ESL Chapter 52

The knights standing guard in front of Luciel’s room glanced at each other as the silence from within continued.

“Did it fail again today?”

One knight muttered, and another followed with a tone of disappointment.

“But the woman who came today was truly a beauty. The most stunning I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I know. The last women who failed were sent to us in the 6th Unit by His Excellency, but I heard that even if today’s fails, he said to bring her back. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be our turn this time.”

Another knight relayed what he had heard from Guster, and the others clicked their tongues in disappointment. The three women who had failed before Lea were being held captive in a warehouse next to the knights’ quarters. Cheor had thrown them to his knights as playthings before having the women killed.

“Once today’s business is done, I’ll have to drop by the warehouse. What was her name — Sera? That one’s quite voluptuous.”

The knights were exchanging crude talk unbecoming of men of their station when sounds began to leak from the room, and they quickly pressed their ears to listen. The high-pitched cries of a woman, a man’s ragged breathing, and the loud sounds of flesh meeting flesh came pouring through.

“So even Lord Luciel cannot hold out before a beauty. I’ll go down and report the success to His Excellency.”

One knight clicked his tongue in disappointment and headed downstairs, while the remaining knights resumed their posts as if nothing had happened. But their ears remained fixed on the sounds from within the room, and only the occasional sound of swallowing broke the silence in the corridor.

****

“So you’re saying Luciel is lying with that woman right now?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

The knight prostrated before Cheor bowed his head in answer.

“Hmm…”

He leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. He thought the man had given in sooner than expected, and felt a faint trace of regret.

A fine woman, one I haven’t seen in a long time.

He recalled the woman who had stood in his study just hours ago and twisted his lips into a smirk. Even among the noble ladies of Teor, it would be difficult to find a beauty that matched her. As he recalled those jewel-like crimson eyes glimpsed beneath long, dark lashes, he felt heat pooling in his lower body and a hardening sensation.

Those long dark lashes, the way they fluttered — I wanted to just pin her down right then and there…

Hm? Cheor’s drifting thoughts suddenly came to a halt.

Dark lashes, you say…? But was her hair not the most common shade of brown?

Slowly, his gaze turned cold and still. Black was not a common color in the Kingdom of Teor. If she had dyed her hair to adorn herself, there would be no reason to dye it an ordinary brown. Unless she was trying to deceive someone.

Once suspicion began to take root, it spread one thread at a time. She claimed to be a courtesan who served high-ranking nobles — and yet not a single thing about the woman’s bearing and conduct had grated on his eyes. That she did not grate on his eyes meant she had been trained in noble etiquette. Naturally, at that. Only then did he realize something had gone wrong.

How cleverly she used her face to blind my eyes.

The twisted smile playing at Cheor’s lips deepened further.

He rose from his chair and lifted the sword leaning against the side of his desk. Whatever purpose she had in approaching Luciel, the woman had no means of escape.

“I’m going to Luciel’s room.”

“Yes — what??”

As the knight startled and scrambled to his feet, Cheor had already slipped out of the office and was heading toward Luciel’s room. At his appearance, the knights who had been standing with their ears tuned to the sounds within hurriedly snapped to attention.

“Has it been going on like this the whole time?”

At Cheor’s question, one knight answered quickly.

“Yes. Likely due to the aphrodisiac — they have not stopped for a single moment.”

“…”

Cheor turned his head to look at the door as the moans and gasps continued to seep through it. He deliberated briefly between letting the liaison continue and dragging the woman out to uncover her identity, but soon reached a decision. Now that Luciel had begun to take a woman, he would no longer be able to refuse one. Any woman, for that matter.

Then there’s no particular need for that wench. How dare she deceive me — she’ll pay dearly for it.

A ruthless smile bloomed at the corner of his mouth as he issued a cold command.

“Open it.”

“Pardon?”

The knight bowing before him looked up in confusion, not fully comprehending the order he had just heard, and the smile at Cheor’s lips deepened further.

Shk!!

The sword, drawn from Cheor’s hand in an instant, swept clean across the knight’s throat.

Without so much as a scream, the knight crumpled to the floor, trembling violently as blood poured like a waterfall from the gash in his neck. Drenched in the blood that had sprayed from the dead man, Cheor stood with a twisted smile on his face — and he looked so genuinely like a cruel demon that the remaining knights froze in place as though turned to ice.

“Open it.”

His lips parted once more and the words fell out, and one of the frozen knights rushed frantically to pull the door open. He stepped inside and hurriedly lit the magic lantern.

“……..!”

The knight who had entered first suffered a violent shock. The room was empty. Sounds of coupling had clearly been leaking through — and yet there was no trace of anyone on the bed or the floor.

“Well, well…”

Cheor walked slowly into the room, and the moment he confirmed that Luciel was absent, the smile vanished from his face. His gaze, cold and sunken, traveled toward the bed from which the moans were still emanating.

Thud. Thud.

He walked to the bed and stared at what lay upon it for a moment. There sat a single recording orb he had never seen before. Upon confirming that all the sounds he had been hearing had come from the recording orb, Cheor’s lips twisted to their fullest extent.

Shk!

The sword swung again, and the knight who had first checked the room crumpled to the floor with blood streaming from him. Having killed two men in an instant, he walked slowly out of the room with his bloodied sword in hand. Drenched from head to toe in blood, his expression perfectly blank, he issued orders to the remaining knights.

“Luciel has escaped. Put out a warrant across all of Teor. And find that woman who was with him — drag her before me.”

Cheor watched the knights scramble off to relay his orders to the rest of the unit, and in the end could not contain his fury, hurling the sword he held down onto the floor. A plan that had been going so smoothly had begun to unravel. And he was not the sort to stand by and watch it unravel.

“…What’s come undone can simply be set right again. It’s not as though they have anywhere to run.”

Cheor muttered the words, his eyes flashing with rage as he stared into the now-empty room that had been Luciel’s.

****

In Theordo, there was a custom when a noble died: the family would pay a set sum as a donation and send the body to the temple for storage. The body would be kept in the temple’s Chamber of Rest, where the priests would use their divine power to prevent decomposition. While the family prepared funeral rites, mourners would visit the Chamber of Rest to pay their final respects to the deceased. And today, too, one such mourner had come.

A woman wearing a black veil that concealed her face stood in silence, gazing down at the young girl lying within the coffin. Dressed in a pure white gown, the girl looked like an angel — beautiful and at peace. Yet for the woman who had heard the manner of that death, the girl appeared to be suffering still. She slowly lifted the veil from her face and held it in her hand. Revealed beneath it were neatly pinned platinum hair and violet eyes brimming with sorrow. This beauty, appearing to be in her late thirties, was none other than Rosia’s adoptive mother and Cheor’s former wife — Arhvina Norman Goth.

Drip… drip…

Tears that had begun to fall at some point ran down from her eyes and dropped onto Rosia’s face.

I killed her…

Arhvina clenched her teeth. It was she who had brought this child here in the first place, and she who had abandoned her. She had known better than anyone what sort of place this was, yet she had been too consumed with protecting herself to do otherwise, and so she had looked away. When she left this place, the child had clung to her. Begging to be taken along. The result of wrenching away that small grasping hand had come back in a form this devastating.

What a truly precious child she was.

She had been such a beautiful girl, the way she smiled with a hint of shyness. At a time when Arhvina had grown exhausted from being invisible to Cheor no matter what she did, she had once taken an outing to the Goth domain. And it was there, far from the capital, that she had by chance spotted a young Rosia playing with children her age.

She was lovely and dear. She had thought that if a child like that existed between herself and Cheor, perhaps their relationship might improve. It had been an impulsive decision. She had assumed her husband, sensitive as he was about bloodlines, would object — but unexpectedly, he had accepted without resistance. And so she had hoped. That hope had not lasted long before it collapsed.

Cheor had had no intention whatsoever of improving their relationship. He had married her from the start for political purposes, and the moment her father was forced to relinquish his position as Chief Councillor over a disgraceful scandal, even the small amount of attention he had shown her vanished entirely.

She had been miserable. Every time she saw Cheor with his arm around the waist of some other noble lady as he led her to his bedchamber, she had despaired. And so, in the end, she resolved to seek a divorce. If she did not, she felt she would break apart entirely. Rosia had weighed on her heart, but her husband would not allow her to take the child.

No… that was a cowardly excuse. The truth was that at the time, her desire for divorce had so consumed her that she had no room left to consider Rosia. And so she had looked away.

“…My poor child…”

If only I hadn’t done that then… Regret surged over her like a tide. How frightened must she have been. How much must she have resented me.

Arhvina had been standing there for some time, shedding tears in silence, when she spotted the bead bracelet still clasped around Rosia’s wrist — and she could hold back no longer, letting out a sob. That bracelet was something she had given Rosia as a birthday gift a year ago. One month after giving that gift, she had left the ducal household to seek her divorce.

“…Right… this was still here…”

Making no move to wipe the tears streaming down her face, Arhvina reached out and removed the bracelet from Rosia’s arm. Rosia had not known, but inside that bracelet was a small recording orb disguised as one of the beads. One with a feature that began recording upon impact and stopped automatically once the sounds around it ceased.

Rosia had always been a quiet, shy child who rarely said anything even when she was hurt. And that tendency had only grown stronger as she got older. Perhaps it was more pronounced because she had been adopted. No matter how many times Arhvina found her legs or knees covered in deep bruises and told her to speak up about even minor injuries, Rosia would only smile bashfully and say she didn’t want to worry her. It was for that very Rosia that she had commissioned this special bracelet. She claimed she hurt herself on her own, but Arhvina had suspected that perhaps one of the maids was harming her adopted daughter.

“……”

Her fingers carefully traced the largest bead on the bracelet. The recording orb glowed and began to activate. And the beloved voice she would never hear again stirred something deep within her.

[Ow!]

[Are you alright, my lady?!]

[I’m fine. It was my own fault.]

My sweet child… A faint smile touched Arhvina’s lips. But it vanished in an instant as time wore on. Her fist was clenched so tightly that blue veins stood out across the back of her hand, and her face had set into an expression that could harden no further.

“……..”

She fixed a murderous stare on the recording orb in her hand, then clasped the bracelet around her own wrist. She turned and walked out of the temple.