I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 59
Chapter 59
“First.”
Ferda began speaking.
A damp echo, fitting for an underground chamber, resonated through the air.
“I am truly grateful to you.”
“…….”
“If you hadn’t attacked that day, I would have had to monitor Chancellor Bernard for days on end, which would have been a pointless waste of effort.”
“If you’re so grateful…… could you undo these?”
“I’d rather not. I’m grateful to you, but I’m not an idiot.”
Ferda brought over a chair and sat in front of him.
“That transformation technique is quite fascinating. It’s not a magical imitation or a sensory distortion, nor is it a clumsy mimicry like those of Dopplegangers.”
“If you find it so intriguing, I could even become the Regent-nim for you?”
The man threw out a joke with a snicker.
“Can you become me as well?”
Ferda took the bait of that joke immediately.
“As long as I have blood, it’s possible.”
Ferda pulled a clean dagger from his robe and sliced his own arm.
Bright red blood flowed down his forearm.
“Go ahead, then.”
“…….”
The man caught and drank the dripping blood.
Once a substantial amount of blood had flowed into him, the appearance of Chancellor Bernard began to change.
He became Ferda himself.
Grey hair and blue eyes.
The frail body of a man who had wanted to be a knight but couldn’t.
Though he was bruised and his teeth were shattered, he undoubtedly wore Ferda’s form.
“It seems you cannot repair injuries. What happened to that monstrous healing factor?”
“My role is to become that human. There’s no way a human would have such healing power, right?”
“Thorough indeed.”
To deliberately strip away the strengthening elements of a demon and focus entirely on mimicking a human.
Ferda stared intently at him.
The man, meeting his gaze, burst into laughter.
“Ferda Valdrova. I thought you were insane, but you exceed my imagination…….”
“What do you mean?”
Ferda tilted his head.
“What you are looking at is yourself. It is the sight of your own broken and shattered self. And yet, you look at it as if you’re enjoying it.”
“I’m not enjoying it.”
“And yet your eyes haven’t wavered once?”
It was exactly as the man said.
Ferda showed no sign of looking away or feeling fear.
He was simply observing his own broken form.
“You were…… kicked out of the Rosnova family, weren’t you?”
“…….”
“I can feel through this body how hard you worked. You have no muscle, but you tried so hard that your bones were breaking and your hands were covered in blisters, didn’t you?”
“…….”
“But your father didn’t recognize that.”
“Yes, and because of that, I became a fiancé.”
“No. That was just an excuse to cast you out. You know that, don’t you?”
The man smiled thinly with Ferda’s face.
“You were abandoned because you had no talent. You’re a human who was thrown away like a worn-out shoe, just like me.”
What his eyes were appealing for was a sense of kinship.
A kinship felt through the emotion of revenge, which shared the same name.
The man with Ferda’s face was thirsting for vengeance.
A man seeking revenge against a king who betrayed his trust.
A man seeking revenge against a father who cast aside his child.
Ferda could deeply understand that emotion called rage.
“Yes, I was abandoned.”
Ferda showed his disgust at the sight.
“But you and I are different. We are worlds apart.”
“What is different?”
“The soul.”
Ferda tapped his own chest.
“My soul has always been mine.”
Ferda looked up at him with eyes full of contempt.
Hearing Ferda’s words, the man shouted in a surge of emotion.
“I haven’t sold my soul to anyone. This is the path I chose!”
“No, you sold your soul. You didn’t hesitate for a second to let those pieces of trash judge you and turn you into something worthless. Because of that, your vengeance has become cheaper than a dog’s.”
The man shouted back as if he found it absurd.
“Does that matter? All that matters is getting revenge anyway. Even if I’m destroyed, the only thing that counts is making that bastard suffer more than if he were in Hell!”
“No, revenge is nothing without a soul.”
Ferda reached into the pouch he had brought.
“It is only when you hold onto your soul completely as your own, even if it becomes dirty and broken, that it is truly achieved.”
What he pulled out was a medicine bottle.
A bottle with no color or label, its effects unknown.
Seven in total.
“So, stop pretending you understand me just because you wear my face.”
He opened the cap of one and approached.
“And try enjoying life.”
* * *
High in the castle, in the Alchemy Workshop.
The alchemist was busy tidying up.
“May I come in?”
At the familiar voice of the old man, the alchemist stopped and bowed his head.
“I greet Count Consilus-nim. Of course, you may enter at any time.”
“Thank you for allowing Regent Valdrova to use the workshop.”
“Not at all. How could I refuse a request from the Count-nim?”
Count Consilus made a show of glancing around before speaking.
“By the way, do you know what kind of medicine the Regent-nim was making?”
“Here is the list of ingredients the Regent-nim requested.”
The quick-witted alchemist showed him the list he had used.
Consilus scanned the list.
Though he was a knight and a soldier, he had a fair amount of knowledge picked up over the years.
Among that was knowledge of alchemy, and he could quickly grasp the basics.
Consequently, Consilus wore an expression of disbelief.
“This…… looks like ingredients for a recovery potion, is that right?”
At Count Consilus’s question, the alchemist nodded.
“Yes. That is correct.”
“He came all the way here just to make a recovery potion? If that was the case, he could have just asked you, couldn’t he?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“That’s what you’re saying?”
The sigh the Count was about to let out was sucked back in.
The alchemist stammered.
“No, well… it’s just….”
“Speak plainly. I’ll forgive you even if it sounds like you’re badmouthing him a little.”
“If I may speak at the risk of my life……. Regent Valdrova’s skill in alchemy was…… no, it was simply the worst.”
Disgust was evident in his voice.
Count Consilus blinked at that reaction.
“Is it to the point where even you would say that?”
“Yes. He was a complete novice in alchemy—no, he unhesitatingly did things worse than a novice. If one of my apprentices had done that, I would have slapped them across the face then and there.”
“Hmm…….”
“Gasp, I’m sorry. I have been disrespectful……”
Count Consilus stroked his beard, thought silently for a moment, and then spoke.
“That probably wasn’t due to lack of skill.”
“But it completely deviates from the manufacturing process and usage. Unless he’s a novice……”
“Tell me. What happens if you deviate from the manufacturing process?”
“Well……”
The alchemist began to read what he had recorded.
“First, to point out one of the Regent’s actions, the stirring speed was far too fast.”
“What happens if it’s too fast?”
“The effectiveness of the recovery medicine decreases.”
“And what else?”
“He shook the cauldron during the cooling process. Shaking it while the medicinal properties are spreading evenly decreases the recovery effect. And……”
He continued to recite a list of the worst possible actions.
In a short process, he had committed more than twenty errors.
“And all those processes……”
The alchemist could not hide his wonder.
He hadn't noticed while watching, but as he pointed them out one by one, it began to become clear.
Alchemy is delicate.
If something goes wrong during the process, the recovery effect can vanish entirely, or it can become water worse than juice.
However, every single one of the amateurish acts Ferda had committed led to a consistent effect.
“They all serve to decrease the speed and power of recovery…….”
It was far too intentional a direction to be called the work of a novice.
* * *
“Gaaauuugh!”
The man’s entire body tensed up violently.
The veins in his neck bulged, and as he clenched his broken teeth, even those were shattering further.
“Can you feel it?”
Ferda asked, lightly shaking the empty bottle.
Everything that had been inside had entered the man’s body.
“Doesn’t your whole body feel like a burning field? It must feel like you’re being burned slowly and very intensely.”
“Gaaauugh…… What on earth did you……?!”
He couldn't finish his sentence.
But Ferda answered for him.
“It’s a wretched life.”
“Wha-what the……!”
“It’s a name I gave it. It’s the most painful kind of life given to bastards like you who are prepared to die. And what you’re feeling are the growing pains of nerves that had died from harsh torture being brought back to life.”
“Gaaauuugh……!?”
“Yes. This isn’t killing you. I’m in the middle of saving you.”
“Bu-bullshit……!”
There was no way this sort of thing was recovery.
Ferda said, shaking the empty medicine bottle.
“Isn’t it strange? The better the recovery medicine, the more robustly and quickly it heals. That’s why high-grade recovery potions are always in high demand. They’re well-refined, so there are no side effects even if you take them during battle.”
The man had once been a knight.
Since he had been on the battlefield, he knew very well what the effects of high-grade recovery medicine were like.
“Conversely, cheap recovery medicine is painful. The recovery speed is slow, and the healing power is weak. What I’ve made is the cheapest of the cheap. So, when I press like this……”
Ferda pressed down firmly on a bruised area with his index finger.
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
A scream erupted.
He, who had endured the torture of an executioner, let out a single, sharp scream for the first time.
“Revived nerves are very sensitive. Even a finger is like this.”
He picked up an object the executioner had left behind.
A long, sharp-tipped object.
It was a needle.
“How do you think this will feel?”
Clang, clang!
“Stop, stooop!!”
He began to struggle frantically, losing his mind.
“I’ll tell you everything! I said I’ll tell you!”
“Tell me what?”
“There must be a purpose for this torture, goddammit! I’ll tell you everything! I’ll even tell you where our base is! So stop now! Please! Pleaaaase!”
Five minutes.
That was the time it took for him, who had endured the executioner’s torture, to surrender.
It had ended quite quickly.
Right, while he might have learned how to resist while dying, he wouldn't have learned how to resist the process of living.
“No.”
Instead of questioning him, Ferda gagged him.
“Your surrender is inevitable, but not right now.”
He set down the empty bottle and picked up the one next to it.
It sloshed.
To his sensitive ears, it sounded like the roar of waves facing a storm.
“Sing a little more. Feel a bit more of the wretched life you threw away.”
The spiral staircase leading to the basement.
Below it, the screams of a villain cast into hell did not cease.
* * *
Three hours later, Ferda met with Consilus again in the reception room.
“I’ve learned a few interesting facts.”
“What kind of facts?”
“They call themselves Dopplers.”
“Doppler? It sounds like it was derived from Doppelganger.”
“Correct. They call themselves Dopplers to mean they are beings far superior to Doppelgangers.”
“Narcissism. How typical of demons.”
Count Consilus laughed heartily.
“I never imagined we would obtain information about demons.”
“The fact that they are closer to humans than demons was a big help. If he hadn’t been close to human, the torture method I know wouldn’t have worked.”
“Truly remarkable. To think you’ve created something we could never have even imagined……”
It was an idea that made even the alchemist, who had worked in the castle for thirty years, shake his head in awe.
Ferda had ruined the potion dozens of times more difficultly and exquisitely than when manufacturing a normal recovery medicine.
It was a level of mastery that could truly be called art.
“Those people called Dopplers…… Chancellor Bernard surely wasn’t the first. Do you know when they started?”
“He said they started ten years ago. Since he only recently moved up from Servant-class to Knight-class, he doesn’t seem to know the exact details.”
There are tiers among demons.
Servant-class are ordinary human followers, mere expendable pawns.
From Knight-class onwards, they begin to truly enjoy the power and authority of demons.
“If they started ten years ago, many must be hidden already.”
“Not only in Escoleia, but they must also be hidden within the Grand Council.”
“That is…… preposterous. It makes no sense for the minions of chaos to be in the domain of Blancaros-nim, the Aspect of Great Order.”
“I already know what Chancellor Bernard said at the Grand Council. It’s a established fact that demon followers, whether human or Doppler, are inside.”
Count Consilus understood that, but it was too much to fully accept.
“The Grand Council, where the entire continent harmonizes, will now begin to lose trust.”
The Grand Council, a place created for the harmony of the Serdes Continent.
The news that a subordinate of the Evil Dragon Godwin was planted in the absolute territory of Blancaros would shake the continent.
The ripple effect is too large for it to be used politically.
“What will you do?”
Consilus asked Ferda.
Perhaps he would make a wise judgment in this situation.
“The best course of action is, of course, a preemptive strike.”
“Surprising the opponent is indeed an excellent tactic. But wouldn’t we need to know the opponent’s base to carry out a surprise attack?”
“Of course.”
Count Consilus, realizing the intent behind those words a moment late, brightened up.
“Don’t tell me you’ve even found out the enemy’s base?”
“Not the main base, but a core facility. He said he served as the captain of the guard at a research facility where those things are created. So, he says he knows the vulnerabilities better than anyone else.”
“Then we can go and strike the opponent right away.”
Since they knew the opponent’s location, the conditions themselves were perfect.
“There is one problem.”
“What is it?”
“That research facility happens to be in Silverwind’s territory.”
“Ah……”
Consilus knew what the current relationship with Silverwind was like.
“That makes things difficult. It seems like something that could be easily resolved if we requested cooperation from Silverwind’s side……”
“There’s no way they’d do it. And wouldn’t it take time just to make the request?”
“You’re right. In that case, it would be better to provide the information, but…… even that is an unpleasant prospect.”
“If it were just a matter of subjugation, we could just collapse the mountain and wipe it out.”
The location for the preemptive strike is a research facility, not a gathering place for demon armies.
In other words, a place where information, not military force, is the core.
Among that, there would surely be information on the Dopplers as well as the plans the demons have set in motion.
Ferda made his decision.
“We’ll have to strike secretly, destroy it, and then get out.”
A precarious special operation that could turn into a war if a mistake was made.
Just as Ferda was about to outline the plan, Count Consilus suddenly spoke up first.
“This may be an intrusive request, but could you give this old man a chance?”
“A chance?”
“Yes.”
Count Consilus knelt and placed his hand over his heart.
“As a shield of the Empire and a knight loyal to the great Aspect of Strength, I wish to be of great help to the Regent-nim.”
He was an old man with graying hair.
But in his prime, he had also been a knight recognized by the Empire.
He was a knight who had demoted himself after losing everything.
Ferda welcomed the request.
“We leave tomorrow. Go and prepare immediately.”
