Still, the text on the wall didn’t disappear. The source of the spell seemed to be somewhere else.
“Everyone, follow me! That includes everyone who isn’t fighting!”
Van had judged that while the spell to create a Corrupt Dragon was still active, the safest location would be by his side. We all huddled around him as we descended underground.
We were shocked at what was at the bottom of the staircase—there sat a wide-open space, about as large as the palace’s grand hall. I couldn’t fathom why such a large underground hall had been created.
“Don’t let your guard down just because you can’t see anyone,” Van warned.
Van was trying to raise our morale, but I could see that even he was trembling slightly. Since this was the enemy’s base of operations, the rotten scent must have been strongest down here.
I noticed a part of the wall wavering, like a mirage.
What could that be?
I pointed it out to Van, and he took a knife from one of the knights and threw it at the wall. The sound of metal being repelled rang out, and a woman appeared there. She was bound to the wall with chains and handcuffs.
“Who is that?”
It was the first time I’d seen this woman. She was slumped over and appeared to be very malnourished. In any case, we needed to save her.
We waited for Van to give us orders, but it looked like he had just realized something.
“Th-That’s Lady Fenetra!”
“Huh?”
The woman was so thin that her skin was practically hanging off her face. How could she be Fenetra? Why did Van think that it was her?
“I remember the way she looked as a child. There’s no mistaking it—she’s the real Lady Fenetra!” Van declared.
If she was the real Fenetra, then the woman we had been interacting with until now had been an impostor. The knights went to remove the real Fenetra’s shackles and rescue her. Apparently, she had been concealed down here with magic.
“Van, what is going on?” I asked.
“Mille-Feuille, stay back. Something is coming.”
“What?”
A malevolent magic circle then appeared in the middle of the great hall. In the center of it, the silhouette of a woman suddenly materialized. Her form soon became clear—she was the woman we had come to know as “Fenetra.”
Van’s tail pricked as he bared his hostility at the woman. “Who are you to steal Lady Fenetra’s identity?”
In contrast to Van’s anger, the woman smiled and answered his question calmly. “My name is Streusel de Sacristain, princess of the Kingdom of Sacristain!”
Her introduction made me shudder. She was part of the same royal family as Charlotte.
“You imprisoned Lady Fenetra and stole her identity while controlling and brainwashing innocent people. What are you after?!” Van demanded.
“How dare you act so high and mighty,” the woman hissed.
“What?!”
“The fiend who destroyed my kingdom dares to play innocent? Have some shame!”
Streusel muttered an incantation and swiftly cast a spell. A strong blast of wind magic appeared from a magic circle and was launched at Van. He promptly countered it with a breath of fire.
“How long have you been plotting this foolish scheme?” he asked.
“Eighty-two years. I have waited for so long to enact my revenge,” Streusel said. She had begun plotting her revenge on a winter day—her eighteenth birthday. In other words, she was a hundred years old now.
I was aghast at her revelation. She looked as young as the real Lady Fenetra. There was no doubt that she had been using dark magic to extend her youth.
“You are an abomination for rebelling against time and keeping yourself alive,” Van said, denouncing her.
“And what of you dragonkin, who live for hundreds and hundreds of years? Are you not abominations yourselves?!”
“We dragonkin naturally live for a long time. How can we be abominations when our lifespans are dictated by nature itself?”
“Enough!!!” Streusel shouted. She then cast a different spell, summoning a windstorm this time.
I couldn’t keep myself standing and was almost blasted off my feet, but Parfeil managed to grab onto me. She shielded me from the wind.
“I was told that on the day I was born, the Dragon Duke went into a long, deep sleep and vanished,” she began.
Afterward, as she grew up, her parents—members of the royal family of the Kingdom of Sacristain—had never ceased telling her about their hatred of the Dragon Duke. Her father had been Charlotte’s elder cousin, hailing from a branch of the royal family. Van hadn’t killed the royal family—he had merely exiled them, thinking that they would pose no threat to the dragonkin.
“I can never forgive you, Dragon Duke!” she cried. “You’re the one who stole everything from my proud and honorable parents!”
“Hmph, it would seem that Duchesse’s advice to kill all of the royal family was right all along,” Van sneered. Despite understanding that an incident like this would be a possibility, he had been unable to bring himself to kill innocent members of the royal family.
It had been both a boon and a curse that he could not bring himself to be so cruel and merciless. Spurred by her anger and hatred toward Van, Streusel had sworn revenge and begun dabbling in dark magic.
“Dark magic requires the use of flesh and blood. My first sacrifices were my parents.”
“You sacrificed your parents?!” Van blurted out.
“I did,” she admitted. “I had always resented them for complaining and ranting about the dragonkin but never taking action. Since I used their mana for my dark magic, I figured we could all take revenge this way, don’t you agree?”
Madeleine’s face went pale as she listened to Streusel’s story. She looked like she was about to faint, so I told her to sit down and cover her ears.
I didn’t want to hear Streusel’s horrible tale either, but as Charlotte’s reincarnation, I felt that I should know what Streusel had been doing all these years.