationship whatsoever with the Grand Duke, and that Evergale had rather been used.

She had tried to obtain information to sell to the Western Empire, but loved him too much to betray him. So she burned down the villa, destroyed all the information, and tried to run away.

Natasha repeatedly acknowledged that Eugene had no guilt whatsoever, and spewed out senseless words like if there really was any guilt, it was only that they had loved each other.

The incident that had heated up the capital gradually settled as a trivial melodrama.

On the night when Natasha’s execution date was set, she stubbornly endured even when the usual flogging struck her face.

Two days later, the head of a blonde woman whose face was mangled beyond recognition fell beneath the guillotine.

****

The Grand Duke of Evergale’s mansion was a grand residence second in size only to the imperial palace. The rooms lined up on each floor were too numerous to count even using one’s fingers several times, but finding Eugene’s room was easy.

His office, bedroom, reception room—all were located in the front where the landscaping was clearly visible. So Helena could see from afar that all the lights in the rooms Eugene used were off.

The day before yesterday, yesterday, and today. Eugene’s rooms were quiet.

‘Has he not returned to the mansion at all since being released…?’

Something not clearly pulled above the water’s surface kept disturbing her mood. Things were turning out suspiciously.

After Ian left for Rihalt first, Helena observed Eugene and Natasha’s movements in Instantia. The unfolding situation was clearly right and wrong, but it was hard to accept at face value.

Confessing, imprisoned, executed. Everything flowed remarkably smoothly.

Above all, the feeling of watching not herself but Natasha laid beneath the guillotine was truly bizarre. To the point where she questioned whether she was really Natasha.

She had been in such a wretched state that it was hard to determine her identity. Helena forcibly erased the unpleasant afterimage and concentrated on a target that happened to pass by.

Hiding among tall bushes and suddenly pulling her in, a small scream erupted. Helena hurriedly covered her mouth and made a shushing sound.

Quietly, when she whispered, Madam Tara nodded her head with wide eyes. When she carefully released her mouth, she trembled her lower lip.

“My lady!”

“Sorry for startling you. But it was so urgent… Have you noticed anything strange in the mansion recently?”

At Helena’s request to tell her everything, even trivial things, Madam Tara fumbled through her graying hair.

However, when no notable information came, Helena glanced at the mansion’s scenery again and asked.

“I don’t see Eugene. Where did he go?”

“Well… He said he would be away from the mansion for some time due to a major trade venture in the near future.”

“Trade?”

In such a complicated situation?

As if reading the doubt that immediately arose, Madam Tara continued explaining even without being asked again.

“Yes, Gordon seemed not to know the details either. He just said that while helping His Grace with his work, he discovered documents for purchasing a large ship in Futuo. Apparently it was so big that the entire Evergale knighthood could fit in it with room to spare, I think he said.”

“Then Eugene is at the harbor now?”

Madam Tara nodded silently. Sending her off as she anxiously watched the guards coming out of the mansion, Helena left the Grand Duke’s estate.

Throughout the hurried ride on horseback to Dairon, anxiety that scraped away at her insides layer by layer deepened.

‘A trade ship? Big enough to fit the entire knighthood with room to spare?’

Natasha’s passive death, Eugene’s immediate release, and Eugene’s suspicious movements.

There was quite a foul stench.

‘There was some kind of deal between the two.’

She also had a premonition that Natasha was still alive.

As soon as Helena arrived at Spencer Castle, she looked for Gelda. She, who had been busy organizing the mercenary group, stopped what she was doing as soon as she spotted Helena and approached.

“What happened at the Grand Duke’s mansion to make you so frantic?”

“Gelda. We can’t go to Kiera Plain.”

“Suddenly?”

“Even if Beelzebuth loses this war, he won’t give up. He has a next time. He’ll continuously wage war until he takes Ian’s position. We can’t let it be like that. This time we must perfectly topple everything he has.”

Even with the sudden tactical change, Gelda quickly agreed and nodded.

“So, do you have a sharp plan?”

Helena took the Rihalt map Gelda was holding and explained.

“Beelze is trying to protect something using Eugene’s army. It’s a place that’s not even a strategic point. It’s probably his headquarters that he’s guarded for decades. The place where all the funds he’s accumulated are.”

Gelda called over Angri who happened to be passing by, made him bend his back, and placed the map on top of it. Helena traced down Rihalt’s coastline with her fingertip.

“If we connect all the information Ian sent and all the routes Eugene could take, there are a total of 6 regions. But among them, Baden Canyon and Roche Rock Mountain are too treacherous to occupy, Harsa is Ian’s territory so Beelze has no room to interfere. Fortchenko is unsuitable because of the volcano. Then what’s left is Lucia Bay and Gail Bay…”

“What are you pondering about? You already look like you’ve made up your mind.”

Flam, who had been listening from who knows when, suddenly interrupted and held out his signature fountain pen.

After one deep breath, Helena took the pen, drew a large circle in one corner of the map, and raised her head again.

“We’re going to Lucia Bay. The odds are fifty-fifty so I can’t guarantee it, and in a way I know it’s a stretch. But I’d like you to follow my decision.”

“The basis?”

“…I don’t know. But I have a conviction that victory is there.”

“…”

“…”

Flam and Gelda exchanged silent glances for a moment.

Helena ground her lips and waited for the two’s decision.

However, what broke through the tightening tension was Flam’s laughter.

“Why are you asking now, all of a sudden? How many miracles have we seen thanks to you until now?”

Gelda lightly struck the forehead of Helena, who was muttering “thank you” with a bewildered face, and said.

“Don’t forget. From the day you rolled down from the forest instead of me, my life has been yours.”

And lastly, Angri’s trembling voice rose from beneath the map.

“A-are you all done? C-can I go now?”

Gelda slapped the map as if to stick it right onto his back, then shouted heartily.

“Prepare to set sail!”