55. Split Personality? Twins?
Or Perhaps Amnesia?
The moment I grabbed him by the collar, Cayenne looked up at me with startled eyes.
His throat bobbed nervously.
“No matter how I look at it, something’s suspicious.”
I scrutinized him carefully.
The shaggy black hair, the vacant look, the scrawny, almost emaciated body—
Not a single feature matched the Cayenne I had faced last night.
[……Who are you?]
[Me? Your master’s loyal dog.]
The faint smile he had worn beneath the dim glow last night flickered through my mind like an illusion.
So did the way his golden hair shimmered with every graceful step.
But the Cayenne before me now was…
“More like a cat than a dog.”
A stray cat, fur bristling, on full alert.
Outwardly, he looked entirely different—but I had one undeniable proof.
“This necklace.”
The necklace I had fastened around his neck was the exact same one as last night’s Cayenne had worn.
I tightened my grip on it.
“You—just what are you? How did you get into my room last night?”
“……At night?”
At my sharp questioning, the color drained from Cayenne’s face.
Then, as if snapping back to his senses, he thrashed violently.
“I—I don’t know anything about that! Let me go!”
He shook off my hand clutching his necklace and scrambled to the corner of the bed.
I stared down coldly at him.
“Playing dumb won’t work.”
Last night, I had gone over every possible scenario in my mind.
Why had an assassin appeared so suddenly? Had I truly earned someone’s enmity great enough to warrant an attempt on my life?
“This life is already different in so many ways from the last. But still…”
I had never been involved in anything dangerous in this life—certainly nothing that would warrant being targeted by assassins.
And the killer I faced yesterday wasn’t just any ordinary assassin.
[Someone of that caliber would be comparable to an Imperial Guard.]
The security captain, who had been reprimanded by Icart last night, had explained as much.
Not a common killer, but rather a highly trained elite operative.
They had recovered his corpse, but found no clues to his identity—nothing in his belongings, nothing in his attire.
No hint of how or why he had appeared. Which only made it all the more unsettling.
If there was one possible connection, it was only this:
“Could he have brought the mastermind with him?”
The mastermind of the original story—Cayenne.
Because of his upbringing in dangerous places, he had deep ties with the underworld.
And he harbored a deep-rooted hatred for the Imperial family.
[Why do I hate the royals, you ask?]
[Well, maybe a pampered noble lady wouldn’t understand. But me? Living my whole life despised as a slave, I came to hate those ‘highborns.’]
[What kind of ‘noble blood’ is so grand that it treats people worse than insects, huh? Don’t you think?]
That was what Cayenne had once told Seraphine in the original story.
He claimed he was sick of rank and bloodlines—and vowed that someday, he’d topple the Imperial family with his own hands.
In fact, there was even a rebellion route in the original where he did just that.
“Maybe he also resents me—after all, I’m the Crown Prince’s fiancée.”
Could it be that Cayenne had summoned that assassin? The suspicion crept up on me.
“Spit it out. How could you possibly know about the assassin—much less take him down—when even the ducal guards couldn’t detect him?”
“That’s…”
“Or are you actually connected to him?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Assassin or whatever—has nothing to do with me!”
Cayenne shook his head frantically.
“Oh, really?”
But the more fiercely he denied it, the stronger my doubts became.
There were far too many suspicious points, and his excuses explained nothing.
I advanced unhesitatingly toward him where he cowered in the corner of the bed.
“……!”
He looked up at me with desperate eyes.
Like a frightened stray cat.
Those wide eyes, filled with fear, looked so genuinely innocent that for a moment my thoughts wavered.
“Is this an act… or real?”
How could someone behave like a completely different person overnight?
Split personality? A twin? Or maybe short-term memory loss?
Cliché tropes straight out of a soap opera ran through my mind.
“I—I have sleepwalking episodes, sometimes. People misunderstand because of it. So maybe this time too…”
“Ha. Sleepwalking?”
Even more cliché than split personalities, twins, or amnesia.
“Still denying? Then we’ll do it this way.”
I signaled to the guards.
“Search this room. Thoroughly. Look for anything suspicious.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The guards moved at once.
As they ransacked the quarters, Cayenne sat trembling, darting his eyes nervously.
One guard, after patting him down carefully, handed me a surgical scalpel.
“My lady, this one had this hidden on him. Looks like he stole it from the physician.”
“Under the bed, too—there were odds and ends tucked away.”
Another guard presented me with a broken wooden frame and a letter opener.
Of course.
“And you still expect me to believe it’s all a misunderstanding?”
I scoffed.
Cayenne bit down on his lip hard, unable to answer.
He did look genuinely wronged, but…
The evidence was undeniable.
“Stealing right after entering service—such terrible habits. The young duke won’t let this slide once he hears.”
“My lady, shall we throw him out at once?”
The guards loomed, ready to drag him off.
“Throw… me out?”
At those words, Cayenne’s eyes widened like lanterns.
“You—you said you wouldn’t abandon me!”
He clutched desperately at my sleeve, panic written across his face.
At that instant, a system window popped up.
【SYSTEM: Hidden Episode ‘The Young Mastermind’s Trauma’ has been discovered.】
【SYSTEM: You may view a portion of ‘Cayenne’s Concealed Memories.’】
[☞ View Now ☜]
“……!”
Cayenne’s trauma… his hidden memories.
The sudden prompt startled me, but at the same time, I felt relief.
Maybe this was the only way to make sense of this baffling boy.
Glancing between Cayenne and the system window, I chose “View Now.”
Instantly, my vision went white, and Cayenne faded away.
Blink. Blink.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in an unfamiliar place.
“Where is this? Who am I?”
I looked around, then realized something.
“Huh?”
…My body could move.
Last time, I had been like a passive observer, forced to watch fixed scenes as though on a movie screen.
But now—I could freely move my hands and feet.
Perhaps the more familiar I became with peering into others’ memories, the more freedom I gained within them.
I cautiously began to walk, surveying my surroundings.
“This definitely isn’t any place I know.”
Neither the grand ducal estate nor the glittering Imperial Palace.
Books and documents crammed on shelves, flasks and apparatus scattered about—the place resembled a laboratory.
Several adults clustered around a pump and filtration device, mixing some kind of liquid.
At first glance, it looked like any ordinary research lab.
But when I entered another room, a foul stench assaulted my nose.
“Ugh—what is this?”
I wrinkled my brow.
On the shelves sat frog specimens, heaps of raven feathers, strips of weasel fur.
And on the floor sprawled a massive magic circle drawn in dark, crimson liquid.
“Don’t tell me that’s blood…”
I was scrutinizing it uneasily when voices reached me.
“We’ve brought in the new test subject. Do you approve?”
“Let me see… Ah. Born with mana, and a naturally resilient constitution. Where did you find such a child? Excellent.”
“Test subject?”
I followed the voices, moving past the chamber of bubbling liquids and down a corridor.
The voices grew clearer—until I stopped short.
Because there, at the source, stood a boy I recognized.
“Cayenne?”
Dark black hair. Clear, crimson eyes.
A small boy in an oversized lab coat was trembling.
The black hair and red eyes, the frightened face, the timid posture—
It was the spitting image of the Cayenne I had just left behind.
The young Cayenne looked around uneasily before speaking.
“Mister, this is… black magic, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. You’re quite knowledgeable, little one.”
The man in the black robe smiled in satisfaction.
“They say black magic is forbidden. That it’s very, very bad.”
“Generally, yes. But this is a most precious experiment. If successful, it will transcend the limits of humanity.”
“Limits of humanity?”
“Yes. Aren’t you curious? If a human soul could be transplanted into another body—then even when the flesh rots away at the end of its span, the soul would live on forever.”
“I… don’t understand.”
Cayenne’s head drooped.
The man reached out and patted him gently.
“That’s all right. In time, you’ll understand. For now, just know this—”
His kindly expression twisted into something sinister.
“—your sacrifice will be invaluable to this experiment.”
“…What?”
Hm. Let’s see how this goes.