CH 104

“No.”

“Why not?”

Dietrich only wriggled his eyebrows at my abrupt question. I stared at his dark eyebrows that moved like a caterpillar.  

“When I say no, that means no.”

“So why exactly can’t I go out?”

Perhaps because I had only been lying in bed the past few days, I got dizzy when I suddenly got worked up. Dietrich sighed lightly as he grabbed my staggering forearm. 

“Are you saying this knowing the state that you are in now?”

As a result of succeeding in darkening the aura of the holy relic, I fell greatly sick and had to stay in bed. 

“We don’t have time anymore. You know that.” 

Hermann inherited the title of the Grand Duke at the same time as Dietrich. Then, he and Dietrich prepared for war regardless of who came first. 

‘Normally, I wouldn’t have to worry about the first bout but…’

I didn’t know how the Lagrange I’ve changed might affect his abilities. My mouth became parched from the anxiety from time to time.

“Anissa.” 

He sat down with me on the bed and opened his mouth with sigh. I bit my lips as he spoke in a dry but tender tone as if trying to persuade a child. 

“I’m not a child. Don’t try to coax me.”

“Believe in me.” 

Dietrich clenched his fist at me and soon opened them. Inside was the darkened holy relic shining brightly. 

“Because even without this, I will win.”

“...That war of roses, do you have to keep doing it? Can you not do it?” 

At my question, Dietrich slowly cocked his head to the side. In that silence, I focused on his lips moving slightly. 

“Even if I don’t do it, I’m certain Hermann is going to invade Lagrange.”

“..........”

“I have no intention of waging a war in a place where you are.” 

I grabbed my hair in a nervous fit at his words. 

In other words, if you think about it the other way, Hermann was someone who would attack even if his opponent surrenders. 

“Why the hell does everyone thinks he’s a hero? Where in the world can you find a hero like that!?”

No matter how much I called him Anissa’s real brother, I couldn’t forgive him. 

They’re the bastards who were always saying that we’re villains and demons wearing a human’s face! 

“I don’t know.”

My heart was full of resentment to the point that I felt suffocated, but Dietrich only shrugged his shoulders indifferently, not even getting angry at people’s prejudice. 

“I don’t care how other people see me.” 

That’s right. They were too insensitive people, uncaring even if Lagrange’s reputation fell to the ground. 

However, I, someone without a single drop of Lagrange in my blood, was filled with indignation and had no choice but to complain. 

“Why? Why don’t you care? You didn’t even do anything and yet they curse at you!” 

Of course, Dietrich in the original was a villain who thought it funny to destroy a village, but the Dietrich I knew wasn’t someone like that.

“Because you’re looking at me properly.” 

I was tongue-tied at Dietrich’s serene reply. Somehow, I felt a bit embarrassed. 

“....I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that way.” 

Marilyn wasn’t as afraid of Dietrich as she had been, and most of the Lagrange servants respected him. I scratched my cheek with a fingertip and hurriedly spoke. 

“We all know that Dietrich isn’t a bad person as the people in the capital think.” 

“A bad person?”

“...You know, like how southerners think that you destroy villages out of boredom.” 

Dietrich’s lips stiffened a little at my explanation. 

After a moment of silence, he avoided my eyes and stood up from his seat. 

“What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

“I remembered I had something to do.” 

Then, he scurried out of the room. I tilted my head at his uncharacteristically urgent appearance. 

‘What’s wrong with him?’

────── 〔✿〕──────

“Hold off blowing up the town of Rosiere.”

“Why? Haven’t you heard that the town is where Euclid’s informants are hiding?” 

Rosiere, located in the southernmost part of the North, was one of the villages struggling to keep the enemies in the south. 

“I think it’s a good opportunity to nip off the bud altogether.”

Baal could not understand Dietrich’s decision. Because Rosiere was an area where territorial disputes often take place in its vicinity, depending on the season, it was attached to the south and then to the north. 

“The villagers are sure to spread rumors that the demons of Lagrange have been weakened, so wouldn’t it be better to set an example?” 

“No, never mind. Just weed out Euclid’s spies.” 

“Hm. Well, understood. If you tell me to peel them out, then peel them I shall.” 

Baal griped about Dietrich’s caprice but moved his shadows anyway. The little demons ordered by him chattered away as they run. 

Instead of getting angry at the demon’s whining that grates on the nerves, Dietrich turned his gaze away and started to process the paperwork. 

He had to rush his work because if he took his eyes off Anissa for a moment, she would have moved her body and gone looking for the holy relics. 

“Your Grace, Miss Charlotte Vallandia has come looking for you again.” 

The servant knocked on the door with an expression that said they were getting a bit tired of it.

Dietrich, who opened his mouth to refuse her visit like usual, changed his mind and nodded his head. 

“Show her in.” 

No one knew better about the locations of the holy relics that Anissa was trying to find than her. 

“Your Grace.” 

Charlotte followed the servant into the drawing-room as if she had been waiting.

After being guided inside, she sat down on the sofa and looked at Dietrich with a somewhat determined expression. 

“You’ve finally decided to meet me.” 

When Dietrich met Charlotte’s pure eyes, he frowned and covered his forehead with his hand.

‘It’s that feeling again.’ 

Whenever he faced her, strangely enough, it makes him want to ‘be nice’ to her. 

However, Dietrich was someone who had never felt the need to be kind to anyone. Except for one person. 

And it wasn’t the woman in front of him. 

“What is your business.”

“I have a secret I want to tell you, Your Grace.” 

He wasn’t particularly interested, but since he wanted to ask something from her, Dietrich waited for her next words silently. 

Charlotte who had judged that he was finally opening his heart to her stood up from her seat and came closer to him.

Her silver hair was dazzling from the sunlight pouring through the window. Even the servant whom she had always bothered admired her beauty, but Dietrich had shown no emotions. 

“You are being deceived by Anissa right now, Your Grace.”

While speaking, Charlotte bit her lips as if she too were suffering. But she had a calling that she had to keep. 

“Anissa, without a doubt, is manipulating your mind right now, Your Grace.” 

Charlotte couldn’t understand Dietrich’s indifferent attitude. 

When she first met him in the gambling house, it was understandable as the prophecy has not yet come to pass, but that wasn’t the case now. 

The rose war between Hermann and Dietrich was just around the corner. 

“The one trying to manipulate me is you.” 

Dietrich hadn’t realized that Charlotte was using her ability, but he wasn’t so dull that he wouldn’t sense the disharmony in the air.

“If you want to keep your life, you’d better quit it.”

He showed her the palm of his hand dripping with blood. As the sense of pain became clearer, his fondness for her faded away. 

Charlotte nodded in admission but she didn’t apologize. 

“It’s because if I didn’t do this, Your Grace wouldn’t have listened to me. I had no other choice.” 

“...........”

“She’s a fake. A fake that’s deceiving you! Only I, a saint of Vallandia, can save you! Why won’t you believe me?”

“I believe you.” 

Dietrich didn’t think Charlotte was lying. The face of the saint of Vallandia turned red in excitement. 

“But there’s one thing you’re mistaken about.” 

Dietrich grabbed Charlotte’s chin who had leaned toward him. Dark red blood stained her small, slender chin. 

“I have never wished for salvation from anyone.”

"!”

At Dietrich’s answer, Charlotte’s eyes widened in surprise. He slowly moved his hand and grabbed her hair ornament.

“So it doesn’t really matter to me whether Anissa is a ‘fake’ saint, as you say.”

“Do you really want to die? Do you think you, who governs the demons, would have a peaceful death?”

“I’d probably wander through the abyss.” 

Even so, it was fine.

If that is the price I’d have to pay to have that child by my side, instead of you, I’ll accept it contentedly. 

At Dietrich’s calm answer, Charlotte opened her mouth, not knowing she was robbed of another holy relic. Because no one had ever rejected her. 

“I was really trying to help Lagrange. As a saint of absolute good, I want to save evil.”

“You and Hermann sure like this dichotomy.” 

Euclid as good. Lagrange as evil. 

Dietrich was accustomed to such thinking. In fact, the people of Lagrange could only think like that. 

Even humans belonging to Lagrange began to define themselves as evil. Born in the dark, and to live only with malice. 

Vowing that it was the way to live in the North. 

“Anissa was the only one who didn’t judge me thoughtlessly.” 

“.......”

“So whether that child is real or fake, I don’t give a damn.”