Chapter 69
“I’ll hear the rest tomorrow.”
As if the child’s condition had worsened, Zerman quickly supported Aren and led him out of the room.
I covered my face with both hands, then slowly turned and pulled the blanket tightly over me. In the darkness beneath the covers, I let out a quiet breath.
Aren’s last words lingered in the air, echoing faintly around the room.
At first, I thought I could endure it. But soon the tears came. My body trembled uncontrollably.
It felt as though the frozen fragments of time within me were quietly melting away.
The emotions I had pressed down for so long burst forth all at once, spilling as tears.
Khalid might find it strange. Perhaps even suspicious. But even if such thoughts crossed my mind, I could no longer hold back the sobs.
“Uhk… hhk… sob…”
The heavy, suffocating silence of night wrapped around the room once more.
And in that silence, Khalid sat on the sofa in the exact same posture as yesterday. He did not speak. He did not move.
He simply remained there quietly, sharing the moment as everything inside me crumbled to pieces.
Only the muffled sounds of my weeping, buried beneath the blankets, seeped weakly into the air.
The next morning, I opened my eyes again.
Dragging my body heavy with exhaustion, I forced myself to rise.
After splashing cold water on my face, I glanced into the mirror. My swollen, red eyes bore silent witness to the night before.
The only comfort was that Khalid had not asked why I had been crying. At least I wouldn’t need to come up with excuses for my emotions.
Taking a deep breath, I left the room. Zerman was likely going over the previous night’s events with Aren.
I knocked quietly and opened the door. Low voices drifted out. A breeze slipped through the open window, setting the curtains swaying gently.
I paused, momentarily caught by the peaceful scene. Then both pairs of eyes turned toward me.
We exchanged a brief glance before I approached Aren. His body was still covered in wounds, even his breathing remained uneven.
Carefully, I tucked the blanket around him and sat quietly on the sofa.
I had cried enough yesterday. Now it was time to do what needed to be done.
“Did anything come up?”
“I spoke with Aren until just now. I’m organizing his testimony. Did you find anything suspicious?”
He handed me a stack of documents.
I was surprised. I thought he would at least ask why I had collapsed… but he asked nothing. Instead, he simply drew me into the discussion, as though nothing had happened.
I was sure Khalid had sensed something odd, but for reasons unknown, he was giving me space.
It made me feel strangely at ease. There was no way I could have explained, anyway.
“The kidnappings onto ships began two years ago, correct?”
“Yes. Before that, victims were sent to noble estates or mines. No one ever returned.”
As he flipped through the papers, he pressed his furrowed brow with a clenched fist.
But Shurel had been in Maersen since three years ago. And the kidnappings only began two years ago? The timeline doesn’t fit.
If Shurel had been taken, it would have been after the anesthetic experiments succeeded.
Cautiously, I spoke.
“In that case… maybe there wasn’t just one laboratory. Lady Shurel’s case must have started much earlier.”
Zerman spread several documents retrieved from Maersen across the table.
“Or perhaps Aren simply misremembered.”
I shook my head firmly.
“He’s perceptive and intelligent. He may have been confused, but not to the point of mistaking the timing. At most, half a year off.”
Zerman tilted his head, pulling another sheet from the stack and pointing to a section with his fingertip.
“These experiment numbers seem to correspond to headcount. Doesn’t that seem odd when compared with the population of Belanib?”
He was right. I had noticed the same irregularity aboard the ship.
I clenched and unclenched my fists several times before taking a deep breath and pointing at the figures.
“After the great flood, Belanib’s population was under 180,000. But these records show nearly 50,000 victims. Even if it’s only a classification code… if it really means headcount, the number is far too high.”
“Couldn’t they have been subtracted from the remaining population?”
“Fifty thousand? If that many people disappeared from a single city and the imperial court didn’t notice… that would be stranger still.”
Khalid nodded. Even if the imperial family was incompetent, even if the period coincided with his own seclusion, an incident of that scale could not have been covered up.
“Weren’t there also refugees who left with relief funds and letters of recommendation from the wielder of holy power? Around twenty thousand left then. That means fewer than 160,000 remained. To have 50,000 vanish unnoticed is impossible.”
I bit my lip hard. I remembered it clearly—I had stayed up all night writing those recommendation letters.
I had wished for those refugees to find safety and a new home. I had investigated them carefully, confirmed their identities.
The recommendations had been no more than coercion disguised as requests, backed by holy power, but their authority had been absolute.
“These numbers can’t be explained by Belanib alone. There must have been other sites. If there’s another explanation…”
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to breathe steadily. This was something I hated to even put into words.
When Riviere realized Adam had vanished without a trace after returning, she must have started again. Gathering people, restoring erased data… She had done it once before, so the second time would have gone much faster.
Preparation, one year. Full-scale experiments, another year. Then the anesthetic was perfected, Shurel collapsed… and another year passed.
That would mean the experiments had begun even before Shurel’s abduction.
So the maids and attendants who vanished into the Arfin estate… it was because of this.
We had finally found the starting point that Maersen had concealed. They weren’t just using slaves for dogfights.
The suspicion I had brushed off on the ship now threatened to become a chilling truth. Still, I had to say it. Whether true or not, I couldn’t shoulder it alone anymore.
“…What if the experiments themselves were a lie?”
A short silence fell.
Zerman broke it in a low voice.
“The logs were genuine. The victims were real, and the records matched.”
I pressed my fingertips against my burning eyes. Speaking the words felt like tearing open a wound.
“What if it wasn’t an experiment… but someone’s twisted prank, or… vengeance?”
“Are you insane?”
“Zerman.”
“…Forgive me. I lost my composure.”
I forced a smile and waved my hand.
“It’s alright. If I had heard something like that, I would have reacted the same way.”
“No. Such words should never have left my mouth, no matter the circumstance. To have insulted Lady Valandie, His Highness’s fiancée… I accept whatever punishment you decide.”
Even without Khalid’s rebuke, he fully admitted his mistake.
Trying to ease the rigid atmosphere, I forced a playful tone.
“Well then… if I ever make a similar mistake, please just overlook it once. Fair enough?”
Thankfully, the tension loosened slightly. Watching silently, Khalid’s lips curved faintly upward.
Feeling unfairly teased, I shot him a glare before smoothing my expression again.
“Ahem. To summarize—what happened in Belanib might not have been a purposeful experiment at all. It may have been… nothing more than someone’s game or cruel amusement.”
“Who could possibly…”
Zerman trailed off, unable to finish.
The softened air froze solid in an instant.
Khalid leaned back slowly on the sofa. His crimson eyes darkened, exuding a chilling aura.
“…There is one.”
There was no need to say the name aloud. The moment the anesthetic resurfaced, that name was inevitable.
In the heavy silence, everyone thought of the same person.
Riviere Arfin.
