🔊 TTS Settings
~Chapter 08~
The Countess kept moving her lips, then at last managed to play innocent.
“W-what do you mean by that…?”
“Mother!”
At that moment, Rose burst into the parlor, having come up the stairs with Young Lord Valkyrisen.
“Mother! The young lord has disappeared! He was right here a moment ago!”
The Count and Countess were left speechless by behavior that no amount of politeness could explain.
“…….”
“…….”
“How cultured. Really.”
The Duke still tapped the doorknob, murmuring in admiration as if impressed.
The Countess’s face went bright red; her eyes trembled as she spoke.
“What do you mean—disappeared? You didn’t let him wander off entertaining himself while neglecting a guest, did you?”
“No! He vanished in an instant when I just looked away for a second. I can’t see him anywhere! Daisy and I looked everywhere and he’s nowhere!”
Rose’s face was flushed with frustration as she raised her voice.
Daisy edged closer, watching her mother’s reaction, and added softly.
“He kept staring into a translucent glass orb. Like he was searching for something.”
“What?”
They had used the pretext of showing the castle to send the young lord out with the two daughters.
This might be the only chance he’d ever come back; they piled injunctions on injunctions, telling him to notice them while they were still young.
Since the young lord had agreed to follow them so obediently, the Count had secretly hoped he was at least a little interested in his daughters… but to think—perhaps his purpose from the very start had been—
“I’m right here.”
Edmund, the very person the two daughters had been desperately looking for, stepped into the parlor.
More precisely: Edmund, with Sera clutching tightly to the sleeve of his coat—and in Sera’s arms, the mouse-beastkin Elodie, pressed close.
The Count and Countess were utterly aghast.
The beastkin they had ordered killed stood alive and well; the maid they had ordered locked up had crawled into the parlor under her own power.
It was obvious, without needing further explanation, that the plan had gone spectacularly off the rails.
Most shocking of all was the Duke’s casual remark as he closed his pocket watch.
“You’re late, aren’t you?”
If he called someone late, that meant he had been waiting.
The Count remembered the elderly man who had kept checking his watch.
This was not a spontaneous stunt by the young lord.
“It was planned from the beginning!”
He’d been had.
The Count felt sweat run cold down the back of his neck.
The Valkyrisen side had never intended to listen to anything they said. If they wanted to find—or kill—the mouse-beastkin, they only needed to send the young lord to confirm it in person.
And they’d thoughtlessly let the young lord wander the castle accompanied by the Count’s ignorant young daughters.
“Damn it.”
How much did the young lord know? Surely—everything?
The Count’s trembling eyes studied Edmund. His expression was unreadable, the very image of his own grandfather.
‘It’s possible the butler and the timing simply didn’t line up,’ he tried to tell himself.
If only they hadn’t been caught trying to secretly capture and kill the beastkin…
Yes—if that were the case, they might still be salvageable.
He sprang to his feet, relief and joy flooding his face.
“Did you bring my lady to safety?”
Then he treated Sera like a maid he was seeing for the first time.
That would quiet things down on its own.
There was nothing more convenient than a quick-witted, well-behaved child to be used and put away.
“Well done! I’ll reward you handsomely for your deed. Hand the young lady to me and go rest.”
Elodie read the Count’s true intent in an instant.
‘What a transparent scheme.’
Sera would be silenced, as always; Elodie would be held tight so she couldn’t escape, threatened into silence.
If someone asked how they could threaten a child while Valkyrisen watched with both eyes—of course it was possible.
‘It’s no trouble at all to make a snot-nosed child doubt herself.’
They wouldn’t even need to raise their voices—pressing and demanding whether she was sure about what she’d seen would terrify her into changing her story.
That would work if Elodie were an ordinary four- or five-year-old.
But Elodie was not an ordinary child.
“Gyaaah!”
She opened her mouth wide and bit down hard on the approaching finger.
“Eek! Aaaah!”
Her scream was a different kind of pain than when the field mouse had bitten her nose before.
‘Like the Count, who never learns.’
Never again underestimate a mouse’s bite force.
“Zzz—tsk tsk hrg krrg… (Seriously, just shut up and go away…)”
“This damn rat…! Ugh!”
The Count involuntarily swore in real pain as if his finger were being torn off.
Only then did Elodie spit out the finger and curve her lips into a faint, fishy smile.
She had planned that from the start.
“Rat… bastard?”
The moment the Count spoke, a flash of murderous intent crossed Edmund’s previously blank face.
He stepped forward, as if about to draw his sword.
“Elodie is not a ‘rat’—she is a rat beastkin, Father.”
Sera’s voice cut through the room, every syllable forced and firm.
Both Edmund and Elodie turned toward Sera in surprise.
“She’s a person.”
“What?”
“You told someone to kill a human—one so small she could fit in my arms—and you hired them to do it.”
Sera enunciated carefully in order to hide the tremor in her voice.
The Count had always been a difficult figure to her.
When he asserted his authority and tried to intimidate, she wouldn’t dare defy him.
She had to be a good daughter. If she did that, maybe one day she’d be acknowledged.
But now she knew.
“If not now, then never—ever!” (dialectal cry)
Even if time passed, the only thing that would change was her age.
‘So—’
No matter how powerless she felt, Sera could not let go of this small hand.
This child was the one who told someone abandoned by even their family that they could and should be happy.
How could she not fall in love with that?
Sera suddenly understood.
Ah—this was the price of leaving me to fend for myself.
If something precious ever appeared in my life, I would be unable to protect a single thing.
I would live that way forever.
If I keep enduring until now, I will have to live like that my whole life.
‘So I must not back down.’
To save Elodie, she made her first act of rebellion in front of him.
The second came easier.
“My name is Seraphina Bluewood. I am the youngest of the Bluewood family and the only one of its bloodline—its direct descendant.”
“Is—are you insane?”
“I, as your daughter, saw clearly every plan you were making—and if needed, I can testify to it at any time.”
“Hah, hah—don’t be ridiculous. Even madness has its limits. You pretend to be my daughter before me?”
Is this some kind of delusion? Who hired this crazy maid?
The Count muttered, rolling his eyes as if checking how others reacted.
“My daughters are only Rose and Daisy!”
Who would believe her if he denied even his only blood relative?
She had no proof—only words that carried no weight.
In despair, she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Your testimony has been duly heard.”
Edmund stepped forward, as if to protect Sera and Elodie.
“Young lord?”
“Stand back.”
“He may have helped find the young lady, but she’s only a maid. How can Your Grace personally shelter her?”
“Hah.”
The boy cut him off with a cold, mirthless laugh.
“Even animals know the value of their young. You were lucky to be born wearing a mask and yet you do this…”
He ground his teeth, then said, “If you won’t step aside, I will draw my sword.”
“Young lord, whatever misunderstanding you have, I can explain everything—please calm down and talk—”
“We don’t need your polite warnings.”
At that moment, the Duke of Valkyrisen—who had been watching with visible boredom—let fall a cutting remark.
“I told you not to waste time on things of no value.”
