Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 65

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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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Chapter 65
When I showed no reaction whatsoever, Deyan, who’d been gauging my mood cautiously, slipped over to the table.
He selected several stems from the bunch of flowers, arranged them neatly in the vase on the table, and carefully gathered up the slightly wilted ones.
As I watched Deyan’s scrupulous movements, I found myself picking a quarrel with him for no good reason.
“Seems like you’re getting on well these days?”
I even crossed my legs and propped my chin on my hand for emphasis, adopting a deliberately affected posture.
Deyan turned to look at me, blinked several times, then nodded.
“Yes. Everyone in the castle has been very kind to me.”
Oh, how dull.
He’d completely missed my point.
“I wasn’t asking after your welfare.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was being sarcastic—saying you look good.”
Deyan’s hazel eyes rolled to the side, then back again.
“But why would that be sarcasm?”
It was painfully obvious he genuinely thought “looking good” was a compliment, and the realization made me want to tease him further.
The man was genuinely innocent.
‘No, that’s not right.’
I quickly pushed away the thought that had flashed through my mind.
‘Innocent? That man?’
He’d surely killed hundreds on the battlefield.
When he lost control, he tore people apart with his bare hands.
‘No matter how well you train a bear, it’s still a bear.’
His fundamental nature doesn’t change.
It won’t change.
“May I come closer?”
“No. You cannot.”
“Then what about this……?”
“Leave it there.”
……
When I firmly blocked his approach, his shoulders sagged subtly.
Rejected but unwilling to let go, tears began welling up, and his eyes kept stealing glances at the vase on the edge of my desk.
‘Where does he get off acting cute?’
I fixed Deyan with a sharp stare and spoke coldly.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
“I understand. I apologize for the intrusion.”
The dejected man set down a few fresh flowers on the table and withdrew.
Only after I saw the door close did I pick up my pen again.
But I couldn’t return to my work.
I found myself distracted by the flowers in the vase whose petals were beginning to fade, and the fresh ones Deyan had left behind.
“Sigh. Flowers are just decoration, nothing more and nothing less.”
This clutter was tiresome—I’d have to tell someone to clear the flowers from my desk once these withered.
I rose from my seat and swapped the flowers Deyan had left with the ones already in the vase.
With my mind somewhat eased, I returned to my desk and tried to focus on my work again, when not long after, someone knocked at the Office door.
“Yes. Come in.”
“Ducal Princess.”
“What are you doing back here?”
“Please, don’t misunderstand. The Kitchen asked me to bring this to you.”
Deyan hurried to explain.
‘What?’
Something felt off.
Why did it seem like Deyan was handling every errand that came my way?
“Just leave it there.”
I gestured halfheartedly at the table with my eyes.
Deyan set down the tea and pastries on the table, then tucked the wilted flowers I’d removed under his arm.
‘Anyone seeing this would think he’s my personal attendant.’
I asked without looking at him as I refilled my pen with ink.
“Are you practicing to become an errand boy at my castle, in case you have nowhere else to go later?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Are you finished with your errands now?”
“Yes. Presumably.”
“Then leave.”
……
“Well? What are you doing?”
Even after hearing my dismissal, Deyan lingered awkwardly near the table.
Only now did I notice he’d set down two teacups.
There was also more pastry than I usually ate.
‘What is this really about?’
Something was definitely strange, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.
As I turned this uncomfortable puzzle over in my mind, Deyan spoke hesitantly.
“The steward said he was concerned that you’ve been increasing your workload lately, and asked that I help ensure you get sufficient rest.”
“Who did?”
“The steward.”
“Why would he ask you of all people?”
The words slipped out in plain speech.
It was something I’d only meant to think, but I’d let it escape before I could stop myself.
“That’s what I wondered too.”
Deyan shrugged his broad shoulders, looking equally baffled.
Again!
‘This act of playing innocent—’
honestly, it doesn’t suit him at all.
I watched Deyan’s awkward stance with wariness.
Then, meeting my gaze directly, he quietly gestured toward the teapot.
“The tea is getting cold.”
“Sigh.”
Why was he being so thick about this?
If I kept rejecting his kindness, my own image would only suffer.
In the end, I let out an audible sigh and rose from my chair.
“Sit down.”
I said it flatly as I took a seat across from Deyan.
Since Deyan was technically the guest, I was the one who poured the tea.
“Thank you.”
I watched as Deyan added milk and dissolved sugar into his cup, while I brought my own unsweetened tea to my lips.
A subtle fragrance gave way to a pleasantly bitter taste that coated my tongue.
Deyan was still in the process of dissolving his sugar.
‘He put in so much, it’ll never dissolve.’
“You seem to like sweet things.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen someone dump that much sugar into a cup of tea.”
“Ah.”
The sugar in Deyan’s cup finally dissolved completely.
He nodded and hooked the handle of the cup loosely with his thick fingers.
“I’m not sure if I like it or dislike it. But sweetness helps restore strength quickly, so I eat it often for that reason.”
“I see.”
Usually, people call that liking something.
This fool couldn’t even distinguish between what he liked and what he didn’t.
‘I absolutely won’t tell him, not until he realizes it himself.’
I drank the rest of my tea while harboring petty thoughts.
As I sat quietly sipping, I suddenly found myself wondering about Sariel’s whereabouts.
The angel who had vanished without warning had not shown himself since.
The Angel Statue that had summoned him had also disappeared without a trace at some point.
Where could he have gone?
With Beval still here, the angel couldn’t have vanished entirely.
Would he return along with the Demon if it came back?
‘When exactly did he disappear?’
As I traced back when Sariel had gone missing, I realized it was after the day he’d had that conversation with Deyan.
[A pitiful thing.]
I recalled what Sariel had suddenly said to me.
That I was anxious, that I was afraid.
What intention lay behind that certainty spoken through icy blue eyes that seemed as if they would pierce through my essence and lay it bare without wavering?
He pitied Deyan and he pitied me, but he offers no aid.
Sariel seemed to maintain a thoroughly observational stance.
“You mentioned before that when Sariel touched that cat, it seemed to regain some vitality, didn’t you?”
“Yes. It had no strength originally. They even said it would surely die.”
But on a whim, he involved himself in the life of a mere creature.
What did that mean?
‘Perhaps he can’t intervene—he just won’t?’
I wondered if he had made me mistake the Law and his Mission—preventing humans from taking foolish paths—as meaning his duty was merely to observe.
If I had to guess a reason, perhaps it was to prevent foolish humans from acting on their greed.
‘Yet he still indulges his whims regardless.’
In that respect, he seemed barely different from the Demon, who simply acts according to his mood.
“I can’t understand why he specifically sought you out, went to the trouble of speaking to you, and then disappeared immediately after.”
There must be some reason behind it.
“Do you have any guesses?”
“I think perhaps he was expecting some particular answer from me.”
Since he’d even told me to ask if there was anything I wanted to know, Deyan’s inference had some merit.
But Sariel had merely strung together vague, cryptic words and then vanished without a trace.
In the conversation Deyan had recounted word-for-word, I found no point where Sariel seemed to have gained anything.
‘Did he stay behind to deal with Beval?’
As I was thinking hard, Deyan’s expression grew somber.
“What troubled me most was when he said that if I bear the weight of the life I snuffed out, I could find redemption. But I don’t understand what that means.”
“Maybe he meant you shouldn’t forget your guilt?”
“It didn’t seem like he was speaking of guilt alone.”
Deyan shook his head firmly.
He seemed to sense something, but couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.
“Actually, every time I Lose Rationality, I hear a strange voice.”
“What does it say?”
“Usually it tells me to kill, to take the heart and blood and give them to it. Or…….”
“……?”
“It demands my Soul.”
“A Soul.”
A Soul. And a heart and blood.
“You said the sacrifice used to summon the Demon was your uncle’s heart, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Was there something in Deyan’s heart?
‘I can’t exactly cut it open to look.’
I glanced briefly at Deyan’s left chest, which looked remarkably serious now.

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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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