As darkness settled, only lights presumed to be torches floated here and there through the void.
The crowd guarding the prison had vanished. Most had been mobilized to find the escaped Tenebrei, leaving few personnel remaining at the prison. Antenor counted the remaining heads and suddenly spoke up.
"I'll go down and check the underground. With the commotion outside, the prisoners must be confused."
Of course, this was merely an excuse to go find Evangelin. Hearing this, one fellow knight sneered and scoffed.
"It's not even your turn to stand guard right now. Lowborns really are different, I suppose. Even in a situation like this, you're only thinking about wagging your tail at prisoners to take bribes?"
He was right. Even in this situation, Antenor's first thought was to prostrate himself before Evangelin Rohanson. But how many people could remain unsubmissive after witnessing such overwhelming wonder before their eyes? Moreover, was the opponent not dangling a carrot right before his nose, promising to grant what Antenor desired?
"I'll go with him."
"Polus!"
Just as it seemed they wouldn't let Antenor go, Polus stepped forward.
"I'll take good care of Ante, so what are you worried about?"
Polus slapped and pulled at Antenor's shoulder. Watching this with a strange expression, the knight curled his lips upward. He had noticed that Polus's words about "taking care of him" accompanied violence. Let him get beaten to a pulp underground away from prying eyes. All of this was brought upon himself by Antenor.
"Right. If you're there, I can rest easy. Antenor's leg is inconvenient, so take good care of him."
No one pointed out that it was Polus who had made Antenor's leg that way. Polus led Antenor down to the underground. The knights standing guard underground looked puzzled seeing the two return even though their shift had passed.
"Polus, why are you back?"
Antenor answered in his place.
"Tenebrei Leverdi, the murderer of His Highness the Crown Prince, has escaped. His Majesty has commanded everyone to help search for Tenebrei."
"What?"
"So wouldn't it be better for you to go up and join them? If you catch Lord Tenebrei, you'll surely receive an enormous reward. It's not an opportunity that comes often."
"You'll stand guard in our place?"
They thought for a moment and readily agreed.
"Alright. Since Polus is here, it should be fine."
As soon as the knights left and all signs of life disappeared, Polus's form collapsed. Antenor turned the body over with his foot. As if he had never moved or spoken vividly before, Polus's body moved helplessly even at the weak kick of a cripple.
"Why? Amazing?"
Goosebumps rose at the voice whispering right beside his ear. When Antenor startled and looked back, Jelly giggled as if having seen an unexpected trick.
"It should be. I'm probably the only one who can move a corpse this precisely."
When Jelly moved his finger, Polus raised his body again. Unlike before, only the corpse was lifted into the air, making it look like a nonsensical puppet show.
"Plauros broke his neck, so moving him is a bit tricky. If he had just cut it cleanly like me, wouldn't that have been nice?"
"You are...?"
Antenor asked warily of the stranger. Had a prisoner escaped in the commotion? But in Antenor's memory, he had never seen such a prisoner in the underground prison.
"Me? I'm Jelly."
Andras, enjoying the other's fear, told him his name.
"Are you perhaps someone employed by Lady Rohanson?"
"Something like that."
The man revealed his teeth and laughed refreshingly at those words. Indeed, if not Evangelin Rohanson, who else could command such a monster? After throwing Polus's corpse back onto the ground, Jelly dragged Antenor and walked toward Evangelin's cell.
"Something interesting has happened? So you came to tell the master."
"Yes, yes."
"You listen well and are dutiful."
Letting the perfunctory praise go in one ear and out the other, Antenor picked up the key hanging on the wall and opened the prison door. At the sound of metal tearing, Evangelin Rohanson rolled her eyes from her reading posture to look at Antenor. It was chilling, like a scene where the eyeballs of a portrait in a painting move. It was ominous and eerie, but with Jelly pressing down with strong force right behind him, he couldn't even escape.
Seeing Antenor, Evangelin closed her book and rose from her seat. The hem of her unusually long dress dragged along the floor as she approached. The sound of fabric brushing against the ground could be heard, but strangely, there were no footsteps.
When Evangelin, who had come right up to Antenor's nose, lowered her head to meet his gaze, long, thin threads flowed down below her shoulders. Only after Evangelin lowered her gaze did Antenor belatedly realize he had collapsed and was kneeling. He hadn't even properly noticed when his legs had lost strength.
His spine grew cold. The pressure felt without iron bars between them was this terrifying. The time he had foolishly thought lightly of Evangelin Rohanson, trusting in mere iron bars, felt stupid. Was this even a person? Was it even a living creature to begin with? Like Polus, wasn't it closer to a reanimated corpse?
Evangelin smiled brightly as if painted, just like before.
"You've returned early. Sir Ante, it seems you have something to say to me?"
"...Yes."
Unable to keep facing Evangelin, Antenor lowered his gaze and began explaining the situation outside.
"His Imperial Majesty has declared that the true culprit is Tenebrei Leverdi, and has ordered that the escaped criminal be captured."
"Tenebrei? Not Jeremiah?"
Evangelin asked back as if puzzled. It was natural to find it strange, since the rumor that had recently spread was that Jeremiah had assassinated the Crown Prince. Hadn't Gabriel also suspected Jeremiah? But the Emperor had left an official document allowing even lethal force if necessary when capturing Tenebrei.
This was proof that there was certain evidence Tenebrei was the culprit, and also an expression that Tenebrei would no longer be treated as a member of the imperial family.
"If knights were mobilized, have the paladins also joined the pursuit?"
"Yes. Probably so."
"Sir Gabriel must also be chasing after Tenebrei."
Antenor nodded. Because Gabriel was closely connected to Evangelin, he had been detained in the imperial palace until now. He would have unconditionally joined the pursuit, thinking that capturing Tenebrei would help prove Evangelin's innocence.
Evangelin frowned slightly then declared.
"I also need to find Tenebrei."
"Will you participate in killing Lord Tenebrei?"
"The opposite."
When Antenor asked, the completely opposite answer returned from what he had expected. Not to kill but the opposite? Could she be planning to save Tenebrei?
Either way, going outside now was not good.
"There are a lot of knights outside right now."
"I'm not saying I'll find him myself. I have children who are very good at finding people."
Children? Could that man named Jelly belong to that category?
"Pudding. Can you find him?"
Pudding? Who could that be? I don't know who it is, but it must be an extraordinary being, yet I couldn't understand why names of mismatched desserts were attached to it. Truly bad taste, wasn't it?
The moment Evangelin's words ended, the air opened its eyes. Strange lines that had appeared in the void unfolded from their folded state. Giant eyeballs slowly rolled their pupils from behind.
As Antenor tried to scream in surprise, Jelly covered his mouth.
As he wheezed and thrashed his arms, Jelly released his mouth as if forgetting he had been choking a person's windpipe.
"I'm concentrating, so shh."
It felt like a giant clock shop wall with eyes hanging instead of clocks.
Each blinking at different speeds created a bizarre noise. I could hear a squelching sound as if wet and soaked in water. Goosebumps rose so much I wanted to scratch my ears out. At that moment, cracks formed in the eyeballs and they began to break, shattering into pieces like bitten candy.
After covering my ears and squeezing my eyes shut then opening them, instead of the cluster of eyeballs, I saw some boy. The handsome boy was clutching his bleeding eye.
"Ugh!"
"Pudding."
Unusually worried, Evangelin called him, and the boy named Pudding explained the situation.
"...I think I was interfered with."
"You don't have to push yourself."
When Evangelin wiped his eye area, blood rather smeared on her soft skin. Feeling as if something pure had been defiled, Antenor turned his eyes away.
"No. I don't want to feel that powerless sensation again of being unable to help Evangelin in any way."
And as the boy concentrated again, the inner wall of the prison changed drastically. The floor undulated like flesh, and the torch flames flickered along with it, creating shadows that danced in bizarre shapes. It was to the point Antenor would rather have Jelly cover his mouth again.
"Found him."
The mouths attached to the ground all chanted in different voices in unison. As if the same voice was being uttered from dozens of mouths, it resonated from all directions. No, there were no mouths anywhere.
The world returned to normal, and the floor of the underground prison remained hard as it was. The only thing that changed was that the boy named Pudding had disappeared.
Jelly blinked in disbelief.
"Master, he went alone."
"Let's follow."
And the sound of a finger snapping was heard. After that, even Evangelin was nowhere to be seen. Antenor was left alone with Polus's corpse in the empty underground prison.