Chapter 45: The dragon's knight. (2)

Chapter 45: The dragon's knight. (2)

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The door shut behind Alice with a soft sound, a bit of warm steam greeting her. The bathroom. She was a VIP guest so Arioch had naturally given her one of the best rooms they had, a bathroom attached directly to it so that she could wash herself whenever she felt like it.

"I just put him to sleep again so no loud noises."nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.

She wiped her face as she spoke, sucking in several heavy breaths as a soft red tinge lingered on her cheeks and ears. Three days of silence, three days without a word. And the first thing he tried to do was apologise. Once he rested enough and properly recuperated... She would have to... Well, she would have to take care of him, one way or the other.

"Alright, I’ll be quiet."

Teresa, who had been waiting in the bathroom, gave a small bow. Gabriel was out of commission so the usual duties he attended naturally fell on her for now. And one such duty was helping Alice with her baths.

"Haa... Is it ready?"

Alice let out a long breath as she sat down in the bath, Teresa getting to work on her hair. There would be a dinner after this, just her and Arioch ‘discussing the relationship of the families’ so not even Caine would be there. It was a good time to fulfil her part of the contract.

"Yes. I harvested it yesterday and finished grounding it up this morning. But the effects may be a bit too powerful so I cannot recommend that we put them in a room with unrelated people. If the guards are a bit late then there may well be unwanted casualties."

Alice promised Arioch that she would take care of the spies that Francis and Marion had slipped into his family over the years, but she never specified how she would do it, or make them do it. The answer to this question was Teresa. Years ago, Gabriel told her that she would have to find something she could do if she wanted to help him in his shady work, she had to study and become useful if she wanted to be of help.

And study she had done, and learned she had. Luckily, she wasn’t completely magically inept so she received a slight boost that made things easier. Now... Now she had become someone useful for more than just keeping Alice company and being a friend.

"Alright, I’ll have Arioch isolate them and keep a guard close by, shouldn’t be too hard to find an excuse."

Alice closed her eyes for a moment, but the past few minutes flashed past her eyes as she did so. The wet cloth, the touch of the forehead, breath that was just as hot as hers. She quickly opened her eyes again, a subdued red creeping down her ears.

"Really... I’ll have to take good care of that bastard..."

She slapped her cheeks while muttering, the warm water that splashed her face allowing her to stay in control. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the mark on her chest, the cracked octopus that would permanently brand her as his. A finger slid down and traced the mark, a small smile floating up on her face as she failed to notice that the pieces had slid a bit further apart.

———

"You seem to be in a good mood this evening, Alice. I presume that your knight has woken up?"

Arioch greeted Alice as she entered the dining room, the top of her dress covered by a black jacket. Arioch wore a simple blue blazer and loose pants, it was just a friendly meal so there was no need to dress up. The ‘friendliness’ of the meal was also shown in the venue, they didn’t use the large and heavily decorated dining room that could also serve as a lounge during the larger balls. No, this was a relatively small room with a floor—to-ceiling window that gave them a view of the frozen mountains that the Barong duchy was famous for.

"Astute as always, Young Master Arioch, he is indeed showing signs of recuperation. I’ll have him personally thank you for the medicines you provided once he is able to walk on his own feet."

Alice naturally brought her own medicines on this trip, and Teresa would be able to make simpler ones if an emergency arose. But Arioch was the master of this house, so even if Gabriel was injured due to his own stupidity he had to send over at least some medicines, he had to maintain the image of house Barong after all. Well, that was the reason the public would believe at least.

"No need, taking care of him is a good way to better our relationship, is it not?"

It was already clear to Arioch after chatting with Alice and observing her over the last few days. Gabriel, that knight of her, he was her weakness. Harming him was equal to harming her, controlling him was equal to controlling her. But Alice had the blood of a dragon flowing through her veins. And the saying that you should never touch a dragon’s Reverse Scale wasn’t one born out of a joke. If you wanted to control her through that knight then you would first have to weigh the gains and losses.

Alice simply smiled at the statement, but Arioch could only recall that bloody glare she gave him when he saw those slightly exposed canines. Ah, dragon blood really gave birth to dragons, fierce bastards that never bent or settled for anything beneath them. But in that case, what exactly was this dragon raising?

"Kekeke..."

A twisted laugh, distorted by bubbling flies, coming from every inch of the darkness. It was like a creaking, one Caine was far too familiar with. When the loop collapsed it was always accompanied by that creaking.

"Caine, you’re a quick fella, a smart fella. In all our runs, in all our little battles across time, how many people do you think died? The first time the duchies burned, the eighth time the country burned, the 20th time the world cracked. The worlds locked in the loop may be a lot smaller than the one you came from, but with so many runs... How many have you failed to save?"

Azuras’ voice echoed throughout Caine’s body, it was as if it came from every bone in his body. Creaking, nothing but creaking. He was tired, he was done with this battle, this existence. But still, Azuras was Azuras, nasty from start to finish.

"...I stopped counting."

Caine had to grit his teeth. Azuras would not keep talking if he didn’t answer, he was cruel like that, even to the one he contracted. The first loop, the second, even all the way through to the 10th, Caine always kept a count of the number of people he failed to save, even when it reached the millions. But after the 20th? The 50th? He couldn’t keep counting, the number was so large it kept him awake at night, haunted him when he closed his eyes.

"More than a billion, Caine. More than a billion souls burned and twisted across the loops. Think about that Caine. Even in worlds as small as ours, we drowned over a billion, we crushed millions. So many miserable souls, so many miserable lives, so many sparks to the fire. Just think of the blaze they could cause, can you imagine that radiant light?"

A billion, more than a billion even. It was a number that chilled Caine to the core, especially the sheer rapture with which Azuras spoke of them. He was miserable, so he forced misery onto others. But well, if you asked him then he would say that he brought them peace by freeing them from the misery of existence. Twisted, from start to finish. Looking at Azuras now, Caine could not understand some of the thoughts he had in the past.

"Didn’t you always cry for them? The poor, the innocent, the undeserving. You cried even that one time I decided to help you bring peace to this world you had grown so fond of."

Yeah, that was one such thought. Turn 9. It was the third time they decided to change the future by taking in both Azuras and Alice early, changing some things about how they treated them each time to get a different result from the last one. But the end... The help he brought...

"You reduced the Yverial Empire to nothing more than flakes of ice!"

An empire that was just as large as the Earhart empire... Reduced to snowflakes that vanished in the ocean. But Azuras... Azuras didn’t even see it like that.

"And in doing so, I stopped them from invading the Earhart empire in the future. Didn’t you cry during that war, Caine? Weren’t you terribly sad when your soldiers and princess died? I saved you from that, Caine."

Empires were large, and they always wanted to be larger. If the Yverial didn’t invade them first then the Earhart empire would invade them. Even now the Earhart empire was quietly building forces while looking for a weakness in Kasarias and Yverial that they could exploit. War was profit, lives lost could always be paid for and regained later.

"Just get to your point."

Caine spat out a heavy breath, he couldn’t keep listening to Azuras buzz, like flies gathering around a bloated corpse as they feasted on its final fate. But the answer... The answer he got...

"No matter how bad things got, you and Abigail always got a second chance, the opportunity to do things again, to do them ‘right’. But those miserable lives, stacked up over years and years of loops, did they ever get that chance to set things ‘right’, to live?"

The darkness creaked. The oil bubbled and the flies buzzed like a chorus, a dirge of death. Yeah, Caine and Abigail signed the contract to start the loop, so even after their first deaths they just got to try again and again. But what did that have to do with everyone el...

"...You didn’t..."

It struck him. Why Azuras spoke so much of the people lost across the various loops. But he couldn’t believe it. Sure, the thing Azuras had become after so many loops may have the power to do something like that after deciding to abandon its existence. But would it really do that? Would it really force something like that into the world?

"I did."

The answer that came from the darkness was sadly affirmative, a creaking laugh echoing through the darkness. Insane. He was insane. Caine should have already realized this long ago, but perhaps a small part of him still hoped that this twisted being would change slightly after deciding on its own end. But no. From start to finish, Azuras was misery.

"I don’t need the body, so why not give it away to others? Over a billion miserable lives, over a billion twisted and grieving souls, let them have it! A bit of you, a bit of me, a bit of that dragon girl, a bit of your princess, let’s just gather all the miserable souls we made into one and let them decide who gets to be the most miserable and keep living in this fucked world you keep trying to protect. Maybe two of you? Two of your Abigail? Or perhaps this world is just so twisted that it’ll just make me once more. Let’s make it a nice big ritual of Gu, doesn’t that sound fun?"