CH 136

I was looking for something to say at Dietrich’s warning, but I ended up with my mouth slightly ajar and averted my gaze.

Fortunately, he let go of my hand as if he didn’t want an answer. 

‘He’s not angry again, is he?’

Raising my head to check his expression, I found a strange pattern near his disheveled collar. 

‘Huh?’

It’s a sign I hadn’t seen earlier. 

At first glance, it looked like a tattoo, but in the empire, tattoos were usually a branding for slaves. 

So Dietrich would never deliberately engrave such a complex tattoo on his body. 

“Wait.” 

I grabbed his wrist after he nodded at me and turned his back.

I didn’t know what the tattoo meant, but I felt uneasy. 

Thump, thump. The dangerous ringing of my beating heart inside my ears sounded like a warning. 

“What’s that on your neck?”

Seeing my face turn deathly white in an instant, he hurriedly tightened the cravat around his neck to cover the tattoo.

“It’s nothing.” 

His face was still expressionless, and his aura didn’t waver at all, but I sensed that his statement was false. The moment I found the tattoo, my blood ran cold. 

‘It’s definitely dangerous.’ 

My face stiffened with an ominous foreboding and I left the hall holding Dietrich by his wrist.

“What.”

“Stop talking and follow me.” 

Dietrich kept his mouth shut at the words I spewed while grinding my teeth. It was a reversal of roles.

I shoved him, who was meekly following me, to the nearest bedroom near the hall. 

People may find it strange that the Grand Duke and the Grand Princess suddenly left their places, but now was not the time to care about that. 

“It’s really nothing.” 

He uncharacteristically soothed me, who had a stiff and grim face. 

I grabbed the end of his cravat that covered his neck and pulled. 

‘I was sure it wasn’t there when I tied it.’ 

Then, it must be something that appears and automatically disappears, but such a tattoo was not an ordinary symptom. 

“Take it off.”

“.....What?”

“I said take off your clothes.” 

At my resolute words, Dietrich wriggled his eyebrows and stepped back.

He didn’t have the nature to be embarrassed about this kind of situation, so he was doing that because he must be hiding something. 

“Didn’t you say it was nothing? Then, you can show it to me.” 

He sighed softly as he pushed himself into a corner and raised his eyes, glancing at me. I didn’t think he’d take his clothes off himself no matter long I waited so I eventually got close to him. 

When I flung aside the cravat I was holding to the ground and opened his shirt, I could see a black mark that descended from near his sharp neckline down to his solid chest. 

Funnily enough, it was a familiar pattern. 

“....... I’ve seen this somewhere.” 

I was the one who rummaged through the books from the magic tower and the old books of the alchemist to break the contract between Baal and Dietrich. 

‘There must have been a book that mentioned this symptom.’ 

The geometric pattern was none other than the mark of Baal. If I remember correctly, it was one of the symptoms that appeared when the soul was being eroded by the shadows. 

‘Furthermore, it’s a symptom that appears belatedly!’ 

It was a symptom that never appeared in the original when Charlotte saved him. I burst out laughing in shock at the situation. 

“Since when?”

“..............”

“I’m asking you since when this started!” 

‘He must be hiding something else as well.’

He often hides his physical injuries, but I didn’t expect he would hide such an important phenomenon.

I clenched my fists and trembled at the surge of betrayal. 

“Why did I start planting purification trees?”

“Anissa.”

“Why did I do my utmost to collect the holy relics?!” 

The deal with Luzen instead of the South, and creating a place for Lagrange to step into high society, all of it. 

If Dietrich disappears, all of it would mean nothing. He couldn’t be unaware of my efforts. 

‘But Asmodeus has disappeared.’ 

Moreover, the rose war hadn’t ended yet. If Dietrich was already being eaten by the shadow, then that means the erosion must be going faster than the original. 

‘Why?’

What did I miss? What did I not do?

‘Or is it because I’m not Charlotte?’ 

I thought I had done everything I could, and I even prepared for the danger step by step, but in the end, it was all useless. 

Realization struck me like lightning. As if I was trampled on by the feet of a giant called fate, even a proper scream couldn’t come out.

He placed his hand on my lip, which I had bitten until it bled. 

“Don’t do that. It’s bleeding.”

“Is my lips bleeding a bit important right now?”

“Yes.”

“………..”

His words were sweet but right now they didn’t make me happy.

I glared at him so furiously that my eyes watered and I grabbed his shirt which was half peeled off. I could barely squeeze out my voice. 

“Do you know what this sign means? You knew it and yet you hid it?”

“I’m fine. It’s something I can handle.” 

“It’s not something that can be solved just because you can handle it.” 

Dietrich let out a heavy sigh at my stinging voice and tilted his head to the side. His densely drooping eyelashes fell down languidly. 

“I’m really fine. I guarantee you that the worst thing you can imagine won’t happen.” 

He reassured and slowly adjusted his open shirt. I frowned at his baseless confidence.

“What do you think I imagine?”

“Weren’t you worried that my soul would be eaten by the shadows?”

Dietrich’s voice, claiming that it would never happen, was calm that I belatedly tried to calm down my agitation.

“Do you have a way?” 

Did he also know someone who broke the contract like Hermann? If you're not reading this at blogspot, you're probably reading from an aggregator site. Read this translation at https://notmysisteryoufool.blogspot.com/.

“That’s right.”

“What way is that?” 

I asked urgently, but his mouth closed like a clam and didn’t open again. A silence that felt like the flowing of eternity descended. 

I didn’t think he would speak any further even if I pressed him, so I sat on the sofa pounding on my chest in frustration. 

“Hermann wants me to return to Euclid.”

“What?”

“He said he knew of someone who once terminated a contract with a demon. He said if I returned to Euclid, he would tell me who the person is.” 

A heavy gaze fell down on my bowed head. Dietrich only spoke in an irritated tone of voice after I brought up Hermann. 

“There’s no need for you to go.”

“You have to tell me the reason. Do you know someone like Hermann who terminated a contract with the demon?” 

He shut his mouth again at my question. He only twitched his lips as if he would answer. 

“If he confirms that I’m not possessed by a demon while staying in Euclid, then he’ll send me back. It’s not a bad condition.”

“How can I believe such words?”

“Because he’s not a person who would lie.” 

Dietrich raised the corner of his lips at my stiff answer. A freezing chuckle broke out. 

“When did you see that bastard again?” 

“I’ll go even if you stop me. I think only Hermann Euclid knows how to save you in this situation.” 

“I already told you that you can’t go.” 

“Don’t just tell me that I can’t, you have to tell me the way that you know. What is the way for your soul not to be eaten by the demon?” 

"..............."

“I don’t think you plan on telling me. I’ll leave now.” 

I got up and turned my back to leave but there wasn’t a hand that stopped me. I was irritated at his silence that I slammed the door shut. 

────── 〔✿〕──────

If he planned to not tell only me, then maybe Baal would know and thus I had called him again, but not even Baal, Yuric, nor Veronica knew what Dietrich was thinking. 

“Haa.”

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaah. 

As I quickly read through the books, I also let out a deep sigh from time to time that Damon, who was going through the books next to me, turned his gaze. 

“The ground will collapse at your sigh, Princess.”

“How can I understand a heart which can’t even be read by using Eredia’s ability?”

It wasn’t a question that I was asking to get an answer to. At my words which were closer to me talking to myself, Damon’s expression stiffened seriously. 

“When I need to find out a secret, I plant a spy.” 

There was no way that I would have a subordinate in Lagrange who would be loyal to me and even deceive Dietrich. 

‘Even if I plant a little demon on him, he’d find out about it.’

“Ah!” 

I clapped my hands at the sudden thought and grabbed Damon by the arm, who was sitting next to me. He frowned at me with a grim face when he found me clinging unto him with sparkling eyes. 

“What is it?”

“Camouflage magic, can you also use it on me?”

“But I don’t think His Grace would tell someone else what he’s thinking other than you, Princess.”

“It’s fine if it’s not a person.” 

Wouldn’t it be better if it was an animal that could be by his side instead of a demon that could be dragged around?

There was also no need to find out his deepest thoughts. 

‘It’s enough to find out about sudden words that he spills to himself, and the fragments of emotions that are revealed for a moment.’ 

Dietrich was extremely good at organizing his emotions in front of me thus most of the time, it was difficult to read him even with Eredia’s ability.

“Damon, let me turn into an animal.”

“That’s an unreasonable request.” 

“Aren’t you grandfather’s friend?! That means Damon is also like a grandfather to me and yet you can’t even do me a favor?” 

“Again, I’m telling you that I don’t age. So please don’t treat me like Josef.” 

Damon grumbled as if offended but placed his hand on my forehead. As expected, he’s a wizard who keeps his loyalty. 

“One day is the limit of my power right now.”

“But what kind of animal–” 

His flaw was that he didn’t listen to people until the end.