TBR CH59

Chapter 59: Honey-Colored Dusk

Edwin was the kind of person who would never be satisfied. Looking back from a road shimmering with endless brilliance, he would look indifferently at the skeletons he had stepped on. He wouldn’t feel fortunate that he was still standing tall, because that was what he deserved.

The Bishop had always known what he wanted. He pursued power not because he was forced by fate, but because he was certain he liked it. Ambition burned in his bones, sometimes lightly, sometimes heavily, sometimes like grease, sometimes like asphalt.

Not only did he want to obtain supreme authority, but also the obedience and admiration of the masses.

Words would become thunder, and thoughts would turn into hurricanes. In the foreseeable future, his every move would be closely watched by everyone. Just by lifting a finger, he could influence any corner where human existence was found.

Now, he stood quietly before the steps. Everything was already very close.

Sometimes the Bishop would compare himself to a spider, guarding a vast and sticky web. The threads glittered, crisscrossing to cover all places where human footprints were left. And he was at the center, unable to leave. There were no living creatures around, only prey.

The process of weaving the web was long, and he had exhausted his efforts.

But he had firmly bound everything he could get in the web, which made him feel sufficiently satisfied.

And then…

Until one day, a beautiful moth he had never seen before stumbled into the center of the web. Its wings were as translucent as pomegranate-red carnelian. Every thread trembled at its arrival.

He was from another world.

A spider’s world is its web. No matter how large it weaves the web, it cannot grow wings. Edwin had suppressed his bloodline, acknowledged his human identity, and walked to the highest point a “human” could reach. He was also destined to bear all the curses of humanity.

He felt jealous, just as he did every time he was not satisfied.

But this time, the thing he wanted was not as clearly visible as before.

He wouldn’t give up what he held in his hands to chase after the magnificent and incredible world depicted by the moth. But, all of that was so good. Only by keeping his treasure with bright eyes could he feel his heart truly begin to beat.

Edwin was interrupted from his thoughts. The demon’s long knuckles waved before his pale gray eyes.

Candles were lit in the room. The flowing candlelight leaked from between his fingers, pulling out flickering, meaningless patterns.

“I don’t think you were listening.”

Tar’s tone was a bit complaining, and Edwin admitted his mistake without any hesitation. “Sorry, I was… a little distracted just now. But it’s definitely not because you weren’t speaking well. I was just thinking about what the meteors on the Dragon’s Ridge you mentioned would look like.”

“Ah,” the demon squinted, a bright smile flickering. “Can’t imagine? I also think it’s hard to describe. At first, I thought it was a sudden snowstorm. The stars were as white as snowballs, rolling down from the distant sky, almost right in front of your eyes. Really, I’ve never seen such meteorites. I heard they are cool to the touch, but they will burn you. I almost caught one—”

“Too dangerous.”

The Bishop said with a hint of reproach. This was not the point. He also knew that the demon didn’t care about danger. The freedom and wandering traveler sought only fleeting beauty. But when he thought that Tar might get hurt, he subconsciously said it.

“It would have been fine,” the demon seemed to like his reaction, so he forgave his distraction just now. “Then, the meteorites would fall into the lake guarded by the dragons. The dragons have to stay in the lake to undergo a baptism of stars during their coming-of-age ceremony, but I think it’s just to avoid the meteors hitting their heads. Hmm, a friend of mine told me that being hit in the head by a pile of stars is still very painful. But the dragons definitely didn’t expect this to become the signature of the nearby tavern.”

A friend of his.

Edwin keenly caught the keyword, then felt guilty for his own sensitivity.

But, the Bishop thought with some jealousy, yes, the demon must have known many, many people, and they could accompany him on many journeys. But he couldn’t. He could only forcibly keep him, with a human’s fleeting, flower-like life.

Would Tar remember him, just as he remembered a meteor shower on the Dragon’s Ridge?

“Edwin, are you distracted again—”

The demon dragged out his words, leaning over to touch his hair with his hand. “But I didn’t describe it well. You’ll only understand all this when you see it for yourself. Most journeys are like this. I think you should go there yourself.”

He said this unattainable ideal so lightly. Edwin was about to become a great archbishop with a stable position, and then the pillar of the Church. He couldn’t leave the Holy See; it was not child’s play.

The Bishop lowered his eyes and chuckled softly, taking Tar’s words only as a pastime, even though he actually really wanted to see it.

Tar had told him many stories recently, that is, the memories of the demon walking in the world.

Magnificent, legendary, far from humanity, and even far from civilization. Edwin couldn’t distinguish whether his occasional longing was for these free and mysterious things, or for the almost invisible but real expectation of the demon’s companionship.

If only I could see all this with my own eyes.

If only the demon could accompany me then.

Although he could not approach either wish.

Tar withdrew the hand stroking his hair. The demon crossed his arms over his chest and looked at him. The sudden loss of touch made Edwin a little lost, and Tar looked at him, a bit of condemnation in his eyes, and also disappointment, which stung his eyes.

“I…” his lips moved, and he subconsciously wanted to apologize.

The demon looked at him coldly. “I think His Excellency the Bishop doesn’t need to listen to these boring things anymore.”

Tar wasn’t really angry. But the demon had never lost his temper with him before. Even so, it was enough to make Edwin feel flustered. In an instant, the rose-scented demon seemed very far away from him, along with all their past intimacy. He began to blame himself, for thinking too much, for being too obviously distracted.

His words were clumsy. He tried to explain, but it seemed to make the situation worse.

Tar pulled his chair to the other side and casually pulled a book from the shelf. The story wasn’t finished, but the demon clearly didn’t intend to talk to Edwin anymore, showing this attitude unequivocally.

The Bishop had no experience in coaxing people.

Moreover, many fragments flickered in his mind. Although he was slightly distracted, every word had been chewed over by Edwin in his heart, as if he were there, with the demon. Tar was very good at telling stories, not at all as he had said, that he didn’t tell them well. Listening to Tar speak was one of Edwin’s few pleasures. The Bishop gave himself an allowance, almost a reward.

“I…” Edwin said, “I promise you one thing, okay? Although I can’t go to such a distant place, if there’s any place you want to go, I can accompany you.”

“Really?” The demon revealed two bright red eyes from behind the pages of the book, as if he had long guessed the Bishop’s reaction, both composed and malicious. “Don’t you have things to do tonight?”

“I can finish them in advance.”

To be honest, Edwin had been extremely busy again recently. It was because of the charity banquet the Holy See was to hold a month before the New Year. The banquet basically covered all groups. On the periphery, commoners and the objects of charity would receive soup and bread distributed by the Holy See. And at the center, members of the royal family would visit the Holy See to participate in the banquet ceremony.

The Bishop was fully responsible for this matter.

This was not just a simple banquet. They all knew it very well.

In the Great Archbishop Edwin’s study, the deep black demon seed rushed about in its container, unable to break through its shackles. The blood on his lapel was also separated, serving as an index for a certain formation. The Bishop had smeared the blood on a silver blade, lit the broken lapel, and stored the stench emitted during burning in a bottle. That was the best bait.

He was very patient, preparing everything in an orderly manner, not even forgetting to thoroughly wash the scent off his body before returning to the room. It was the fragrance of incense mixed with holy water, which had a suppressive effect on dark forces. Edwin was worried it would make Tar uncomfortable.

However, after so many days of being busy, Edwin was not stingy about taking some time off.

Perhaps it was because of the things that could be done with that time, which he subconsciously didn’t want to miss.

Every time the Bishop returned from outside, he would first cast his gaze towards the three defensive formations at the door. The last oversight was still fresh in his memory. Therefore, Edwin had exhausted his efforts to reinforce the formations, so that they could protect the demon inside the room well.

Protection. The Bishop certainly thought so. But it was no different from locking the demon in the room.

Pushing open the door, Tar was doing something different. He usually read, sometimes stared blankly, sometimes very seriously made tea, studying the small print on the tea packaging. Edwin later brought back many trivial little things that he guessed the demon would like. Some were indeed like that. It took several days for Tar to finish a puzzle. The puzzle’s pattern was the white tower of the Holy See. It was probably made by believers for their children to play with.

After Tar finished it, he asked Edwin to hang it on the wall, and the Bishop did so. Along with the rose-red carpet they had chosen together, and the bouquet using a pen holder as a vase, there were more and more tacitly understood traces in the room, like an independent and safe world, enough to live in, filled with the fragrance of roses.

Edwin had always thought so, or perhaps he had convinced himself.

Until one day, he returned to the room and found the demon had placed the holy vessel containing the demon seed on the table to observe.

The demon seed had no intelligence, but it was quite like something alive. It rolled and crawled like an insect, trying to find a gap, occasionally desperately ramming against the glass. But it was completely and tightly bound in a corner of the holy vessel. Watching the demon seed struggle in the container, one would sometimes feel that time had fallen into a loop. It was never tired, constantly trying to break out of prison.

Edwin’s footsteps were too light. Tar seemed not to have noticed his arrival, just focusing on the glass container. The pure black seed inside hit the wall again and again, leaving a small dark shadow in his red pupils.

The demon’s eyes were a little deeper than usual.

The Bishop, for some reason, also made no sound. He silently and greedily scanned the demon with his eyes, and then found that Tar’s mood was unusually off. The demon could of course sense his arrival, but he did not initiate a conversation with him. He just propped up his arm and watched the struggling demon seed in the bottle motionlessly.

It was at that moment that Edwin understood what empathy was.

He looked very lonely.

Why? The Bishop had never been so eager to know the answer, the urgent desire to understand the other. His thoughts spun rapidly, colorful inks mixing together, trying to sort out the context.

—It was as if what he was watching trapped in the bottle was himself.

Such a thought flashed for a moment, but Edwin did not understand its meaning. And, in the stories the demon had told him, there was no color of such a deep tragedy.

Tar was free, bright, clever, and unrestrained.

The Bishop could not clearly know the source of that loneliness. But thinking of those words made him feel alarmed. These words, beautiful as shimmering gems, passed over his tongue. Edwin had never lived such a life. He suddenly guessed, although it was not correct…

Was locking the demon in the room not a reckless waste of a natural gift?

This thought made Edwin’s mouth feel a little dry. He looked at the demon in the room and suddenly felt the room was too narrow. Of course, this was just a temporary placement. His future plan for taming the demon was much larger. When he became Pope, when he held power firmly, he could even build a palace for Tar, adorned everywhere with smooth rubies.

But that was also not enough.

No matter how large the container, it was still a container. It shouldn’t be like this. Tar shouldn’t suffer any restraint, although this went against his wishes. But the Bishop couldn’t suppress this thought. At the very least, he shouldn’t be locked in the room forever.

Edwin’s gaze was obscure, a storm of deep gray and light gray rising and falling.

Until the demon, as if suddenly noticing, turned his head. The translucent pomegranate-red eyes were the eye of a storm that suppressed everything, fixing all chaotic thoughts in a single gaze. “You’re back.”

Tar nonchalantly threw the container with the demon seed aside. He was just like that. He didn’t actually care about the demon seed’s fate, much less about crushing it without mercy. It was just that this struggling appearance more or less reminded the God of the past.

Edwin said, “Perhaps…”

In the outermost part of the capital city was the best tavern on the entire continent. Every night, the smell of roasted meat mixed with beer would waft out from under the honey-colored lights. All sorts of strange, homeless, and enthusiastic people gathered here. Intelligence and flirtation were passed around on greasy tables. Sometimes people came here with hungry stomachs and left with a belly full of complaints.

Perhaps there would be a time, like now.

The Great Archbishop of the Church of Light tugged uncomfortably at his collar. Tar had asked him to wear casual clothes, and then the demon had discovered that all the clothes in Edwin’s wardrobe were of a severe, ascetic style, and all very formal. This was clearly not suitable for this place.

That is, now, he and the young demon had come to the door of “Azure Whisper.”

Edwin felt at a loss. He tried his best not to appear so stiff. The demon had proposed a place he wanted to go, and he had agreed. It had all started so simply. And now, Tar was holding his hand, his eyes shining, at ease, looking enthusiastic.

“I didn’t expect you to actually agree.”

Tar’s lips curled, which made the Bishop feel that everything was worth it, and that the demon was no longer angry with him.

“Is this… a date?”

The demon was doing it on purpose. The word “date” was bitten out by him, light and soft. The Bishop had always been good at controlling his emotions, but perhaps the temperature here was too high, or the lights were too flickering. His heart also became easily shaken, starting to heat up from where it beat. Edwin hoped his ears wouldn’t turn red.

Speaking of which, it did look a lot like—

It was a date.

Edwin couldn’t distinguish how he had walked into the tavern. Tar skillfully went forward and chatted with the tavern owner. He didn’t have to worry too much, because Edwin had used Light magic to disguise him, and himself. No one would notice their tracks.

However, the demon had briefly let go of the Bishop’s hand.

The Bishop stood where he was, surrounded by a world he did not recognize at all. Some people were chatting, and some were drunk. A bard plucked a few strings on his lyre. Seeing someone paying attention to him, he smiled at him. Edwin pretended he wasn’t too surprised, and the bard also hesitated at the cold gray eyes he saw.

Someone was telling a story. Edwin listened for a few sentences and found that the story was full of blasphemous remarks against the God of Light. Everyone was laughing, and then they started chatting about Prince Angelo’s gossip.

There were also people who were single-mindedly eating. For example, the young man in black clothes sitting in a conspicuous place. He was gnawing on fig-roasted meat, his cheeks already bulging, yet he was still concentrating on fighting the sinew on the cutting board. Even if a war broke out around him, he looked like he wouldn’t care.

Edwin lowered his eyes. He still wasn’t quite used to it, and he couldn’t blend in here.

Tar finished negotiating the price and came back to find him. He found the Bishop standing there obediently waiting for him, and a small circle around him had spontaneously cleared out—Edwin didn’t look like someone to be trifled with. What he showed was not awkwardness but coldness, as if he would solve all obstacles with a deadly blade at any moment. The guests could see he was not of their world. No one came to provoke him.

But this was also good.

Tar lightly took Edwin’s hand and led him to a relatively clean spot to sit down, almost the most corner position in the tavern, far from the chatting and drinking contests.

“I ordered you absinthe, and also fig-roasted meat.”

The demon said this while looking at him with a smile, his red eyes twinkling in the bright candlelight of the tavern. He was in his element here. The well-versed travelers would chat with each other, and Tar looked like the person they would ask for directions.

“Not honey mead…?”

It was only after sitting down that Edwin finally relaxed a little. He was still thinking about the sweet-sounding drink the demon had once described to him. Although he wasn’t actually that fond of sweets, he really wanted to try what Tar liked.

“Ah,” Tar seemed to understand something. The two of them were sitting in a space that only allowed two people, separated by a thin table. When they propped up their arms and smiled at each other, the distance was very close. “I just think absinthe suits you better. If you want to drink honey mead, you can just share mine.”

The environment was dim, but this dimness was also a bright dimness. Under the honey-colored light, alcohol evaporated in the tavern. Everything became shadowy, with a hint of ambiguous and hazy flavor. For a short time, neither of them spoke, just sizing each other up, in a strange place, a place Edwin had never thought he would come to.

Then, the things Tar had ordered arrived. This kind of tavern wouldn’t let guests wait too long. Efficiency was first.

Both the honey mead and the absinthe were pushed towards Edwin by Tar. The demon looked at the bubbling liquid served in a large glass and couldn’t help but find it comical. Edwin looked at them with some difficulty. He was the kind of person who grew up drinking the Church’s wine.

“You choose first.”

The amber light swayed in the demon’s eyes. The Bishop reached out and took the amber liquid. It was honey mead.

—It was indeed very sweet.

He resisted drinking too much. The liquid was cold and spicy, with a honey-like sweetness, exactly the same feeling the demon opposite him gave him. Edwin returned the glass to Tar. This was his drink. The demon took a sip from the hand he offered.

Was it on purpose, or was he being too sentimental? The place Tar drank from was the edge of the glass he had tasted. The demon licked the liquid that flowed down the side of the glass.

His heart couldn’t help but skip a beat.

But Tar unexpectedly pushed the glass of honey mead back, and snatched the glass of absinthe from in front of him. “I’ll leave the honey mead for you, Bishop. I think it’s good to change the flavor occasionally.”

He had completely seen through that he liked it. Edwin knew, but he felt a certain part of his heart also soften. Soft, and also sweet. He looked at the demon before him and realized he was really terribly fond of him.

Then, the roasted meat was also served.

Unlike the exquisite cuisine of the Holy See and the royal family, the roasted meat was steaming hot, its aroma unscrupulously spreading in a corner of the tavern. The grease was shiny and spread evenly on the well-marbled beef, spices and butter were evenly sprinkled, as the finishing touch.

The demon took a large gulp of absinthe and began to cut the beef with a knife and fork. The first piece of meat cut had a perfect pink cross-section, the juice overflowing with just a light press. Edwin focused on the demon’s movements, then was stunned for a moment, because this piece of meat was unexpectedly handed to his mouth.

“You’ve definitely never eaten this.”

The Bishop hesitated and opened his mouth. Being fed was undoubtedly an intimate action, but of course he was not willing to refuse.

The roasted meat was, as expected, delicious.

The ice cubes in the glass hit the side, clinking loudly. The temperature gradually rose. Edwin had never allowed himself to get drunk, and he wasn’t now either. He was sure his emotions were clear, and the alcohol content of the honey mead was not high.

But, everything was coated with a fascinating, beautiful color.

When he raised his glass again, and the ice cubes had already melted by half, the demon opposite him suddenly reached out and stopped the Bishop’s gesture of raising the glass. Tar looked like he had just thought of something new, his eyes cunning and bright. He didn’t need to open his mouth. Edwin knew he couldn’t refuse any of the demon’s requests.

“Hey, Edwin,” the demon said, “have you ever heard of a game—called Truth?”

Truth. The name of the game blatantly revealed its content. The Bishop only felt his cheeks get a little hot. He shook his head to cover it up, pretending he still needed an explanation.

“One question, half a glass of wine.” Tar shook his glass, the deep green liquid inside swirling. His drink was stronger. “How about it?”

Edwin began to feel a little nervous, his lips dry. This could hardly be called a game, but such an occasion seemed suitable for such things.

He agreed.

Tar ordered new drinks, and so the bet began.

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