Chapter 98
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Chapter 98
Kieran gazed at Chesa's hand for a long while.
Of course, the vanished mark never reappeared.
He gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.
As he did, he murmured as if speaking to himself.
"Why won't it appear again...."
His fingers continued their caress, reluctant to cease.
Only when Chesa's skin flushed red did he finally come to his senses and withdraw his hand.
Kieran slowly closed and opened his eyes.
The crimson light of his irises beneath his eyelids was so enigmatic that Chesa tensed.
She felt a tremor of fear at what his reaction might be.
She had released the Fairy without permission.
Moreover, she had even provided the Fairy with the means to escape whenever she wished.
Memories of the catastrophes that had unfolded when she once fled House Basilian came flooding back, casting a shadow over her vision.
Sensing the need to take more decisive action, Chesa stepped forward first to soothe Kieran.
"The Fairy Queen won't do it."
Fortunately, the light in Kieran's eyes softened slightly.
He drew Chesa into his embrace and whispered.
"...You must never use the Fairy's power in front of others. Never."
He had warned her countless times that all beautiful and precious things invite covetousness, and thus caution was essential.
Only after extracting a firm promise from Chesa did Kieran release a long sigh.
It was not a sigh of relief.
Kieran pressed his lips to Chesa's cheek and murmured softly.
"I worry. Chesa's heart is always tender toward the weak."
Chesa thought it was absurd.
'My heart is tender? What nonsense!'
Yet she could not refute him.
Because Kieran's faint smile looked so forlorn.
"But Chesa...."
His voice fell like a gloomy rain, heavy as storm clouds.
"Please take pity on your father too. You understand, yes?"
***
"...."
Hailon's brow furrowed for a moment.
He had sensed the chains of divine condemnation shattering.
"Hailon?"
The Holy Knight called out to him cautiously.
Hailon simply nodded without a word.
The Holy Knight lowered his gaze quietly and resumed purifying the traces of heresy with sacred power.
He had been verifying and purifying the location where the Fairy had appeared alongside the other Holy Knights.
His adjutant Daren observed his complexion and lowered his voice to ask.
"Has something occurred?"
Hailon did not answer immediately, lost in thought.
Judging by the state of the Illusion Realm, the Fairy had drawn dangerously close to heresy.
Since she had been captured, she needed to be dragged to the Holy Empire for interrogation.
Yet the Fairy bound by the chains of divine condemnation had been freed.
It could not have been Count Basilian's doing.
Had he intended to kill her, he would have killed her—not severed the chains and set her loose.
The memory of the small child's blooming flowers surfaced in his mind.
The petals scattering abundantly throughout the twisted Illusion Realm....
Recalling the miracle the child had wrought, Hailon spoke curtly.
"I will execute her summarily."
"...Pardon?"
Daren stared at him with eyes that screamed, 'Have you lost your mind, executing the Fairy we barely captured?'
Unable to voice it aloud, he merely laughed nervously before gritting his teeth.
"The Holy King has already received a report. This time, there is no way around it. You will certainly face 'discipline'...."
Daren's voice trembled faintly.
Yet unlike his fearful subordinate, Hailon dismissed it without concern.
To shield the child who had freed the Fairy, claiming he had executed and obliterated her was the simplest excuse.
If only the child remained safe, he could bear any price—even discipline.
The true problem lay in the intelligence he should have extracted from the Fairy.
Since he had entrusted the interrogation to Count Basilian, the man would have pried out every necessary piece of information.
Even what the Fairy had refused to divulge.
The only question was whether the intelligence obtained would be shared transparently with him.
They were in the same boat, yet he could never trust him completely.
Hailon swiftly concluded the purification work and returned first to the Inn where the child slept.
Yet he did not go to find the child.
Instead, he sought out Count Basilian.
The Count's appearance was quite a spectacle.
"...Well, well, who is this."
His voice, slurred with intoxication, drawled slowly.
"The Heresy Inquisitor."
The room, lit by only a single lamp, was shrouded in darkness.
Moonlight alone cast a faint glow across the interior.
Hailon, his eyes sweeping across the empty wine bottles scattered across the floor, fixed his gaze upon Count Basilian.
Kieran, sprawled upon the sofa with a bottle clutched in his hand, laughed with a peculiar giggle.
He retrieved an empty glass from beside him and poured wine into it haphazardly.
Red wine spilled messily into the clear glass.
Wine splattered across the back of his hand as well.
Kieran extended the glass with one hand while licking the wine from the back of his other hand with his tongue.
"Care for a drink?"
He laughed, abandoning even the bare minimum of courtesy.
Rather than accept the glass, I gazed down at him in silence.
As if he had anticipated my refusal, Kieran smirked and drained the glass himself.
Gulp after gulp—the movement of his throat was unmistakable.
Kieran hurled the empty glass to the floor.
The glass tumbled across the carpet with a dull sound, rolling away into the shadows.
"I really wanted to kill her... but I can't do anything wrong in front of Chesa...."
It was not difficult to discern that the object of his murderous intent was a Fairy.
"I hate Fairies."
Kieran drew in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.
His chest expanded and then fell.
"Is Chesa really Lichesia's daughter.... I even wondered once if perhaps she—Lichesia—might be my daughter? They look so alike. But the ages don't match."
The drunken rambling continued without coherence.
"Still, she treated me well. Without her, I would have died in the Underworld long ago. I can survive on my own now, but I couldn't back then."
Hailon, listening to the drunken complaints with an expressionless face, narrowed his eyes at the next words.
"She's a queen."
"Explain what you mean."
"She says she's the queen of the Fairies, and wants to be returned to her kingdom."
"...You mean the child is the Fairy Queen."
"Yeah. Lichesia wasn't like that, was she?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Ha, as expected."
Yet it was entirely possible that the queen's power had skipped a generation—a case of atavism.
Particularly when one recalled that Lichesia possessed unusually formidable strength.
I was piecing together the fragments Count Basilian had uttered, constructing a theory, when—
The count suddenly burst into laughter and spat out a curse.
Vile profanities, the sort only a scoundrel would utter, tumbled from his lips as he muttered in a voice laden with murderous intent.
"The second time. The second time...."
Hailon lowered his gaze slightly.
The shadow cast by the lamp and moonlight was smooth and undistorted.
"Does divine power work that way too? Does its effectiveness diminish when committing misdeeds against a Fairy?"
"That is correct."
The reason countless Holy Knights and Holy Priests had failed to apprehend the fairy Lichesia was that divine power did not manifest fully against her.
Even Hailon, who was called the proof of holiness, had to expend far more divine power when confronting the fairy than usual.
The moment when divine power ceased to take effect was unmistakable.
The instant one attempted to force something upon a fairy or inflict harm upon her.
Divine power lost a portion of its potency.
As if to say that causing harm to a fairy was simply not permitted.
"Magic operates identically. It simply does not work."
This was already known to me.
Seasoned Slave Hunters refrained from using magic when capturing fairies.
The fundamental principle was to sufficiently damage a fairy's mind to weaken her strength, and inflict physical wounds upon her body to render her incapable of proper movement.
But what followed was something I had not known.
"I attempted it myself. In that final moment, upon my own wife...."
Why had he employed magic of coercion and threat upon the dying Countess Basilian?
My instinct as a Heresy Inquisitor seized upon the Count's words with piercing clarity.
Uncharacteristically weakened, the Count was spilling forth words he should never have uttered.
If I pressed further here, I might unearth something of value.
Yet before I could pose a probing question to Count Basilian.
His subsequent question brought my thoughts to an abrupt halt.
"Listen, Heresy Inquisitor."
The Count posed his question with a sinister smile.
"What would you do if Lichesia suddenly abandoned you one day and declared her intention to return to the Fairy Kingdom?"
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