Chapter 187

Chapter 187

* * *

“I must find my mother!”

“Then I’ll go find Miss Agrece!”

Luzark and Pandora both decided to separate the instant they left the exhibition hall. He intended to use the passageway at the opposite end of the corridor in order to escape from that side of the castle.

Meanwhile, the blue-haired Fipellion belonged to the sort of clan that would never rely on her for protection. Thus, she decided to go after Roxana Agrece instead in order to ease her guilt of allowing the other woman to go off on her own in the first place. They had made it halfway down the corridor before finally turning to go in two opposite directions.

Just as she had begun to sprint in the direction she believed Roxana had gone in, the sound of breaking glass sounded from behind her. She looked back reflexively to see someone jump through a distant window, then land on the marble floor along with the mosaic of glass shards. For a moment, she doubted her dark eyes since she was certain the three had escaped to a second-floor corridor, but the dark figure proceeded to quickly rise from the center of the glass array while staring in her direction.

The Fipellion tensed up as she feared it might be one of the puppets she had only just escaped. Then the sharp, blue gaze of the now fully risen figure met her own. Since the man’s face was drenched in blood, she was having trouble making out who it was at first.

“What the hell are you looking at?!”

Then the blunt irritation in the figure’s voice confirmed for her that the being was most definitely human. The human was none other than the Black Master Jeremy Agrece. His attitude was completely different from the man she had avoided on several occasions during the gathering. However, she couldn’t help thinking that this dramatic change in his character was far more befitting and natural.

Jeremy had used a pile of puppet heads as a makeshift pedestal to reach the second-floor window ledge. He had purposefully avoided breaking any of the windows on the first floor since that might encourage the puppets to rush through them. He almost immediately ignored Pandora’s stunned expression as he proceeded to run straight past her. However, she managed to regain her composure just in time to follow after him. “Are you by any chance going to look for Miss Agrece?”

He glanced back at the uninvited company.

“She went this way just a few minutes ago. She said she needed to go somewhere right away. Do you have any idea where that might be?”

But he continued to ignore her as if her question was not worth wasting his breath on. Pandora scowled at the back of his head but still continued to run behind him without saying another word. For some reason, she felt certain that he knew exactly where to find his sister.

“Ah!”

Just as the two reached the fork in their path, they came upon another group of people who were quick to make a fuss over the two young adults as soon as they came into full view.

“That... That blood! Don’t tell me those things are up ahead as well!”

“Never mind that. We must tend to their wounds fir—”

The young Black Master didn’t even bother to entertain the individuals attempting to administer care to him and simply ignored their concerns before continuing to sprint away. Without even trying to discuss the young leader’s actions, the rest of the group immediately turned to follow behind him.

“Were you two also the ones who closed the southern gate?”

“We were standing guard at our posts when we suddenly heard the commotion outside. We were just on our way back from checking it out, whe—”

“You don’t think those things can get inside, do you?”

They incessantly lobbed a number of other questions at Pandora while they all continued to run. She did her best to offer them a brief explanation regarding all that she seemed aware of. It began to occur to her just where the Agrece had left to.

Upon hearing that they had been standing guard, she suddenly remembered that the Vertium puppet going by the name Nix should still be in his cell within the castle. She left the guards behind in order to catch up to Jeremy, but he merely scowled at her as though she was an irritating fly. Then it hit him as to where he had seen her face even though it was partially covered by strands of light-blue hair.

“Hey! You’re the owner of that fat bird!”

As soon as the memory became clear in his mind, he couldn’t bottle his fury. She gasped from the shock of having her identity discovered.

“Wh-what are you talking about?! You must be confusing me with someone else!”

“Oh, horse sh*t! Don’t try to lie to me right now!”

Seeing the panic on her face only made the blurry image in his mind that much sharper. It was the same idiotic expression she had when he grabbed onto her accursed demon monster back then. She had only managed to escape after using the wings of her oversized bird demon to smack his head before flying away.

“Whatever! I’ll deal with you later, damn it!” He gnashed his teeth as he tabled any thoughts of vengeance for another time. His first priority at the moment was to reach Roxana. Pandora continued to whimper about being innocent but gradually slowed her pace so that she was no longer directly in Jeremy’s line of sight.

* * *

“How boring. Aren’t you going to resist a little more?” Orka said in a cheekily relaxed manner.

Roxana’s mood was worsening at a rate inversely proportional to his giddiness. By then the mechanics of the trap he had laid were all too obvious. Whenever she tried to move, the vines coiled around her waist would tighten.

She was already partially out of breath since they were also compressing her lungs. The vines were stretching off of the demonic monster directly behind the White Demon Tamer. The monster’s torso towered over him and appeared to be producing a continuous stream of mud.

A large, black-spotted, purple flower grew out of the top of its head, and from beneath it sprouted countless vines. The tentacle-like appendages squirmed about as if they were each sentient. A sticky, seemingly toxic liquid also oozed out from the gaping leaves of the creature’s center. It was a rather elegant fancy, yet equally horrific and grotesque ilk of monster, which seemed to suit Orka’s own swamp flower-like beauty.

“What exactly is the meaning of this, White Demon Tamer?” Roxana had no need to honor polite etiquette any longer.

How could such a large demon monster enter Yggdrasil? The gears in her mind were turning at a rapid speed. Then waves of doubt rolled in as if her thoughts were a sea at high tide. Up until that very moment she had been wholly unaware that Orka Fipellion was capable of controlling demon monsters within the neutral territory.

“Well, since we’re still in the thick of the big clan gathering...”

He spoke with a borderline coy smile playing on his lips while maintaining a childish look of innocence in his dark eyes.

“So I thought to myself, ‘Why not take this opportunity to get to know Lady Roxana a bit more?’”

She could hardly suppress the fury mounting inside of herself. Honestly! Just about everyone at this damn gathering has been a monumental pain in my side.

Even so, Noel Vertium and Orka Fipellion are definitely in the top three of my list. Like, seriously! Did the authors of these stupid gothic novels get together and decide male characters each need to have these uniquely impudent characteristics? How is it that every single one of them knows just how to irritate me in their own infuriating way?!

Of course, Luzark Castro had yet to make the list since he spent more than half of the story avoiding her, but that didn’t change the fact that the other two supporting males had proven themselves to be just as foolishly, one-sided as the original plotline had made them out to be.

“You speak with such idiotic leisure. Aren’t you aware of what’s happening outside right now?”

“Of course I am. Why else do you think I’m doing this right now?” He flashed her his infamously pearly-white smile to emphasize his satisfaction in the moment.

“Well, as long as you know.”

As she stared at his impish face, it occurred to her that she hadn’t felt so openly vexed in ages.

Slither.

One of the roaming vines slid across her face as if the beast it was connected to was licking her with one of its green tentacles. The sap flowing out of the eel-like growth adhered to her skin.

“Oh my! You know what you remind me of right now, Roxana? A butterfly stuck in a spider’s web!”

By then, she could no longer keep the disgust swelling up within her heart from marring her beautiful face. She felt a wave of abhorrence as she recalled all the horrendously perverse acts he had committed against Sylvia in the original novel.

“Are you upset since you can’t summon your poison butterflies in Yggdrasil?”

He seemed to be enjoying her sullen expression.

“I know I am. I had so deeply hoped to once again behold and indulge in the same spectacle you showed Pandora back in the Blue Castle garden.”

She was vaguely aware of how he would pass his time in private, but even her imagination couldn’t imagine what truly grotesque hobbies he had prior to the gathering.

“Of course, I have no intention of allowing my monsters to become their next meal. Besides, if those butterflies had been here, I wouldn’t have been able to capture you so easily.”

Since arriving at Yggdrasil castle, the White Demon Tamer had made a habit of secretly keeping his eyes on Roxana as if he were trying to set a trap for her to fall into. He had pretended to be disinterested in her at first, but she had always been acutely aware of how tainted his thoughts could be.

Cassis had felt similarly from the moment he arrived, which was the reason behind his continued surveillance of the White Heir. Anyone could tell just how tenacious he was after hearing the passionate way he spoke about the poison butterflies.

“And it certainly hasn’t helped that the Blue Heir has been so persistent about getting in my way.”

Roxana had actually anticipated that he would try to make a grab for her at some point or other during the gathering, but for him to do so at such a critical time was irksome to say the least.

“I mean, honestly... If he was so worried about losing you, he might as well have kept you in a birdcage, don’t you think?” The blue-haired man cast a twisted smile at her before going on. “Then again... If he had done that, I never would have had the chance to delight in this moment.”

One of the vines slinked down past the nape of her neck, then slipped inside the collar of her dress much like a real snake. She shuddered as she felt the slithery sensation against her smooth skin. He then muttered as though he had become drunk off the taste of her discomfort.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day. At last, you’re finally within my grasp.”

Roxana’s crimson eyes twitched as she listened to the mirth in his voice. She had a creeping suspicion that he had known all along that the Vertium puppets would invade the castle that day. She had kept her lips pressed shut tightly in order to allow him to ramble, but she felt compelled to verify her suspicion.

“So... you knew the attack would happen today.”

He lowered his gaze as if to confirm what she had surmised. Then does that also have something to do with how easily he summoned this demon monster here?

He indeed showed no signs of trouble in controlling the vine demon that had ensnared her. In fact, it was almost as if the territory’s nullification sorcery had no effect on him entirely. What’s more, the timing with which he had appeared on the very path she had taken gave the impression that he knew she would head straight for Nix in all the chaos.

“Do you reckon the Gold Master has found that puppet by now?” The White Heir had begun to sing more than speak his words. He alone seemed to still find the situation amusing. “Don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly understand why you wouldn’t want to lose your dead brother’s corpse to that guy. In fact, it would be quite rude of me to disregard your resolve after seeing how far you came just to get it back, right?”