Chapter 292: Emotions of the Desert (1)
Even in the desert, where a week wouldn’t be enough for every minister in the grand hall to handle such a task together, Sophien resolved it alone in a single day. The Empress’s mastery of statecraft was beyond comparison.
However, the process was not without incident—there was some chaos, and Quay’s defense mechanism, namely the murderous intent, manifested once more.
“It’s happening more often now,” I muttered.
While Sophien slept in the hush of night, I stepped out into the desert beyond the command tent to check my wounds, and fortunately, the body of an Iron Man could still hold out because I had maintained constant vigilance, never knowing when Sophien’s murderous intent might switch on again.
I wrapped a bandage around my arm, nothing more than a rough treatment for what was clearly a serious fracture, but the bandage wasn’t ordinary and was enough.
───────
[Emergency Bandage]
◆ Description
: Used for basic wound recovery.
: Imbued with a unique effect.
◆ Category
: Emergency
◆ Special Effect
: Staunches bleeding and accelerates natural recovery.
: Accelerates recovery in any area wrapped with the bandage.
───────
The Emergency Bandage was one of several tools I had prepared in advance, each enhanced to level 5 with the Midas Touch, and there were others too—a telescope, a desert map, a radio transceiver, even a boomerang, which if any of them hit the open market, would be considered rare treasures without question.
With the treatment behind me, I took a moment to look around the oasis.
“Size, water flow, bedrock stability…”
I was checking the conditions around the oasis while the Elite Guard prepared to establish a base of operations in the desert, leaving the construction itself under my responsibility.
“Looks promising.” I muttered, nodding to myself.
The oasis held enough water to last several years and the surrounding ground was solid enough for construction, and just as General Bell had said, it was a decent location though scattered debris hinted that the original tribe’s village had once stood here.
Thud—
I set the suitcase down, and it clicked open the moment it touched the ground as I reached inside—not with my hands, but with Telekinesis.
Fwoooooosh—!
Then the steel frames and mana stone solution burst out like a wave, swirling into the air as if a storm had spat them out, and the construction materials floated above me in perfect order, proof of the specialized bag’s performance imbued with a level 5 Midas Touch.
The bag was light enough to carry in one hand but could hold and transport as much as a thirty-ton truck.
I guided the steel frames into position and, with the blueprint already in my mind, started with the most essential framework.
Clatter—
I moved the steel frames into place and raised the skeleton of the main building, planning for three floors above ground and one below based on the terrain.
The basement would house sleeping quarters and a break room, the first and second floors would serve as laboratories and meeting rooms, and the entire third floor was reserved for Sophien, and with the blueprint complete, I began the foundational work.
“… Hmm,” I murmured.
After spending four thousand mana, all I had to show for it was a rough skeleton of steel frames that looked unfinished and incomplete, but that was just part of the process.
Because the desert was rich with mana concentration and my recovery was faster here, if I pushed through I could finish everything before the day was over.
“… Is it coming together?”
From behind me came a voice that brushed against my back like a night breeze, and I turned to see Empress Sophien standing there, her face painted with pure ennui.
“Yes, it stands just shy of completion, Your Majesty,” I replied.
Just a while ago, Sophien had been swinging at me like she meant to murder me, and now, as if she’d forgotten it all, she stood there dozing on her feet without a word.
“The night air is bitter, Your Majesty. You’d do well to rest inside the command tent.”
“… Even once that building’s completed, it won’t chase off the cold. There isn’t a single mana stone installation in it, is there?” Sophien said.
Magical architecture was never as easy as it seemed because, for starters, there weren’t many mages with a solid understanding of architectural design like I had, and on top of that, the lack of mana stone systems—especially for temperature control—made things far more complicated.
“The building I raised with magic should be sound, even without mana stones,” I replied.
“… It does seem that way,” Sophien said, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the steel frame.
“Yes, Your Majesty, it will answer the frost with warmth, and the flame with a cooling breath.”
Sophien gave a nod, understanding dawning in her eyes.
Every spell I used carried the dual nature of the Snowflower Stone, and of course, the intensity varied depending on the spell’s purpose and how much mana I used, but in this case, the Snowflower Stone’s characteristic—frost and flame at once—made it perfect for both heating and cooling the building.
“Tell me, Professor,” Sophien called.
Just as I was used to being called Professor, it seemed Sophien was just as used to saying it, as she called me Professor without a second thought.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied, turning to her.
“Did anything occur just moments ago?” Sophien asked in a low voice.
At that moment, the cold of the desert slipped over my skin like the edge of a blade.
“There was nothing worth mentioning, Your Majesty,” I replied, shaking my head.
After I told her not the truth, Sophien said nothing in return because I had lied to her too many times to feel the weight of it anymore.
However, what Sophien did next completely caught me off guard.
“… Professor,” Sophien said, pulling out a hand mirror from within her coat. “Do you remember this?”
Sophien’s hand mirror was worn thin with its frame cracked and dulled by time, looking like it had weathered centuries more than it was ever meant to.
“You once were inside this mirror,” Sophien continued, her hand wiping the mirror’s surface.
Every memory of my time with Sophien hadn’t faded and lived on in my mind.
“Back then, you died for my sake.”
“Yes, so it seems,” I replied.
Then Sophien smiled—barely—and without saying a word, rested her forehead against my back.
“This time, let it be otherwise,” Sophien said.
There was weight in Sophien’s voice, as if echoing from within the shadowed halls of memory itself.
“Without you, my life—such as it is—would hold no meaning in this world of mine.”
As Sophien confessed, she tightened her arms around me and then said the one thing she never should have—the name of the one who hurt me more than any blade ever could.
“Let Yulie go from this moment on, from your heart, and I will fill the emptiness she leaves behind.”
I remained silent.
“The word ‘effort’ is foreign to me—yet if it’s for you, I shall make it, even if I fall short.”
For a brief moment, something sparked in my chest and was gone before I could catch it.
“Professor, wasn’t she the very woman who once tried to bring you down to your ruin? Therefore, once this war comes to an end—”
“Your Majesty,” I interrupted Sophien, standing there with my eyes closed.
Perhaps it was Yulie pulling emotion out of me deeper than thought could reach, or maybe it was Sophien who, even after everything, had never once seen me as clearly as I had seen her.
“The hearing has not yet come to an end, Your Majesty, and one who still stands before it is Deculein—myself.”
Sophien released me and took a single step back, meeting my eyes, and it was only then that her eyes sharpened with clarity as if she’d finally woken from a sleep.
“Indeed—but I believe it to be nothing more than a frame, and I’ll have the Intelligence Agency look into the matter,” Sophien replied.
It was, as Sophien had said, all a frame from the beginning because the evidence Isaac gave me for the hearing had been tampered with from the start, and if the hearing were held again, Yulie and Freyden wouldn’t stand a chance, as they’d face the annihilation of the house.
“No, Your Majesty.”
However, there was no way I could not let that happen.
“… What is it that you deny?” Sophien asked.
“It isn’t a frame, Your Majesty.” I replied.
Grit—
At that moment, Sophien’s teeth clenched, and a hot breath escaped her lips, twisted into a sneer.
“It was… not a frame?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied, unshaken. “Each of those charges of my crimes is true.”
Unfortunately for Sophien, when it came to making manipulated evidence appear genuine, I had the edge due to Yukline’s influence and Josephine, the Shadow who worked in silence.
“Each one was my doing—every one of them—meaning there’s no room left for denial or excuse.”
Therefore, the evidence Sophien had manipulated was already accepted as truth—and in the end, I was the one who made my own crime real.
With her fist tightened, Sophien said, “… Professor, you are lying to me—”
“The house that conspired to poison Your Majesty.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“That too.”
“I told you to shut that damned mouth of yours!” Sophien shouted, trembling with rage.
“Was none other than Yukline. It was the House of Yukline that conspired in Your Majesty’s poisoning,” I said, turning toward Sophien.
“You fucking bastard!”
An aura flared from Sophien, blazing with rage and wrath harsher than if I’d committed a capital offense of treason, searing enough to choke my throat, but somehow, instead of fear, sorrow bloomed in me.
“… Despite the weight of all my sins that stain me,” I said.
Because even in that burning aura there was nothing lethal in it—no death variable—and even then, as I spoke a lie she could never forgive, Sophien held no desire to kill me, not even for a second.
“Does Your Majesty yet hold love for one such as I?”
***
The next morning was anything but refreshing, with cold air and no light in the sky, as the desert’s climate remained as unforgiving as ever.
“Snuffle.”
Ria stumbled out of the tent, sniffling as she wiped her nose, but even in the cold light of morning, she couldn’t shake the image of Deculein and Sophien—too close, dangerously close—from her thoughts.
Ria hadn’t been able to watch for long because there were too many night sentries on patrol, but before walking away, she’d seen enough to know that Sophien had wrapped her arms around Deculein.
They were all cuddled up… though it looked like Sophien was the only one trying, Ria thought.
“I can’t even tell where the story is going anymore… Huh?” Ria muttered.
However, a building now stood where nothing had been yesterday—an official residence had appeared out of nowhere, standing tall as if staring down the oasis.
“Am I dreaming?”
Though what happened last night felt like a dream, is this just a mirage?
Ria frowned, deep in thought, then caught sight of a man seated nearby reading a book in his hand who wore only a shirt and vest, no coat, and by now she should’ve been used to his face, but every time it startled her anew because he looked exactly like Kim Woo-Jin.
“What are you doing?” Ria asked, inching her way toward Deculein.
Without a word, Deculein offered Ria nothing more than a passing glance and was gone in an instant.
“I asked what you’re doing?” Ria asked again, her voice a little louder this time.
Then Deculein shook his head, disdain written in the silence between his motions.
Fwoosh—!
Ria’s temper flared and heat rushed to her face before she could stop it.
“Did I even do anything wrong?”
I didn’t even do anything, but why does he look at me like I’m some kind of weirdo? Ria thought.
“Shouldn’t you be training?” Deculein inquired.
“I think I’ve trained more than enough. Would you like me to show you?” Ria replied, holding out the circuit diagram Deculein had once given her.
Ria could now control the mana inside her through a completely new path that was entirely her own.
“I was thinking that now that I’ve learned this much, maybe it is now time… for me to set off on my own.”
“You’ve barely learned the foundations, and now you think yourself ready—how ridiculous,” Deculein replied.
Ria held her tongue, but the words were already forming and were impossible to ignore.
“That’s not the only reason. There’s a weird rumor going around—that I and your former fiancée, Professor, are…”
“Go on,” Deculein said, giving a nod.
“… There’s a rumor that you only keep me around because I resemble your former fiancée.”
“Let me be clear about that rumor—it’s entirely untrue,” Deculein replied.
With a smile, Ria said, “I’m glad to hear—”
“In every way, you fall short of her—you are woefully lacking, steeped in vulgarity, and unsophisticated to the lowest level of refinement. It would be discourteous to even place you in the same sentence as her.”
Ria stared blankly at Deculein, his words ringing in her mind—lacking, vulgar, unsophisticated—as she replayed them in silence, and before she could stop it, a wave of indignation welled up inside her.
I just want to shout it out that I’m the fiancée! Tell him that character was created as a motif of me—that she’s me, my original character, built completely from the ground up, Ria thought.
“Take this,” Deculein said, holding out a sheet of paper.
“… What is it?” Ria asked, accepting it with a pout on her face.
“There are those who waste their talent through nothing more than a superficial understanding of themselves, and you stand as the clearest example of that.”
Ria remained silent.
“It is as if one were dressing up a jellyfish in finery.”
Ria pinched her ear hard, directing her frustration into the sting and glaring at damned Deculein’s sheet of paper where the spell written on it was a maze of curves and circles too complex to follow at a glance.
“It’s a spell of Elementalization—specifically, your Elementalization rendered into formal theory.”
Wait, does that mean Professor Deculein is saying he wrote down my talent on this paper? Ria thought.
“That can’t be possible—”
“It is possible because you merely express your talent by intuition, but intuition always has a theoretical core. Once you understand that theory, your talent becomes richer and more potent, but without it, you’re only ever half whole.”
Ria couldn’t tell if Deculein was being honest or if it was just another display of arrogance, but no matter how she looked at it, the whole thing didn’t add up.
Is this really the extent of Deculein’s ingenuity? Just one single change—adding his fiancée—and that single butterfly effect leads the whole game in such a different direction? Ria thought.
“Start by memorizing it because understanding the theory would be too ambitious given the level of your limited intelligence,” Deculein concluded.
OKAY. That’s the Deculein I’ve known. OKAY.
Ria had her doubts for a moment, but no one else could act like that because that personality had to be Deculein as no one else came close.
“Emergency report incoming—!”
At that moment, a shout came through the air, and Deculein and Ria turned as one toward the sound as an Elite Guard sprinted toward them from across the desert.
“Oh, Chairman! We have a situation—the prisoners disappeared while en route!” continued one of the Elite Guard.
At the mention of a prisoner, Ria turned to Deculein.
“The prisoners?” Deculein inquired, his brow furrowing.
“Yes, Chairman! The tribe that once inhabited this area put up tenacious resistance, and since we were suspecting that they were hiding Scarletborn, they were taken as prisoners and were being transported—”
“Was there evidence?”
“… Pardon me?”
“When you say you suspected they were hiding Scarletborn, I take it that means you had no evidence,” Deculein said.
“Chairman, t-that’s…” muttered one of the Elite Guard, his eyes darting from side to side, searching for an answer that would not come.
“That is enough. Since there is no evidence the tribe hid the Scarletborn, and if they’ve fled into the desert—which is theirs by nature—we neither have reason to chase them nor a way to find them,” Deculein said, his eyes hardening as he glared at the Elite Guard, contempt twisting his lips.
Deculein’s response was so logical and rational that it made Ria flinch again and again, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“… Yes, Chairman.”
The moment the Elite Guard bowed his head in response to Deculein’s words…
“No.”
An authoritative voice cut straight through the air between them.
“Track them to the ends of the desert, and slaughter them all.”
The voice belonged to Empress Sophien, no longer dulled by ennui, now resonating with imperial authority, and her face, once indifferent, was cruel enough to freeze the air.
“Track down every last one of those who fled and put them to the sword, Count Yukline. I will not tolerate even the slightest suspicion that they hid the Scarletborn,” Sophien concluded through gritted teeth.
The junior Elite Guard straightened at once, but Deculein held his eyes on the Empress’s tempestuous glare without breaking, while at their boots, a spiral of sand rose, stirred by the clash of their presences.
However, not a single subject could oppose such a resolute command from the Empress—nor should they have.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Deculein replied with dignity flowing through every motion and precise formality. “Your command shall be honored, even if it costs me my life.”
“… Even if it costs you your life? Get lost,” Sophien replied, her voice edged with anger as she stormed back into the tent.
However, for some reason, Sophien’s back looked sorrowful to Ria, and only Ria, who had watched Deculein and Sophien the night before, could understand why, for there was only one reason.
It seems her confession did not go as she had hoped, Ria thought.
“… This is not good,” Ria muttered, her danger sense tingling like a sixth sense.
I shouldn’t just leave her like that. Deculein is being kind of rational for once, but Sophien is stuck in that brutality, and according to her Empress setting, that ferocity will only worsen as the story goes on, Ria thought.
“If Sophien gets even more ferocious because she got rejected…”
If Sophien’s rage continued to mount, it would become a serious consequence, and there wasn’t much to explain it, but the fact that she had come to know love at all within this world was already a seismic change.
“… What if.”
And what if—just maybe—Deculein could stop the massacre? What if—without anyone knowing—Sophien’s feelings for him could hold back the complete annihilation of the desert? But if he can’t, then the main quest will escalate to nightmare mode.
“Maybe it can’t be helped,” Ria muttered, turning toward Deculein.
Deculein, already draped in his coat, was making final preparations for departure.
“… Hooo.”
Ria took a breath and launched her plan Operation Cupid, planning to bounce back and forth between Sophien and Deculein, doing everything she could to mediate and stitch peace into place before everything came undone.
“First things first,” Ria muttered.
I better start with the Empress.
Without a sound, Ria disappeared beyond Deculein’s line of sight before he could notice.
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