Chapter 58
The reason Duke Partin hadn’t given up on Ariel and Eden was simple.
He remembered Delphir’s words—that someone stronger than him had opened the door.
Having experienced multiple failures, Duke Partin clung to Eden and Ariel, the two with the highest potential.
In the past, it was Ariel. Now, it was Eden.
Even without memories of the past, Duke Partin’s actions remained unchanged.
“Send it to him.”
Duke Partin didn’t even spare a glance at Elysia, who was sitting slumped on the ground, as he spoke.
Elysia’s face twisted in fear as she sat with her hands on the floor and her gaze lowered.
This was the worst-case scenario.
But she knew things could still spiral further into catastrophe.
“Don’t even think about running.”
She couldn’t breathe.
When Lizbet came to her senses, the first thing she did was check her body.
Bandages were wrapped around her head and chest.
It was a small relief that her limbs were intact.
She must have been unconscious for a while, but her body seemed mostly recovered.
Lizbet sat up in bed and looked around the room.
It was the room she’d been assigned to.
“I didn’t expect the restraint to explode…”
Was Eden still alive?
She worried that Eden’s neck had blown off with the restraint.
Lizbet stepped out of the room.
Dressed comfortably, she nodded lightly to the knights she passed.
Some of them even made lighthearted jokes as she walked by.
Even as she received their friendly greetings, Lizbet noticed something subdued in their demeanor.
She pushed open the lodging’s door and stepped onto the dirt path.
The knights’ quarters were classified as an annex. Geographically, they were closer to the training ground than the main building.
So to reach the main building—where Elysia resided—she’d have to walk a bit.
Lizbet turned to head toward the main house. As she rounded the corner of the annex, something tripped her foot.
“Vis? What are you doing just sitting here?”
What she’d tripped over was the leg of a fellow knight named Vis, who had joined around the same time as her.
Vis was known for his cheerful personality.
He always spoke warmly to fellow knights and knew how to lift the mood with silly jokes.
But today, he looked completely different.
His improperly worn uniform immediately caught Lizbet’s attention.
“Ah… Lizbet… You’re awake now.”
“Seems like I’m not the one who needs to wake up.”
He looked too disheveled to just walk past.
There was a sorrow in him Lizbet had never seen before, like it was swallowing him whole.
Vis’s pale face had turned an ashen gray.
“Do I… look like this? Well, you were unconscious for two full weeks…”
“Two weeks?”
Lizbet was shocked to hear she’d been unconscious that long.
She hadn’t checked the date yet.
“I was out for that long?”
“You didn’t notice from the bandages on your head?”
Vis gave a faint smile.
A smile that made the air feel heavy.
“But you’re alive, at least… A lot of others aren’t.”
He wasn’t wrong.
When Eden went berserk, Lizbet had been knocked out by the debris from the collapsed annex.
If she hadn’t lost consciousness, she might have died first trying to stop Eden like the other knights.
She realized again today how lucky she was, over and over.
“…”
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“I didn’t really talk to many people. Not interested.”
Lizbet replied coldly, pressing the bandaged part of her head with her wrist.
“I see… That’s good, I guess…”
Damn it. He’d misjudged.
It felt like he’d just triggered someone suffering from deep PTSD.
Vis was far too unstable for her to handle.
She should’ve just kept walking.
Even now, Lizbet found herself thinking coldly.
“Lizbet. You know… I didn’t become a knight to torment children…”
“Children?”
Lizbet feigned ignorance.
“Can you believe it was a kid who did this to you?”
He meant Eden.
Believe it? Of course.
In fact, Lizbet didn’t even feel that wronged about what had happened to her.
If anything, she felt she deserved it.
“Ah, forget it… Saying that would just upset the ones who died.”
The one who hurt Lizbet and killed the other knights—
Vis corrected his statement.
As if the dead would be upset by such words.
“I didn’t know the kid was that young…”
“…”
“Seriously! Who would think just by hearing about it that the one who killed knights was a child?!”
Vis, who had been mumbling, suddenly shouted.
Lizbet simply blinked, emotionless.
“Do you know what happened to the estate while you were sleeping?”
I wasn’t sleeping. I was unconscious, Lizbet thought to herself, annoyed.
“We’re all trapped now.”
“Trapped?”
“No one in the duke’s estate is allowed to leave. Not even the knights who used to commute.”
That explained why the dorms felt more crowded.
Lizbet looked blankly at the ground.
“They’ve even blocked contact with our families.”
So she couldn’t even send a letter to her little brother.
Originally, Lizbet used to travel between her family home and the duke’s estate. But after the incident where her fellow knight was killed while watching Eden with her, she had moved into the dorms permanently.
Not that she wrote often to her brother after that.
Despite caring for him, Lizbet had never been a warm sister.
She was more of the stern, cold type.
Still, having her communication forcibly cut off by others made her regret not writing more.
She imagined herself writing a letter to her little brother.
The thought gave her full-body goosebumps, and she quickly shifted topics.
“So. How’s the kid doing now?”
Did I bring my sword?
Lizbet felt her side, checking for her weapon.
Luckily, she had it strapped at her hip, probably out of habit.
“That kid? Oh… the white one?”
When Vis had first seen Eden face-to-face, all that came to mind was a snowy field.
Apparently, others had the same impression—they all called Eden “the white one.”
“He keeps crying.”
The moment Eden was mentioned, the focus vanished from Vis’s eyes.
Damn it. This was more upsetting to him than talking about the dead.
“He cries, begging to be let out. He bangs on the door, scratches at it with his nails.”
“…”
He never acted like that when I was guarding him…
Lizbet quietly guessed it was because of Elysia.
“He bangs until his wrist is broken.”
“…”
“When it gets too much, we pump in a drug-laced incense.”
Lizbet started to feel dizzy.
She couldn’t process what she was hearing anymore.
“Our daily task is throwing wild dogs or beasts into his cell.”
“What?”
The words burst out of Lizbet in horror.
But Vis didn’t stop talking.
“No one wants to do it, so every time, I…”
Vis couldn’t get the image of Eden, curled up in the middle of savage beasts, out of his head.
Vis had no sadistic tendencies. The same went for the other knights guarding the basement.
No one wanted to enter that dungeon.
Especially on the days they had to introduce new beasts. Everyone just looked for a way to avoid it.
They were all repulsed by such inhumane work.
Eventually, Vis had ended up doing it all. Just because he was the youngest.
“If someone has to pay, it should be Duke Partin.”
Lizbet buried her conviction deep within.
“If only we had been ordered to kill him instead…! At least then…”
Then they wouldn’t have to feel guilty.
“I don’t think this is punishment. Honestly, the duke isn’t the type to waste time on something like this.”
“Right.”
And yet, Duke Partin had been investing years into Eden.
“He’s lucky he’s not dead.”
When Eden’s berserk rampage exposed his presence in the estate, Lizbet had assumed she would be killed.
But she’d survived.
No one seemed to want her dead, either.
Now that everyone knew about Eden, they probably didn’t need to worry about silencing her.
That, too, was a stroke of luck.
Not that she could run away.
Everyone was trapped. The odds of escape were slim.
“Are the young ladies okay…?”
Suddenly, the black-haired girls came to mind.
“I can’t help him—someone screaming to be let out. Orders are orders, but if you go near him, you’ll die!”
The beasts that snarled and lunged to tear Eden apart would collapse before they could touch him.
Sometimes they died like brittle branches snapping. Other times, they were grotesquely mangled.
In every way imaginable, they couldn’t reach Eden. They just died.
Because of that, the knights avoided getting near him.
Only the dungeon walls lined with mana-sealing stones offered them protection.
It was always the same.
Release the beasts. Pump in the drug.
Barely two weeks had passed, yet for Vis and the knights of the duchy, it felt like two years.
Now, the dungeon reeked of blood and smoke.
They wanted it to stop.
To abandon their duty as knights who valued their lord’s command over their own lives.
Vis’s honor was already stained with filth.
And most of the knights shared Vis’s sentiment.
