Chapter 48

Chapter 48 : Nonaggression Pact (5)

The pain in my left eye would not disappear.

I admit it.

That had been a rampage unchecked by reason.

It was only this morning that my sealed Frame was restored.

While I was unconscious after collapsing, the crow-tit had returned, and the familiar red earring had been placed in my empty ear.

Red energy once again surged in my vision, and the turmoil boiling inside me settled.

When I opened my eyes, Pan said,

“Are you insane?”

Naturally, I could not attend the negotiations.

The blue hair I had gone to such trouble dyeing had almost faded and turned blue-black, and because I had overslept, I was blocked from entering altogether.

When I wondered why Pan was here, he said he was nursing me.

In truth, I thought he was using that as an excuse to slack off.

The fortunate points were that Pan had not killed the Underfolk, that the trash bastard was alive and confined, and that the negotiations were turning in our favor to some extent.

For a delegation, they had caused far too many incidents, so I thought there was enough to threaten them with. The things they had done in the forest before this were also far too clear.

I sat with my chin propped on a long outdoor table and tilted my head at an angle.

“This feels unpleasant.”

We had stopped the biggest incident for now, but what I had done to that Underfolk sat uncomfortably with me.

I had stopped Pan from making a mess, but in the end, I had been the one to make a mess instead.

If worst came to worst, it would be fine to reveal that I was Underfolk, but the bigger problem was that when it came down to it, the quest depended not on my will, but on another person’s choice.

This Time Quest had such a brutal failure penalty that, although I pretended to be calm, I could not hide my anxiety.

For my identity to be exposed to Karon in my current state was almost the same as asking him to kill me.

My current grade position was, what, a pathetic Underfolk clinging to the Surface Folk and currying favor?

As I sat there glumly, lamenting my miserable situation, a simple meal was placed on the table.

It was Pan.

He brought my portion too, then sat down across from me and handled his fork with practiced ease.

“Did you skip breakfast? Why bring food again……?”

“You did. You skipped it too.”

“I did not skip it. I was passed out.”

“That is the same thing. There are parts of the negotiations getting overheated, so let us just eat.”

Pan cut a thick piece of meat and put it into his mouth, looking pleased as he said this taste was why he came to the sky.

I shook my head, picked up a piece of bread, tore off an appropriate amount, and put it into my mouth.

“Putting me aside, why are you not going?”

It was Pan who had stopped me from going belatedly by shoving a medical opinion for absolute rest in my face.

I could let that go because it could not be helped, but Pan knew the situation in the Black Forest better than anyone, and the plan had been to play an important card during these negotiations.

“Because I needed calm reflection.”

“What strange nonsense is that?”

“I received a bit of a shock. The things I thought I knew were not actually the truth.”

“Did something else happen after yesterday?”

“No?”

I thought back on yesterday and considered whether there had been anything to be shocked over.

There was nothing much.

“Ah, it is about time he arrived.”

Pan, having finished a satisfying meal, had been idly killing time when he tossed out those words.

No sooner had he finished than Pering, full of displeasure, approached the outdoor table where we were sitting.

“What are you two doing here? My lord, surely you did not drag a sick person out here by force and make him sit in the cold air while you idled?”

“Are you inspecting me?”

“It is your usual conduct. It is well within the range that can be inferred, is it not?”

Pan grumbled that his aide was tormenting him more and more these days, and that Pering kept nagging him to fix what was merely his inborn personality.

“If you keep doing that, I will not tell you the contents of the negotiations.”

“Has Karon shown his true colors?”

“……It seems there is another spy besides me?”

“I thought it was about time. I was testing you with the question.”

Pan tapped the table a few times to summon a server, had it cleared, and rose from his seat.

I also got up and followed Pan.

“What did Karon say?”

“He asked Lady Reda to go with him.”

“Cough, khh. What?”

“He said that if she went to the Underworld with him, would their mutual trust not grow as well?”

The result of the negotiations Pering relayed was shocking enough to leave me speechless, but Pan was worse.

Pan stopped walking as though the world had collapsed, asked Pering the same question again and again, and received the same answer several times.

I watched that sight quietly before realizing that something essential was missing.

“What reason did Karon give for suddenly doing that?”

“He was looking for an Underfolk. To be precise, for Riwin, the person responsible for the mess yesterday.”

This time, I had to clear my throat. Ahem.

---

“I am telling you, it is right for me to step forward.”

“Nothing will change if you, an Underfolk, step forward in front of Karon.”

“Still, yesterday’s incident needs an explanation. No, it is not even an explanation. I am saying those bastards did it deliberately.”

“How do you plan to handle it if another rampage like that happens?”

Rampage.

What happened yesterday had indeed been a rampage.

I had been overcome by an uncontrollable anger and a single desire to get rid of the trash in front of me.

And I did not know whether the cause of that had been the Underfolk’s Frame, the influence of Ariti’s Frame, or the fact that my own Frame had been sealed.

That was exactly why I argued that we had to examine it properly so something like this would not happen again.

“Karon will not recognize my energy right now anyway.”

The Frame that had been sealed had only loosened enough to breathe.

When it came to sensing the fundamental energy of whether I was Underfolk or not, I was also practically closer to a mixed-blood existence.

The issue of obedience to a lord engraved in the blood, or whatever it was, was even less of a problem.

There was a reason I kept being mistaken for Sek.

“I am saying that because he cannot recognize you, he will think you are Sek.”

“If I insist I am not, he cannot do much more in an official setting.”

“What?”

“They have already laid hands on the Surface Folk several times.”

I removed the earring that had become almost symbolic and turned to Pan.

“If they lay hands on a ‘Surface Folk’ again here? That will be the card that lets us pull the board to our side.”

Leaving Pan, whose face had twisted deeply, I also entrusted the crow-tit in my pocket to Pering.

Pan prepared the dye, and my hair was dyed again. As for my eyes…….

I had to look as little like my usual self as possible, so I neatly arranged my hair and tied it back. I lowered my hair to hide my red eye, and instead clearly exposed my Golden Eye.

So they would judge that my original color was gold.

In the meantime, Pan, who had been restless, finally concluded that he would go to the negotiation room with me and nodded.

I shrugged, patted Pan on the shoulder, and said,

“Do not worry. Etel helped me.”

“Etel did? When? With what?”

---

The negotiations were being held not in the ruler’s castle, but in a separate space.

There was concern that the ruler’s own space might be threatened, and the location of the Underfolk delegation’s lodging on the outskirts also had an influence.

So it was only natural that these negotiations were being held in one of the places where the Surface Folk rulers’ provisional meeting had been held before: the greenhouse.

The reason Pering had been able to eavesdrop from outside, trot back, and tell us what he heard was also because the place was open.

I opened the door of the transparent glass greenhouse and entered. The heated atmosphere of the discussion made me want to retreat, but Pan was blocking the path behind me and would not move aside.

“Hello. Nice to meet you?”

At my greeting, both sides, who had been engaged in heated debate, turned their heads.

Among them, I had to work hard to receive Karon’s gaze as calmly as possible.

Pretending to be composed, pretending nothing was wrong, pretending I was fine, pretending to be shameless.

‘I am Surface Folk.’

Even after repeating that self-hypnosis inwardly, I imitated Pan’s attitude, the one I had seen and picked up from the closest range.

“I heard you were talking about me.”

At my words, Ariti looked flustered, Etel remained calm, and Karon wore a sinister smile.

“The person concerned has arrived.”

Karon folded his arms and glared at me. His gaze, a whole paradise of curiosity packed full of desire, was a little burdensome.

While Ariti sent a silent look toward Pan, who had followed in behind me, I took a place near Etel.

Without withdrawing his ominous gaze, Karon asked,

“I was shocked to hear that yesterday, an Underfolk aide’s Frame was crushed into a terrible state. I heard you were involved in that matter, so an explanation is required.”

Karon’s tone was courteous, as though he had put on a shell, and before I could even process the dissonance of that smooth manner of speaking, my brow furrowed.

It was because I knew well from the Original Work the cruelty Karon showed in moments no one knew about, when only his closest confidants remained by his side.

I tried to maintain as much composure as possible and decided to be brazen.

“Ahem. Anyone would have made the same choice that day. I merely protected someone who was dying.”

“Is it not excessive to describe them as dying?”

The aide standing beside Karon suddenly cut in and corrected me.

There was a difference between saying “ah” and saying “uh.”

I glanced at Pan, who was being scolded by Ariti, and exaggeratedly twisted my expression as though I had heard something unpleasant.

“That was attempted murder. The wing was half detached and was on the verge of being pulled out from the base, and he also shocked everyone around him by mixing in words too difficult to repeat…… Surely you, the one asking the question, heard that as well.”

“If we are looking at it that way, I heard our aide’s Frame was almost torn out too. Are you, the person responsible for that, also guilty of attempted murder?”

“I do not recall tearing out that person’s Frame…….”

I trailed off and turned to Etel. Etel nodded, confirming that my memory was correct.

“……I am told it is still firmly attached.”

The aide who had been continuing the questions on Karon’s behalf closed their mouth.

It seemed they had grown sick of my shameless attitude, which mimicked Pan, but let us move on.

At that moment, Karon uncrossed his arms and approached me across the negotiation table. I tucked my chin in from tension for no reason and shifted my gaze slightly aside to hide its wavering.

“What a rare sight. An Underfolk siding with the Surface Folk.”

I flinched, but I had a final measure.

I thought I acted rather well.

“Is that dye?”

I knew all those words were only guesses.

He must have received reports from the spies he had planted in every corner, and he would have more than enough information that an Underfolk had mixed in among them.

Well, what of it?

All I had to do was insist that it was not me.

“Oh dear. Being away from home must have made you miss your own kind?”

The corner of Karon’s eye began to tremble.

I had been on the receiving end of this way of speaking many times, so I knew. It made you angry, but if you answered it, you became just as filthy. Karon clenched his jaw and forced himself to endure.

“Show me your Frame. Prove your affiliation.”

I had been waiting for that question.

Was it not moving?

All the time I had spent being tortured and feeling my life threatened because I could not answer that question flashed past.

This was not acting.

I wiped at the corner of my eye, where no tears had come out, and pulled up the corner of my mouth.

“Ah, my. What an easy method of proof.”

I smiled brightly and unlocked my Frame.

In an instant, red wings surged up behind my back.

Their form was the same as those of a member of the sky, though the color could not resemble theirs too.

Even so, a Frame was a Frame, and wings were wings, and the mark of a member of the sky had been displayed sufficiently.

Confirming Pan’s face in the distance, dyed with shock, I turned to Etel beside me.

“He is indeed a member of the sky.”

Etel calmly proved my Frame.