DMHS 71

“Shouldn’t we check?”

A worried voice came from somewhere.

“The banquet hall’s magic stone receives its mana supply from outside the building. We should call someone.”

While the whispering continued, they received an answer. Someone walked to the door to summon an attendant outside.

They heard a muffled groan.

“Kk, kkeuuuhk…. Uuuhhg….”

Clang!

“Ugh, kkhhk…!”

The tablecloth whipped to one side. The dishes and cups on the table fell, and a loud commotion broke out.

Crash!

“That startled me!”

“What happened?”

“A strange sound came from that side.”

Kian, on the other hand, concentrated on another sense, not the sound.

‘It’s the smell of blood.’

A strong scent of blood spread through the air moment by moment. A cold feeling wrapped his whole body. Kian clenched his fist and released it.

“Please wait a moment. I will check.”

The last voice heard was Bashim’s.

“Ch-Chieftain? Are you alright?”

At that moment, the magic stone lit.

Tak–.

The banquet hall brightened. Chieftain Salman lay dead, his neck pierced by a broken glass cup.

The people were so shocked that they could not even scream.

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

The chieftain stared with both eyes wide open instead of a final scream. Red veins filled the whites of his eyes, and blood flowing from his neck dyed his upper clothes dark crimson. Bashim felt for Salman’s pulse and shook his head.

“The chieftain has passed away.”

***

The banquet hall grew noisy bit by bit.

“What on earth is this….”

“It’s impossible to lay a hand on the chieftain. No one could do such a thing.”

“Ah, oh goddess!”

People in places knelt and prayed. In the chaos, the three successors began to examine the body.

The only visible injury was the wound on the neck. The broken glass cup had lodged exactly in the blood vessel that connected heart and head.

Asaad spoke with a heavy voice.

“It seems like death from excessive blood loss.”

Pearl Asif, who was standing opposite, gave agreement.

“…It does seem so. For the chieftain to die on a day like this….”

Dissatisfaction filled his tone. Asaad complained inwardly.

‘Haa, how could I have known it would turn out like this?”

Today’s incident had been Asaad’s doing. Yet Asaad had never once intended to kill the chieftain. His target had been Bashim.

‘Bashim Farat.’

He was the chieftain’s nephew on his mother’s side. Normally, such a young brat would not even have entered the successor competition, but while the chieftain, who had lost two sons in a row, kept postponing the choice of successor, Bashim had reached adulthood.

The Harkin clan still kept the official position that they would not enter the successor competition.

But Asaad did not believe that. If that had been true, the chieftain would not have delayed the selection until Bashim became an adult.

‘A few days before the successor decision, he must have planned to adopt Bashim as his foster son and put him forward as Harkin’s representative.’

That would be like losing one’s nose in plain sight.

After long deliberation, Asaad decided to kill Bashim. He pored over ancient records for many years and devised a murder method that no one would detect, so he believed only success remained….

‘Why on earth did this happen?’

Asaad examined the glass shards with despairing eyes.

Pearl Asif, who was searching the floor and table like Asaad, offered his deduction.

“Judging from the spilled liquor from the glass and the spread of the glass fragments, it seems the chieftain himself broke the glass. The problem is why the chieftain stabbed his own neck?”

As he said, the traces of the glass remained only near the chieftain’s seat. Bashim countered Pearl Asif’s words in a low voice.

“The chieftain would never take his own life.”

Pearl Asif’s brow furrowed noticeably.

“Do you think I am claiming the chieftain committed suicide? I am saying it is strange that such a thing befell a man who would never do so. Listen properly, brat.”

“Bashim is not a man of your clan. Mind your words.”

When Asaad interrupted with a warning, Pearl Asif grumbled.

“But isn’t everything strange? The magic stone went out twice as well. There are too many suspicious points.”

At that, Asaad also felt troubled. He had indeed ordered someone to extinguish the banquet hall’s magic stone. But what he had requested was once, for three minutes. That earlier short darkness had not been Asaad’s doing.

“Wait. Why is this glass here?”

Pearl Asif found another wineglass at the chieftain’s seat.

“Did the chieftain use two glasses?”

‘Ah… so that was it.’

Only then did Asaad grasp what had happened.

To kill Bashim, Asaad had tampered with his glass.

On the final day of the Festival of the Ocean, red Arc liquor was served at the banquet. It had an outstanding effect of awakening people, so one could taste it only once a year during the festival.

Asaad, while searching old records, discovered a passage that said if one drank red Arc liquor with the witch’s flower added, one would see fatal hallucinations. A person in such hallucinations became highly destructive, unable to tell friend from foe, and most often ended in heart failure or self-harm.

‘Getting the witch’s flower was not hard.’

The problem was how to put the witch’s flower into the glass. If he floated petals only in Bashim’s drink, it would be too obvious.

‘Fortunately I learned that if the flower was dried and ground, the effect stayed the same. And it was a white powder with no color and no smell.’

When he thought he had found the solution, he encountered the most critical problem.

‘Dried flowers lose effect after a few hours.’

Because of that, Asaad had a man plant the witch’s flower inside the building. Fortunately the flower looked like a rose, otherwise it would have been difficult.

Like he was climbing mountain after mountain, Asaad solved each problem in turn until today arrived.

With the excuse that Bashim’s glass was dirty, he wiped the rim with a cloth smeared with the witch’s flower. Bashim would drink, and when the lights went out, he would have a fit and die, and it would end there.

‘Who could have imagined that the chieftain would drink that liquor.’

This unforeseen variable gave him a headache.

Meanwhile, Pearl Asif, full of zeal, started to piece the situation together.

“Why would the chieftain need to use two glasses? Could one of them have belonged to someone else?”

Pearl Asif raised his voice as he looked around the table.

“Everyone, please focus for a moment! Two glasses have been found at the chieftain’s seat. Is there anyone without a glass at their place? Check the neighbor’s seat too.”

The check finished quickly. Since they had just been about to make a toast, finding one’s own glass was not hard.

“Everyone has a glass. Everyone except Bashim… only one person.”

Pearl Asif’s eyes narrowed. Asaad’s heart sank.

‘Am I about to be exposed?’

Fortunately for him, Pearl Asif followed another line of reasoning.

“Well, what a curious coincidence. When the lights went out, it was Bashim who volunteered to check the chieftain. It was also Bashim who first checked the body. And now, the only missing glass is Bashim’s.”

“I know what suspicion you hold. But it was not me. The chieftain was like a father to me. Why would I ever harm him?”

“Do we need to know the reason? Every circumstance points to you. You could have slipped to the chieftain in the darkness. You could have broken the glass at his seat and stabbed his neck. Very simple.”

Bashim’s pupils trembled. Already shaken by the chieftain’s death, now being named the culprit, his mind failed to work.

“I, I… I did not kill the chieftain. It was not me.”

Bashim stammered and repeated the same denial. It was an excuse no one would believe.

Asaad felt pleased with the unexpected turn.

‘Good.’

Though the wrong man had died, if he could drag Bashim down like this, then his goal was as good as met.

Asaad hid a smile and cheered Pearl Asif in secret.

‘Push him harder.’

“Then show proof that you did not kill the chieftain. If you have none, we can only think you did.”

“Asking the innocent for proof? I have no duty to prove that.”

“Then are you admitting that you killed the chieftain?”

“I… did not.”

Bashim lowered his head dispiritedly.

The people surrounding them began to whisper restlessly. They too leaned toward Pearl Asif’s reasoning.

Anyone could see that the situation just now gave cause to suspect Bashim. And since the glass lodged in the chieftain’s neck had been judged to be Bashim’s, the matter looked ready to close that way.

‘Good. Now I should step up, act as if I defend Bashim, and wrap things up.’

Asaad took a step forward.

But someone else leapt out slightly ahead of him. Black hair and black eyes, a discordant sight. It was the dragon’s mate, present today as a guest.

“Claiming that Bashim is the culprit is an excessive guess.”

Pearl Asif cut off Kian’s words.

“Stay out, you who have nothing to do with this.”

“I have no intention to meddle deeply in your affairs either. But if you think rationally, is it not strange? The one who stabbed the chieftain had no blood on him.”