Chapter 29

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion stopped smirking as she stared up at the trembling ceiling. It was hardly a laughing matter—first live dog bait, now decoy duty.

“Hhh... hhh...”

Groaning, she lay flat against the cold floor, trying to cool her overheated body. Between the blood loss and the recovery serum she’d injected, her body burned with alternating chills and fever. Cold, hot, cold again—sweat soaked her clothes.

Her vision swam. Shivers crept in.

...It’s freezing.

This was one of those “decoy operations” that occasionally fell to squad members outside the main division.

Perhaps they suddenly needed a distraction... or needed to lure something—or someone—to a specific location. That sort of play.

Which also meant the survival rates were abysmal.

BOOM! CRASH!

Well, someone had anger issues. Even the bunker walls quaked.

Still, the structure had been built with temporary air-raid protection in mind. With the Signum network jammed and no clearance granted, breaching it quickly was virtually impossible. Sure, they’d get through eventually—but she could only hope rescue arrived before then.

Yeah... they’d come. It might be a temporary outpost, but it still belonged to the division. Once the decoy’s job was done, someone would be sent to retrieve her.

Time was the real problem.

Who could they be with...?

Could be the Second Prince. Or maybe the protagonist of the original story—the Thirteenth Prince.

Both were locked in a brutal power struggle, and Dezeb had a foot in both camps.

Honestly, the Empire was completely screwed.

If someone just took Dezeb out of the picture, maybe things could be salvaged. At least it wouldn’t collapse entirely. But... yeah, no. Not happening.

Erabelle shook her head, recalling the man who had once wiped out an entire legion single-handedly in the original timeline.

This place is beyond saving.

He was powerful enough to destroy the entire Empire by himself.

Monsters didn’t just exist in war zones. Far worse monsters walked freely within the Empire’s heart—and Dezeb sat right on top of them all.

It was almost a blessing that he was content playing around with the princes. If someone scratched too deep and made him shed his human skin... this universe was finished.

Just thinking about him made her feel colder.

Groaning, Erabelle curled up tighter.

Forget it. I just... need to sleep. No matter what, she had to hold out until rescue came. Conserving energy was priority one.

Luckily, she lived by the motto of better safe than sorry. Her personal high-spirit unit was stocked with enough food, water, and essentials to last several days.

She had no intention of leaving this makeshift outpost until someone came for her.

Fighting her way out? Not even an option.

She’d probably sprain her ankle just trying to hop out a first-floor window. Not exactly the body of an action hero.

So all she could do was sleep and pray someone got to her before the enemy broke through.

***

《This one’s seriously not right in the head.》

Erabelle was watching dramas.

《It’s not even the first time.》

《Among all the registered Signum users, she’s the weirdest by far.》

《Agreed.》

The surveillance team shared their bafflement through mental sync, eyes glued to the screen.

Inside a bunker with no bathroom, no ventilation, and only a single oxygen generator, Vermilion had unpacked not one, not two, but four air purifiers.

No one knew why the hell she even had them—though it was probably out of fear of biochemical weapons.

She’d also installed a Disk Disruptor.

Again, no one knew why, but it likely meant she was paranoid about specialized Disk-type devices.

And now? She was several episodes deep into a drama marathon.

BOOM. BOOM-BOOM!

Outside, chaos reigned.

Unable to breach the bunker, the attackers had switched tactics—employing psychological warfare and airborne toxins to flush her out.

It was the exact worst-case scenario.

And Erabelle was just... chilling inside.

“......”

Dezeb stared silently at the screen, his face unreadable.

The agents—nicknamed “Dogs”—felt like they were suffocating. Their master had been in the surveillance room for hours.

They watched Erabelle pull out polka-dotted fuzzy socks and put them on. Dezeb’s cold stare didn’t flinch. She draped a matching lap blanket around her neck like a scarf—still, no reaction.

《Everyone shut it.》

Their team lead, Aries, snapped at the mental chatter.

On screen, Erabelle was preparing another syringe. She stabbed it into her arm without hesitation. That made twenty-three so far.

She’d been trapped in the bunker for 71 hours, injecting herself with medication every three hours like clockwork.

It was as if she’d packed a full pharmacy inside her personal high-spirit. Ampoules, pills, topicals—even banned substances long pulled from circulation. Everything imaginable.

Between the air purifiers, the oxygen generator, the Disk disruptor, and that vast arsenal of drugs...

And it wasn’t just that.

Blankets. Snacks. Cushions. Socks. DVDs.

The moment she pulled out an entire stack of DVD cases, Aries nearly lost it.

This woman...

He clenched his jaw as he watched her toss an empty snack wrapper into the spirit’s open mouth as if it were a trash bin.

Why did they even need to monitor someone like her? Of all their assignments, Erabelle Vermilion had handed them the worst existential crisis of the last two years.

And to think Dezeb had actually shown interest in her. Even bet on her for entertainment.

Aries felt like a complete idiot for laughing along back then.

...Shit.

The sharp flick of Dezeb’s lighter startled him. He turned, heart thumping, as Dezeb lit a cigarette.

Everyone fell silent.

Together, the entire surveillance team prayed for escape from this suffocating hell.

Being in the same room as Dezeb Avganis—especially when he was in a foul mood—was a special kind of cruelty, regardless of why he was even there in the first place.

To the surveillance team, it felt like being a mouse tossed into a viper's cage.

“......”

And Dezeb, completely indifferent to their presence, sat curled on the sofa, quietly watching a woman binge her tenth consecutive episode of a drama.

***

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion was rescued after five days.

She had endured those five days alone inside the temporary stronghold before she was finally recovered and returned to base.

It wasn’t until a few days later that she saw Dezeb again.

“You’re back?”

Her body was a mess—wounds, biological functions, everything managed artificially through medication—so it was somewhat of a blessing.

“How was your leave? Bet it was nice seeing your family again.”

He tilted his head lazily as he spoke, acting as if nothing had ever happened.

“Yes, everyone was in good health.”

Erabelle replied just as calmly, maintaining the same illusion.

“Have you eaten yet?”

As he tilted his head, a strand of black hair slipped across the smooth line of his cheek. Somehow, in just a few days, his beauty had grown even more unsettling.

“Not yet.”

“How about steak?”

He stood in her kitchen as if he belonged there, smiling as though he were trying to seduce her.

“I’ll help.”

“You can help by doing absolutely nothing.”

“In that case, I’ll actively do nothing.”

Dezeb laughed again—loudly, as if she’d just cracked the most brilliant joke.

And so, the two of them had dinner, talked, and spent time together as though nothing had transpired.

Like she’d never been stranded in a bunker for 121 hours.

Like he’d never used her as live bait.

Just like the past few months, they ate in her small quarters, watched a few shows together, drank beer, chatted idly, and spent the night in the same bed.

And the very next day, Erabelle submitted a request for reassignment to Colony 80 in the 2155 planetary system.

More specifically, she requested to join a squad already slated for deployment there. Since she didn’t hold officer rank, there was virtually no administrative delay.

“......”

Perched on the edge of his desk, Dezeb stared at her face for a long moment before finally asking:

“You’re aware that it’s an active conflict zone, right?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Her expression was calm—matter-of-fact.

He didn't think she was upset about being used as bait. He pulled a cigarette from his case, set it between his lips, and asked again:

“Then why?”

“There are two clear advantages to my deployment there.”

She spoke just as she had the first day they met—in the Imperial Palace gardens, when she’d made her initial case for being useful to him.

Even while trembling under his gaze, her points were articulated with absolute clarity.

By leveraging the unique characteristics of the Fourth Star System near the border, she explained, she could significantly optimize current logistics operations—not just for the squad, but across inter-base networks.

If they successfully integrated AI-driven protocols, she argued, they could even lay the groundwork for a full-scale platform infrastructure.

It wasn't an impulsive decision. The documentation she submitted included detailed projections and analytical data.

There was no logical reason to deny her.

“...Alright, then.”

Erabelle Vermilion had chosen to make herself even more useful than she already was.

“That actually helps me a lot.”

At his casual approval, she looked visibly relieved.

Despite the fact that she was being dispatched to a theater where the annual casualty rate for new transfers exceeded 33.4%.

Still... she looked relieved.