CHAPTER 20……………………………………………..
The moment a white-gloved hand seemed to touch the black hilt, the fire magic that had been rapidly swelling in size instantly lost its power and dissipated.
“What…?”
Count Royster, still reeling in confusion over what had just happened, soon realized that the duke’s aura had cleanly severed his wrist.
“Aaaargh! M–my hand! My hand!”
“Hm. Lacking in grit. To be undone by nothing more than losing a hand.”
Rectarion clicked his tongue, sounding genuinely disappointed.
The success of casting magic depends on concentration. Count Royster, who had only just barely crossed the threshold into the ranks of high-ranking mages, lacked the endurance to maintain his spell while enduring the pain of having his hand cut off.
“Oh my, sir! Please be careful!”
“Miss, the blood will splatter on you!”
The servants, unfazed by the bloody scene unfolding right before them, busied themselves protecting the unconscious Eloa. Their master had so many enemies that such incidents were far from rare.
“Mind yourself.”
Rectarion returned to his usual relaxed expression, smiling as he lowered his sword. Taking advantage of the moment, Jace and the maids hurriedly carried Eloa out of the drawing room.
“Ghk! My hand! My right hand…!”
The count, now a pitiful sight with tears and snot streaming down his face, clutched his wrist and crawled across the floor.
He was a vile man who had burned countless helpless commoners alive with fire magic, only to be acquitted every time with compensation no more than pocket change.
I’d have preferred to take his head, but…
Regrettable as it was, any more than this would draw criticism as excessive punishment in noble society. More than anything, he had no desire to create a corpse in his home when this wasn’t even a hunt.
That night, as the image of Eloa’s pale, horrified face flashed through his mind—her reaction upon seeing him drenched in blood—Rectarion gave his sword a light shake and slid it back into its sheath.
“Clean it up.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The servants immediately shed their playful demeanor and moved in perfect coordination. They dragged away the count, who had been raving for a doctor before passing out from blood loss, and began wiping away the bloodstains as though nothing had ever happened.
As Rectarion wiped the blood splattered on his face with a handkerchief offered by Luth, Beric entered the drawing room.
“Your Grace? You’re already here? But why was there a surge of mana in the drawing room—gah!”
Beric’s face went pale at the sight of blood pooling on the floor.
“I merely dealt with a troublesome pest. See to stabilizing the mana.”
Seeing Count Royster being carried out by servants, Beric roughly grasped what had happened. That brute must have finally yanked far too hard on a sleeping lion’s whiskers.
“Ah. Shall I erase his memories?”
People like that were always petty enough to seek revenge, so it seemed prudent. But unexpectedly, the duke shook his head.
“No need. This should serve as a sufficient warning—to him, and to whoever sent him.”
Gesturing toward the window, Rectarion handed the bloodstained handkerchief to Luth.
Then he picked up the clock from atop the fireplace and tossed it to Beric. The replica artwork worth several hundred gold flew toward him like a ball, and Beric yelped as he caught it.
“Aaah! Your Grace! Why all of a sudden?!”
“Consider this month a pay cut.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Miss Eloa noticed it, and that led to this mess.”
“Gah!”
Beric clapped a hand over his mouth in shock.
Clutching the gold watch to his chest, he hurried after his superior as Rectarion headed out. As they walked down the corridor, Beric checked that no one was nearby and whispered softly.
“How did she notice? This was one of my best works—meticulously concealed.”
He didn’t know what Eloa had noticed, but it was clear she had realized it wasn’t an ordinary object.
The large blue gem embraced by the statue of a woman was a top-grade mana stone. Moreover, a scene-recording spell had been engraved inside it. In terms of value alone, it was easily worth a duke’s knight’s annual salary.
Since people like Count Royster often came causing trouble, it had been made to record such incidents. Though Rectarion disliked magical devices, the recorded footage proved useful in many ways.
Tapping the mana stone embedded in the clock, Rectarion said,
“She’s suspicious in more ways than one. One more won’t make a difference.”
“Your Grace… are you certain that young lady is the intruder from that night?”
“I’m sure.”
“Ah…”
Beric groaned, roughly raking his fingers through his hair as if he had a headache.
“By the way, what brings you out of the lab? Any leads related to the count’s family?”
“My apologies, not on that front yet. What I came out for was…”
With an awkward look, he held out something he had received earlier.
“I wanted to return the necklace. I analyzed the anti-tracking spell, and I think it’s better not to remove it.”
“What do you mean?”
After hesitating briefly, Beric explained.
“There’s a name engraved on the back of the necklace: Milene Ren Yuberis. I looked it up—it was the name of Count Yuberis’s former wife. In other words, Miss Eloa’s mother. I think it’s best to return it.”
Come to think of it, something like that had been mentioned in the carriage.
“But she did leave something behind.”
“Left behind?”
“Her mother’s keepsake.”
Was she the only one in Yuberis who had truly cherished her?
“……”
Rectarion’s brow furrowed slightly.
It felt like a small pebble rolling around inside his shoe. The woman was suspicious beyond measure, and yet that small, skinny figure flitting about before his eyes irritated him far more than it should have.
And yet, amusingly, he felt no urge to kill her.
If someone had even the slightest connection to that organization, he was the sort who would show no mercy whatsoever.
And yet today—he had supported her waist, carried her in his arms. Even he couldn’t understand his own actions. The problem was, it hadn’t felt as unpleasant as expected.
Are my symptoms improving? Or…
Rectarion fiddled with his gloves out of habit.
Is it because I need her for the contract marriage?
That was her only use. But even so, the feeling was oddly lukewarm.
I don’t know.
Setting the thought aside for now, he accepted the necklace.
“I’ll come up with a suitable excuse and return it. For some reason, Miss Eloa seems eager to insist that her meeting with us in Yuberis was her first.”
“She’s no ordinary person either, then. To think she’d try to deceive you, Your Grace.”
“It’s obvious, which makes it amusing. In any case, keep an eye on her. The fact that she’s suspicious hasn’t changed.”
“That’s true, but… is it really all right to bring someone like that into the estate? Even if it’s only for a year, she’s your fiancée.”
“All the better. If she’s a member of that organization, there’s no better place to keep her under surveillance.”
“Doesn’t that mean, conversely, that you might be watched as well, Your Grace?”
One of Rectarion’s eyebrows lifted.
“…By her?”
He recalled those harmless golden eyes that had looked at him with fear, yet stubborn defiance.
Every time she encountered him, she startled and scurried away like a squirrel—and she was supposed to be spying on him?
A soft chuckle escaped him.
“Your Grace?”
“As if she could manage to spy on me.”
“Pardon?”
Moreover, from what he’d observed over the past few days, she seemed uncomfortable simply sharing the same space with him.
After seeing that thing on my back, it must feel like being near a legendary demon.
She had even witnessed it in use, so that reaction was only natural. All in all, she seemed far too clumsy to be a member of that organization—unless even such reactions were an act, in which case she’d deserve to be called the actor of the century.
As he was considering that he should at least keep the possibility open, the head butler, Obrien, appeared in the corridor.
“My lord.”
“What is it?”
“I believe you should come and see this.”
“There isn’t a single place on her body that’s unharmed.”
Eldan let out a deep sigh as he organized his medical bag.
“She appears to have suffered physical abuse for a very long time. There are countless bruises all over her body from different times, several bones that have broken and healed improperly, and her shoulder—whatever injury she sustained there has practically eaten away at it from the inside.”
After listening in silence to the report from Eldan, Northdian’s personal physician, Rectarion frowned. He’d thought it was serious, but not this bad.
“She showed no sign of it at all. Did her condition suddenly worsen?”
“I believe she’s accustomed to enduring pain. Even now, she must be in considerable agony, yet she hasn’t let out a single groan.”
Eloa lay asleep with an ashen complexion, like a wax doll. If not for the rise and fall of her chest, one might have believed she was a corpse.
Looking at Eloa unconscious with such a deathly pale face, Rectarion realized it was harder than usual to tear his gaze away.
“You can treat her, of course. You’ve saved me countless times when I was half-dead.”
“That was only possible because Your Grace’s constitution far exceeds that of ordinary people. But this person…”
Eldan hesitated, gauging Rectarion’s reaction, then confessed as though resigned.
“She doesn’t seem to have eaten properly for a long time. In her current state, even medicine could act as poison. For now, the priority is to let her rest sufficiently.”
Then he added with another sigh,
“Honestly… if she weren’t someone you brought in yourself, Your Grace, I would have thought she was a woman who’d been living on the streets. That’s how severe her condition is. Especially her shoulder—it may leave lasting aftereffects.”
“Hoo… I should’ve gone to check on her sooner.”
“Your Grace?”
“…For now, let’s look for a mage capable of healing magic.”
“A mage?”
Healing magic was certainly faster and more stable than relying on herbs or potions.
Seeing Eldan hesitate, Rectarion asked,
“Do you object?”
“No, Your Grace. It’s just that if word of this gets out…”
A mage would be a noble, and nobles loved to gossip about Rectarion’s every move. No matter how much they were paid to keep silent, there was always a risk of leaks.
It was an order uncharacteristic of the duke. It was only natural that Eldan found it hard to accept.
“Use Beric. He looked idle earlier.”
“Ah. That would work. Understood.”
Beric would be horrified to hear his workload being increased again, but Eldan finally smiled in relief.
After all, nothing would leak from someone who couldn’t remember it.
Why was it so dark around me? Had I been locked in the basement again?
The world was utterly silent.
And cold. I was shivering all over, so cold—and from head to toe, there wasn’t a single place that didn’t hurt.
“Hhk…”
It hurts. Everything hurts so much.
A groan slipped from my lips without me meaning to.
Why did I hurt again?
Ah. Did Cosette learn a new spell?
Every time her magic improved, it hurt like this. Every time Father was in a bad mood, it hurt so, so much. Tears welled up from the bitterness.
“…It hurts.”
Alone in the darkness where no one came, I sobbed quietly. When I was little, if I cried like this, Mother would come and hold me warmly.
My daughter. Does it hurt a lot? Come here. Mommy will hold you.
But now, no one came. No matter how much I cried, there was no one in this world who would hold me.
To me, the world was a place too cold and too painful.
I didn’t want to hurt anymore.
This lonely, cold place was too much now.
Just as the thought of giving up on everything crossed my mind—
“Does it hurt a lot?”
Someone asked me.
