Chapter 27

Günter’s eyes narrowed. It’s not like that? Then what in the world… Questions bubbled up. A few beats later, Günter opened his mouth.

“…Johan, you… what in the world were you doing in that forest?”

As far as Günter knew, his lord had been frequenting the forest for over a month, and he was neither a naive boy nor impotent. Johannes turned his body halfway, avoiding Günter’s complex gaze.

“You’re noisy…”

“You…”

Johannes’s evasiveness was a rare thing. Günter became drastically serious. Noticing this, Johannes spoke first as if to preempt him.

“There’s no need to make a fuss. We ran into each other by chance, and since I had some free time… I just kept watch for her.”

With a dumbfounded face, Günter haltingly repeated Johannes’s words.

“By chance, because you had free time…”

“Yes.”

“…Kept watch…”

“……”

Just as Günter was about to reply with a look of disbelief, Johannes let out a long sigh, seemingly without realizing it, and slowly swept his hair back. His forehead, revealed in the moonlight, was creased as if in trouble. Günter’s mouth naturally closed.

In that interval, Johannes briefly closed his eyes and retraced his memories.

They first met when the ice was melting, and it must have begun when the sweltering wind that carried the scent of wilting flowers started to blow.

When he suddenly lifted his eyelids and looked around, the flowers had already rotted and vanished, the wind had grown muggy, and the forest had become dense without him noticing.

He had no idea when it had all happened. Johannes opened his eyes.

‘I should stop pretending to be human.’

He had thrown away his humanity in his first battle, at the moment of his first kill. That was how he had survived, and how he had to continue to survive. His war, one could say, was only just beginning. This was no time to be lost in a sweet little game of make-believe.

At length, Johannes muttered as if to himself.

“…That’s over too. It’s all over.”

“……”

“It’s time to go back.”

Günter, his lips still parted in a daze, could no longer say anything in response.

Johannes led the way with his usual stride. He absolutely did not look back. It was Günter, rather, who kept looking back at the forest.

Poets often depicted Johannes as a god of war who reveled in violence and murder, or as some sort of half-madman. Of course, seeing Johannes on the battlefield, one might describe him that way.

But the Johannes he knew up close was different.

He would laugh like a boy while eating sweet fruit he had picked, and on hot days, he would throw off his armor and enjoy floating idly in the calm sea. He knew romance, and he knew how to joke.

Though he could be excessively mischievous at times, deep down, his heart was in fact as warm as the sun, sometimes opening up his heart without any reservation. Just as he had embraced all those who were sent to the battlefield for being nobodies as his own people.

As far as Günter knew, his lord was more human than anyone.

It was just that to survive, to protect the people precious to him, he had become a butcher. Johannes Tennan was that kind of man.

That was why Günter was uneasy.

💎

Queen Callista checked the visitor’s face over her own shoulder, reflected in the silver-plated glass surface.

『You’re late.』

Muttering in a listless tone, Callista soon went back to concentrating on her own reflection. It looked as though Merina had come to see her first, not that she had summoned Merina.

In any case, Callista didn’t seem to be in a bad mood, so Merina was inwardly relieved. With her characteristic impassive face, she approached Callista, curtsied in accordance with etiquette, and said.

『Your Majesty, the Queen.』

At that, Callista spoke to her handmaiden.

『You may leave now.』

Then she moved her eyes to gaze at Merina.

『Merina, help me choose a necklace.』

The handmaiden handed Merina a necklace densely studded with jewels and retreated without a sound. After examining the queen’s incredibly ornate necklaces, Merina chose one that looked moderately plain among them. It was a choice made in consideration of the priests’ tastes.

Callista examined her reflection in the glass from various angles. Soon, she furrowed her brows slightly, as if something was not to her liking.

『Hmm….』

But no matter how much she glared at the mirror, it wouldn’t change the fact that her eyes were a dark brownish-green and her hair a deeper shade of chestnut.

『...A more splendid necklace would be better.』

Merina hesitated for a moment on whether to speak, then opened her mouth.

『But, Your Majesty. If it is more splendid than this, there will be talk among the priests.』

The young queen scowled fiercely and retorted sharply.

『Who doesn’t know that?』

Merina lowered her eyes as if in apology. But it was only a look of apology. Callista whipped her head around and glared at Merina. But getting any angrier here would only make Merina act even more uninterestingly.

It had been two years since she became the Queen of Bation. Callista was well aware of the priests’ rigidity. She had brought it up for no particular reason, yet Merina either lacked sense or didn’t seem to know how to say something pleasant.

『…….』

Callista inadvertently found herself staring at Merina’s blonde hair before forcing her gaze away. To think she was looking with envy at Merina, who was treated like a ghost by everyone- her pride was wounded.

Even so, she couldn’t help but be envious of Merina’s bright hair.

The most advanced civilization, Bellares. And their beauty, which was surely of divine lineage. Among them, the Thessalia royal family, said to be exceptionally beautiful.

On the Westel continent, the lighter one’s hair and the more transparent one’s eye color, the more beautiful they were considered. This was because of the Thessalia royal family’s hair that shone like platinum and their transparent violet eyes.

Callista was a princess from a small country located west of Bellares, which was at the southern tip of the continent, across a harsh desert and beyond a river as vast as a sea. The city Callista grew up in was by no means wealthy, and her father was often considered a lord rather than a king. That is, until the war broke out 10 years ago.

As the war dragged on, many things changed. As the wealthy and developed cities close to Bellares were conquered one by one, and as the fertile breadbaskets fell to the invaders from across the sea, the status of the once-ignored cities changed.

The King of Bation married his princesses off to the Equilla of Razan, and wed his princes to ladies who did not have silver hair and violet eyes. And in the end, he himself took a queen with darker features.

At the time, Callista was a fifteen-year-old girl who harbored fantasies about the Thessalia royal family, and she had been simply overjoyed despite becoming the fifth wife of a fifty-eight-year-old man. And for good reason, for Bellares held only things more precious than what she had ever enjoyed. Even being the fifth consort to an old king was nothing short of an honor.

But that dream was shattered on their wedding night. The King of Bation wanted food supplies, but he did

not want a brown-haired wife.

Callista quickly realized that her lot was not even to be a surrogate mother. She felt that the King of Bation and his children not only refused to acknowledge her as queen but even despised her.

The young queen soon became dependent on alcohol and drugs, just as some of the Thessalia nobles did to escape the shameful reality of war.

『…Enough, shut up and just brush my hair.』

『Yes, Your Majesty.』

『Because hearing your voice brings me bad luck.』

『…….』

And she relieved her accumulated loneliness and sorrow by tormenting Merina.

The King of Bation, whose madness was said to have flared up with the war, had rapidly aged and fallen ill, and lately, he exuded a strange, rotten smell.

At those times, Callista would wish her husband was not him, but his son Joffrey. For Joffrey, unlike her husband, was young and was the man who would soon become the new king.

She was envious of Joffrey’s consort, Merina. The torment had begun out of jealousy over the fact that Merina was Joffrey’s wife.

And Callista soon realized that everyone, including Joffrey, treated Merina like a ghost, that no one protected her. After that, the bullying continued simply because there were no repercussions.

Merina endured the torment silently as if she had no choice, and at those times, Callista could finally feel that she was indeed a queen.

At the same time, she felt a strange sense of kinship. It was because their circumstances- being married off like a commodity due to the war and not being loved by their husbands- were similar. The peculiar sense of relief that she wasn’t the only unhappy one was a bonus. To her, Merina’s misfortune was almost her only joy and solace.

However, even for such a Callista, a new pleasure had recently emerged.

It was none other than Princess Daphne, who could be called the main character of this summer’s festival.