Chapter 25

Chapter 25 – Deployment (1)

“Are you finished preparing to head south?” Erin asked.

Gabriel, facing her, looked annoyingly natural as ever. Despite wearing nothing more than his usual white poet shirt and black trousers, he somehow appeared dressed up, as if the clothes themselves were new. Or perhaps it was simply the way he wore them.

Erin studied his attire in silence. There probably would not be a proper place to confine Gabriel in the South.

If he walks around dressed like that, people will talk. After a brief consideration, she decided it would be better to put him in the Holy Knights’ uniform after all.

“…I’ll give you a uniform. Change into that.”

At her words, Gabriel’s eyes widened slightly. He glanced down at his clothes, then tilted his head.

“Doesn’t it feel blasphemous for a demon god to wear the uniform of the Holy Knights?” he asked lightly.

“There may not be anywhere in the South to deTen you. If you walk around alone dressed like that, people will find it strange.”

“Like that?” Gabriel protested, sounding wronged. “These are just ordinary clothes men wear.”

He objected as if he had been unfairly accused. Yet to anyone with eyes, Gabriel’s current outfit was perfectly designed to invite unnecessary suspicion.

The loose, flowing shirt obscured his figure just enough, yet his broad shoulders were unmistakable, and through the gaps between the ties at his chest, his collarbones and the upper line of his chest were subtly exposed. As if that were not enough, his trousers were cut in a high waist that accentuated his proportions all the more.

Erin frowned deeply as she looked at him. Perhaps it was because she had spent her entire life favoring modest clothing that revealed nothing, but she truly could not understand why Gabriel seemed so displeased.

“Why wear clothes that show off your body?” she asked flatly.

“Do you dislike outfits like this?” Gabriel replied.

He studied her for a moment, then let out a soft sigh.

“I was trying, in my own way, to look good for you.”

He seemed to believe that saying something made it meaningful by default.

Erin was so dumbfounded she could not even respond. Words felt pointless. Action might be quicker.

She reached out and hooked her fingers around the knot of the ties at his chest, tugging sharply. The knot came undone with ease. Gabriel stared at her, genuinely startled.

Erin looked down at his solid, well-defined chest without a flicker of expression, then lifted her gaze back to his face as if she truly did not understand.

“I’ve seen bodies trained through physical exertion plenty of times already,” she said calmly.

With a light flick of her fingers, she summoned a Holy Knight’s uniform out of thin air and tossed it to him.

“I don’t have time to play games with you. Change.”

Gabriel caught the uniform but continued to stare at her, as if something displeased him. Then, pointedly, he began undressing right in front of her, changing clothes as though determined to make a show of it. Perhaps he wanted to be petty for once. It did not matter.

Erin did not react in the slightest. She even crossed her arms, watching him with the clear intent of making sure he finished quickly. As Gabriel fastened the buttons of the uniform, he flashed her a playful smile.

“If you enjoy the blasphemy of dressing a demon god in a Holy Knight’s uniform this much, wouldn’t it be just as well to call me your lover?”

Of all the things she had heard him say, that was by far the most unhinged.

Erin failed to mask her expression. For a moment, she even regretted telling him to change.

“…I don’t know what kind of deranged nonsense is rattling around in your head,” she said, rubbing her forehead as she sighed.

She lowered her hand and looked at him with utterly emotionless eyes.

“Do you really think I would say something like that, even as a joke?”

As he met her unfocused crimson gaze, Gabriel sighed, as if resigned.

“…My dear, wouldn’t it be stranger if you did humor my jokes?”

He finished buttoning the uniform and looked at her. As always, he wore that infuriatingly relaxed smile, one that scraped at her nerves. Yet there was something different this time. His eyes looked faintly, inexplicably disappointed.

That, however, had nothing to do with Erin.

“You know exactly how things are, yet you keep wanting more,” she said coldly. “Figure out the rest on your own and come out.”

She turned on her heel, intending to leave immediately. Before she could, Gabriel wrapped his arms around her from behind.

Having indulged him for too long, Erin felt him beginning to overstep. She drew in a slow breath, her patience wearing dangerously thin.

They needed to finish preparations and depart for the South as soon as possible. Yet this wretched bastard kept getting in the way, bringing her to the brink of explosion.

“…Our spoken contract never included a clause forbidding us from killing each other,” Gabriel murmured.

Then, as if it were a continuation of the same thought, he added quietly, “There is a fire demon god in the South. No, I am cerTen he is there.”

Was that really something he needed to say while holding her like this? Erin twisted her body, trying to break free, but the more she struggled, the more tightly Gabriel’s arms closed around her.

“If he approaches you and says anything,” Gabriel continued, his voice low, “you must not believe him.”

“Why?” Erin asked with a scoff. “Is he going to say something tempting?”

She let out a short laugh as she slowly turned within his grasp. He still did not release her, leaving her trapped in his arms. When she looked up at his face, however, she saw it.

He was anxious.

Why? What reason could he have to feel this way?

Seeing him like this isn’t so bad, she thought.

A crooked smile tugged at her lips. She reached up and pressed her fingers firmly against the crease between his brows, smoothing it.

“Is he going to offer to kill you for me?”

“All you have to say is that you won’t believe him,” Gabriel replied.

“I don’t know what gives you the confidence to keep making demands of me,” Erin said coolly.

She lifted his chin with her fingers, her gaze lingering briefly on his throat as he swallowed, before meeting his eyes again.

“I don’t trust anyone. Including you.”

Gabriel stared at her blankly for a moment, then gave a small, breathy laugh.

“…Yes. Just like that. You don’t need to trust anyone at all.”

His hand slid naturally to her waist, pulling her closer. Erin attempted once more to escape his hold. At that moment, he buried his face against the nape of her neck.

His breath was hot and languid against her collarbone.

Disgust rippled through her. Erin twisted her face in irritation, killing intent boiling up inside her. Still, they had to leave for the South quickly.

It was obvious he wanted to say something, yet his hesitation irritated her even more. She could never tell what he was thinking. If she had even a sliver of leisure, she would have cut his throat already.

She growled the word out.

“Let go.”

This time, Gabriel released her without resistance.

Erin brushed off her uniform as if it had been soiled, then turned and walked out without looking back. Gabriel would manipulate the other members’ memories and merge with them on his own. That was not something she worried about.

The air outside felt even more damp than it had in the underground prison, and she disliked it.

When she looked up, the sky was heavy with clouds, dark enough that it seemed rain could pour down at any moment.

“Commander.”

Ten approached her, as if he had been waiting all along.

“His Majesty has summoned you.”

What pointless thing was he planning now?

Erin frowned, then sighed. Truly, none of them ever left her alone.

“What is he trying to provoke this time?” she muttered as she turned toward the imperial palace.

Ten pretended not to hear her words, letting them pass through one ear and out the other.

***

“I thought I might grant you a blessing before you depart for the South.”

As expected. He had summoned her solely to get under her skin.

Erin knelt on one knee, her gaze fixed on the floor. If she spoke too quickly, sarcasm would spill out, so she counted to three in her head before answering.

“It is an honor, Your Majesty.”

“I trust you will thoroughly suppress the unpleasant incident that occurred in the South, a land where monsters do not even appear,” Perios said.

At his words, Erin bowed her head even lower. She feared that if she looked up, the mockery on her face might betray her.

Normally, the pope and the emperor were little short of sworn enemies. They were constantly busy keeping each other in check, and yet when it came to tormenting a single person, their coordination was impeccable.

This only makes me want revenge even more, she thought.

Calmly, Erin began to arrange her plans.

I’ll help Duke Chedre build his achievements, then send him back to the capital.

The imperial family had already developed small cracks due to the strange phenomena Gabriel caused. They were trying to use Erin to patch things up somehow, but once the events in the South came to light, public sentiment would only worsen.

The more that happened, the more the people’s hearts would turn toward someone with a disposition opposite to Perios’s. Someone they could rely on.

If it became known that Duke Chedre was the one who directly resolved this crisis, that public sentiment would tilt even further in his favor.

It’s faster for a crack to widen into a fracture than for it to be neatly filled.

Erin rose slowly and offered Perios a formal bow.

When she lifted her head and finally looked at his face, she understood at last why seeing him always made her feel particularly foul.

That realization settled quietly in her chest.