Principles
"Ah… I-is that how it appeared to you?"
His voice and manner trembled.
Akad could not conceal how flustered he was.
This feeling seemed ready to burst out no matter how hard he tried to suppress it, and the longer he looked at Ferda's face, the more violently it surged.
"Ha-ha… Well, everyone has a different sense of beauty."
Akad turned his head away.
"I-I'll serve you the t-tea!"
He hurried back toward the tea table.
He could not let Ferda see his face.
He could not reveal the rage so vile and hideous that it felt ready to tear through his skin.
'I knew no one would understand.'
Even so, Akad had shown Ferda the form his love took.
He had gathered the courage to do so because he believed Ferda would be different from everyone else.
Yet Ferda had called Akad's love and courage disgusting.
Just like the woman who had cruelly trampled upon his first love.
'I am….'
He clenched his fist.
'I am not disgusting.'
The disgusting one was the fool who could not understand him.
Akad's eyes finally rolled with madness.
The fondness he had felt for Ferda instantly became oil, feeding the flames of his fury until they blazed out of control.
No one was allowed to belittle his love.
Therefore—
'I'll make sure you understand exactly what my love is.'
That single resolution filled Akad's mind.
He carefully took out a small bottle hidden inside his clothes.
It contained a transparent liquid with no taste, scent, or color.
He poured it into Ferda's teacup.
"Please, drink. This black tea contains the very essence of my alchemy."
"Thank you."
Pretending to sip from his own cup, Akad watched Ferda closely.
He made sure Ferda did not merely pretend to drink.
The rim of the porcelain cup slipped between Ferda's lips.
The cup tilted, and the tea flowed into his mouth.
He drank it.
Akad smiled with relief.
"Regent Ferda."
"Yes, Marquis?"
"I am Grand Duke Golt's right hand. We remain in close contact, and I serve at his side more closely than anyone else."
"Is that so?"
"Indeed. Therefore, provided it would not make you uncomfortable, I would like to lend you my support so that the Far East may receive proper assistance. I was thinking of reviewing proposed legislation concerning the matter. What do you say?"
Ferda brightened with dignified restraint.
"If you are willing to do that, I would be sincerely grateful."
"What does the Far East currently need most?"
"Transportation requires improvement above all else. To achieve that, we would need to repair the roads and clear some of the forest…."
Ferda's speech gradually became slurred.
"The forest… We would need to… the foreeest…."
His head, which had been resting against the back of the chair, suddenly dropped to the side.
As though nothing unusual had happened, Akad took another sip of tea.
Then he stood, approached Ferda, and lifted his head by the hair.
"Hmm…."
Ferda's eyes seemed buried in a deep abyss, devoid of consciousness.
There was no doubt.
The drug had taken full effect.
Akad gazed at him tenderly.
"I'm sorry."
He spoke to Ferda softly, as though soothing a woman.
"I had no choice. You see, I don't care if someone strikes me or stabs me. Perhaps I deserve such things. After all, I am that kind of disgusting person…."
He pressed his forehead against Ferda's and apologized repeatedly.
"But I decided long ago that I would never forgive anyone who insulted my love."
That woman had rejected his confession and looked at him as though he were revolting.
That woman had enticed him endlessly while pretending to love him.
Akad had tried to force her to understand what his love truly meant after she defiled it.
Because it had been his first time, his work had been clumsy.
And thus his first love had come to an end.
"Of course, this is my fault. This happened because I made the mistake of trusting you. Even so… I cannot forgive you. Therefore…."
Akad carefully took a leather pouch from inside his clothes and loosened its cord.
Inside were needles nearly thirty centimeters long.
He selected one.
"I'll help you understand my aesthetics, just a little."
Akad slowly brought the needle toward Ferda's pupil.
The point was about to pierce his retina when—
"Hmm…?"
Akad doubted his own eyes.
Just as the needle neared Ferda's eye, his pupil seemed to tremble ever so slightly.
'That should be impossible….'
The drug Ferda had consumed was an anesthetic that reduced a person to a living doll.
Even a small amount was more than enough.
It had worked on a barbarian twice Ferda's size, so there was no chance Ferda could remain unaffected.
The victim could feel pain but could not scream.
He could hear but could not speak.
'Perhaps I'm simply too agitated.'
Yes.
He must have imagined it.
Thinking so, Akad once again aimed the sharp point at Ferda's retina.
Just as he was about to drive it through—
The candles in the brightly glowing chandelier went out all at once.
"What is it this time?"
Startled by the darkness that had ruined his mood, Akad looked around.
The candles in the reception-room chandelier had been replaced only yesterday.
Even if they had all burned down completely, they would not have gone out so suddenly.
The movement was so unnatural that it seemed as though someone had deliberately extinguished them.
Akad had never experienced anything like this in all the years he had lived in this house.
It had only happened after Ferda entered.
'Could it be…?!'
Ferda?
When coincidence occurred twice in succession, it could no longer be called coincidence.
With that thought, Akad turned toward him.
The two eyes that should have been lifeless—
were glowing a vivid blue in the darkness.
He had been awake from the beginning.
"St—!"
Akad tried to respond instantly with a stun spell, but no sound came out.
Something had covered his mouth, preventing him from completing the incantation.
And it was not merely his mouth.
He felt an uncomfortable pressure around his hands and abdomen, the areas on which he needed to focus in order to manifest a magic circle.
It was as though countless dead souls hidden within the darkness had descended upon him all at once.
Akad was a Fifth-Circle mage.
Yet Ferda restrained him so completely that, at that moment, he was nothing more than a helpless, overweight man.
At the same moment, Ferda's eyes, glowing in the darkness, began to move.
The body that should have collapsed, incapable of even holding itself upright, moved as though nothing had happened.
The one being subdued was no longer Ferda.
It was Akad.
"Akad Dvelung."
Goosebumps spread across Akad's entire body.
It was as though a messenger from hell had whispered into his ear.
"You're wondering this right now, aren't you? 'Why is that bastard moving around as if nothing happened?'"
Ferda wiped his forehead with a handkerchief where Akad had pressed his own against it, then crumpled the cloth and stuffed it into his pocket.
"But do you know something?"
Just as Akad had done moments earlier, Ferda calmly revealed one of his own secrets.
"You see… I reached the point where I stopped eating food prepared by anyone else."
It had been back when he was acknowledged as one of the newly elevated nobles, though he still was not treated as a proper mage.
There had still been a small part of him that loved humanity.
A small part that still believed in people.
He had even attended noble gatherings, hoping to build connections.
And he had trusted people.
"There were some pieces of trash who drugged me… then tried to bury me alive."
And they had betrayed him.
Fortunately, it had not ended in death.
No matter how many times fate abandoned Ferda, he always returned alive.
And he always took his revenge.
"So…"
Ferda seized Akad by the face.
Those blazing blue eyes stared upward.
Instinctively, Akad realized what Ferda intended to do and struggled desperately.
But no matter how he resisted, he could not stop his mouth from being forced open.
This darkness belonged to Ferda.
"So let me return this to you."
Ferda opened his own mouth.
Akad looked inside.
Within it lay an even deeper darkness.
The darkness split open like a thin membrane, and its contents flowed out.
It was the black tea he had drunk.
"Mmph! Mmgh!"
It poured directly into Akad's forced-open mouth.
He struggled violently to spit it out.
But the instant it touched his tongue, there was no turning back.
His body gradually stiffened.
Then, at last, his consciousness sank into a deep abyss.
The sound of a door hinge echoed.
Light flooded the room.
The person entering carried a candle and wore a maid's uniform.
She showed neither surprise nor fear at the scene before her.
Silently, she approached, her gaze shifting between Ferda and Akad.
She was a brown-skinned woman who had no business being inside this mansion.
It was Garnet.
"Is everything taken care of?"
Ferda asked.
"Yes."
"The hidden passage?"
"I found it. Just as you said."
"Well done. Let's take him."
"Yes."
Despite Akad's considerable bulk, Garnet effortlessly slung him over her shoulder.
She led Ferda to Akad's alchemy workshop.
Opening its door required a security spell that only Akad himself knew.
That posed no problem.
The key was Akad Dvelung himself.
With Akad draped over her shoulder, Garnet entered.
Though it was a sealed chamber, several ventilation shafts had been installed, leaving no trace of the stale odor of mold.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a secure alchemical laboratory.
But Ferda knew that was not the end of it.
One shelf lined with potion bottles stood slightly ajar.
Behind it lay a passage leading underground.
"Shall we go down?"
Garnet asked.
Ferda already knew what she had discovered.
That was why she had asked.
"We will."
He descended.
The moment the hidden door opened, a wave of foul-smelling vapor drifted outward.
Its nauseating stench instinctively made him frown.
Ferda recognized that smell.
It was the same revolting sensation he had felt from Akad's abstract painting earlier.
"Shadowmaster."
"Yes."
"Sit him down, then leave."
"…Yes."
Garnet obeyed and withdrew.
Ferda walked toward the neatly organized shelves of potions.
Like the meticulous alchemist he was, Akad had carefully labeled every bottle and attached notes explaining its purpose.
Because of that, finding what he wanted was easy.
Some time later, Akad's fingers twitched.
Focus slowly returned to his distant eyes.
His vocal cords began functioning again.
That was all.
His mouth was gagged.
Every finger was restrained.
His arms were bound securely to the chair.
Ferda had no intention whatsoever of giving Akad even the slightest opportunity to cast magic.
He activated the recording crystal resting on the table.
"Akad Dvelung."
That was the name of the man before him.
"The miraculous alchemist who cured the plague that swept across the Empire."
It was the achievement for which Akad Dvelung had become famous.
A plague so dreadful that ten million people had died within only five years.
"But who would have guessed that the entire epidemic had been staged by the Empire's upper leadership?"
At Ferda's words, Akad's eyes widened.
They silently asked the question:
How do you know that?
"You're getting ahead of yourself if you're surprised already."
"I also know it was all carried out under Valdemar Golt's orders."
Akad had spread the plague.
But the true mastermind had been Valdemar.
Remarkably, he had done it for what he believed was the sake of the Empire.
Valdemar wanted the Empire to survive.
To keep the decaying and rotten Empire functioning, new parts had to be supplied without end.
Those parts were the ninety percent of the population who belonged to the lower classes.
They were valuable parts.
But they were also a nuisance.
There were simply too many surplus people.
Rather than strengthening the pillar, they had become worms eating away at it.
So their numbers had to be reduced.
The plague had been deliberately spread through the slums, killing countless innocent people who never even understood why they were dying.
Valdemar proudly called it quarantine.
"I'm not interested in that."
That was already in the past.
Ferda had not come here to argue about justice.
"However…"
"I hear your family has inherited a rather interesting potion."
Ferda picked up one of the bottles he had selected.
The label read:
Truth Serum.
"I'd like you to drink this."
"Mmph! Mmph!"
For the first time, the composed Akad struggled violently.
He knew exactly what the potion did.
He could not allow himself to drink it.
But now that he had been completely subdued, there was no way to resist Ferda.
The dark-colored liquid was poured into Akad's mouth.
Its effects were immediate.
"Ghh…"
Akad groaned.
He grimaced and shook his head as though suffering from an unbearable migraine.
Watching him, Ferda spoke.
"Answer me."
He began with questions about the potion itself.
"Who created this potion?"
Akad answered.
"My father… Jackal Dvelung…"
"What does it do?"
"An instant-acting potion… It clouds the mind… and causes unbearable headaches whenever the drinker lies… forcing them to speak only the truth."
"And what happens if you refuse to speak?"
"…The same."
"The pain becomes so severe… you wish you were dead."
"I see."
After leisurely gathering the preliminary information, Ferda finally asked the real question.
"Who did your father administer this potion to?"
"That… ngh…"
Akad tried to keep his mouth shut.
But in the end, he could not resist.
"The Third Prince of the Arken Empire… Million Arken…"
Ferda already knew the answer.
But he needed to confirm it beyond any doubt.
"At the time… who was he?"
Akad answered.
"Princeps Valdrova's fiancé…"
The man Valdrova had killed.
"Agh…"
"Ghhhhh…!"
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