Chapter 84

“Get up. We’re taking the Count to the Ventwood groves. We’re leaving right after breakfast, so don’t drag your feet.”

He leaned in and brushed a light kiss over her lips.

“If you dawdle, I’ll take it as an attempt to seduce me and act accordingly.”

Her body trembled.

A vague sense of danger jolted her fully awake, and a wash of white light flooded her vision.

Blinking rapidly, Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion focused on a tiny doll, small enough to fit easily in her palm.

Golden hair in that unmistakable imperial shade. A delicate, refined face...

Even from a distance, she recognized him at once.

It was Prince Ananasa.

***

“Your Highness.”

Erabelle slowly opened her eyes.

Somewhere nearby, clear metal ornaments chimed softly.

Irritated by the sound, she raised a hand to her ear and felt a long drop earring hanging there.

She closed her eyes.

Then opened them again.

What is this...? Am I still half asleep? Even so, this is a bit much...

“Your Highness the Prince.”

Something’s wrong.

“Your Highness.”

Erabelle blinked and looked up at the man beside her.

She recoiled instinctively.

Who is he...?

Then, a moment later, recognition struck.

“Kancher...?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Dezeb’s Dog—the broad-shouldered man nearly one hundred ninety centimeters tall, with close-cropped bronze hair—answered with a pleasant smile.

He was handsome.

But thanks to Commander Dezeb Avganis, Erabelle’s optic nerves had long since been thoroughly desensitized.

She felt nothing.

Still, why was the chief of palace security here—

No.

More importantly, this really did seem to be the Imperial Palace.

Erabelle stared blankly around the dazzling, elaborately decorated bedchamber.

“You should get up now. The jury panel is waiting. You must answer the summons this morning.”

Is this like what happened in the Sanctuary...?

And yet somehow, this felt much more...

real.

Erabelle raised a hand and touched her face.

Smooth skin.

A man’s hand.

Long golden hair.

The Prince’s body.

A few seconds of fumbling were enough to confirm it.

She was inside the Prince’s body.

Alarmed, Erabelle looked up at the security chief, who was still smiling sweetly.

“Um...”

A lower, unmistakably male voice emerged from her throat.

“Captain, I’m Vermilion.”

“Pardon?”

“I-I’m Erabelle Vermilion. Erabelle Vermilion...”

The smile vanished from Kancher’s face.

“Is this... some new tactic, Your Highness?”

His gaze turned cold.

Not a trace of amusement remained in it.

Erabelle knew that look.

She had seen it often enough on the Dogs.

It was the expression they wore just before they bit.

Just before they tore someone apart.

***

Fortunately, Kancher did not maul her.

The Prince’s trial was waiting.

The audience chamber of Ilwol Palace was beautiful.

Arched openings rose on every side like colossal trees, and beyond them stretched a deep blue sky, drifting slowly past.

Seated in the highest chair in that magnificent chamber, Erabelle reflected on her life.

What even is my life...?

Every time she thought she had finally hit rock bottom, the ground gave way beneath her again.

“Will you accept the verdict?”

She had been spacing out.

Something had apparently been said while her mind wandered.

Judging by the subtle signals from the aides, she was supposed to shake her head.

She could not simply nod and help ruin the Prince’s life.

If they had genuinely intended to destroy him, Dezeb would have acted long ago.

More than a year had already passed since the Thirteenth Prince was indicted for the murder of the Second Prince.

Apparently, the case had been dragged back and forth ever since.

Considering that the Empire’s only remaining legitimate heir—the Emperor’s most beloved son—was being subjected to this sort of humiliation, something was clearly wrong.

Maybe the Emperor is already dead...

The idea that he might already be dead, with one of the Dogs controlling his body and keeping up appearances, suddenly seemed disturbingly plausible.

In the original story, the Dogs had been capable of manipulating corpses as though possessing them.

The details had never been explained, but it was definitely possible.

No wonder she had always thought this world was hopeless.

...

Erabelle turned her gaze back beyond the arches.

It was not only the beautiful blue sky she could see.

The Sanctuary was there too.

Half destroyed.

Fragments and debris scattered across it.

Her chest tightened.

She had no idea how Dezeb would react to this.

So the moment the session ended, she pleaded with Kancher again.

“Captain, please. Let me make just one call to Dezeb.”

She looked so ready to drop to her knees that Kancher let out a strangled laugh, while the aides around them became visibly flustered.

Erabelle did not care.

They were all connected to the Dogs anyway.

No one close to the Thirteenth Prince was beyond Dezeb’s reach, so there was no point distinguishing between them.

“Please, just one call...!”

“As you know, the Division Commander is very busy with his engagement preparations.”

That fiancée was probably her.

Unless Dezeb had suddenly taken up collecting prenuptial agreements from strangers, there was really no other possibility.

“Numbered limited-edition sneakers!”

“Excuse me?”

“Numbered limited-edition sneakers!”

Kancher openly frowned, looking thoroughly irritated with the Prince.

It was yet another reminder that, royalty or not, the Prince was little more than a toy to them.

“What are you talking about...”

“The equipment requisition forms!”

There had been plenty of problems with the security team’s requisitions.

“You repeatedly requested limited-edition sneakers on the requisition forms!”

“...”

Kancher, who had been on the verge of snapping again, abruptly shut his mouth.

“...Did you plant an agent in the supply unit?”

“Not the supply unit—the Adjutant’s Office! All special-team supplies for our division are handled by the Adjutant’s Office!”

“So you really did plant an agent...”

“No! I am literally the Adjutant’s Office staffer! Erabelle Vermilion, twenty-eight years old, currently on paid medical leave after an injury!”

“...”

Kancher fell silent again beneath her desperate barrage.

Erabelle only grew more anxious.

Before she could say anything else, however, Kancher abruptly changed the subject.

“Shall we renew your signum?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s today. Renewal day.”

His tone turned coaxing.

“You don’t need to go this far. I can arrange a call to Dezeb at any time. If you just tell me how you planted an agent in the Adjutant’s Office, I could even delay your signum renewal...”

How would I even plant an agent? Is that possible?

Letting Kancher’s stream of nonsense wash past her, Erabelle fetched a cushion and a cloth table mat from nearby.

“D-Delay...”

Then she knelt on the floor, stuffed the linen mat into her mouth, buried her face in the cushion, and lay flat on her stomach.

“...”

“...”

Kancher and the other Dogs fell silent.

For a moment, no one moved.

“You do it.”

Then they immediately began pushing the responsibility onto one another.

“No, sir. You said you’d do it.”

“That’s right. Whoever volunteered should hurry up and get it over with.”

The argument dragged on.

Eventually, fed up with waiting, Erabelle pulled the linen mat from her mouth and looked up at Kancher.

“Could you just do it quickly? I really need to contact him.”

“Why me?!”

Kancher exploded.

Why was she putting this on him?

That was a little rich, considering the circumstances, but with his face flushed red as he shouted, Erabelle quietly looked away.

“Then maybe someone else...”

“A-Ah—why are you looking at me?! The team leader said he’d do it! Not me! The team leader!”

It was teamwork worthy of tears.

“How about drawing lots? Or playing ladder?”

They rejected that too.

The team leader had brought it up, so the team leader had to take responsibility.

Their position was firm.

Absolute.

There was not the slightest room for negotiation.

“Then please, Captain. Just quickly...”

“Ah! I said wait!”

Just as Kancher shouted again, his phone rang.

“...”

A direct line.

From the 41st Division’s main ship.

***

Dezeb stared at the sleeping woman beside him and let out a dry laugh.

He took out a cigarette, lit it, and gave another humorless snort.

“She keeps going AWOL... I’m developing trauma over this.”

He drew the sorcery sigils away from Erabelle’s sleeping body, severed the connection to her consciousness, and walked outside.

“Standby status is strange today.”

“Did something happen to the planetary deity? Contact the temple.”

The Dogs looked uneasily up at the sky as it suddenly seemed to crumple in on itself.

Then they turned toward him as he stepped through the doorway.

“Ah, Dezeb. Is there anything you want us to—”

Their bodies burst apart into dozens of pieces.

Severed limbs and chunks of flesh spilled across the floor.

The remaining Dogs went pale.

“Bring me the surveillance team leader.”

Dezeb ground one of the fallen pieces beneath his heel.

The Dogs scattered at once, frantically opening ritual pathways.

Only a precious few managed to escape.

Blood and screams flooded the manor corridors.

And through every ritual path beyond them.