But the law was distant, while fists were close at hand. The evil fiend before them was by no means an existence that could be reasoned with.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here, even if I have to beat every last one of them down.”
Feeling Daphne’s expectant gaze, Damon deliberately gathered a small amount of mana.
When his gauntlet shone dazzlingly, the Royal Guard’s face, already blue with bruises, turned outright yellow.
‘Hah. There’s no helping it.’
The Royal Guards, their faces ashen, glanced at one another and soon made their decision.
“We will open it for you. But you must return immediately.”
“I’ll think about it if I feel like it.”
Damon yawned as if bored. The Royal Guards kept stealing glances at his face, then hesitantly opened the door. Without even thinking about what they were doing.
Damon took Daphne, who was jumping up and down with joy, and went outside the door. The faces of the Royal Guards watching their backs twisted miserably.
“Damn it all… How can someone like that even exist?”
“What an unlucky day. But who on earth was that girl who went out with him?”
“Who knows? She didn’t look like a maid, but she was quite pretty. Wait…”
The Royal Guard, who had been rambling on, suddenly stiffened. Everything had happened so urgently that he had completely forgotten, but the words of the captain of the Royal Guard abruptly came back to him. No one was to be allowed in or out—especially young women, who were not to be let out under any circumstances.
Rumors had been strictly controlled, so they did not know much, but they at least knew that there was a woman inside the palace on whom the fate of mankind depended. In an instant, the Royal Guards’ faces turned as white as sheets. The truth was, they did not know the Saintess’s face.
“If she is… if she’s the one, then we will never survive this.”
They hurriedly flung open the door and ran out. Unlike how frightened they had been earlier, the Royal Guards now brimmed with the spirit to fight Damon, even if it meant a battle to the death. This was not a simple matter of punishment. The very survival of every human living in Truvenia was at stake.
Even if they died fighting, they had to protect her. Since it was already certain their heads would roll if this became known, they gripped their sword hilts with the resolve of men with nothing left to lose. But before they had gone far, relief appeared on their faces.
“Th-thank goodness.”
The man and woman were leisurely walking back toward them. In particular, the sight of the fiend walking with a water jar as large as his own body on his back was comical enough to make one laugh. But there was no trace of laughter on the stiff faces of the Royal Guards. They rushed over in a swarm and surrounded the two.
“What?”
Damon glared, but the Royal Guards were obstinate. One of them spoke in a resolute tone. It was the very guard whose eye socket was dyed blue.
“We will safely escort you to the door. Please do not refuse.”
“What the hell did you lot eat wrong?”
Damon was somewhat bewildered by the Royal Guards’ completely changed attitude. But if they were volunteering to escort him, he had no reason to refuse. In the end, the two were able to return safely into the palace under the Royal Guards’ ironclad(?) escort. Only then did the guards’ sheet-white faces return to normal.
“As for what happened today…”
Watching the two walk away in the distance, the Royal Guards looked at one another.
“I believe you all understand without my saying it. We will regard this as something that never happened, and we will neither think about it nor speak of it. Understood?”
“That goes without saying.”
As the Royal Guards nodded with grim expressions, relief at having survived seeped across their faces.
“It seems the people here have a different sense of beauty from mine.”
Walking toward the flower bed with Daphne, Damon kept tilting his head. Even now, his breath was still caught in his throat and he could not even look properly at Daphne’s face. Her beauty was that extraordinary. And yet the Royal Guards did not seem to feel the same. It was truly strange that they showed no particular agitation even after seeing Daphne. As he was lost in thought, Daphne’s clear voice reached him.
“We’re here. It’s this place.”
Hearing her voice made his heart tremble again. To keep his inner feelings from being exposed, Damon deliberately set the water jar down with a heavy thud. Water droplets splashed up, soaking his face and the hem of his clothes, but he did not care at all.
“Oh my.”
Startled, Daphne reached out. She was trying to wipe the water droplets from Damon’s face with her sleeve. The one who was more startled was Damon. Dazed, he kept touching his burning face. The parts Daphne’s hand had brushed past were especially red. To hide his embarrassment, Damon bowed his head deeply. He could not understand at all why he was acting like this. A slightly trembling voice forced its way through his lips.
“D-do I sprinkle it here?”
“I’d be grateful if you would. You really are a kind man, mister.”
Damon, his head lowered to hide his face that had turned as red as a carrot, watered the flower bed. Thinking about it, this was the first time in his life he had ever watered flowers. Damon sprinkled water over the flower bed in an awkward posture. It was his first time doing such a thing, but because he nevertheless took care with it, the flowers were able to drink evenly. Seeing that, Daphne smiled brightly once again.
“It must have been hard, right? I’m sure the flowers are truly thanking you in their hearts.”
“R-really?”
Damon lifted his head with a smile. But when he faced Daphne’s radiant smiling face, his heart inevitably began to flutter again. Unable to endure it any longer, Damon sprang up from his seat.
“I-I’ll be going now.”
Daphne’s eyes went round.
“You’re leaving already? I wish you would talk with me a little before you go…”
“I-I’ll come tomorrow. I have urgent business today…”
“Really? Then there’s nothing to be done. I’ll wait for you here tomorrow, mister. You must come.”
Hearing Daphne’s voice, Damon kicked off from the ground. He could not understand why he was acting like this. To think his mind had been bewitched by a mere girl… On the way back to his lodging, Damon cursed himself without end.
“You damned fool. You idiot. And you think you can avenge your master like this? The Guardian Demon King Corps are staring wide-eyed at you from the afterlife. Are you going to lose yourself to the charms of a mere woman and forget the great cause? Get a hold of yourself.”
But even when he tried not to think of her, Daphne’s face shimmered before his eyes. In particular, her clear, shy smile appeared even when he closed his eyes. Unable to endure it any longer, Damon spotted a nearby fountain and hurled himself into it without hesitation.
Splash.
It was still a season when the water was cold. Because he had jumped in, sending water spraying in all directions, Damon instantly came to his senses. His heart, which had been pounding wildly, gradually calmed, and his flushed face returned to normal. Damon kept shouting as he repeatedly plunged his head into the water and pulled it back out.
“A-a monster. A monster that bewitches a man’s mind.”
Once his excited heart gradually calmed, Damon trudged out of the fountain. A chill ran through him and his teeth chattered, but he did not care. By then, three or four Royal Guards who had been patrolling nearby had gathered around the fountain and were staring blankly at Damon. Damon glared at them.
“What are you looking at?”
“No, why did you suddenly jump into the fountain?”
“It’s the bathing method from where I used to live. What, does it offend you?”
“N-no, sir.”
Recalling the saying that one avoids shit because it is filthy, not because one is afraid of it, the Royal Guards withdrew, and Damon shuddered.
“It is cold. Ugh. M-monster. Wait…”
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. It concerned Daphne’s attitude. His eyes sank calmly.
“Come to think of it…”
When he thought about it, Daphne’s attitude toward him was something he had never once experienced before. In ordinary cases, women treated him as if they were looking at a disgusting insect or a lizard. That had been the same even when he possessed overwhelming power. His hideous appearance was completely opposed to women’s sense of beauty.
Even when women were held in his arms, their bodies had been cold and rigid. Having grown thoroughly accustomed to that, Damon had regarded it as only natural. But now that common sense had been shattered completely.
Not even aware that he was soaked to the bone, Damon went to the side of the fountain and plopped down. No matter how much he thought about it, he simply could not understand Daphne’s attitude.
“Was she blind? She didn’t seem that way…”
Daphne had not shunned him at all. If anything, one could say she had treated him with great intimacy. The problem was that there had seemed to be no ulterior motive in her actions whatsoever.
Possessing senses that had reached the limits of what a human could achieve, Damon prided himself on being able to see through another person’s true intentions. If he carefully observed the movement of their eyes, even the slightest motion of their hands, he could sufficiently uncover their scheme. As one example, Damon had already seen through the identities of female assassins many times.
Of course, that had been in the Central Plains, at a time when countless sects and factions had been desperate to eliminate him. Assassin groups hired by them had dispatched professionally trained female assassins to target Damon’s life. Beauty was a given, and they were female assassins well-versed in techniques to bewitch men, such as the arts of the bedchamber. But even they could not escape Damon’s senses.
“Wicked things.”
Damon saw at a glance that their smiles were false, and without exception, they became cold corpses beneath Damon’s Tiger Claw. Among them were some who had used charm arts or soul-bewildering drugs that clouded a person’s mind, but no method had ever deceived Damon’s eyes. In a word, Damon was a thoroughly seasoned leader of the unorthodox path.