Merchant Crab - Chapter 2: Ascending and Descending

Standing before you are:

Guardian and patron of darkness,

Disruptors and Reshapers of Order,

creator and persecutor of licking dogs,

The tea master, the goddess of the dark night, the nightmares and gravediggers of the gods,

The true ancestor of blood – Charlotte de Castel.

With madness, with blood, with curse, with destruction.

This is a legend belonging to the blood family…

- Description from novelbuddy

What is love after all, and where does it come from?I can't quite understand it. Perhaps love is just a colorful butterfly, beautiful to look at but forever out of reach.If you try to hold onto it tightly, it will struggle, and in that struggle, it will rub off all its colors and become pale.

As a princess that could not wield magic, Princess Daphne’s only value to her kingdom was her arranged marriage. The task was simple, but when Daphne gets kidnapped and brought to the cold mountains of Vramid, she realizes that she’s in over her head.

She had heard of these cursed mountains before― rocky terrain, freezing temperatures, and the land was ruled by a man feared by many within the continent.

King Atticus Heinvres, the blood-thirsty ruler of the North.

Even though she had never met him before, tales were spread of King Atticus’s ruthlessness. Some said he was a monster, others claimed he was the devil himself, but whatever the story was, everyone knew of the man who had powers beyond anyone’s imagination. He could topple armies and crumble nations with just one wave of his hand, aided by what others rumored to be a cursed obsidian ring.

No one outside of Vramid had ever met the fearsome king before. Not until Daphne.

However, upon meeting the formidable man, Daphne found out that the king might not really be the monster others had claimed him to be.

In fact, what was hidden under that obsidian shield could just be a diamond in the rough.

―

[Excerpt]

“Now… where should I put you both?” he asked casually, not expecting a reply. “It’s regretful that I only have one chandelier.”

“Underneath my bed? No, no, too dirty. My dust bunnies don’t deserve this,” Atticus mused to himself. “The mantlepiece? How about the vanity table? I suppose if I lop off one of your heads I could mount it over… Wife, which head do you want to stare at while you do your hair?”

“Atticus!” Daphne screamed. “I don’t want any heads! Let them go.”

“Fair enough.” Atticus shrugged, and flicked his fingers.

There were two identical cracks as both necks snapped at once.

Daphne gasped, horrified. This man, her husband, had just killed two men with a flick of his finger, as though he was snuffing out candles.

“I told you to let them go!” Daphne cried out.

“Yes, I let them go,” Atticus said. Then, his eyes darkened. “To receive divine judgment from the heavens.”

―

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