Chapter 241 – Chapter 241 ― Evidence (2)
Chapter 241 ― Evidence (2)
It took quite a while for her to stop crying. With her face flushed red, Yurtellia struggled to breathe through her crying.
“… I’m sorry… Your majesty…”
“Okay.”
She had never cried like this since she was born. To even be so disarmed in front of her others. Doesn’t it seem like magic has been applied?
Feeling ashamed, Urtellia handed an apology to the emperor and touched the teacup in silence for a while.
However, the emperor did not ask anything, broke the embrace, sat back a bit, and started drinking tea together as if nothing had happened.
Urtellia was grateful for that.
She looks like a noble person more than anyone else, but the truth is that she is kinder and more understanding than any other aristocrats Yurtellia has ever met.
“… Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Urtellia, her cheeks flushed, bowed her head to Roan. Roan smiled lightly.
“Are you a little relieved?”
“Yes.”
Yurteria’s expression seemed to have become lighter, as if she had wiped out something in her heart with her tears.
“This is the first time I have been away from Anmut for so long. I guess that made me more anxious.”
This kind of story didn’t come out in the character description. Certainly, even in the game, I thought there was a chemistry that was strangely like a childhood friend.
“Looks like you’ve been together for a really long time. When did you meet Anmut?”
“When I was young…”
And Urtellia shut her mouth for a moment.
The pain of a bad memory that passed across her face for an instant.
“It was in the wizard’s laboratory that I began to have clear memories.”
A story I heard in the guild came to mind.
In Merde, most of the prisoners live as slaves.
Now Merde’s national power has declined due to a self-inflicted war, but until 10 years ago when the previous emperor passed away, the demons in the border area constantly tasted defeat in a power struggle with humans.
Due to various political factors intertwined, humans were eager to hunt demons at that time. In particular, the most favored prey at that time was none other than a beast.
Unlike most demons, beastmen have a similar form to humans. It may even suit human tastes, depending on your point of view. Its strength is also weak compared to other demons. It’s only the goblins that have the power of a normal beast.
For that very reason, beastmen were not protected even inside Evirgio, and were the easiest prey for humans.
It is said that it was common in the past for prisoners living near the border to be kidnapped because they were not protected by either side. Eventually, when the same demons were having a hard time, there were cases where they directly caught and sold beastmen.
And the place where such things were most common was the port area, Tosu. It was the place where humans (at least) were most active in Evirgio, and once the ship left, it was not easy to track it down.
Anyway, what can the beast do if he goes to Merde?
At most, he became a pet of a fortune teller or a slave of a wizard who wanted an unusual test subject. The population of demons is much smaller than that of humans, and beasts are very rare compared to humans. They didn’t even have enough heads to do anything organized in Merde.
“I was always hungry and occasionally sick. Looking back, I think my memories are fuzzy or jumbled because I kept having the same memories because I was stuck in the same place for a long time.”
Urutellia’s expression twisted.
As if it hurts just to bring out the memories.
“But at some point, I was able to read the text. Stuttered at first… Then, at some point, it was as if my eyes were opened.”
“Who taught you the language or letters in the first place?”
“It looks like I vaguely studied with my sister before… She probably got used to it by watching the wizard old woman read it.”
Roan was amazed.
“Awesome.”
“Because when the old woman reads something of hers, she gets sick that day. Like cutting her ankle and then recovering, or burning her skin and then recovering it. Because she hates it, she must have thought that if she knew at all about it, she would feel better. Look at this.”
Yurteria rolled up her sleeves.
She struggled to pull up her robes, which had always covered her small frame like a sack, revealing her scars covering all her forearms.
A trace as if something had been added to her arm, like a burn mark. You mean you made it on purpose?
A chill ran up his spine, and Roan wanted to close his eyes tightly. However, the strong demon king’s body and energy do not allow such a thing. Roan looked at the traces of the cruel wound with his calm eyes.
“Coming to think of it now, I don’t think Grandma was a very good wizard. Although she has a noble spirit that she will make healing magic that only priests can do, so that even wizards can do it.”
Urtellia laughed like it was absurd, but Roan couldn’t help but laugh.
The emperor had the same insensitive expression as usual, but he turned his gaze elsewhere as if avoiding it. From that appearance, Urtellia knew that the emperor was in pain.
A very faint smile crept across her face. Normally, she would have hated people who sympathized with her, but this demonic emperor didn’t hate any form of heart.
“From then on, I think my head broke. The spells and books her grandmother used to read… From then on she began to read secretly. She didn’t feed her, so she didn’t just put her on her chain. She couldn’t eat anyway, and she was sick and didn’t even have the strength to run away.”
It is almost a miracle that a child who has learned to write alone can even use magic. And Urtellia did just that.
A frown flashed in Roan’s eyes.
Respect and admiration.
Yurteria read it and shook her legs slightly as if embarrassed.
“So how did it go?”
“I didn’t know the time or the date, but… That’s how she reads the book and learns her magic alone… Meanwhile, Anmut entered the lab.”
Ah.
He was also an experimental slave.
Hearing that, Roan swallowed his surprise again.
If this happened to you,
It would be basic to be prickly like Urtellia or to have a hatred for humans.
However, there were times when Anmut showed more consideration for humans than humans.
Because he was always polite and gentle.
Could that be the quality of a ‘hero’?
“Anmut at that time was very small…”
A faint smile appeared on Urtellia’s face. Of the past she recalls, she seems to have remembered her good memories.
“You can’t really imagine it now, but back then Anmut was small enough to lie down under this table.”
Uh?
Roan, feeling a sense of incongruity in her words of Urtellia, suddenly stared at her.
“Is Anmut younger than you by any chance?”
“Ah.”
Then, Yurtellia shut her mouth as if in dismay.
Roan’s eyes widened.
You said that Urtellia was in her mid-twenties.
Then the hero is even younger than that?!
“Uh, um… I didn’t mean to cheat… After leaving the laboratory, Anmut’s size has grown so much that no one will believe him if he says he’s a younger brother anyway… From the time he entered the guild, he just kept calling him oppa, and later it became natural…”
Urtellia made an excuse, but she wasn’t angry with it. I knew Anmut was someone else anyway, so what kind of relationship did he have with Yurtellia’s older brother or younger sister?
However, it has been several years since the hero absorbed skills from women and, above all, was called Merde’s best mercenary… It may already be a story of a teenager that he stood out with force. So how much stronger can Anmut be?
It was only then that Roan understood the ‘growth’ in the hero’s game. There is still room for him to accept something more and gain strength.
It’s scary, young man.
“Well, rather than having malicious intent, it probably wasn’t easy to trust someone you didn’t know well at once. I can understand.”
“Yes…”
With a small nod of her head, Yurtalia continued her explanation.
“It has been quite some time since Anmut came to the lab. I don’t know how many years or months… Both I and Anmut suffer, and we care for each other. I was living like that, but I guess I really had a protective instinct.”
“A protective instinct?”
I was just imagining what the story would be about.
What demons all experience during their adolescence.
The threshold of becoming an adult, awakening.
And the sudden change of the body is very likely to be faced when a big psychological and environmental change comes.
(Former) Didn’t the demon king wake up the moment the former empress died?
“It was the day Anmut was experimented on. He cut off his tail. I squatted in the corner and watched it, and at some point I woke up. I only knew it in my head, and it was a magic that hadn’t worked very well for a while, but it suddenly became incredibly strong. Later, I found out that it was the awakening of the demons.”
“Ah.”
Roan was speechless for a while.
Yurtalia still wiggles her legs and talks about the past as if nothing happened.
However, how hard she must have been to look back on her memories of the past and refine herself in order to have a hard-looking shell of her that is as hard as mine.
And Urtellia smiled.
“Coming to think of it, I should have brought my tail, but both of us were busy running away so we left it behind.”
That laugh looked sad, and Roan’s throat choked.
“Still, it’s okay… You are seated.”
“Because Anmut knew a lot. Before that, they said they lived on the streets begging. I learned about mercenaries and guilds thanks to him.”
“So you saved money from then?”
“Yes.”
Urtellia agreed.
She said, “I knew that Ebirgio was where I was born. I remembered that there were no demons around. So she thought of going around Evirzio and looking for her sister.”
“Do you remember anything else about her sister?”
“Um… Actually, I don’t remember her looks or voice or anything like that. Instead, the places we went together, the things we did… I only vaguely know these things.”
In response to Roan’s question, she twitched her lips as if recalling the bottom of her memory.
“It was a cold place. I remember seeing a huge ship on the beach, and strangely, I also remember the smell of the sea.”
Evirgioe ports are only north and south.
The memory of being cold is relative.
No matter how warm a port city in the Southern Heukryeong is, winter nights are cold enough to freeze to death. This is because of the dry climate of Evirgio.
“Do you remember seeing the snow?”
“Eye… Ah yes. I also remember being amazed by looking into her eyes with her older sister.”
“Then it must be Northern Baekryung.”
“Bukbaekryeong… You mean the north side where Port Dosu is?”
“I heard that quite a few pirates appeared there. It’s to the extent that the Northern Baengnyeongju got its title after annihilating the pirates in droves.”
“Ah… Okay…”
Hearing those words, Urtellia mumbled after thinking for a while.
“Then, when Anmut returns and the work of helping Your Majesty is over… I think I will go to Dos.”
“I think that would be good.”
Roan calmly nodded his head.
“The Count Helen talked about earlier is the great lord of Northern Baekryung. Knowing him will help you in many ways.”
“A high lord?!”
Yurtellia widened her eyes in surprise.
“… That’s amazing, you said thirty, right?”
“He’s just as genius as you.”
Roan’s words made Urtellia smile.
When she gave out all her innermost words, she seemed much more at ease. After sipping the cooled teacup for a while, Yurtalia asked an unexpected question.
“What does Your Majesty do when you are lonely and helpless?”
“Hmm?”
No one asked the emperor such trivial things. Roan looked back on the past year.
