Chapter 196 – Past: Daisy (3)
When I regularly sent letters to Blackwood, I delivered them to Daisy through the raven.
It contains the content that we will meet when the time will come.
After sending the letter, the crow brought Daisy to the meeting place.
“Prince!”
And when Daisy, whom I met then, smiled, she felt strange. She’s grown to her age, but she feels like she’s got a daughter she’s never even thought about.
Sending her a letter made me feel like a father of wild geese working far away.
… Still, she doesn’t even have a wife, but she’s a daughter.
So, she decided to think that she had a younger brother rather than a daughter. My older sister has an older sister from the previous life and Leticia, but she has never had a younger sister.
“Come see Daisy!”
“Yes, this is Daisy.”
So, when she first met her, she returned the daisy she had received, and when Daisy broke up again, she thought hard and brought a new daisy flower.
“I have to come back to give it back next time!”
“… Okay.”
Like that.
Daisy and I met often after that.
Five or six years old Daisy, who used to be more suitable for a kid than a girl, is now 10 years old… But she’s still a kid.
Anyway.
“Scarlet-nim!”
The fact that the ignorant, immature little girl stopped calling me “Prince!” Suddenly made me feel, “Has time passed already?”
Even though Daisy herself pretended to be shy, saying “I did that when, I don’t remember!”
She’s only a 10-year-old kid if she has to pretend to be grown up.
I think it’s great acting, but I can see it all.
She didn’t know about it, though she and Daisy had been seeing each other often over the past few years.
“I can’t because my dad will be jealous if he finds out!”
It wasn’t something a six-year-old would say.
Perhaps something is implanted in Blackwood’s genes.
The crow always brought Daisy to the meeting place.
It seemed that she had become friendly enough to joke with the crow who was taking her baby by now.
After all, for safety’s sake, it would be far better for me to personally visit Blackwood’s estate, but I was strangely weak to this little boy.
Not as much as against Leticia.
That’s because Leticia is out of the question for me. Basically, after living in this world for 100 years, it’s been a long time since I judged myself that I was closer to being a cold person rather than hot.
“Scarlett, please hug me.”
“Okay.”
A small creature that fits snugly into your bosom. Even though he has grown beyond recognition over the past few years, he was still a kid who could be embraced.
I am a murderer A hundred years ago, after committing my first murder, I might have suffered. Like, ‘Does such a murderer deserve to hold such a lovely child?’.
The conclusion was drawn a long time ago. Along with Leticia’s tears, I let go of something inside me. It would be like the morality of a person who has lived in modern society.
The number of blood already stained on these hands is uncountable.
It wasn’t that he slaughtered people on the battlefield anywhere, but a life comparable to that of him died in my hands.
Gram, if it were my father, he would have passed the responsibility of the act on to someone else without bothering to get blood directly on his hands. Rather, I was the one who lived with such a person as my father, so I decided not to let go of my responsibility.
So it doesn’t break down just because of the guilt.
The only weight I have on my shoulders is Leticia’s future.
“I like Scarlett. When will we see you next time?”
“Okay. I have a lot of work to do these days.”
“… Can’t we meet then?”
Thud!
…Let’s just say that this kid is a bit heavy.
“No. It’s not… That means we don’t know exactly when we’ll see each other.”
“Why?!”
Looking up at him with a shocked face, I affectionately patted him on the back. Perhaps because she grew up in a largely free-spirited Blackwood, Daisy was unapologetically frank in expressing her emotions.
Is it because I was just young?
“Don’t make the most of your time.”
“When?!”
“That.”
I don’t know when the time will fly.
Recently, the entire continent has been in chaos. In the north and center, as Kroychev and the imperial family are tightly gripped, you don’t have to pay much attention, but the rest is nothing short of a mess.
Friedrich has no interest outside of his own domain, including the Magic Tower.
So, all that remains is Chepesch.
‘Another ducal family isn’t helpful.’
It is a fact that I first learned while doing my best to regain the status of Chepes in the empire, and the seven ducal families are expressed in a similar level, saying that they are the seven pillars of the empire.
It was not for nothing that Friedrich, Kroychev, and Cepes were treated as equals to the imperial family.
‘They have nothing but imperial blood.’
Goddess blessing.
In other words, the quality of a ‘master’ that is passed on only to the children of the emperor who inherited the tradition. The reason why the imperial family can finally exist as the only imperial family on the continent.
Among them, the one who did not become emperor but left a name in the history of the empire. The ducal title given to him was passed down from generation to generation, and the current ducal family remained.
However, the present is an empty gangjeong.
The reason Sijo was great was because of the blessing of the goddess. Now that the blessing has faded, what remains for them is the fact that their ancestors were heroes who left a mark on the history of the empire.
In other words.
“It doesn’t help.”
“Huh? Daisy, aren’t you helping Scarlett?!”
“No, I am not talking about you.”
“Then who! Daisy will punish you!”
Thats cute
He messed up his pink bobbed hair. “Urg. Do not do that. Hair is messed up Profit!” Tiny hairballs tumble around your limbs, but they don’t touch you easily and don’t hurt when hit.
“There is such a thing.”
I did.
It certainly seems that Blackwood will be more helpful than the other ducal families.
Even Blackwood couldn’t ignore the power of the duke and family, but instead, if Blackwood said I needed help, he would sell everything to help me.
Hmm.
I don’t even need that tidy up.
“I’m sorry. Stop talking nonsense now. What do you want to do today?”
“Today, I want to eat something delicious and go for a walk with Scarlett-sama!”
It was fun to be honest.
*
After that.
As I said, I was very busy and couldn’t make it to see Daisy. We usually met at least once every 15 days, or at least once a month.
Just in case, she wrote to Logan that she had secretly been hanging out with Daisy.
Even if she was treated as a freak who tricked her daughter, she wouldn’t be strange, but her reply was full of jealousy, saying why she didn’t tell her and only played with the two of them.
Really blackwood weird…
She didn’t want to be jealous of a middle-aged man like that.
Anyway, I’ve talked about it well, so maybe Daisy won’t come out because she misses me.
The situation on the continent only got worse and worse.
Terrible accidents were happening in many places every day. No, rather than horrifying, it was a freak accident.
It is not uncommon for people to go missing or to suddenly see monsters infested.
It even happened that an entire city disappeared.
“… It’s not a normal thing.”
The Grand Duke of the North swallowed a big, drool——Nikolai said while stroking his beard. In the eyes of the old man with deep wrinkles, roaring rage quietly slept, ready to burn at any moment.
“An ominous tinge hangs over the entire empire. But there is no progress.”
The one who received the words was the emperor who groaned briefly while leaning back on the throne.
Claudius II.
Unlike Nikolai, he had the appearance of a well-groomed young man.
… But I know
Nikolai, who has a face like an old man who will soon die, jumps over half the wall through coercion and expedients and regains his youth once again, and on the contrary, the emperor, who still looks lively, is aging without exceeding the lifespan that will come in the not too distant future. That you will die.
“… Hmm. Scarlett, don’t you know anything? I mean, you have strangely known a lot since the old days.”
If I had to argue, I kept my mouth shut for no reason, feeling confused about the mixed fates of those who could be called friends.
Anyway, old man is quick to notice.
Thanks to that, the emperor and the grand duke both focused their eyes on me, so I sighed and confessed my guesses.
There was only one thing I could guess about the sudden confusion.
Devil.
“… Devil?”
“This is also weird…”
“Well, since it’s an odd situation, the reason is also odd, so there’s nothing strange about it.”
A precursor to the coming of the Demon King.
If I recall the description in 〈 Blue Rose Garden 〉 in the far side of my memory, now far away,
Several portents occur before the descent of the demon king Baal.
First of all, since the barrier between the demon world and the present world is weakening and disintegrating enough for the demon king to descend, ‘space loss’ occurs everywhere.
And beyond the loosened dimensional barrier, the weak monsters start coming over one by one.
The monsters affected by the monster run amok.
“Huh.”
“So you’re saying that the Demon King might descend right away?”
“No, in the first place, I now know that the existence of the demon king exists. I thought it was a being that appeared only in mythology.”
The reactions of the three men who had heard this far were calm.
But.
“Yet. It was a long way for the demon king to come over.”
“If I just listen to you, first of all, the disappearance of the city is an example of ‘disappearance of space’, and the sudden infestation of monsters isn’t it because monsters came over?”
“It is, but.”
I leaned my back against the backrest. The chair seems to be made of a fairly luxurious material, and it gently receives my weight without squeaking or squeaking.
“The dimensional barrier is still strong. It’s not very problematic, but this much is fine.”
I did some research some time ago. I wonder if
“Then I’m glad.”
“Anyway, you brought it up because you had a guess.”
Okay.
As he said, it was still a long way until the Demon King descended. It can be seen as premature.
“Then the devil.”
Demon King’s servant.
I’m a little puzzled. It’s not even the demon king himself descending, so how can he cause so much chaos on the continent?
‘Space Loss’ itself is also a bit puzzling.
Looking at the state of the dimensional barrier, it would be almost impossible for a demon capable of doing such a great job to come over.
“… Even if you have to wrap your head around it like this, since you don’t know anything, there’s no progress. I need to go back and search the records of the Mage Tower.”
“Then, I will also open the imperial library after a long time.”
“The North…”
“How many books are there at least?”
“What?”
It’s noisy.
*
“Majesty! Daisy is gone!”
“Ah.”
