Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 50

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 50
A tray held cookies neatly arranged beside a cup of warm milk.
And a small bouquet woven from grass stems.
Instead of picking them up, I crouched down in that spot.
When I gripped the cup in my palm, the milk still held its warmth.
It hadn’t been left long ago.
The bouquet too carried moisture, glistening with water.
Soaked by the soft drizzle falling now, it somehow looked oddly vibrant.
Who had done this was obvious. Why he’d left it was easy enough to guess.
‘Funny. Calling this comfort.’
I couldn’t believe that man had done something so pure—something a five-year-old might do—and a hollow laugh spilled out of me.
‘Having killed a hundred people, no less.’
Treated like a murderer outside these walls, feared as a terror on the battlefield.
And yet he does something so cute.
It didn’t suit Deyan at all. It looked like nothing but a cheap trick.
‘Still, I’m going to resent him for killing Lyle.’
I pouted and played with the small bouquet he’d left, then straightened my bent knees.
I brought the tray into the room and set it carefully on the table, then crossed the corridor again—this time, a large shadow caught the corner of my vision.
I stopped walking and, arms crossed, glared at the quivering edge of those broad shoulders.
‘Is that hiding?’
Seeing him tucked so clumsily between the pillars in the corridor, I couldn’t help but feel exasperated.
“Come out of there right now.”
When I spoke rather sternly, Deyan’s shoulders flinched.
“It’s all in plain sight.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to spy—”
“I don’t want excuses.”
Arms still crossed, I shifted my weight to one leg and began interrogating him with a tilted stance.
“What were you doing there? No—why are you even on this floor?”
Deyan’s rooms were clearly on the third floor. This was a floor used only by the direct members of the Grand Ducal House.
To come down to this private floor with its bedchambers and offices—what was his aim?
His intentions seemed suspicious.
“Why? Were you trying to uncover my secrets the way Joaquin Perez did?”
“No!”
Deyan jumped up with a startled cry.
“I was merely concerned about your wellbeing.”
“Why would you be concerned about my condition?”
“Your spirits have been low of late, and some of that responsibility lies with me.”
“I understand that much. I’ll look after myself, so don’t concern yourself. This is a private space—don’t come up here without permission again.”
“I apologize. I’ll return at once.”
Deyan bowed apologetically and turned toward the stairwell.
I watched his stubborn form with a skewed gaze, then caught him by the arm.
“What about the flowers?”
“I brought them hoping it might lift your spirits a little. You seemed quite fond of them the other day.”
“I threw them away.”
“I see.”
Deyan couldn’t hide his dismay, and his eyes darted nervously here and there.
What he said next was,
“If you dislike the flowers, you may dispose of them. I won’t bring any more next time.”
Just that.
‘He seemed smart a moment ago.’
When did he become foolish again?
Does his intelligence only spike in emergencies?
I wondered if this too was a side effect of his contract with the Demon, and glanced at his hand.
He couldn’t hide his anxiety—I could see his index finger nervously scraping at his thumbnail.
“Sigh.”
I uncrossed my arms, straightened my posture, and walked past him.
“Follow me.”
I let the words drift behind me, and Deyan followed at a distance.
‘Like a dog.’
An obedient one.
I was about to keep the thought to myself when I turned back to look at him.
“Listen.”
“Yes.”
“You’re being rather dog-like.”
“I’m sorry.”
Even though I’d spoken as if cursing him, Deyan simply apologized.
His meek response annoyed me, but at the same time it was somehow amusing, so I clarified what I meant.
“Not an insult—I mean literally, you’re acting like a dog.”
“I didn’t quite understand.”
“You listen well to commands.”
“Ah.”
He opened his mouth stupidly and let out a short exclamation.
I turned back quickly toward the office, then pointed to my brother’s door nearby.
“That’s my brother’s room.”
“Why would you show me the room of Prince Hubert?”
“So you might understand, at least a little, what kinds of cruelties have been committed by those standing in the position of strength.”
I spoke with no feeling in my voice.
Deyan’s gaze slowly followed the tip of my finger.
Naturally, that gaze ended at a firmly closed door.
The room of my brother, who barely breathes like a corpse.
“And right beside it was my mother’s room.”
Crushed beneath guilt he wrung from himself, my brother lost his words, lost his vitality, and even lost the courage to die. With his own hands, he locked himself away.
He barricaded himself in his room, cutting off all light and sound, as if determined to sever every sense a living person should feel. He even refused food.
A devoted butler, desperate to keep the fading life tethered to him, force-feeds him tasteless meals just to sustain a living corpse.
“Prince Hubert doesn’t appear in public because of his mutism.”
……
“Like someone waiting to die naturally, he refuses all activity, and his butler cares for him meticulously. He clings to life as little more than a walking corpse.”
Deyan listened silently to my words, saying nothing and doing nothing.
He didn’t even nod in tacit acknowledgment. I glanced at him once, then turned away again.
My destination was my father’s office.
The place where he remains, frozen in time long past.
“At last year’s Independence Day, my father made an appearance. Did you see it?”
“I did not witness it myself, but I have heard the account.”
“In truth, my father was not in his right mind even then. So he merely showed his face to the people from the balcony.”
It was to keep anyone from hearing what he said.
It was simply to show that the Grand Duke Hubert still lived.
I pressed my ear to my father’s trembling lips as if listening intently to his words, smiled brightly, and performed the role of a devoted daughter.
“You understand why, without my having to explain?”
“Yes.”
“My father occasionally wanders or speaks differently. Like today.”
Once it happened more frequently, but over time it grew rarer—now I saw him moving about only once or twice a month.
At first, I thought his mind had returned.
I thought I saw a glimmer of hope and seized it too hastily.
I didn’t know then that deep despair waited at the end of unfulfilled expectation.
If I had known, I wouldn’t have wounded myself twice over.
I regretted my own foolishness.
Now, swallowing the pointless regret as habit, I opened the office door.
The darkened room, as evening fell, was lit with a soft glow.
My father sat at his desk as always, and save for the chair being angled slightly differently, everything was just as it had been.
“Except for those rare moments, time in this room has always been frozen.”
Countless days and nights come and go, yet nothing changes.
Even the steady tick of the clock marches on, but my father’s time remains still.
“Idir.”
My father, who had been staring vaguely into empty space, turned his head and looked at me.
Though his name wasn’t being called, Deyan flinched and straightened his posture.
“My first greetings, Grand Duke Hubert. I am Deyan from Count Nemanic—”
“On the day when a hundred years of history fills this land, I shall pass this seat to you.”
Deyan’s mouth closed at words I had heard a thousand times over.
He seemed to realize only now that I did not exist in his field of vision.
His carefully prepared posture faltered.
“Though it is not yet a mighty nation, I promise to leave you a country peaceful and beautiful.”
“That is a promise my father made to me nine years ago. I was officially proclaimed his heir that day and received a tiara to prove it.”
“Idir. On the day when a hundred years of history fills this land.”
“And then my mother was murdered.”
“I shall pass this seat to you.”
I turned to face Deyan, frozen in place, and smiled softly.

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