Chapter 486 – Chapter 486 Between Family and Family
With Manmajang’s words, Lena almost collapsed on the spot as her legs loosened.
Fortunately, I held her right next to her, so the mishap of her falling to the dirt floor did not happen.
After that, with Beatrice’s consideration, we were able to quickly head to the castle.
The place we arrived was a surprisingly well-decorated room.
On the splendid bed furnished in the room, the duke was asleep with his eyes closed, breathing weakly.
“Duke!”
Lena, who had been calm until now, could no longer control herself and jumped into Duke Peron’s bed.
And started crying bitterly.
Once we decided it would be best to leave Lena alone, she left.
So she left Lena in the Duke’s chambers, and after being guided by her Manmajang to her living room, she began to talk to him about hers.
We gathered in the drawing room and started listening to Manmajang.
“Duke Peron was already seriously ill from the time we occupied this place.”
If you think about it, the Duke that Lena saw in her dream was already in poor condition from the time Lena sortied to the battlefield.
But what if the war was lost and her daughter was dragged to the castle without seeing her face?
It was a strange situation to be alive until now.
“At first, I thought it was just because of my age, but they said I had a chronic illness.”
“A chronic disease?”
I wondered if there was no reason to save the duke, so he just threw it away.
The war was already over anyway, and I thought there was no reason to keep the duke alive in a situation where there was no need for prisoners.
However, the story of Manmajang was different from what I expected.
“Originally, there was a medicine to take for a chronic disease… There is no way to get the medicine now.”
“… ?”
I couldn’t understand.
It’s not that you can’t find medicine, it’s that you can’t find it?
As I looked at me in bewilderment, Beatrice, who understood my gaze, began to ask herself.
“What is the name of the medicine?”
“It’s a drug the general knows well.”
“… ?”
“This is Myohonghwa.”
“Ah!”
As soon as Beatrice heard the name Myo Hong-hwa, he began to perk in his ears as if he already knew it.
I started asking Beatrice.
“What is Myohonghwa?”
“It’s a flower that grows where I live.”
Myohong Mountain, covered in orange, towering like cat’s ears.
Beatrice explained that she was born on Mt. Myohong and had been raised there all her life.
When the name of a plant in his hometown came up, he was delighted to wag his tail and ears.
My ears perked up in delight, but I quickly came to my senses and began to tilt my head.
“Why can’t I find Myohonghwa? Are those flowers on the mountain? Could it be that the mountain has disappeared?”
“The mountain is there.”
“Then I wonder if the mountain is on fire?”
“The village there has been burned, but the mountain is intact. Flowers… It must be growing even now.”
“Then… ?”
“That red flower… There are no more beings to be found.”
“… Eh?”
It was me who raised the question.
The mountains are intact, and the flowers are definitely still growing, but… No one can find flowers?
What does this mean….
When I, Armonia, and even Viola were making faces that I couldn’t understand, Beatrice opened her mouth with an expression of regret.
“Ah… I’m the only one now….”
“… ?”
When Beatrice put on a sullen expression, Viola, who was beside her, tilted her head and asked.
“Bea Beace. Why are you like that?”
“That is… Myohonghwa….”
Beatrice spoke as she managed to keep her mouth open with his ears lowered sullenly.
“Only the Miao can tell them apart.”
As the name suggests, Myohong Mountain was one of the areas where the Miao people lived.
He told me that before the war broke out in the past, Beatrice also made a living by procuring and selling safflower seeds.
“Dad did the selling for me, but I guess I was the only one digging for myrtle flowers.”
“Then why can only the Miao be identified?”
“That is… We find it right away by smell, but strangely, other species can’t tell them apart.”
He explained that all beings on Mount Myohong are covered in orange.
Trees, flowers, grass, rocks, soil, moss… Even the Miao who live there are all orange.
A representative example was Beatrice.
Her body was flesh-colored like a human due to the blood of a succubus, but her head had orange cat ears, a symbol of the Miao tribe.
“Even my mother couldn’t tell the difference even after seeing the flower in front of her eyes.”
Beatrice’s mother was a succubus. Her eyesight will be no different from a human’s.
In other words, it meant that it was impossible to find it with the sight and smell of ordinary humans or demons.
And the Miao….
“Everybody seems to be dead except for me.”
Beatrice seemed to be trying to speak calmly, but I could see sadness in her expression.
When everyone fell silent at Beatrice’s words, she started waving her hand while making her jokes tremble.
“Well, it’s already in the past! So, is it okay if I only get those red flowers?”
“That’s right.”
Madame Mann nodded at Beatrice’s words and began to let out a sigh of relief.
“I am very fortunate. We couldn’t find a way to get medicine either….”
“Um….”
It was a situation that I could not understand.
After thinking about it, I decided that it would be wiser to answer the question, and then I started asking questions.
“Is the reason why you want to save the duke because of the Demon King’s orders?”
If Lena had been there, she would never have brought up this question.
Whatever the intention, it was a question that pierced Lena’s heart.
In response to my question, Majang nodded her head and said,
“Half correct.”
“… ?”
What do you mean by that? I’m doing it because of an order, but it sounds like I’m doing it out of necessity….
And my thoughts were right.
The other way….
“There is an order from the Demon King to keep him alive, but I also have to keep the duke alive for as long as possible.”
“… The reason is?”
“My mission is to make the humans of Peron completely obey the Demon Lord. To do that, the duke must live as long as possible.”
Speaking of demons, it sounds like an existence that indiscriminately slaughters humans, but in reality it wasn’t.
In the war that occurred this time, the demon king did not attack first, but the human side carried out a preemptive attack.
However, as a result, it could serve as an opportunity to subjugate all human countries on the continent to the demon king’s army.
The important thing here is submission.
The reason why the demon king dares to embrace humans at risk.
That….
‘Enel.’
Enormous Enel comes from people who have conquered a world, but Enel continues to come out to other ordinary intelligent beings as well.
And there are two ways to absorb that energy.
Domination and worship.
Did you force Enel out like the demon king Guardia, or draw Enel out as a source of worship like the dean of Stra?
However, there are limits to domination.
Domination is convenient because you can force it by force, but on the other hand, it causes resistance and makes you tired.
But what if you continue to instill respect, like Stra?
One day, the human species will simply become a species in charge of a part of the Demon King’s army.
And in order to produce that result, we are preparing diligently from now on.
‘But… It’s wise to keep them alive to make the most of the operation.’
The nobles in the castle could be cited as a representative example.
Instead of bringing young nobles and slaughtering them recklessly, they served them as servants.
Human nobility is to show off that it is the same as the slave status of demons.
And if that display goes on for hundreds of years, it will one day become a symbol of humans….
‘It will take a long time. It will take a very long time….’
Time is on the devil’s side.
If you forcibly lengthen your lifespan like the dean of Stra, the day will surely come.
‘Then now we have to treat the duke….’
Once I figured out the situation.
And we have a solution.
But if there’s a problem….
“Mt. Myohong is a 5-day drive away.”
“Ten days round trip….”
It was a very long distance for an emergency.
But if it was an emergency, it wasn’t.
“This is the story of when I walked all the way.”
He explained that it was a distance that could be covered in two days on horseback, or in one day if it was really fast.
So there was another overlapping problem here.
“The problem… I have no words.”
“… ?”
Does that make sense? No words….
No matter how important the horse was, no matter how many people died because of the war, I wondered if it would make sense that we didn’t have enough horses to ride.
However, it made no sense because the standard was set as a human being.
“Among our demons, there are very few races that use horses. So the horse was killed long ago and consumed as food.”
“Hemmy….”
Compared to other livestock, horses are expensive to raise.
The cost for one animal is enormous, but is it useless to the demons?
Of course, they choose to cut costs by slaughtering and consuming as food.
And there was a more important reason.
“Horses are the best livestock in name and reality for humans who have been in charge of one axis of war since the past. We decided to remove it quickly so that there would be no problems later.”
“Wow….”
It was a real story
Even if there is a rebel army, whether there is a horse or not, the difference between the strength of the rebel army and the earth will widen.
The disappearance of a creature called a horse would block the means of human resistance.
‘What’s realistic is beyond….’
The important thing is to save Myohonghwa now.
“By the way, there is a transporter among my subordinates.”
They were demons who flew through the sky to carry things, and they were demons who could take simple items and fly away at once.
“I can’t lift anything heavy, but I should be able to come back in half a day carrying about honghwa.”
In other words, it was a story that even if it took time to get there, once the Myo Hong-Hwa was found, it would be easy to cure the duke.
In fact, there was a way to go at once.
I quietly whispered to Armonia.
“Armonia, is it possible to move to the warp?”
“It is possible if we calculate the coordinates based on Beatrice’s memory. However, it needs 12 hours of charging to get to its destination.”
“Great. Let’s go talk to Lena first.”
I put the other members in the parlor and headed to the duke’s room alone with Lena.
When I opened the door and looked around quietly, the inside was quiet as if time had stopped.
The Duke hadn’t woken up yet, and Lena was asleep with her face buried at the end of the Duke’s bed.
I quietly approached and checked on Lena.
Tired of crying for a long time, I put my legs on the floor and fell asleep on the bed.
“… This is not it.”
I didn’t mean to show you a very good view.
I just brought it with the hope that I would find peace while relaxing my anxious mind for a while.
As Armonia said, no matter how miserable the sight was, I thought that just by accepting it, I would be able to release the core inside.
And the biggest lump in Lena was by far the Duke of Peron.
You can forget your dead parents, but you can’t forget the parents who broke up helplessly.
But what about seeing your parents dying helplessly?
I do not know.
Is it luck that I stopped by now, or is it bad luck that I didn’t stop by until now….
When I entered the room and looked at Lena without saying anything, Lena suddenly got up and started looking around her.
“Lord, Master!”
As soon as Lena saw me, she hurriedly got up and started to stumble, sprained by the heel of her shoe.
“Sigh!”
“Be careful.”
I grabbed Lena and carefully lifted her up.
Lena’s appearance was like a painting.
Such a picture that contains all the sorrows of the world.
Lena held her in my arms and barely straightened her posture before opening her mouth.
“Master… Sorry….”
But I interrupted Lena and said.
“Sorry.”
“… What do you mean by that?”
When did you first meet Lena?
To be honest, I was just infatuated with her beautiful warrior image.
I was obsessed with having her with her immature thoughts as she drifted through her dreams.
Later, when he took Lena with him, he wondered what kind of expression the duke would make and laughed immaturely.
But time started to change everything.
“… I’m sorry I showed up.”
“Master… What is that….”
I was the worst person to put Lena through her hell.
That fact will not change no matter what excuses you make.
“If I hadn’t appeared, Duke Peron wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“If the master hadn’t appeared, the duke… I wouldn’t have been there even as a prisoner in the first place.”
“… ?”
No, something is strange.
“No. If I hadn’t appeared, prisoners would not have been a problem in the first place, and I would have lived happily with you and Lena for the rest of my life.”
“If Master hadn’t appeared, I would have lived my entire life in the Devil’s Castle as if walking barefoot on the floor of hell.”
… Does the premise change all the time?
“No. If I hadn’t appeared, Lena, you wouldn’t have been trapped in the Demon Castle in the first place.”
“If Master had not appeared, Viola would have been imprisoned for the rest of her life.”
“….”
How to say… I can’t say that it isn’t.
That’s so right.
Lena hugged me tightly and gave me her last piece of logic.
“If Master had not appeared….”
“… ?”
“I would never have seen my master in my whole life. With that alone… I am always grateful.”
“….”
Lena’s final ignorance of hers shattered all my logic.
‘Yes, the results have already passed.’
It is impossible to change the past.
‘The important thing is to change the future.’
To change the future… In the present moment, you have to struggle.
Lena knows that all too well.
“Sorry.”
“In addition… You say you’re sorry.”
Haha… Sorry.”
Lena smiled at my apology and started hugging me tightly.
