Chapter 25: 25

Translator: Yonnee

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Chapter 25

“I could smell Noona’s scent from Commander Damian.”

Regulus whispered. At that, both Damian and Ares’ eyes flitted to Regulus, and Endymion looked at Damian and Ares alternately. Damian, who didn’t know who the Noona was that Regulus was talking about, he wondered, but Ares blushed.

Endymion, who’s quick-witted, was quickly able to grasp the situation—Regulus still didn’t know that Lily was two people.

After chasing after Lily for a while, even to the point that she should have been sick of him, apparently he’d barely noticed. That’s right. Smiling proudly, Endymion thought that, in his own standard, it was ridiculous that he didn’t figure out sooner that they were the same person even though they looked so similar and acted similarly at times.

Damian, who was still perplexed, asked bluntly.

“Who’s your Noona, you brat?”

“Ah, I’m not a brat!”

“Okay, okay, our dear brat. So, who is she?”

“Commander Damian, why do you keep calling me a brat when you’re smaller than me? You’re smaller than me! Compared to me! You’re smaller!”

“Ha? Our dear Reg. So you’ve grown so much that I guess you want to get in trouble with your Hyung.”

“……”

However, the moment he was called a brat again, Regulus began to scream and whine once more. At this, Endymion sighed. Whenever they were like this, it was difficult to get them to stop when he was alone, even when they weren’t this worked up. And apart from that, Ares, who used to at least try to stop them, was just sitting there, dazed.

“Regulus, Damian. Stop it.”

“No, but Hyung, didn’t you hear how he talked to me?”

“He didn’t say anything wrong. And I know you don’t even care about that. Stop making fun of your junior.¹ It’ll still be a problem if you get along too well.”

“We’re not close!”

“We are kinda close.”

Regulus protested again that they would never be close, but it was obvious that the two really were close.

It was understandable considering that Regulus behaved so stiffly and politely towards Odil and Endymion as though they were his superiors, but his attitude was different towards Ares and Damian. As if like a real younger brother, he was as active as he should be at his age and was a little arrogant.

No matter how much Regulus hated it, he and Regulus were similar in age, and they had one thing in common—that they were recognized not because of their origins or families, but because they were geniuses in their own rights.

The commander who hailed from Terra, which was so disconnected in terms of diplomacy, and the commander who hailed from a humble rural village. If Damian was a little kinder and more serious, Regulus’ attitude towards him would have been different, but Damian tended to act more mischievously towards the people he liked being around.

“Aren’t you going to tell me who he is?”

“I won’t. Don’t talk to me anymore.”

“Hey, don’t leave me hanging, hm? You don’t know when I’ll be following you around just to satiate this curiosity.”

“Are you a stalker? Stop being obsessed with me.”

“Then you’d better just answer.”

“Don’t wanna! Now that I thought about it, I think I was mistaken.”

“Hmm?”

Endymion sighed as he could see that they were going to argue again. If he knew this would happen, he would have come here a little late. It still wasn’t clear to him whether Damian would yap about Lily or not, so he couldn’t speak hastily. He pressed down on his throbbing forehead with one hand.

“…I’m talking about Lily.”

“Lily? Lilith? Why is she your Noona?”

“Lilith?”

“…How do you know Lily Noona, Commander Damian?”

“No, what about you? How do you know her?”

Ares, who still had a red face, whispered something to Damian. When Ares finished speaking, Damian frowned. At this, Regulus tilted his head to the side.

When Endymion glanced at Ares, Ares was startled and awkwardly avoided his gaze. Perhaps there was something Endymion didn’t know.

“No, but Commander Ares and I went to visit Noona, so I know why he knows her. But you just came back from a long term mission, Commander Damian.”

“Wow, Al Hyung. Is that so?”

“I-It’s not like that. It’s just…”

“Commander Damian. How do you know her?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Ah, seriously! What’s your problem!”

There was no other chaos like this. Endymion, who was looking at the clock, was thinking about going back to his office and just returning later, but then Damian snickered and said,

“I met her parents.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“……?”

Damian’s expression was smug, though he did leave out that the meeting was only by chance.

“She looks like her maternal grandmother, not her mother. And her parents also wrote about me in a letter they sent to her.”

“You’re lying, aren’t you? Then tell me where Lily Noona’s house is!”

“It’s in Evan. Her mother’s really good at cooking, too. And oh, that’s right. They used to live in Spiruna.”

The restaurant-inn he went to by chance was being run by Lily’s parents, where he happened to hear about their daughter. Of course, back then Damian had no idea the daughter was Lily.

But he didn’t spout a single lie. He only hid a few select facts, but it was enough for the three other commanders to misunderstand that Damian was close enough with Lily’s parents that they fed him.

“No, but why the hell would Lily Noona, with Commander Damien…”

“You’re too harsh on me, Reg. What exactly do you think of me?”

“You didn’t know each other when you met at the ward!”

“That was then, this is now.”

“Damian. Don’t trouble Miss Lily.”

“Sure, I’ll try.”

However, Endymion knew what Damian’s personality was like, so he didn’t say anything more and just hoped that Damian wouldn’t put Lily in an awkward position that much.

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In any case, Damian slept with her as soon as he returned. Endymion told Lily that she could come to him any time and she said yes, but it seemed to be because of these guys that she hadn’t visited him for days.

Regulus, who was scowling as he still had a look of incredulity, tilted his head and said, ‘Huh?’ as he looked at Endymion.

“You know Lily, too, Commander Endymion? Huh? So that’s why you smelled like Noona last time. Then Commander Odil must also know her.”

“Hey. For you to be sniffing like that, what are you, a dog?”

“But of course, there’s no way I won’t know Lily Noona’s scent.”

“You always jump into her arms and sniff around, so yeah, there’s no way you wouldn’t know.”

Regulus didn’t notice, but Endymion would sometimes see Lily talk to him in the gardens. Of course, he also saw Regulus embracing Lily or clinging to her as he would take in her scent. In fact, he didn’t think about it much because he also liked smelling her himself, but Ares and Damian looked over at Regulus with dark expressions.

“Don’t do that from now on.”

“Yeah, Reg. You shouldn’t touch a woman’s body so carelessly like that.”

“What are you saying he can’t do?”

This time, with a crumpled expression, Regulus was about to say something, but then Odil came into the room while they didn’t notice. Regulus jumped up and greeted him with a cheerful tone.

“Hello, Commander Odil!”

“Hey, Hyung.”

Damian, who backed down, also waved and greeted him.

“So, are you done chatting?”

“……”

“Looking at your expression, it seems something went wrong again.”

When Endymion smiled bitterly, Odil sighed. Regulus didn’t understand what that meant, but Damian and Ares both nodded as though they knew.

It was an open secret that the Ciel Empire’s young Emperor Kyren Pencer Demonik absolutely loathed and rejected any religion. He was firm in his belief that the imperial family and divinity would never be compatible, and this was due to the environment in which Kyren grew up in.

Odil and Ares’ relationship with the emperor was publicly known only as a professional connection because they were in charge of the military, but these two were actually Kyren’s childhood friends. So even though they understood where the emperor was coming from, they were also frustrated by this side of him.

Promoting a diplomatic relationship with Terra, a connection that was once cut off, and welcoming the pope’s envoy for this purpose—this was what Odil asked Kyren to do.

Endymion smiled wordlessly as he glanced at Regulus, who was just standing there with a serious expression. Then, he patted the younger man on the back and spoke.

“Regulus. Sorry, but…”

Regulus didn’t know about Lilith, who was the succubus, even when he was so close to Lily. Endymion felt bad for him because this was a delicate topic that he wasn’t authorized to hear, but there was no other choice but to have him leave.

“Ah, it’s alright. I’ll go to Noona and then come back!”

Regulus didn’t know what this matter was but still believed that everything Odil and Endymion did was for a reason, so he just smiled brightly and nodded. And rather than listening to such a heavy conversation, it was much better for him to go see Lily.

“Hyung, me too, I wanna g—”

“No.”

Damian also tried to bounce, but Endymion narrowed his eyes and cut him off at once.

When Regulus left the conference room, Odil leaned back on his chair and pressed down on his head. His hair was sticking out a little. With a tired voice, he spoke.

“His Majesty rejected it.”

“It’s obvious just looking at your expression. Did he run away again?”

“…Haa.”

“He’s been like that for so long now. He’ll just run away whenever he doesn’t want to hear something.”

“What are we going to do?”

In fact, Odil couldn’t even bring up the entire proposal. Kyren disappeared as soon as he heard Odil utter the first syllable of ‘temple’. Odil went out to look for him for a long time, but in the end, he had no choice but to give up today.

“…Ah, I don’t know. That weird guy, huu… He isn’t even thinking of coming out of hiding.”

“Oh.”

“…What is it, Ares?”

“N-No, it’s nothing.”

When Damian jabbed Ares on the side, hard, Ares smiled awkwardly. He felt a bit guilty to see Odil growing paler by the day.

“Even so, His Majesty still should have heard me out.”

After meeting Lily, Damian thought it wouldn’t matter whether she could get back the ring or not, but after seeing Odil like this, he felt sorry for him and couldn’t say anything about it.

“…His Majesty is being too much. But apart from that, Damian, did the Pope really say he’s coming?”

“No need to ask again. Yes, he said that. And the Pope has the ring. He said he wants to meet the woman who owns the ring, though he didn’t say the reason why. I couldn’t sneak in and steal it.”

He didn’t say anything more to Lily, but when Damian found out that the ring was in Terra, he was the first to ask who exactly had it.

And after returning to the castle, he received a reply that it was the pope who had it, not any other devotee. And the pope also asked if he could meet the woman who owned the ring, whether officially or unofficially.

But at the end of the day, the pope’s visit couldn’t just be conducted unofficially, and it was something that the commanders couldn’t handle on their own, so they first needed to get permission from Emperor Kyren. However, things wouldn’t work out the way they wanted because he kept running away before Odil could even explain the situation.

In addition, Odil was still in the dark about Lily being the succubus, while the other commanders were keeping it a secret from him.

From Odil’s side, he was just looking for the ring but the succubus’ whereabouts were still unknown. When he begged her not to come, she could come every night to tease and torment him—it was so ridiculous that the situation had turned upside down like this.

To be exact, he was feeling quite furious about this situation.

Odil, like Ares and Regulus, was bad at lying compared to the other two. He was the type to show his thoughts clearly on his expression, so while Endymion and Damian observed Odil as he got even more haggard and sensitive by the day, they knew it had something to do with Lily hiding from him.

However.

‘She’s so clumsy though. She’ll get caught soon.’

‘He’ll find out soon enough even if we don’t say anything.’

Not one, two, but three people already knew her identity. Even Ares, who was just one step ahead of Odil, had already noticed after seeing several hints, so it really was no longer a secret or anything.

Nevertheless, if Odil really wouldn’t notice, Damian was thinking of just bringing Odil straight to Lily, and that way, it would be impossible for him not to know. Damian promised to keep it a secret, but saying this thing and doing that thing were two separate things.

In the end, it was only Ares drowning in guilt here.

——

¹ the word used here is ‘hoobae’ and it can also be translated as ‘underclassman’ but that’s for school. ‘hoobae’ is like ‘kouhai’ in Japanese.

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