༺ The Big Star Who Loves The Small Star ༻
– Squeaak…
Frey opened the tightly closed door and gazed silently ahead.
“…….”
Aria sat cross-legged on a chair in front of a desk.
“Excuse me…”
Feeling Aria’s chilling gaze, Frey awkwardly scratched his head and asked.
“Who are you?”
His expression was of pure innocence, but Aria simply stared coldly at him.
“I went along with it earlier because I was startled, but I really don’t know who you are.”
“Enough, brother.”
Aria sharply dismissed Frey’s last-ditch denial.
“You know very well that in this entire empire, only two people are roaming with stellar mana, right?”
“……..”
“Understand? Then drop the pathetic act and sit down.”
While Frey’s disguise was perfect, he had not concealed his stellar mana.
He hadn’t expected his sister to find his hiding spot herself.
Also, hiding stellar mana wasn’t easy.
It could be intentionally suppressed to go unnoticed by ordinary people. However, deceiving Aria, his companion for over a decade, was nearly impossible.
The room was saturated with stellar mana, as he had abused the ‘Protection of the Stars’ last night, making it hard to hide.
“…What are you doing here?”
Aria glanced around the room filled with stellar mana, giving Frey a displeased look.
“……….”
However, Frey stayed quiet, just gazing at her.
“Remove that disguise, will you?”
Staring at him coldly, Aria grumbled in a low voice while Frey slowly raised his hands to his face.
In an instant, his original face returned.
“Who made that disguise for you?”
“I don’t know.”
Frey responded uncooperatively to Aria’s incredulous inquiry.
“Fine. If that’s how you want to play it.”
Aria hadn’t really expected any answer, so she glared at him in silence, getting ready to speak again.
“Then…hmm?”
She tilted her head, cautiously reaching for the window she had closed earlier.
“Tsk, shouldn’t have bothered checking.”
She lifted the curtains slightly, spotted soldiers stealthily approaching the inn, and scowled.
“Ah, ah, I’ll inform the troops.”
She pulled out a magical communication device and started talking.
“I’ve received a tip about Frey’s location. He was spotted about five kilometers east of the inn. Investigate immediately.”
“…Aria?”
“Shut up.”
Ignoring Frey’s attempt to speak, Aria ended the communication. She observed the soldiers retreat from the inn and then closed the curtains.
“Just to be clear, I’m not rescuing you.”
Turning to Frey with an icy expression, she clarified, “I just want to know the truth, so I bought us some time.”
“Thanks for saving me, Aria.”
“Ugh.”
Frey’s relaxed smile and provocation only fueled her irritation, causing her to clench her teeth and glare at him.
“Answer my questions truthfully from now on, brother.”
“………”
“I already know almost everything.”
Frey nodded quietly at her.
“So, the first question. You’re part of the Demon King’s army, right?”
“Yes.”
“No matter how much you deny it, it’s useless… Ha.”
Seeing Frey’s easy admission to her first question, Aria looked at him contemptuously.
“Don’t you realize the severity of the situation, brother?”
Her rebuke cut through Frey, who closed his eyes and sat silently.
“The second question. The limited time… it was all a lie, wasn’t it?”
Aria glared at Frey as if wanting to kill him. She subtly asked her next question.
“…Right?”
Unlike her usual tone with Frey, her voice quivered slightly.
“Correct.”
“Haa.”
Frey nodded quietly, and Aria sighed.
“I knew it.”
A momentary relief flickered across her face.
“If you say so, Brother.”
However, her expression swiftly transformed into one of deep disappointment and disgust.
“You know I have been frail since childhood. I hated having such a body. So, I surrendered to the Demon King’s army early to gain life force…”
“Enough.”
She abruptly cut off Frey’s explanation, evidently not wanting to hear more. Clenching her fists, she proceeded with the third question.
“Thirdly… it’s true that you’ve been using the maids and servants as sex slaves, right?”
“Of cours—What?!”
Initially intending to affirm everything, Frey tilted his head in confusion.
“I… What did I do?”
“It’s the official results from the investigation.”
Aria then pulled out documents and threw them at him.
“Some servants showed positive reactions to the purity stone.”
“What…?”
“Especially those who went to the Imperial Family. The purity stone turned black for almost everyone who touched it.”
Hearing this, Frey looked puzzled.
“Some servants disputed the results, claiming they were false… but the rest accepted them.”
“……..”
“Did you do something to them while they were sleeping, Brother?”
Aria asked with desperation.
“Is it true that you did such things?”
“……..”
“Why are you silent? Say something…”
As Aria kept pressing him, he stood up, and she stopped suddenly.
“This is…..”
She quietly grasped Frey’s hand.
“A ring made of purity stone… right?”
The ring on Frey’s finger was darkly shining. The ring she had seen numerous times in the validation ceremony was made of the same material as the white stone.
“Only one entity has the purity stone: the Church. Even with permission, only a tiny amount could be taken. How did you get this?”
The ring Frey wore was a gift from the Church to Serena as hush money after she had exposed that ‘holy power’ wasn’t holy at all.
This implied that all purity stones were entirely under the Church’s monopoly, excluding the one in Frey’s ring.
‘The Church… they manipulated the results.’
Frey finally understood why Alice and his servants firmly believed he had violated them. He silently clenched his fists tightly.
“Did they see or directly experience the rape?”
“You still aren’t admitting? Even after I caught you administering a drug to Kadia while she was asleep?”
“………”
“Some Imperial servants even testified that you raped them. So please, spare us your pathetic excuses.”
Frey lowered his head silently.
Following the departure of the mansion’s servants, the attacks from extremists who had fully turned against Frey and aligned with the Imperial Family were escalating day by day.
They jointly degraded Frey’s social status in exchange for living a life several times more luxurious lives, something the neutral faction supporting Abraham, Frey’s father, and his sister Aria didn’t enjoy. The small supporting faction had ended up doing menial jobs in the Imperial Family.
Most people inevitably believed their statements, especially since the Church had stepped in to validate them.
Even Aria, vaguely aware of Frey’s nightly wanderings in the mansion, was no exception.
“Brother… last question.”
Aria posed the final question to Frey, who was silent and had his head down.
“Do you feel guilty, even a little bit?”
The question weighed heavily on Frey.
“Do you harbor even the smallest trace of guilt for the sins you’ve committed so far?”
Aria reiterated the question, forcing Frey to open his eyes and respond.
“Not at all.”
He spoke with the evil smile he always had before his sister.
“I am a follower of the great Demon King.”
“………”
“Would you like to join me in setting the world ablaze, Aria?”
A heavy silence lingered after Frey’s words.
“You could have a high position…”
In the following quiet, Frey smiled and said.
– Slap…!
Frey’s head snapped back.
“Scumbag…”
Facing him was Aria, tears streaming down her eyes.
“You’re… not… my flesh and blood anymore….”
“…Hmm.”
“I am severing our family ties forever, Frey Raon Starlight.”
Aria stood up and looked down at Frey.
“No, from now on, you’re just ‘Frey’.”
She shouted at Frey, who was still holding his cheek.
“As the acting head of the Starlight family, I am removing you from our family register today.”
“…….”
“You are no longer a noble. You’re just a commoner.”
Frey smiled slightly at her words.
“Don’t ever set foot in the mansion again. Following the ‘Order’ handed down in the family, I decree a permanent banishment for you.”
Unaware of his smile, Aria gathered stellar mana while wiping away her tears.
“And……”
“Are you trying to kill me, Aria?”
“………”
Before she knew it, Aria had conjured numerous weapons made of stellar mana, all aimed at Frey.
“Really?”
Each one was sharp, potentially lethal magic.
“I-I won’t kill you… I will… make you live as a commoner and suffer… as much as the evil deeds you’ve done…”
Aria maintained her firm stance, holding her magic in place.
“So, are you trying to kill me?”
“Eek…!”
As Frey stood and walked toward her, she readied her magic.
“You’ll leave me half-dead and deliver me to the Church or the Imperial Family?”
“I-I’m warning you… don’t come any closer.”
“Just kill me now, why don’t you?”
“Don’t come any closer!!”
Watching his sister step back in disgust, Frey smirked bitterly. He then started to lift the evil energy embedded in his black left arm.
“Why don’t you join me in burning the world…”
“Don’t come any closer!!”
At that moment, her stellar mana exploded in all directions.
“Cough, cough…”
Thrown against the wall by the shockwave, Frey clutched his heart and quickly approached Aria.
“…Whew.”
She had fainted due to the aftermath of her stellar mana exploding.
“Silly girl.”
Having lost control, she caused a mana outburst.
Or perhaps she instinctively detonated all attacks aimed at Frey.
Which one it was, no one could know for sure.
“…I’m sorry, Aria.”
It took him a while to escape his Villainization, and he carefully lifted her, holding her in his arms, murmuring in a trembling voice.
“And also, thank you…”
His eyes shook intensely as he struggled to prevent the Villainization from bursting out.
“You finally don’t have to worry about me.”
That day marked the first time Aria stopped worrying about Frey.
“It’s such a relief…”
Aria’s survival rate in the Fourth Ordeal was nearly zero percent.
“Isolet… I’ll try to save her… just hang on…”
Aria was the sole surviving blood relative and the one who vividly remembered the face of their long-deceased mother.
Frey’s face showed only joy at the thought of saving her.
“I’ll protect you, no matter what.”
He pressed his face against his sister’s cheek, whom he hadn’t seen in a while.
“…I love you, my sister.”
After receiving the prophecy, he whispered the heartfelt words he had never said before and gently laid her on the chair.
His eyes flickered slightly, but no tears fell.
“I’ll put an end to everything and then resurrect immediately… to ensure you get a happy ending.”
Frey, well aware of how those in the Third Ordeal often crumbled, muttered with determination and left the room.
“I promise.”
And then, silence fell.
.
.
.
.
.
Meanwhile…
“This is getting really complicated… Even if the scenario ends, you might not be able to resurrect ‘immediately,’ you know…?”
Possessed, the Sun God observed the scene quietly from the next room, holding her head and murmuring blankly.
“W-What to do… It’s such a crucial matter; merely mentioning it could obliterate my divinity… H-How do I convey this to them…”
Consequently, the innocent paladin’s hair began to tear off bit by bit.
“Ugh…”
The Sun God, who hated dismal situations unlike her sister, continued groaning.
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