Episode 176
The kingdom of the Dark Elves, ruled by the self-proclaimed Queen of the Desert and Sands.
Master Baro and Dale found themselves in a lavish chamber within the royal palace.
“Well, well, who would have thought there were kingdoms like this left besides the Empire?”
“Didn’t you say you learned the sword under the Mountain Crone?”
“Never imagined my master would turn out to be Her Majesty the Queen. Had I known, I might have treated her with more respect.”
“Judging by your demeanor, you weren’t exactly the best student, were you?”
“Haha, to be fair, my master wasn’t in much of a position to criticize others either.”
Master Baro shrugged nonchalantly.
“When I was a child, starving and alone in the back alleys of the Empire, she took me in. Said I had a knack for cutting throats.”
“Seems like you should be bowing your head in gratitude for the rest of your life.”
Dale’s comment didn’t faze Master Baro, who continued his tale.
“Around that time, my master was making a name as the ‘Assassin of the Mountains,’ and I got to tag along, picking up scraps and learning the trade.”
“And that’s how you became the Sword of Death.”
Master Baro nodded.
“Eventually, my master returned to the desert, and I made a name for myself before serving under a noble. Spent about twenty sweet years there… until, well, you know the rest.”
He had stabbed his lord in the back, claiming the man was possessed by a demon, and abandoned his knighthood to protect the lady. As Master Baro had said, that was the truth Dale had witnessed from his shadow.
“The power to discern truth from lies.”
The strange ability he gained alongside the Shadow Lord’s avatar, the Eye of Truth, sent chills down his spine as he grasped its weight. The sheer amount of magic it consumed to maintain was staggering.
Even with his current ability to generate a heat engine in his heart using red magic and five circles, sustaining that power was a challenge. Yet, it was a power worth its cost.
“Weren’t you also here in the desert because of your master?”
As Dale was lost in thought, Master Baro spoke up. Dale nodded silently.
“I heard there was division among the Mountain Assassins regarding her actions. I came to negotiate, but…”
He never imagined things would escalate to this scale.
When he brought up Sepia to the Mountain Crone, the Queen’s response was that she alone couldn’t decide Sepia’s fate.
The kingdom of the Dark Elves in the desert, and the Snow Elves in the frozen lands. Sepia, an outcast from elven society, was at the center of their tangled interests and conflicts.
“Looks like your grand plan went up in smoke.”
Master Baro chuckled.
“Who would have guessed your master was of elven royal blood?”
The exiled daughter of the Snow Elf Kingdom’s queen.
“Nothing changes.”
Despite everything, Dale shook his head quietly.
“Protecting Lady Sepia from the Mountain Assassins is the only way I can repay my debt, and I’ll persuade them as the Shadow Lord.”
Dale’s task was not just to convince the Queen of the Dark Elves.
“The Fairy Council, huh? Sounds like a real bureaucratic nightmare.”
“What choice do I have?”
Dale replied calmly.
Sepia was not so weak as to fall easily to the assassins’ blades. But knowing what the Mountain Crone was capable of, he was certain. If they truly intended to, even Sepia couldn’t escape with her life.
Sepia, freed from the blue enchantment and now with free will, was somewhere unknown. There was no guarantee they’d meet again, nor did he know how she felt about him.
Yet, as Dale said, nothing changed.
“Haha, your devotion to your master is admirable.”
Master Baro shrugged, unable to understand, while Dale remained silent.
Blue butterflies fluttered before the exiled wanderer on the Empire’s soil.
”…A new mission?”
Sepia, the foolish fairy and blue puppet, spoke to the empty air.
The most crucial aspect of being a blue agent was their ignorance of their own role. Just as Dimir, the head of the church’s intelligence, had been. Sepia was no exception.
While she stayed by Dale’s side as a blue agent, she never realized her mission.
But once her truth was revealed, ‘her disciple’ didn’t leave her be.
It was a miraculous freedom, yet nothing changed.
The Blue Tower still held her life in its grasp, and Sepia awaited her next mission as a blue puppet.
─ No, foolish daughter of the Crystal Queen.
But the whisper of the blue butterfly was unexpected.
─ Your ‘debt of life’ to us is fully repaid.
“Freedom?”
Her surprise was brief. She knew what awaited after gaining freedom.
The Mountain Assassins, the death that exiled elves could never escape.
“This was inevitable from the start.”
Sepia smiled bitterly, unshaken.
─ You’re mistaken.
The following words were beyond her imagination.
─ Your life debt is truly forgiven. And fortunately, the Shadow Lord who repaid it asks for nothing in return.
Sepia understood the meaning.
“Why…?”
Her presence by Dale’s side was merely a mission as a blue agent. Knowing this, the Shadow Lord had willingly repaid her life debt to the blue.
Without asking for anything.
─ And now, the Shadow Lord remains in the desert, fulfilling our debt to the Mountain Assassins.
Hearing this, Sepia could only swallow her breath.
─ Now, child who has finally gained freedom, go your own way.
The blue mastermind whispered.
From the peak of the Blue Tower, her nest filled with shadowy webs, leaving behind the whispers brought by her butterflies.
The armor of shadows enveloped Dale, and the Shadow Lord’s avatar unfolded.
”…!”
But this time, the avatar did more than provide a simple form of power.
The world lost its light.
The sun that illuminated the desert vanished, and a landscape filled with darkness appeared before Dale’s eyes.
It was as if he was walking through the realm of the dead.
Simultaneously, his heart’s magic rapidly depleted, and he spun the five circles, overlaying them with red magic to create a ‘heat engine.’
A mental image from another world that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy to generate power.
To sustain the Shadow Lord’s avatar, which consumed magic like a bottomless pit, he began to extract magic with all his might.
In the royal chamber of the Dark Elf Queen’s palace, Dale, with the Eye of Truth, turned his gaze.
The streets of the capital stretched outside the window, filled with the presence of Dark Elves.
”…!”
Amidst a headache that felt like his consciousness would fly away, whispers reached him. Whispers from all around.
Truth is far from beautiful. And elves were no exception.
Everything that exists casts a shadow, and what the Shadow Lord’s eyes saw was that truth.
The ugly truths that made Master Baro seem saintly poured in.
Jealousy, desire, hatred, the most secret skeletons hidden in their closets were laid bare.
In the agony of a brain that felt like it was burning, Dale’s body staggered.
At that moment, his shadow moved, forming the silhouette of a woman.
Lady Shadow, Aurelia.
“My lord!”
Aurelia supported the collapsing Dale, and her shadow was no exception.
In a sea of blood, she was a scarlet saint resolved to avenge the Empire.
The joy of slaughter she felt, the bloody truth hidden behind the name of the saint, was there.
And the despair of watching her kingdom burn, defeated before the Black Prince.
Yet she willingly chose to be Dale’s loyal puppet and sword in the shadows.
”…”
That was Aurelia’s truth, and Dale could say nothing.
The weight of what Dale had to bear as the Shadow Lord began to sink in.
It was a weight as heavy as gold, threatening to crush him at any moment.
It seems that humans existing in the kingdom of elves is not entirely unprecedented.
However, a human claiming to be the Lord of Shadows and involving themselves in the rules of elven society was truly unheard of.
The weight of the situation was well understood, so it didn’t take long for the “Fairy Council” to be convened.
It was shortly after Dale arrived in the scorching desert.
The borderland between the Dark Elf kingdom and the Snow Elf kingdom.
Where the desert and the crystalline lands met, there was an ocean, and on an island in that ocean was where the Fairy Council convened.
The Shadow Lord and Master Baro were present.
Alongside the ancient crone, the lord of the desert and sands, and the decision-makers of the Dark Elf society who could participate in the council…
And the mother who had exiled her own daughter from the frozen lands, the Crystal Queen, with the elders of the Snow Elf society.
It was a gathering of the leaders of two kingdoms, a place where even the empire that once unified the continent and declared itself the sole nation could not exert its influence.
Dale was not ignorant of the gravity of the situation. Yet, nothing would change.
Having grasped the meaning of gold and shadow, Dale had finally acquired the “Eye of Truth.” His path was clear.
He needed to absolve Sepia of her debts, who, as an exile, was threatened by her own kin, and as the Shadow Lord, he had to confront the standard-bearers. Above all…
He needed to understand why she had been banished from her homeland and was wandering the lands of strangers.
It was time to finally face the truth about Sepia.