Chapter 86

Sep 05, 2023

“Is there something on my brother’s face?”

A voice as clear as a mountain spring suddenly broke through Pandora’s revelry. She turned to see that Sylvia was studying her quizzically.

“Or is something else the matter? I only ask since you appeared to be glaring at him...”

“Oh! It’s nothing. I was just daydreaming.” Pandora smiled awkwardly at having been caught completely off guard by the young Pedelian’s question.

“Ah, was that all?” Apparently relieved, Sylvia dropped the matter. As she had finally returned to donning her sweet smile, she continued to innocently make conversation. “It occurred to me during supper that you Fipellions must have a very strong sense of living by your own rules.”

As she carried on, Pandora felt herself being thrown into a new state of utter confusion.

“For instance, while listening to the White Demon Tamer speak earlier, I felt as if I was watching some otherworldly creature attempting to communicate in our language,” Sylvia said. “Then when I noticed you daydreaming, or so you claimed to be, it seemed both funny and strange how alike the two of you actually are. I suppose those are simply characteristics of the White clan.”

“Um...”

“You know how you said Orka was odd a moment ago? I actually think you two have more in common than you realize.”

Is she... insulting me right now? Pandora felt her impression of Sylvia darken. How dare she compare me to an idiot like Orka?!

She was already feeling humiliated enough due to her “otherworldly” cousin’s tactless behavior, so hearing such baseless assertions had just about driven her up the wall. Still, it was close to impossible for her to actually feel anger toward Sylvia. Especially when the lovely, young woman was smiling at her with such sincerity. On top of that, she couldn’t be certain that Sylvia had actually meant anything by what she had said.

“Sylvia.”

Cassis called to his sister in a quiet voice. Smiling blithely, she turned to face her brother.

“Hm? Don’t you think so too, Cassis?”

Pandora was only further mortified by the fact that Cassis didn’t even pretend to disagree.

“While I agree with you, I think you’ve said enough for now. We wouldn’t want to offend our guest when she’s sitting right here.” Cassis spoke carefully as if he were giving his little sister a lesson on proper etiquette. After all, it was the younger Pedelian who was playing host for the first time while their parents were away.

“Oh, dear! Is that how it sounded? But I meant it in a good way. Even though they’re only cousins, the fact that they are so similar is rather remarkable. But if I offended you in any way, please accept my sincere apologies.”

“N-No... It’s quite all right.”

Although she was far from happy about the offensive comparison, Pandora had no choice but to accept Sylvia’s apology since the young Pedelian had been cordial throughout the exchange. Apart from that, not accepting it would have only served to make her seem petty in the end. Frankly, she would have felt uncivilized if she had made a scene in protest of the almost saintly siblings’ remarks. Even so, her mood did not improve for the remainder of the meal.

Finally turning her gaze away from Cassis, Pandora resumed picking at her food. The banquet seemed as if it would go on forever. What’s taking Orka so long anyway?

Sylvia snorted in secret as she watched Pandora fumble with her utensils.

* * *

Upon leaving the dining room, Orka walked down the hall while clutching at his stomach. When he was finally confronted by one of the Pedelian caretakers, he explained his digestive troubles with urgent ferocity. Then after thanking the caretaker profusely, he continued on his way.

In between his performances of discomfort, his silver-gray eyes relentlessly scanned his surroundings. He knew, of course, that he was being followed since Cassis hadn’t been fooled for a moment by his theatrics. But the White Demon Tamer was a man skilled at moving about in the wild undetected—even in the middle of demon monster habitats. That was why he had no trouble losing a few guards while searching for signs of the poison butterflies’ host.

“I’m picking up on something... suspicious in that direction,” Orka muttered to himself while eying the tall building next to the main castle.

He moved through the shadows toward the annex building as there was a peculiar air emanating from it. Having tracked countless demons throughout his life, Orka’s animalistic instincts were incredibly keen. So keen, in fact, that he had recognized within a few moments of meeting Sylvia that evening for the first time that she was not the poison butterflies’ master. More importantly, the very pairing of the two was a fundamental contradiction since the pure spirit of Pedelians could not coexist with the toxic winged beasts. But above all, Sylvia had not seemed the least bit interested in caring for such creatures.

At first, he had wondered if she was merely putting on an act, but as the dinner progressed, he grew certain that she really couldn’t care less about demon monsters of any kind.

“Over there! After him!”

Blast it all! Upon hearing the guards, Orka began to run as fast as his legs would allow toward the annex building.

* * *

“So that is the White Demon Tamer.”

I laughed as I watched the images one of my butterflies provided me. It had been spying for me since the start of the banquet-like supper. I had already known from reading the novel that the White Demon Tamer was indeed a very beautiful person. In fact, he was even more glamorous than I had imagined after reading about him.

However, it was his quirkiness that really took me by surprise. Honestly... Comparing himself to a flower? To talk about his own beauty as if it were an objective truth—and to the novel’s heroine, no less—seemed pretty inane even for someone as wild as Orka. I almost laughed even harder when I saw Sylvia’s face at a loss for words due to his absurd antics.

His cousin Pandora was also a rather interesting individual. She had the trademark sky-blue hair as all the other Fipellions, but unlike Orka, her eyes were a deep black. She was without question beautiful in a sexy, almost carnal way. Just like the Roxana in the original Abysmal Flower story, she shows up as a supporting character later in the novel to vie against Sylvia for the attention of one of the male leads.

From what I recalled, her character deemed Sylvia her enemy due to the young Pedelian having lured her long-time love interest, Luzark Castro, away. Not only that, but since she is the White Heir’s older cousin, she becomes a sort of bully-in-law once Sylvia’s character turns her attention to him. Not that Sylvia actually marries Orka to make her and Pandora actual in-laws, but the technicality hardly deters his cousin.

So when he eventually abducts the hapless Pedelian in the novel and locks her away in the Fipellion dungeon, it is his vicious older cousin who seizes the opportunity to torture Sylvia in secret. If my memory serves correctly, due to the demon-taming prowess the White clan is known for, and the fact that the novel is X-rated...

The chapters where Sylvia is in their custody were especially cruel and evil. For example, I remember one scene where they used a demon’s antenna to molest her. And another where they tortured her after injecting her with demon pheromone. The entire arc went on like that... Both Orka and Pandora partook in committing those cruel acts, but somehow only Pandora ended up paying for her misdeeds since everything Orka did was excused as an act done in the name of his overwhelming love.

So as I watched the current storyline’s Orka making such comically absurd comments, I couldn’t believe such a beautiful, average-looking man could stoop to committing such atrocities against another human being. Sure, he wasn’t all that amiable either, but there was a clear difference between a cruel and eccentric nature.

Since I was worried that Orka might fall in love with Sylvia as his character had in the original plot, I had been on high alert ever since learning that the Fipellions had infiltrated the Blue compound. However, I was both glad and relieved to see him show less and less interest in her as the night progressed. In fact, his expression made it abundantly apparent that he was painfully disappointed by her. Of course, I knew precisely why that was. I had also sent my butterflies to spy on him and his cousin while they were being held in dungeons, so by then, I could practically read what was going through his mind.

At some point, he had somehow come across my butterflies and since then had tracked them all the way to the Pedelian fortress. During the journey from the Agrece compound, I had sent them out on two separate occasions to feed in nearby demon habitats, so my best guess is that he must have spotted them while on one of his expeditions. He seemed to have suspected Sylvia of being their master at first. But since she isn’t, that appeared to be the cause of his overt disappointment while trying to get through the rest of the meal.

The novel had made a point of highlighting just how obsessive the lovestruck Orka could be, and as one of the central figures in the story, he was of course going to be attractive. Even so, a person who would abduct and molest another could not be seen as normal in any sense of the word. That was why I felt relieved to see his interest rapidly wane toward Sylvia.

Instead... another matter entirely was still bothering me.

And its name was Pandora.