Chapter 5 …
“Eh, wait. You mean she’s going to become the Grand Duchess?”
Nishe, who had heard the former through telepathy in the mountains but was hearing the latter for the first time, immediately made a face and asked back.
“As if.”
Davuyer denied it almost reflexively, rare displeasure flickering across his cold face.
Giselle neither confirmed nor denied it and simply chuckled.
“I’ll just add that it’s been a very long time since I saw such a hopeful future.”
“Giselle.”
“You already know. I can’t explain in more detail than this. It’s beyond my ability.”
At that, Davuyer let out a low sigh.
It had been a hundred years since demonic energy began eroding his body.
He knew very well that he didn’t have much time left.
The periods of sleep were growing excessively long. At this rate, even if he endured, he would reach his limit within a year.
And yet—
‘The demonic energy isn’t rampaging at all.’
Davuyer assessed his own condition.
His body felt unusually light, and he didn’t feel the usual sensation of being chased by drowsiness. The peace he hadn’t felt in decades was so unfamiliar it was almost uncomfortable.
The witch, reading her master’s thoughts, asked,
“You’ll accept the girl, won’t you? My visions have never been wrong.”
Indeed, just as she said—the witch’s prophecies had never once been wrong in all these long years.
However, there would be no need to take her as Grand Duchess. The future in which she became Belmaier should be interpreted differently.
Because his companion…
Davuyer answered in a low murmur.
“…We’ll watch for now.”
Whatever that woman might be—
If she could make him live ‘longer and longer’—
There was nothing he couldn’t allow into this Winter Castle.
* * *
I confess.
After the Grand Duke left, I couldn’t resist the temptation and ended up lying down on his bed and falling asleep.
In my defense—
Before climbing the mountain path, I had released the horse into the wild, and I conserved my mana as much as possible just in case.
I had made that grueling climb on nothing but my frail two legs.
Naturally, I hadn’t been able to sleep properly. All I’d eaten was some hastily made jerky, and I’d used far more magic than usual.
Left alone in front of the bed, fatigue and drowsiness came rushing in, and I instinctively burrowed under the covers…
“I’m sorry.”
I awkwardly pushed myself upright and apologized the moment I grasped the situation.
Because the instant I opened my eyes, I locked gazes with that ghostly pale man!
The Grand Duke sat in a chair beside the bed, staring at me as if observing, his expression completely unreadable.
“You slept.”
“I did.”
And I slept extremely well, too.
In the pitch-dark room, the small flicker of candlelight delicately illuminated his devastatingly handsome face.
‘It’s night already.’
Come to think of it, I was still on the bed.
Maybe because I had just woken up, my judgment was slow. I belatedly tried to crawl off, but the Grand Duke stopped me with a glance.
Only after several seconds that felt like an eternity—my body comfortable but my mind uneasy—did he speak.
“How do you know my name?”
“Anyone with basic education knows the name of Grand Duke Belmaier, the last Lord of the Magic Tower. I used to be Irenne Valtres… after all.”
Truthfully, it wasn’t about education. In the Empire, he was simply called the Demon Grand Duke.
Still, it wasn’t entirely wrong for someone like me, who grew up in Valtres—a place rich in Magic Tower information.
The Mage Tower—commonly called the Magic Tower.
More than a hundred years had passed since the Grand Duke before me completely destroyed it, yet it still had not been rebuilt.
The Imperial family, which had already been wary of the Tower’s powerful influence, had attached all sorts of excuses and quietly let the matter die.
Instead, the Imperial Magic Department was established.
‘And my father, its head, has always dreamed of rebuilding the Tower.’
In the past, belonging to the Magic Tower was the greatest honor a mage could have. It was also an era when magic itself flourished.
Compared to then, the magical field today had greatly declined.
The culprit of that very disaster frowned slightly.
“You speak in the past tense.”
“I discarded my family name when I came here.”
Strike while the iron is hot—I spoke cleanly.
“My name is Irenne. I was the daughter of Duke Valtres and the fiancée of the Crown Prince of Hilvarsia, but…”
From the moment I fled, I abandoned my family name. So now, I was simply Irenne.
“I’m neither a duke’s daughter nor a crown princess-to-be anymore.”
“….”
“A few days ago, I tried to stab the Crown Prince to death… so I’m on the run. Whether he lived or died, I don’t know, but if I’m caught, I’ll be executed.”
There was so little reaction that I wasn’t sure if he was even listening, but I kept talking.
“The Empire is basically my enemy now. And oh my—Belmaier’s enemy also happens to be the Empire? Wouldn’t we make good allies?”
The Grand Duke responded with an unrelated question.
“Aren’t you afraid of Belmaier?”
‘Honestly, the execution platform scares me more.’
I mimicked his gaze and studied him.
An unreal man like a statue crafted by humans, cold as winter itself, carrying demonic energy as terrifying as a devil—an eerily beautiful man.
From the rumors I’d heard—
The butcher of the battlefield, the mad tyrant, the fiend of the abyss, the devil, the calamity… a monster called by many names.
Yet the man before my eyes was far from those rumors. For one thing, he was magnanimous enough not to complain even though an uninvited guest was boldly sleeping in his bed.
“I only believe what I see with my own eyes. I’ve got my fair share of nasty rumors too.”
My answer came immediately, as if predetermined.
“I want to become a mage of Belmaier.”
A mage of Belmaier.
The unfamiliar, slightly embarrassing phrase strangely pleased me.
In the Empire, I had been called less a mage and more a vicious villainess. In my family… well.
‘At the very least, I wasn’t a daughter they were proud of.’
Valtres was a thoroughly meritocratic society.
Born through the Duchess’s sacrifice yet possessing only a small amount of mana, I had been forced from my earliest memories to constantly prove my worth.
For a direct descendant of the prestigious mage family Valtres, my innate mana capacity was far too small.
A fatal flaw.
But my spell calculation ability and mana circuit recovery speed were unprecedented.
If I had no talent at all, it might have been different—but naturally, I clung to magic.
When I was young, I think I struggled even more desperately because I wanted something like my family’s love.
“The flower made through magical alchemy… I wanted to give it to Father…”
“I’ve already examined the flower. Work harder.”
…That happened once. Though it’s all in the past.
When I did well, it was ‘only natural for a Valtres.’
When I failed, it was ‘a disgrace to Valtres.’
‘Even after a lifetime of effort, my end would surely have been…’
“Do not return to the capital until the state marriage.”
“Father.”
“The place where you caused that disturbance was a temple! It is no different from disgracing Valtres before the gods!”
“They insulted me first.”
“Irenne Valtres! If you have any shame—!”
I remember my father’s thunderous roar that day.
The ink bottle he threw. My forehead splitting open because I didn’t dodge. His furious red eyes as he looked at me, covered in blood and ink…
And further back in the past—
The gentle yet cruel side of him, calling Lisie the daughter he loved before the whole world, with lips that had never once told me he loved me.
‘…I’m remembering unpleasant things for no reason.’
What I needed to think about now was not Valtres, but Belmaier—how to secure my position with the Grand Duke.
I casually touched my smooth forehead and said,
“Even if you suspect me and kill me on the spot, Grand Duke, I won’t regret that choice.”
A spell assembled itself like a puzzle within my mana circuits.
“But Your Grace, I’m quite valuable—too valuable to simply kill.”
Flash!
The faint candle flame burst and vanished like a tiny spark, and the chandelier that had been merely decorative suddenly blazed with daylight-bright light.
It was nothing more than an application of the basic Light spell—not an impressive piece of magic.
But I smiled proudly as if I had summoned the sun itself.
“I’ll use magic for you.”
“….”
The Grand Duke only stared at me with the same steady gaze. It almost felt as if he were persistently searching for something within me.
Meeting those piercingly bright ash-gray eyes made my heart beat a little faster.
Thump, thump…
After a long moment, the Grand Duke finally parted his heavy lips.
“I don’t care why you came or what you do.”
With those words—I don’t care—he granted me asylum.
“However, remember this: the price of lies and betrayal is death.”
The pure white devil looked down at me.
At that chilling warning, I found myself genuinely delighted.
“What a coincidence. That’s exactly my life motto.”
