The Betrayed Master Betrays In Turn

Chapter 19

A dragon’s virtue is to hide their true identity while playing their games.

But Waraticas didn’t seem interested in hiding anything at all. Whether she acted like this only in front of me or everyone else didn’t matter.

She just seemed insane. I wondered if she even realized that her eyes had shifted midway through our encounter.

“...Ugh.”

My entire body was cramping, muscles twisting painfully. I had forced myself to stay upright, resisting the pressure she exerted on me.@@@@

What surprised me more than the pain was the ridiculous fact that she had tried to crush me to that extent. It was one thing to intimidate a person with sheer presence, but to make it difficult to even move? That was no ordinary feat.

It wasn’t common for someone’s presence to paralyze another person. It required more than just mental fortitude, atmosphere, or circumstances. Yet Waraticas had managed to do it simply by looking at me. Even the maid standing far behind had collapsed under the pressure.

“Well, I got through it...”

She said she’d return, so I suppose my response wasn’t bad.

The treatment had been decent, and considering she apologized at the end, it seemed Waraticas was satisfied with how things went. This was just the beginning, though.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of how I should handle our next meeting.

“...What?”

The edges of the minimap flickered red.

When I checked, I noticed two gray dots and one red dot approaching my location. The red dot was slightly ahead, with the two gray dots following closely behind.

“...”

I focused on the situation.

The gray dots moved past the palace staff without slowing down, while the staff either stood still or moved aside to avoid them. Whoever was coming, they weren’t walking alone and clearly had a high enough status that even palace staff had to make way for them.

A person who didn’t wander alone. Someone who moved around the palace without question and had the authority to visit a prisoner at will.

It wasn’t hard to make an educated guess.

Given that Waraticas had only brought one maid with her, I could take this assumption further.

“A high-ranking noble?”

My guess was that this was a noble with a grudge against me, someone from the Empire’s upper echelons.

It could be a general I had fought before, but they wouldn’t have had enough time to reach the capital yet. My group had traveled as fast as possible, using the Phlegethon for instant travel, and it had still taken four days. Counting from the day Andrei attacked the camp, only seven days had passed. Even at a normal speed, any generals would still be on their way here.

That meant this was likely a noble. If they were accompanied by two attendants, they probably believed their power rivaled that of the emperor. If those attendants weren’t servants but guards, this person might even be considered dangerous.

*Click.*

The doorknob turned without hesitation.

As soon as I saw the man enter, I was sure this was indeed a high-ranking noble. He was a slender man, about my age, with neatly slicked-back hair and adorned with jewelry embedded with red gems. His clothes were bright red, and his face was flushed, almost like he was perpetually angry.

“...Are you Viktor?”

“...?”

“Show some respect. I am Duke Theodore Offenstadt, leader of the Imperial faction.”

His tone was pompous, his voice deliberately lowered, and he raised his chin as if trying to look down on me.

I had seen his type often in the kingdom—a noble who wanted to appear more important than he was.

“Oh, you must not know. The nobility in the Empire is divided into two factions: the Imperial faction, which I lead, and the Aristocratic faction. The Imperial faction is currently in control.”

So, Theodore Offenstadt.

I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the name. He was one of the dukes from the Aristocratic faction and had occasionally appeared in strange in-game events. Didn’t he try to confess his love to the emperor at one point?

The room wasn’t large, and soon his back was pressed firmly against the wall.

I moved closer, until I could have reached out and touched him.

“What... What are you...”

I placed my hand on his left shoulder, leaning in just enough to make eye contact.

Since he could be a future competitor of mine, it was important to leave a lasting impression.

“Hiiik.”

“You’re alive only because of your betrayal.”

Before I could apply any real pressure, Theodore hastily wriggled out from under my grip.

“How dare you defy me! You’ll regret this!” he shouted, grabbing the door handle in a hurry and sputtering out the obvious threats.

“You should hope we don’t meet again,” I added, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Ugh...!”

With a final yelp, he bolted out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

The maids who had observed the entire exchange gave me a polite bow before following him out.

*Click.*

After the door closed, I sat back down, waiting for whoever would come next. Now that the leader of the Imperial faction had made a move, it was only natural that someone from the Aristocratic faction would soon approach me.

---

There was a problem.

The sun was setting, but no one else had come to see me.

Theodore didn’t seem like an especially complicated figure, but he had been a variable nonetheless. Considering that both Waraticas and Theodore had visited me, the Aristocratic faction’s lack of response was unexpected.

“The Aristocratic faction has become too weak.”

It seemed the faction had weakened far more than I had anticipated. I had expected them to be on the back foot after their failure in the northern war, but this was worse than I thought.

Without the emperor’s direct involvement, I had assumed that the Imperial faction wouldn’t be able to expand its influence so aggressively.

But from the fact that Theodore had

tried such a poor excuse of an attempt to recruit me, it seemed that the Imperial faction, despite its messiness, had managed to consolidate its power under the emperor’s name.

The difficulty had just ramped up.

Though it wouldn’t be as hard as dealing with the tightly-knit nobility of the Ruth Kingdom, securing my position here wouldn’t be easy. I would likely have to contend with someone like Theodore, who already had a strong grip on power.

As I mulled over my next steps—

*Knock, knock, knock.*

There it was again, three deliberate knocks.

Could it be?

*Click.*

“I said I’d return, didn’t I?”

Just as I had suspected, Waraticas had come back, bringing her maid along with her.

It hadn’t even been a full day. What kind of crazy standard was she trying to set in my mind now?