‘…….Why this of all things?’
For a moment he was worried that Dalia would treat him as an immoral man, but she was thoughtful and would not doubt his intentions.
Cedric lifted Dalia in the air and gently put her down onto the bathtub. He thought it would be cold, so he summoned a blanket and put it around her.
Dalia turned with the blanket Cedric had put around her and looked at the bathtub she was in with a dumbfounded expression.
“……Why a……bathtub?”
“I simply summoned anything because there’s nowhere I can drop you…….”
Dalia blankly stared at Cedric for a while and burst into a light laugh.
The sound of laughter seemed to scatter like stars.
Then, holding the ends of the blanket with both hands, she sat down in the bathtub and looked at Cedric.
This situation was not good for Cedric, as recently, just seeing Dalia’s smile made his head hurt and his heart thump.
In addition, when Dalia hung her head and hesitated, with her reddened ears, he really wanted to blow up all the belongings of this mansion.
“I…….Sir Cedric.”
“Yeah, you can tell me.”
Cedric said in a calm voice, breaking each of the joints of his knuckles hidden behind him.
Dalia kept staring at the bathtub floor as her words weren’t coming out, then spoke softly.
“I finally made up my mind.”
“What decision?”
At that question, Dalia went silent again for a while.
Then, like a broken phonograph, she continued.
“Y, y, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“Sir Cedric……that……the suggestion you made earlier.”
“……Yeah.”
“If, if this ends well…….when Aceras pays for his sins……if no one gets hurt…….”
“…….”
“W, with me……”
“With you?”
Dalia’s ears were so red they were about to burst, and could be seen even in the middle of the night.
Both hands holding the blanket tightly were also full of strength.
Cedric could only see the top of Dalia’s head as her head continued to go down.
Cedric cupped Dalia’s cheeks with both hands and lifted them up from the extreme urge that surged inside his chest.
Dalia looked him in the eye with her head raised.
She looked like she was about to faint, but she was still beautiful, and even in this situation, her blue eyes sparkled intelligently.
With the two pairs of eyes looking at each other, she said in a shrill voice.
“With, with me……da, date with the promise of marriage…….”
“Ah, Dalia.”
Cedric pulled her into his arms with a raspy voice.
He could feel Dalia’s heart beating as fast as a bird flying.
Cedric, holding Dalia in his arms, slipped his hand through the hair on the back of her head and pulled her closer into his arms.
Dalia’s hands were trapped in the blanket, and she was clinging tightly to the blanket, frozen.
Cedric loosened the blanket, freeing her hands with his other hand.
The blanket fell to the floor of the bathtub.
Only then did Dalia, whose hands were finally free, hug Cedric’s neck.
Her shallow breath tickled his ears.
Cedric hugged her tighter.
“My Dalia.”
“…….”
“I……I……you……I love you.”
All sorts of emotions ran wild and clawed at Cedric’s heart.
However, the only word that came to his mind was that one sentence that he clumsily uttered.
He can say it dozens of times.
He can say it hundreds or thousands of times, even until the end of the world.
He felt like crying but held back.
“Lewayne, he said that I’d die. Is that true?”
“…….”
Dalia hugged his back in silence.
Cedric knew he was talking nonsense, but he couldn’t stop talking.
“If I die, it’s okay to date and marry someone else. Because you’ll be lonely too. But if I’m born again and visit you, then you’ll meet me again. I’ll……I’ll do well to make you fall for me again…….”
Dalia pushed Cedric’s chest.
As he fell, she covered his cheeks with both hands.
When he looked up, Dalia was smiling with an expression he had never seen before.
There were some tears around her eyes, but it was over when Cedric wiped them away with his fingertips.
It was only when Cedric saw her face that the trembling subsided.
He didn’t know why it felt like everything was going to be okay.
“Sir Cedric, you seem a little silly today.”
“……Right.”
“But I’m really happy to be with Sir Cedric.”
Dalia smiled sweetly.
Cedric’s eyebrows contorted at those words.
He felt like crying again.
But he still smiled grimly. Then he turned his head and put his face to Dalia’s.
Dalia’s eyes widened for a moment, and then closed quickly.
Cedric kissed the side instead of her lips briefly.
Flustered, Dalia opened her eyes wide.
He laughed softly and ran his hand through Dalia’s bangs that covered her forehead.
“I’ll do it properly when everything goes well.”
“……You’re making fun of me again.”
“Are you not going to talk to me for a year? Like you did to my father?”
Dalia put on a sullen expression.
“That’s enough.”
However, she soon smiled and reached out her arms toward Cedric again.
Cedric gently took her back into his arms.
He could feel the soft and precious sensation of that small body. He thought that it didn’t matter for the world to end like this.
It was a night that seemed like it would never end.
* * *
Aceras entered his bedroom at the Imperial Palace.
Throughout the long corridor, he felt the watchful eyes pouring on him from all over the palace. It seems that each and every attendant has been assigned as a spy.
Well, considering the relationship between the Holy Empire and the Frederic Empire now, it’s even more strange not to do that.
‘No, even so, it’s too many.’
Moreover, it was Duke Lewayne Blueport who came to greet him, not the Emperor.
Did he mean to remind him of what he did to his mother?
To say that, Lewayne’s expression as he guided him to the room was too calm.
“How is your mother?”
Even when Aceras made a light provocation.
“Yes. She’s healthy.”
Only the standard answer came back. There was no agitation on his face either.
‘That’s not fun.’
Aceras sat casually in an armchair in the bedroom, watching the gray-haired young man who had followed him, finding and destroying the magic tools all over the room.
Most of them were wiretapping devices.
There was no such thing as a poison needle. It would be impossible for it to work on the transcendent, and they do not want to leave anything that can get them criticized.
After a while, the young man smiled and said.
“I have cleared everything.”
“Well done.”
Aceras replied insincerely and rested his chin on the armrest.
The stupid previous Artus couldn’t do even one of these things, and died after being caught with the secret.
He shouldn’t have chosen someone who was too stupid.
‘It doesn’t look that different this time either.’
He glanced at the gray-haired young man who had followed him. The young man felt his gaze and smiled brightly at him.
Aceras could not even remember the name of this man now.
But the young man seemed to be glad that he was looking at him and started talking excitedly.
“Your Holiness, please find Kelsion and Argel quickly and kill them. And scatter all the gifts from God. When should I install it? When will you give me the instructions?”
“…….”
Aceras did not have the energy to answer him.
He stared into the air.
‘How does it feel to be back home?’
He asked himself.
He didn’t feel anything.
He did have one urge.
He wanted to see Dalia. He wondered what she would look like and what she would say when she met him at the ballroom.
Other than that, he couldn’t think of anything else.
Aceras looked at the closed door. A lot of his enemies are out there holding their breath.
He wanted to kill them all and take Dalia to the Holy Empire as soon as possible.
‘…….’
Aceras circulated his divine power into the air and counted the number of people around him through the recovery body response.
After a while, Aceras noticed something strange.
It was too much and too close for it to be a mere surveillance.
‘I’ve been saying it’s weird since before…….’
His intuition was whispering a hypothesis to him. He looked back at the young man. And he said.
“Throw it all away.”
“Yes?”
“Throw away all the tools you brought, gifts from God, everything.”
The young man was taken aback.
Aceras turned away from him and stared at the door.
“The surveillance network is too tight. They know what we’re going to do.”
‘Amazing. It’s not something anyone can think of to saturate all of these Imperial Palace transcendents with holy power.’
Aceras thought that it was better. His eyes flashed.
After seeing Cedric talking to Dalia then, Aceras wanted to kill him. Now it doesn’t matter what happens to the rest.
All he has to do is bring Dalia back.
Translator Note: First week working at new company…thankfully my team members are very nice and friendly….BUT…it was too hectic hahaha…it’s only the trainings for now…I can only imagine what it will look like once I start to work on a project ( ╥ω╥ )
So the update will be a bit slow for now
