Naturally, Roland received no response.
Considering the bond between mother and daughter, he had not brought Altrouge Brunestud along.
Thus, apart from Smiley, who resembled a sleeping beauty, all that surrounded Roland now was pin-drop silence.
Still, even if he had brought her along, before the turmoil in her heart could turn into a loss of composure on her face, the Black Princess would probably have angrily bitten him first.
Her failure to become Crimson Moon's rightful successor was an obsession she had never overcome in thousands of years, yet Roland had addressed a mere Dead Apostle Ancestor as the King of the Moon.
Had anyone else dared make such an outrageous statement, merely biting them would have been nothing. Even tearing out their throat and ripping every inch of their body apart would not have diminished Altrouge Brunestud's anger in the slightest.
But naturally, Roland's certainty that Crimson Moon's will lurked inside Smiley was not groundless speculation.
In fact, the moment he saw Smiley's information, he had already noticed something amiss.
"After all... a Variant Dead Apostle capable of breaking the curse shouldn't exist at all."
A certain view was common in the mundane world.
A Dead Apostle who overcame their curse would become stronger.
But this was actually a classic misconception, because those who reached this conclusion had placed themselves entirely within a human perspective.
Dead Apostles had never been normal living beings, but monsters who survived through the curse of immortality. To them, their weaknesses and strength were two sides of the same coin.
Precisely because they still possessed the weakness of being susceptible to the Baptismal Chant after a thousand years of history, Dead Apostle Ancestors could use that accumulated curse to extend their principles into Principle Blood Rings, becoming living Singularities that polluted the planet.