“What? The Duchess passed away?”
Only after the sun had risen high in the sky did Jerome raise his body from the bed with a face soaked in the effects of alcohol.
Approaching the table dressed just as he was in a disheveled gown, he burst into laughter while stopping midway through filling his pipe with tobacco leaves.
“Haha. Quite an interesting thing occurred while I was oversleeping, didn’t it?”
Because he laughed frivolously, the tobacco leaves spilled down from the pipe. On top of the cold food left behind after being half-eaten the previous day.
Lucian, who was continuing the report, was watching that scene without a word.
“Our Duke Valheim has become quite pitiful. Right, any other special points besides that?”
Jerome filled the pipe with tobacco leaves once again.
“It is certain that Raul is dead, right? Was there any suspicious sign while monitoring the interrogation room?”
At that question, Lucian nodded his head with a disciplined gesture.
“There was none. It is also certain that Raul is dead.”
“Since a guy like you does monitoring strictly, if you say so, then so it must be.”
The figure who had been keeping an eye on the Black Iron Knights’ interrogation room was none other than Lucian.
Jerome suspected the possibility that Lionel might have failed to kill Agnes’s father and smuggled him away instead.
Therefore, he had attached Lucian around the Black Iron Knights’ building for several days straight.
Until that very moment when the explosion occurred at dawn today.
With the pipe held in his mouth, Jerome gestured arrogantly with his finger toward Lucian.
At that gesture, Lucian approached without a word and lit the pipe for him.
Jerome inhaled the tobacco smoke deeply, held it inside his mouth, and then exhaled it just like that right in front of Lucian’s face.
“Well. Although it is unexpected that even the Duchess ended up dead, this side might be better instead.”
Since his plan from the beginning was to entangle Agnes after Raul’s death, Jerome judged that if he used this situation well, a fun picture would be made.
“Terrorist Raul, revealed to be the biological father of the Duchess of Valheim.”
He murmured as if already reading a completed sentence.
“Circumstances showing that the Duchess had been helping Raul Herben Guten were revealed, and she passed away while fleeing hurriedly. How about it?”
“I am not sure what you are asking.”
“For someone to be this quick-witted. What else would it be? I mean the headline on the front page of tomorrow morning’s newspaper.”
Jerome’s eyes curved narrowly.
“Wouldn’t it be quite charming at this level?”
Lucian did not show any reaction. Standing like a wooden doll, he was merely absorbing Jerome’s words just as they were.
Jerome, who did not like that dryness, put down the pipe neurotically.
“How boring, tsk. I must go to audience with His Majesty.”
Jerome picked up the food that had gone entirely cold placed on top of the table and threw it toward Lucian’s direction.
“It’s cold but it should be edible. Because the spices contained inside it are so precious that a guy like you wouldn’t even be able to get a look at them until you die.”
The sauce splattering from the sandwich that hit the edge of the table and fell to the floor stained Lucian’s military boots.
“Since I am giving it as the price for laboring on the streets in this winter, do not refuse it.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
☆☆☆
Lucian, who left Jerome’s room, shoved the sandwich he was holding in his hand into the trash can at the end of the hallway.
Even after that, Lucian kept his place no different from usual.
Until Jerome headed to the Imperial Palace, with the face of a subordinate who silently guarded his side as he had always done.
Then, as soon as Jerome’s carriage completely disappeared from sight, he left the building quite suspiciously.
Lucian walked while deliberately circling around the intersections several times, moving secretly and killing even the sound of his footsteps.
Passing alternately through roads with many people and roads with few people, he shook off any possible gazes one by one.
As he entered a narrow alleyway like that, the surrounding noise subsided as if it were a lie.
The sun had already risen high in the sky, but this area was always sparse of people.
After turning directions a few more times, Lucian walked for a good while longer and stopped in front of a shabby inn where even a signboard was not properly hung.
As he opened the worn-out door that looked as if mice had gnawed it, the owner was leaning over at the counter, sleeping soundly without knowing anything about the world.
Without a word, Lucian passed by his side and stepped up the creaking stairs.
As he reached the upper floor and opened the room door located at the very corner, a pungent smell of medicinal herbs flowed out along with damp air.
Inside the room, there was Agnes lying on the bed while having lost consciousness.
And, beside her, Kain was sitting while having suffered light abrasions.
Lucian’s gaze brushed past Agnes’s face shortly.
“How is the Duchess’s condition?”
“There is no big abnormality. However…… perhaps because the impact right after the explosion was large, she has not recovered consciousness yet.”
That Lucian saved Agnes was a pure coincidence.
At dawn today, at the moment he was about to leave the Black Iron Knights without any particular harvest, Rebelt detonated a bomb at that place of all things. And also of all things, Agnes riding in the carriage merely entered his sight.
Right before being enveloped in the explosion, the choice of pulling Agnes out from the carriage was a voluntary act, though.
“If you hadn’t helped at that time, it would have really been a big trouble. Thank you.”
Kain bowed his head without completely lowering his wariness. Even if it were just a little late, Agnes would have been shattered into pieces along with the carriage. As he recalled that fact, a chill ran down his spine.
Lucian looked at such a Kain and struck the floor lightly a couple of times with the heel of his military boot.
Right after rescuing Agnes, when he said he would inform the Duke’s mansion, that fellow earnestly stopped him so he brought her to this place for now, but.
He could not know whether this choice was a good one.
However, Lucian folded that thought soon.
Whether he did well or did poorly, what did it matter.
Anyway, it didn’t particularly have a big relation to him.
“Probably by tomorrow, an article regarding the Duchess will come out.”
Lucian passed on the sentence Jerome had already completed in his head to Kain just as it was.
“I am not in a position to give advice particularly, but it might rather be better to not inform of her survival like this.”
“Yes? What does that—”
“The moment the fact of the Duchess’s survival becomes known, there is a high possibility that an arrest order will fall under the charge of helping a terrorist.”
“That makes no sense! Helping a terrorist!”
“Whether it is a fact or not does not matter. Because they have already decided on the conclusion. That is why I am telling you. Because escaping the Empire while pretending to be dead could become the most realistic solution. Of course, the choice would be the Duchess’s share, though.”
Kain stood up from his seat awkwardly.
“By the way…… who are you? Why are you telling such a story—”
“Anyway we won’t have a matter of seeing each other again, is that important?”
Lucian added while turning only his head obliquely.
“When the Duchess wakes up, please pass it on. Tell her to consider that with this, the price for the cookies she shared in the past has been repaid, although it is a bit late.”
From the beginning, he had no intention to help them more than this. Since confirming Agnes’s condition was the entirety of the purpose of coming to this place. Lucian was about to just leave the room. Then, he stopped his steps for a moment in front of the door.
“It would be better for that side to be careful as well. If you get caught in this appearance right now, you might be entangled under a similar charge.”
Leaving only those words, Lucian left the inn this time truly without any lingering attachment.
“With this much, it should be considered that the price for the Duchess’s kindness has been sufficiently paid.”
And regarding the thing of having secretly monitored Agnes while deceiving his identity at the trading company, this much would also be sufficiently repaid.
At the thought that he had deceived Agnes who knew nothing, one side of his heart was always uncomfortable. It felt like it finally became a bit comfortable now.
On top of that, Jerome Winterbolt. Fucking over that damn human was a bonus.
Lucian, who came outside, bought a freshly made sandwich and a copy of a newspaper at a nearby shop.
There was one thing Lucian did not report to Jerome.
That was exactly that Lionel had hidden someone in the interrogation room, and that the person was highly likely to be Raul.
However, in the future as well, there would be no matter of informing Jerome of this fact.
Because just a moment ago as he left the Capital Defense Force building, he was just coming after putting down a resignation letter on top of the desk.
Lucian scanned the help wanted column while unfolding the newspaper and taking a big bite of a fresh sandwich, which was of a completely different dimension from the sandwich Jerome had thrown as if giving alms.
“It’s delicious.”
☆☆☆
Unlike Lucian who was leaving the alleyway with light steps, Lionel was still remaining at that spot.
In a state where his mind was half-collapsed without believing Agnes’s death.
The sun had risen completely, and people who recognized the commotion of the past dawn late were gathering to the scene one by one, but Lionel did not even make a slight movement.
Neither dignity nor the name of Duke Valheim had any meaning to the current Lionel.
On his face with his head bowed, the tear marks shed throughout the night were dried and stuck, and the blood marks that seeped out between his split and torn lips were already hardened.
Someone spoke beside him.
Saying that because the possibility that the carriage was burnt after being shattered into pieces along with the explosion was high, the remains might not be discovered.
However, over the voice notifying that death would be almost definitive looking at the left behind belongings, Agnes’s voice overlapped.
“Let’s stop now, we.”
The farewell Agnes was bidding before falling into the sleep demon was vivid as if being heard from right beside him.
Agnes, could it be that the end of us you spoke of was something like this.
“……Are you punishing me like this for the thing that I did not let you go.”
Or, could it be a belated punishment for the thing that I failed to believe you until the very end and gave you wounds.
Lionel’s lips, turned blue, trembled enough that it could not be hidden.
“If it’s something like that…… you succeeded perfectly.”
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
