#35. Discovered (3)
Dmitri felt dizzy. For a moment, reality disappeared.
Could what he just heard be true?
His younger brother had tried to kill his own son?
“Very clever,” sneered Count Tula. His mocking voice snapped Dmitri out of his daze.
“Yes. I planned to get rid of him before he grew any older. If I said you died in battle and he died of illness, everything would have been easy!”
Dmitri clenched his teeth as he listened to his brother openly confess his horrifying intentions.
“I need to remove everything in my way to reach my goal! And you—just a tool—can’t even handle such an easy job? Huh? That useless brat—”
Bang!
Unable to stand it any longer, Dmitri pounded the spot where the voice came from.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He didn’t stop punching the wall, his knuckles splitting as he struck the bookshelf again and again.
With trembling hands, Dmitri forced himself to calm his rage and quickly opened the secret door.
Rumble…
The bookshelf swung open with a heavy sound.
The hidden room was small, and Dmitri could see everything at once.
He saw Count Tula frozen in place, his hand raised against Sasha.
Sasha, her shoulders hunched in fear, looked pitiful and fragile.
Count Tula, who was about to hit her, looked like nothing more than vile, shameless trash.
“Gregor!”
Count Tula flinched violently, like he’d seen a ghost, when he saw Dmitri glaring at him.
“B-brother!”
“What is the meaning of all this?”
Dmitri strode forward.
“B-brother—”
“I asked you. What is going on here!”
As Dmitri, furious, approached, Count Tula stepped back nervously.
It was clear Dmitri would not overlook this matter lightly.
“Gregor! How could you!”
“That’s…”
The betrayed Duke trembled with anger while Count Tula looked around desperately for a way out.
Sasha silently watched the two brothers.
‘He must have heard everything. There’s no way he can trust his brother now.’
It was all going as planned.
Sasha wanted to completely shatter Dmitri’s trust in Count Tula. She couldn’t allow him to escape responsibility by blaming his subordinates.
So she had to make him confess with his own mouth and ensure Dmitri heard it all.
And Count Tula had never been wary of Sasha.
‘He still underestimates me.’
He believed she was just a powerless, naive girl he could easily control.
That was why Sasha deliberately created a situation where they were alone, expecting him to drop his mask and reveal his true colors.
And Count Tula didn’t disappoint.
While he was too busy screaming at her, Sasha was calmly keeping track of what was happening outside.
“The Duke is outside~ he’s listening~” whispered the spirits in her ear.
Sasha even fed Count Tula more words, making him admit to details he hadn’t said yet.
Her plan had succeeded: Dmitri now knew the full extent of Count Tula’s abuse and would punish him.
Crack!
Sasha looked at the wall Dmitri had just smashed with his fist.
‘With that kind of strength, a single hit would crush me…!’
And she was right.
“You bastard, Gregor—!”
Whoosh!
Dmitri’s fist sliced through the air and smashed into Count Tula’s face.
“Kgh!”
Thud!
Count Tula flew across the room and slammed into the opposite wall.
Blood poured from his broken nose, and his body collapsed like a rag doll.
‘…That’s brutal.’
Even though it was hard to look at, Dmitri’s anger still hadn’t subsided. He raised his fist and marched toward Count Tula again.
“How dare you touch my son—!”
“Brother, it’s not what—”
“Shut up!”
“Argh!”
Another punch silenced any excuse Count Tula tried to make.
Crack!
His jaw shattered completely. He could no longer open his mouth to speak.
“Uh… ah…”
Only terrified groans escaped Count Tula’s lips.
But Dmitri didn’t stop.
Thud! Crash! Slam!
The blows were so heavy they barely sounded like fists hitting flesh.
“……”
Sasha glanced at Count Tula, now trembling in a pathetic state.
He looked completely ruined, but Sasha felt no pity.
‘This isn’t enough. He must suffer more than what Pavel endured.’
Now that his crimes were exposed, there was no escape from punishment.
And that was exactly what Sasha wanted.
Dmitri finally stopped when he had vented enough rage.
He dragged Count Tula out of the hidden room and threw him into the underground prison.
Before leaving, he looked at Sasha, who was standing quietly in the corner, with an unreadable expression.
“I’m sorry.”
He told her to rest in her room for now and said he would call for her later. Then he left and summoned his closest aides.
The Duke suspected that others in the castle might have been colluding with Count Tula, so he only called the subordinates he trusted completely.
Igor and the knights, still half-drunk from celebrating at the banquet hall, didn’t know what was going on.
But when Dmitri spoke, their confusion vanished in an instant.
“Gregor—no, the criminal Count Tula—has been imprisoned in the underground cell.”
“W-what?!”
“From now on, investigate every detail of his actions and uncover any crimes that haven’t come to light yet.”
Igor and the knights were stunned, unable to close their gaping mouths.
But as loyal knights, they quickly obeyed orders.
And soon after they began the investigation…
Count Tula’s crimes were revealed one after another, like pulling out an endless vine.
Everything Andrei had told Dmitri was true:
Pavel had been abandoned in an isolated, tiny cabin and neglected.
Everyone in the castle had been ordered to ignore and ostracize him.
Tutors were only assigned in winter, and they were all low-quality, useless people.
The food sent to Pavel was the worst leftovers from the castle.
And that wasn’t all.
Sasha smiled in satisfaction each time a new crime shocked the investigators.
But as the investigation continued, even Sasha learned new horrifying facts she hadn’t known before.
Count Tula had ordered the doctor to invent illnesses Pavel didn’t have.
‘No wonder Pavel was sick so often before!’
Sasha had thought it was just because he was naturally weak.
But after living with Pavel and seeing how healthy and strong he became under her care, she had wondered why he used to be so sick.
‘It was all because of Count Tula?’
Whenever Pavel complained of headaches, the doctor gave him medicine that made them worse.
When he said his stomach hurt, the doctor made him sicker instead of better.
Sometimes, the doctor even gave him things that ruined his health, pretending they were good for him.
After Sasha arrived, she examined and treated Pavel herself, so he recovered.
Now that she knew the truth, Sasha burned with anger.
‘Monsters! Trash that should be burned alive!’
Pavel must have suffered terribly, not just because of his mana’s blessing, but also because of Count Tula and the doctor’s schemes.
And that wasn’t the end.
The doctor confessed he had been preparing a plan to slowly poison and kill Pavel.
Fortunately, the plan had only just been completed before Sasha arrived, so Pavel had not yet been poisoned.
‘They had planned and prepared it all… I’ll never forgive them!’
The Grand Duke felt the same.
The doctor begged for his life, but…
The screams from the interrogation room were so terrible that those who heard them had nightmares for days.
That night, the doctor left the underground prison only to be carried straight to the undertaker.
But Count Tula’s crimes didn’t stop there.
He had also:
Falsified ledgers and embezzled huge sums.
Accepted bribes in exchange for using his authority over personnel.
Secretly raised his own private army.
Each crime was a capital offense.
The Grand Duke was shaken by the betrayal of the brother he had trusted his whole life, but he didn’t waste time in despair.
As soon as guilt was confirmed, he executed or dismissed everyone involved.
He acted decisively, like he was back on a battlefield.
For a while, Velikor Castle was filled with chaos.
From the chief steward to the lowest maid, there was no place untouched by Count Tula’s influence.
Screams, cries, and desperate pleas for mercy echoed through the castle day after day.
It was like a storm had swept through. Anyone wandering the halls risked witnessing something they shouldn’t—or becoming a target themselves.
So Sasha decided to stay in Pavel’s bedroom with him until everything was over.
