Chapter 78
Villain’s Conspiracy (2)
Evening, as the sun was setting.
Count Buchenheim, on his way to his office after finishing dinner, nodded while listening to the report from the knight accompanying him.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes... The messenger I was watching... safely left the castle...”
“What’s wrong with your voice?!”
The knight sounded completely absent-minded, like someone whose soul had left his body.
Annoyed by how unlike his usual self the man was acting, the Count barked at him.
“Are you scared because the main family’s people are coming?”
“No...”
“Then what is it? Are you injured or something?”
“No... Nothing is wrong...”
Thud—!
Having finally lost his patience, the Count punched the knight.
Crash—!
The knight lost his balance and collapsed before slowly getting back up.
His unfocused eyes irritated the Count to no end.
“Get out of my sight!”
After roaring at the knight, Count Buchenheim slammed the office door shut.
Bang—!
“Damn it, every last one of them...!”
Nothing had gone right today.
That arrogant letter from the main family.
The incompetently slow servants beneath him.
Even that knight from just now.
Watching him stagger around like a man possessed was enough to drive anyone mad.
“Haa...”
But with a sigh, the Count pushed those thoughts aside.
Right now, what displeased him most was not his knights or servants.
“What a pathetic bunch.”
Muttering coldly, Count Buchenheim picked up a stack of papers resting on his desk.
Letters sent by the other branch nobles.
“To think they’d start trembling the moment Helian died.”
The branch faction built around Helian.
Their greatest weapons had been money, authority, and connections.
Attacks carried out using those advantages had always been efficient.
It had been the formula that allowed them to oppose the main family and win.
‘But with Helian’s death, everything changed completely.’
Helian had fallen to the sword of Leinrant.
The woman who possessed the greatest wealth and the greatest authority had been struck down by Leinrant itself.
‘This isn’t simply the death of a noble.’
Count Buchenheim narrowed his eyes as the thought crossed his mind.
What Helian’s death truly implied—
was that the money and authority they had relied on for decades had lost their power.
The branch families had lost their weapon with Helian’s death.
That was why they had begun to fear Leinrant.
The root of fear was ignorance.
They were afraid because they no longer knew what to do.
“But I’m different.”
Muttering that to himself, Count Buchenheim grinned viciously.
Helian’s death was a tremendous loss.
But to him, the second-in-command, it was also an opportunity.
Now the remaining branch nobles would inevitably gather around him.
“If I use their resources to strengthen my knight order and cooperate with the Empire...”
As the Count muttered while thinking about his future plans—
Whoooosh—!
Along with the sound of wind, an eerie chill swept past his body.
“What the hell? Was the window left open?”
Frowning, the Count walked toward the window.
“Hm...?”
But the window was tightly shut.
The weather was cold, yes, but there was no way wind like that should have entered the room.
“Was it my imagination? No... it wasn’t...”
He too was a renowned martial warrior.
Sensing something instinctively wrong, he circulated mana through his body and heightened his vigilance.
‘There’s nothing here that poses a threat. But...’
His hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist, he scanned the surroundings.
Then—
“Hm?”
A strange letter now sat atop the desk in his study.
“What is this? When did this get here...?”
Muttering to himself, Count Buchenheim picked up the letter.
A red envelope.
And the moment he turned it over to check the sender’s name—
“U-Uaaaaaagh?!”
The Count screamed in terror and hurled the letter away.
“Count, what happened?!”
“Are you alright?!”
Hearing his scream, the knights guarding outside immediately pounded on the study door.
Bang! Bang! Bang—!
“Haa... haa...!”
The Count’s eyes shook violently as he gasped for breath.
His vision blurred.
Nausea surged up inside him.
“Count?!”
“Damn it, the door’s locked!”
“We’re breaking it down! Please stand back—!”
The knights realized something was terribly wrong and prepared to smash open the door.
But at that moment—
“N-No—!”
The Count shouted desperately, and the voices beyond the door abruptly stopped.
“No one— no one is to enter this room! That is an order—!”
No reply came.
But since no one continued pounding on the door, the Count exhaled raggedly and stared at the object lying on the floor.
More precisely—
at the sender’s name written on the back of the letter.
[Keldin Buchenheim.]
“T-This is impossible...!”
His trembling hand slowly reached out and picked up the red envelope.
His elder brother Keldin’s name written in black ink.
There was no mistaking it.
It was the exact handwriting he had used while alive.
“Did someone forge this? No... Impossible. I’m the only one who knows what truly happened to my brother...!”
Countless thoughts swirled chaotically through his mind.
Yet his hands still moved.
He broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the letter inside.
[The time has come to pay the price.]
“...!”
He forcibly suppressed the scream threatening to escape his throat.
The penmanship.
The ink.
The unmistakable handwriting.
There was no way he could fail to recognize it.
Because...
Because—
—You were the one who forged my will, Devin Buchenheim.
A voice far too familiar echoed from behind him.
The moment he turned around—
Count Buchenheim, Devin, found a face directly before his own.
His elder brother.
The face of Keldin Buchenheim.
“UAAAAAAAAAAAGH—!”
There was no time to think.
No sanity left for it, either.
It’s an illusion.
Just a hallucination.
Repeating that to himself like a madman, he swung his sword wildly.
Clang—!
Boom—! KWA-BOOOOM—!
A powerful strike influenced by Imperial swordsmanship.
The documents and papers piled throughout the study were shredded apart.
“Damn it, die! Just die already! DIEEEEE—!”
KWA-AAAANG—!
Unable to withstand the aftermath of the sword strike, the study door exploded apart.
A single ray of light shone into the darkened study filled with black shadows.
The moment he saw that light, the Count instinctively ran toward it.
That thing is a ghost.
A specter wearing my brother’s face.
Go toward the light.
If I can just reach the light...!
Crash—!
The Count ran frantically and tumbled across the mansion floor.
A miserable sight completely unbefitting the man once called the second pillar of the branch family.
But the only emotion filling him now was joy.
He had escaped that specter and reached the outside, where bright lights remained.
“Is anyone there?! Someone—!”
Bursting out of the study, the Count desperately looked around the mansion.
Secrets? Political standing?
None of it mattered anymore.
As long as he could escape this hellish situation!
“W-What...?”
But after searching the mansion for a long while, confusion spread across the Count’s face.
“W-What is this...?”
There was no one.
Not the knights assigned to guard him.
Not the adjutant who always followed him like a shadow.
Not the maids moving through the estate, nor the servants running errands.
Not only were they absent—
he couldn’t even sense their presence.
“Ugh...! Ughhh...!”
The root of fear is ignorance.
People fear because they do not know what they should do.
Just like the phrase he himself had once thought of,
the incomprehensible situation made his entire body tremble.
“Anyone... someone...! Please...!”
Tears welled up in the eyes of the middle-aged noble.
A prestigious aristocrat had completely forgotten himself and now cried out desperately for others.
“Count.”
A voice suddenly called out to him.
It was the voice of the knight he had punched earlier.
“Y-You were here!”
Forgetting the contempt he had felt moments earlier, the Count’s expression brightened instantly.
“Tell me, what in the world is happening?! Why are the knights who should be in the mansion—!”
His legs had long since lost all strength.
Collapsed on the floor, the Count crawled forward and grabbed the knight’s pant leg before looking up.
And what he saw before him was—
“Ah... ahhhh...!”
The knight wore the face of his brother, Keldin Buchenheim.
“Count.”
Another voice called out to him.
This time, it was a maid whose presence he hadn’t noticed until now.
“H-How... how is this possible?!”
The Count turned his head—
and nearly forgot how to think altogether.
Because the maid’s face was also Keldin Buchenheim’s.
“Count.”
The servant calling him.
“Count.”
The adjutant placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Count.”
“Count.”
“Count.”
His son.
His relatives.
His friends.
His business partners.
Everyone he knew gathered around him.
Dozens. Hundreds.
A massive crowd closing in from all directions.
Every single one of them wore Keldin’s face.
Every single one of them wore the face of the brother he had murdered.
“Hik! Hiiik...!”
After crying, screaming, and begging countless times—
“Hiheehee~?!”
The final expression left on his face was the laugh of a man who had completely lost his mind.
“Huaaagh?!”
At the scream-like cry, I looked up from the book I had been reading.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“W-What... I... I definitely...”
Still unable to grasp the situation, Count Buchenheim’s eyes shook violently.
The place where he awoke was the Count’s study on the mansion’s top floor.
A bleak winter wind drifted in through the open window.
“Ugh?!”
At my mocking tone, the Count’s eyes widened.
Silver hair illuminated by moonlight.
Dark blue eyes.
The moment he saw them, he seemed to realize who I was.
“Klein Leinrant...!”
“Correct.”
Tap.
After silently surveying the study for a while, the Count let out a groan.
Only then did he seem to realize that both his hands and feet were completely bound.
“What the hell? The study’s perfectly intact? No, more importantly, you...!”
“Ohh, quick on the uptake too. As expected of the branch family’s second-in-command.”
At his voice, I closed the book I had been reading and rose from my seat.
“Though it’s our first meeting, I regret having to meet you like this, Count Buchenheim.”
I deliberately gave an exaggerated formal greeting, mocking him while he sat there bound hand and foot.
I was copying that priest bastard named Palliman I’d met before...
Wow, this is more fun than I expected.
“How did this happen?! What were the knights doing that they let you get all the way here—!”
The Count abruptly stopped speaking midway through.
The horrifying sight carved into his mind had clearly resurfaced once more.
“The knights... they...”
“You’re having trouble trusting your own knights now too, huh?”
At those words, the Count’s face turned pale again.
“Relax. They don’t actually have those weird faces like you thought.”
“R-Really? Then...”
When I spoke as if I knew exactly what he had seen, the Count’s eyes widened after a brief pause.
“Wait. How do you know about that?”
“Why do you think? You’re finally starting to understand the situation, aren’t you?”
At my words, his face flushed red all at once.
“Y-You bastard! You did this to me...!”
Watching him, I burst into laughter and clapped my hands.
Clap clap clap clap!
“Direction, screenplay, production. It was all my work.”
“...!”
They say when rage reaches its limit, words stop coming out.
The Count’s face had gone deathly white, as though he’d reached exactly that point.
I grinned at him.
“So? Wasn’t it entertaining?”