Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 18

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 18
Beval trembled as the wound narrowly missed his sensitive areas.
“Ugh.”
“Do demons feel pain too?”
“The male forms do.”
“I see.”
This was quite intriguing.
Even for a being so supremely powerful and otherworldly, his physical anatomy wasn’t all that different from a human’s.
‘Does this mean he’s ultimately a creation of God after all?’
When I glanced down at his crotch, Beval subtly shifted his body away.
“Where are you looking?”
“Nowhere.”
I played completely innocent, offering nothing but a bright smile.
“Sly girl.”
“My Lady.”
In the meantime, Giselle had pinned Glay Holdin down, completely subduing him.
His noisy mouth was stuffed and firmly gagged with a cloth.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
“He is secured. What shall we do with him now?”
“Mmmph!”
Giselle asked nonchalantly, bringing the tip of her concealed weapon right up against Holdin’s ear canal.
Sensing the chilling sensation, Holdin ceased his struggling immediately.
“Uwa, ah-ooh-ah-ah.”
“……It sounds like he’s saying, ‘I was wrong.'”
“Ah, mmm-eek.”
“I’ll spill everything.”
“It’s already too late.”
I lightly rested the toe of my shoe on his fingernails as he lay face down on the floor.
I hadn’t put any real weight behind it yet.
The psychological terror mattered far more than the actual pain.
“The day I picked you guys up, I immediately dispatched people to the forest. I wanted to see who would come looking for you, and from which direction.”
“…….”
“Shall we place a simple wager?”
I proposed in a sing-song voice, watching Holdin’s brow twitch.
“We’ll see who finds out first who tried to kill Sir Nemanic. If I discover it first, I win. If you speak first, you win.”
“Mmph, mm-ugh, mmm-ahhhh!”
“If you win, I’ll let you personally check on Sir Nemanic’s condition. How about it?”
I lifted my foot off his hand.
At the same time, Giselle pulled back the weapon she had been holding to Holdin’s ear.
Recognizing the meaning behind the gesture, Holdin began to writhe and thrash about.
He was desperate to break free from Giselle’s grip so he could open his mouth.
‘You should have just cooperated from the start.’
I watched with a smile as Holdin squirmed like a stepped-on earthworm.
He shook his head frantically like a dog with wet fur, drooling as he desperately tried to spit out the cloth stuffed in his mouth.
‘Yes. Go ahead and realize it.’
You monsters might have been the powerful ones until now, but not here. Not in my country.
Perhaps losing his strength, Holdin’s wild thrashing gradually subsided.
He lifted his head and looked up at my relaxed figure with an incredibly aggrieved expression.
“This looks fun.”
It happened right then.
Beval suddenly approached, squatted down in front of Holdin, and lightly tapped the cloth in his mouth.
“Want some help, Contractor?”
“Mmm-mmm!”
Holdin nodded vigorously before belatedly glancing at me to gauge my reaction.
“Outside interference is just part of your luck, Sir Holdin. Especially when it’s help from the demon you contracted with.”
I gave him a brief nod of approval.
Since I granted permission for him to receive all the help he wanted, Holdin looked up at Beval imploringly.
“Should I really help you? Truly?”
Beval smirked as if teasing him, thoroughly enjoying the situation as he stared into those pitiful eyes.
“Mwaaaaagh!”
But right when Beval finally yanked the cloth from Holdin’s mouth.
Someone threw the door open and walked in without even knocking.
“My Lady.”
“Hey, you crazy woman!”
It was a mercenary I employed in secret.
They were the only ones permitted to approach me without prior permission, and Giselle was their leader.
Before I could even blink, the mercenary prostrated himself before me and delivered a concise report.
“I have executed the order you gave.”
At the same exact moment, Holdin shouted.
“We were ambushed by Joaquin Perez!”
“He is the 3rd Prince’s right-hand man.”
“Hmm. It looks like that side was a bit faster.”
Beval laughed in amusement, pointing at the mercenary.
Then, tilting his head mischievously, he poked the crown of Holdin’s head with a long fingernail.
“Or was it? Was this side faster?”
‘He interfered on purpose.’
Beval had sensed the approaching presence and deliberately engineered a suspenseful situation.
Purely because he thought it would be entertaining.
I was more than willing to play along with the demon’s amusement.
“Indeed. It is quite difficult to judge.”
“Joaquin Perez set a trap and lured His Grace out! That is why the ambush……!”
When I gestured, Giselle gagged Holdin once again.
Without sparing Holdin a single glance, I instructed the mercenary, who was staring fixedly at the floor in front of me, to finish his report.
“There were three of them. They crossed the border disguised as a merchant’s escort. After confirming the staged scene and cleaning up, they immediately returned to Cordi.”
Cleaning up in this context meant they had murdered the people who accompanied them to maintain their cover.
Naturally, they would have disposed of the corpses cleanly so they wouldn’t be discovered.
“Did they disturb the scene?”
“They only verified it.”
“What about the casualties?”
“A total of nine. The merchants were all regular citizens of Cordi whose identities have been verified.”
“……That piece of trash.”
To cross a single border, he carelessly slaughtered innocent citizens.
And his own country’s people, at that.
‘He has absolutely no regard for human life.’
This was precisely why Joaquin Perez was so repulsive.
In my heart, I offered a brief prayer for the peaceful rest of those poor, faceless individuals.
“Keep watching. We will likely have more visitors.”
“Understood.”
Bowing deeply, the knight withdrew.
I quietly looked down at Holdin, who was pinned flat against the floor in sheer terror.
Tick, tick. The ticking of the clock callously stoked the tension.
“Shall we call it a draw?”
When I proposed this with a smile, the intense strain drained from Holdin’s eyes.
I told Giselle to release him and ordered her to wait in the corridor.
“Ah, that was fun!”
Stretching thoroughly, Beval tossed himself onto the bed behind us.
His interest in our conversation seemed to have entirely evaporated.
“Haha.”
Still slumped on the floor, Holdin rubbed his ear with his palm.
The lingering sensation of chilling bloodlust must have remained.
“You are a master at playing with people.”
“If you wish to criticize me as wicked, go right ahead. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
“No. It was merely an exclamation of awe.”
“If it’s a compliment, I’ll take it gladly. Let us sit again. The tea must be cold by now.”
I rang the bell to have fresh tea brought in.
His momentum thoroughly broken, Holdin subtly pushed his chair back to create some distance between us.
“What were you going to demand if you had won, My Lady?”
“Your fingernails.”
“……Pardon?”
“Your fingernails, Sir Holdin.”
I dissolved sugar into my tea, smiling casually.
“I intended to present them as a gift to Sir Nemanic.”
At my words, Holdin’s complexion turned deathly pale.
Seeing him look even more terrified than when I had deliberately threatened him earlier, I felt certain my hypothesis was correct.
‘I wondered why only his fingernails hadn’t regenerated.’
It must have been a trigger that stoked Deyan’s trauma.
Presumably, they were marks left from when his nails were ripped out during torture for the sake of the demon summoning.
It was something I had suspected from the moment I noticed how surprisingly few scars Deyan had while treating his wounds.
‘Only wounds sustained before contracting with a demon, and wounds inflicted by the power of an angel, leave permanent scars.’
Which meant one thing.
The culprit who stabbed Deyan in the abdomen had also utilized a holy artifact.
‘And that culprit is Joaquin Perez.’
If so, why were Deyan and Holdin executing such a dangerous mission across the border in the first place?
It was finally time to solve the mystery that had piqued my curiosity all this while.
“I figured that if I threatened him with your fingernails, that man would readily spill the entire truth.”
“You really stop at nothing.”
“You should have realized that much when I told you I would summon a demon.”
“Why do you insist on dirtying your own hands?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I tilted my head.
‘Why do it myself? Isn’t that obvious?’
Revenge is something resolved only by those who have already fallen into the mire.
When a life is already soiled, what does it matter if it gets a little dirtier?
“Even if it gets a bit messy, walking the path yourself is simply more efficient.”
If you get dirty, you can just wash it off.
Covering yourself in filth while pretending to be clean and noble won’t hide the stench anyway.
It was far better to run like a dog to the water’s edge and wash up quickly.
“Let’s skip the small talk and get to the point.”
When I gave him the look, Holdin let out a heavy sigh before finally speaking.
“For nearly a year, merchant ships dispatched by Adorif have been relentlessly plundered by pirates, causing His Majesty great distress.”
“Pirates?”
“Yes. According to the testimonies of the survivors, dozens of ships of unknown affiliation are systematically occupying the waters of the Valleon Strait.”
‘That can’t be.’
There was no way that was true.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————