Barbarian Quest

Chapter 102

"Let's head over to the bed, just the two of us. A drink might lighten the mood. This is a gift for you, the future king,” Damia softly said to Pahell. Pahell lightly caressed her cheek.

“I was always fond of you, sister, and that was why I always read the books I saw you read after you were finished with them. Among them was a book about fish. There was a detailed description of the venom of a pufferfish. I remember reading it with keenness because I found it so interesting.”

"Your words right now are mere delusions. I’m not surprised. You’ve probably gone through too much suffering recently. Poor Varca."

Damia pressed her lips to his. Pahell let her continue. Their saliva stretched between their lips. Wiping his mouth, Pahell muttered.

"There isn’t a single maid in the world who can endure Urich's torture, no matter how loyal they may be..."

Damia's composure broke.

Clunk.

"Hey, nice scene here. Mind if I join?" A massive barbarian entered, holding a bloodied maid in his left hand. Urich grabbed her by her hair and tossed her onto the table like a ragdoll.

"Urich..."

Damia barely managed to compose herself. The maid thrown by Urich was her chief maid. Her fingers were brutally severed with dripping blood in place of where her fingers should have been.

"As you said, sister, a king must discern who to trust and who not. I love you more than anyone, but my greatest trust lies with the friend who shared life and death with me," Pahell said, standing up as he pushed Damia away.

“You have become cruel, Varca. What wrong has she done for you to treat her so poorly?”

“I could say the same about Sir Phillion. The only sin he had was that his loyalty trumped his faith.”

Pahell stood in front of the chief maid. The maid glanced back and forth between Urich and Pahell with eyes full of terror.

“I-I...”

The maid stuttered. Damia blocked her mouth instantly.

“Send this poor girl to the doctor, Varca, right now...!”

Damia snapped at Pahell. For the first time, she was blatantly standing up to her brother.

“Urich! What did the maid say?” Pahell asked Urich, ignoring Damia’s words.

“She was actually pretty resilient. Taking her fingers was almost not enough to get her talking...”

Urich picked up the maid again by her hair, eliciting a groan from her as she opened her eyes wide.

“Ugh.”

Damia turned away, covering her mouth. Even Pahell groaned and looked on in disgust at the maid's condition.

"Once I gouged out an eye, she started talking easily," Urich said, lifting the maid's eyelid to reveal an empty socket. Bloody tears flowed from where her eyeball should have been.

"Y-you barbarian!" Damia cried out. Urich nonchalantly shrugged as he casually picked his ears.

"Did you just realize I'm a barbarian, princess?" Urich said, tapping the maid's cheek. She trembled as if she had seen something unimaginable.

‘He always gets the job done.’

Pahell fought back his guilt. Urich did this by his order. Pahell knew that the maid who was close to Damia since childhood was her right hand.

"I-I poisoned Sir Phillion’s water," the maid confessed, falling to the floor as she was overwhelmed by the torture. Urich’s torture was cruel enough to trump the friendship and loyalty she had built with Damia throughout her entire life. It was simply too much for a palace maid to endure.

“Cotria...”

Damia whispered her name. The maid couldn't lift her head to face her.

“Where did you get the poison?”

Pahell asked as he tilted his head backward. He tried his best to keep his expressions hidden.

"... the poison is from the pufferfish. I bought it from a fisherman outside the castle, and I ground its innards to extract the poison."

Pahell already had an idea of the method. There were quite a few rare books among those that Damia read growing up as the king gave her whatever book she wanted. That’s where Damia had learned how to extract a pufferfish’s poison.

“Cotria, how dare you tell a lie? Do you know who you are speaking to?”

Damia stepped forward, and the maid flinched.

"B-but this is all my doing... what I decided to do on my own... u-ugh, arghhhh!"

Urich jammed his finger into the empty eye socket of the maid and dug around. There was a chilling sound.

“Oooeuff.”

Damia couldn't bear the sight and vomited. The food she had just eaten spilled onto the floor.

"Speak clearly. Confess everything exactly as you told me before I gouge out your remaining eye," Urich said in a low voice. His words seemed to be devouring the maid's mind.

Fear and pain were effective in clouding one’s judgment. The maid, overwhelmed, blurted out everything without even being aware of what she was saying—Damia's thoughts up to this point, her dealings with Harmatti, slowly poisoning the king into a coma, and poisoning Phillion.

"Damia, I'll give you a chance to defend yourself."

Pahell did not say the word ‘sister.’

"Do you believe this barbarian and the testimony obtained through torture more than me, Varca?"

Damia picked her head up to shout at Pahell after vomiting violently.

"Take your clothes off, Damia," Pahell said, intertwining his fingers and crossing his legs.

"...Varca."

"It would be better for you to undress yourself before I call a soldier to do it by force. If the maid is truly lying, you shouldn't have any poison on you," Pahell signaled with a chin gesture. Damia started to approach him.

Crunch!

Out of nowhere, an axe flew between Pahell and Damia and embedded itself in the wall.

"Move any closer, and that pretty face of yours will be half the size, not because of starving yourself, but because of this axe.”

Urich said after chucking his axe with his throwing arm still extended.

There was a bond between Pahell and Urich, a bond that was unknown to Damia. It was a trust built on shared harsh journeys. Urich had saved Pahell's life several times, and Pahell had entrusted everything to him. There is no trust stronger than that shared through life.

Pahell trusted Urich and believed he would never mean to harm him, so he pressed Damia for answers with his faith.

'This is not the Varca I know.'

The Varca Damia knew was an indecisive escapist boy. The old Varca would have fled from an unpleasant reality instead of facing it head-on. He would have rather accused the person who accused his sister instead of even considering the possibility that it might be true.

"Undress yourself right there."

Damia's lips quivered. This was not her plan.

She had intended to gift Pahell a sweet night as her final present. A gift for a prince who would never wake again. If Pahell died, Damia would remain the sole legitimate heir and nobody would have been able to question her validity. She could have married into the adjacent lineage of the royal family and ruled as queen, with her husband as a puppet king. This way, she could choose her own fate.

'I should have ended it with my own hands from the start instead of sending him away.'

There were simpler ways. Did she hesitate to personally deal with her very own twin brother? Or was it to avoid the scandal of a royal poisoning before inheriting the throne?

Whatever the reason was, Damia planned to eliminate Varca outside of the palace. That was the wrong move. Varca survived various dangers and returned changed. The boy, coddled and overprotected, had become a true heir to the throne through several harsh trials.

Slip.

Silently, Damia undid her dress. Pahell watched his sister's nude body without any desire. He felt like crying out of sorrow.

'How did it come to this? How? Why?'

Pahell thought to himself but was unable to voice his thoughts.

"Why did you join hands with Harmatti?"

'I hated the idea of you becoming king...'

Damia, just like her twin brother, couldn’t speak out loud. She didn’t answer Pahell’s question and just lowered her eyes with only her lips twitching.

Damia stripped completely, wearing only her undergarments. Her pale skin was so smooth that it was almost glowing.

"Take off the rest," Pahell pointed with his index finger.

"If you find nothing on me, how will you take responsibility, Varca?" Damia glared fiercely.

"Who would dare to hold the ruler of the kingdom accountable?"

"How arrogant."

"Shut up. Why couldn’t you be satisfied with just being a princess? Who do you think is the arrogant one here? I never intended to send my sister to other royal or noble families who demanded her as a beautiful princess. A princess like you would make a good strategic tool. But if you wished, I would have let you live alone for the rest of your life!"

Damia finally removed her last undergarment, looking at Pahell in self-pity.

A small glass bottle fell to the floor, rolling all the way over to Pahell's feet.

"That’s funny, Varca. Why should I be satisfied with what I have? Ultimately, you're no different from your father. You may be saying so now, but a time will come when you will have no choice but to sell me out for politics. That’s just the way it goes,” Damia said with a sad smile. Pahell picked up the fallen glass bottle.

"...sister, you really were trying to kill me."

Pahell thought it would have been better if this was all his paranoia. Everything would have been so much easier if the story ended with his kind sister forgiving the unhinged prince. Regardless, the truth was out.

'Sister came to me with this poison.'

She intended to poison him in some way. The type of poison would soon be known.

"We were equals at birth. We were one. But I was made an object, while you were destined to be king."

"I never thought of you as an object."

"You eventually would have. I didn't want you to become king. You'd change. You'd no longer be my Varca. A naive boy who loves his sister can’t do a king’s job."

Damia, completely naked, moved and grabbed a carving knife from the table.

"Urich!"

Pahell shouted. Urich's eyes moved quickly. He didn't look at Pahell but at Damia's hand.

'I don't need to protect Pahell. I must stop...!'

Urich made his decision in a second. He grabbed a bronze cup from the table and threw it as he spun. There was no time to control the amount of force he put behind it.

Crunch!

The thrown cup struck Damia's hand, breaking her bones. She dropped the knife she was about to plunge into her neck.

"I won't let you escape by dying, sister... you will go to the emperor as a concubine. The emperor is an arrogant man who sees women only as tools and objects, and I made a deal with that man. As proof of my integrity, you will go to him. The emperor always desired a woman with the beauty of the Porcana royal bloodline."

Damia looked up at Pahell from the ground, massaging her swollen hand.

"So, in the end, it’s just the same fate for me. Decided by others."

"No, it's the fate that you chose for yourself."

Pahell removed his cloak and covered Damia's naked body.

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